Welcome to The Phoenix’s weekly digest. Every week during the quarter, you can expect our writers’ takes on some campus happenings.

This week, in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE, Elena Loucks reflects on feeling detached from turmoil at home while being consumed by the pressures of daily life at the University.

On Saturday, ICE killed Alex Pretti fifteen minutes from my home in Minnesota, down the street from the Orchestra Hall where I spent many nights in concert black. 

Before I came to UChicago, I had this idea of Minnesota: “Minnesota nice,” a funny accent (which I’m still adamant about not having), and a community of accepting, well-meaning people. Neighbors shovel each other’s driveways and everyone’s favorite time of the year is the State Fair. The George Floyd protests burned much of the city down, but we seemed to be rebuilding. 

As of the last 6 months or so, however, the unimaginable shock of atrocity after atrocity has left my hometown with visible cracks—cracks that are hard to ignore when I return for break and witness the aftermath of the latest tragedy.

First, there was the assassination of House Representative Melissa Hortman. We found out about it after my sister’s softball game was canceled due to an “active threat.” This was the only killing for which I was in Minneapolis.

In August, I was at UChicago’s Marine Biological Laboratory when the Annunciation Catholic School shooting shocked the country, merely eight minutes from home. Only the day before, there was a shooting behind my dad’s school with one casualty. It was surreal; on a break from taking DNA samples from crabs in the Cape, I checked my phone, only to be bombarded with text messages about another shooting. 

This one hit close to home in another way. One of the victims was my father’s coworker’s son. When I returned for winter break, blue and green ribbons continued to sway from the trees in the harsh winter wind, trapped in a fierce hug. The Minnesota I knew and loved still managed to shine through.

Then came the headlines and viral videos about fraudulent daycares, owned by immigrants, stealing billions of dollars. A leading state for refugee and immigrant resettlement, embodied by the values I mentioned earlier, began to experience a shift. I could tell from my family’s accounts that distrust was seeping into Minnesotans—not only of politicians who had mishandled a fortune but of their immigrant neighbors too. 

This month, ICE killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good fifteen minutes from my home. My family says everyone has been adamant about helping out. There is a “watchdog” in the parking lot of our local grocery store at closing time. Teachers ride the bus every day to accompany students to their jobs as part of their Corporate Work Study Program. Parents are driving their children’s friends to and from practice when those children’s parents are too scared to leave the house. Others are delivering food to families in hiding. Some of my Minnesotan friends are now carrying birth certificates with them for the first time in their lives. 

At UChicago, life seems like a constant relay race; we chase an ever-extending finish line, the baton passing from PSET to essay to application over and over. We create events on Google Calendar to call our families, crammed between a study group session and an RSO meeting. Everything going on back home in Minnesota has made me hyper-aware of this blinding bubble. 

My home is changing on the international stage. Meanwhile, my thoughts are trapped on classes I’ve known for three weeks, not the community I’ve known for almost a thousand.

Stay tuned for next week’s edition. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts, disagreements, or words of support, we want to hear them! Write to us at thechicagophoenix@gmail.com.