An urge to leave California

by Cristian Caceres from Grant’s Pass, Oregon

I left Humboldt in a desperate rush to get away from California. The pandemic had quickly gone from being something in the back of people’s minds to a very justified hysteria. This thought seemed to have clicked in at full force when people realized it was in their own neighborhoods.

Just a few days after California declared a lockdown, rumors spread about an imminent deployment of the national guard. In hindsight, to panic because of this seems exaggerated, but at the time I think those of us that opted to leave were expecting the arrival of a oppressive police state. This might not have happened in the States but it did happen in my home country, Peru, where the government opted for a curfew, army checkpoints and complete state oppression, people were being stopped after walking only a few blocks from their apartments. 

a few weeks later the state opted for a rule where only men or women could be outside on alternating days of the week. This was applauded by most, but quickly gave way to a series of transphobic abuses by the authorities. Police officers and soldiers began taking transgender and non-binary people away when going for groceries and forcing them to be ridiculed in videos that went viral. A law was also passed that gave soldiers and police officers immunity for using lethal force during the pandemic, which has been widely regarded as a “license to kill.”

My friend Kai and I loaded a yurt to the top of their pick-up truck one afternoon. this was supposed to be their home in the backyard of a friend’s house in Southern Oregon (which was later dubbed “Quarantine town!”). I put my pack and myself in the back of their truck and went to sleep as we drove off from California through the 199. We must’ve reached Selma around 1 am. They stopped at a gas station, I climbed off and we said goodbye going our different ways. I slept next to the highway, sure that I could reach Grants Pass in the morning. The national guard was deployed in California shortly there-after. 

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