Why ADHD goes underdiagnosed and underrecognized in girls

Graphic by Brianna Stockwell ’28

By Anna Goodman ’28

Staff Writer

Usually, when you sit your parents down and say “I have something to tell you,” it’s one of three things: “I’m dying,” “I’m gay,” or “I have just committed a murder.” But, as I have no intention to die or commit felonies for a while and have already come out to my parents— accidentally and on purpose — more times than I can count, when I FaceTimed my mom and dad on Friday, Feb. 21 at around 10 in the morning, it was none of the above.

Instead, I said, “So, I think I have ADHD.”

Here is the moment where you, dear reader, say, respectfully, “Well, duh.” If you’ve met me for more than fifteen minutes — yes, me, with my eye-watering color schemes and my unending rambling and my unhealthy obsession with my Notes app — then, well, of course I do.

And who could blame you? It’s hilarious. But it’s also, in a way, quietly heart-wrenching. Because the next question to ask is, “How is it that people who have known me for a matter of months were less surprised than me, the person who’s lived in this brain for almost twenty years?”

And it’s not just me.

“Experts believe clinicians often miss ADHD in girls, for a few key reasons,” Healthline says. “They more often have internalized symptoms[,] they’re more likely to use coping strategies [and] parents and teachers are less likely to refer girls for diagnosis and treatment.”

While ADHD is very common — in 2022, the CDC reported that more than 1 in 10 children were diagnosed with it — boys are almost twice as likely to receive said diagnosis.

I interviewed several of my classmates who have ADHD and/or autism regarding this issue to get some other perspectives on the topic.

“There’s a lot of stereotypes shared between autism and ADHD,” Ari Kaufman ’28 said. “It’s just a little white boy with his trains and a little white boy who can’t sit still. And when you’re not that, you just don’t have those things.”

Instead of the aforementioned “boy who can’t sit still,” girls report being perceived as spacey, careless or overly chatty, as well as experiencing long periods of burnout followed by moments of inspiration, cycling between intense emotion and apathy or having difficulty staying organized or managing time, according to the ADHD Centre. Besides that, in girls, it’s likely to present with comorbid conditions, such as anxiety or depression, or even to be misdiagnosed, especially as bipolar disorder.

And there are other things that comorbidity doesn’t take into account either.

“My doctor told me about this phrase,” Ivy Bailey ’28 said. “[It’s] 2E, [or] “twice exceptional”: when you’re developmentally disabled and gifted, and your talents make up for being disabled. In both ways, it’s hard to get help and hard to succeed.”

Writing for newspaper The Hechinger Report, Rachel Blustain said, “[Twice-exceptional students are] believed to make up at least 6[%] of all students who have a disability … [and] often, their intelligence masks their disability, so they are never assessed for special education … [or] they’re placed in special education classes tailored to their disability but grade levels behind the school work they’re capable of.”

For as long as I can remember, my brain has felt like it’s on fire. Ideas whiz by like it’s a choppy 1984 video game, and I’m lucky if I can write a tenth of them down before they leave me again. It’s like there's a dozen leap frogs ribbiting under my skin. I am a spectator in my own mind. But none of that is visible. To the uninformed outside observer, I appear calm, maybe a bit distracted, but usually intelligent once I start speaking.

The issue is that I just never stop speaking.

I talk people’s ears off about things they don’t care about. I circle around what I try to say. I go on fifteen side tangents before I reach the crux of my argument. In the past, I ended up alienating myself from peers and possible friends with the way I expressed myself. And I never realized that I shouldn’t, because my speech was just an outward manifestation of my brain, and nothing was unusual with my brain. Right?

“The fun thing about having your brain,” Kaufman added, speaking on her own autism, “is you think your brain is normal, even when it’s not.”

And when it’s communication with others that you struggle with the most, is it any wonder that millions of girls spend countless years suffering unnoticed and wondering what the hell is going on with them, when they could have been getting support? That they sit in silence when they witness the reactions trusted adults or peers have to people who do fit the more stereotypical symptoms of autism or ADHD? That they then internalize that it’s wrong to be “like that”?

So, in the days before telling my parents I had ADHD, I was nervous. Would they roll their eyes? Would they tell me I was looking for excuses? Would they say that they had understood the autism but this was a step too far? But, when I FaceTimed my mom and dad, it was actually none of the above.

They listened calmly, looked at each other, and then my mom said, “Well, that would make sense. They have a high comorbidity.”

And then my dad added, “You know, you don’t have to justify it. We believe you.”

It would be easy for me to spin this into a feel-good story, but the truth is, I am very lucky to have parents who do grow and who do listen, and to go to a school like this that is committed to bettering the lives of disabled students. I’m also lucky that, as of now, neither of my conditions require medication or that much extra care from other people. As incredibly uncomfortable as it is, I have the ability to mask, to hide. I am also not formally diagnosed at the moment, a decision I made for safety and travel purposes. Millions of people don’t have that safety, and I’m not blind to the fact that all of these things are privileges.

But as with every privilege experienced by someone from a disadvantaged group, the downsides remain.

At Mount Holyoke College we have Disability Services, but, as they themselves say on the College’s website, a student must submit “appropriate documentation of [their] disability from a licensed provider/clinician”, meaning that students who are unaware of their own disabilities, or are unable to, or do not want to get a diagnosis — which includes me — cannot receive help from them.

The decision is a double-edged sword; you cannot be hurt if no one knows, but you also can’t be helped.

But there’s also the Accessibility Justice Club, which, according to their official “About” section on Embark, “facilitates community for students with disabilities and attempts to compensate for the institutional marginalization and isolation that is caused by systemic ableism and, even sometimes, by accommodations.”

They’re an excellent reminder that when all systems fail, oftentimes it falls to the people most affected by them to organize for a better one.

A question that I get asked a lot about autism from people that don’t have it is, “Don’t you hate it?” or “Would you really choose to have it?” like it’s some kind of infectious disease that they can’t comprehend being saddled with. I’ve always answered that I would not be me without it, and over the last few months, I’ve come to the same conclusion about my ADHD.

I'd be lying if I said there weren’t days where I hate it. I’d be lying if I said there aren’t people who spend their lives hating it, which is completely understandable, and not my place to judge. Like any disability, there are undeniable difficulties to living with it. But for me, I think of the things I’ve created because of it, of the interesting topics I’ve become obsessed with due to it, and of the community I’ve found through it. I think of all of the friends I’ve made with ADHD or autism, whose perspectives you’ve heard throughout this piece, and without whom my life would be so much less fun.

“A lot of people with it seem to gravitate towards each other,” Kat Brown ’28 once told me with a grin.

Whether you need medication or not, whether you get assistance from Disability Services or not, whether you curse its existence or not, it’s important that you know you aren’t alone. You aren’t crazy. You have a community that’s here, arms open, waiting for you, to let you know that they understand. You just have to knock on the door.

So, have you realized you have ADHD? I’ve been there. It’s gonna be okay.

Sofia Ramon ’27 contributed fact-checking.

Watched or made? History and what it means to us

Photo courtesy of Anna Goodman ’28

Photos of, from left to right, Anna’s grandparents in 1969, Anna’s grandmother and her mom in 1989, and Anna’s grandmother with Anna herself in 2019.

By Anna Goodman ’28

Staff Writer

It's about 10 p.m. on July 20, 1969, and my grandparents, who had just turned 20, are watching TV. Normally at this time of night they’d be watching the Ed Sullivan Show or listening to Creedence Clearwater on the radio –– if my grandfather had his way –– but not tonight. Instead, they’re watching some very fuzzy footage broadcast from over 200,000 miles away. They’re watching history be made through a screen.

We all know this story, right? “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?” You’re rolling your eyes already. You’re flipping your paper over to the interesting things in the Horoscopes section. You’re wondering: Why am I wasting your time?

So, instead of talking about this, let’s talk about you. What is “history” to you?

“I’d define history as a particular memory ... what people remember to be the past. As a student of history, sometimes I think of it as an academic way to understand the lives we’re living right now,” Asmi Shrestha ’26 says.

Or, as Sophia Baldwin ’26 puts it, “[History is] a collection of events from the past that we remember and pass down from generation to generation.”

For Mila Marinova ’27, history is “all of the past events and people and their actions that have led to where we are now.”

“[It’s] both something very personal and a collective phenomenon. It’s generational too, it depends on what’s shared from grandparents to parents to children. It depends on what’s taught in schools, in science and English and history classes. It depends on personal interpretation too,” Sophia Hoermann ’25 says.

Many of the interviewees talked of their first “historical memory,” ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to the 2008 financial crash to the fall of the monarchy in Nepal.

My grandmother, it seems, had her pick. In 1969, a man walked on the moon, the Vietnam War became more unpopular than ever, the Woodstock music festival drew crowds of thousands, and the Stonewall Uprising birthed the modern queer rights movement. And all of those generation-defining moments happened in the span of less than two months.

And so, after asking how each person would define history, I asked another question: Can you name three people involved in the moon landing? No one could do it. Most could name was Neil Armstrong — or “Neil” or “Armstrong” — but the closest anyone came was one and a half people.

It’s fascinating that here we are, with people who clearly think deeply about history and gave all different yet all detailed and introspective answers to the question of how to define it — who could likely all recite the line, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” from memory — and yet the name of the person whose step it was eluded them.

It’s fascinating that so often, when we think of Big Moments In History, we forget about the people behind them. Things don’t just happen. People make them happen. People made Stonewall and Woodstock happen. And as for the people who made the moon landing happen –– besides thousands of engineers and mathematicians and geologists, not to mention those in mission control or landing crew –– the names of the three astronauts from Apollo 11 were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

So, it’s about 10 p.m. on Nov. 5, 2024, and I, having just turned 18, am watching TV. Normally at this time of night I’d be watching Netflix, or, to be honest, cramming over an assignment, but not tonight. Instead I’m ten years old again, remembering my own first historical memory, feeling just as horrified and just as powerless. I’m watching history through a screen.

Because 77 million people voted for Trump. My grandfather voted for Trump. Buzz Aldrin endorsed him. Because of people like him, we landed on the moon. Because of people like him, all of our lives are in danger.

You all know this story, right? You’re really wishing you turned to the Horoscopes section ten minutes ago. But before you roll your eyes, know that I’m not going to tell this story. I’m going to tell a different one.

My grandmother was three months past 20 when she watched a man walk on the moon. My grandmother was three weeks away from succumbing to Stage 4 lung cancer when she signed her ballot for Joe Biden in 2020 with an “X.” She watched history be made and was determined to make it until the bitter end, determined that she would make a better future even if she couldn’t be part of it.

And maybe you don’t want to make history. You’re exhausted. You’re terrified. You just want to pass chemistry and not think about the looming threats to healthcare or the constant school shootings in the news. And that’s not your fault; it shouldn’t be dependent on a bunch of teenagers and 20-something sleep-deprived college students to try to keep themselves alive when the people in charge of our country seem committed to watching us die.

But we don’t have the luxury of watching any longer. We don’t have the time to deliberate on whether we want to be here. The fact is, the time for deliberation was months ago and the choice has been made. The fact is, here we are.

The question is, what are we going to do about it?

I’ve mentioned many responses to “What is history?” but not my own. So, for the record, I, Anna Cocca Goodman ’28, say that history is change. History is the bridge from the past to the future, and the people who carry it on their shoulders, forgotten or celebrated, from Neil Armstrong, to protestors at Stonewall, to journalists far better than me.

My grandmother did not live to see a world where Trump was not president. But I will. I will survive the men who walked on the moon, I will survive the queer ancestors who fought for me at Stonewall, and I will survive the last vestiges of Donald Trump’s regime, not on a screen, but with my own eyes.

It’s about 10 p.m. on April 16, 2025, what would be my grandmother’s 76th birthday, when I decide to write this article. When I decide to say that I hope you will be there when we land on the moon again. I hope you will be there when we see authoritarianism crumble again. I hope you will be here, now, when we need you, when we have the chance to make both of those things happen.

So, please, don’t go. And, please, whatever history means to you, come and make it with me.

Leah Dutcher ’28 contributed fact-checking.

Staff editorial on student press freedom

To our readers:

On March 25, 2025, a graduate student at Tufts University was detained by the Department of Homeland Security while leaving her apartment in Somerville, Mass. The student, Rümeysa Öztürk, is a Turkish national whose visa was revoked the same evening. In March 2024, Öztürk had co-authored an editorial for The Tufts Daily student newspaper; it is widely believed that this editorial was used as the basis for her detainment. In response, the Student Press Law Center issued an alert for student media organizations on April 4, warning that “[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has weaponized lawful speech and digital footprints and has forced us all to reconsider long-standing journalism norms.” In response to these circumstances, Mount Holyoke News would like to reaffirm our commitment to press freedom and emphasize the importance of protecting our student journalists and their right to expression.

Öztürk’s contribution to The Tufts Daily, alongside her co-authors, did not violate any Tufts University policies and was a sound exercise of the students’ First Amendment rights. Mount Holyoke News condemns the use of intimidation and extralegal action to silence constitutionally protected free speech. Student editorials are vital to cultivating an open and productive discourse on campuses, and any disciplinary federal action taken in response to Öztürk and her collaborators’ statements is an infringement on their rights.

Mount Holyoke News remains committed to providing a platform for students and community members to express their beliefs and engage in respectful dialogue. We stand with The Tufts Daily in advocating for the protection of free speech, a fundamental right that forms a core tenet of American democracy. Mount Holyoke News will continue to exercise its right to provide readers with informative journalism and a diverse array of viewpoints, and will advocate for our writers’ ability to contribute to our publication without facing unjust retaliation. 

– Mount Holyoke News Executive Board

Student newspaper editorials are more important than ever

Graphic by Isabelle Peterson ‘28

MOUNT HOLYOKE NEWS STAFF MEMBER

Amidst detainments, censorship and protests on campuses around the country, the importance of an uncensored opinion section in student newspapers is more crucial than ever. However, since President Donald Trump has returned to office, there has been a constant attack on the First Amendment rights of many publications — particularly student publications — especially when concerning the Israel-Hamas war. On March 25, Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained in broad daylight in Somerville, Massachusetts by Department of Homeland Security officers in plain clothing. It is widely believed she was targeted for her involvement in Tufts’ student journalism.  

On March 26, 2024, Öztürk co-authored an op-ed featured in The Tufts Daily, calling for Tufts to adopt Tufts Community Union senate resolutions regarding the Israel-Hamas war. Öztürk and her collaborators asked directly that Tufts acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.. This may have made her appear as a threat in the eyes of the U.S. government as the usage of the term “Palestinian genocide” may have been conflated with antisemitic terror; the phrase may also have been linked to the vocabulary of student-led protest. This perspective would put Öztürk, and various other currently detained student advocates, out of alignment with the current U.S. government’s perspectives on foreign affairs.

This idea of certain speech posing a threat to U.S. interests is born from a World War II-era law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Originally created to prevent Nazi propaganda in the United States,  its broadness is now weaponized in characterizing any declaration of “genocide” in regards to the Israel-Hamas war as not only antisemitic, but as criminal. The broadness of this decades-old law allows for detainments like Öztürk’s. Therefore, student visas across the country are being revoked for supposedly inciting “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” through their use of free speech, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Act: Specifically speech expressed though op-eds.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a press conference on March 27, was asked by a reporter “what [was] the specific action [Öztürk] took [which] led to her visa being revoked?” 

Rubio answered that  "Oh, we revoked her visa … [If] the reason why you're coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we're not going to give you a visa." 

This statement is not only inhumane, but illustrative of the further censorship to come concerning foreign policy, criticism of the U.S. government and the ability to publish free speech. 

This censorship is not only seen in universities, either, but in the wider journalistic community, including at The Washington Post. 

On Feb. 26, Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and The Washington Post, posted on X about a message he shared with The Washington Post opinion staff. It reads, “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.” While claiming that newspapers may have benefitted readers by providing a diversity of opinions in the past, Bezos said, “Today, the internet does that job. ” 

As much as Bezos claims otherwise, it is clear how this stark change in the publishing guidelines of The Washington Post, which had previously worked to advocate all sorts of different views, is now being censored. It is certainly interesting to note that he did publish this on X, owned by Elon Musk, who has been known for utilizing his free speech to promote Nazi symbolism: Something the government did not censor from the public, despite Musk being a immigrant himself and his speech being directly in disobedience of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which was conceived to oppose Nazi propaganda.  

This clear abuse of power very obviously affects everyone in America, particularly journalists, but is especially harmful for students. In the U.S., higher education is a largely international venture, with 6% of all U.S. students, 1.1 million people, coming from abroad. This means any student journalist or activist who wishes to use their free speech to be critical of U.S. actions is  at risk of being targeted by the Trump administration’s agenda, which is entirely anti-immigrant.

Columbia University, for instance, has for months been filled with students advocating for the same justice Öztürk asked for from Tufts University. Here, Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student and one of the lead negotiators in Columbia's student-led pro-Palestine movement, was detained on March 8 due to his advocacy on foreign policy. On April 4, after nearly a month of his detainment, Khalil published an opinion article in the Columbia Daily Spectator addressing it “To Columbia—an institution that laid the groundwork for my abduction—and to its student body, who must not abdicate their responsibility to resist repression.” He then goes on to not only continue to criticize the university for its stance on  the Israel-Hamas war, but to also acknowledge the concerning rate at which students — like Leqaa Korda, Dr. Badar Khan Sufi, and Rümeysa Öztürk — “have all been snatched by the state.” Khalil describes these detainments as “oddly reminiscent of when I fled the brutality of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and sought refuge in Lebanon.” 

Despite student detainment, many independent, student-owned newspapers continue to fight for their right to free speech, particularly within op-eds. The opinion section of a news organization is deliberately made separate from the other sections of the news, because, unlike non-opinionated journalistic reporting, op-eds strive to share the opinions of those directly in a community, and serve as a platform to allow an abundance of varying views to enter into debate with one another. Opinions are not to be taken as a unanimous forced belief, but to celebrate different ways of thinking. In this political climate, unique and critical ways of thinking channeled through free press are viewed as a threat to oligarchies, monarchs and tyranny as they emphasize what is known as the fourth pillar of democracy: Free press. 

Mount Holyoke News, similarly to Columbia and Tufts’ student newspapers, remains a platform where students may publish and share their opinions. As popular news outlets crumble in submission to financial intimidation, it is important for not only opinions, but all newspapers to continue to report on the unjust political climate we are forced to live in. As more and more students’ visas get revoked, it is important that students stand and write in solidarity with their classmates. Execute your right as not only a birthright citizen, but as a student who doesn't have to live with the constant debilitating fear that their every movement is being watched in the hope of removing them from the U.S. 

Sofia Ramon ’27 contributed fact-checking.

MHC should have a balance of vegan and non-vegan dessert options

Photos by Tara Monastesse ’25

Blanch’s Harvest station often has a preponderance of vegan options and few non-vegan choices, leaving some non-vegans feeling underrepresented.

Dela Dzimega ’28

Staff Writer

If you check the Harvest or M&Cs sections of the Dining Commons menu, you’ll realize that most of Mount Holyoke College's desserts are vegan. From cookies and cakes to even brownies, most desserts are made without animal products, likely in an effort to be inclusive of all students’ dietary needs and restrictions. Despite the College's valuable effort to create dietary inclusivity, certain aspects of the food cannot be replicated through a vegan recipe. Eliminating ingredients such as butter, eggs and milk fundamentally changes the texture and flavor of most baked goods. As such, completely ignoring other options affects the enjoyability of desserts for all students. To balance this issue, the College should keep offering vegan desserts, but provide more non-vegan options alongside them.

Some may ask, “What makes non-vegan desserts important to the students when vegan options are available?” Eggs, butter and milk are fundamental to baking for a reason. Take a classic chocolate chip cookie, for example. Eggs combine with sugar to provide a perfect blend of crunch and chewiness. Then, butter provides saltiness, moisture and a rich complexity to the cookie's flavor. Even the melty chocolate chips usually contain milk. Regardless of what dessert you're baking, non-vegan products like eggs, butter and milk are essential in the consistency of baked goods. Whipped eggs create a light airiness for cakes, milk prevents dryness, butter is responsible for flakey pie crusts and dairy can be found in many popular frostings like buttercream, cream cheese and whipped cream. A chocolate chip cookie, like many other desserts, certainly can be made vegan, but loses many of its desirable qualities when ingredients are replaced.

While there isn’t public data on Mount Holyoke students’ dietary habits, Gallup’s latest Consumption Habits Poll reports that, as of 2023, only 1% of Americans are vegan. Though it is a small percentage, this is still millions of people. Additionally, vegan desserts are also accessible for people who have restrictions with dairy and eggs for other reasons, like lactose intolerance. Considering these factors, it is clear vegan options should not be removed entirely from the menu because they benefit a substantial chunk of our student body.

With this being said, in order for the College to accurately represent the entire student body, our desserts don’t have to be exclusively vegan. As I described earlier, there is a trade off to the all-or-nothing way the College is currently handling this. To truly represent the College’s needs, vegan desserts should be one option of many. M&Cs, one of our school’s oldest traditions, could be more popular with other options. If the school offered a more balanced mix of vegan and non-vegan options, it would inevitably achieve its goal of creating a dietary friendly menu while also remaining inclusive to all students, including those without certain dietary restrictions.

Leah Dutcher ’28 contributed fact-checking.

Importance of community amongst fears of ICE raids

Graphic by Audrey Hanan ’28

Angelina Godinez ’28

Opinion Editor

It’s been a little over a month since the last, and only, public statement made by Mount Holyoke College President Danielle R. Holley concerning Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deportation raids in Massachusetts. President Holley spoke at a community forum on Jan. 28, where she addressed students’ concerns following recent executive orders regarding financial aid, the Department of Education and ICE raids. As previously reported by Mount Holyoke News, Holley stated in an interview following the forum that “ICE is like every other law enforcement agency.”

“In order to enter a private space … They need a warrant that is signed by a judge.” Holley said. “They would need to have probable cause related to a student, staff or faculty member … We plan to try to fully protect our students.” She added, “once someone is swept up by federal detention, it becomes very hard. But our plan for the college is to work to protect our students, faculty and staff, even if they are in federal detention for immigration.”

In a recent interview with Mount Holyoke News, Professor David Hernández, the College’s Critical Race and Political Economy co-chair and an expert in immigration enforcement, praised Holley for these strong statements given what little information is truly known about the effects of ICE raids in Massachusetts.

“Compared to 2016-17, you know, with the first Trump administration, it's a much stronger statement than the previous leadership at the College around protecting students. And not only a much stronger statement, but a much more informed statement than our previous leadership had around immigration rights.”

But despite Holley delivering an informed statement on immigration policy and how it affects the College, the vagueness of her comment due to the limited information and reliable data on deportations available at the time allows room for lingering anxiety on campus. As the end of the semester comes near, many students prepare to make travel plans, but for others, it is still unknown what the school will do to provide affordable and safe housing throughout the summer to students in need.

In addition to the uncertainty on campus, on Jan. 30 and 31, Instagram was flooded with panicked stories reading. For instance, one post stated, “ICE has raided Garcia’s in Amherst, MA and are currently in the Amherst and Hadley area. Please be careful and safe out there and warn all your loved ones.” Another user posted, “A family friend has a friend that works at Garcia’s and she told [cause] this just happened tonight, sadly 5 [people] ended up getting deported.”

On Jan. 31, similar messages were shared with a bright red background reading, “Western Massachusetts people you NEED to be SHARING THESE REPORTS OF ICE … these are your neighbors, friends, teachers, classmates, fellow human beings - no one deserves this.”

Despite the panic, these alleged raids in the Amherst-Hadley area were later confirmed to be false by the Daily Hampshire Gazette, which stated that Garcia’s, a popular Mexican restaurant in Amherst, Massachusetts, temporarily closed due to rumors of ICE raids and to protect the safety of their workers. Since the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, there have been countless rumors of ICE raids within multiple Western Massachusetts cities, all of which have fortunately been proven false. Regardless of the false alarms, it is important that students, staff and families remain vigilant, know their rights and do not give in to the fear this cruel administration has unleashed.

ICE, and the oppressors known as the U.S. government, thrive off of the fear they create through these false numbers, rumors and statistics. President Trump promised to deport millions of migrants, but within his first month back in office has deported fewer migrants than the Biden administration’s 2024 monthly average. According to Reuters on Feb. 21, “President Donald Trump deported 37,660 people during his first month in office … Far less than the monthly average of 57,000 removals and returns in the last full year of Joe Biden’s administration.”

Nevertheless, there is a significant difference in press covering mass deportations between the administrations, which proves that Trump's administration depends on theatrical antics that incite chaos and fear. That is not to say these mass deportations should be scoffed at or ignored in any sense. One human being’s displacement affects hundreds of others, so any comparison between the effectiveness of past and current administrations concerning deportation is the comparison between thousands of human lives being put in danger.

Hernández said it best: “The thing to remember about migration and deportation is that the unit of analysis is a human being. So any one person gets deported from our community, that's going to disrupt something, it's going to disrupt the family, it's going to disrupt a workplace. It's going to be harmful, so [remember] never to minimize that.”

Mass deportation has been, and will continue to remain, a part the Eurocentric agenda President Trump upholds. There is no lesser of two evils when comparing statistics that represent thousands of human lives. The oligarchy that now takes form as the U.S. government will only continue to displace migrants, treating them like disposable objects. The only way to attempt to fight against these Eurocentric ideals is to look out for your community.

Our government has been flooded by rich businessmen whose only concern is filling their pockets. They will not stop placing human lives in direct harm, because they are not for the average hardworking person trying to make ends meet in America. We have long since lost the narrative of “We the people”; not only are we separated from our dystopian government officials by tax brackets, but by the general concern for and value of a human life. Thus, we have to take the burden of caring for each other upon ourselves.

With the average cost to deport one person being over $10,000 according to the Center for American Progress, and it potentially costing nearly $114 billion to deport 11.3 million humans, not even the collective bank account of Trump’s cabinet can cover the expense of their promised deportation and the trillions of dollars of debt the U.S. government is drowning in.

The only way these millionaires dressed up as government officials can create the damage they promise is through fear. This fear is what causes people to act rashly, making them vulnerable pieces in this sick exchange of human lives known as mass deportations.

This is echoed by Hernández, who states that “They want us to feel nervous. They want us to get depressed, because they can't get everyone. They know that. They know they don't have the capacity to get people, and they've even complained about in Chicago about the community, knowing their rights and stuff. They've attacked [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] for saying, ‘Know your rights…’”

The government does not want us to be informed, let alone united against their oppression. Despite targeting sanctuary cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Boston, the power lies with the people. This includes Mount Holyoke College. By uniting, sharing notices about current and future raids and distributing “know your rights cards,” we can attempt to continue to slow down this cruel administration and protect our community in the face of anxiety and adversity.

Like Professor Hernandez says, “You don't have to be a lawyer to fight for immigrants’ rights, you know, you can be a lot of things, and fight for immigrants. You can be a professor, you can be a student. You can write things to the newspaper. You can write for the newspaper.”

Leah Dutcher ’28 contributed fact-checking.