From Los Angeles, where the concrete heart bleeds dust and forgotten memory, this is the story of two Californians caught in different corners of the same state machinery: the soldier and the undocumented worker. Both are Macehualmeh, working people made disposable.
The truth is simple: California residents are being priced out of their constitutional rights.
Whether refusing an unlawful military order or asserting basic due-process protections during an immigration enforcement encounter, the state has quietly imposed a tariff on conscience. Exercising a negative right, the right to be free from coercion, now carries an economic penalty so severe that most people cannot afford to use it…