old,” she said. “That’s not very old.” She said studying the collapse of monarchies and apartheid reminds her that power structures are not permanent. That perspective, she said, inspires her to create hope daily. ORGANIZING IN BOULDER Today, Gonzalez lives and organizes locally in Boulder. In 2015, she played a leading role in Boulder’s campaign to become a sanctuary city. The work brought her into close collaboration with undocumented immigrants and introduced her to immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra. Vizguerra gained national attention in 2017 when she was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people. In March 2025, Vizguerra was detained by ICE at her Denver workplace and held for nine months at a private detention center in Aurora before being released on bond in December. “I believe she was targeted because she was a leader,” Gonzalez said. “When you remove a leader, the community is destabilized.” Gonzalez encourages people to watch “Si Pudiera Quedarme,” a documentary about Vizguerra’s life and activism. Although Gonzalez is a U.S. citizen, she said immigration enforcement has still deeply affected her family. “I’ve had loved ones deported,” she said. “My family has been separated from loved ones, from the immigration and the prison system.” She said those systems are built to generate profit, not to reduce harm. In 2016, Gonzalez launched a DACA fund at the University of Colorado Boulder and helped create guidelines for faculty and staff to better support undocumented students. She said she does not see herself as a lone leader, but as part of a larger lineage of organizers. “I’m standing at the feet of giants,” she said. LOOKING BEYOND BORDERS After October 2023, Gonzalez expanded her work beyond local organizing and into global solidarity efforts. She helped raise funds for survivors in Gaza and for communities facing violence in Sudan, using the same mutual aid principles she applies locally. That work led her to co-found Slice of Hope, a mutual aid organization that directs most of its funding to Gaza, with the remainder supporting Sudan through the Khartoum Emergency Response Room. Gonzalez views global solidarity as both ecological and political. “We’re symbiotic systems,” she said. “We depend on water, trees, and other human beings to survive.” For her, Abya Yala is the original template. The genocide of Indigenous peoples, land theft, and the imposition of borders established a model that later spread globally. Gonzalez stated these patterns are rooted in colonial history, citing how Nazi Germany drew from eugenics movements in the United States and Australia. “It’s been done here before,” she said.“It’s not new.” “Whatever we do here and get away with,” she said, “becomes permission for other imperial powers to do elsewhere. This is why accountability matters.” She drew connections between violence against women and Indigenous communities across borders, citing the disappearance and murder of Indigenous women in the United States, femicide in Mexico, and violence against women in Gaza. “People think that these are just isolated incidents, and they’re not,” she noted. Gonzalez urges people to remember that, “Gaza is a litmus test, and it’s not just a litmus test because of humanity and our society, but it’s also the test for how far the West is going to go to maintain the brutal system that we live in.” Before the Trump administration removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, Gonzalez said U.S. involvement in Gaza was about testing how far it could act without consequences and warned that Venezuela could be next. Since the removal, she hopes people will continue to pay close attention to Venezuela. BOULDER AS A MICROCOSM Gonzalez has spoken at Boulder City Council meetings calling for divestment and a ceasefire in Gaza. She urges journalists to examine Boulder’s financial investments and their growth alongside the rising death toll, encouraging them to “start looking at how this portfolio has grown by the quarter.” “As the death toll rises in Gaza, that portfolio is increasing,” Gonzalez said. “We’re profiting as a city from genocide.” “How can we as a city of Boulder invest $38 million in a foreign state that’s profiting from genocide?” Gonzalez asked. This is the question Gonzalez insists members of the community ask themselves. HOPE AS RESISTANCE Organizing amid constant violence takes an emotional toll. Gonzalez does not romanticize the work. She goes to therapy, leans on community, and continues to “love in imperfect ways.” “There’s no way that I could be here without the community support that I’ve gotten,” she added. But she emphasized one thing above all: hope. “We have a duty to create hope,” she said. “It’s okay to be helpless, but once we’re hopeless, the colonizer won. Empire won.” Her vision for the future is uncompromising: no borders, no nation-states, no capitalism, no empires. A world where land, water, animals, and people are treated as equals. “Another world is possible,” she said. Gonzalez views global solidarity as both ecological and political. “We’re symbiotic systems,” she said. “We depend on water, trees, and other human beings to survive.” Photo courtesy of Laura Gonzalez. DENVER VOICE FEBRUARY 2026 7
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