Letter From Minnesota: A Brief History of ICE in Poems
Đenise Hạnh Huỳnh: “rainbows of women are beaten & shot in our streets”
The following poems were written over the last decade, up until and including ICE’s occupation of the Twin Cities.
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ICE Murders Another Legal Observer in Minneapolis (2026)
We turn our restaurants into emergency hospitals. Our sex shops into community centers. I keep going back to my mother’s frozen car. I am in the ‘90s & she is in Trường Thành buying mint & basil & cilantro. I am reading comics & eating Rainbow Restaurant chicken fried rice in the backseat. Back when Rainbow was still a hole-in-the-wall & before they moved into their new fancy spot. I am safe. I am cold. My rice is hot. No one is abducting me. No one is shooting bullets into my skull. Richie Rich has all the money in the world, but he has no friends. Archie can’t decide between Betty & Veronica. Everyone is still dead.
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“Upon Announcement of the Fast-Track Removal Policy” was originally published in We the Gathered Heat, edited by Franny Choi, Bao Phi, No‘u Revilla, and Terisa Siagatonu, Haymarket Books, 2024.
Đenise Hạnh Huỳnh
Đenise Hạnh Huỳnh is a poet and PhD Candidate at the University of Minnesota. Her poetry has appeared with Coffee House Press, Water Stone Review, and Haymarket Books, among others. Her next poem is forthcoming with honey literary. Learn more about her at denisehuynh.com.
