The Boy With The Spiderman Backpack

The picture of Liam Ramos reminded me of another boy I’d met with a Spiderman helmet -and a bumper sticker that stopped me short.

Many Americans know Liam Ramos’ name and face by now. He is the five-year-old boy seized by immigration officers from the driveway of his home in Minneapolis before being transferred along with his father to a detention facility in Texas. In a widely circulated photograph, Liam wears a plaid coat, a blue hat with bunny ears, and a Spiderman backpack. It’s a devastating image, prompting many more people to confront the cruelty of immigration enforcement in America.

For me, Liam’s picture also brought up the memory of another young boy - same age, similar affinity for Spiderman - whom I had encountered while visiting the Chesapeake Bay a few months before the 2024 election.

On an early morning walk, I had noticed this boy, around five or six years old, zipping around on a red miniature ATV, his head bobbing under a Spiderman helmet. We were the only two on a gravel road that the boy navigated with ease. At times, he’d disappear into the backyard of a nearby home, only to come speeding back onto our shared road a few moments later. When our paths crossed for the third time, I opened my mouth to say hello when I saw a bumper sticker on his ATV. It read: Make America Great Again.

A gravel path by the Chesapeake Bay

I’d grown used to this slogan appearing on billboards and television ads but seeing it attached to a young child unsettled me. I wondered whether the boy had any way of understanding the meaning behind the message and how it now functions as a marker for who belongs in America.

That encounter has stayed with me. On election night, as exit polls confirmed a Trump-Vance win and my text chats filled with fearful messages between friends about what lay ahead, I imagined that the boy and his family were having a different reaction. While watching the inauguration, my teenaged son remarked how he’d grown up during a time of social upheaval, and I recalled the boy again. Would he have a similar observation about his childhood?

And now, the sight of Liam’s Spiderman backpack again brought back the memory of the boy from the Chesapeake Bay. Despite their surface similarities, these two boys might as well be living in two different Americas. One child is allowed to exist unquestioned, securely wrapped in a narrative of belonging reinforced by the state, while the other is treated as undeserving and subjected to separation, punishment, and deportation.

But both boys, and children like them, are being shaped by this divided time - though in radically different ways.

What Children Carry

Nearly 3,800 children under the age of 18 have been detained since the current Administration took office, according to one report. In fact, six children from Liam’s school district have also been detained by ICE. Some are being held at the Dilley facility in Texas where inhumane conditions are widely documented and measles cases have recently been reported.

Psychologists have been warning about the long-lasting consequences for emotional development, sense of safety, and overall health and well-being among young children in detention. A recent investigative series into Asian American children and mental health revealed that even the threat of potential detention can increase fear, anxiety, and hyper-vigilance.

Meanwhile, children insulated from these realities are being shaped in very different ways. As efforts to ban books, restrict curricula and teach “patriotic education” in K-12 schools gain momentum, children like the one I met in the Chesapeake Bay are unlikely to have direct exposure to multi-faceted histories and experiences. As a result, they may not develop the empathy and critical thinking skills needed to understand and respond to the harms being endured by immigrant families around the country.

The Adults in the Room

The responsibility of nurturing a society that recognizes both Liam and the boy in the Chesapeake Bay as equally precious and fully deserving of dignity, safety, and care does not rest with young children. It lies with us, the adults in charge of curating their home and learning environments, shaping the public policies and initiatives that affect them, and modeling empathy and compassion in ways they understand.

Image Source: https://comixaction.com/comics4liam

Thankfully, there are glimpses of this already, in Minnesota and beyond. Educators, health care providers, and parents are sounding the alarm about the terror of ICE presence at schools. Libraries and bookstores are expanding access to stories that reflect the diverse fabric of our country. Local government officials are not backing away from promises to safeguard the rights and safety of immigrants. The recent general strike showed us how to act in solidarity around the country.

And then, there are the small acts of kindness which show children a depth of compassion. Liam’s classmates wrote letters on his behalf that started with “Dear ICE Agents”; a pilot gave him a tour of the cockpit on his flight home to his mother; and artists launched #ComicsforLiam with images of Liam to raise awareness about child detention.

These efforts might seem minor compared to the tremendous scale of harm around us — but together, they point us toward a different moral horizon.

Last weekend, the federal judge overseeing Liam’s case spoke for many of us when he ordered Liam’s immediate release, noting how the government’s “ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented” deportation policy is “traumatizing children.”

Nelson Mandela once said: “The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.” Even when the government does not, we have to keep holding ourselves to this basic standard – in small and big ways, day after day.

Further Readings/Resources (pls feel free to suggest more in comments and I’ll update this list):

Liam Ramos Was Just One of Hundreds of Children At This Detention Center, Elora Mukherjee, New York Times

Unseen: The Impact of Trump’s Draconian Immigration Policies on Asians in America, Simran Sethi, MindSite News

The Marshall Project: ‘Why Is This Happening To Us?’ Daily Number of Kids in ICE Detention Jumps 6x Under Trump

Stand With Minnesota

Detention Watch Network

Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights

Kids In Need of Defense