“Your Fight is My Fight/Tu Lucha Es Mi Lucha”

Black Lives Matter Shirt Design and Fundraising

To order a shirt, please contact me via Instagram. Shirts and tank tops are available in unisex sizes, in English and in Spanish.

This design was created in support of the 2020 Black Lives Matter Movement. With my design, and in collaboration with Printing and Scout Dry Goods in Omaha Nebraska, a friend and I were able to raise over $500 for organizations such as NAACP, Equal Justice Initiative, and ACLU. We are still selling shirts in-store at Scout Dry Goods, and continue to donate funds as we receive them.

“While I can never understand, still I stand.”

Although I am Latina and can never understand the perspective and positioning of the Black community, I feel it is my duty as a citizen of the United States to stand for the human rights of all. I could not attend BLM protests due to living with a high-risk person for COVID-19, and so I participated through what I view as my most meaningful interaction in this world: design.

A friend, who currently lives in Nebraska, reached out and asked how much I would charge for a T-Shirt design to raise funds. Of course, I did the design for free and offered to collaborate on organizing, printing, and distribution. We sold shirts in-store at Scout Dry Goods in Omaha, and online through Etsy. Over the course of the past few months, we’ve raised and donated several hundred dollars to local chapters of organizations that are supporting Black Lives Matter.

This design was inspired by an image I saw in which a Latina woman and a Black woman were holding hands, with each expressing their empathy for the pain this country has caused each other. As a member of the BIPOC community, although light-skinned and therefore often passable as white, I understand what it is to carry inherited pain and experience systemic racism. However, I do not know what it is to be Black, and cannot speak to that experience. Still, my heart breaks for the Black community in the United States, and I wanted to convey both my personal support as well as the widespread support of the Latinx community. Therefore, it was important to me to have the shirts and tank tops be available in both English and Spanish.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the reaction and reach of this collaboration, and hope to see it continue to contribute, albeit in a small way, to the movement.