‘The protest is personal’: A family’s story in the BLM movement

Castillo's protest
Sarah, the daughter and Mara, the mother are sitting at the sofa in their house in Little Village.

By Yilin Xie
Medill Reports

On May 30, Mara Castillo took her daughter, Sarah Castillo, with her to downtown Chicago for a Black Lives Matter protest.

“Little children were there. They could have gotten hurt,” the 13-year-old said one month after witnessing the violence and the chaos that day. “It showed that some people are cruel.”

Although bringing Sarah to a large-scale march during a pandemic means exposing her to dangers, Castillo wants her daughter “to be part of the history and part of the change.” To the family, the protest has a personal meaning. “One thing I want to teach her is that it is ok to fight back,” Castillo said.

Photo at top: Sarah and Mara chat on the sofa in their house in Little Village. (Yilin Xie/MEDILL)