
This event has passed
Breaking ICE: Community Defense against State Terror and MAGA Fascism with Sonali Kolhatkar, Richard Wallace and Sandra Puebla
Past event
Featured Book

Breaking ICE
A gripping, on-the-ground account of the growing movement against state violence, featuring interviews with those on the frontlines of the fight for immigrant justice and what it means to belong.
This book will be available for purchase at the event.
About This Event
We're honored join our friends at In These Times to welcome Sonali Kolhatkar, Richard Wallace and Sandra Puebla for a conversation on the new anthology Breaking ICE: Community Defense against State Terror and MAGA Fascism, a gripping, on-the-ground account of the growing movement against state violence, featuring interviews with those on the frontlines of the fight for immigrant justice and what it means to belong.
A war is being waged on the streets of the United States of America: MAGA’s violent anti-immigration regime is being challenged by a growing national movement dedicated to protecting communities and reversing racist and authoritarian policies. In Breaking ICE, award-winning journalist Sonali Kolhatkar presents her conversations with over a dozen movement organizers, lawyers, artists, labor leaders, and scholars on the frontlines of the fight. Through their courageous stories, Kolhatkar documents the impact of ICE violence, workplace raids, mass surveillance, and intimidation tactics, and how communities from Maine to California are organizing for a better world. Our present actions will not only determine the nature of American demographics from here on out, but also whether the future of the United States will look like an open multiracial democracy or a fascist police state.
Features conversations with: Pablo Alvarado, Nikki Marín Baena, Eduardo Delgado, Adela de la Torre, Shannon Gibney, Ron Gochez, David Huerta, Ibram X. Kendi, Robin D. G. Kelley, Josefina Lopez, Leonardo Martinez, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Favianna Rodriguez, Luis Rodriguez, Ruben Torres, Richard Wallace, Yohuru Williams, and Kent Wong. Foreword by Roberto Lovato.
Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the host of Rising Up With Sonali, a weekly television and radio program that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica Radio stations and affiliates around the United States. She is also the author of Talking About Abolition: A Police Free World Is Possible and Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice. She has won numerous awards, including Best TV Anchor and Best National Political Commentary from the LA Press Club, and has been nominated for Best Radio Anchor four years in a row.
Richard Wallace is the founder and director of Equity and Transformation (EAT), an organization which fights for social and economic equity for Black workers in informal work and those who have been formerly incarcerated. EAT is involved with research, advocacy, policy development, community organizing, and podcast production. He is currently the board president at Working Family Solidarity. Prior to working at EAT, he worked with the Workers Center for Racial Justice and Chicago Workers Collaborative.
About the Venue

Pilsen Community Books
Pilsen Community Books is a worker owned and operated independent bookstore that specializes in new and used literary fiction, radical history and politics, and literature in translation. The staff's goal is to unite their bookselling experience with their belief that labor is entitled to all it produces.
Visit store pageMore at Pilsen Community Books

Living in a D.A.I.S.Y. Age: The Music, Culture, and World De La Soul Made
Join us on Friday, October 23 at 7pm for a conversation with Austin McCoy and Charles Hughes as they talk about his book, Living in a D.A.I.S.Y. Age: The Music, Culture, and World De La Soul Made. Austin McCoy is an assistant professor of history at West Virginia University. He specializes in African American History, labor history, social movements, and hip hop culture. He is the author of Living in a D.A.I.S.Y. Age: The Music, Culture, and World De La Soul Made. His writings about politics and culture have appeared in The Washington Post , CNN, and The Baffler.

Signature Event: Running Tour of Brown in the Windy City
Run or bike with author Dr. Lilia Fernández inspired her book, Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago. About the event: Join Read & Run Chicago, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights (ICIRR), and Dr. Lilia Fernández at Pilsen Community Books ((1531 W 18th) on Sunday, October 25 at 10:00 AM for a 4-mile running tour or biking tour (s/o BFF Bikes!) of Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago as part of our Fall 2026 Signature Events Season, “Chicago Between the Lines.” After the route, enjoy snacks, social time, and book sales at Pilsen Community Books. A portion of tickets sales will be donated to ICIRR.