From Antifa to Free Speech Advocate

Why I joined antifa, and why I left

Members of antifa held shields during a protest at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 12. PHOTO: STEPHANIE KEITH/GETTY IMAGES

One night I was driving down I-5 in California, when I decided to stop off the side of the road for some tacos. But as soon as I pulled up into a restaurant I saw two kittens in the parking lot. At first, I got really excited because I absolutely love animals. In fact, I have three cats and two dogs. And while they are a lot of work, especially now that I am a father, I can’t imagine my home without them.

Before I got my food I decided I needed to pet these kittens, so I called one over. As I was petting her I realized she was a stray. I then noticed that she had a little bit of a belly. She was pregnant.

I sighed to myself and thought, “Well tonight’s going to be a long night.”

And it was, because I spent well over an hour trying to catch these gray tabbies so I could find them homes, well knowing that I had at least 5 more hours left in my trip that night.

You see, I'm an activist. For as long as I can remember I’ve been passionate about helping others to make the world a better place.

My dad’s passion for helping

To understand my passion for helping others I need to talk about my dad.

“A manos llenas” is a phrase in Spanish that means to give with all your heart. That saying also sums up my dad.

I remember my mom told me that my dad worked for 5 years to save up money to buy his first car, only to sell it shortly after to help my cousin when he got into legal trouble.

My dad used to be a manager at a chemical factory. He was willing to go to work 6 to 7 days a week, putting in 15 hours a day, just so his workers didn’t have to come in on the weekend.

“Mi papa se quita el pan de la boca para darle a la gente.” -- “My dad takes bread out of his mouth to give to others.”

My dad taught me to care about others and he is the reason I became an activist. And my passion for helping people is the reason I joined Antifa.

Antifa is a movement composed of countless far-left activists which use physical violence and intimidation. They typically wear all black and cover their faces with a bandana at demonstrations to avoid getting arrested. Nowadays, if you hear on the news that someone threw a molotov cocktail at police during a demonstration, you can probably bet it was someone marching under the banner of Antifa.

But, wait a second—how in the world does joining a radical movement like Antifa help others?

Why I joined Antifa

To understand my reasons for joining the Antifa movement, it is important that I speak from the heart of a young activist. 

I’ve been an activist since 2006 when I was only 12 years old. Ever since then I have been passionate about making a difference in my community. 

My first protest was in the 6th grade. I remember my friends and I marching all over the school chanting “Sí se puede!” to show our support for undocumented Mexican immigrants. It was an exciting feeling. I felt like I was part of something big and that we were finally going to make a difference.

And then nothing happened.

A short time later, I passed out hundreds of anti-war flyers throughout my community and my school, and one of my teachers said to me she was happy to see me, a young boy, getting involved because I was the future of this country. 

That felt really good because I realized people could see that I was a part of something bigger than myself. 

And then, the wars continued.

This went on for a while. When you’re an activist there is such a thing as activist fatigue. You get tired of marching. You get tired of passing flyers. You get tired of yelling chants because no one seems to listen and nothing seems to change.

So after years of fighting against injustice, I started getting tired because nothing I did seemed to work. So when I turned 17 I adopted a new mentality: I want change. And I want it now.

And it was with this mentality that in 2011, when neo-nazis came to my community, I attended the protest that changed my life.

At this counter-protest, I dressed in all black and I covered my face with a bandana just like Antifa does. I was ready to do more than just hold a sign. But as I arrived at the park, I didn’t know where to start, so I just stood under a tree.

I have to admit it was a little awkward, I thought I was the only one dressed in all black, but it didn’t take long for another anarchist to notice me and ask me if I wanted to roll with him and his friends to oppose the Nazis head-on. 

That’s how I joined Antifa.

And for well over a year and a half, I was ready at a moment's notice to put on a black mask to engage in what we called “direct action” which is when you don’t ask for change, you take it.

To give you an example, there was this company in California that my friends told me was transporting monkeys to America to conduct vivisections. As someone who loves animals, I could not stand for it.

Normally, an activist would write letters, maybe hold some signs outside the corporate building, or try to get the government to take action. But no. That's not direct action. 

Instead, my friends and I went to the home of that CEO to harass him and yell obscenities. And we threatened that if he did not stop his company’s policies we would come back.

Beginning to have doubts

The more I got involved with this radical faction the more I began to realize that virtually no one took the time to ask, “Is what I am doing the right thing?” People didn’t want to consider other viewpoints, instead, people just wanted to critique “the other side.” 

That’s not ever been my style. I’ve always been a curious person, a curious activist, it’s the same reason I stopped for those kittens. I ask a lot of questions.

Well, around this time I began learning about free-market ideals and I was particularly interested in intellectuals like Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. To be clear, I didn’t like them, but I found them interesting. So interesting that I wanted to talk about their ideas with my friends.

So I went with my fellow anarchist friends and I started talking about the free-market, the tragedy of the commons, and all that. I’m questioning our ideals—I'm super excited, and one of them turns to me and says, “You capitalist pig.”

There’s that passion I’m talking about. My friend was so passionate about anarchism that he was unwilling to hear anything that challenged his beliefs, and suddenly, I was his enemy, just for asking questions.

It was my passion that told me that if I wanted to make the world a better place then I needed to get radical, so I joined Antifa. 

But I was discovering that passion without reason is dangerous.

My mom’s reason and patience.

“Estas bien loco.” These are the words I’ve heard my mom tell me time after time whenever I act solely on passion, and they mean, “You’re freaking crazy.”

But let me tell you about her.

I remember when we were in Mexico saving up to come to America. My mom would give us only a cup of milk and exactly eight “Galletas Marias” for supper—which is a little cheap Mexican cookie. And then when I was little I fell off a bunk bed and hit my head. My cranium sunk as if you hit a deflated ball. You can still feel it.

The doctors told my parents that I would grow up with mental disabilities.

Thankfully the doctors were wrong. But my mom decided to better herself to help me. She went back to school to study child psychology to learn how to help me.

My mom is such a wonderful person and she is incredibly kindhearted, but she has a different outlook on life than my dad. She believes that to make the world a better place you first have to take care of yourself. But more importantly, you have to think about your actions before you act on them.

My mom is a rational person who thinks things through, and that has helped her develop a great patience. Which is lucky, because she always has to deal with my dad and I.

My mom is the reason I left Antifa.

Three lessons for change

There is a common joke that if you are young and conservative you have no heart, but if you are old and liberal you have no brains. Well, I’m here to ask: Why can’t you be both? Why does society think it is so difficult to be both compassionate and rational?

My mom didn’t make me leave Antifa, just like my dad didn’t make me join it. But their individual approaches to life taught me a critical lesson: there is a balance between being passionate and having the patience to see things through. And if you want real change, you need this balance.

In order to get this balance, you need to do three things.

If you are passionate about a particular cause and want to achieve lasting change you need to ask a lot of questions. One of the worst things that can happen to you as an activist is that you work for years to achieve your goal only to realize you were working for something that was negative. Asking questions will slow down your passion and help you find your true purpose.

Just imagine if I had not asked questions while I was in Antifa. I have no doubt in my mind that if I would have continued my involvement in the Antifascist movement. I would have ended up in jail.

But now, say you’re a very rational person who asks a lot of questions. That’s not enough. Remember why you’re doing this in the first place. Find your passion. Get out there and make some noise.

Put yourself out there and talk with the “other side.” Because when you have conversations with all parties you begin to make your case to the world. And in politics, nothing moves unless it is pushed.

And third, remember that small steps lead to change, so be patient. It may not feel like it. But every flier you pass and every person you talk to does create a change. And when you work for something long and hard enough, eventually you will see that change.

Bringing it together

I’ve been an activist for 18 years. First as a left-wing radical, but now as a free speech advocate. And as a free speech activist, I’ve had the opportunity to mentor many activists. One person I used to mentor was a guy named Hayden.

Now Hayden is a great guy and a valued friend of mine. But when I met him I knew that he was an “act first, think later” kind of guy, like my dad.

And unfortunately, a hazard of being an activist is sometimes being confronted by violent people. In fact, both Hayden and I have been attacked numerous times while pushing back against censorship on college campuses.

And predictably, after getting punched in the face, Hayden would fight back. But that only made things worse. So after the third time it happened, I talked to him and I told him, “I know you’re passionate, and I know it sucks to get punched in the face, but be patient and don’t get dragged into a fight. That will only make everything worse.”

And then I sent him to UC Berkeley. It happened again. And this time, it was caught on film. But this time, Hayden listened to me and remained calm.

That punch was dubbed “The Punch Seen Around the World.” And it was seen everywhere. Even the White House saw it—and it made everyone realize that free speech is in danger.

And as a result, President Trump invited hundreds of students who have been silenced on college campuses, as well as Hayden and myself, to the White House to witness him sign an executive order to defend free speech on college campuses.

And the best part is that nearly 3 out of 4 voters—73% of Americans—supported the executive order. We had finally found some common ground.

My lesson for young activists

Hayden and I cannot take all the credit for this historic executive order. Thousands of free-speech activists had been working for years to get something like this on the books. But, Hayden and I were the catalysts for it to happen because we had that balance of passion and patience.

Finding that balance can be hard, especially when you get punched in the face. But let’s look at the flipside. 

There are countless activists who are driven solely by passion. And if you want to see what unrestrained passion looks like, just take a look at the "passionate activists" who destroyed innocent communities in the name of police reform during the 2020 riots.

Everyone in the Antifa community has one thing in common: everyone is passionate about helping. I’m still an activist. I am still passionate about helping people and animals, but passion without reason can be truly dangerous and can end up hurting more than it helps.

The reason we were able to get an executive order signed was because our passion helped us by putting ourselves out there, but because we also had the patience not to act solely on that passion.

If all you have is passion, then you may act out in a manner that ends up hurting others. But if all you have is rational and patient thinking, then you may miss out on the joys of helping others.

If you want real change, then you need passion, reason, and patience. 

You need passion to drive you forward. But you need reason to be able to steer in the right direction. But overall, you need the patience to remind yourself that the changes you want to see will one day come.

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