Cristel Paiz locks the door of her Berwyn yoga studio before dimming the lights and sitting on her pink yoga mat.
“Bring your mind to this moment,” Paiz says in Spanish as she guides four women of various ages through a breathing exercise at the start of a yoga class.
Closed white window blinds provide privacy for the women as they move through downward dog and warrior poses. Along the studio’s walls are two steel storage units, one holding yoga blocks, the other holding packets of whistles that have become a ubiquitous symbol in immigrant communities around Chicago.
Paiz relocated her yoga studio to the western suburb in September just as federal officials launched the Trump administration’s stepped up deportation campaign in the Chicago area.
She wanted to grow her Spanish-language yoga classes, but she instead started losing regulars, most of whom are either immigrants or have immigrant family members. Some aren’t leaving their homes, even for work, while others can no longer afford the yoga classes.
“It’s affected our daily life, our mental health, and more than anything, it planted a fear,” Paiz says, who identifies as a Guatemalan Latina.
The mental health toll has been intense. Providers offering services in Spanish and to Latinos in the Chicago area say they are seeing people experiencing panic attacks, trouble sleeping and an increase in depressive symptoms as a result of the intense enforcement campaign.
The increase in need comes as some therapists already have long wait lists and now face precarious funding with changes coming to Medicaid and uncertainty surrounding federal funding affecting nonprofits. Spanish-language practitioners are doing what they can to reach as many people as possible, including through group therapy and community workshops. While others in the wellness space, like Paiz, are stepping up to alleviate the anxiety through meditation, somatic therapy, which focuses on how emotions appear within the body, and yoga.
One woman with a pending asylum case told the Chicago Sun-Times this fall that a social media alert of federal agents in her neighborhood was enough to cause a panic attack. She worried she and her husband would be separated from their young daughter.
“I don’t have any peace,” the mother said at the time. The Sun-Times is not naming her because she has an uncommon first name that could identify her and put her at risk. “… I’m thinking of him, I’m thinking of my daughter and I’m thinking of all the scenarios that could happen.”
The trauma stemming from the arrests and deportations could impact immigrant communities for generations, says Lu Rocha, the owner of a private counseling practice in Chicago. She explains that trauma alters not just a person’s emotions but also the psychological state and body.
“If there’s not immediate intervention, then that could become [post traumatic stress disorder],” says Rocha, a licensed clinical social worker. “I don’t think we understand the severity of just these past few weeks has caused on community members.”
‘We need to be able to take a break’
On Chicago’s Southwest Side, Centro Sanar, a nonprofit mental health organization, had brought down its wait list for services from 15 months to seven months now by increasing its staff. But they predict the wait list could grow by early next year as people come to terms with the trauma experienced during the enforcement campaign.
“When there’s a crisis that occurs, mental health services are not the first priority; it tends to be the afterthought after your basic needs are met,” said Lindsey Bailey, co-founder of Centro Sanar.
That need will come as Centro Sanar tries to reduce the amount of government funding it receives — about 30% of its budget — because they’ve already faced government funding freezes and feel vulnerable to cuts because of the immigrants they serve, said Edwin Martinez, co-founder and executive director.
Already, there aren’t enough clinicians who provide services in Spanish, and Mauricio Cifuentes said that shortage could grow. Cifuentes, program director at the Family Service and Mental Health of Cicero, said nonprofit clinics like theirs can’t pay as much as private ones, but the possibility of loan forgiveness for working in high needs areas was a perk that will likely end as part of a new federal policy.
In individual therapy, the recent trauma set back those who were already seeking services, including those dealing with trauma stemming from life in their native countries.
Cifuentes’ organization has tried to keep up with the demand by expanding group therapy sessions.
“Groups are the most powerful tool, clinically speaking, for most people because they kind of reinstate a sense of community,” Cifuentes said. “So when you are in a state of terror, the goal of the one inflicting the pain is to separate, to isolate, so groups are the best tool.”
Rocha, in her Chicago-based private practice, is also starting a Spanish-language virtual support group for people to process what they’ve witnessed and experienced. It will also offer support if someone can’t get individual mental health services, she said.
“They might not have the money to get mental health services … or they may feel like they are overreacting because we’ve heard that a lot,” Rocha says, adding that people who have legal protections or citizenship can feel like their anxiety isn’t warranted. “It doesn’t matter, right? The fear is real.”
A survey by KFF and the New York Times highlighted anxiety among all kinds of immigrants, including those with legal status and even naturalized citizens. Immigrants, with various statuses, reported experiencing increased stress, anxiety and worsening conditions like high blood pressure this year.
Rocha said the toll extends to people who have stepped up to walk children to school, alerted neighbors about federal agents and contributed to other community efforts.
“It feels good to be able to do something, however, we need to be able to take a break to reset our nervous system, to feel grounded,” Rocha says. “… It can be very scary and it can really distort the way you look at the world if you’re seeing just this hatred against people who look like us.”
Finding other outlets for healing
In Berwyn, Paiz says the women who attend her Spanish-language yoga classes talk about the emotions caused by the immigration arrests. That’s why she focuses on centering breathing exercises.
“It’s most important to maintain a sense of calmness and positivity during the hard times,” Paiz says.
In Pilsen, 18th Street Casa de Cultura recently launched a new space, Casa Ilumina, that offers workshops like herbal medicine, meditation and somatic therapy. Maya Zazhil Fernández, co-founder of Casa de Cultura, says many people at their events have been supporting immigrants through migra watch groups.
“Especially in this type of political moment when we are being attacked in this way, that kind of collective care and health becomes essential,” she says.
One workshop focused on how a person could activate a person’s body from the state of “freeze” during a crisis.
It was led by Mariana López, a Bridgeport-based licensed clinical professional counselor, who said the work was also personal: She comes from an immigrant household and has been running errands with friends who don’t have legal status.
“I feel like a guard,” López says, describing the constant state of hypervigilance she and others feel. “People are becoming very fearful to live life.”