Gonzalez’s story isn’t unique—it’s part of a broader wave of young Mexican Americans reclaiming space through style, even when it means standing out. For Maritza Ortiz, a 24-year-old legal administrative assistant in Newport Beach, California, that choice came with a deep desire to honor her family. “With everything happening around ICE raids and mass deportations, I felt hurt,” she says. “Immigrants deserve to be here. We helped build this country.”

She began looking for more strategic approaches to showcasing her background at her corporate job. She wore ribbons in her braids in traditional red, white, and green hues, a bold red lip, and even a Virgen María tee tucked into her baggy jeans. Ortiz sensed some stares. “I could feel people looking at me like, What are you doing?” she says. But when she shared her story online, her videos struck a chord. Hundreds of Latinas began responding with their own braid selfies. “It made me feel less alone,” she says, “like part of something bigger.”

Fashion as a vessel for cultural memory runs deep, especially for those living far from home. Ximena Avilez, 28, a Mexican woman living in Maine, tells me that dressing up has always been a bid for connection to her birthplace. After moving to Colorado in her early 20s and encountering blatant racism, she reached for pieces that reminded her of the flea markets and jaripeos she grew up with. “I wore huaraches, hoop earrings, braids, and a spoon ring engraved with the Aztec calendar,” she says. She also tattooed her ribs with a line from Pablo Neruda: soy y sigo (“I am, and I continue”). “It became a mantra and a quiet defiance. I refused to let who I was die.”

But expressing your heritage through style can come at a cost too—especially at a time when policy is being shaped by people who reduce our families to case numbers and statistics. The outfit your grandmother wears can make her a target—a reminder that even existing is a risk. Gonzalez remembers being stared at on the bus while wearing the outfit featured in his video. “Passengers left the seat next to me deliberately empty,” he says, recalling another time when a woman told others that Mexican men were robbing women in the area—while looking directly at him. Avilez remembers the sting of middle school ridicule for speaking Spanish or wearing her hair in braids—small choices that made her a target before she could even understand why.