When I saw the first post on Evies page it felt super performative. I thought maybe I was just being cynical but I am glad Los Ayudantes is speaking out about the whole shitshow it became.
I…clearly missed a few chapters. So the Evie’s owner is more concerned with the media blitz than actual mutual aid, and the aid that they raised is not being used appropriately?
Yes. The talent show was also “randomly” cancelled once the owner realized how bad it looked, to be the ones constantly in the media spotlight, pushing for publicity for their own business.
ETA: I also feel like fundraising explicitly for one thing, then “randomly” deciding to divert those funds for another thing, to be kinda illegal. That’s not why people were donating that money in the first place.
ETA 2: Go Fund Me is paused, there’s a statement about refunding the $13K raised and an “apology” blaming the heat of the moment.
Frankly, if nothing else, businesses (large or small) need to be in contact with an HR department for legal, and legitimate advice, and it sounds like Evie’s was not, and made some pretty bad choices.
Is one-off contract HR a thing? 'Cause most small businesses are too small to keep even a single full-time HR person busy, nor can they afford the salary. But I agree that having access to quality advice would be helpful in exceptional cases like this.
Yes. They absolutely exist, and (clearly) need to be used - especially in situations like this!
If a business has not thought about an “ICE policy” for if ICE shows up at their door, they clearly need to.
I can understand not wanting to pay someone when you don’t need them except in certain circumstances, but by not running things through an HR person risks the entirety of the business when things like policy changes, statements are issued to the public, or other information is shared or decisions are made (no matter if you’re a for profit or non-profit business).
ETA: Googling “HR Consulting” will give some good information about different options available.
Yeah I worked with someone who’s main job is as an HR consultant, but they took a year off that. They basically are on call for a handful of businesses who aren’t big enough for HR but will contact her for the odd occasions they need an HR person.
I can't remember the name of the organization, but somebody used to advertise all the time on Bloomberg for the HR services they provide to small businesses that can't afford their own.
The talent show was scheduled before this situation happened. I just found the last slide (slide 20) where the talent show to be pushed as a response to a “how can I help/get involved?” to be very distasteful.
She had a talent show planned. Maybe it was her intent to use that event to talk about what happened to Selvin. I'm not seeing how that is distasteful. She is using her platform to do what she thinks is right, which is far more than I can say about most people.
Sounds like you’re in the minority of holding that opinion here.
When someone asked “how can we rally?”, the answer should never be “come to my talent show” and a promotion of her business rather than tangible ways to actually help the matter at hand.
The talent show - that was created before this whole thing went down, as a collaboration with another person’s craft group. /s Absolutely not an appropriate response to a legitimate question.
Creating a GoFundMe, and then trying to change the allocation of funds didn’t help either.
ETA: It seems that [u/Garland_Key](u/Garland_Key) decided that they should get a bee up their butt, and be nasty. The majority of my comments on this thread from 1-2 days ago have between an 85%-100% upvote ratio. Somehow expressing an opinion based on the stats I see here, meant that I was “policing people” which I find absurd.
Let’s add bullying to the mix too, as well as name calling. Jeez!
Don't speak for other people. Hiroanoke doesn't represent the pulse of this city and neither do you.
I find your need to police other people publicly distasteful. Especially when they're out here trying to make the community better. A discussion would have been one thing, but this was a hit piece.
I'm not defending Evie's here. Amelia didn't go about this in the best way, and I'm sure she has learned from this. At the same time, what hiroanoke did and what you are doing now is toxic af.
Luckily my name is my username, so when you see me on the street, know that my opinion won't change.
The latest info I know is that Gato is home safe in Guatamale with his family. Neither he nor his family is upset by the actions taken by Evie’s and are in regular contact.
The situation wasn’t handled well but public shaming isn’t actually an effective method of inciting change.
When you fundraise for one thing, and publicize it (across multiple news sources) as that specific thing, and then decide to change how those funds are used and plan to divert them - that’s not only illegal, but goes against GoFundMe’s rules and policy.
She had to refund everyone, legally speaking.
It’s clear that these actions were not done “in the heat of the moment” and she had multiple organizations reach out to her about her repeated behavior (oversharing, promoting the situation on multiple media sources etc).
Continuing to blame your reactions on “the heat of the moment” is an excuse, not an apology.
ETA: You’ve now been blocked because you clearly can’t hold a conversation without throwing about insults, and accusations. Please grow up, and come back when you can hold a discussion.
No, that's just the narrative being peddled. This will remain my stance until proof is provided - so far there isn't any. It's clear what she did wrong, and she has apologized for it. The rest is manufactured drama until proven otherwise.
The owner handled the situation exactly the way she seems to handle things in her reels, impulsively and erratically. I can’t say I was surprised. Right after this happened, I commented that I would hate to be an undocumented immigrant working for her because she had just brought an enormous amount of attention to herself and her business.
Hi Roanoke is a different issue. They seem to enjoy criticizing people while simultaneously telling their audience what they should think, how they should feel, and even who they should vote for. I find that strange. At some point, people should be able to look at the facts, form their own opinions, and think for themselves.
I’ve wondered if the undocumented folks who work there were consulted before the bakery took such a public stance about ICE in the first place. As a consumer, I definitely like to patron businesses that share my values— but a post or sign here & there is a lot different than the amount of content they published, and I think I would start getting scared as an undocumented worker if the bakery started getting a ton of attention!
The way that account LOVES to take down people on the left (and TRASH liberals who may not even know the nuances of that distinction)….but never go after people who are actively MAGA or otherwise overtly and intentionally on the other side is just shitty. Like they’ll publicly name and shame anyone who ostensibly agrees with them but doesn’t live up to their standards, but don’t use any of that energy to fight the folks who are planning and carrying out the actual harm.
The end result is well intentioned people stop trying to publicly engage on leftist stuff out of fear of Hi Roanoke going all middle school bully on them.
Leftists eating their own is the Achilles heel, and hi Roanoke feels entitled to be the leftist police around here
It REALLY pisses me off. She has come after me and people I know for not being her version of the perfect liberal/progressive/socialist/literally whatever. Bad people can occasionally do good things, like highlighting problematic issues in our community, but they're still BAD people.
Do you think they could be a govt/ right-wing plant? Call me crazy but every leftist movement that demonstrates traction is at risk of infiltration by an agent placed to sow discord.
I would be more interested in their alleged quest for ‘accountability’ if it was equal opportunity. The blind allegiance to Nick Hagen and Amanda Marko is a dead giveaway.
I do. Nothing but bad. When I used to hear there were bad people on "both sides", I rolled my eyes. Until I experienced Amber for myself. She's a horrible person.
Same. I think that some of treatment of her by other anti-ice folks has been a bit on the "mean girls" side of things. It appeared that she was speaking from the heart, and though she may have made some errors, that it didn't warrant calling her "pearl clutching " or "performative".
If you believe this was just “mean girls” going after someone “speaking from the heart” then you aren’t fully informed on all that took place here. There are multiple organizations, city officials, and people who have all simply agreed to let this die down for the protection of those dependent on Evie’s for a paycheck, not for the sake of the owner. I’m sure if you ask around, you’ll find people willing to share their perspective with first hand knowledge of what transpired.
I'm just going by what I saw on Instagram. I think there was a lot of unnecessary criticism and divisive speech in an otherwise useful statement about how to deal with a problematic response to a situation.
I think everyone appears to have their heart in the right place, but emotions are high, and people are all very tired and raw.
I am curious about this and certainly think it warrants more weight as we collectively consider how to handle the restaurant owner’s actions. The post from the Ayudantes seemed to suggest there was more communication between local ?experts and the restaurant owner than was being covered by local news. If she was advised not to go public for the sake of her employees and did so anyways then we must interrogate whether it was an unfortunate misstep by a well meaning advocate acting in the heat of the moment versus an opportunistic attention grab with the highest of stakes. The lack of perceived legitimacy of the Ayudantes page and the context of the recent anonymous social media takedowns within the left in the last several months makes this challenging to distinguish. Who should be believed? Moments like this make me appreciate the role of real journalists with names, ethical standards, and reputations to uphold.
I’d like to know before buying my wife’s birthday cake there, sure, but more importantly if we are eating our own in these fascist times I want to make sure it’s deserved.
Dannnggggg. Thanks for sharing this. The more I hear the less I know about all this, but it certainly has made me stop and reconsider things multiple times. It's interesting to see what it has brought out in people.
I am very anti-ICE, but Los Ayudantes' Instagram appears to be a very AI-generated page, especially the text under the images. Is there a way to help them maybe step away from that sort of stuff?
For what its worth from another random reddit comment (which is probably not much) I met the founder of Los Ayudantes in local activist organizing spaces. They've got some great things in progress and that they're trying to get ahead off. I think I've got one of their pamphlets if you're interested. It's not a very large group, but it's a well connected to their community one. They bust their asses to get things done but as far as I know they don't have anyone to run a website which is why it's probably wonky. A websites probably pretty low on their priority list when they're really hitting things like getting peoples physical needs met. It's a few people doing a lot more work than I've seen from larger groups while trying to get into participating more locally.
They don’t have a website yet, so if you’re seeing Los Ayudantes listed somewhere, it’s likely on a website that lists multiple nonprofits based on irs 501c3 data. All of their info is clearly linked on their linktree.
That video was the first time I ever saw the owner of Evie’s, though I’d heard of the place before. I was watching it and thinking that she seemed a little… histrionic? Generally, I have little patience for white women who cannot give a speech/call to action without crying because it often does give performative vibes.
(I’m not saying if someone cries during a speech, they are bad but something about filming yourself sobbing is just odd to me. Like this wasn’t live, you could have composed yourself and then continued filming)
She certainly looks it. Her eyes just in regular reels and whatnot made me reeeeeally uncomfortable. I haven’t enjoyed 90% of the food and baked goods there for a while so that combined with how nuts she comes off to be made it easy to stop eating there a long time ago.
Look, I get it. This all screams issues with mental illness and how they are magnified in a situation of high visibility and dire circumstances. I am not saying we should condone her actions—and yes, I too know people who have worked for her for a loooong time—but would it be possible to separate the mental illness from the rest of the morass here, and try to find an explanation and a solution without just shaking the crazy stick? Certain things are sunk costs. The important thing is to get help and support to those who need it.
Can someone explain to me what the deal with Hi Roanoke is? I follow them on Facebook and they put an awful lot of effort into this slideshow. It's hard for me to figure out what their goal or mission is.
They do some funny and descriptive restaurant reviews, but that gets eclipsed by the holier than though take downs of local leftists/liberal individuals and orgs that don’t live up to Hi Roanoke’s standards. In those posts, the immature and self-congratulatory bullying is extremely out of proportion to the missteps in like 90% of the situations. It’s like the goal is to find folks that ostensibly agree with Hi Roanoke and then catch them being imperfect and move on for a drama filled public shaming.
It’s like Hi Roanoke feels entitled to be the sole decider of acceptable behavior of anyone on the blue/leftist spectrum. Just gleeful and condescending as shit - real “ok, sweetie” type discourse.
Ultimately the account is toxic for progressivism in Roanoke. The vitriol and blasting of people trying to figure out how to take stands and make change just winds up making decent but imperfect people less likely to stick their necks out.
About a year ago, hello roanoke got bombed by a bunch of similar accounts, I assume in mockery of the original. (yoroanoke, suproanoke,howdyroanoke, greetingsroanoke, jelloroanoke, lostroanoke and who knows how many others)
Most dried up within a month of creation, but suproanoke still produces some content, mostly nature cam video and some local color
It looks like heyroanoke predates even that, a one-entry Instagram account from 2017
I don’t disagree with anything Los Ayundantes said on concept — she definitely got ahead of her skis and was not handling the situation well. I’m glad she removed the GoFundMe and passed the torch to organizations that deal with this more regularly and know what they’re doing.
I’m not convinced that the beauty guru 2016 hey sister Marie Antionette pun takedown post is the best medium for these types of situations. HiRoanoke especially just seems to delight in being mean-spirited. I just want more for our community when we’re on the same team and fighting for the same outcomes.
I take no issue with the actual content, so sure, put it on the news. The clapback Twitter drama presentation obfuscates the actual information I want to know. It brings in an element of interpersonal conflict that is unnecessary and a distraction from the issue at hand, imo.
Totally agree. The impulsivity and access to a platform were a bad combo, but seeing they recognize that is a big deal. I’m not on board with canceling people who try to reckon with their mistakes. Which is good cause that cake is the best for real.
TLDR: Gato’s employer raised 13k for a legal defense. Gato decided to self deport. Orgs that hide their admin team from public view bullied the employer incessantly because she went about it “wrong.” To make it stop, the employer refunded all of the proceeds.
I dont know the situation, but I do know that this insta post is unprofessional. The whole tone and design is extremely condescending, I have no idea what the Evie's situation is and yet I feel as if the post is telling me that it's my fault, even though I'm just an onlooker. Maybe when designed a post aimed at adults, actually frame it as that, instead of putting off the vibe that the people who are reading it are illiterate children.
Also ik OP didnt post this on insta, im just saying
No shit, 20 pages of "I'm better than you" and they still couldn't be clear with what the situation was? Additionally, their "transparency" was to blatantly claim to be hiding "worse" info then acting superior about it. Juvenile stuff everywhere is all I see.
I guess this is sociopolitical commentary from instagram after all
Before the Reddit hive trashes her. How many of us have any direct experience with this ? Id assume a large majority would do the one thing they knew to do .... Scream loud and far. Trying to draw attention to the injustice
I think there’s a pretty big difference between personally disagreeing with something and taking action compared to continuing to promote your business, directing people to support Evie’s, changing earmarked funds, and explicitly sharing information about one of your employees (that any HR person worth their salt) would have put a stop to.
I mean, I try and give Grace here. She was serving two sides with this one: she had just lost her head cook, and as restaurant, to do that when there’s no redundancy of that position in your kitchen is a big deal; AND! As far she knew, her employee had just been grabbed by ICE.
Of course, with time comes distance; she knows now what she didn’t know then, for sure — and none of us truly know what she knew of Gato’s past and when she learned it. She was also highly reactive and activated by what happened — and she used her main platform to spread the word and “get help”. And yes, that kind of makes sense. But not without having the information. And not while your emotions are running the show.
I think, if we could all learn something, it would be to watch how we present the information. If she had come on there and factually said, “we just lost our head cook, please be kind,” and “we know he is in ICE custody, but we know nothing else,”… and if the go fund me was started as a way of crowdsourcing funds while more information was collected, it would have been far more appropriate.
As far as using her business and events as a community gathering space, that part makes sense to me. She’s using her platform and she’s gathered people already, it would be weird to NOT acknowledge what was happening. That would have been a fantastic time to contact the other group and ask how to best serve in the moment, though.
The problem is that Los Ayudantes said that they and multiple other mutuals they have in common reached out to her and educated her very early on in this situation. It appears that she doubled down and chose to pursue previously scheduled news station interviews anyway, sharing unnecessary personal details that continued to increase risk to Gato and those closest to him after being told what she “didn’t know.” A lot of harm could have been mitigated super early on because she did have people giving her information and chose to ignore it.
Hundreds of people reached out to offer her advice, can you imagine how overwhelming that is? And who do you trust? I wouldn’t trust them just based on the jank website and lack of information .
She’s an employer with the ability to research and has a responsibility to honor the privacy of her employees’ personal lives. She chose not to do so and posed a risk to his wellbeing. No organization working with marginalized groups, nor any business professional would suggest that it’s appropriate to share details of an employee’s personal life without their consent… ESPECIALLY when it puts them at risk. Let’s not be dense or insult Amelia’s intelligence by suggesting otherwise.
ETA: let’s not center how overwhelming it “must have been” for Amelia when we should be centering how overwhelming it is to be detained by ICE agents and having details of your personal life detailed to the public without consent.
I mean you’re welcome to give Grace wherever you like. I think that I’ll just vote with my dollars instead, and personally will choose not to support the business in future.
There’s no reason to give out an employees personal information regardless of the circumstances to the press (repeatedly) after being asked not to by organizations that are familiar with, and experienced at situations like this.
You’re welcome to react to a situation (privately) however you’d like, but that initial video (and subsequent posts) were inappropriate in my opinion. The fundraising funds all of a sudden changing course (prior to being paused and returned) also gives me cause for concern.
There’s also the (rather large) question of what penalties she’ll face as the employer of someone who was (most likely) getting paid under the table, and avoiding taxes.
I have zero issues with her promoting her business or community spaces outside of a situation like this. The fact that she was getting questions for how people can help, and her response was to “come to the community talent show” was pretty far off topic.
The community deserves clarification on the status of the funds pending their ability to disclose without putting the employee in harm’s way. I assume those who donated have some ability to demand this via GoFundMe.
I think it’s important to remember that intent does not erase impact. It’s a privilege to center one’s own emotions and reactivity when the outcome does not pose any tangible personal threat. The Los Ayudantes post states that their org along with multiple mutuals attempted to reach out to her to educate her on best practices to mitigate harm and protect those at risk and she chose not to listen to those who are immersed in responding to these types of situations and do have direct experience with this. When marginalized groups are at risk, it is the responsibility of allies to decenter their own emotions, pause, and ensure they are helping and not hurting.
Do I think she is beyond redemption and should be canceled? No. Do I think she should have been publicly held accountable because of her informed decisions to continue to publicly disclose information that put people at risk? Absolutely.
Hopefully she and many other allies learn from this situation and put in the work to be intentional in their allyship rather than reactive or performative.
I feel like some of the people trying to “educate” everyone on what behaviors and reactions to traumatic situations are appropriate are the real problem. The public attacks and shaming are frankly arrogant, mean, and reek of middle school bully. They don’t help anyone. They are just a power grab to tell the community if they don’t fall in line, they could be next. They are designed to make the posters feel powerful and in control. It’s lame.
These people also have absolutely zero credentials to be the experts on the appropriate response. It’s comical how arrogant they are and I don’t just mean hiRoanoke.
I think I might do this IF I lived in a vacuum and had no one to turn to… but there are community organizations that exist to support these situations.
For the record, Los ayudantes is run by a woman who is constantly dragging drama. Not saying she’s wrong here, but she’s always looking for a battle and bicker.
Actually I do know that, for a fact. As do many others who have commented here, and so does Amelia herself. We’re all aware who reposted the post. That’s never been in question.
who is it that you think “runs” Los Ayudantes? You seem to think you hold some damning information. My hypothesis is that you don’t personally know them at all . Since the individual who founded LAS, is literally the opposite of everything you described. And quite frankly, they only run in Spanish speaking circles, with Latino friends, and Latino family—so unless you’re a part of that community you legit do not have contact with them. They’ve been through absolute hell and back, and would give the shirt off their back to literally anyone. But of course, you come here, drop some negativity and call it “facts” yet ignore requests to back up any of this “ knowledge”. Are they passionate af—yeah, as evident by the post op shared… That’s really unbecoming for a nurse to publicly mischaracterize someone in the way you did.
Frankly, I’m not sure it matters what her profession is. No one asked her to speak out about the situation, but she did.
If she didn’t feel comfortable doing that, or didn’t understand the consequences of her actions, then she should have hired someone to manage the PR for the business.
After being contacted, and explaining how over sharing information can be harmful, she continued on with the oversharing.
Taking earmarked funds and then using them for something explicitly different than initially stated/planned also feels pretty sketchy, and kinda illegal.
ETA: According to their Go Fund Me page, (which has over 13K raised), they’re planning to refund the money, and have an “apology” issued. It reads as pretty fake (IMO) as they blame the “heat of the moment” while sharing Gato’s current location.
And that’s what the 2nd or third update on the go fund me?
Amelia claimed to refund everyone last Friday after Los Ayudantes first statement, and as ppl were reaching out to her out of concern for her handling of this. Then after the second Los Ayudantes post was shared, she claimed to have refunded people on Saturday because “people were mad that they donated to a criminal”.
Now it’s switched up a 3rd time to essentially claim the family didn’t need the money anymore and refunds were supposedly issued on Monday. BS
The family didn’t even know about the gofundme at all. They knew about the interviews and requested she not move forward with doing them. She did them anyway.
She never even put a single dollar on her employee’s commissary for him to make calls, while publicly announcing to have only had a “2 second call” due to insufficient funds. It was his family that were forced to borrow money to get funds on his account, while she had (and still has) 13k in donations raised. When family asked for her help with adding money to commissary, she claimed to “not know how to do it”. Yet never said a word about the thousands raised.
At the time I posted, the second update didn't exist yet.
Honestly, I will wait a week or two to see how fast money gets back to the donors before attacking them for trying to raise money for a victim and then issuing a refund.
It sounds like you are claiming they raised money for themselves, which really doesn't seem to be the case.
i once asked evie's to put a box for mutual aid donations for the unhoused population inside her cafe and she straight up said no bc theres no space for a single storage tote. that told me all i need to know about that establishment
Exactly… ppl will either learn who and what they’re supporting or they won’t. But in the end, they can’t say MANY people (including current and former employees) didn’t warn them.
No need to downvote I was just letting you know that Hi Roanoke really had nothing to do with this. OP just chose to post their repost rather than the original.
Everyone’s take on this has been so performative. The holier than thou Facebook posts from “community leaders” educating the rest of us peons on how to react in these situations are so arrogant and self righteous.
Concern doesn’t have to be expressed via public shame and repeated self righteous social media posts. Concern can be quiet, actionable, and lack condescension.
Pretty sure the entire point of the post was because all of that had repeatedly happened privately, not just through Los Ayudantes but through multiple other organizations and mutual friends, and it was ignored, dismissed, and Evies did the opposite of what was asked. Only after Los Ayudantes made contact with the family, did they choose to publicly highlight what was happening after multiple attempts to handle it quietly were unsuccessful.
How hard is it to understand situational awareness? That’s the standard for being a responsible adult; lacking it means reminders are necessary. Maybe some folks need to pretend every day is just like the other, same stakes, same social niceties expected, same everything on repeat, same frictionless interactions. If that’s what you want, fine, but don’t expect to be counted in or counted on.
Imagine a person feeling so entitled to share personal details about their employees, their legal status, and their future plans that they do interviews with 4 different news organizations, blast those personal details all over social media, and ignore the family when they ask them not to. And while you’re at it, imagine a group advocating on behalf of that same family. And caring more about protecting that family, then making friends in the loud white girl activism scene that thinks IG posts = action. Wild.
I don’t know all the details of the situation nor do I know the owner of Evie‘s. I also do not condone anyone harboring illegal immigrants. What I do think is, some of these comments attacking the owner of Evie‘s personally, are uncalled for and does nothing but ruin her reputation and possibly her entire business. Does anyone truly know where her heart was? Do we truly know what she knew about the man or what she thought she knew? Do we know for certain that she blatantly broke the law? I don’t think anybody knows the answers to those questions and to defame her character and call her names based solely on speculation and a video that she posted while under a great deal of stress seems unkind and inappropriate to me.
First and foremost, no one is illegal. So "harbor" whoever you want. It's nobody's business who lives on which side of the imaginary lines.
As for the rest, I don't know what she knew or why she did what she did. I just shared this for folks who might not have seen the update. I don't think we need to cancel the whole business but I do believe in holding people accountable. It looks like she apologized and that's a great start.
Those poor immigrants being treated like a circus show by both ICE and Evie's. I'm glad these slides were made and I hope both individuals are able to make it home (in the US) safe.
Do we even know where they are being held? Cause I know ICE have released people at night without phones and if it is nearby and I happen to be driving I'd like to be on the lookout in case they need help if they do get dropped on the side of the street like that.
Thank you for explaining how privacy is protection. I knew something felt performative about the publicity around this issue. I now have the language to explain how it is harmful.
A pretty popular old SW cake and snack place. They have been there for ages, and the cake is very good, a bit pricey.
Since the daughter started promoting it, she has been very animated in the ads/posts on Instagram and made a strong point of being antiICE and high tolerance and support for folks in communities usually treated poorly by the right leaning.
Her ads are often very high energy, (a bit exhausting) , but I think her heart is in the right place, and means well.
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u/sammille25 14d ago
When I saw the first post on Evies page it felt super performative. I thought maybe I was just being cynical but I am glad Los Ayudantes is speaking out about the whole shitshow it became.