I Don't Want To Write This Manual

On cowardice, kitchens, and the quiet dignity of those who hold Los Angeles together.

I’ve been watching the news like someone watches a house fire from the sidewalk.

Not close enough to feel the heat, but close enough to smell the ruin.

There’s a way politicians speak, a kind of polished indecency, that hits harder than the outright cruelty. It’s the grinning, dead-eyed candor with which they talk about people. Human beings. They speak as if they can’t hear what’s being said. As if they’re inventory. Collateral. A problem to be handled.

And then there’s the rest of them, the ones who aren’t exactly cruel, just cowardly. The “leaders” who stand behind podiums and trip over euphemisms, unable or unwilling to call the tyrant in charge what he is. They speak in half-condemned press statements and vague tweets. They float on terms like “concerning developments” while real lives are shattered. They know what’s happening, and they refuse to name it.

That’s not politics. That’s complicity with studio lighting.

I grew up thinking leadership meant something. That it carried weight and required a spine. But now, I see people with microphones and titles freeze like deer anytime the temperature rises. They measure every word like it’s a stock tip. And while they waffle, families are torn apart. While they hedge, ICE moves in silence, dragging people from sidewalks and kitchens.

This isn’t about “law.” This is about cowardice. A rot that runs deep. A failure to stand up when it’s hard, when it’s unpopular, when it might cost you something.

So yeah, I’m angry. And no, I’m not surprised.

Because I’ve seen who really holds the line in this city. It’s not the politicians. It’s the line cooks. The dishwashers. The prep team who shows up at 4:30 a.m. and the servers who walk home late at night. It’s the people with the most to lose who show the most courage. Meanwhile, the ones with power are either hiding or performing, too busy positioning for the next election cycle to show a shred of human decency.

And in the middle of it all, people like me are being asked to write guides — literal step-by-step instructions — on what to do if armed agents come through the front door of our businesses looking to take someone away.

It’s absurd, it’s heartbreaking and it’s the America we’ve allowed to happen.

You want me to write a fucking manual? Fine.

But before that, let me tell you about a recent Sunday.

I’d closed the restaurant the night before — one of those long, last day of the week shifts — and I wasn’t supposed to open the next morning. But plans changed, as they tend to do in this line of work. So there I was, slightly bitter, sleep-deprived, making the first drinks of the day, counting down the minutes until I could step outside for some air. And in walks one of our Oaxacan chefs. Smiling ear to ear like it was a holiday.

“¿Qué pasó, Nick?” he beamed, arms wide. We hugged.

I smiled in spite of myself. I was still shaking off the grogginess, but something about his energy cracked through it. We got to talking, in Spanish, or at least my best attempt. I stumbled through the grammar, chasing vocabulary I didn’t fully have, and he waited patiently for me to catch up. Laughing gently when I veered off course, helping me finish my thoughts like a good dance partner does when you miss a step.

We talked about sueños and familia, about food and music and where life was taking us. Not a single word about prep lists or recipe development.

Just two people hanging out.

Two men in a quiet kitchen before the troubles of the day really settle in.

No hierarchies. No uniforms. No borders.

That’s the heart of it.

Because I didn’t get into this work to write policy. I got into it to build something that feels like that moment, shared language, even when the words fall apart. Real connection. Human heat.

My dad is the son of immigrants. He remembers what it’s like to be on the outside looking in. An Italian family being called ‘The Dirty Monicas.’ My family worked in construction, in kitchens, behind the scenes. We built the kind of places other people get to walk into and feel like they belonged. But belonging has nothing to do with birthright, it’s built, earned, cooked and shared.

Both café’s I’ve opened, every late-night fix, every sunrise delivery run — it’s immigrants who showed up. With tools and tamales. With soul and with no expectation of glory.

And yet, here we are. I’m drafting a damn emergency protocol for what to do if ICE shows up at the restaurant. Writing instructions on where to hide. Who to call. Which lives to protect.

And I hate it.

I hate it because I don’t want to reduce anyone’s worth to an argument about how “productive” they are. They’re not statistics. They’re not liabilities. They’re not a line on a budget spreadsheet or a stream of tax revenue.

They are the heartbeat of this city.

You want to talk about culture?

Los Angeles without immigrants is just an empty set. A fake stage. No pupusas in Westlake. No dim sum in Chinatown. No al pastor on Venice Boulevard at 2 a.m. No boleros echoing out of a backyard birthday party. No color, no chaos, no joy.

And don’t forget: this is all stolen land anyway. Every fence, every deed, every parking enforcement sign — it’s all just paint over a map soaked in memory. We inherited a land of stories and turned it into an unrecognizable web of concrete and broken dreams.

My neighbor enjoying the morning newspaper.

I have seen leadership. Just not where they keep telling me to look. It’s not at press briefings or campaign rallies. It’s not in the cowardly doublespeak of polished men in flag pins. It’s not in the ones who wait for polling data before deciding if something is wrong.

Real leadership shows up every single day — early, tired, unpaid for the extra hours. It shows up when the order printer breaks and the health inspector’s knocking and someone calls out sick. It’s in the patience of a prep cook teaching me how to say sueños correctly, even though I keep butchering it. It’s in the unshakable calm of a dishwasher who’s seen more in one lifetime than most senators could stomach.

It’s the undocumented single mom who opens a café at sunrise after putting her kids on the bus.

It’s the line cook’s who greet me with joy every damn day.

It’s the polisher who covers someone else’s shift without being asked because she knows what community actually means.

That’s leadership. It’s not loud and it’s not vain.

It doesn’t need applause. It just gets the job done — every day, with grace and grit.

So while politicians posture and playact, while they dodge responsibility like it’s a full-contact sport, our neighbors — our coworkers, our friends — are holding this whole thing together with bare hands and stubborn hope.

And yet, those are the same people being hunted, harassed, and humiliated. Not because they’ve done anything wrong, but because they weren’t born in the right zip code.

So no, I don’t want to write this manual.

I want to burn it.

I want to live in a country where it doesn’t need to exist.

But until then, I’ll write it — and I’ll write this, too:

That we know who the real leaders are. That we see you. That we stand with you.

And when history looks back, may it remember not the silence of the elected, but the dignity of the undocumented.

Love,

Nick