On family history, parenting, education, social issues and more
Author: Hettie D.
My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996.
I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future.
I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life.
As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.
Last Saturday, my neighbor R. asked me whether I saw her Amazon package: she saw a deliver photo, but when she came home, the package was not there. I didn’t see anything, so I couldn’t help her, but then, a similar thing happened to me: I received notification about delivery, but when I came back home, there was nothing. I even walked to the adjacent building to check their lobby, because sometimes, we receive their items and vise versa, but I saw through the glass door that their mailroom floor was empty.
Mine was rather expensive delivery (from Apple), and in addition, the item was personalized, so naturally, I was rather upset, and blamed myself for not texting R. and not asking her to pick up the package, and for being so careless, etc. Next, since the photo showed multiple parcels, I decided to email our condominium mailing list. I rarely do that, but I felt like that was a good reason.
My neighbor R., who’s package was missing two days earlier, followed up with her email, and about 10 minutes later, one of the adjacent building residents responded: there was a pile of packages in our mailroom today! Even though I already checked them, I went back one more time, and this time, entered the building. There was nothing on the floor, but when I looked up, I saw to packages on the first landing up, and guess what – those were my and my neighbor’s packages. I picked them up, returned to our building, and emailed a thank-you note, saying that it would never occur to me to go one flight up. The person, who pointed me originally to the right direction, replied:
We always walk them up. Till they make their way home. I saw a bunch and wasn’t sure who was who. Glad you got them!
Having that both myself and R. are on the third floor, it would take a while until people would realize it was the wrong building!
I am writing this post during the intermission, sitting in the first row of the Owen Theater in Goodman.
I am glad I decided to go, and made time to see the one before last performance,
I am glad I went on my own, not inviting any of my girlfriends.
The play is extremely loaded. A part of me wants to leave and not watch the second act, because I think it will be even more intense, but I won’t.
I worked from home today, so that I could see mom after work, and still go to Goodman. That scenario worked surprisingly well, so I think I will be doing it sometimes.
I am glad I am here. The second act is about to begin, unveiling a drama that’s way too close to what’s happening on the streets outside the theater. It’s a call for action, but I am not sure which one.
Starting from yesterday, digital IDs are in use in Illinois, and guess who was clicking on their Apple Wallet starting at 7 AM, waiting for a new option to appear!
On Tuesday, I hosted a Prairie Postgres meetup (blog post here)
And today, there was an ACM Chicago Chapter meetup, AI and Gamification: Why Students Cheat and How to Rebuild Learning. 🙄
Actually, it was not bad at all; although no revolutionary ideas. The more I listen to “what should we do with AI” presentations, the more I feel like absolutely nothing new happens in this area, and the scare of AI is very similar to the scare of inventing books, movies, television and internet:). The reason for posting is a rare group photo of almost all of the ACM Chicago Chapter Board (plus the presenter, and plus the Student Chapter leaders).
There were some interesting comments and discussions, but I am so much behind on my posts, that this will have to wait for later 🙂
Now tell me, why I didn’t know about this movie?! I dropped everything I was doing (and trust me, I had enough to do!) and started watching! (That was on Sunday, and I just finished it)
And from the opposite side of political spectrum. I didn’t save the link to the Time article, but here is the text:
Boston University student who claimed credit for reporting car wash workers to immigration authorities earned the praise of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the ire of his fellow students in recent days.
Zac Segal, who is the president of the university’s College Republicans club, said he had “been calling ICE for months” about workers at the Allston Car Wash, near the university campus, while sharing an article about federal agents detaining nine workers on Nov. 4.
“This week they finally responded to my request to detain these criminals,” he wrote on X on Nov. 7. “As someone who lives in the neighborhood, I’ve seen how American jobs are being given away to those with no right to be here. Pump up the numbers!”
Read more: The Trump Administration Escalates Its Battle With Sanctuary Cities: What to Know
Todd Pomerleau, a lawyer representing the workers at Allston Car Wash, said they had valid work permits but did not have time to retrieve them from the locker room before they were detained. Pomerleau said in a statement that the car wash was raided with “military-style” vehicles by armed and masked agents, according to the New York Times. One of the individuals arrested had been in the United States for 30 years, Pomerleau said.
Segal said he had received death threats in response to his post, and reposted, without comment, posts from other Boston University students that called him a “racist,” “fascist,” and a “Neo-Nazi.”
The BU College Democrats condemned Segal’s actions and said that for “the foreseeable future,” they would not collaborate with the university’s College Republicans club.
Meanwhile, the Republican club’s national group—the College Republicans of America—defended Segal, and recommended that other young Republicans follow his lead.
“We call on all College Republicans to follow in the lead of this great patriot and notify their local ICE forces of any suspected illegal activity in their communities immediately,” Martin Bertao, the national group’s president, said in a statement to the New York Times.
The clash over the raid on Boston University’s campus and beyond highlighted the deep political divide between Democrats and Republicans over President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda.
Segal, who did not respond to TIME’s request for comment, defended his actions in a post on X on Friday.
“I reported suspicious activity to law enforcement because that is what any American should do. My intention was simple: to protect my community and uphold the rule of law,” he said.
“Extremists have circulated my personal details online and sent death threats. No matter who you are or what you believe, threats and intimidation are unacceptable and should be condemned by everyone,” he added.
Many mistakenly believed Segal was British because a biography on the university’s athletics website stated he was born in the United Kingdom. Segal said in his Friday post that he was born in Florida and raised in the U.K.
The official DHS account on X responded to Segal’s post with one word: “Patriot.”
But the DHS told TIME the raid was not launched as a result of Segal’s tip.
“The operation was highly targeted and relied on law enforcement intelligence—not your silly rumor,” DHS spokesperson Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement.
The 615 detainees are from a list of roughly 1,800 arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Chicago area between June 11 and Oct. 7, and there could be more to come, Jon Seidel reports for the Chicago Sun-Times.
It’s not clear how many of the people covered by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings’ order remain in the country. The judge said he doesn’t want anyone released who poses a risk to public safety; he’s giving the Justice Department a chance to identify any such person.
But Cummings said he’s trying to restore the status quo that existed before the Trump administration recently changed its interpretation of immigration law. That policy shift imposed mandatory detention on people across the country who previously would have been given a chance for a bail hearing.
Agents detained many of the people while they were working, including 20 landscapers and four ride-share or taxi drivers. Seven were also arrested at an “immigration-related hearing,” Cummings said, and another 11 in public places like a park, gas station or Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru.
Brothers Sam, 16, left, and Ben Luhmann, 17, patrol the streets of West Chicago and St. Charles for federal agents looking to detain people on Nov. 7, 2025. The two homeschooled high schoolers started patrolling Sept. 15 after federal agents targeted their heavily Latino community. Since then, they have had numerous encounters with federal agents and have been threatened. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
PUBLISHED: November 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM CST | UPDATED: November 14, 2025 at 8:03 AM CST
With a goodbye to their mom, Sam and Ben Luhmann walked out the screen door of their West Chicago home on a recent weekday morning.
A few minutes shy of 7:30 a.m., Ben pulled their midsize sedan out of the garage as Sam stood in the driveway, adjusting the straps around his shoulders and checking his phone.
But the brothers weren’t gunning to beat the first bell at school. They were racing to find ICE.
At 16 and 17 years old, Sam and Ben for the past two months have made it their mission to follow, investigate and capture federal immigration activity across the Chicago area. It’s an undertaking the brothers say happened naturally after growing up in a household where social justice and civic duty were as much a part of their homeschool curriculum as math and science.
“If I get the opportunity to fight like this for the rest of my life, I would be totally OK with that,” Ben said.
Their efforts in the vast resistance movement against the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation in Chicago, represent the wave of youth activists who have been galvanized into action by Midway Operation Blitz, following a long tradition paved around the world by young activists, experts say. From Students of a Democratic Society protesting the Vietnam War to today’s Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg, the sense of injustice draws young people to act.
“We know in these moments … where there is deep distrust toward political institutions — where individuals and particularly young people are feeling quite dissatisfied with both political parties — that young people actually do engage in politics quite passionately,” said Matthew Nelsen, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Miami who also works as a research consultant for the University of Chicago’s GenForward Survey.
Earlier this month, students at New Trier High School in Winnetka who regularly volunteer with refugees and migrants in Chicago spoke out that the school is curtailing their volunteer efforts because of the blitz. In October, hundreds of Little Village students staged a walkout in protest of the crackdown. And on Mexican Independence Day in September, students from all across Chicago Public Schools organized a rally in front of Trump Tower to denounce the raids, their cheers of “Viva la Raza” and “Viva Mexico” echoing through skyscrapers down East Wacker Drive.
“(The youth) hold a lot of power to shift the direction of the country and how it’s working,” said Kate Rice, 52, a Rogers Park-based rapid responder, who has witnessed a number of younger people spring into action. “It’s time for them to take control, especially Generation Alpha. They’re young, they’re motivated, they’re angry … and I think this is the perfect time for them to start getting politically active.”
“Just the horror of it, I wanted to be able to fight it so bad,” he told the Tribune on a recent morning patrol. Sam sat in the passenger seat with a body camera strapped to his chest, his eyes glued to his phone for any reports of activity nearby.
His parents, both Wheaton College grads, have raised him and his seven younger siblings to see the humanity in everyone, Ben said. But from more than 2,000 miles away, he wasn’t sure what he could do. Then the blitz came to his hometown.
Sam Luhmann videotapes the vehicle of federal agents outside of the Kane County Judicial Center on Nov. 7, 2025, in St. Charles. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
On Sept. 15, Ben and Sam’s mom, Audrey Luhmann, got a text from a friend calling for someone to check reports of federal activity in West Chicago. Though she’d never received nor heeded that kind of request before, Luhmann’s gut reaction was that this is what she’s supposed to do, she recalled in an interview earlier this month. So she and her eight kids, even her 3-year-old, piled into their white passenger van.
By the time they arrived, activity had long passed. But that day introduced the family to other rapid responders. Within 48 hours, Ben and Sam encountered their first attempted federal immigration arrest in real time.
“I could finally do something,” Ben said.
Since the raids hit home, Ben and Sam, who have been homeschooled their whole lives, have balanced college applications and schoolwork with patrols. They’ve documented immigration enforcement from Carpentersville to Little Village. They’ve gone toe-to-toe with federal agents, asking officers questions and checking to make sure they’re abiding by court orders. And they’ve started to compile a list of plates on federal vehicles that appeared altered.
Every day is different. Last week, the pair spent a weekday morning primarily just monitoring usual hotspots and letting fellow rapid responders know areas were clear. But by the next day, they were going door-to-door speaking with neighbors about landscapers who had been detained in St. Charles and videotaping federal agents detain a man just outside the Kane County Judicial Center.
Nelsen, the University of Miami professor, said he thinks the uptick in youth political activism in Chicago is indicative of how younger residents are feeling about the current administration’s policies. Young people are also often drawn to extra-systemic forms of political action when they’re feeling cynical about their political institutions, Nelsen said.
“If they’re not feeling trusting of the government, they may be moved to take political action in realms that they feel are beyond the state,” he said.
Citlalli Santiago, 23, is a graduate student at the University of Illinois Chicago who became part of her local rapid response group after the presidential election. She said the raids have taken a toll on her own family but that moments like this illuminate the importance of a community banding together, to stepping in where government falls short. And she’s encouraged, she added, that younger voices are among those rising to the occasion because it’s a sign that progress is possible.
“I’m really proud of my peers (and the) people even younger than me because we’ve stepped up,” said Santiago, who recently moved to Pilsen but was born and raised in West Chicago. “I do think that things need to change, and if it’s younger people driving it, then I see more of a hope for the future.”
This week, the Tribune reported that after two months, the surge of federal immigration agents that descended on the city and its suburbs as part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz may soon leave as the controversial mission winds down, per multiple law enforcement sources. That doesn’t mean the enhanced immigration enforcement will end anytime soon, with sources saying the feds planned to leave in place a still-to-be-determined force of immigration agents.
And as long as that effort persists, even if and when their days of daily patrolling subside, the brothers will too, they say.
Sam Luhmann, 16, left, and his brother Ben,17, second from left, videotape federal agents detaining a man outside of the Kane County Judicial Center on Nov. 7, 2025, in St. Charles. While on patrol, they encountered the vehicles of four landscapers who had been detained earlier that morning as well as documented a man being detained outside of the Kane County Judicial Center after appearing for a routine court hearing. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
When the brothers first began, they thought they’d be patrolling for a week and a half, maybe two. But as operations stretched on, they’ve grown accustomed to being prepared for anything, to watching and waiting.
“It’s been weird getting home, from filming federal agents and being threatened to be arrested by them, and then having to work on college applications,” Ben said.
Ben, a senior this year, wants to go to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Ben likes to write and produce songs, and he’d like to make a career out of it someday. Sam, a sophomore, prefers to spend his free time outside, whether that’s fishing or going for a bike ride.
But because of the patrols, the brothers have started to learn more about politics, law and policy, so that while they monitor, they know not just what they’re looking for, but why.
Lately, Ben has been delving into Jose Antonio Vargas’ “Dear America: Notes of An Undocumented Citizen.” He was assigned the book by his mom, as part of his homeschool studies.
Homeschooling all but one of her eight children, Audrey Luhmann has always tried to imbue a social justice lens in her lessons.
“Let’s study the forgotten voices, you know,” Luhmann, 40, told the Tribune on a recent afternoon after her sons returned home from another patrol. Around her, the remnants of previous lessons painted her house’s walls, from completed coloring pages of moments in history to a map of ancient Mesopotamia.
Schooling aside, Luhmann herself is no stranger to advocacy. For the past four years, she’s been an activist in the church space. She’s also been resisting in her own right alongside Ben and Sam, helping deliver Halloween candy last month to two west suburban apartment complexes hit by immigration enforcement.
At night, she and her husband, a geology professor at Wheaton College, have been sitting down with their oldest kids to digest the day’s events.
And while her own aptitude for activism doesn’t keep her from worrying about Ben and Sam as they patrol (“I’m still a mom,” Luhmann noted), she knows the pull that has kept her sons on the front lines.
Last month, Ben and Sam were out monitoring a convoy of federal vehicles in Elgin when agents circled their car and pulled the brothers over. Pounding on their windows, the agents demanded the brothers get out.
“I’ve never seen a window shake like that,” Sam recalled. Sam had been recording the confrontation but when he opened his window, an agent took his phone and then pushed him against the car with his arms behind his back, he said. The agents threatened to arrest them for obstructing their investigations and endangering other drivers on the road.
But Ben, going on more than a year and half since he passed his driver’s test on the first try, maintained they always abide by the law and try to track federal activity from a distance.
Eventually, the agents let the brothers go with a warning.
For a while afterward, Ben and Sam just sat in their car, processing. They meant to head straight home, but then more reported activity started to come through. They decided to carry on.
That’s a through line for the brothers. Should the blitz subside, Ben and Sam say they plan to redirect their efforts to supporting those affected by operations full time.
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“(I think) this really changes my perspective,” Ben said, “for the rest of my life.”
My subscriptions keep me busy :). My neighbor and I went to the “Hell’s Kitchen,” which was a part of our Broadway in Chicago subscription. I never read any reviews before I go to see the show, and this time was not exception. I was not prepared to what I was going to see, but loved it. As it turned out, the reviews were mixed, so it’s good that I didn’t read them beforehand:).
I loved the show itself, but even more, I loved the reaction of the audience: everyone was so moved by what was going on on stage, aaahed and ooohed, and gasped when the mother slapped her daughter in the cheek, and burst into applauding after each musical number.
And on Friday, I went to Carmina Burana at the Lyric. That was a part of our Lyric subscription, but my neighbor told me from the very beginning that she won’t be interested, so I took my friend Y. with me. She loves music, but she never heard Carmina Burana, and it was a real treat to give her this experience. Also, she never sat that close to the stage in the Lyric Opera building, and she said that she would rather get one ticket that close instead of ten tickets on the very top. And I agree!
Hettie's Reflections 