Read: Standing up to Beijing, 30 years apart

These days, Sia messages Tiffany every week, asking her to move back to New York, saying that now is “the most dangerous time for Hong Kong.” But she resists, drawing inspiration from the current crisis to write a series of publications in which she declares Hong Kong “the world’s first postmodern city to die.”

But she is in the minority as someone who returned—many here have instead been looking for a way out. The Hong Kong–born population in Canada increased from 2011 to 2016 by a significant amount for the first time since 1996, and 42 percent of respondents in a survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong this month said they would emigrate if given the chance, with the top two reasons cited as political disputes or social conflict and “no democracy in Hong Kong.”

Some who have moved overseas have been instrumental in building support for the protests globally. Shu Yan Chan co-founded the group Democracy for Hong Kong in London after the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests. Since the recent demonstrations against the extradition bill heated up in June, Chan has been spending about five hours a day on campaigning. One June march in London, he said, drew as many as 4,000 people, who walked a mile from China’s embassy to the Hong Kong trade mission. (Some protests abroad have sparked conflict with pro-China counterdemonstrations, many of which have reportedly been orchestrated by Chinese diplomats. Lennon walls—makeshift boards to which people stick Post-it Notes with messages of support—have been vandalized and scuffles have broken out among groups, requiring police intervention.)

“It’s important for the diaspora to show solidarity so that the people on the streets in Hong Kong see they are not alone,” Chan said. “When I speak to people visiting from Hong Kong, they say it’s a big boost to morale.”

Chan and his group have also been lobbying British politicians to do more to support Hong Kong, and he sees the chaos of Brexit as an opportunity: Once Britain begins renegotiating trade deals, human-rights protections must be included in any such agreements, Chan argues.

Democracy for Hong Kong has also pushed media outlets such as the BBC to update stories, pointing to one instance in which the broadcaster removed quotes in a story attributed to the Global Times, a bombastic Communist Party tabloid. (The BBC said the quote was removed in the course of a regular update.) Most of the group’s efforts are focused on the fairness of stories, and it says it has successfully gotten publications to remove information from the Global Times in particular and give more context to government and police statements.

The Hong Kong diaspora has also, to an extent, mirrored the city’s polarized politics. Many who support the protesters have cut off communication with pro-government relatives and friends. Family group chats have descended into abusive language, mostly from old members, or complete silence, as the protests increase generational and spatial divides. Those who support the government bombard others with highly edited clips from Chinese state media portraying the protesters as a violent mob. One Hong Konger I spoke with, who asked not to be identified, told me that he no longer speaks to his parents as a result.