Is it true that translation creates the basis for a new commons? If so, how? The video essay How Do Animals and Plants Live? is an inquiry into the forcible eviction and immediate demolition of the self-organized anarchist-supported migrant squat Orfanotrofeio in Thessaloniki, Greece, in July 2016. An on-site interview with a young West African migrant, detailed exploration of the bulldozed ruins of the old orphanage, and performative translations from a Greek-language children's schoolbook (How Do Animals and Plants Live?) that the filmmakers found (amid the rubble when they broke into the site)—these elements are all interwoven with strikingly relevant yet unexpected visuals sparked by questions translated directly from the book. Such visuals pointedly wonder: how is this possible? While extrapolating on the assertion that “no one is illegal,” the essay actively yet unobtrusively demonstrates the continuing viability of such anarchist principles as self-organization, autonomy, solidarity, assembly, and direct action, in relation to ongoing migrant struggles, at an historical moment when the status of the refugee has become a global paradigm.