A letter from the anti-ICE demonstrations
Every June, I look forward to the blooming of the jacarandas. These quintessential Los Angeles trees line the streets, and gentle breezes send their lavender blooms falling gracefully to the pavement. It’s a sign that the Los Angeles summer will soon be in full swing, with outdoor concerts, plays, films, food festivals, sports, farmers markets, art crawls, swap-meets, flea markets, and family evenings spent eating tacos, desserts, and fresh fruit from street vendors. Families begin to plan their children’s summer stay-cations and celebrate their graduates with carne asadas (Mexican-style barbecue cookouts) and backyard and front-yard parties that fill the street with laughter and music. This month, for the first time since the January fires, a peace began to settle in Los Angeles—until it was abruptly interrupted by federal agents.
What happened is well known: masked men in unidentifiable uniforms indiscriminately raiding streets, schools, businesses, and homes, refusing to spare even young Latino U.S. citizens from detention in their mass deportation roundups. In response to the understandable outrage and protests that followed, Trump—with dubious legality—sent in first the National Guard and then the Marines, inflaming the tense situation even further. Governor Gavin Newsom was exactly right when he said: “Donald Trump’s government isn’t protecting our communities, they’re traumatizing our communities, and that seems to be the entire point.”
The misleading images of chaos and vandalism—perpetrated by a minority of the otherwise-peaceful protestors—that soon circulated through the news media failed to capture what life has been like here for the majority of Angelenos. Indeed, reporting has mostly neglected the fearful impact such a concentrated police and military presence has on people throughout the city.
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https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/los-angeles-trump-ice-protests-national-guard-immigration
