The city\u2019s transformation has long drawn national attention<\/a>, little of it positive.<\/p>\n Signs posted on at a Huntington Park store ask customers to knock because of the recent federal sweeps. The shop is on Pacific Boulevard, once a busy hub before the raids.<\/p>\n (Genaro Molina\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Some have blamed the corruption scandals that seem to spring up every few years<\/a> on the makeup of the City Council, which has been majority Latino for the past generation. <\/p>\n Then-Mayor Tom Jackson stepped down<\/a> in 2000 after he was caught on tape saying, \u201cWe have to come to the realization that the entire country of Mexico cannot come to California, and if we make it tough for them to come here, they won\u2019t come.\u201d By 2015, however, Huntington Park had become so hospitable to immigrants that a city councilmember appointed two of them living in the country illegally<\/a> to serve on city commissions \u2014 a first in California. <\/p>\n Sanabria feels this reputation has led the Trump administration to punish Huntington Park with high-profile actions, using force better suited to a battlefield: \u201cThey know our demographics. They know exactly who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n On June 12, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accompanied ICE agents<\/a> to Huntington Park, with a film crew tailing her. Two weeks later, federal agents blew out the front door of the home of a U.S. citizen who had accidentally crashed into a government vehicle<\/a>. At least four raids have hit the city\u2019s Home Depot. Sightings of migra are broadcast on social media almost daily.<\/p>\n A senior DHS official did not respond to Sanabria\u2019s allegation or say how many people have been detained in immigration sweeps in the city, noting only the total number of \u201cillegal aliens\u201d detained across Southern California in recent weeks. <\/p>\n Whatever the exact number, the federal show of force has driven many in the city \u2014 one of the densest in California \u2014 underground. <\/p>\n Businesses aren\u2019t open or display signs stating that walk-ins aren\u2019t welcome. Popular restaurants like El Gallo Giro and Tam\u2019s are mostly empty. The weekly farmer\u2019s market at Salt Lake Park is a proverbial ghost town. Traffic flows faster. Events and classes are canceled. Once-buzzing neighborhoods are quiet.<\/p>\n At a resource fair organized by local nonprofits a few weeks ago, Isabel Rangel and some friends picked up free fruit cups and toiletries. It was the first time the women had left their homes in weeks \u2014 and only because the giveaway was on their street.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t even gone to work,\u201d Rangel said in Spanish as her friends nodded. A DJ spun cumbias whose melancholy words clashed against happy rhythms. <\/p>\n Edgard Ornelas, 39, has seen fewer visitors at the weekly Harbor Area Farmers Market in Salt Lake Park.<\/p>\n (Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cThe kids don\u2019t even want to go outside, even though they\u2019re from here. They just say, \u2018La migra, la migra,\u2019\u201d added Rangel, a Mexican immigrant who works in a factory and has lived in Huntington Park for 24 years.<\/p>\n Pacific Boulevard, where mid-century buildings evoke a bygone era, is desolate. Even a victory by Mexico\u2019s men\u2019s soccer team over the U.S. in the July 6 Gold Cup final<\/a>, which would usually inspire fans to spill onto the sidewalks and streets, drew only a few cars waving the Mexican flag.<\/p>\n On a recent day, Juan Perez stood outside a quincea\u00f1era shop that houses his photography business. He leaned on a plastic display with postcards highlighting his work and red business cards educating people about their rights if ICE detained them.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been so dead that business owners now get to park right in front of our stores,\u201d the 37-year-old said with a weak laugh, as if he needed to find a silver lining. \u201cWe\u2019ll be lucky if we can get to the end of the year this way.\u201d<\/p>\n A few blocks down, Paola Martinez sat in front of her mother\u2019s massive clothing depot, which has stood on Pacific for 35 years. It was 1 p.m., and I was the first person she had greeted all day.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a sadness here, but what are we going to do?\u201d the native of El Salvador said. \u201cWe can\u2019t do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the longer ICE agents sweep through town, the more residents are doing something about it.<\/p>\n Iris Delgado, 33, has strolled the Home Depot parking lot nearly every day with a cart of water bottles for day laborers and a cellphone to occasionally livestream. The L.A. County Department of Health epidemiologist is a co-founder of the Huntington Park Run Club, which regularly met up for jogs until the raids.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would go on runs and realize, \u2018Hey, ICE picked up someone there. Oh, God, there\u2019s another place,\u2019\u201d she said shortly after helping to lead a morning protest calling for a boycott of Home Depot for repeatedly allowing ICE onto its properties<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t identify as an activist. But are we going to let this happen? The basic guideline of a good community is to take care of each other, so we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n She checked in on Susana Moreno, who has sold burritos and tortas from the back of her SUV at the Home Depot for two years. The Mexican immigrant witnessed the June 9 raid.<\/p>\n \u201cThere used to be five of us vendors here,\u201d Moreno said in Spanish. \u201cNow, I\u2019m it. I\u2019m a citizen. But believe me, I\u2019m scared.\u201d<\/p>\n Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores<\/a>, a former Marine, has appeared at news conferences with other Southern California mayors, including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass<\/a>, demanding that ICE stop its campaign. In media interviews, he has denounced the deployment of his fellow Marines across Southern California \u2014 despite his concern that his appearances will put an even bigger bull\u2019s eye on his city.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point, there\u2019s no point in trying to tone down our voices,\u201d said Flores, whose parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles became U.S. citizens through President Reagan\u2019s 1986 amnesty<\/a>. \u201cNow, we have to be as loud as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n A man sells flags at Pacific Boulevard and Florence Avenue in Huntington Park in 1998.<\/p>\n (Luis Sinco\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n In the 1970s, when Rosario Marin was a teenager recently arrived from Mexico City, deportations were a part of daily life in Huntington Park.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom would come home from work and say \u2018Mija, la migra came,\u2019\u201d said Marin, who served on the Huntington Park City Council from 1994<\/a> until she was appointed U.S. treasurer in 2001<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019d come in, and people would just run. They\u2019d be caught, and you\u2019d see them within a week.\u201d <\/p>\n Her family was part of a stream of Mexican migrants who moved into Southeast L.A. County as the region\u2019s factories shut down and white residents left<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nearby cities, including Cudahy, Maywood and South Gate, also saw dramatic demographic shifts. But nothing matched what happened in Huntington Park, the region\u2019s oldest city. The percentage of Latino residents went from 36% in 1970 to 97% just 20 years later<\/a>.<\/p>\n The local and national media were transfixed. A 1990 Times story<\/a> reported, \u201cNowhere in Southern California has the dramatic influx of Latin American immigrants been more acutely felt than in Huntington Park.\u201d A New York Times article<\/a> that same year called the city a \u201ctesting ground\u201d for whether California could successfully acclimate Latinos into its fabric; a 2000 follow-up<\/a> deemed it \u201ca citizenship incubator.\u201d Frequent clashes between Mexican soccer fans and police on Pacific \u2014 especially a 1998 free-for-all that led to 31 arrests<\/a> \u2014 prompted dispatches painting the place as an out-of-control Mexican colony. <\/p>\n Sanabria, the city councilmember, grew up during this era in unincorporated Walnut Park, on the south side of Florence Avenue from Huntington Park. His parents were Salvadorans who entered the U.S. without papers after fleeing their country\u2019s civil war. But deportation wasn\u2019t a fear for his family and friends. The 37-year-old remembers the city he affectionately calls \u201cHP\u201d as a cultural oasis, where he played soccer in parks and spent weekends walking up and down la Pacific.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was such a safe bubble for me that I didn\u2019t realize what we were until I went to school at UCLA,\u201d he said. \u201cEverywhere else as a Latino, you\u2019re the \u2018other.\u2019 In HP, you\u2019re the \u2018normal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Marin also came back after her time in D.C., drawn by the area\u2019s Latino essence. <\/p>\n \u201cI have seen who we were, and am very proud of who we are,\u201d she said. \u201cNo matter where I go, I say I\u2019m from Huntington Park, and there\u2019ll be someone who says, \u2018Mi t\u00eda llego all\u00ed [My aunt first arrived to this country there].\u2019 Everyone knows Huntington Park because we\u2019ve [Latinos] been there for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s why Marin, who now lives in Walnut Park, thinks the mass deportations hitting Southern California<\/a> are \u201cheartless\u201d and that Homeland Security\u2019s claim of focusing on violent criminals is \u201cnonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n Huntington Park official Jonathan Sanabria holds fliers announcing the postponement of community events due to the immigration raids.<\/p>\n (Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n As a councilmember and mayor, she pushed for police to crack down on gangs and people selling fake green cards<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThey [criminals] threatened me and followed me around, so I know how difficult it is. Let\u2019s take them out,\u201d Marin said. \u201cBut el paletero? Give me a break.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the former treasurer of the U.S., and I now feel like I have to carry my passport with me at all times,\u201d she concluded. \u201cThat shows you the level of fear this community feels toward its government.\u201d<\/p>\n On July 7, the city council unanimously declared Huntington Park a sanctuary city. The council has set aside $150,000 to fund food distributions and connect residents with legal aid, also approving a requirement that federal agents identify themselves to police when asked.<\/p>\n Flores knows that the federal government has sued Los Angeles over its sanctuary policy<\/a> and that Noem published a list of similar municipalities in May<\/a>, stating that they were \u201cendangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.\u201d But he\u2019s willing to take the chance of angering the feds even more.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know how in school, we talk about moments in history that are blemishes?\u201d Flores said. \u201cWe are in the middle of one of those historical blemishes \u2014 we\u2019re literally at the heart of it. That doesn\u2019t mean that we stay home with our arms crossed. That means we need to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n Garibaldi, the Huntington Park High principal, is preparing for a school year of uncertainty. Meanwhile, band and cheer camps are happening on campus. The football team is holding summer practices. The staff has been trained in case la migra shows up. And he\u2019s already counseling nervous students.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want them to accept this as the new normal,\u201d Garibaldi said. \u201cIt\u2019s not. It can\u2019t be. Because it would mean brown communities are being attacked and that\u2019s OK. No way. It can never be accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Huntington Park High School Principal Carlos Garibaldi was preparing to host a graduation on his campus when frantic…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2451,2385,13045,41494,19226,24255,2321,41490,5410,2961,224,5337,3546,41493,41492,41491,2452],"class_list":{"0":"post-56594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-city","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-deportation","13":"tag-entire-country","14":"tag-few-year","15":"tag-front","16":"tag-home-depot","17":"tag-huntington-park","18":"tag-ice","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-people","23":"tag-rosario-marin","24":"tag-southern-california-imagination","25":"tag-u-s-citizen","26":"tag-week"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114834112758272407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n
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