withdrawal of hundreds of agents<\/a>, so maybe a corner is being turned.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re blowing $20 on coffee, right?\u201d Clem said. \u201cBut here\u2019s $20 you can spend on something and really feel like you\u2019re getting some kind of return on it. \u2026 Throw me 100 whistles, and we\u2019ll get them into the hands of people that might make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schodorf joined us with a cleaned-out whistle rack that said \u201cFree Ice Alarms\u201d on it, and said he\u2019d be glad to fill the rack with Clem\u2019s contributions. Before long, it was loaded up with 100 whistles and placed on the front counter.<\/p>\n
When I asked Schodorf about joining ranks with the whistle brigade, he mentioned his wife, Cafe de Leche co-owner Anya Schodorf.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe grew up here, but she was born in Nicaragua,\u201d he said, and it\u2019s hard to not to get involved when \u201cthey\u2019re just profiling people right off the streets. I mean, nobody feels safe \u2026 and they\u2019re charging the brown people, right? My wife would identify as that, and she\u2019s afraid to go out of the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schodorf said they\u2019ve been scrambling to keep the business running after they lost their Cafe de Leche restaurant in the fire that tore through Altadena a year ago. A photo of them in the ruins of their other shop hung on the wall, along with other photos of the destruction in Altadena.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what to do,\u201d Schodorf said about the ICE tactics in Highland Park and beyond, \u201cbut I feel like we want to raise the voices of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
His wife entered the shop and greeted friends and customers before joining us. She has been a U.S. citizen for decades, and yet she feels as though the color of her skin makes her a suspect.<\/p>\n
![\"Anya](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770297672_191_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Anya and Matt Schodorf, owners of Cafe de Leche in Highland Park, talk about their fears about ICE in the community.<\/p>\n
(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can scream from the top of your lungs that you\u2019re a citizen, and they don\u2019t care,\u201d Anya said. \u201cI honestly can\u2019t think straight \u2026 and it\u2019s really hard for me to concentrate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anya said she walks and sometimes runs on Arroyo trails but has begun taking extra precautions, like calling her husband and leaving the line open. She went to a park in Pasadena recently and got worried after entering a restroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard \u2026 a commotion outside and I got nervous,\u201d Anya said. \u201cAnd then I came out and saw ICE people kind of harassing the workers, like city workers. They\u2019re city landscapers, and I panicked. I went back into the bathroom, like, what do I do? And why should I be panicky? I\u2019m a citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her kids are just as concerned about her as she is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my son I really worry about,\u201d Anya said. \u201cHe says, \u2018Make sure you have your passport.\u2019 Yeah, my kids. They\u2019re really worried. And my son is like, please be careful. \u2026 It\u2019s that additional stress that they don\u2019t need \u2014 that they have to worry about me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Schodorfs said ICE agents recently grabbed a neighborhood fixture \u2014 a guy who sells tamales.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just picking people off, right and left,\u201d Matt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s like 72,\u201d Anya said.<\/p>\n
The first whistles delivered by Hector Flores were gone before long.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a matter of hours,\u201d Matt said. \u201cI think it\u2019s twofold. It\u2019s people who think they might need it just for themselves, but it\u2019s people who feel like they might need it for other people. \u2026 It\u2019s been wildly popular.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a good country,\u201d Anya said. \u201cBut we\u2019re falling into the hands of people that are cruel and they don\u2019t really care about anyone but themselves, and they are enriching themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clem said that at rallies, he\u2019s making sure to offer whistles to vendors.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople selling hot dogs and churros,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re asking how many they can take for their families and friends, right? I want them to take as many as they can. I\u2019ve got 1,500 of these things sitting on my dining room table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clem said he was never really a protester, but \u201canyone who has eyes can see\u201d the alarming level of corruption coming out of the White House.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad fought in the Battle of the Bulge, right?\u201d Clem said. \u201cMy dad fought Nazis and fascists in World War II, and he was always warning me growing up that it could happen here. So now, the least I can do is pass out whistles.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Clem\u2019s whistles were on display at the counter, one of the first customers was Hana McElroy. She ordered a coffee and took a whistle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a nanny, and I pick up a couple of kids from their preschool and I know and love so many kids with parents in pretty tenuous situations,\u201d said McElroy, who is Irish American. \u201cIt\u2019s just been a scary time to be an Angeleno.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Hana](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770297672_60_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Hana McElroy, right, picks up a free whistle while ordering a cup of coffee from Soleil Hernando at Cafe de Leche.<\/p>\n
(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
McElroy said she knows some of the Latina nannies who take their charges to the little park across the street from Cafe de Leche, and she worries about them too.<\/p>\n
McElroy showed me a whistle on her key chain but said it was broken. Soleil Hernando, a barista, told her after she\u2019d taken one of Clem\u2019s whistles that they were free, and she should take as many as she wanted.<\/p>\n
McElroy grabbed another.<\/p>\n
steve.lopez@latimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frank Clem, a pickleball pal of mine, recently put out the word that he was collecting whistles to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":568155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[247360,1582,35375,276,36155,247358,1532,247361,13381,4572,14443,18996,2961,190789,224,2444,5337,247359,3546,72506],"class_list":["post-568154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anya","tag-ca","tag-cafe","tag-california","tag-coffee-shop","tag-frank-clem","tag-friend","tag-hana-mcelroy","tag-highland-park","tag-hundred","tag-ice-agent","tag-kid","tag-la","tag-leche","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-losangeles","tag-matt-schodorf","tag-people","tag-whistle"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116018235816053928","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568154","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=568154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770297671_301_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n