Cries of Defiance and Songs of Joy in Los Angeles

The protesters are being called unspeakably violent by the Trump administration. I mostly saw clergy sit-ins and Tejano bands.

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LOS ANGELES—By happy coincidence, the city is currently bathed in purple. The jacaranda trees seem to bloom later and later every year, and right now they are dropping their violet flowers across streets and sidewalks. This served as an unintentional tribute to David Huerta, president of the California chapter of the purple-and-yellow-clad SEIU union, who as of Monday morning was detained in the bowels of the downtown Edward Roybal Federal Building for a third straight day.

In response, thousands of Angelenos flocked to Gloria Molina Grand Park to sing, dance, chant, and demand Huerta’s release. By mid-afternoon, they got it—along with a federal conspiracy charge that the Department of Homeland Security was in such haste to produce that they redacted the name of the special agent supplying claims in an affidavit, only to reveal that name halfway down the page. (It was Ryan Ribner.)

The crowd in Grand Park, and at a handful of downtown hotspots on Monday, mixed intense anger at Huerta’s detention, the immigration raids he was protesting when he was injured and arrested, and the presence of National Guard troops at the Roybal Federal Building, with determination, pride and even joy. You could see mini-reunions break out in the crowd, people reconnecting to join in common purpose. (I had a couple of these moments myself.) Los Angeles has thus far emerged from four days of protest with a clear set of goals: driving ICE, the National Guard, and apparently now the Marines from the city and county. And there’s a sense of this as a beginning, a cross between an organizing kickoff and a backyard barbeque, complete with the ubiquitous bacon-wrapped hot dog carts, manned by migrants as well.

The spasms of defiance, impressive though they may be, are scattered. Practically the entirety of the city is going about its business, blissfully unaware of what’s mainly taking place within a five-block radius. Even from block to block you could encounter nothing, followed by a combination of cries of “¡Chinga la migra!” (“Fuck the border patrol!”) and Tejano music. And while lingering images of burnt-out self-driving Waymo cars continue to play out on television and social media, the mood and spirit on Monday was overwhelmingly peaceful. The tensest standoff was led by clergy.

Trump’s escalation of federal forces may yet produce the violence he so eagerly seeks. But it’s just as important to note that these federal forces are not really doing anything, confined to the perimeter of the federal building and nowhere else. It’s unclear what Marines will do other than line up behind them. The front lines are manned by LAPD, armed with flash-bang grenades and less-lethal munitions and a gallery of other weaponry.

The idea that anyone must be deployed to defend heavily armed officers from “increased threats,” as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth squawked Monday night, could not be more ludicrous, unless you identify threats as teenagers holding signs.

THERE WAS NO POLICE PRESENCE at the noontime rally to free Huerta, where upwards of 2,000 people listened to music and speeches. At one point a line dance broke out. Amid online discourse about the proliferation of Mexican flags, the most common banner I saw was a hybrid flag: part U.S., part Mexico or El Salvador or another country of heritage. “I grew up in this city, my mother was a drug addict and my Mexican next-door neighbors took care of me,” said one man in a Dodgers cap when I asked him why he was carrying the flag.

Simlarly, when I asked people why they were down at the protests, the most common answer was some variation of “because I’m Latina and these are my people and we have to be here to support each other.”

Virtually every union in Los Angeles, including the ones representing Hollywood production personnel, had their own contingent at the rally. “David Huerta is my brother,” said April Verrett, international president of SEIU, from the stage. “What he would say is to use this moment to stand up for workers everywhere… We’re not going to stop until ICE leaves us the hell alone.”

Iconic labor leader Dolores Huerta, Los Angeles County Supervisor and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, NAACP president Derrick Johnson, and others spoke from the stage. But once I dipped out of the rally and further into downtown, the remnants of the previous night’s protests were visible, as was the trappings of the police state.

LAPD had blocked off the street around City Hall, and were standing guard in front of all the entrance lanes to the 101 Freeway, where protesters broke onto on Sunday. The police presence, amid graffiti that alternated between “Fuck ICE” and “Fuck Trump,” was massive and growing, as helicopters circled overhead. (LAPD has claimed broken windows, but I walked all along the Civic Center complex today and only saw tagging.) A gaggle of cop cars with lights flashing would periodically dash across the streets, and police vehicles from the cities of Bell and Vernon dotted the landscape as well.

In front of the Roybal Federal Building on Los Angeles Street, which was tagged with the line “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty,” I met about two dozen younger protesters preparing to march. One, a young woman in a black tank top, was present Sunday night, when cops pushed back the crowd after an unlawful assembly was declared. “All of a sudden, thick smoke comes out and they tear-gassed everybody there, when no one was doing anything,” the woman said.

Like a substantial number of the protesters, she was Latina, someone whose grandmothers and grandfathers came to America in search of a better life. I asked her why she came out in the first place.  She replied: “Because the world sucks and I want to make it better.”

Further down Los Angeles Street, a couple workers from the city were attempting to wipe off graffiti from the building facade. “He’s an immigrant and they’re making him clean it up!” said a passerby to no one in particular.

AROUND THE CORNER, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FEDERAL BUILDING, an interfaith coalition had sat down in front of the intersection of Alameda and Aliso, with maybe 100 protesters and luminaries (including state assemblymember Isaac Bryan) behind them. “Donde estas las familias?” they chanted, and periodically songs like “We Shall Overcome” broke out. Cars and trucks passing by honked their approval repeatedly.

On the other side of the intersection was a phalanx of LAPD, and further down Alameda were the National Guard, mostly standing around. Reports came out today that Guard members slept last night on the floor, in another example of the slapdash nature of this effort. A guy who drove down for the protests from San Francisco told me that some were sleeping in the Humvees that transported them.

“This whole thing was unnecessary, because the mayor, the governor, Jim McDonnell, the chief of police of LAPD, they didn’t ask for this,” said Daniel Tamm, a deacon with the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles who worked for former mayor Eric Garcetti. “This is meant to punish people who are standing up for their rights.”

While attention has focused on the Guard troops downtown, ICE raids continue throughout Southern California, including in the heavily Latino city of Santa Ana. With few outlets for detaining migrants, the Roybal Federal Building was one of the few places to deposit them. So periodically, unmarked vans, without even government plates, would drive up, forcing the crowd to part so they could enter the building. This was when tensions reached their highest point. A few people threw water bottles at the advancing vans; one man swiped at one with an umbrella, to the disapproval of the crowd. “Peaceful protest homie!” one woman snapped.

As a van marked as Border Patrol pulled up, with a detainee visibly inside, a man in a white T-shirt stood in the road in front of it. He had his phone out, pointed at the driver. He was livestreaming the whole thing. After about a minute-long standoff, LAPD gently encouraged the man to move aside.

I went up to him. He said the cops didn’t lay a hand on him, just told him he should move. That was a far cry from the night before, he said. “One of the cops was swinging his baton,” he told me. “A guy next to me got beat up pretty bad. I still have his blood on my shoes.” I looked down, and sure enough, he did.

Every fifteen minutes or so another group of cops would roll up from behind the row of LAPD, moving into position for some action that never came. At one point a cop with a bullhorn asked everyone to make their way to the sidewalk because “we don’t want anyone to get hurt,” which was met almost universally with snickers. The clergy were having none of it; the intersection was public property.

“We’re people of peace and we want peace, the president is forcing violence and provoking people,” said Tamm. “We know that in the end, nonviolence is way stronger than whatever the president is trying to provoke here. And ultimately we will win this because the people are more powerful than small-minded narcissists.”

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA has sued the Trump administration for commandeering and deploying the National Guard, which a president can only do under “dire, narrow circumstances” not in evidence in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, the final thing I saw on Monday was so opposite to an emergency that it could almost be submitted into evidence.

A crowd of a few hundred protesters had marched along the bridge over the 101 Freeway and toward the historic El Pueblo de Los Angeles, a public park featuring a gazebo and a statue of King Carlos III of Spain. Just as the protesters had taken root on the gazebo and begun chanting, a massive semi-trailer rolled up, with a five-piece Tejano band in the bed of the truck. The band, Los Jornaleros del Norte, is made up of day laborers; the lead singer had a “Fuck ICE” shirt on, while a man holding another hybrid U.S./Mexico flag hung off the back. And the entire crowd shifted its attention to cheer raucously along to the music.

Suddenly, the protest had transformed into a celebration of the culture of Los Angeles and the roots from which it came. People waved their signs in time with the music and beamed as they danced and sang their free expression. Representatives of Homeboy Bakery, a local business that employs former gang members and at-risk youth (“Nothing stops a bullet like a job” is their motto), started giving out scones and pastries. Others handed out water.

“Los Angeles is amazing,” one spectator said to me. I have lived here for over 20 years, and I never felt that sentiment as strongly as in that moment. These protests, which have been abbreviated in the media as “unrest,” were actually a cry of hope, and a reminder of the human need for community, the need to turn to each other to find something to believe in.

As day moved into night, LAPD mobilized to kettle protesters and push them back from the  Roybal Federal Building and the Civic Center area. But the infinitesimally small number of acts tarring the proceedings with a dubious tag of violence cannot compete with the core reasons why people are in the streets. Thousands are willing to rise up against the snatching of their family and friends and neighbors. Thousands more are likely to join them in the coming days. Sometimes, a snowball only gains momentum when it rolls downhill. Especially when accompanied by guitar and accordion.

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