What’s next for LA’s Mexican-American community?

In 1976, the Ramirez Pharmacy opened in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles. Appropriately located on the corner of East Cesar Chavez Ave, the pharmacy is the crowning achievement of my grandfather, Eddie Ramirez, and is in many ways physical evidence of the American dream. 

But in today’s Los Angeles, we’ve seen citizens and non-citizens waving Mexican flags while torching cars, attacking police and burning US flags in protest of the Trump administration’s immigration raids in the state. Protesters have looted businesses downtown and lit fires, leading to full blocks of the LA commercial district nailing plywood to their storefronts. 

“Lately, since all this ruckus started with a protest, we have seen a drop in the business. People are afraid to come out, so we’ve seen a drop in foot traffic on the street,” said the current Ramirez pharmacy owner, my uncle Micheal Ramirez.

A little less than 200 years ago, California became part of the United States following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and English slowly began to replace Spanish as the dominant language. Only in the 1870s did English become the predominant language in public life, schools and government.

Tensions over President Trump’s immigration crackdown heightened last week as Senator Alex Padilla was removed from the Secretary Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security press conference. The incident provoked strong reactions on both sides of the aisle. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace called it “one of the bleakest days of anchoring” she’s ever had, adding that President Trump is to the “autocratic right of Orbán.” Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. “I think that that behavior at a minimum rises to the level of a censure.”

But Senator Padilla knows this: to frame immigration today in a context similar to when our grandparents came to the Golden State isn’t in good faith. In an interview with CBS, Sunday, Padilla attributed his home state’s accomplishments to its high immigration rate, saying he has “no disagreement” with deporting “dangerous, violent criminals.” But Padilla added, “There’s got to be a better way, a pathway towards legalization, a pathway to citizenship for ‘Dreamers,’ farm workers and others.”

Roughly 500,000 Mexicans migrated to the US during the boom of immigration in the 1920s, and just 150,000 settled into California at that time, when a little over 3 million people in total lived in California. 

More recently, the Department of Homeland Security estimates that California has received some 2.6 million undocumented immigrants in 2022, and the state’s population is 40 million. 

“I don’t think it’s right what Trump is doing, raiding businesses, people’s places of employment, schools, churches, shopping centers with his ICE agents. There must be a more humane way to do things,” Ramirez said.

Kim Kardashian, LA royalty and a close confidant of the President’s daughter, would agree. Last week on social media she said, “We can’t turn a blind eye when fear and injustice keep people from living their lives freely and safely. There HAS to be a BETTER way.”

Since the ICE raids began in LA on June 6, the Department of Homeland Security has released information about more than a dozen illegal immigrant suspects accused of crimes in the US who were arrested in Los Angeles. 

“These heinous criminals, including child abusers and pedophiles, are some of the illegal aliens arrested yesterday in Los Angeles. Why do Governor Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass care more about violent criminal illegal aliens than they do about protecting their own citizens?” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. 

Mayor Bass, who was infamously absent from the country as the Palisades went up in flames just months ago, blamed ICE for the unrest in her city. “I just have to say that if you dial back time and go to Friday, if immigration raids had not happened here, we would not have the disorder that went on last night,” she said on CNN.

Amid the chaos of the protests we must remember that regardless of the temporary horrors and division taking place in the streets, a silver lining will always remain: freedom to choose honor, respect and service to your community regardless of where you come from. 

Micheal Ramirez calls me “mija” and says proudly after a long day of work, “The Ramirez family has been serving the East Los Angeles community since 1953 the year that I was born. I joined your grandpa in 1978 when I graduated from USC School of Pharmacy and I’ve been there ever since and to this day the story remains.”