Throughout her life, Jackie Ramirez has been conscious of her skin tone.
Hermorenita, the tiny brown girl, was the nickname given by the school crossing guard. The uncle who lovingly referred to a country girl as Herpaisita.
But this month, with immigration officers swarming Southern California and making hundreds of arrests, skin color has never been more important. Stories and videos of people being arrested at car washes have gone viral. Without a warrant, agents are removing street sellers. A Latino American citizen inquired as to which hospital he was born in.
It is often established that those who drive while Black have increased anxiety. However, the recent immigration sweeps have shown the significant impact that skin tone and other associated circumstances have on Latinos.
East Los Angeles is where Ramirez was born and reared. Her father is Mexican, while her mother was born in Mexico.
Ramirez, who hosts The Cruz Show on Real 92.3 in Los Angeles, stated, “You’re afraid to be brown.” Right now, you’re afraid to look a certain way.
The alleged racial profiling of agents has been refuted by the Department of Homeland Security. Claims that people are being singled out due to their skin tone are repugnant and completely untrue, according to agency spokesman Tricia McLaughlin. However, this hasn’t allayed worries that individuals with darker skin tones will be more likely to be stopped by immigration police.
California
A U.S. citizen is arrested on assault charges by Border Patrol personnel on roaming patrol. As Home Depots and car washes are searched, there is growing concern about rampant racial profiling.
Children of Latino parents in the United States are being cautioned by their parents to exercise caution when they leave the house. Passports are now often carried in the pockets of some people. Employees at a Santa Ana coffee shop advise patrons to take care of themselves and encourage loved ones to text them when they arrive home.
Even Latinos with lighter skin tones have voiced concerns. Recently, 24 year old Franchesca Olivas traveled two hours from Hemet to attend a demonstration in downtown Los Angeles. She claimed that because I am half-white and her dad is pure Mexican, she drives him about because he is afraid of being stopped.
South Bay lawyer Taylor Tieman wrote on Instagram Threads, “I’m a white-passing, third-generation Latina, and I’m scared.” I sincerely apologize to my siblings. You are being let down by this nation.
Nico Blitz, Ramirez’s Filipino American fiancé, emphasized the raids’ effects on people of all races and ethnicities in a different post that has now received over 8,000 likes.
Filipinos, especially in the eyes of ICE, your legal status does not imply that you are not brown. The Cruz Show’s DJ host, Blitz, made a post. Black folks and Latinos are not alone in this struggle.
According to studies, skin tone has always had an impact on Latinos’ and other Americans’ lives. Less money, a poorer socioeconomic standing, and more health issues are some of the drawbacks associated with darker skin.
Sixty-two percent of Latino Americans asked by the Pew Research Center in 2021 stated that they believed having darker skin hampered their chances of success. Additionally, 57% of respondents stated that their skin tone greatly or somewhat influences their experiences in daily life, and roughly half of them stated that racial or skin-color discrimination is a major issue in the United States.
However, skin color has created an additional layer of anxiety in the context of President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Tribal people were allegedly being harassed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities in January, according to Native Americans.Nine congressional Democrats wrote to Trump expressing their concern over a number of alarming allegations about the harassment and incarceration.
Members of Native American tribes are citizens of the United States. According to the letter, it is never appropriate to stop someone because of their appearance, including dark skin, Asian, Latino, or Native American features. It is unconstitutional and un-American for ICE to engage in the deadly practice of harassing Americans based only on their appearance.
According to a U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson, ICE officers wrongly detained a deputy U.S. marshal in Tucson this year because he matched the general description of a subject that ICE was looking for. The agency did not specify which description the deputy U.S. marshal suited.
According to the statement, the deputy U.S. marshal left the premises without incident when other law enforcement officials verified his identity.
In early June, as immigration officers accelerated arrests throughout Southern California, L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis issued a statement alerting constituents to the fact that individuals were being singled out due to their skin color and occupation.
Solis, whose father is from Mexico and her mother is from Nicaragua, claimed she has never felt more under threat.
In an interview, Solis stated that it is an assault on people of color as well as our immigrant population. I am aware that many people—including those with whom I am acquainted, friends, and coworkers—have mixed-status families, and that many of them are afraid to even go to work or drop their children off at school. And our economy is suffering as a result.
Asians were being targeted because of their appearance at the height of the COVID outbreak, according to Solis.
“It’s Latinos now,” she stated.
While strolling with his sons on a recent weekday, Martin Chairez, a minister at a Santa Ana church, paused to snap pictures of the National Guard soldiers stationed outside Orange County’s Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse. There, he had brought his sons to offer his prayers for the neighborhood.
Chairez arrived in the United States at the age of nine after being born in the Mexican state of Nayarit. Among the millions of immigrants brought to our country before the age of sixteen, he was a so-called Dreamer. Additionally, he benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which let these undocumented youths to lawfully work, travel, and pursue higher education.
Despite being married for 20 years, Chairez said that his wife was unable to apply for his legal status until their eleventh wedding anniversary. He is now a permanent resident of the country.
Chairez said he witnessed refugees and asylum seekers from Haiti, Ukraine, South America, and Central America while he was a director at a border program in Tijuana.
The fact that no one from Russia or Ukraine is being arrested or deported when they shouldn’t be is quite telling. With his hands on his hips, Chairez remarked, “They also came here seeking opportunity and escaping war.”
He remarked, “I think it’s revealing that people from Europe are not being targeted, but people from Central and South America are.” And once more, not only should they not be, but so should the citizens of South and Central America.
Chairez’s wife is Black, and his boys, ages 12 and 14, are mixed-race. “I’ll have to have those conversations with them about what it means to drive while being a Black man when they get older and learn to drive,” he said.
That now applies to practically every part of our life, not simply those circumstances, he remarked. Will we be singled out when we go shopping, to the grocery store, or even just to go on a walk? We appear to be in a constant state of vulnerability, which is not acceptable. That isn’t fair.
Nearby, Chelsea Salazar, 23, rushed back to her parking meter in Santa Ana after snapping photos of the National Guard. Salazar, a Corona resident and daughter of immigrants, said she d heard of a raid on the 91 Freeway, which she takes to go home from her job as a behavioral interventionist.
That s when she realized she had left her ID and her passport at home. Salazar, who struggles with anxiety, said she panicked and asked a friend to stay at her home while things calmed down instead of getting on the highway. Despite being a citizen, she claimed to have wondered if they would believe her. And what will they do to me?
I definitely did feel like I was going to probably get singled out or looked at different, she said.
Carlos Garcia Mateo, a 24-year-old U.S. citizen, said his parents are documented and just got their papers after 20 years. The Santa Ana resident pointed out how long it takes for people to become U.S. citizens in the country and said he has his own fears.
If I step out of my house, am I going to get racially profiled? he asked. People like to allude to Nazi Germany and it kind of is. Capture first, ask questions later. What precedent does that set?
On Father s Day, more than 50 people gathered at Avocado Heights Park in the San Gabriel Valley for a march against deportations and raids. At a house near the park, a handwritten sign in Spanish offered goat milk for sale. The animals bleated from behind a wooden fence.
Residents of the equestrian community gathered on horseback an American flag draped over one rider s shoulders in cars and on foot for the more than three-mile trek to City Hall under an unrelenting sun. People held signs that read, La Puente heat melts ICE and I drink my horchata warm cuz I hate ICE!
Music wafted out of cars in the procession and from a speaker that people wheeled along the route. Their soundtrack included Los Tigres del Norte s Somos M s Americanos We are more American. The band sang of being yelled at a thousand times to return to my land.
I want to remind the gringo: I didn t cross the border, the border crossed me, the lyrics rang out. America was born free, man divided it.
Ramirez and Blitz joined the caravan, seated in the bed of a black Toyota Tacoma truck. Ramirez s brother, sister-in-law and 4-year-old niece were inside. Ramirez waved a Mexican flag; Blitz an American one.
I need the Filipino community to realize we are brown too. No matter what we do, we will not be white, our skin will not be white, said Blitz, who was born in San Francisco.
We might have our legalization. Our parents might be legal, he said. But regardless of the fact, I feel that whenever ICE agents are out, they re not looking for the papers. They re not looking like, Hey, where s your passport? They re looking at the color of your skin.
When they reached La Puente City Hall, Ramirez and Blitz sat on the grass. Organizers urged attendees to register to vote if they were eligible and called out the groups of people who had been taken by immigration agents. Fruit vendors. Car wash employees. Construction workers.
My elote man, a young woman shouted.
These are meaningful members of our community, Samuel Brown-Vazquez, with the Avocado Heights Vaquer@s, told the crowd. Agents are not going after the criminals; they re going after the people who came here to work.
Nearby, someone held a sign that read,Sin miedo y con orgullo.
Without fear and with pride.
Ramirez joined in as the crowd began to shout:S se puede.Yes, we can.
Times staff writer Summer Lin contributed to this report.
