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On some level I was aware that life seemed different in our Los Angeles neighbourhood, but it took my teenage daughter to identify exactly what was missing. “The fruit man is gone,” she said early last week.
She was talking about the kind, mustachioed man who sells cups brimming with fresh watermelon, mango and pineapple, topped with a sprinkle of tajin — a mixture of chilli, lime and salt — from a corner just off Sunset Boulevard. We were accustomed to seeing him most days, sitting under a brightly coloured striped umbrella behind a big chest full of ice and fruit. I don’t know his name; we greet each other as “chief” or “boss”. My daughter always comes back from his stand with a cup piled impossibly high with ice-cold, freshly sliced fruit. It’s too much to eat in one sitting.
We hope he is just lying low. The worry is that he is being deported by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who fanned out across Los Angeles last month in raids across the city. He isn’t the only familiar face we haven’t been seeing lately. The usual crowd of flower sellers and street-food vendors has also thinned out.
When word broke on June 6 that ICE was raiding a nearby Home Depot store, where immigrant labourers gather in the parking lot to pick up day jobs, my wife got a call from someone we know who does this kind of work. He asked if the stories about the raid were true. He had planned to go that morning, but instead he decided to stay at home — and has been doing so ever since.
That raid, along with the arrest of dozens of immigrant workers at a downtown fast-fashion warehouse, sparked protests that are now in their second week. The demonstrations are at the centre of a clash between President Donald Trump and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom. Trump sent in the National Guard and the Marines to control the protests over Newsom’s objection, setting off court challenges and a debate about states’ rights. In our city, however, the prevailing view is that sending in the troops has been overkill, an act of theatre by a president who loves spectacle and conflict.
The raids have terrorised immigrants in LA — a so-called “sanctuary city” where co-operation with federal authorities to enforce immigration law is limited — and across the country. The Trump administration says it is arresting “illegal immigrant killers, rapists and drug dealers in droves”. But what Americans are starting to see is roundups of immigrants who work in restaurants and construction, wash cars, tend lawns and clean hotel rooms. That is why protests broke out last weekend across America. Voters seem to be in favour of deporting criminals, but draw the line at cruel policies affecting hardworking immigrants trying to get ahead.
On one of our school chats, a parent said she was not sending her son to campus for the final days of classes for fear of having him snatched by ICE agents. She’s not making this up: the city’s top school official has taken precautions to prevent ICE agents from rounding up students at their graduation ceremonies this week.
The family is in the US legally, but this does not guarantee safety. “ICE is taking citizens too. Stay Safe,” says graffiti scrawled on a lamppost near where our fruit-selling friend sets up his stand. The graffiti writer is correct.
“The federal government has taken American citizens into custody — not just undocumented people,” our district’s councillor wrote to his constituents at the weekend. “People are being disappeared and given no access to their family or a lawyer.”
The usual vibrant street life around us has slowed in the days since my daughter noticed the fruit-seller’s absence. Last Friday, the weekly neighbourhood farmer’s market was lifeless and nearly empty. The people selling bouquets of sunflowers and bunches of eucalyptus, the fruit and vegetable vendors and the street-food stalls were gone. What is usually a teeming community event just looked like a blocked-off street.
Community spirit is now taking on a new form. “Report ICE,” says graffiti on a different lamppost. “Keep your neighbors safe.”
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