Notes from Los Angeles

Living in the suburbs of an occupied city

Los Angeles is described as 72 suburbs looking for a city, and I live in one of them. I used to live in a downtown loft above toy district shops, where the closest patch of grass to walk my dog was at the police station three blocks away, and I knew the unhoused people by name. I lived five miles from the destruction in Koreatown during the Rodney King riots in 1992 and could see the smoke from my roof deck while helicopters beat an incessant path overhead. Then I moved to a “suburban” artists loft community in the primarily Hispanic community of Lincoln Heights, just outside downtown, before migrating west to Hollywood and eventually south. When I gave directions through downtown, I gave them by freeway lane changes and numbered exits, and I knew every one-way street route to the best parking spots around the courthouse for my work as a private investigator.

I still drive through downtown once a week to take Logan to pipe band practice at Griffith Park. This past Saturday, traffic wasn’t any worse than usual, despite the protests at the Federal building. On Friday, ICE had taken 44 people from a garment district shop and a Home Depot after a week of raids on restaurants and elementary school graduations, and protesters had assembled in front of the Metropolitan Detention center where people were being held. I read about it while I sat in a beach chair at the park eight miles away, listening to pipers and drummers get ready to compete at the Chicago Highland Games this weekend. A gathering of Uzbekistanis were cooking lamb for a festival next to us, and a graduation celebration attended by primarily Hispanic guests was underway nearby. My anxiety flared every time a black SUV drove past the picnic area and I imagined what I would do if ICE suddenly descended on Griffith Park.

Since that Saturday drive through downtown, 4,000 California National Guard were “placed under Federal command” to be ready to assist in local efforts against the protesters, with 300 actually deployed at three locations in and around downtown, ostensibly to protect federal workers (ICE) and federal property. Around half of the 700 active duty Marines who have been ordered to L.A. arrived on buses last night, with the rest expected today, also charged with protecting federal property. For context, there are four federal buildings (3 courthouses and a field office) in downtown Los Angeles, with around 10,000 federal employees who work in those buildings. I can’t find specific numbers for the current ICE presence in my city, but the only damage to our federal buildings that I can uncover is graffiti reported at the courthouse and detention center.

The National Guard and Marines deployment in Los Angeles is estimated to cost $134 million, and despite that, Hegseth’s acting comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell supported the decision to send the troops, saying they are needed to protect federal agents. So American taxpayers will be paying for armed National Guard and Marines that California didn’t ask for because ICE feels threatened by protesters, and there’s graffiti on some federal buildings.

Meanwhile, the protests have been primarily peaceful, with speeches, dancing, flag-waving (both Mexican and American), and marching. A school board member from my district joined a protest yesterday to call for the release of a labor leader, and her live videos showed concerned citizens gathered to protest an illegal arrest. She was home a few hours later without incident.

Beginning on Friday night we could hear the echoes of the flash bangs that have been exchanged between law enforcement and whoever remains on the street at night. Rubber bullets, which are designed to be fired at the ground in order to bounce around and disperse crowds, have been shot directly at people’s heads, and while 96 people were arrested for failure to disperse, 1 person was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, 1 person for resisting arrest, 1 person for vandalism, and 14 arrests of opportunistic criminals were made for looting an Apple store, an Adidas store, a jewelry store, a shoe store, a pair of pharmacies, and a pot dispensary.

I am deliberately avoiding national news media’s reporting on this situation, and I’ve muted so many right wing social media accounts that I don’t know what the rest of the country thinks is happening in my city. I live here, and I only trust what I’ve seen from the live feeds of my friends, and from news sources based outside the U.S.

I have marched in previous protests in downtown L.A., and I remember the kindness and support of LAPD during the Women’s March of 2016. Despite the assurances of L.A.’s mayor and California’s governor that LAPD and CHP are here to protect L.A.’s citizens, I no longer believe that our constitutional right to assembly and our first amendment right to freedom of speech are protected or supported by those charged with upholding the law. I will not be taking my children to this protest like I did at March For Our Lives, nor will I be going with my girlfriends and mother-in-law like I did at the Women’s March. I will protest the barbaric anti-immigrant policies and practices, and the escalating tactics of the current regime with words – my thoughts, feelings, verified information and factual sources – as I attempt to keep my very real concerns about our rapidly diminishing rights from silencing my voice entirely.

The biggest threats to my safety are not the immigrants I’ve lived and worked next to for the twenty-five years I’ve been in L.A. I am not threatened by the transgender people the government has been targeting, nor the books the conservative right has been banning. I am witnessing the erosion of the fundamental freedoms of marginalized communities, and I know – with the certainty of someone living in the suburbs of an occupied city – that it is only a matter of time before they come for us all.