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When Sen. Alex Padilla was forced to remove from a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Christa Noem, it was as if Donald Trump’s most used topic came to life:
Bad hombre tried to chase after white Americans.
What Padilla did was to identify herself and try to question the Norm about the Southern California immigrant raid that led to protest and fear. Instead, federal agents pushed the senator into the hallway, pushing him to the ground, handcuffing him before he was released. He and Noem spoke personally afterwards, but she insisted on the reporter on Padilla “lungs”.[ed]”They are far apart and despite the video that doesn’t show evidence to support her laughing claims.
(The claim was in line with this week’s NOEM declaration. On Tuesday, she accused Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum of encouraging violent protests in Los Angeles when the president actually settles down.)
The portrayal of him as a modern Pancho Villa by conservatives operating Padilla on Thursday is a bit unsurprising. Abandoning people from Mexican heritage was one of Trump’s most successful election boards. Don’t forget that Mexican immigrants began the 2016 presidential election by declaring them “rapeers” and drug smugglers. You could be a new Jalisco guy. It is possible that their ancestors have their roots before Mayflower. That’s not important. For centuries, the default stance in this country is to see people who are skeptical, if not skeptical, and have a relationship with our neighbors.
It was the driving force behind the war for Mexican-Americans, and the robbery of land from Mexicans who decided to stay in the conquered territories that followed. This was the basis for the legal separation of Mexicans in the Southwest of the United States in the first half of the 20th century, continuing to promote the stereotypes of excess women and criminal men living in mainstream and social media.
These anti-Mexican sentiments are why California voters passed numerous xenophobic local and state measures in the 1980s and 1990s, when state demographics began to change dramatically. Conservative politicians and critics argued that Mexico was trying to reclaim the American Southwest, calling the plot “Reconquista” after a centuries-long push to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors during the Middle Ages.
The Mexican flag will be raised at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on June 8th, 2025.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
The echoes of that era continue to echo in Magalland. That’s why people described it as a city surrounded by “immigrant invasion” when Trump went to social media and began opposing all the migrant raids that kicked off LA last week, leading to the deployment of National Guard and Marine Draconia, as we affirmed in the Iraq War. The White House Instagram account was led on Wednesday to share an image of Uncle Sam in the stern who painted a poster above the slogan saying “help your country… report all foreign invaders” and “help your country” above the phone number for immigration and customs enforcement.
That’s what led us to Atty. Bill Essay posted a photo on his official social media account after he was arrested for allegedly blocking the path of an ice agent trying to provide a search warrant at a factory in the clothing district. That’s why Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called on the National Guard before planning a protest in San Antonio, one of the cradles of Latinos political power in the United States and home to the Alamo. That’s what Defense Secretary Pete Hegses said he wanted to change the name of a naval ship in honor of Chicano legend Cesar Chavez, and announced it was the only US military base named after Latinos. The Texas Cabazos drop that name.
And that is what drives all the furious reactions to activists waving the Mexican flag. Vice President JD Vance described the protesters on social media as “rebels who raised foreign flags.” White House Deputy Chiefs of Staff Stephen Miller – Trump’s longtime anti-immigrant Iago – describes LA as “occupied territories.” The president slimmed out the protesters as “animals” and “an enemy of foreigners.” A speech to Army soldiers, pre-registered for his looks and loyalty at Fort. This week, North Carolina’s Bragg vowed that “the only flag to win over Los Angeles is the American flag.”
The overly obsessed obsession with parts of red, green and white fabric betrays this deep and deep-rooted fear by Americans that we Mexicans are fundamentally invaders.
And for some, the idea certainly seems true. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States, multiple in California, almost the majority in LA and LA counties, with Mexicans far more of the largest segment of all these people.
The truth about this demographic Reconquista I have written over a quarter century is much more mediocre.
Lupe Padilla, then Los Angeles City Councilman and mother of current U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, is able to wipe out tears after watching a video presentation of his career at the final city council meeting in 2006.
(Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times)
The so-called infringement of my generation was assimilated to the point where our children were named Brandon and Ashley in all sorts of spellings. Young adults and teenagers on the streets chant ice in English as they are now wrapped in Mexican flags, blowing up, “They don’t like us.” More than a few National Guard troops, police officers and Homeland Security officials had thought that those young Latino activists had Latin surnames in their uniforms. Hell, enough Mexican-American voted for Trump and undoubtedly rocked the election on him.
Mexicans assimilate to the United States. In fact, too many Americans would not believe us no matter how many American flags we wave. The best personification of this reality is Senator Padilla.
This son of a Mexican immigrant grew up in working-class Pacoima, went to MIT and returned home to find a political machine that voiced Latinos in the San Fernando Valley. He was the first Latino president of the LA City Council, serving in both rooms in the state legislature and as California Secretary before becoming California’s first Latino US Senator.
Last year, when I met Padilla for lunch at Santa Ana’s wife’s restaurant, we can see the National Guard blocking some of it in the city’s historic Latino district of Cale Quattro. In fact, it has always been a progressive criticism of him. He was too kind to confront the Trump administration properly.
That’s what makes Padilla ejection particularly outrageous. He is a senior California Senator in California, and anyone with sufficient security clearance was in the same federal building where Noem was holding a press conference as Nomen held an earlier meeting with General Gregory Gillott of the Northern Command. Tall, brown and voiced, Padilla is quickly recognized as one of the few Latinx senators on Capitol Hill. He fought Noem’s nomination to become the chief of homeland security, so it makes no sense that she didn’t recognize him right away.
Then again, Noem probably thought Padilla was another Mexican.
There’s no more. If anything, conservatives must fear Mexicans more than ever before. Because anyone can get tired of hatred towards us enough to be thrown into the federal government in the name of protecting democracy.
I hope we all become bad Hon Bless now.
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