SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — President Donald Trump on the campaign trail vowed that his administration “is going to start the largest mass deportation in the history of our country because we have no choice. It’s not sustainable.” This promise led to more boots on the ground at the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego.
In a nationwide ad campaign, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem warned undocumented individuals, asserting, “Leave now, if you don’t we will find you, and we will deport you. You will never return.”
In an ABC 10News report following up on the White House’s controversial social media post parodying ASMR content in the form of a deportation flight, an immigrant rights advocate expressed concern over the psychological impact of such actions.
Benjamin Prado from the American Friends Service Committee stated that the administration is using this imagery “to impose a form of psychosis on migrant communities… trying to terrorize and use this imagery in a way that forces people to be fearful of any type of ICE encounters.”
This isn’t the first mass deportation effort in U.S. history.
Dr. Ramona Perez, a professor of Anthropology at San Diego State University, recounted how past policies have profoundly impacted Latino communities in California.
According to Dr. Perez, the Great Depression-era “repatriation drives” affected roughly 1.8 million people, including her grandparents, who were among the one million Mexicans who left following the Mexican Revolution. She described it as a time when people “felt like we had to voluntarily go back.”
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Dr. Perez, whose family returned to the U.S. and worked the agricultural circuit around the time of the Bracero Program, explained that many deported individuals were actually U.S.-born citizens of Mexican descent: A 2004 investigation showed that around 60% of those deported were born in the states.
Her family was determined to integrate into U.S. culture, although it resulted in alterations to their cultural identity.
Using the Spanish word “Verguenza,” Dr. Perez emphasized the deep-seated cultural shame that discrimination causes.
“It’s a shame that’s bigger than the individual. It’s cultural. It impacts us as a people, rather than as an individual,” she said.
Despite growing up not knowing much about her culture, Dr. Perez has immersed herself, dedicating her academic career to learn, understand and share Latino culture. She’s the director of SDSU’s Center for Latin American Studies and worked with the school to open the Oaxaca Center for Mesoamerican Studies in Mexico.
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“We have the ability and the responsibility to maintain our culture in these really deep profound ways as foundational. In other words, we… create that foundation upon which others can can move up from,” Perez said.
Beyond academia, cultural empowerment and resilience in the face of adversity can also be found in artistic expressions. For that, there’s no better place to go than a beloved and protected place: Chicano Park.
Victor Ochoa, a muralist and co-founder of the park, highlighted the importance of community art.
“Our community isn’t going to galleries, and the main reason that I see they don’t go is because they can’t relate to the material that are in the galleries,” Ochoa said in archive footage ABC 10News obtained from the 1980s.
He was one of several artists that created the street gallery in the heart of Barrio Logan, using Chicano Park’s concrete pillars to show the issues impacting the community, as well as pieces of Mexico’s history.
However, as a child, Ochoa’s culture was hidden.
“My mom would actually say that we were Russians; she never wanted to disclose that we were Mexican,” he said.
His parents, undocumented and deported around the time of Operation Wetback, an Eisenhower-era mass deportation program with a racist name, sought to protect their children from the stigma of their cultural identity.
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That program resulted in the removal of at least one million people from the U.S. The initiative not only targeted undocumented workers, like Ochoa’s parents, but also citizens who legally entered the country through immigration programs years before.
“It was very frightening, especially for my mom because she was all paranoid that they were going to kick us back to Mexico. So I didn’t learn to speak Spanish; she didn’t want us to speak Spanish,” he said.
That changed the summer his parents were deported.
“The last time I was in the United States was opening day at Disneyland… The very next day we had to go to Tijuana,” Ochoa said.
The uncertain future didn’t seem so scary. A new land for new adventures and endless possibilities. For about eight years, Ochoa soaked it all in.
“I learned the language, I learned the history,” he said.
Along the way, he studied the figures he would one day paint at Chicano Park. His love for learning led him back to Los Angeles, complete with a sense of pride for everything he had learned in Tijuana.
Disappointment crept in when Ochoa saw something he didn’t notice when he was a child: Racism and prejudice. He realized he wanted to be a part of something bigger that would bring change.
“The movement, the social civil rights movement of the ’60s… I was right there. I felt like a surfer in a tsunami. I always say this because the movement was all over the place,” he said.
Ochoa left East LA and started high school in San Diego to be closer to his parents. His job at a print shop here exposed him to the farm workers movement led by Cesar Chavez.
“”The farm workers asked me to do a poster… I was supposed to deliver it to Cesar Chavez personally at a Safeway here in San Diego… He goes, ‘Muy buen trabajo, hijo,’ he pats me on the back. I remember it was like Jesus.”
Ochoa the chicano was activated, and his art took on a new life.
His contributions to Chicano Park brought more attention to the issues impacting the community and pieces of Mexico’s history.
Ochoa says he remains dedicated to art as a way to empower himself as an individual and his community at large.
Reflecting on his first mural, Ochoa described the experience as indescribable and felt connected to a historical legacy. When creating the murals, Ochoa says he prioritizes highlighting unheralded voices and issues.
“I brought kids in, parents, and other artists. I set it up like a classroom. It was like a classroom: ‘Ok what do you think? What are the issues?’ That was one of the main things: What are the issues you want to see in this mural? I’ve always been a coordinator for the murals. I’ve never said this is a Victor Ochoa mural,” he said.
Ochoa’s approach highlights the history and struggles of the Chicano community while giving a new generation an avenue to stay connected to their cultural roots and heritage.
Victor Ochoa
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