Why the LA Dodgers Stood Up to ICE

The Los Angeles Dodgers have had a transactional relationship with the Chicanas and Immigrant communities of the city. In 1949, the city seized the land for the Dodger Stadium in Chávez Ravine from a Mexican community that had turned the green space into “an immigrant Shangri-la”. The families would come to the park and said: “His uncle lived where the third baseline ends in the home plate.”

Then, in the 1980s, a young pitcher from Mexico, Fernando Valenzuela, became an icon of the Dodgers. When Fernandomania Arting, Angelenos or Mexican ancestry filled the beams of the stadium, and the team’s management welcomed the crowds. Today, going to a game is seeing multigenenerational chicanas dressed in Dodgers Blue and eat Dodger dogs. They are the heart and soul of this fan base, and that is why the pressure has increased in the World Series champions in this current terror climate that faces the communities of Latin immigrants.

The people of the city have been waiting for the owner of the Mark Walter team to intensify and say something about ice riots in Los Angeles. And yet, as their fans were thrown into the trucks by masked, masked and armed ice agents, at least that is what these thugs said they were; There is no way to confirm who are real: Dodgers have tried to stay out.

That is no longer the case. On June 20, the Dodgers announced that they would give $ 1 million to immigrants “affected by recent events in the region.” The team did not report exactly the ice, but the message was clear: it understood that it could not work with the Trump administration and expect their fans to remain silent.

The events that led the Dodgers promised money to their immigrant fans began a few hours before a game between the Dodgers and the parents of San Diego when a line of black SUVs and white trucks tried to enter the parking lot. People in the vehicles were masked, and they had badges or guarantees. The photos flew through social networks when people wondered if the Dodgers were allowing an armed immigration control point and without a court order inside and outside the stadium. But the security of the Dodgers, in orders from Alto, would not allow them to enter the stadium land. While the extra -registered army that is ICE looked for another place to establish, boxes of people appeared on the warning of a tweet to protest and film them. The federals sneaked, to fight (and lose another battle again, this time in public relations.

The locals praised the Dodgers when the team announced on social networks that it had realized who buys their expensive tickets and sent Trump’s attack dogs to their way.

Ice and DHS, on the contrary, have been snippy and defensive since they show and initially, and ridiculously, they only published, “false. We were never there.” Then they admitted that customs and border patrol were there, since the photos and videos flooded social networks. Emily Phillips, from a quick response network of Echo Park, reported that the federals said they needed the stadium to process stops, since it is in view of Home Depot would be “too dangerous.” It must scare and offend each that such a coward and deciphering group is masked and armed and the judgment of people without a court order.

Let’s be real. It would be a mistake to think that the Dodgers, whose property and (some) players visited the White House several months ago and kissed the ring, are born again. This was done due to all the people who bravely faced the LAPD, the National Guard, the Marines and any group of agencies agencies that have diverted to California, a state that, such as Greenland in spring, Trump clearly wants to seize. And yet, Fed’s actions are also an escalation. They hope to use a scenario to “process” those who were suggested to be documented, or worse, that can get people out of the crowd to a ball game and throw them behind the back of white trucks. Given the history of the stadiums that are used throughout the world as mass retention cells, with all types of small rooms perfect for “improved interrogations”, it would be prulpularly traumatizing for those connected to countries where torturebers of sports sands. “The fact that these continuous raids is what we should worry.

We need Inead to ensure that the calculation for the ownership of Deadgers is not just the sale of tickets or a drop in grades. They need to know that they will be publicly humiliated if they make their eyes in the direction of ice. The owners need to stand not only for their profits and even for their fans, but also for that reason to the ancestors whose houses destroyed the team in Chávez Ravine. The minimum reparation must be standing with your community of fans and players before a crisis manufactured. The ownership of the Dodgers did not want this fight. But they have reached them, and fans are forcing them to choose the right side.