A famous Civil War-era photo of an escaped slave who had been savagely whipped. Displays detailing how more than 120,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were forcibly imprisoned during WWII. Signs describing the effects of climate change on the coast of Maine.
In recent months, a small army of historians, librarians, scientists and other volunteers has fanned out across America’s national parks and museums to photograph and painstakingly archive cultural and intellectual treasures they fear are under threat from President Trump’s war against “woke.”
These volunteers are creating a “citizen’s record” of what exists now in case the administration carries out Trump’s orders to scrub public signs and displays of language he and his allies deem too negative about America’s past.
More than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in camps during World War II, including these Japanese Americans seen at Manzanar in the Owens Valley in 1942.
(LA Library)
“My deepest, darkest fear,” said Georgetown University history professor Chandra Manning, who helped organize an effort dubbed Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, is that the administration plans to “rewrite and falsify who counts as an American.”
In March, Trump issued an executive order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” arguing that, over the past decade, signs and displays at museums and parks across the country have been distorted by a “widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history,” replacing facts with liberal ideology.
“Under this historical revision,” he wrote, “our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
He ordered the National Parks Service and The Smithsonian to scrub their displays of content that “inappropriately disparages Americans” living or dead, and replace it with language that celebrates the nation’s greatness.
The Collins Bible — a detailed family history recorded by Richard Collins, a formerly enslaved man — is seen at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
That’s when Manning’s colleague at Georgetown University, James Millward, who specializes in Chinese history, told her, “this seems really eerie,” Manning recalled. It reminded him of the Chinese Communist Party’s dictates to “tell China’s story well,” which he said was code for censorship and falsification.
So the professors reached out to friends and discovered that there were like-minded folks across the country working like “monks” in the Middle Ages, who painstakingly copied ancient texts, to photograph and preserve what they regarded as national treasures.
“There’s a human tradition of doing exactly this,” Manning said. “It feels gratifying to be a part of that tradition, it makes me feel less isolated and less alone.”
Jenny McBurney, a government documents librarian at the University of Minnesota, said she found Trump’s language “quite dystopian.” That’s why she helped organize an effort called Save Our Signs, which aims to photograph and preserve all of the displays at national parks and monuments.
The sprawling network includes Manzanar National Historic Site, where Japanese American civilians were imprisoned during the Second World War; Fort Sumter National Monument, where Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War; Ford’s Theater National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Park.
It would be difficult to tell those stories without disparaging at least some dead Americans — such as the assassins John Wilkes Booth and James Earl Ray — or violating Trump’s order to focus on America’s “unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity and human flourishing.”
At Acadia National Park in Maine, where the rising sun first hits the U.S. coast for much of the year, signs describing the effect of climate change on rising seas, storm surge and intense rain have already been removed.
McBurney doesn’t want volunteers to try to anticipate the federal government’s next moves and focus only on displays they think might be changed, she wants to preserve everything, “good, bad, negative or whatever,” she said in a recent interview. “As a librarian, I like complete sets of things.”
And if there were a complete archive of every sign in the national park system in private hands — out of the reach of the current administration — there would always be a “before” picture to look back at and see what had changed.
“We don’t want this information to just disappear in the dark,” McBurney said.
Another group, the Data Rescue Project, is hard at work filling private servers with at-risk databases, including health data from the Centers for Disease Control, climate data from the Environmental Protection Agency and the contents of government websites, many of which have been subject to the same kind of ideological scrubbing threatened at parks and museums.
Both efforts were “a real inspiration,” Manning said, as she and Millward pondered what they could do to contribute to the cause.
Then, in August, apparently frustrated by the lack of swift compliance with its directives, the Trump administration sent a formal letter to Lonnie G. Bunch III, the first Black Secretary of the Smithsonian, setting a 120-day limit to “begin implementing content corrections.”
Days later, President Trump took to Truth Social, the media platform he owns, to state his case less formally.
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL,” he wrote, “everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”
Even though the Smithsonian celebrates American astronauts, military heroes and sports legends, Trump complained that the museums offered nothing about the “success” and “brightness” of America, concluding with, “We have the “HOTTEST” Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it.”
People visit the Smithsonian Museum of American History on the National Mall in Washington.
(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)
Immediately, Manning and Millward knew where they would focus.
They sent emails to people they knew, and reached out to neighborhood listservs, asking if anyone wanted to help document the displays at the 21 museums that make up the Smithsonian Institution — including the American History Museum and the Natural History Museum — the National Zoo and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Within about two weeks, they had 600 volunteers. Before long, the group had grown to over 1,600, Manning said, more people than they could assign galleries and exhibitions to.
“A lot of people feel upset and kind of paralyzed by these repeated assaults on our shared resources and our shared institutions,” Manning said, “and they’re really not sure what to do about it.”
With the help of all the volunteers, and a grad student, Jessica Dickenson Goodman, who had the computer skills to help archive their submissions, the Citizen Historians project now has an archive of over 50,000 photos and videos covering all of the sites. They finished the work Oct. 12, which was when the museums closed because of the government shutdown.
After several media outlets reported on the order to remove the photo of the whipped slave from the Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia — citing internal emails and people familiar with deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly — administration officials described the reports as “misinformation” but declined to specify which part was incorrect.
A National Parks Service spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
But the possibility that the administration is considering removing the Scourged Back photo is precisely what has prompted Manning, and so many others, to dedicate their time to preserving the historical record.
“I think we need the story that wrong sometimes exists and it is possible to do something about it,” Manning said.
The man in the photo escaped, joined the Union army, and became part of the fight to abolish slavery in the United States. If a powerful image like that disappears from public display, “we rob ourselves of the reminder that it’s possible to do something about the things that are wrong.”
What you’ll do: People can volunteer as individuals or in groups to sort and pack food and produce boxes at the warehouse. Other jobs include cleaning and tidying the warehouse and coolers. Westside Food Bank encourages food drives for its programs of non-expired food items, or you can just make individual donations at the warehouse. The Westside Food Bank’s partner agencies serve the neighborhoods of Santa Monica, Venice, Culver City, West Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Inglewood and the LAX area, as well as the West Los Angeles VA and several college campuses.
When: Volunteers are typically needed on weekdays in the mornings and afternoons. Corporate volunteer shifts are typically scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Weekend volunteer opportunities can be arranged by emailing[email protected].
Where: Volunteers are needed at the warehouse in Santa Monica Mondays-Thursdays or at their mobile pantries around their service area including the Gerard Mobile Pantry, VAP Mobile Pantry and West LA Civic Center Mobile Pantry.
Details: Register online for volunteer opportunities. Drop off food donations at the food bank between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Frozen and/or refrigerated foods can be accepted by calling (310) 828-6016 beforehand. Appointments are required to drop off large collections of food.
The wind whips the grapevines, turning my meditative picking stance into a full-body workout. I firmly plant my legs, stabilising a thrashing branch with my left hand as my right snips off a bunch of grapes. Local people claim the roaring mistral wind makes you crazy, which I can appreciate as each arid gust chaps my lips and desiccates my eyes.
I’m at Domaine Rouge-Bleu, an organic vineyard in the Côtes du Rhône wine region in southern France. I have volunteered for les vendanges, the autumnal grape harvest where backbreaking work is doused in camaraderie.
Participating in this time-honoured tradition had long been a dream of mine, a lifelong Francophile and food writer. So, in 2017, eager to understand more about winemaking beyond the bar stool, I joined a motley crew, trading sore arms and farmer tans for a hands-on course in viticulture and viniculture. I expected to gain an oenological education. I had not anticipated how hard the picking would be – nor how gratifying it felt to accomplish something so big together. Many vendangeurs go back for more. I have returned almost every year since my first harvest, becoming friends with the owners of Domaine Rouge-Bleu.
France is one of the top producers of wine worldwide, pouring 4.78bn litres of wine into the market each year. About 59,000 winemakers manage 789,000 hectares (nearly 2m acres) of vineyards. That’s a lot of grapes to pick. Since the Greeks first planted vines in France in the sixth century BC, raisins (grapes) have been harvested by hand. Machines arrived in the 1960s for speed and cost efficiency. Yet 30%-40% of French wineries still retain the traditional vendanges à la main(hand-picked harvests).
Why would a winemaker opt for a method that costs more time and money? Renowned regions such as Champagne are required to do so to deliver the clusters to the press house intact. Grapevines can grow too close together to allow a machine to pass through. Some winemakers believe machines harm the vines and grapes. “You get better quality by hand since you only pick good grapes, without leaves, vines or oil from the machine,” says Thomas Bertrand, who co-owns Domaine Rouge-Bleu with his Australian partner Caroline Jones.
Domaine Rouge-Bleu is owned by Australian Caroline Jones and her partner Thomas Bertrand. Photograph: Alexis Steinman
The hard-working couple illustrate the realities of winemaking that are far from the glamour of Bordeaux chateaux. They bring in volunteers to cut costs. However, harvest volunteers are a legal minefield in France. The government insists winemakers pay harvesters, so some offer room and board in lieu of wages, though many refrain from doing so to avoid any issues. Many winemakers wish volunteers were recognised, for communal harvests have been part of the winemaking heritage for centuries. “Our métier is all about sharing and creating convivial moments,” says France Breton, who welcomes volunteer harvesters at Domaine Breton in the Loire.
For example, Vignerons Indépendants de France runs the Vendangeur d’un Jour (harvester for a day) programme across France from late August to early October. “It is wonderful for wine tourism since so many want to pitch in,” says Jean-Marie Fabre, president of the association. You can also find opportunities on volunteer work sites such as WWOOF. I contacted wineries direct via introductions by my local wine bar, eventually finding Domaine Rouge-Bleu through its former owner, whose wife runs the French Word-A-Day blog.
Domaine Rouge-Bleu is in Sainte-Cécile-les-Vignes, a small town of 2,900 off the tourist track, despite its location in Provence. Fittingly for the town name – vignesare vines – the flat landscape is blanketed with grids of vineyards, with Mont Ventoux, the legendary Tour de France thigh-thumper, looming in the distance. At the end of a picturesque driveway lined with olive trees, a 17th-century farmhouse is home to Thomas, Caroline and their two girls. In harvest season, it swells with vendangeurs. I hit the roommate jackpot with Hannah, a perky Brit who works at a wine shop. Our 16-person team hails from France, the UK, Ireland, Australia and the US, my homeland.
Each morning, the smell of coffee wakes us before 7am. We don clothes that we don’t mind getting dirty – grape juice stains are stubborn. Despite the heat, we wear thick socks under our boots to avoid burs scraping our ankles. Thomas gives us a lay of the land on the first day. The first rule of picking is to be gentle with the grapes. Manhandling them can break their skins prematurely, causing the oxidation that negatively affects aromas and flavours.
We should also watch out for oidium, a chalky mildew, because “crap grapes make for crap wine”, says Thomas. When I find a snail on a grape, he jokes: “That’s why wine isn’t vegan.” (He jokes fluently in English.) Snipping grapes eight hours a day for three weeks wreaks havoc on the hands. Cuts are so prevalent I become the unofficial nurse of the group, carrying plasters in my bumbag. We work in pairs, bookending the vines to ensure no bunch gets left behind. To break up the monotony, conversation inevitably flows, profound at times due to the thick vines that block our faces like confessional screens. Everyone has a story – healing from a breakup or breaking free from a corporate job.
Harvest time at Domaine Rouge-Bleu. Photograph: Andy Haslam
This sociability is an antidote to the demanding work: the constant ache in muscles I never knew I had; the unrelenting sweltering sun and hot wind. My skin and clothes are sticky with sweat, dirt and grape juice, my fingernails permanently painted purple. Yet, knowing our collective efforts will be bottled into delicious wine is incredibly rewarding. “There’s no feeling like people coming together for a shared mission,” says Hannah.
What is surprising to me is that I find solace in the repetition. As a freelancer weighted with managing, and finding, my own work, I appreciate having specific tasks; being told what to do; the simple choreography of snip, haul, repeat. Plus, the monotony is broken up by the varied terrain.
Terroir, the buzzword that rolls off sommeliers’ tongues, refers to the soil, climate and sunlight that give wine grapes their distinctive character. I get a crash course on Rouge-Bleu’s 12 hectares planted with 21 grape varietals. Stooped low like elderly ladies, the 115-year-old grenache gobelet vines are planted in an ancient riverbed of large white stones. While these heat-retaining galets help the grenache reach peak ripeness, their uneven surface is torturous – like trying to balance in a ball pit. The trellised syrah are easier to pick, their extended branches welcoming us with open arms to gather their purple jewels.
Once we fill the trailer – emblazoned with an “In Grenache We Trust” sticker – we head back to the winery. This entails a different workout – manoeuvring hoses and vats, loading the press, shovelling grape bunches into the tank. “We keep their stems to reduce heat buildup during fermentation, which leads to the jammy flavours we don’t want,” says Caroline. I appreciate her red wines even more with this knowledge. My favourite task is climbing into the press to stomp out every last drop of juice.
Grape expectations … about 4 tonnes of fruit are harvested by hand in a morning. Photograph: Andy Haslam
The drudgery is lessened as we toast the day’s end with craft beers from a friend’s Alpine brewery. “It takes a lot of beer to make good wine,” is a common harvest adage that Thomas repeats. Gathering around the table for meals is a harvest highlight, a much-deserved moment of conviviality that reinforces our team spirit and recharges our batteries. Each night, a different harvester cooks a recipe of their choosing, often calorie-replenishing meals such as lasagne, grilled sausages or chickpea curry. Naturally, the meals are paired with Domaine Rouge-Bleu’s bottles, from its citrusy white Dentelle to the luscious Lunatique that bursts with blackberry notes. The most oenologically curious of us have a vertical tasting for a nightcap – by sampling the same wine from different years, we can taste how age intensifies its flavours.
Just as a fine wine lingers in the mouth, participating in a wine harvest is an enduring experience. A fellow harvester, Oscar, goes so far to say: “It’s about as useful a thing a person could do.” Each time I drink wine, I taste its people, its place, its story. My time among the vines has made me truly appreciate Louis Pasteur’s words: “There is more philosophy in a bottle of wine than in all the books in the world.”
Shirley Whitney, 89, leading Republican volunteer in the San Fernando Valley who designed popular political buttons. Whitney was a Democrat for many years until the murder of Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968 changed her view of her party. A longtime member of the National Rifle Assn., she was sitting in a Democratic candidate’s headquarters watching the news report of Kennedy’s assassination when “everybody turned around and looked at me, as if I was to blame,” she recalled years later. Realizing that her conservative views didn’t belong in the Democratic Party, she re-registered as a Republican. She became known to major Republican candidates throughout the Valley for her skills at organizing candidate headquarters, heading Republican women’s clubs, supervising telephone campaigns and fund-raisers, and registering voters. She was best known for a sideline of developing political pins. Her most famous button depicted the head of former Gov. Jerry Brown on the body of an insect with the inscriptions “Fruit Fly of the Year,” followed by “Governor Moonbeam,” a design that delighted conservatives who seethed over Brown’s handling of the 1981 infestation of Mediterranean fruit flies in Northern California. She sold 15,000 of the pins for $1 each, enough to rent office space for Republicans in the Valley for part of 1982. Another Whitney button that circulated during 1984 showed two women holding a banner with the bright-red letters E, R and A, which stood for “Elect Reagan Again,” not Equal Rights Amendment. “I’m waiting for some ERA supporter to bop me on the head for that one,” she said at the time. On Thursday of Alzheimer’s disease and kidney failure at a Pomona nursing home.
Outdoor holiday specialist Eurocamp is offering five families the dream job of becoming official ‘Pool Testers,’ a role that requires them to try out its newest pools, waterslides, and aquatic areas this summer
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Eurocamp is looking for some swimming pool testers
You could escape the sweltering heat and cool off in some of the finest pools Europe has to offer.
Outdoor holiday specialist Eurocamp is offering five families the dream job of becoming official ‘Pool Testers,’ a role that requires them to try out its newest pools, waterslides, and aquatic areas this summer.
Families who are visiting one of five parks with new aquatic areas opening in 2025—Lac des Vieilles Forges, Le Domaine du Clarys, Saint Avit Loisirs, Rivages des Landes, or Le Port de Plaisance—can apply for the role, which involves reviewing the new pools and waterslides on camera.
The opportunity offers five lucky families from the UK and Ireland a chance to be among the first to try Eurocamp’s newest aquatic experiences, with successful applicants receiving €100 holiday spending money per day, up to a total of €700 per family, to enjoy during their stay.
The travel company is looking for five swimming pool testers
Ross Matthews, chief marketing officer at Eurocamp, said: “Our pools and aquatic areas are something customers look forward to and remember most about a Eurocamp holiday, so who better to test them out?
“For the first time ever, we’re looking for five families with kids of all ages to review our newest additions and share with the world what they think. Their feedback will also help to inform the future development of waterparks across our catalogue for 2026 and beyond.
“All they’ll need to do is jump in and report back on the pools and waterslides at those parks, like the new shallow sprayground at Le Domaine du Clarys or the thrilling new slides at Le Port de Plaisance. As well as being confident in the water, they’ll need to be confident both in front of and behind the camera too—we’ll be sharing their reports across our social media channels and online to show other Eurocamp customers what they can expect.”
Holidaymakers can apply by submitting a short video (no longer than two minutes) to Eurocamp’s website, where they can find hints and tips for a successful application video, such as explaining why their family fits the bill, illustrating enthusiasm for their upcoming Eurocamp holiday, and showing how comfortable they are in front of the camera.
Applications close at 11:59 pm on Sunday, 6 July 2025, and will be reviewed by a panel of internal Eurocamp experts. The successful Pool Testers will be notified by midnight on 11 July 2025.
If you want, I can help make it more concise or more engaging too!
Eurocamp parks with new aquatic areas opening in 2025:
Lac des Vieilles Forges, Ardennes, France
Le Domaine du Clarys – Le Clarys Plage, Vendée, France
These are such crazy times that when I found myself desperate to cover some good news amid deportations and Trump overreach, I visited … Huntington Beach?!
It was a resounding rebuke of H.B.’s conservatives, who had steamrolled over city politics for the past two and a half years and turned what was a 4-3 Democratic council majority three years ago into a 7-0 MAGA supermajority.
Among the pet projects for the new guard was the library, which council members alleged was little better than a smut shop because the young adult section featured books about puberty and LGBTQ+ issues. Earlier this year, the council approved a plaque commemorating the library’s 50th anniversary that will read, “Magical. Alluring. Galvanizing. Adventurous.”
MAGA.
“They went too far, too fast, and it’s not what people signed up for,” said Oscar Rodriguez, an H.B. native.
We were at a private residence near downtown H.B. that was hosting a victory party for the library measures. The line to get in stretched onto the sidewalk. A sign near the door proclaimed, “Not All of Us in H.B. Wear Red Hats.” A banner on the balcony of the two-story home screamed, “Protect Our Kids From Chad,” referring to City Councilmember Chad Williams, who bankrolled much-ridiculed “Protect Children from Porn” signs against Measures A and B.
“Look, Huntington Beach is very conservative, very MAGA — always will be,” Rodriguez continued. We stood in the kitchen as people loaded their plates with salad and pizza. Canvas bags emblazoned with “Protect HB” and the Huntington Beach Pier — the logo for the coalition that pushed for the measures — hung from many shoulders. “But people of all politics were finally disgusted and did something together to stand up.”
People line up to enter a house in Huntington Beach that hosted a victory pary for the passage of Measures A and B, which addressed issues with the city’s library.
(John McCoy/For The Times)
“On election night, I was jumping up and down, because it was happening here,” said former Councilmember Natalie Moser, who lost her reelection bid last year and volunteered for Protect HB. “It creates joy and enthusiasm, and I hope others can see what we did and take hope.”
There was no chatter about the ICE raids that were terrorizing swaths of Southern California. A Spotify mix blared “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” AC/DC and the ever-annoying “Hey, Soul Sister” by Train. The crowd of about 90 volunteers was mostly white and boomers. More than a few bore tans so dark that they were browner than me.
We were in Huntington Beach, after all.
And yet these were the folks that fueled Protect HB’s successful campaign. They leaned on social media outreach, door knocking, rallies and a nonpartisan message stressing the common good that was the city library.
Christine Padesky and Cindy Forsthoff staffed tables around the city in the lead-up to Election Day.
“Time and time again, I had people come up to me say, ‘We’re Republican, we’re Christian, we voted for this council, but they’ve gone too far,’” Padesky said.
Forsthoff, a Huntington Beach resident for 36 years, agreed. She had never participated in a political campaign before Measures A and B. “When they [politicians] take such extreme steps, people will come,” she said.
The bro-rock soundtrack faded out and the program began.
“My gosh, we did this!” exclaimed Protect HB co-chair Pat Goodman, who had been checking people in at the door just a few moments earlier.
“I don’t think those neighbors know who we are,” cracked Protect HB co-chair Cathey Ryder, hinting at the uphill battle they faced in a city where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats. “Show them you’re a supporter of good government.”
She led everyone in the cheesy, liberty-minded chant that had inspired volunteers throughout the campaign.
What do we want to do?
Read!
How do we want to read?
Free!
We were in Huntington Beach, after all.
The speeches lasted no more than seven minutes total. The volunteers wanted to enjoy the brisk evening and gather around an outdoor fireplace to make S’mores and enjoy a beer or two. Besides, they deserved to revel in their accomplishment and discuss what was next — not just in Huntington Beach, but how to translate what happened there into a replicable lesson for others outside the city.
The key, according to Dave Rynerson, is to accept political differences and remind everyone that what’s happening in this country — whether on the Huntington Beach City Council or in the White House — isn’t normal.
“As bad as things may seem, you can’t give up,” the retired systems engineer said. “You have to remind people this is our country, our lives, and we need to take care of it together.”
Mayor of Huntington Beach Pat Burns listens to speakers discuss the city’s plan to make Huntington Beach “a non-sanctuary city for illegal immigration” during the Huntington Beach City Council meeting at the Huntington Beach City Hall in Huntington Beach.
But feeling the happiness at the Protect HB dinner, even if just for an evening, was a much-needed balm at a time when it seems nothing can stop Trump. And meeting regular people like Greg and Carryl Hytopoulos should inspire anyone to get involved.
Married for 50 years and Surf City residents for 44, they own a water pipeline protection service and had never bothered with city politics. But the council’s censorious plans for the library made them “outraged, and this was enough,” said Carryl. “We needed to make an impact, and we couldn’t just sit idly by.”
They outfitted one of their work trucks with large poster boards in favor of Measures A and B and parked it around the city. More crucially, the couple, both Democrats, talked about the issue with their neighbors in Huntington Harbour, an exclusive neighborhood that Trump easily won in 2024.
“When we explained what were the stakes, they listened,” Greg said.
Carryl smiled.
“There’s a quiet majority that, when provoked, can rise up and save the day.”
WASHINGTON — An undocumented man from Guatemala who has leukemia postponed chemotherapy because he was afraid to go to the hospital.
A Mexican grandmother packed most of her belongings into boxes, in case she is deported.
A Pentecostal church in East Los Angeles has lost nearly half of its in-person membership.
Across California and the U.S., immigrants are responding to the Trump administration’s unrelenting enforcement raids by going into lockdown. Activities that were once a regular or even mundane part of life — taking kids to school, buying groceries, driving — have become daunting as immigrants who lack legal authorization grapple with how to avoid arrest and deportation.
To stay safe, some immigrants have swapped in-person activities with digital approximations. Others are simply shutting themselves away from society.
“It’s a harmful form of racial profiling combined with the suspension of constitutional rights and due process. That’s why many families are staying at home,” said Victor Narro, a professor and project director for the UCLA Labor Center.
Pastor Carlos Rincon said that about 400 people used to attend his church every week. Now, half as many attend and viewership of live-streamed services on Facebook and YouTube has increased.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Pastor Carlos Rincon, who leads a Pentecostal church in East Los Angeles, said that about 400 people used to attend his church every week, people with roots in Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras. Now, half as many attend and viewership of live-streamed services on Facebook and YouTube has increased. Some prayer groups meet on Zoom.
In January, the Trump administration said immigration agents were free to make arrests in sensitive locations once considered off limits, such as hospitals, schools and churches.
At Rincon’s church — which he asked not be named for concern about retaliation — fear has colored life in ways large and small.
A congregant in his late 20s who has leukemia postponed his chemotherapy, afraid he could be caught and deported to Guatemala. After he decided to reschedule the upcoming treatment, church leaders agreed they will take turns staying with him at the hospital.
Pastor Carlos Rincon says he has had to cancel a music class for children due to the raids. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
The Trump administration has said immigration agents are free to make arrests in locations once considered off limits such as hospitals, schools and churches. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
A half-day program to provide resources for landscapers and a music class for children were canceled this month after many said they were too afraid to attend. Rincon restarted the music class last week for those who could attend.
On Wednesday, after neighbors told him that immigration agents had been lurking around the area, he warned families against attending a regularly scheduled in-person church service.
Five miles away at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Father Ricardo Gonzalez said church attendance is down at least 30%. The church doesn’t live-stream Mass, though he’s considering it.
Gonzalez said parishioners expect him to have answers, but as an immigrant green card holder himself, he too doesn’t know how to react if immigration agents show up at the church.
“If I get arrested, am I going to be thrown from the country?” he said. “Who is going to help me out?”
Pastor Carlos Rincon and his wife, Amparo, sing and pray during a livestream service at their church.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
For weeks, agents have been arresting those who show up at courthouses for their immigration proceedings.
Volunteers at USC, UCLA, UC Irvine and UC Law San Francisco responded by establishing a free hotline to help people file motions to move their appointments online. The service was the idea of Olu Orange, a lawyer and USC political science and international relations professor who runs the Agents of Change Civil Rights Advocacy Initiative.
Since the hotline (888-462-5211) went live June 15, volunteers have responded to nearly 4,000 calls and helped more than 300 people fill out the form to move their hearings online.
On Friday, Orange answered a call from a girl who sounded about 12 years old, whose parent had been picked up by immigration agents.
“She saw this number on social media and she called and she said, ‘What can I do?’” Orange said. He gave her the number for CHIRLA, a local immigrant rights nonprofit.
Luz Gallegos, executive director of TODEC Legal Center in the Inland Empire, said the pandemic prepared some rural and elderly residents for the current reality because it taught people to use technology — “to go virtual.” Now they have WiFi access and know how to use Zoom.
Some, though, also fear staying digitally connected.
Gallegos said many people who call TODEC’s hotline say they are changing phone companies because they are afraid of being tracked by immigration agents. Others say they’re swapping cellphones for pagers.
A woman identified only as Doña Chela at her home Tuesday. She has packed up her possessions planning to return to her hometown in Michoacan, Mexico, for the first time in more than 25 years. But her brother said it wasn’t safe.
(Julie Leopo / For The Times)
Many of the immigrants served by TODEC now leave their homes only for work, Gallegos said. They have groceries delivered or run to the store when they think border agents are least likely to be on patrol. Before schools let out for the summer, some parents switched their children to online classes.
Some Inland Empire farmworkers now won’t grab their own mail from community mailboxes, Gallegos said, so TODEC has mobilized volunteers to drop off mail, give people rides and help with interpretation needs.
One person helped by the nonprofit is Doña Chela, an undocumented 66-year-old woman who asked to be identified by her nickname.
Many months ago, Doña Chela packed up her possessions after making plans to return to her hometown in Michoacan, Mexico, for the first time since she arrived in the U.S. in 1999. But in April, her brother called to say it wasn’t safe there, that cartel groups had taken over the neighborhood and were extorting residents.
Her husband, a U.S. citizen, has dementia. She thought of moving instead to a border town such as Mexicali, where she and her husband could still be near their three adult U.S.-born daughters.
Doña Chela stands by the packed luggage in her home. (Julie Leopo / For The Times)
Doña Chela waters her home garden. “If it wasn’t for this garden I would not know what to do with myself,” she said in Spanish. (Julie Leopo / For The Times)
But then her husband’s condition began to decline, and now starting over feels too difficult. Even so, she has chosen to keep her clothes, pots and pans, and jewelry packed away — just in case.
Doña Chela doesn’t leave her home except for emergencies. Her daughters bring her groceries because she has stopped driving. She no longer goes to church or makes big batches of tamales for community reunions. She barely sleeps, thinking that agents could burst through her door any time.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said, crying. “I will wait here until they kick me out.”
Her only distraction from constant anxiety is the lush garden she tends to daily, with mangoes, nopales, limes and a variety of herbs.
Gallegos, of TODEC, said the situation faced by Doña Chela and so many others bring to mind a song by Los Tigres del Norte — “La Jaula de Oro.” The golden cage.
“Our community is in a golden cage,” she said. “I hope it’s not too late when this country realizes they need our immigrant workforce to sustain our economy.”
St. John’s Community Health, one of the largest nonprofit community healthcare providers in Los Angeles County that caters to low-income and working-class residents, launched a home visitation program after it surveyed patients and found many canceling appointments “solely due to fear of being apprehended by ICE.”
The clinic, which serves L.A., the Inland Empire and the Coachella Valley, said that since the immigration raids began, more than a third of all patients didn’t show up or canceled their appointments.
Some of those who canceled signed up for telehealth or home visits performed by a small team of medical staff, according to Jim Mangia, the clinic’s chief executive. The clinic is adding another home visitation team to double the amount of visits they perform.
Community coalitions are stepping in to help immigrants who can’t afford to hide. OC Rapid Response Network, for instance, raised enough funds through payment app Venmo to send 14 street vendors home.
Robb Smith stands by the food he delivered after he unloaded his truck at a food drop site on Monday in Paramount.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Robb Smith, who runs Alley Cat Deliveries, said he has seen requests for grocery deliveries grow by about 25%.
He doesn’t ask his customers if they’re immigrants in hiding, but there are signs that people are afraid to leave their house. One woman, who said she was making an inquiry for a friend, asked him if he saw any ICE officers when he was picking up items at Costco.
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1.Tito Rodriguez helps unload Robb Smith’s truck of drieg goods and groceries at a drop site on Monday in Paramount.2.Robb Smith, left, unloads his truck with the help of Tito Rodriguez at the drop site on Monday in Paramount.3.Robb Smith carries a box of groceries down a driveway Monday in Long Beach. He founded and runs Alley Cat Deliveries.(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)
Glen Curado, the founder and chief executive of World Harvest Food Bank in Los Angeles, said there has been a significant drop in people coming in to pick up groceries in person. Up to 100 families visit the food bank on a weekday, down from the usual high of 150, he said.
The food bank has a program, called Cart With A Heart, in which people can donate $50 toward fresh produce, protein and other staples to feed two families for a week. The donors can then take those groceries to people sheltering in place.
“It’s almost like a war scene,” Curado said. “You hide here. I’ll go out and I’ll get it for you, and I’ll bring it back — that mentality.”
Castillo reported from Washington and Wong from San Francisco. Times staff writer Melissa Gomez in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Eric Bauman, a gruff and tireless political operative who led two of California’s most powerful Democratic organizations before resigning amid misconduct allegations, died Monday.
His family said in a statement that Bauman died at UCLA West Valley Medical Center after a long illness. He was 66.
Born in the Bronx to an Army doctor and a registered nurse, Bauman went to military school and moved to Hollywood just before he turned 18. He became a nurse and met his husband, also a nurse, in a hospital cafeteria during an overnight shift in the early 1980s.
Motivated in part by the AIDS crisis, Bauman became active in the Stonewall Democratic Club Los Angeles, a progressive political group, and was elected president of the organization in 1994.
Bauman grew L.A. County Democratic Party into a political force as chairman from 2000 to 2017 and expanded the number of Democrats winning elections at every level of government, from water boards to the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I turned the L.A. Democratic Party from a $50,000-a-year organization into a $1.5 million-a-year organization,” he told a reporter in 2011.
With a Bronx affect and a gold signet ring on his pinkie finger that he twisted when he was under pressure, Bauman built a reputation as an old-school party boss who would give you the bad news straight. Democrats compared him to Ray Liotta, and some called him the “Godfather of Democratic politics.”
“People come up to me on the street all the time and think I’m Joe Pesci,” he told the Times in 2017. “I try to work with that.”
Bauman ran for state Democratic Party chair in 2017. After a bruising election that exposed the fractures between the progressive and establishment wings of the party, Bauman was elected by a mere 62 votes.
He was the first openly gay and first Jewish person to chair the party.
“I don’t wear a button that says, ‘Look at me, I’m gay,’” Bauman said in a 2009 interview with the UCLA Film and Television Archive. But, he said, “I never fail to recognize my partner from any podium. It is in my bio. It is a part of who I am.”
The high point of his tenure was the 2018 midterm elections, when California Democrats flipped seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and won back a veto-proof supermajority in the state Legislature.
Bauman said he wanted to overturn California’s voter-approved “jungle primary” system, which allows the top two vote-getters to advance to the general election, regardless of party. Bauman argued that Democrats should pick their own nominees, rather than spending millions of dollars fighting in the primaries.
In late 2018, The Times reported that Bauman had made crude sexual comments and had engaged in unwanted touching or physical intimidation in professional settings, citing 10 party staff members and political activists.
Bauman resigned, saying he planned to seek treatment for health issues and alcohol use. The state Democratic Party fired top staffers in the wake of the allegations and eventually paid more than $380,000 to settle a sexual misconduct lawsuit brought by three of his accusers. A party spokeswoman did not respond to requests for a statement on Bauman’s death Tuesday.
After his resignation, Bauman disappeared from public life for several years. More recently, he began hosting a radio show called “The UnCommon Sense Democrat” on the Inland Empire’s KCAA-AM 1050.
In the mid-2000s, when Republicans still represented many outlying areas of Los Angeles County, Bauman set up a “red zone program” at the L.A. County Democratic Party that funneled money and volunteers to Democrats running for seats in GOP strongholds.
The investments were a gamble, but they built relationships and better candidates — and sometimes, a long shot candidate actually won, said former state lawmaker Miguel Santiago, who first got involved with the party in the early 2000s.
“He was really hungry for Democratic wins,” Santiago said. “There was no seat that that guy left on the table, whether it was a community college seat, a school board race, a water board race.”
Bauman also worked to strengthen ties with organized labor, now the California Democratic Party’s most powerful ally, and build voter registration and turnout.
State Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, who chaired the county party after Bauman, said he spent countless hours as a young volunteer entering information about newly registered voters into the party database.
The data came from a booth that the Democratic Party set up outside citizenship ceremonies where newly eligible voters could register to vote as Democrats, he said. Bauman sent a signed card to each person, congratulating them and welcoming them to the party.
“That touched people, and it showed them that they matter,” Gonzalez said.
Bauman also worked for Gov. Gray Davis and insurance commissioner John Garamendi and as a consultant to several Assembly speakers, including Anthony Rendon of Los Angeles and Toni Atkins of San Diego.
He is survived by his husband and partner of 42 years, Michael Andraychak, and his father and sister, Richard and Roya Bauman.
An aide worker in Gaza who has witnessed Israel’s increased bombardment of the enclave calls it “shocking,” as Palestinians struggle with a lack of food and medical supplies. Afeef Nessouli with Gila International tells Al Jazeera Israel is also keeping medical workers from coming in or out.
