“Que Podemos Hacer?”: How Community Members Are Responding to Recent Raids

The Koreatown Storytelling Program presents a short series of community-member interviews discussing and responding to recent immigration raids. The title “Que Podemos Hacer?” translates to “What can we do?”, which was one of the responses we received from a vendor in our community. A response the vendor told us as he continued to work with fear.

On June 19th 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted two raids at Home Depots in Southern California.

The Spanish news-station Univision, interviewed a day laborer at a Home Depot in Sylmar, where one of the raids occurred. The day laborer interviewed says, he saw 10-15 workers detained. Another raid happened closer to our community, at a Home Depot in Hollywood. In an instagram Reel Thursday afternoon, LA Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez said ICE detained 20 people, including day laborers and street vendors. 

Similarly a couple weeks ago on June 6th, Homeland Security Investigations agents raided the MacArthur Park Home Depot.  As a response, the Los Angeles Tenants Union - KTown Local set up a Community Defense Center in front of the same Home Depot. 

In this episode, student-intern Cira Mejia and audio producer Tony Morales speak with KTown Local organizer Fernando to learn more about their Community Defense Center, the hub's goal, and his views/experience on community's response to I.C.E raids.

Before we shared our conversation with Fernando, Cira and Tony had the opportunity to speak with community members. Out of concern for their own safety, the people they spoke with declined to be recorded, but still shared their experiences. 

Credits

Producer

Tony Morales

Interviewer

Cira Mejia