“Que Podemos Hacer?”: MacArthur Park Community Initiative

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 the morning of July 7th, dozens of federal agents swept through MacArthur Park. No one was taken in the sweep, but USBP Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K Bovino used footage from the sweep with Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA” to post an edited video on social media.

On August 1st, a federal appeals court ruling upheld a lower court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking federal agencies from conducting immigration stops based on racial profiling. Yet since then, ICE and Border Patrol continue raids at a car wash in Lakewood and Home Depots in Paramount Hollywood, and most recently near MacArthur Park. On Aug. 6th at the Home Depot near MacArthur Park. Federal agents hopped out of a yellow Penske truck detaining 16 people in the raid.

Today on the show we have Valeria Gonzalez, a prevention specialist at KYCC that works with the MacArthur Park Community Initiative. The initiative focuses on strengthening youth activism and leadership development among Westlake residents and the surrounding community. KSP intern Cira Mejia, asks Valeria how the MacArthur Park community has responded to the recent raids and the sweep that happened last month.

Credits

Producer

Tony Morales

Interviewer

Cira Mejia