Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I am your host, ramses Ja.
He is ramses Ja, I am Qward. You are tuned in to Civic Cipher, Yes, you are.
And we want you to stick around because we have a special guest in the building. She has been connected to us through family ties, and she goes by the name of Wendy Amara, who is an activist, a board member of Roots and Wings, a content creator group that uplifts the stories of immigrants, and she is the host of the Yes Muhar Build It podcast and she can be found online at Wendyamara dot com. Welcome to the show, Wendy, Thank.
You, Thank you, ramses thank you Qward. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Oh, we are excited to talk to you about the goings on in Los Angeles. So obviously this is something that matters to us and we are just now getting to the point where we're able to dedicate a full conversation to it, and so we want you to stick around because of course there's a lot of things going back and forth about what's going on in LA A lot of people really don't know what the what is out there. They see the images and they kind of
have some sense of it. But of course, Wendy, being a person who's been on the ground and being able to kind of work with these communities very closely and being a part of these communities as well, is going
to be able to offer us some insight. And then, you know, for the second part of the show, we're going to do our best to give you the ally and the and the would be ally listening to us, the potential talking points that conservatives might have when it comes to immigration, and ways that you can push back against narratives that are that misrepresent or mischaracterize, you know, immigration in this country. So we have a whole lot
for you to stick around for. But before we get into the weeds, it is time is all for some ebony excellence, shall we? I think we shall. Today's ebony excellence comes from the Black Information Network. I'll read it. And we talked about this guy before on the QR code,
but why not bring him back again? Right? Seattle Police Chief Sean Barnes said he expects to go to jail for standing up for the First Amendment rights of residents and attacks from the Trump administration against other politicians and protesters. For KUOW, protests broke out in Seattle and other cities across the nation in response to anti ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles. On Monday, June ninth, three hundred people marched to Seattle City Hall to rally against the arrest of
a union leader during the LA protests. Tuesdays, June and tenths, protests in Seattle included a gathering outside Henry M. Jackson Federal Building. Protesters chanted anti ICE slogans, and a few clashed with police. Trump has responded to protest in LA by threatening California Governor Gavin Newsom and activating the National
Guard and the Marines. During a recent Public Safety Committee meeting, Barnes pledged to prioritize the rights of Seattle residents amid the Trump administration's response to protest, noting that he expects to go to jail over the issue. Quote, I will do everything in my power to protect anyone in Seattle from anyone who comes to this city with the intention
to hurt them or inhibit their First Amendment rights. What that means is that at some point I will probably go to jail and be imprisoned because we have an administration that has threatened to jail politicians and has threatened to jail a governor. This is what Barnes told council members. He goes on to say the federal government's decision to bring in the military and I was a marine, is
not warranted. He also noted that cities like la and Seattle have experience with handling large demonstrations and keeping them peaceful, and yeah, that's this is like human excellence. But this guy happens to also be black, so that's cool, you know, but this is what all human beings should be doing right now, and he's stepping up to the plate. So we had to shut them out. And he's a police chief at that, so kudos. All right, So ICE raid protests in Los Angeles. First off, tell us a little
bit about yourself, Wendy Amara. We know you of course through you know ritzyp who is you know, family and of course a dear friend of the show. But you know, this is your first time talking to our listeners, So give a little bit of background on yourself, just so folks know who they're listening to today.
Sure, thank you so much, so, Wendy Amara. I'm a life and business coach, primarily for women of color. I've been a coach for eighteen years. I've had a lot of experience in the work, but I went to college to work in nonprofits. I actually have a master's degree in urban planning, and I wanted to do social policy planning. So I've always had politics community organizing in my blood. I remember protesting Pete Wilson and Prop one eighty seven
back in the nineteen nineties. I remember those protests. Actually got arrested on UCLA's campus for protesting Prop two o nine back in the day. So I've been an activist for a long time, a community organizer, built my business, left the nonprofit world because I was exhausted from working so many hours and not getting some good pay, and found coaching and figured out that my life was going
to move in a slightly different direction. I consider myself highly privileged in that I have been able to build a life for myself and my family where I have a lot of choices and options, and I'm very clear that I use that privilege to stand up for those that don't have a voice that don't have aren't able to speak up for themselves, like my immigrant parents who came from Guatemala back in the nineteen seventies and were able to get amnesty during the Reagan administration. So I'm
a child of immigrants, I'm first gen. I see a lot of immigration issues in our country that have been here for a long time, and what's been underneath is now just more apparent to everybody. Now it's in our face. That's what we're saying right now.
There's an interesting thing happening when you know, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of people are outside protesting. Because all of us have a role to play in fights like this, Ramsay, myself and Wendy for our listeners. We are broadcasters, journalists, content creators. What role do we play right using our tools and our platforms to participate in protests. It's not always just about being
out on the streets, you know. The kind of nature of civic cipher came from us realizing that the bullhorn only reaches you know, a few hundred people that are in the space where you are, and tapping these microphones gives us access to a much larger audience. So, in your opinion, Wendy, how do we play our part and supporting movements like the protests happening in La.
Yes, well, one of the ways to play our part is by sharing the stories, sharing the facts of what we're witnessing, what we're seeing happen, and then sharing our stories. Because you're absolutely right, the bullhorn will only go as far when you're out in the street. But the new bullhorn now is social media. So I'm actually part of this group called Roots and Wings. It's a group of creators that got together. One guy, Jay Gonzalez, went viral through one video he did on TikTok that ended up
getting something like twenty million views. He was talking about how he found out his mom, who is an immigrant from Mexico, voted for Trump, and then that conversation that they had him coming to the realization of that and putting that out there. That one TikTok went viral, and that's how Roots and Wings was created because somebody else reached out to him and said, what are we going to do about this? Because my mom also voted for Trump? What are we going to do? So a couple people
got together it became sixty of us. Now we've done a couple of videos and the power of being able to use storytelling in this new way to not only get information out there, but to affect people's emotions. Right what do we do with all of these vent up hyper emotions we're feeling right now. Everyone's angry, everyone's frustrated, everyone's in fear. There's a lot of anxiety in our
community right now. And as content creators, what we can do is actually help people, support people in taking that emotion and using it in some way, making some decision about Okay, are you going to share what you're thinking? Are you going to knock on your neighbor's door. I mean, everybody can do something right now. It doesn't have to
be out there protesting. You can actually be calling your council members talking to people about the big bill that's going to get passed right that big beautiful bill in July. You can be out there just filming ice as they're
passing by the street. That is important information. We're realizing that what we're doing as content creators right now is actually reaching more people than what the hotlines that have been set up by some of the organizations because one post or one reel or one TikTok can reach millions of people. So one person in our group actually has more power than some of the elected officials who might put out a statement and only like three hundred people
read their statement. Who trusts who? As content creators? People trust us, and what do we do with that trust?
You know? I think that that brings an interesting point out because I know that there were people. So we had the No King's Day protest. It was all over the country, of course, but in Phoenix. I went to the one in Phoenix, Arizona, and Q was in LA that day, so I know, and Q, you can help me out if you had the same experience. But I know that there were people who were wanting to go, but they were worried that it was going to be like LA and they were worried that it was going
to be a riot. And I'm like, well, where are you getting this from? And they're like, well, you know, they're calling it a riot. They're saying LA is rioting writing writing. I'm like, okay, so where's this coming from? And then you get the articles and you and because we work in the media space, we're able to see, Okay, who wrote this article and we can check you know what political bias does this news organization have to it? Right?
And of course these are right wing media outlets that are calling what's going on in LA riots right, and that'll scare people from participating. It provides cover for people and justification for people who feel like, you know, all immigrants should get deported in the most inhumane way possible. Whatever. It just says, Okay, well, these are violent people. They need to get out of the country, right, So there's a ton of things wrong with the narrative if the
narrative is inaccurate. So I want you to do us all a favor here. How would you, a person who's been on the ground at these protests, how would you classify these protests? Are they protest or are they riots? And then tell us why. Yeah.
I was at the No Kings March on Saturday in downtown LA, which now has been officially stated as the biggest march that we have had in Los Angeles history, the most amount of people marching. I would categorize it as a march, which is what it was. We marched from downtown LA to about four or five miles around peacefully, peacefully and dancing in the streets. In fact, I was dancing to one of my favorite bands, also Motley, who happened to be there. It felt more like a party
than like any sort of even protest. Of course, there were lots of signs, and there was police presence, but they were standing on the outside. There was the National Guard, which we don't even know why the National Guard is in LA. There are no violence happening in the streets out in LA. Even the protests and the marches are not violent. Now. Of course, there's a few people that get violent around five o'clock, eight o'clock. The mayor of Los Angeles put in a curfew where we can't be
in certain parts of downtown LA after eight pm. So as it gets closer to the curfew, right, the cops show up with the horses, and it becomes more like, okay, we're going to start moving the crowd. But during the day, completely peaceful. The amount of arrest compared to the amount of people that were there is insane, right, there was hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets. Over this last week. I think there's been fifteen arrests or something.
Very small in comparison to and yes, there are some people that will get violent, but there are not violent protests happening. There are no riots happening in Los Angelis. The city will not burn down, and the safety of our people is not in danger. We are okay, We
do not need the National Guard. All of that is a story that the media has created that I think the right philosophy has created that Donald Trump has created so that he could send the National Guard, so that he could create a war where there is no war. He could create violence where there is no violence. There just wasn't. Of course, we're going to go out in the streets and protest when people are being literally kidnapped.
That's what the ice raids feel like to us. Imagine a three or four trucks show up, these big, huge trucks that don't have any sort of identification of police or anything. They're just these vans, and then the van doors open or the truck doors open, and outcome armed men that all they have on is a police vest, but there's no identification on them, and they have masks, these huge masks. They're dressed in regular clothing. I'm talking about jeans and a black t shirt. Okay, they're not
in a uniform of any sort. And then they just grab people and move people.
That's it.
They show up at a car wash on a particular corner and then just start grabbing people in that car wash and putting them into their truck. They're not stopping and asking excuse me, sir, what is your name? Where were you born? Are you an American citizen? Do you have citizenship paperwork or residency paperwork or a green card? There is absolutely no communication. There is only grabbing people who look illegal, right, what does illegal look like? Look illegal?
And then putting them in the van. And then these people disappear. We're finding out that they're getting moved from state to state. So if you were picked up in California at a gas station yesterday, you're probably in Texas by now at some holding cell somewhere, so that the families can't get to them, the attorney, if they do
have an attorney, can't get to them. And there's a certain percentage of them that are here legally, that are going through a process of getting legalization, that actually have paperwork if they would have been asked. In fact, there's been people who literally had their passport in their pocket and we're telling the ICE agents, I have my passport right now, I just need to go to my pocket and get it. And still got picked up. And we have documentation of this through videos. We have people taking
out their cell phones. Here's the good news, guys. The good news is everybody and their mother now has a cell phone, right and everybody and the mother knows how to take video. So everybody, whether you speak English or not, has a camera in their hand all the time. Therefore, everything's being documented, everything's being videoed. That's how we know we're witnessing people being taken. Of course we're going to say something as a city. Of course, we're going to
stand up for our community. These are our parents, these are our brothers, sisters, uncles, kids. I mean, ICE is showing up at hospitals. Ice is showing up at schools, at graduations, at churches on Sunday, everywhere, everywhere. But we are not being violent. There is nothing to be afraid of. I also got a bunch of texts from people being like, Wendy, you're gonna go out to downtown. I'm like, yes, I'm
gonna be there. And it was beautiful. It was like a street party with love and joy and people uniting and people hugging. There's a lot of love. It was community, community standing up for each other. That's what we've been doing here in La.
You know, there's a lot to say about the other ring of communities right now and taking people's skin color and the language they speak and making that the criminal offense. So it doesn't matter if you have your passport of you come through the proper channels to seek you know, either asylum or just as an immigrant who you know, went through permanent residency and got a green cart and
then applied to be a citizen. And because we see people being arrested at citizen hearings, it's a very intentional and very cruel thing to do to someone when you're criticizing of not going about it the right way and specifically targeting people that are and no one, I won't say no one, but a certain group of us intentionally ignored the hypocrisy and that approach a lot about narratives in the space that we work in and the way that the narratives are shaped and then consumed by a
certain segment of our population, mostly right wing extremist and dealing with a very very personal lived experience of this.
My children are dual citizens. Their mother is from Sonoda, Mexico, and my wonderful babies did not get to spend Father's Day with their father because I was in Los Angeles, and forgive me, forbid their mom from bringing them here because I noticed that state troopers were replaced with border patrol, and having my half Mexican children and their Mexican mother come to Los Angeles as it's the target of the administration and it's very very cruel detention and deportation practices.
I just didn't, you know, want to even make that a possibility. With what we do and the way we know the importance of narrative. What do you think is missing from the way the right wing is consuming the information surrounding these raids and these protests, and you know the way that they're consuming these narratives. What's missing from the messaging to maybe get a more human response from people who are politically not aligned.
Yeah, well, I'll start with the what's missing is the idea that immigrants are ruining this country, the idea that immigrants are the enemy, right, so's missing is the facts that immigrants have built this country or continue to build this country. In fact, the Los Angeles economy is based on immigrant workers, is based on undocumented workers. Undocumented people are doing literally doing the jobs that cannot be filled by regular Californians born in the state. The majority of
people being taken are not criminals. People will say, oh, they're criminals because they crossed the border illegally and they're here illegal. That technically is a misdemeanor. It's equivalent to a speeding ticket. That's what you're saying. You're saying, somebody who has done something that's equivalent to a speeding ticket deserves to be picked up at their workplace the throne in a van and then disappears right ends up going
back to wherever. Ninety percent of the people who they're picking up do not have any other criminal record besides being here. And you know it's ironic as they're picking them up at workplaces. They're all working and contributing to the economy. They're helping the economy, which, by the way, they also pay taxes. So what's missing is the real facts.
What's happened with this administration happened the first time this administration came to power is that they have othered the immigrant and made the scapegoat of the undocumented people, that undocumented people are the reason that so many problems are happening in the United States, or the reasons why your price of eggs is so expensive, are the reasons why gasoline is so expensive. All of that is bs It's
not based in real facts. So what's missing is the truth that immigrants actually contribute to this country.
Now, I'm not saying we.
Should have open borders and everybody should just come over. There should be a path for citizenship, there should be laws changed, policies put in place. But what I am saying is that the way the narrative is run right now, the way the story is being told right now, is that that illegal immigrant that you're staring at right now is the reason why you don't have more money in your pocket, And that simply is not true. That is
a one hundred percent lie. Or that that immigrant that you're staring at across the street who's selling oranges in that corner, that immigrant is a rapist, a killer, a part of the cartel, that those are complete atrocities.
It's not true.
If they're just straight out lying to people The fact is that person who's standing at the corner selling the oranges is a hard working human being who probably has been here for fifteen twenty years, and during those fifteen to twenty years has been contributing through his taxes, through his work to this society. In fact, he probably picked those oranges or works in the farms during the day and then works at night and on the weekends, and
has been moving his family up. He has nothing to do with why your life is the way your life is, so we've become the scapegoats. That's the big part of what's missing. At the heart of that is looking at Okay, so why am I miserable? Why is the price of aggs so expensive? Why is everything getting worse and worse and worse. Why am I so angry? Those are the real questions that we need to be looking at, and we need to be looking as Americans in the mirror
for those answers. When people are upset, it's easy to point the finger somewhere. And the people who Trump has decided to point the finger to, and the right wing conspiracy has decided to point the finger too, is immigrants. So what's missing is the truth and compassion, compassion for these people, compassion for our people.
Well, thank you for humanizing the immigrants, because that's something that is very much missing from conversations. Like these people are working, they're taking care of their families, they're elevating their families, and I think the more humanized they are,
the less hotherable they can be. But I don't want to, like, I don't want to harp on this, but I want to make sure that we cover all of our bases right because there are people that are gonna have some challenging conversations after listening to us to have this conversation. So I'm gonna I'm gonna circle back. You know, we talked about whether or not these protests were bona fide
protest or were they riots? And you painted a picture a picture that is very similar to the to what I experienced out here, and typically it's typical of many protests that I've been to. I've never been to a riot. The last riots I know about we're in ninety two, and I definitely was not outside for that. I was a small child. But you know, everything else qualifies as a protest. So you can bring your children and friends and expect to have a good time and also let
your voice be heard. But again, there are there's a reason that the right is consuming a particular version of this is because it exists. There are pictures of way Mos on fire, there are videos of protesters throwing rocks
at police cars, and these things exist over there. Now, they're not, to be fair consuming content of police officers shooting journalists or you know, taking down protesters and slamming them on the ground and batoning them while they're on the ground and running over them with horses and whatnot. But the fact remains that, you know, this is a part of the story. So how do you provide context for the fires and the rocks? How do you provide context for all of that? Because that's what a lot
of folks are using to say. Nope, these are riots, these are bad people. We need to get them out of the country. We have about a minute, so help us out.
Yeah, listen, Yes, there were places where way Moos were on fire, but that's what happens after the Lakers win. That's what happens after the Dodgers win.
And go ahead, Well, no, let me say I protests, in my estimation, are supposed to be disruptive. If it's all peaceful and a kumbayad, then you know, nothing changed. But anyway, go ahead, go ahead. After the games, go ahead.
Yeah, after the Lakers win, we see taxis getting burnt. Also ubers on fire. Also Yeah. LA is a very passionate city. We have a long history of protests. We have a long history right the walkouts. We have a long history of being out in the streets. And when we are super happy, we celebrate by burning things, and also when we want to make a statement, we celebrate by burning things. So it's part of our upbringing in Los Angeles that we stand up for ourselves that we're
not the city that you mess with. I mean, there's a reason we are the city that's being targeted right now, right because he hates us, because we didn't vote for him at all. We got to keep that into context when you have huge amounts of people and then just a few people who end up. I think it was two waymos, three weaymos. Not that big of a deal. Not a riot. There is not a riot happening in Los Angeles.
Thank you, thank you fantastic. Well, you know, I think that this is very important for people to know because where you get your information and whether or not that information is consistent with the version of truth that you
want to be true. I think that really matters. But you know, there's a group of folks in the middle who are genuinely, legitimately curious and a group of people who I think really want to convince people that they're consuming bad media or their heart is in the wrong place, and I think this context really does help out with that. So thank you for, like I said, humanizing in the immigrant story, and also thank you for giving us perspective
on what's going on in Los Angeles. Stick around, going to be back with a little bit more