The network of aid to bring free food to Latino families and street vendors who do not want to leave their homes for fear of being arrested in the wave of raids deployed by immigration agents is growing. Hundreds of volunteers and donors joined Tito Rodriguez and his wife Patrina at the Local Hearts Foundation in the city of Paramount, to bring food to Immigrants at no cost. “The impact of the pandemic was the current stay-at-home orders for health reasons,” said Brian Porter, a volunteer. “Now, I’m worried about potential kidnappings [of immigrants] and the lack of due process.” Porter, an African-American publicist, believes that the treatment of immigrants and minorities leads people “to spread kindness to counteract the negative actions and attitudes seen in society.”

“People are staying home, but the meaning is different. ICE is not the coronavirus, but the fear it creates is worse,” said Porter, a resident of Ontario, California. In that way, Porter highlighted the importance of collective collaboration to get food and supplies to people by any means necessary. Do you know what the similarity is? The survival of human beings, the dignity of every person: Humanity and survival.” In communities in various states across the United States where Latinos mostly reside, federal agents are using skin color and the type of work they do to detain, arrest, and deport them, volunteer Porter added. Since the start of the immigration raids, neither the White House, the Department of Justice, nor the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) authorities have reported the arrest and/or deportation of white European people; in the vast majority of cases, they have been Latino people. Locally, residents of Southern California are preparing for a third week of neighborhood raids. Meanwhile, the city of Los Angeles is considering suing the Trump administration to prohibit federal agents from making unconstitutional stops and arrests.

In fact, Seven City Council members signed a proposal asking District Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto to prioritize “immediate legal action” to protect the civil rights of Los Angeles residents, arguing that the measure is necessary to prevent people from being discriminated against based on skin color or from being victims of illegal detention. Some of the volunteers said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, fear of the disease kept millions of families locked up for fear of getting sick, but today, millions of Latino families face a fear they never suspected: being literally “kidnapped” in broad daylight by immigration agents.

Without work and without food

“I came from south central Los Angeles for food,” said Raul, an immigrant from Puebla, Mexico. “I sell junk on the street.” Accompanied by one of his two sons and two nephews, the immigrant filled the trunk of his car with bags of food, including vegetables, serrano peppers, berries, rice, ham, and bottles of water. Paula Torres arrived at the Local Hearts Foundation warehouse with dozens of packages of rice from a Super A Foods store. “I hope Tito [Rodríguez] continues to help many more families,” said Torres, who spent about $200 out of pocket to help the families. Cristina Valencia, who regularly collects food for Latino families in the cities of El Monte and South El Monte, agreed that fear in the community is the common denominator, “because they are separating many families.” Valencia, through El Monte Grinch and a friend of hers from Alma's Closet, are receiving countless requests for food.

“We started helping since the raids happened in El Monte,” she said. Latina influencer Blanca Soto and her husband Roberto reported that they are distributing groceries and food in the cities of South Gate, Huntington Park, Bell, Bell Gardens, and Los Angeles. “People are donating money to us and we are investing it in buying them food,” she said. “We are doing this for our people. I am an immigrant too. What we are experiencing is worse than the pandemic. Not even during Covid-19 did we hide like we are now. What is happening is really ugly.”

'Uglier, harder, and more dangerous'

Tito Rodríguez was orphaned by his father at the age of six, and it was his mother Evangelina who took charge of raising him and his siblings: Blanca, Alicia, Raul, and Elizabeth. His sisters, Monique and Yadira, were born from their mother's second marriage. “Right in front of us, my father took his own life. With a knife to the heart,” says the man who recently took to the streets to give cash to street vendors so they wouldn't go out to work and take shelter until the immigration raids passed. “He left us in poverty,” recalls Tito, founder of the Local Hearts Foundation. main organization for distributing pepper spray cans in the past so that street vendors could defend themselves against attacks and robberies in Southern California. That boy was not old enough to understand what had happened to Francisco, his father, but he did understand and always value the sacrifice his mother Evangelina made to sell at the markets. Tito remembers that he was about 14 years old when he ate turkey for the first time, it was at the home of an aunt married to an American who had invited them to spend Thanksgiving. “I had never seen or tasted that type of meat,” he recalls. “That stayed in my mind forever, and when I was making music with Snoop Dog, I thought that one day I should help the kids who grew up like me, but I didn't know how.” Tito took advantage of the connections he made as an artist and decided to create the Local Hearts Foundation more than a decade ago, a nonprofit organization that unites the community and contributes support to low-income families in Los Angeles. Currently, Tito and his wife, Patrina, are overwhelmed answering messages and calls from people asking how to pick up food for their parents. “Hey. We haven't eaten,” the children born here tell us on the phone. They call because their parents are afraid to go to the supermarket,” he says. Tito, 44, describes the current situation for the immigrant community as “uglier, harder, and more dangerous than the pandemic.” “They wouldn't let us go out, but at least you could go buy something to eat. Imagine now, being afraid to go out, not being able to do it, and then, too.” I'm hungry." For Patrina Rodríguez, the stories of the families, single mothers, children, and elderly people who write to her and contact her are the motivation that inspires her to continue helping them. “The truth is, it makes me want to cry because of what's happening. There have been a couple of nights where, at the end of the day, I've cried because it's too much. The stress and fear are constant. And if I feel that, I can imagine how [immigrant families] feel,” she said. Tito leveraged the connections he made as an artist and decided to create the Local Hearts Foundation more than a decade ago, a nonprofit organization that unites the community and contributes support to low-income families in Los Angeles. Currently, Tito and his wife, Patrina, are overwhelmed answering messages and calls from people asking how to pick up food for their parents. “Hey. We haven’t eaten,” the children born here tell us on the phone. “They call because their parents are afraid to go to the supermarket,” he says. Tito, 44, describes the current situation for the immigrant community as “uglier, harder, and more dangerous than the pandemic.” “They wouldn’t let us go out, but at least you could go buy something to eat. Imagine now, being afraid to go out, not being able to, and then also being hungry.” For Patrina Rodríguez, the stories of the families, single mothers, children, and seniors who write and contact them are the motivation that inspires her to continue. helping them. “Honestly, it makes me want to cry because of what's happening. There have been a couple of nights where, at the end of the day, I've cried because it's too much. The stress and fear are constant. And if I feel that, I can imagine how [immigrant families] feel,” she said. Tito leveraged the connections he made as an artist and decided to create the Local Hearts Foundation more than a decade ago, a nonprofit organization that unites the community and contributes support to low-income families in Los Angeles. Currently, Tito and his wife, Patrina, are overwhelmed answering messages and calls from people asking how to pick up food for their parents. “Hey. We haven’t eaten,” the children born here tell us on the phone. “They call because their parents are afraid to go to the supermarket,” he says. Tito, 44, describes the current situation for the immigrant community as “uglier, harder, and more dangerous than the pandemic.” “They wouldn’t let us go out, but at least you could go buy something to eat. Imagine now, being afraid to go out, not being able to, and then also being hungry.” For Patrina Rodríguez, the stories of the families, single mothers, children, and seniors who write and contact them are the motivation that inspires her to continue. helping them. “Honestly, it makes me want to cry because of what's happening. There have been a couple of nights where, at the end of the day, I've cried because it's too much. The stress and fear are constant. And if I feel that, I can imagine how [immigrant families] feel,” she said.