The vibrant colors of the fabrics on display along Ninth Street were loud, but the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles was unusually quiet on a recent afternoon. In the alleys off Olympic Boulevard, foot traffic was slow.
Elsewhere across the region, church pews have been less crowded and food vendors have decided to stay home. Numerous graduation parties, Fourth of July events and programs at neighborhood parks have been canceled. Bus ridership is down; appointment cancellations at some health clinics and hospitals are up.
In many ways, an absurd version of a California without its Latino residents — as depicted in the indie film “A Day Without a Mexican” more than two decades ago — suddenly doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Federal immigration raids have transformed life in the Los Angeles area for many Latinos who are undocumented and who have decided it is safest to simply stay home.
“Life imitates art,” said Yareli Arizmendi, one of the creators of the 2004 film. “This was what we saw was going to happen.”
The film, which Ms. Arizmendi wrote with her husband, Sergio Arau, and starred in, chronicles a chaotic few days in California during which Mexicans suddenly disappear — from the fields of the Central Valley, from the parking lot of a home improvement store known as “Home Station” and even from inside people’s homes. With the weatherman, housekeepers and other workers all suddenly absent, the shelves of grocery stores go empty, Border Patrol agents start looking for new jobs and even politicians who had talked tough about immigration change their tune.
“Tell them California needs them,” the acting governor of California says to Ms. Arizmendi’s character about the missing Latinos.
Ms. Arizmendi’s character, a Mexican American television reporter, replies: “I wish they could have heard that before.”
On a recent weekday, as Ms. Arizmendi was driven east from her home in central Los Angeles, through the city’s historic downtown and on to the heavily Latino neighborhood of Boyle Heights, she recalled the political climate that gave rise to her film.
In 1994, California voters passed Proposition 187, a landmark ballot initiative that barred undocumented immigrants and their children from receiving government services like a public education and nonemergency medical care. Backed by the governor at the time, Pete Wilson, a Republican, the sweeping measure also required teachers and doctors to report anyone they suspected to be living in California illegally.
“What Pete Wilson did back in 1994 with 187 has gone nationwide and has, in a sense, gone worldwide,” Ms. Arizmendi said. “It is the age-old trick of the politician to find one reason that can make people stop logic. It’s ‘Everything that is wrong in your life is the fault of this issue, this person, and I’ll take care of it.’ That’s the mechanics.”
Ms. Arizmendi, who was born in Mexico City, recalled that back when Mr. Wilson was campaigning, she and Mr. Arau had just moved to San Diego so she could take a job at a nearby university. Mr. Arau, also a native of Mexico City, was new to town and depressed — and Ms. Arizmendi was apologizing to him for making them move. California did not share the values Mr. Wilson was espousing, she insisted.
“If for one day they lost all the Latino labor power that they have here, they would die,” she recalled telling her husband. “Just one day without Mexicans.”
Thus, the idea was born. A 28-minute short released in 1998 garnered enough press and awards on the festival circuit that the pair began planning for a full-length feature. One “big” American studio proposed that the script be rewritten so that Mel Gibson could star, Ms. Arizmendi said. In the studio’s version, Mr. Gibson’s character’s Mexican wife would disappear and he would go on a quest to save her (and all Mexicans), Ms. Arizmendi recalled.
Ms. Arizmendi and Mr. Arau rejected that idea. But with the help of a Mexican production company, their version of the film arrived in theaters a few years later. Mr. Arau directed. Ms. Arizmendi starred. The movie, made for about $1.5 million, grossed more than $10 million at the global box office. And although it garnered mostly unflattering reviews — critics found it scattered and preachy — it touched a nerve.
A promotional billboard in a Hollywood parking lot read: “On May 14th there will be no Mexicans in California.” But some passers-by did not get the joke and were offended. The sign drew complaints and was taken down.
Dan Rather wanted to interview them, Ms. Arizmendi said. So did Lou Dobbs. The film was shown in 32 theaters the first weekend. Then more than 80. It moved from California to Texas, but its momentum died down over the summer before it got to Chicago and New York.
“The purpose was just to have people value our presence in the United States,” said Mr. Arau, 73, in a video interview from Mexico City last week. “Before we started shooting the short, I felt really bad, and I assume that there were a lot of people feeling what I was feeling.”
How Latinos live their lives in California has evolved a great deal since then. The number of Hispanic eligible voters in the United States has more than doubled since 2000, and California is home to a quarter of them. In 2022, state voters elected their first Latino U.S. senator, adding to a growing number of Latinos in key positions of power across government. Latinos lead even more nonprofits, utilities and law enforcement agencies in California.
But now, after a series of immigration raids in Los Angeles and across the country, “A Day Without a Mexican” is on the minds of some Angelenos again.
To federal officials and many Republican lawmakers, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has been making cities safer. And the agents carrying out raids in Los Angeles and elsewhere, they say, are being assaulted by rioters and demonized by Democratic politicians and activists. But to many officials and residents in the Los Angeles region, the effect of the raids has evoked memories of the Covid lockdown when the streets suddenly emptied out.
On a hot afternoon this month, at a carwash in the Mid-City neighborhood, a handful of Latino workers scrolled on their phones while a television ad featuring Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, blared on the screen above them. “Leave now,” Ms. Noem said. “If you don’t, we will find you and we will deport you.”
Later, at a Home Depot near MacArthur Park that agents raided in June, mall security officers in black uniforms patrolled the parking lot on golf carts. Farther from the doors, near red flag poles that marked the way for vehicles to enter the parking lot, a few men who appeared to be day laborers lingered on the sidewalk. Some sought shade under a cluster of trees.
“This is what’s so wrong,” Ms. Arizmendi said, looking on from an elevated stairwell. “They can grab somebody who is just standing there.”
By the time Ms. Arizmendi settled into a seat for lunch at Los Cinco Puntos, there had been a lot from the day to digest. Around since the 1960s, the Mexican market and deli sits at the intersection of five streets and at the cross roads of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles.
As she picked at enchiladas, Ms. Arizmendi recalled a 20th anniversary screening of “A Day Without a Mexican” last year. Viewers had remarked how the script so closely mirrored the anti-immigrant language of today. “It’s our country,” the movie’s anti-immigration activist says on the local news. “They come here and take our jobs, they get on welfare and bring their drugs into this country and steal.”
In a video interview after the ride-along, Ms. Arizmendi and Mr. Arau revealed that in recent years, they had written a script for a sequel — “Another Day Without a Mexican” — that accounted for the anti-immigration tone of the Trump presidency. But it hasn’t gained any traction, they said. As when they first brought forward their ideas for the original film, Ms. Arizmendi said, they have been told by prospective studio partners that their new script is “crazy.”
Matt Stevens is a Times reporter who writes about arts and culture from Los Angeles.
The post Living ‘A Day Without a Mexican’ in L.A., 21 Years Later appeared first on New York Times.
