One day in June, Thalía Gochez, a Los Angeles-based photographer, noticed that her local flower vendor, Doña Sylvia, had stopped going to work. Eventually, she learned it was because of the immigration enforcement actions sowing fear in the city.
That’s when she decided to organize an art fundraiser.
“The point of the art show was to create connection and unity in a time that is deeply scary for everyone,” Gochez said. “I realize I have this privilege … not only citizenship [but] access to some resources and education. I have a responsibility as a community member to do something about what’s happening now.”
On July 12, a month after an onslaught of ICE raids began in Southern California, an estimated 600 guests attended “The Land Will Always Remember Us,” a group exhibition held at Amato Studio in Mid-City. More than 30 artists across the country, as well as from Oaxaca, Mexico, submitted photographs, sculptures and paintings, conveying collective stories from the Latine diaspora.
With Doña Sylvia’s consent, her bouquets were also sold at the event.
In the main gallery, a print titled “Immigration Is Sacred,” by Brittany Bravo, centered an elderly man surrounded by butterflies.
“Monarch butterflies have migrated across North America long before these man-made borders scarred the earth,” Bravo wrote, referencing the photo series. “Migration is part of nature. Your walls are not.”
Gochez and volunteers constructed an installation of brightly colored piñatas decorating an archway. The piece honored the shopping districts in L.A. and the callejones that Gochez noticed were losing business due to the presence of federal agents.
But she wanted to create an “uplifting” environment, an ode to the spaces that have brought her joy and positive memories. A mercadito with frutas propped against prints and signage by participating artists was intended to feel like a “sanctuary” and generate a sense of safety, Gochez said.
The art sales, as well as contributions from vendors offering airbrushed tees and flash tattoos, raised about $10,000. The money was distributed between the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
Like Gochez, other artists and cultural workers are responding to ICE operations and extending their efforts.
Erika Hirugami is an academic curator and founder of CuratorLove, an enterprise through which she primarily works with intergenerational immigrant, migrant and “undocplus” (formerly or currently undocumented) individuals in the arts to secure resources.
“A lot of people in my community felt powerless,” she said. “In the undocplus community, there’s a lot of pain, grief and trauma that’s currently being heightened because of everything that’s happening in the city.”
Within 45 days, she organized a two-part fundraiser, “Abolish ICE Mercado de Arte,” which featured 300 artists from throughout the U.S. and Mexico.
Its first installment, held in July at Human Resources in Chinatown, raised $15,000 to benefit the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and Inclusive Action for the City.
The second iteration, held in August at the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, collected $7,500 that went to several organizations, including Comunidades Indigenas en Liderazgo, a women-led nonprofit. There were music performances, poetry readings, art workshops and a healer offering energy alignment.
In between events, Hirugami partnered with multidisciplinary artist Ruben Ochoa to sell prints of his serigraph, titled “¡Tintín…Tintín…Paletas…Paletas!” Proceeds went directly to street vendors “who haven’t been able to leave their homes,” she said.
Revolution Carts, a company that has collaborated with Ochoa by using his custom wrap designs and supporting vendors, also matched the donations, totaling $2,500.
“Typically, artists are always at the innovative revolutionary stance,” Hirugami said. “So we need to be mindful of what they’re saying, how they’re doing it and how they’re all coming together to create actionable results, beyond just standing in solidarity with communities. This mercado is an example of that.”
Visual artist Patrick Martinez, who exhibited in the initial mercado, engages with public-facing art. In early June, at an anti-ICE protest in L.A., he distributed his fluorescent-lettered signs that read “Deport ICE” and “Then They Came for Me.”
“It is about being heard,” he said. “And saying something that pushes back on the status quo and what got us here.”
Martinez, whose work is on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, is documenting history as an archivist, he explains.
“I make work that speaks to today, the experiences of today and the time we are living,” he said. The neon signs, which include protest language and adapt time-honored slogans, are formatted as storefront installations and signs for lawns and demonstrations.
“It’s a chance for me to get the work back into the place that informed it,” Martinez said.
Some of his neon print works have been auctioned or donated as part of fundraisers. “Mutual aid is No. 1,” he said. His “Abolish ICE” signs, including apparel, can be purchased online, with proceeds going to CHIRLA and additional front-line immigrant rights organizations.
Award-winning illustrator Lalo Alcaraz is an editorial cartoonist, artist, writer and the creator of the syndicated daily comic “La Cucaracha,” which has been published nationwide for 23 years, including in the L.A. Times. Growing up in San Diego and Tijuana in the 1960s and 1970s shaped his perspective and identity. His illustrations often critique political issues in the U.S., with a focus on the challenges and experiences of Latinos.
“I have to use satire to kind of mock, and I think in a very Mexican way, a bad situation, so that we can get through it,” he said.
In a recent painting, titled “Summer of Ice,” Alcaraz portrayed a cart abandoned on a residential street in Culver City. The scene is based on a photo captured after a paletero was taken by masked men in unmarked vehicles. Alcaraz made prints with sales going to the individual’s legal defense fund.
And when David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was arrested and charged with conspiracy to impede an officer while documenting an ICE raid in L.A., “Everyone was horrified,” Alcaraz said. “I knew right away this was my assignment.”
Likening it to the style of a “classic political poster with an image and slogan,” he repurposed his painting of Huerta for a feature in CALÓ News, which included the phrases “Free David Huerta” and “Show ICE La Puerta!” The union later used the artwork for protest signs demanding the release of the labor leader.
Artists like Kiyo Gutiérrez Trapero have brought attention to causes and injustices in other ways. The day before the immigration sweeps began in June, the performance artist used ice and soil to create a message that spelled “No human is illegal” on the concrete bed of the L.A. River.
Gutiérrez, who graduated with a master of fine arts degree from the University of Southern California in May, was determined to perform the piece before leaving for her hometown, Guadalajara.
The “ritual” involved breaking down ice chunks and placing the cubes before melting, then gently blanketing the letters with soil. These repetitive gestures “echo the resilience, care and relentless urgency that define the immigrant experience,” said Gutiérrez.
“These actions are meant to honor and celebrate the labor, strength and dignity of immigrants, migrants and all undocumented people.”
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