Lifetime Dodgers fan Jorge De La Cruz had his faith in the team tested this summer when the Trump administration began immigration raids across Southern California.
De La Cruz, among others, said he was disappointed the team was not more forceful in condemning the raids, especially given the fact that Latinos are such a big part of its fan base.
But here he was Tuesday night in front of the Greyhound Bar and Grill in Highland Park, an hour before the fourth game of the World Series began to make sure he got a good seat.
“You’re always going to have people cheering for the team and I see why the Dodgers don’t want to say anything because it’s all corporations. But at some point, it’s their civic duty to speak up about what’s going on with people being taken,” he said. He is still smarting about the Dodgers’ response, adding “people are still talking about all of that.”
De La Cruz’s mother arrived in the United States an undocumented immigrant from Mexico decades ago and now has a green card. Despite all of the turmoil, she still cheers for the Dodgers.
“She’s going to root for them no matter what,” he said.
The immigration raids placed the Dodgers in a precarious position that the organization is still trying to navigate. The Trump administration’s actions sparked protests around the city, including outside the gates of the stadium when masked federal officials staged there in a line of vehicles. The Dodgers said they had nothing to do with that operation and announced the team would pledge $1 million “toward direct financial assistance for families of immigrants impacted by recent events in the region.”
Dodgers President and Chief Executive Stan Kasten said at the time: “What’s happening in Los Angeles has reverberated among thousands upon thousands of people, and we have heard the calls for us to take a leading role on behalf of those affected.”
Dodgers’ Kiké Hernández took to Instagram to say, “ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights. #CityofImmigrants”
“I am saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city,” the Puerto Rican native said in June.
But some fans demanded a stronger corporate statement against the raids. And it did not help in June when musician Nezza sang the “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Spanish at Dodger Stadium and later revealed in a TikTok video that she said it was against the wishes of the team’s front office.
Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, believes the Dodgers failed an important test when the city needed the team.
“To see the Dodgers take such a PR conscious approach to it, seeking not to alienate certain folks while sacrificing other communities has been really dispiriting,” Perez said. “I don’t think I’ve seen any statements from them specifically calling out the raids, and they certainly have not come out in solidarity with the undocumented population of Los Angeles and the broader Southern California area.”
Perez loves the team and wants to see them win, but his expectations for the Dodgers’ organization have been lowered. His father, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, watched the team play in the 1970s when he arrived in Los Angeles and Perez hopes to take his 5-year-old son to a game next season.
“But what should be a moment of pure joy is more complicated. Now it’s hard to look at the Dodgers, including specific members of the team who went out to meet with President Trump after he was reelected this past January,” Perez said.
He hopes that if the Dodgers win and do get invited to go back to the White House, they take the opportunity to speak up about what’s happening.
“[Trump] is empowering Border Patrol and ICE agents who are showing up at our schools, at our hospitals, near our churches, at our courts, and destroying our families on a day-to-day basis,” Perez said. “These are the same families, when you step into any Mexican household in the broader L.A. area, or any kind of immigrant and refugee household, there will be some Dodger swag.”
One bar in Boyle Heights got attention recently for taking its own type of action.
Guillermo Piñon, lifelong Dodgers fan, altered a Dodgers’ mural at his Boyle Heights restaurant, Distrito Catorce.
“The Dodgers were really, really good to me and my family growing up, and I have a lot of awesome memories, but the past is the past,” Piñon told the news outlet Boyle Heights Beat. “I’m going to do the changes that I feel are needed to make sure that our community feels … honored, respected, and celebrated.”
The mural depicts Fernando Valenzuela, Sandy Koufax and announcer Jaime Jarrín, who was the voice of the Spanish-language Dodgers’ broadcast for over 60 years.
Mural artist Sergio Robleto agreed with Piñon and said in an Instagram post they plan to update the work to be a “reflection of the struggle of the community coming to terms with the realities of ICE raids and their disappointment with how the Dodgers have responded; specifically in regards to their leadership and owner Mark Walter. We love our Dodgers but not the nonsense.”
He’s installed a temporary piece at the restaurant that shows a masked ICE agent named Walter wearing an L.A. Dodgers cap detaining Valenzuela. Walter is a majority owner of the Dodgers, as CEO of Guggenheim Partners, and has also partial ownership of the Los Angeles Sparks, Chelsea FC of the English Premier League and multiple auto racing teams.
Robleto doesn’t blame anyone outside of the Dodgers leadership but wants to hear from the players.
“They do have voices, and they could, they could speak up on behalf of like the situation,” he told The Times in an interview. “There’s disappointment with the leadership, because of everything with the ICE raids and immigration and more importantly the traumatic events people are going through. Whether they’re being profiled or being dealt with in a way that doesn’t feel like their rights are even being acknowledged.”
He plans to update the mural later this year, one that will acknowledge the people and communities of Los Angeles.
The Dodgers did not respond to requests for comment.
The team has a long, complicated history with its Latino community, one that started before the team moved to Los Angeles. In the 1960s, the city displaced multiple communities, predominantly made up of Mexican American residents, to make way for the stadium. But the team has become a favorite of the city’s Latino community, a bond cemented with the rise of Valenzuela in the 1980s.
Some have expressed sympathy for team leadership for being thrust into a political maelstrom not of their making. Some local teams such as Los Angeles Football Club and Angel City Football Club have spoken out against raids. But Lakers, Clippers and Rams have not.
Outside the Shortstop Bar in Echo Park, Maria Baldonado feels a similar pang of pride for the team that doesn’t seem to recognize the moment.
“You can’t blame the players, because that’s not their job,” she said as fans inside the bar cheered while up the street the team played at Chavez Ravine. “It hurts that so many fans show up sporting flags from all these Latin American countries. They see us.”
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