Speaking from the graduation stage, Kimberly Hernandez told the crowd in Los Angeles’ historic Wilshire Ebell Theatre how honored she was to stand before them “not just as a graduate but as the proud child of immigrant parents.”
It was an honor she shared with many of her classmates at Los Angeles High School’s commencement ceremony Monday afternoon. Some 84% of the students at the city’s oldest public high school identify as Hispanic or Latino, and many are first-generation Americans who learned English as a second language.
A few miles away, their fellow Angelenos had just mounted some of the fiercest resistance to date to President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda. In response, Trump had called in the National Guard against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and local officials, and ordered U.S. Marines to the city.
As thousands of L.A. students celebrated their high school graduation in recent days, school officials lamented the timing of the tumult and the Trump administration’s actions. And inside the theater, the graduates wanted to tell a different story about immigrants.
Hernandez’s parents emigrated from Mexico before she was born. “They came to this country with hope in their hearts, sacrifice in their hands, and a determination that no long work hours, discrimination, and no financial hardship could shake,” the senior class vice president told the standing-room only crowd.
She then addressed her mom and dad directly, thanking them in Spanish for always encouraging her to pursue her dreams.
Her parents were cheering her on from the audience. But other graduates said that their family members had stayed home, fearing that even commencement ceremonies could be vulnerable to federal immigration enforcement.
Rumors that federal agents had targeted a Los Angeles elementary school’s culmination ceremony on Friday, while false, may have contributed to the fear. So did an immigration raid Monday in a Home Depot parking lot that unfolded within sight of a high school that was hosting a different elementary school ceremony.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has dramatically ramped up immigrant arrests, taking people into custody at routine court hearings and increasing workplace raids. The White House reportedly has set a quota of 3,000 arrests per day as officials seek to carry out the president’s mass deportation agenda.
These tactics are increasingly affecting school communities. In New York City, a high school student from Venezuela was arrested at a court hearing. In Massachusetts, a student born in Brazil was detained on his way to volleyball practice. And in Michigan, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, arrested a high school junior after a traffic stop.
In late May, a Los Angeles-area fourth grade student was detained when he accompanied his father to an immigration hearing. The father and son were separated and taken to Texas. Both are scheduled to be deported to Honduras.
At a Monday morning press conference, Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said the district is providing legal assistance to at least six district families affected by immigration detentions.
Los Angeles High’s graduation ceremony took place about six miles west of the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood where thousands of area residents have been protesting workplace raids targeting undocumented immigrants. It’s about 20 miles north of Paramount, California, where the presence of federal agents Friday sparked some of the most chaotic confrontations between law enforcement and local protesters in the predominantly Latino suburb.
Trump has ordered 4,000 National Guard members deployed to Los Angeles in a move that Newsom said further inflames the situation. California is suing the Trump administration in an effort to have the National Guard stand down. On Monday, Trump ordered 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles and said they would protect federal buildings and personnel.
All of that “could not have happened at a worse time,” Carvalho said at the press conference. More than 100 graduation ceremonies were taking place Monday and Tuesday in the nation’s second-largest school district.
“I’ve spoken with parents who’ve told me that their daughter would be the first in their family to graduate high school, and they’re not going to be there to witness it, because they have a fear of the place of graduation being targeted,” he said. “What nation are we becoming? Who in their right mind would accept that reality?”
Pride, fear, and a call for unity
More than a third of Los Angeles residents are foreign-born, and 1 in 5 residents is either undocumented or lives with an undocumented family member. More than 40% of Los Angeles Unified students are English learners or started their school careers as English learners, an indication that they come from immigrant families.
Carvalho said he had ordered school district police officers to create safe zones around graduation sites and principals to ensure families could enter quickly so that they wouldn’t be exposed while waiting in line. Three district patrol cars were stationed outside the Wilshire Ebell on Monday.
In the theater, Eugenia Lopez acknowledged feeling scared, given the recent immigration raids, but said her love for her college-bound granddaughter was more powerful than her fear. Her granddaughter’s father, however, opted to stay home because “he has no papers, and he is afraid,” she said.
Lopez immigrated to the U.S. about 30 years ago and has worked as a nanny, specializing in infant care. She told Chalkbeat that even if she were forced to return to her native Guatemala one day, seeing her American-born grandchildren achieve makes her own sacrifices worth it.
“I’m so proud to see her graduate, and I hope to see her graduate again,” from college, she said.
Los Angeles High School’s commencement was one of several graduation ceremonies that Carvalho attended. In a speech, he reflected on his own experience as a formerly undocumented Portuguese immigrant who experienced homelessness and went on to become the first in his family to graduate from high school.
Carvalho said that Los Angeles is “stronger and more unified” because of its diversity. He also apologized to graduates on behalf of those who make their journey ahead more difficult, telling the crowd, “I will never accept anyone trampling on your rights.”
It felt great to hear that a lot of people do care, even if a lot of people discriminate against us.
— Jesse Cardoza
Janey Yea Ji Park, the school’s student body president, told the audience what it was like to emigrate from Korea four years ago, knowing little English. “I was terrified to speak,” she said, recalling how she would cry in the school bathroom every day, until she got up the courage to try things she couldn’t yet do.
“Four years later, I’m giving my speech in front of you,” she said. “In English.” Park, who is headed to Vanderbilt University in Tennessee this fall, then thanked her mother, in English and Korean, calling her the “most brave and selfless person I know in the world.”
After each of the roughly 250 graduates had crossed the stage, diploma in hand, the students and their families filtered out of the historic theater and into the afternoon sun. The graduates, holding balloons and bouquets, took photos with family, friends, and teachers.
“It felt great to hear that a lot of people do care, even if a lot of people discriminate against us,” new graduate Jesse Cardoza said.
Like many of his classmates, he said that he owed a lot to his parents, who immigrated to the U.S from Mexico. “They gave me the opportunity to make something better of my life,” he said.
In the fall, he’s going to California State University, Northridge, where he plans to study computer science.
National editor Erica Meltzer contributed reporting.
Gabrielle Birkner is Chalkbeat’s features editor and fellowship director. Email her at gbirkner@chalkbeat.org.
