Long before Trump, politicians on the country’s West Coast mobilized a white working-class base through violent hate of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
The systematic deletion of Latinx people by government databases, media organizations, and Hollywood has enabled killer cops, inhumane immigration policies, and more.
The imprisonment of Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen and the prospect of humane redistribution of wealth show California both failing and aspiring to its political promise.
In immigration, as in policing, every arm of the US incarceration and deportation machine brings down a hefty amount of its weight onto the backs of Black people.