Photos by MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS / Rafu Shimpo
As part of the “Am I Next?” project, messages and images are being projected nightly on buildings around Downtown and elsewhere. The message seen above on the facade of the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo references a man who was taken into custody on Aug. 14 by U.S. Border Patrol agents, while doing nothing more than delivering strawberries in front of the museum.

A campaign of art and protest pushes back against ICE raids in the L.A. community.

By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS
RAFU STAFF WRITER

The facades of three landmark L.A. institutions have become nightly canvases for campaign of resistance, in a coordinated effort to bring attention to fellow Angelenos who have been seized in recent immigration raids.

The “Am I Next?” project was unveiled during a Nov. 6 press conference at the Downtown headquarters of the California Community Foundation, a nonprofit whose stated mission is to strengthen communities of Los Angeles County through philanthropy and civic engagement.

The visual component of the project features brief stories of people taken into custody – including U.S. citizens – along with billboard-sized images of detained residents and neighbors.

The one-line messages briefly tell circumstances of those taken: while waiting for a bus, working at a car wash, at a scheduled court appearance, or simply being at home with their children.

The displays will be projected nightly on the CCF building as well as on the glass expanse of the Japanese American National Museum and on the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes near Olvera Street.

Other organizations participating include the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach and the Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice. The images will also appear in high-visibility areas in Downtown Los Angeles, Long Beach and the Westside.

Among those lending their voices to the campaign at the launch were actors and activists George Takei and Edward James Olmos, both natives of Los Angeles.

MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS / Rafu Shimpo
As Miguel A. Santana (left) and actor Edward James Olmos listen, George Takei tells of his incarceration as a boy during World War II.

Takei, who as a 5-year-old boy was incarcerated with over 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II, said the raids and abductions at the direction of the Trump Administration are a repeat of a shameful chapter in American history.

Now 88, Takei recalled the day his family was forced from their home by U.S. soldiers with rifles, and imprisoned without due process, due to nothing other than wartime hysteria and racism.

“[My mother] had our baby sister in one arm, a huge duffel bag in the other, and tears were streaming down her cheeks,” he said. “The terror of that morning is seared into my memory. I will never be able to forget that.”

In a provided statement, JANM President and CEO Ann Burroughs echoed the warning against failing to learn from our own history.

“Few people stood up for Japanese Americans when they were unjustly incarcerated, which is why we have the moral responsibility to stand up for others today, to ensure that what happened back then never happens to anyone again,” Burroughs said. “As our immigrant brothers and sisters face the terror of ICE and [border patrol] raids across the country, the parallels between the state-sanctioned exclusion of 1942 and today are immediate and real.”

Olmos, an Oscar nominee who is known for his community activism as well as his on-screen roles, said the current assault on immigrants and those who oppose the ideology of the current administration is as dangerous a time as he has ever seen.

“This is one of the most extraordinary moments of my life, because it’s one of the most difficult,” said Olmos, who was a prominent figure in helping to quell tensions during and after the L.A. riots in 1992.

“This is just the beginning,” he warned. “This is a radical game plan that is being set up by a radical amount of oligarchies that are not going to stop. They have a game plan that is literally going to destroy the very nature of our American Constitution and the way we live in our democracy.

“‘Am I Next?’ pertains to to every human being that lives in the United States of America,” he said.

The CCF said that other community institutions – locally and across California – are expected to join the campaign in coming weeks, and that a website will be created to allow Angelenos to submit their own photos in support.

CCF President and CEO Miguel A. Santana said the most urgent part of the project is to remind everyone of the dangers that arise when communities are stripped of their basic rights.

“If anyone’s right to speak, protest or create can be stripped, if anyone can be targeted for their race, religion, identity or who they love, we are all in danger. Until justice is restored, no one is safe. Not one of us. Any one of us could be next,” Santana said.

More information on the project is at AmINextLA.org.

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