SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A week or so before Christmas, Sacramento police descended on a residential block in a Latino neighborhood in California\u2019s capital city, closing it off on either end. <\/p>\n
Then the party started. <\/p>\n
Undocumented families filled the street for a posada, a Latin American Christmas tradition akin to a roving block party, with music, food and an increasingly rare sense of safety. <\/p>\n
Volunteers handed out toys, a mariachi band played, cops passed out stickers of badges and greeted guests as they rounded the corners, politicians ate pozole. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis brings out the community, brings a little bit of joy into their lives,\u201d organizer Ramona Landeros told me. \u201cThis street is like a safe haven for a lot of our folks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Times have rarely been this tough for immigrants, as we all know. Legal status or not, many of America\u2019s transplants are living in fear of President Trump\u2019s deportation drive.<\/p>\n
Across California, where about 40% of the population is Latino and up to 7% is undocumented, that anxiety has been especially sharp, and personal. Families here are status-blended. Nearly every one of us knows someone here without legal documents. All of us have seen the videos and reports of brown people being detained, citizens or not. <\/p>\n
That fear is driving undocumented people out of public life. Groceries, retail stores, schools, churches. These have become dangerous places, places where immigration agents could show up at any time, turning an ordinary life into a nightmare. <\/p>\n
The posada was a celebration not in spite of all that, but because of it \u2014 a moment of hope and happiness amid turmoil, and a reminder that not everyone, not even every law enforcement officer, sees immigration status as a measure of worth. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe department is here for them. They don\u2019t have to be afraid of the police,\u201d Sacramento Police Sgt. Luke Moseley told me, standing near the toy table. \u201cWe\u2019re the good guys, trying to help out everybody as much as we can.\u201d <\/p>\n
Landeros has hosted this event for 11 years, along with a weekly food bank that operates out of her driveway. She was a farmworker until she was 17, an \u201coriginal commuter\u201d as she puts it, traveling with her family among Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah and the Golden State as the crops dictated. It was a life that left little time, or money, for celebrations. <\/p>\n
\u201cDuring our holidays, working in the fields, there was never a present under the tree,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
When she was 13, a group of students organized a giveaway and she received her first gift \u2014 a bottle of Avon perfume that smelled like Hawaiian ginger. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll never forget, because it\u2019s left such an impact,\u201d she said. \u201cI remember being so touched and moved.\u201d <\/p>\n
Now, she pays it forward. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a time where the kids get to get that gift that maybe their parents can\u2019t give them, you know, maybe can\u2019t afford it,\u201d she said. \u201cI ask the families, \u2018What would your children like?\u2019 And they always say, \u2018Well, they need a jacket, or they need boots.\u2019 Then we all say, \u2018What would they like?\u2019 Big difference, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer to that question of desire over need was the table full of stuffed animals and footballs, dolls and trucks. Nearby, a gaggle of bikes awaited new riders. <\/p>\n
Fourteen-year-old Aritzi was there with her five cousins, all younger. She watches them nearly every day. I\u2019m not using her last name because, well, you get it. She came to this country with her parents when she was 9, and dreams of being a police officer, because she wants to help people. But now, her parents are talking about going back to Mexico because life here is so uncertain. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was really sad, because I was like, it\u2019s not fair for us to just come here and make a life and then just have to go back and, like, make a new life over there,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
But at least for today, here on this street, \u201cit just feels like a good place to be,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a small but important comfort in hard days, and maybe the best gift of all. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A week or so before Christmas, Sacramento police descended on a residential block in a Latino neighborhood in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,8403,30472,58391,32890,48,52,51,1637,47,50,49,16145,58389,9123,3607,1291,315,58392,58390,1745],"class_list":["post-108584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california","tag-celebration","tag-comfort","tag-dangerous-place","tag-fear","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-life","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-moment","tag-posada","tag-sacramento-police","tag-safety","tag-street","tag-time","tag-toy-table","tag-undocumented-family","tag-undocumented-immigrant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}