A new exhibit at the California Museum in Sacramento is drawing striking parallels between two very different eras of American immigration enforcement, more than 70 years apart.
“Help Wanted/Leave Now” opened this week and examines Operation Wetback, the sweeping 1950s deportation campaign carried out under President Dwight Eisenhower, alongside present-day immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump. The exhibit’s title captures the whiplash nature of U.S. immigration policy, which has long welcomed migrant labor in some periods only to expel it aggressively in others.
The display features firsthand video testimony from people swept up in the 1954 deportation effort, paired with accounts from immigrants detained and removed just last year. Among them is Vilma Palacios, who arrived in the United States at age 6 and was deported in 2025. “It was just one person stopping me that changed my whole life,” she says in the exhibit.
Visitors walking through the exhibit are likely to notice uncomfortable similarities between the two eras, including the racially charged rhetoric immigration agents used decades ago and language that continues to surface in enforcement efforts today.
One notable difference lies in how California’s political leadership has responded. In the 1950s, then-Gov. Goodwin Knight supported Eisenhower’s deportation drive, framing it as a way to protect jobs for California residents. In a 1954 letter to the Eisenhower administration, the state’s employment department director wrote, “We congratulate you and we are happy to have been of service during your wetback drive.”
That stands in sharp contrast to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, which has taken a far more adversarial stance toward the current federal deportation push.
Pablo Espinoza, a trustee with the California Museum, said the timing of the exhibit is significant, coming as the Trump administration pushes back against the Smithsonian Institution’s portrayal of historical events tied to racism. “I think it’s fantastic that California is leading the way to bring transparency and accountability,” Espinoza said.
The exhibit invites visitors to reflect on how immigration policy has shifted over generations — and how those shifts continue to reshape lives on the ground in California today.
In other news, a hard-fought congressional race is unfolding in San Francisco to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pitting two self-described progressive Democrats against each other. San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and state Sen. Scott Wiener may share a party label, but their visions for addressing the city’s housing crisis diverge sharply.
Wiener, a leading figure in the pro-housing YIMBY movement, has authored legislation aimed at cutting red tape for new construction and has steered billions of dollars toward affordable housing during his time chairing the Senate budget committee. He argues the state must step in when local governments fail to build enough housing to meet demand.
Chan takes a more cautious approach, having frequently opposed new development projects in San Francisco. She points to the city’s mid-20th-century “urban renewal” efforts in the Fillmore district, which displaced much of the city’s Black community, as a cautionary tale. Chan says her focus is on protecting tenants and small businesses that could be uprooted by new construction.
Meanwhile, a debate is brewing over how California schools should spend $1 billion in annual arts education funding approved by voters through 2022’s Proposition 28. Former Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner, who authored the ballot measure, is opposing Assembly Bill 2440, arguing it would weaken the funding requirements he wrote into law by giving school districts too much flexibility in how the money is spent.
Supporters of the bill counter that it would resolve confusion many districts have faced since Prop. 28 took effect, including mismatches between the state’s definition of arts education and what the measure originally intended. Some school officials have said they fear legal exposure if they misstep in how they allocate the funds — a concern underscored by Beutner’s own lawsuit last year accusing Los Angeles Unified of improperly using Prop. 28 dollars to replace, rather than supplement, existing arts funding.
Original source: CalMatters
