The exhibit, titled “Help Wanted/Leave Now,” examines the mass deportation campaign carried out under President Eisenhower in 1954 and 1955 — an operation historians say removed roughly one million people, mostly from Latino communities across the Southwest, and remains the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. The federal government at the time gave the campaign an official name using a racial slur against Mexican immigrants.

The idea for the exhibit came from Pablo Espinoza, a former television journalist and Capitol staffer who now sits on the California Museum’s board. Years ago, while touring the museum’s exhibit on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans with his son, Espinoza had a realization: he wanted to use that same kind of storytelling to document the 1950s deportation campaign, a piece of history he felt had largely been forgotten.

Espinoza, who immigrated from Ecuador on a student visa before building a career in Spanish-language television and later working for the Assembly Speaker’s office, said he believed he could easily have been swept up in the 1950s raids had he been living in California at the time.

“That could have happened to me. That could have happened to my son. We look the part,” he said.

For years, the timing never felt right to pitch the exhibit. Now, museum officials say, it couldn’t be more relevant.

The exhibit pairs video testimony from people deported in the 1950s with accounts from immigrants detained and removed from the country within the past year, drawing striking parallels between the two eras. Visitors will see firsthand accounts of families torn apart, aggressive detentions based on appearance, and federal agents using slurs against the people they were removing — practices that mirror recent reporting on immigration enforcement tactics in Los Angeles, where leaked texts and audio last month revealed agents using similar language during raids.

The Eisenhower-era campaign came about a decade after wartime labor shortages had prompted the federal government to expand the Bracero Program, which brought Mexican workers into the U.S. to fill agricultural jobs. But amid rising anti-immigrant sentiment — echoed decades later in Trump’s own 2024 campaign rhetoric about immigrants “taking jobs” from Americans — officials reversed course and launched sweeping deportation raids. Detainees were often crammed onto ships and trucks under brutal conditions; some died of heatstroke during transport. Today’s immigrant advocates report similarly overcrowded detention facilities with inadequate medical care.

Among the personal stories featured is that of Victor Ochoa, a longtime San Diego artist and activist who was deported as a 7-year-old U.S. citizen in 1954. Ochoa’s mother had urged the family to avoid speaking Spanish in public as deportations intensified, fearing it would draw attention. Federal agents nonetheless showed up at the family’s East Los Angeles home and gave them three days to leave the country voluntarily or face forced removal. Though Ochoa was born in the U.S., his parents were Mexican nationals, and the family chose to leave rather than risk a more violent deportation.

“I remember they scared my mother so much, and she cried after they left,” Ochoa told CalMatters.

The experience shaped the rest of his life, pushing him into decades of activism, including his role in the creation of San Diego’s Chicano Park. He credits the schools he attended in Tijuana with instilling in him a critical perspective on the United States that later influenced his work as a muralist. Ochoa said he now volunteers with groups supporting undocumented immigrants and is troubled by reports of agents detaining parents near San Diego schools, calling the current enforcement climate “more aggressive” than what he witnessed as a child.

The exhibit also features Vilma Palacios, 23, who was detained by immigration agents in June 2025 — just about a week before she was set to begin a nursing job at a hospital in New Orleans. Palacios came to the U.S. at age 6 and spent much of her childhood in Orange County before finishing high school in Louisiana and graduating from Louisiana State University. After spending six months in detention fighting her case, she ultimately agreed to be deported to Honduras.

“They said they were going after criminals and people with records, not people who have dedicated their whole lives to this country and their careers to serving the community. I never thought it would go this far,” she told CalMatters.

Palacios’ story didn’t end in Central America, however. Professional contacts from her nursing career helped her secure a hospital job in British Columbia, where she now lives. She said she views the current crackdown as a loss for the country. “These are good people being deported. There are good people in America who just want to contribute and make the country better, and they’re being sent away.”

Espinoza said his own views on immigration shifted over the years after meeting people who crossed the border simply to support their families, with no realistic path to legal status. In those situations, he said, immigration “isn’t really a choice at all — it exposes the injustice of a system that offers no path to citizenship for people who are economically vulnerable but who provide an important service to this country.”

He hopes the exhibit will move visitors the way the Japanese American incarceration exhibit once moved him and his son, Adrian, who died in 2024 at age 25. The two used to debate politics together, something Espinoza said his son claimed to dislike even though “he was always engaged.”

As the exhibit opens, Espinoza said he keeps thinking of his son. “In the end, I hope people see this with their kids and think, ‘What else can I do?'”

Original source: CalMatters

The post New Exhibit Highlights Californians Caught in Mass Deportation Raids, Decades Apart appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

“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

The post Decades Apart, Same Fate: California Families Uprooted by Deportation Under Trump and Eisenhower appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

“Help Wanted/Now Leave” opened this week, documenting the 1954-55 federal deportation campaign that swept up an estimated 1 million people, most of them Latino residents of the Southwest. The exhibit’s title references the government’s own name for the operation at the time, which used a racial slur against Mexican immigrants. Museum organizers are pairing that history with video testimony from people detained and deported under President Donald Trump’s current immigration enforcement push — a campaign Trump has said would surpass the scale of the Eisenhower-era sweep.

The idea for the exhibit came from Pablo Espinoza, a member of the California Museum’s board of trustees, who first envisioned it years ago while touring the museum’s exhibit on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans with his son. A former television journalist and Capitol staffer who has spent his career documenting Latino experiences in California, Espinoza said he recognized himself in the history of the 1950s deportations.

“That could have happened to me. That could have happened to my son. We look the part,” he said.

It took years to bring the project to fruition. Now, Espinoza said, the exhibit’s message feels more urgent than he ever anticipated.

The Eisenhower administration’s deportation campaign followed closely on the heels of World War II labor shortages that had prompted the U.S. government to expand the Bracero program, which brought Mexican laborers into the country to fill agricultural and industrial jobs. Within a decade, however, political leaders — including then-California Gov. Goodwin Knight — began casting unauthorized immigrants as competitors for jobs held by American workers, a rationale echoed in Trump’s own campaign rhetoric before his 2024 election victory.

Agents in the 1950s moved quickly, herding people onto trucks and boats bound for Mexico; some deportees died of heat exposure during the journey. Today, immigrant advocates say detainees are often held in overcrowded facilities without adequate medical care. Then, as now, witnesses have described immigration sweeps that targeted people based on how they looked or sounded rather than any specific evidence of legal status. Last month, leaked text messages and audio recordings revealed present-day immigration agents in Los Angeles using slurs strikingly similar to the language embedded in the 1950s operation’s official name.

Among the personal stories featured in the exhibit is that of Victor Ochoa, a San Diego artist and longtime activist who was deported as a 7-year-old U.S. citizen in 1954. Ochoa recalled his mother urging the family to avoid speaking Spanish in public as deportation raids intensified. Federal agents eventually arrived at their East Los Angeles home and gave the family three days to leave the country voluntarily or be forcibly removed. Though Ochoa had been born in the United States, his parents were Mexican immigrants, and the family chose to leave together rather than risk separation.

“I remember them scaring the hell out of my mom, and she cried after they left,” Ochoa said.

That experience shaped the rest of his life. Ochoa later helped found San Diego’s Chicano Park and has spent decades as a muralist and advocate for immigrant communities. He said recent reports of agents detaining parents near San Diego schools have unsettled him deeply.

“It’s meaner now,” he said, comparing the current crackdown to what his family endured in the 1950s.

The exhibit also highlights a more recent case: Vilma Palacios, a 23-year-old nursing graduate who was detained by immigration agents in June 2025, just days before she was set to begin a new job at a New Orleans hospital. Palacios had come to the United States at age 6 and grew up largely in Orange County before finishing high school in Louisiana and earning her degree from Louisiana State University. After spending six months in detention, she agreed to be deported to Honduras.

“They were saying we’re coming for criminals and people with criminal backgrounds, not people who have dedicated their whole life to the U.S. and their career to serving the community. I never thought it would get to that point,” Palacios said.

Her story didn’t end there — she eventually found work through her nursing network at a hospital in British Columbia, where she now lives. Still, she views her removal as a broader loss.

“These are good people that are being sent back,” she said. “There are good people in the U.S. that just want to contribute and make it better, that are being deported.”

For Espinoza, who came to the United States from Ecuador on a student visa before building a career in television news and later at the Assembly Speaker’s Office, the project reflects a personal evolution. He once believed immigrants should simply wait their turn for citizenship, but said his views shifted after meeting people who crossed the border out of necessity, with no realistic legal pathway available to them.

“It isn’t a choice at all, and it highlights the unfairness of an immigration system that doesn’t provide a path to citizenship for folks that are vulnerable economically yet are providing an important service to this country,” he said.

Espinoza said he hopes visitors leave the exhibit the way he did years ago at the Japanese American internment display — moved enough to reflect and act. He often thinks of his son Adrian, who died in 2024 at age 25 and who joined him on that formative museum visit years earlier.

“In the end I’m hoping maybe people see this with their children and then think, ‘What else can I do?'” Espinoza said.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Decades Apart, Californians Describe Being Caught in Immigration Raids appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.