Priscilla Preciado, a Cal State Fullerton communications student studying journalism, traces that fear through her father’s experience more than 30 years ago in Tustin. At the time, he was a 21-year-old Chicano who had recently moved to the Orange County city. One day, while driving to a 7-Eleven with four friends, a police officer began following him and directed him into the store’s parking lot.

More officers arrived. What began as one patrol car became several.

Preciado said her father believes his appearance shaped the way officers treated him. He had slicked-back black hair, brown skin, tattoos and the look of a young man who stood out in a largely white community. Music played from his lowrider. Officers searched his car but found nothing incriminating, she said. Her father and two friends who had identification were allowed to leave. Two others, who did not have IDs, were detained.

That encounter has taken on renewed meaning for Preciado as immigration enforcement has intensified in California and across the country. Border Patrol agents have joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement in roving patrols, raising concerns among immigrant-rights advocates and Latino communities about who is being targeted and why.

For Preciado, the current climate has drawn her closer to her father’s history.

Her father, the oldest of five children, grew up carrying adult responsibilities early in life. His father was incarcerated, and his mother worked at an appliance store to support the family. He often felt like an outsider, Preciado said.

When she asked him what parts of himself he felt others judged most, he pointed to his clothing, tattoos and skin color.

“My dress, the color of my skin, tattoos,” he told her. “Even as an adult I still feel like I stand out now.”

Preciado said those experiences shaped the way her father moved through the world — and the way he viewed his role in her life. When she was preparing to graduate from high school, she wanted him there to celebrate with her. But he worried that stepping onto campus might hurt her opportunities or draw unwanted attention.

“I do not want to hold you back from receiving any more opportunities,” he told her.

To Preciado, that fear reflected the toll of years of profiling. Her father had come to see himself through the assumptions others placed on him, she said, even though she saw him as a devoted father, brother and husband — not as an obstacle.

Now, she said, he worries not only about himself, but about her.

“You have to be aware of your surroundings at all times,” he tells her. “You’re darker than your siblings. You look the most like me, therefore are more vulnerable to profiling and the experiences I’ve endured. Be careful of where you decide to go now and only go if necessary.”

Those conversations reflect a broader issue within Latino communities. A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that 57% of Latino adults said skin color affects their daily experiences “a lot.” Among Latinos with darker skin, 62% said their skin tone has hurt their ability to get ahead in the United States.

Concerns about racial profiling have also reached the courts. In a concurring opinion in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that immigration stops may consider certain factors, including the large number of undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles area, locations where day laborers gather and industries such as landscaping, agriculture and construction. Many legal scholars have argued that the opinion gives immigration agents broad room to engage in racial profiling.

In September, the Department of Homeland Security reported that 2 million undocumented immigrants had left the United States, including 1.6 million people the agency described as having “voluntarily self-deported” and more than 400,000 deportations.

For Preciado, the moment has made skin color and identity impossible to ignore. She argues that the narratives attached to Latino men — particularly men with darker skin, tattoos or working-class markers — must be challenged by their families and communities.

She points to earlier periods of Latino activism in Southern California and beyond: the 1968 East Los Angeles student walkouts, when thousands of Mexican American students protested unequal treatment in schools; the Chicano Moratorium of the 1970s, which opposed the disproportionate drafting of Mexican Americans during the Vietnam War; and the organizing that helped lead to the collapse of California’s Proposition 187, the 1990s anti-immigrant measure.

Those movements, she said, show the power of collective resistance during moments of fear and exclusion.

For her, the lesson is also personal. Her father’s experiences did not distance her from him. They strengthened her understanding of what he endured — and why today’s immigration raids feel, for a new generation of California Latinos, like the return of old wounds.

Original source: CalMatters

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