It’s late Wednesday afternoon and I’m driving from Tarzana to Whittier in the middle of rush hour. So I hop off the freeway and jump onto Sunset Boulevard. Sometimes the streets are much faster than the freeway but today they are way faster.
They’re empty. Not “light traffic” empty. Pandemic-era ghost town empty.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have decimated the normal rhythms of LA. Fear, once ambient, is now audible.
On the radio, the news is bleak: unmarked cars, masked agents, people dragged away without warning. I pull over and scroll Instagram. The rumors are wild — some say these agents are bounty hunters getting $1,000 per person. Whether or not that’s true almost doesn’t matter. It feels true. It feels like a siege.
Lately, I’ve been whispering a mantra to myself before I check the news or open my phone: “Don’t ever let them forget how incredible and resilient our people are.”
Then I see a video from KROQ's Klein Ally Show. It comes up in my Instagram feed with a cover image featuring the words “10,000 tacos” in large text. I hit unmute.
Co-host Kevin Klein says, “Even if you’re not hungry for a taco, get a taco.” It appears Klein and his co-host, Ally Johnson, are launching a very simple but powerful campaign to fight back — not with protests or policy, but with tacos.
Seems they believe we as Angelenos should collectively eat 10,000 tacos to support our community right now.
And I’m like: bet.
Because eating tacos right now is an act of resistance.
I head straight to A Ti — one of LA’s most ambitious new restaurants. It sits in a former Japanese restaurant, which was once a Mexican nightclub, on what used to be Mexico, on what used to be Tongva land. The layers of history are deep. And A Ti honors all of it with 600-day-old duck mole and crunchy braised beef shank tacos that feel like an offering.
This is the kind of restaurant that feeds the soul. But more than that — it’s a lifeline for the community that built this city. Because these raids aren’t just attacks on individuals. They’re economic warfare. They’re designed to empty our streets, rattle our families, and collapse the small businesses that give L.A. its flavor — literally and figuratively.
I can’t stop crying at least once a day lately. The videos of people who look like my tías and tíos being chased like criminals are unbearable. And sure, I repost. I donate. I text my neighbors. I stay informed — shoutout to LA TACO’s Daily Memo, which has been essential.
But sometimes, the only thing I can do is go out and eat.
So I do. A lot.
A Ti. Casita Mexicana. Guelaguetza. Coni’s. Lupe’s. Mariscos Jalisco. The elotero on my block. The ice cream guy at Rosie’s Dog Beach. Komal. Chuy's. Mariachi Bakery. El Chymal. Oaxacalifornia.
I’ve probably gained 15 pounds in taco solidarity. And honestly, I don’t care.
I don’t know if eating tacos can stop ICE. In fact, it probably won’t in the short-term. I don’t know if the depression of L.A. County’s–and therefore California’s– economy is perhaps the real intention of these blatant violations of the Constitution’s protections of due process and against illegal search and seizure.
But do I know that spending money at Latino-owned restaurants keeps families afloat. I know that showing up for your community matters. And I know that fear thrives in silence, in emptiness, in absence.
So even if you don’t want to protest or can’t. Even if you don’t think there’s anything you can do, eat. Eat defiantly. Eat joyfully.
Eat like L.A. depends on it.
Because maybe it does.
