“Keep politics out of sports!” is one of my favorite comments to come across in internet comment sections.
It appeared under the Dodgers' post when they went to the White House to visit President Trump as World Series Champions. And also under their Father’s Day post, when the ICE Raids ordered by President Trump motivated fans all over Los Angeles to urge the Dodgers to say something, anything, to show support for our vast immigrant communities being targeted.
Both times, the plea was from fans who say politics has no place in Dodger baseball. I couldn't help myself; this time, I wanted to feed the trolls. I replied with “Ever heard of Jackie Robinson?”
Sports are political, as they reflect the values of a society at any given time.
American society was explicitly racist during the Jim Crow era; as such, sports reflected the parameters of a society that disallowed black athletes from joining the major leagues. This is connected to Salvadoran Heritage Night at Dodger Stadium. Stay with me.
In the 1950s, when the L.A. City Council voted against a social housing project and instead sold the land to then Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, which was political. Three largely Mexican-American neighborhoods were bulldozed and displaced. That was political. Decades later, the Dodgers signed Mexican phenom Fernando Valenzuela to win favor with Mexican fans in L.A. That was also political.
Fast forward to 2025, when ICE agents and vehicles were spotted at Dodger Stadium following the June 7th order coming from President Trump to arrest 3000 undocumented immigrants a day as its goal.
The Dodgers officially stated that they denied ICE entry to their parking lots, while the official CBP Twitter page denied they were ever there as part of an operation. We may never know what was actually going on between ICE and the Dodgers that day.
What we do know is that Dodgers principal owner, Mark Walter, is also CEO of the Guggenheim Group, an investment firm, with A financial tie to ICE detention centers. There is also the testimony of Job Garcia, a U.S. citizen who was illegally detained by ICE agents at a Home Depot parking lot and claims to have been taken to Dodger Stadium for processing.
This is all political.
The Dodgers were eventually pressured into making a statement after their PR snafu with ICE, pledging $1 million to those affected by the raids. Fans were split in the comments.
Some saw this as the Dodgers going “woke,” while others found $1 million to be a paltry sum, as “about $300 million was generated by Latino families [in 2024], who make up about 40 percent of the team’s fan base,” per The New York Times.
We now arrive at Salvadoran Heritage Night. The fact that the Dodgers have financial ties to ICE detention centers and are hosting a night for one of the largest undocumented immigrant communities shows a ruthless lack of self-awareness when it comes to business.
This is why I say that this is our time, as the Salvadoran community, to let them know where we stand by forgoing financial support of a so-called “heritage” night.
This boycott is political.
The first Salvadoran Heritage night was in 2022, and they sold 14,000 specialty ticket packages, which incidentally was also the night of their “Pups at the Park” event (patrons were allowed to bring their dogs to the park).
L.A. Salvadorans, like myself, showed up and showed out, appreciating cultural recognition from a major sports team. Especially one of the largest, in not only Los Angeles, but the entire U.S.
The second year, they doubled ticket sales to 28,000 specialty ticket packages. The third year featured extensive programming, including pupusas and live cumbia. All three years, they had Salvadoran comedian Jose “Hoozay” Velasquez help with marketing in exchange for a special link to tickets, raising funds for a soccer non-profit, AFJA, in El Salvador.
This year, the Dodgers have decided to forgo any ties to non-profits or Jose. When asked what happened, Velasquez says he doesn't know, that it might be a different group internally handling the night.
I asked Jose if he’d call for a boycott, considering the political climate. Jose said he's not calling it a boycott; he's just choosing not to participate this year. He says he would feel like he's taking a political stance if he outright called for a boycott. His main concern is hurting the non-profit's future to benefit from an opportunity to work with the Dodgers again.
I spoke with other Salvadoran figures about their thoughts regarding the Dodgers' Salvadoran Heritage Night, including Karla Tatiana Vasquez, the author of the SalviSoul cookbook.
She expressed that the word “heritage feels like a relic," something learned and done once. She expressed that “the Dodgers want us, the diaspora, to feel like we belong through these heritage nights. That's the type of work that needs to be done on our own, and collectively away from a capitalistic venture.”
Vasquez would like to see our community's money spent at the El Salvador Corridor instead, to support street vendors.
Finally, I spoke with Victor Interiano, who runs Dichos de un Bicho, a social media platform and blog centered on the Salvadoran diaspora in the U.S. I asked him if he is a fan of the Dodgers and if he’d support a boycott.
He was a diehard fan of the '80s Dodgers lineup. He understands the complexity of ‘holding space for people, institutions, even countries that we love, that actively cause us harm.”
"When you have a business venture promoting ‘heritage’, you don't get history, you end up with a [money-making] scheme," Interiano told me.
To those Salvadorans who say “keep politics out of baseball” and are still going to Salvadoran Heritage Night this year, remember this: Salvadorans in the diaspora voted a dominant 97.9 percent in favor of Nayib Bukele, self-described as “the world's coolest dictator,” in last year's election.
These numbers show how collectively, Salvadorans in the U.S. hold political power, both abroad and domestically.
Just like baseball, it's all political.
