Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo reaches into his jacket, pulls out his passport, and sets it on the table between us. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, Mayor Gordo arrived in the city that he now governs when he was just five years old. He grew up in a garage that his immigrant parents, a cook and a seamstress, converted into a loving home, turning its makeshift rooms into a haven where he and his siblings felt protected. When his mother and father were away at work, feared gnawed at Gordo. His parents stashed a Folgers coffee can containing vital records, identification cards, cash, and a list of important telephone numbers under their bed, and they warned their son that if they ever failed to come home, he was to retrieve this can, carry it with him to the neighbor’s house, knock on the door, and politely ask for help.
Gordo’s childhood fears have not faded. Instead, they have changed, taking new forms. As mayor, he now worries about federal agents abducting residents of the community that he is tasked with keeping safe. He is also aware that his vocal opposition to the federal raids targeting both immigrant and non-immigrant communities makes him a target for violence.
“What I see today is the stigmatization of an entire swath of our community, regardless of whether they’re here with work visas or born here as United States citizens,” says Gordo. “We can’t change how we look, and these agents are looking at us and making determinations based on their subjective interpretation of what an immigrant looks like. They’re acting upon that using our military, our federal resources, and taking action without affording us due process of law. That’s just wrong. It's immoral and its unconstitutional.”
Like Gordo, I’m also a Latina of Indigenous heritage. And in an odd twist of fate, my great grandfather Gumercindo was born less than ten miles from the village where Gordo was born. My home rests on the invisible border separating Altadena from Pasadena, and it brings me some comfort to know that at least one of my elected officials not only understands my family’s experiences; he shares them.
This quality differentiates Gordo from George Hobbs, the Santa Maria mayor who governed my hometown for most of my childhood and adolescence. When I was thirteen years old, Hobbs declared that Santa Maria had a “Mexican problem.” He called for the capture and internment of immigrants in “U.S. financed colonies” along the southern border. Hobbs’ dream has now become our nightmare.
Gordo is proud to be Pasadena’s first Latino mayor, but he also knows that his title means nothing to bigots. Under the advice of local law enforcement, he now carries in his jacket pocket the type of identification that his parents stashed in a coffee can. The police warned Gordo that he may become a victim of racial profiling. “I’ve been very vocal,” he says, "and so I’m carrying my passport, even as the mayor of this city. And as an attorney, I’m offended by the sheer dismissal of our constitution.”