California vice mayor calls for gangs to help protect communities from ICE raids
The vice mayor of a small city in California is under fire after a social media video emerged in which she appears to call on local street gangs to stand up to raids on undocumented migrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Defence
In a clip posted to Instagram and then swiftly deleted by Cynthia Gonzalez, Vice Mayor of Cudahy – which lies just southeast of Los Angeles – the politician says: 'I want to know where all the cholos are at in Los Angeles – 18th Street, Florencia Where's the leadership at?
'Because you guys are all about territory and, 'This is 18th Street, this is Florencia.' You guys tag everything up, claiming hood and now that your hood's being invaded by the biggest gang there is, there ain't a peep out of you.
'It's everyone else who's not about the gang life that's out there protesting and speaking up. We're out there fighting our turf, protecting our turf, protecting our people, and, like, where you at?
She continues: 'Dude they're running amok all up on your streets, on your streets and in your city and, peep, when the big gang guns come in nothing but, like, quiet and we're out here, the regular ones that have never been jumped in out here calling things out and trying to organize. People trying to do the thing.
'So don't be trying to claim no block, no nothing if you're not showing up right now trying to, like, help out and organize. I don't want to hear a peep out of you once they're gone, trying to claim that this is my block. This was not your block. You weren't even here helping out. So whoever is the leadership over there just f***ing get your members in order.'
Gonzalez does not name ICE in the video. However, it comes after weeks of controversy caused by federal raids on migrants in downtown Los Angeles, which saw local people hit the streets to protest and President Donald Trump call in the National Guard and deploy active-duty Marines to support local law enforcement against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.
Two weeks ago, Gonzalez joined other L.A. County mayors at a press conference hosted by Bass at City Hall to address ICE's actions.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reacted angrily to the video, reposting it on Tuesday evening with the statement: 'The comments made by the Vice Mayor of Cudahy, CA, Cynthia Gonzalez, are despicable. She calls for criminal gangs – including the vicious 18th Street gang – to commit violence against our brave ICE law enforcement.
'This kind of garbage has led to a more than 500 percent increase in assaults against our ICE law enforcement officers. Secretary [Kristi] Noem has been clear: If you assault a federal officer, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.'
The Independent has contacted Gonzalez for comment but she has so far refused all media requests pertaining to the video.
The City of Cudahy has issued a brief statement of its own in which it says: 'The comments made by the Vice Mayor reflect her personal views and do not represent the views or official position of the City of Cudahy. The City will not be providing further comment.'
The FBI has stated that it cannot currently confirm or deny whether an investigation into Gonzalez is underway. Still, spokesperson Laura Eimiller noted: 'Generally speaking, of course, the FBI condemns any calls for violence or targeting of law enforcement with violence.'
ABC News legal analyst Josh Ritter said he believed Gonzalez's comments had crossed a line: 'When you're dealing with a political leader calling upon criminal street gangs to take action, that takes on a far more sinister meaning and, perhaps, criminal meaning behind it.
'It is one thing to say local people of the neighborhood stand up for yourselves. It's another thing to actually call out the names of different criminal street gangs and ask them to protect their neighborhood."
The video was also condemned by local residents like Danielle Canales, who told ABC's local affiliate: 'Her talking about gang violence and bringing them to do, you know, stuff like that, I think it's horrible. We're already going through ICE deporting people and people, you know, are feeling insensitive about it. Saying that is just kind of sad.'
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In the wacky political world of Southeast Los Angeles County — where scandals seem to bloom every year with the regularity of jacarandas — there's never been a mess as pendejo as the one stirred up this week by Cudahy Vice Mayor Cynthia Gonzalez. How else would you describe an elected official telling gang leaders, in a video posted to social media, to 'f— get your members in order' and take to the streets against Donald Trump's immigration raids? Gonzalez's rant has set off a national storm at the worst possible time. Conservative media is depicting her as a politician — a Latino, of course — issuing a green light to gangs to go after la migra. On social media, the Department of Homeland Security shared her video, which it called 'despicable,' and insisted that 'this kind of garbage' has fueled 'assaults' against its agents. Gonzalez later asked her Facebook friends to help her find a lawyer, because 'the FBI just came to my house.' To my colleague Ruben Vives, the agency didn't confirm or deny Gonzalez's assertion. The first-term council member deserves all the reprimands being heaped on her — most of all because the video that set off this pathetic episode is so cringe. 'I want to know where all the cholos are at in Los Angeles — 18th Street, Florencia, where's the leadership at?' Gonzalez said at the beginning of her video, which was quickly taken down. 'You guys tag everything up claiming 'hood,' and now that your hood's being invaded by the biggest gang there is, there ain't a peep out of you!' Gonzalez went on to claim that 18th Street and Florencia 13 — rivals that are among the largest and most notorious gangs in Southern California — shouldn't be 'trying to claim no block, no nothing, if you're not showing up right now trying to, like, help out and organize. I don't want to hear a peep out of you once they're gone.' The Cudahy council's second-in-command seems to have recorded the clip at a party, judging by her black halter top, bright red lipstick, fresh hairstyle and fancy earrings, with club music thumping in the background. She looked and sounded like an older cousin who grew up in the barrio and now lives in Downey, trying to sound hard in front of her bemused cholo relatives. The Trump administration is looking for any reason to send in even more National Guard troops and Marines to quell what it has characterized as an insurrection. If inviting a gang to help — let alone two gangs as notorious as 18th Street and Florencia — doesn't sound like what Trump claims he's trying to quash, I'm not sure what is. Perhaps worst of all, Gonzalez brought political ignominy once again on Southeast L.A. County, better known as SELA. Its small, supermajority Latino cities have long been synonymous with political corruption and never seem to get a lucky break from their leaders, even as Gonzalez's generation has vowed not to repeat the sins of the past. 'In her post, Dr. Gonzalez issued a challenge to the Latino community: join the thousands of Angelenos already peacefully organizing in response to ongoing enforcement actions,' her attorney, Damian J. Martinez, said in a written statement. 'Importantly, Dr. Gonzalez in no way encouraged anyone to engage in violence. Any suggestion that she advocated for violence is categorically false and without merit.' For their part, Cudahy officials said that Gonzalez's thoughts 'reflect her personal views and do not represent the views or official position of the City of Cudahy.' Raised in Huntington Park and a graduate of Bell High, Gonzalez has spent 22 years as a teacher, principal and administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In 2023, after Cudahy — a suburb of about 22,000 residents that's 98% Latino — became the first city in Southern California to approve a Gaza ceasefire resolution, she told The Times' De Los section that Latinos 'understand what it means to be left behind.' A few weeks ago, Gonzalez appeared alongside Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and elected leaders from Los Angeles and Ventura counties to decry the immigration raids that were just ramping up. 'I want to speak to Americans, especially those who have allowed our community to be the scapegoat of this administration that made you feel that your American dream hasn't happened because of us,' Gonzalez said, adding that corporations 'are using our brown bodies to avoid the conversation that this administration is a failure and they do not know how to legislate.' Last week, she announced that she will be running for the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees for a third time, urging Facebook followers to forego donating to her campaign in favor of organizations helping immigrants. 'Our priorities must reflect the urgency of the times,' she wrote. In those settings, Gonzalez comes off as just another wokosa politician. But the feds now see her as a wannabe Big Homie. Trying to enlist gangs to advocate for immigrants comes off as both laughable and offensive — and describing 18th Street and Florencia as 'the Latino community' is like describing the Manson family as 'fun-loving hippies.' Gang members have extorted immigrant entrepreneurs and terrorized immigrant communities going back to the days of 'Gangs of New York.' Their modus operandi — expanding turf, profit and power via fear and bloodshed — will forever peg Latinos as prone to violence in the minds of too many Americans. Transnational gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13 are Trump's ostensible reason for his deportation tsunami — and now a politician thinks it's wise to ask cholos to draw closer? And yet I sympathize — and even agree — with what Gonzalez was really getting at, as imperfect and bumbling as she was. Homeland Security's claim that she was riling up gangs to 'commit violence against our brave ICE law enforcement' doesn't hold up in the context of history. For decades, Latino activists have strained to inspire gang members to join el movimiento — not as stormtroopers but as wayward youngsters and veteranos who can leave la vida loca behind if only they become enlightened. El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a manifesto published in 1969 at the height of the Chicano movement, envisioned a world where 'there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts.' Its sister document, El Plan de Santa Barbara, warned activists that they 'must be able to relate to all segments of the Barrio, from the middle-class assimilationists to the vatos locos.' From Homeboy Industries to colleges that allow prison inmates to earn a degree, people still believe in the power of forgiveness and strive to reincorporate gang members into society as productive people. They're relatives and friends and community members, the thinking goes, not irredeemable monsters. Gonzalez's video comes from that do-gooder vein. A closer listen shows she isn't lionizing 18th Street or Florencia 13. She's pushing them to be truly tough by practicing civil — not criminal — disobedience. 'It's everyone else who's not about the gang life that's out there protesting and speaking up,' the vice mayor said, her voice heavy with the Eastside accent. 'We're out there, like, fighting for our turf, protecting our turf, protecting our people, and like, where you at? Bien calladitos, bien calladitos li'l cholitos.' Good and quiet, little cholitos, which translates as 'baby gangsters' but is far more dismissive in Spanish. Her delivery was terrible, but the message stands, to gang members and really to anyone else who hasn't yet shown up for immigrants: if not now, when? If not you, who? It'll be a miracle if Gonzalez's political career recovers. But future chroniclers of L.A. should treat her kindly. Calling out cholos for being cholos is easy. Challenging them to make good of themselves at a key moment in history isn't.
