Hispanic festivities combine cultural celebration with immigration anxiety at Oklahoma Capitol

Yahoo

14-05-2025

A group performs a traditional Mexican dance during Hispanic Cultural Day on Wednesday at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY — Amid the bright colors, booming music and plates of food at the state Capitol's Hispanic Cultural Day was an undercurrent of uncertainty.
While performers put traditional dances on display in the Capitol rotunda, multiple booths offered information and advice for encounters with law enforcement as federal authorities ratchet up immigrant arrests and deportations.
Latino legislators, local business owners and faith leaders met with Oklahoma's Republican governor on Wednesday about immigration policies and Oklahoma's reliance on immigrant labor.
Latino lawmakers' biggest ask, Sen. Michael Brooks said, was for the governor to follow through with his opposition to the Oklahoma State Department of Education's proposal to have public schools collect students' immigration status. Gov. Kevin Stitt previously pledged to block the proposed rule, saying 'putting kids on a list is not something we should do.'
'That was well received,' Brooks, D-Oklahoma City, said. 'The governor has continued to be able to maintain that he's committed to making sure those rules do not go into effect.'
State Superintendent Ryan Walters has said he proposed the rule to better account for resources needed to serve immigrant students. He also said his administration would share the collected information with the federal government, if asked, and would support immigration raids in schools.
A resolution that passed the state Senate this week would reject the rule. It now advances to the House for consideration.
Stitt said he heard from leaders of various industries during the roundtable meeting Wednesday that the proposed rule had made some Oklahoma families 'really, really scared and nervous about sending their kids to school.'
'They were just asking me to help them on that (and) be able to protect the young people in the state of Oklahoma,' Stitt said. 'It's a complicated issue. It's an issue that normally is a political issue that nobody on my side of the aisle would jump in and say, 'Hey, let's attack this.' So, I knew it was going to be political and people were going to come after me for it, but it's the right thing to do.'
Stitt's stance on the issue was a balm for families in Santa Fe South Schools, an Oklahoma City charter district where about 97% of the student body is Hispanic, said the district's superintendent, Chris Brewster.
But, the district's community is still experiencing crises and heightened anxiety with the growing number of deportations, Brewster said.
A month ago, he said, a Santa Fe South fifth grader learned his mother and other members of her roofing crew had been placed in immigration detention. Brewster said the boy and his mother had entered the country to seek asylum from violence in Honduras.
He said school officials scrambled to get in touch with the 11 year old's mother, who is now slated for deportation, and to contact his estranged father, who now has custody of the child.
'This is not an isolated issue, and we have hundreds of these stories in our community,' Brewster said. 'As a conservative Christian and an American, I don't find this to be tenable, the way that we treat children, those that have been made in God's image, that they should go through this type of turmoil and tragedy because of what's taking place in our immigration system.'
The Oklahoma Legislative Latino Caucus, though in agreement with Stitt on the Education Department's proposed rule, continues to oppose a bill the governor signed into law last year to create the state crime of 'impermissible occupation.'
Scores of Latino Oklahomans gathered at the Capitol last year on Hispanic Cultural Day to protest the policy. A lawsuit challenging the law was refiled this week.
Wednesday's festivities were a far cry from the large-scale protest that took place last year. With the added fears that the immigrant community now faces, Brooks said 'having a huge event on the steps of the Capitol wasn't the right thing to do this year.'
To meet uncertain times with music and dancing is a testament to the community's temperament, said Rep. Annie Menz, D-Norman, a member of the Latino caucus who founded the Hispanic Cultural Day event.
'Whenever we feel like our community is coming under attack, it's up to us to fight back,' Menz said. 'We will remain prayerful that those (attacks) remain few and far between, and it's in that spirit that we wanted to go back to our original format for this event and kind of lighten it a little bit and remind people we are no threat. Our community is no threat. We are your neighbors. We are your friends, we are your coworkers.'
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