In 2015, then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump branded Mexicans as criminals, drug dealers, and rapists. That same year, he said the Mexican government was “cunning” and accused officials of “[sending] the bad ones over because they don’t want to pay for them.” Almost 10 years later, his tune has far from changed. In 2024, he said that tens of thousands of migrants are murderers and suggested that these violent tendencies are in their genes.
But if the devastating Los Angeles fires have taught us anything — aside from the catastrophic results of climate change — it’s that Mexicans, by and large, are not boogeymen. We are, as we always have been, healers. In fact, on January 11, 2025, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo deployed 72 firefighters to help contain the fires in Los Angeles.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
The group, made up of military specialists, firefighters, doctors, engineers, and search and rescue personnel, are battling the ferocious blazes from the air and on the ground.
“
"If the devastating Los Angeles fires have taught us anything — aside from the catastrophic results of climate change — it’s that Mexicans, by and large, are not boogeymen. We are, as we always have been, healers."
Natalie Arroyo Camacho
”
"We have a special team so we are here to help, to bring people help, to give the best for them we can," firefighter Ivan Lorenzo Garcia of the Mexican Army's Emergency Response Battalion told Reuters.
The team, alongside firefighters from Canada, nearby U.S. states, and incarcerated folks, are on the fire line for one of the worst natural disasters in California’s history. At the time of writing, at least 24 people have been killed in the fires. As more than 12,000 homes, businesses, and other structures have been damaged, about 92,000 people are under evacuation orders.
The team will be active in California for one to three weeks, likely present when Trump takes presidential office again on January 20. Ahead of his inauguration, the president-elect has continued to attack Mexicans both in the U.S. and in Mexico, threatening mass deportation and an end to birthright citizenship as well as proposing tariffs on Mexican imports and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”
But the U.S.’s assaults on the Mexican community don’t start or end with Trump. As blazes rage through Southern California, worsening air quality throughout the state, migrants who were still working the fields in Mexican-heavy Bakersfield were rounded up by Border Patrol during unannounced raids last week.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
“
"As blazes rage through Southern California, worsening air quality throughout the state, migrants who were still working the fields in Mexican-heavy Bakersfield were rounded up by Border Patrol during unannounced raids last week."
”
This putrid perception of our people as criminals, drug dealers, rapists, and undesirables is not lost on us Mexicans. For example, activist and Internet personality Itati Lopez took to the streets in Bakersfield to protest the raids. She held up a sign that read, “Don’t bite the hands that feed you,” referencing the Border Patrol’s profiling of farm workers and day laborers.
In a parallel vein, a TikTok video that has amassed 14.6 million views shows Mexican firefighters holding up their flag and using a firehose to dwindle dangerous flames. The text overlay reads: “While our people are getting picked up by ICE, Mexico is sending over their firefighters to help with the fires in LA.”
This underscores something that Mexicans have always known: Even when others might think that people don’t deserve our help, we live by the words of our anthem: "Mexicanos al grito de guerra." And sometimes, those wars are against natural disasters in a land that’s no longer ours. Regardless, respondemos al grito.
“
"Even when others might think that people don’t deserve our help, we live by the words of our anthem: 'Mexicanos al grito de guerra.' And sometimes, those wars are against natural disasters in a land that’s no longer ours. Regardless, respondemos al grito."
Natalie Arroyo Camacho
”
This isn’t new. In 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, 100 Mexican firefighters flew to Tulare County to help battle the SQF Complex Fire. Mexican firefighters also helped save lives during the 2018 Camp Fire, which is California’s deadliest wildfire to date. In fact, according to KVPR, a National Public Radio station, “for over 35 years, the United States has partnered with Mexico to share resources during peak fire activity.”
As a Mexican American born and raised in Los Angeles, I know that this is who we are: community healers, whether that community is in Mexico or the U.S. This is who we’ve always been.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT