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The sea of red, white and green Mexican flags at anti-deportation protests this week in Los Angeles has been seized upon by conservatives who argue that the demonstrations are inherently un-American, causing some protesters to consider leaving them at home.
Photos of masked provocateurs waving Mexican flags atop burning Waymo taxis spread instantly across conservative social media this weekend. Republicans pointed to them as a prime example of why President Trump called in the National Guard and how immigration had gone too far in California.
“Look at all the foreign flags,” Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff and the architect of Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda, said Sunday on X. “Los Angeles is occupied territory.”
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But protesters said this week that they see the Mexican flag as a symbol of defiance against Mr. Trump’s immigration policies or of solidarity with other Mexican Americans. The flag has become so ubiquitous in recent decades that it is a part of the Southern California landscape, adorning pickup trucks and flapping from bridges. Few mass gatherings occur in the region without a Mexican flag or two, from weekend soccer matches to Los Angeles Dodgers championship parades.
This week, those who kept waving them said that it was important to honor their heritage and not acquiesce to Mr. Trump, even while they recognized the potential political cost. They said that the flag to them was not un-American, that it represented their Chicano roots rather than a national allegiance.
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Still, the optics at protests have caused California activists to ask themselves whether their flag choice was only providing more fodder for Mr. Trump as he pursued an immigration crackdown. On social media, some progressives suggested that protesters should replace their foreign flags with American ones, knowing that their rallies were being aired nationally each night.
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California has had this debate before. In the 1990s, Gov. Pete Wilson sought to end public benefits for undocumented immigrants, making arguments similar to those expressed by Mr. Trump today. At the time, white people were the majority in the state, but it was projected to become a Latino plurality, which it did in 2014.
Mr. Wilson championed Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot measure that would have banned public services for undocumented Californians. Mike Madrid, the author of “The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy” and a Republican political consultant, said the ubiquity of Mexican flags against the measure so alienated the state’s voters that it tipped the election.
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