Dr. Linda Lopez

How LA’s chief of immigrant affairs is fighting to protect our immigrant communities

by Azra Isakovic

Dr. Linda Lopez is the woman behind Los Angeles’ Office of Immigrant Affairs, an office established in 2013 by Mayor Eric Garcetti. As its chief, a lot of her work centers on immigrant rights and integration efforts like citizenship which is at the top of the office’s list. Naturalization not only increases economic opportunity for immigrants but it also increases civic engagement within the communities, which are currently experiencing a lot of anxiety as a result of the Trump administration’s policies and enforcements that threaten the livelihoods of immigrants. In order to alleviate the fears and make sure LA remains an inclusive city that protects its people (documented or not), Dr. Linda Lopez has met the challenges with a clear vision and strategy. Among other things, she’s coordinated between organizations, immigrant rights groups, foundations and the families in need of their services. She understands how policy impacts families on a daily basis, in part because her own parents were immigrants. It’s that personal connection that is also the driving force behind her passion and dedication to improve the lives of the refugees and immigrants in LA.

I sat down with Dr. Lopez and discussed the current administration’s impact on LA’s immigrant community, the work her office is doing on behalf of the refugees and immigrants in LA, and her own family’s story.

What is the effect that the new administration has had on immigrants in LA?

For a place like LA, it's a very diverse place and we have a significant undocumented population, immigrant population, as well. The main impact has been around areas of enforcement. One of the key impacts, especially for immigrants here locally has been the executive order that focuses on enforcement for people who are here in the United States potentially without documents and that has really created a sense of anxiety and a lot of fear in the community about whether or not at some point ICE may come and pick up their parents or family members. And so there's a lot of uncertainty in the immigrant communities right now about how this is really going to impact their daily lives.

And it already has. We're seeing that a lot in the educational system. We worked with LAUSD, so we're seeing that even kids who for the most part are US citizen born kids, who may have a parent who's undocumented, are really seeing the impacts of this in a lot of ways. We have a lot of stories that have been shared by students on how this has really impacted their family and their family unit. The main thing for us is to build partnerships with stakeholders including LAUSD on how to best support through different resources or services. LAUSD has a campaign to inform parents of what the services are that might be available, whether it's legal services or parental guardianship kinds of advice from different non-profits.

What can other cities learn from LA in its active acceptance and protection of refugees and immigrants?

There is a lot of opportunity to build partnerships and collaboration even in this time of a lot of uncertainty and a lot of impacts that these policies are having on immigrant communities. One good example of this is our legal justice fund that we created recently with non-profits, with philanthropy, with the city and the county as partners. And it's a mechanism to bring all these different resources to the table and really leverage those opportunities to not only fund organizations through that process. The organizations will provide mostly legal services for people who are in deportation proceedings, but it's also a model that I think can be replicated in other cities.

What does the immigrant population mean to Los Angeles? And how integral are they to the economy?

Immigrants are obviously a big part of our local, social and cultural fabric, but also our economic growth and our economic success. Our approach has always been that this diversity, this ability to be welcoming and, and to really see diversity as an asset has really allowed us to be a strong economy frankly.  We are the 5th largest economy in the world. And I think a large part of that has to do with the fact that we have a significant immigrant population that contributes greatly to the local tax space, our overall GDP indicators, and other economic indicators. So I do believe that we're stronger because immigrants are here.

We have a diaspora of Salvadorans, Ethiopians, Bangladeshis. We have all these different communities that come to make their dreams a reality. They're also contributing in so many different ways, not just from an economic standpoint, but also from a cultural standpoint to make this city what it is and what it represents, which is a city that is inclusive, responsive and welcoming to people that come from all parts of the world.

What has your office done to help protect DACA recipients?

Very early on when this office was established in 2013, we instituted a series of DACA clinics at the time.  We did a lot of different outreach events to enroll DACA eligible individuals. We also work very closely with a lot of different nonprofits that provide more of the direct services and built partnerships and collaboration models with these direct service providers like CHIRLA because they're the experts and they're the ones who are able to assist these communities particularly individuals that are eligible for DACA. Unfortunately there is not a solution yet right now for those DACA recipients that could have been eligible and there's no real sort of comprehensive plan or policy, which is unfortunate. But we continue to advocate. Mayor Garcetti has advocated quite significantly in terms of trying to get other mayors or other key stakeholders including the faith community, the business community to find a comprehensive solution, whether it's the DREAM Act or other kinds of policy solutions that could hopefully eventually happen at the federal level. But in the meantime, we have a lot of work to do. We continue to do that work here locally because cities are really the places where a lot of this happens, where we can provide those services and we can collaborate and partner with other organizations to assist populations that are in need. We have a lot of plans to also conduct additional workshops and clinics to help support these young people.

What is your office currently focusing most of your efforts on?

We're continuing to do our work around citizenship. I think for us, citizenship has been a great opportunity. A lot of our initiatives that focus on this help people navigate the process of what it is to go through that and to be able to inform people on if you're eligible, here's where you can go. And so our libraries, they have been great assets to do this work. We launched what are called New American Centers recently in January. There are about six of them now where we provide fully integrated services. It's not only citizenship. We used to have a citizenship corner model, but now it's the New American Center model where people can obtain information on things like tenant rights, DACA information, information on what the current city policy is on enforcement or any new policies that emerge locally to ensure that immigrants feel safe and protected. So I think we're really proud of the fact that we've reimagined these centers to be more inclusive of these other kinds of policies that impact immigrant communities.

Where are the centers located?

They're spread throughout the city. Essentially in high immigrant population neighborhoods. We have one in Boyle Heights, Koreatown, Chinatown, the Valley and then one near the harbor area. The idea is to maximize how we deliver the service by identifying areas that have high immigrant dense populations.

There’s a belief that the majority of recent immigrants in LA are from Mexico or Latin America. What is actually the recent migration trend? Do you also think it's important to bring more attention to the diverse populations and why?

From the research that I've seen, we're seeing a greater increase in the Asian Pacific Islander community. The immigrant diaspora in LA is very diverse. More recently we've been doing more work with refugee organizations that are receiving people from the Middle East, whether it's Syrian refugees or individuals and refugees that come from war torn countries like Iraq or Afghanistan. So I think that there is something to be said about who is an immigrant in the city of LA.  It's obviously a collection of a lot of different people from different places and there are certain trends in terms of migration coming into LA or immigration into LA, but at the same time we're seeing also that certain populations have somewhat flattened in terms of their migration.

What was it like for you growing up with immigrant parents and being first generation?

My parents came here in the 1960’s from Ecuador and they actually met at a friend's. They used to participate in this cultural hall. That's how they originally met. I was born in Los Angeles. I grew up in LA for most of my life. But I think what is the most important thing for me is that I do come from an immigrant background, so I do understand where people are coming from or I have an idea of what it means to sacrifice, what it means to come to this country without any resources in many instances and being able to thrive even though you may not know the language or you may not know how the system works here.

My parents are great examples of two individuals that came to the city in search of a better life and were able to accomplish quite a bit. We [the children] are the ones that get to benefit. I am a child of immigrants. I always keep that in who I am and a lot of the work that I do now as the Chief of the Office of Immigrant Affairs is very linked to the experience of being raised in a family with parents that migrated here. That's shaped my perspective also in the work that I do on a day to day basis to assist immigrant and refugee populations here in the city and it gives me great perspective and the way that I approach things as well.

What prompted your parents to migrate here?

My dad was 18 when he got here to LA and he mostly came because he was pretty much an orphan. His parents died very young when he was four years old. He was raised by his grandparents and so he decided to come here when he was 18. He started pumping gas at a gas station near the Tommy's by Rampart.  He’s a hard worker and he came here mostly for economic reasons. He came by himself and just made his way.

My mother, on the other hand, was also interested in coming here. She came here later,  in her mid-twenties and had a daughter. She came with her originally to be reunited with her brother. Her brother was already here. He was the first one that came when he was 18 and she ended up really liking it and staying. That prompted others to also come. There were other family members that also came, a couple of sisters. They stayed here for a little bit and went back home. There are different factors that pull people to come to the country and to the city. And so their stories are a little different, but nonetheless, both of them ended up staying here. They never went back.

Do you visit Ecuador frequently?

I used to, I lived there when I was 15 for a year. But I haven't been back for nine years.

Since taking your role here at the office, what is the thing that you're most proud of?

I am most proud of the way in which we have really embraced immigrants, welcomed them, and created a very vibrant and dynamic place for immigrants. I'm really proud of all the projects that we've launched and all the innovations that we've created. But I think that spirit or that ability to create this place that's really reassuring to people that it's going to be OK. And even though they are an immigrant or from somewhere else, that they are still going to be embraced and treated with respect and dignity. That is what I think I'm most proud of.