“Only the People Can Save the People,” Say Migrant Workers |
Photograph Source: PAC55 – CC BY-SA 4.0
When the Eaton Fire began on January 7, 2025, in Altadena, California, it blazed through residential neighborhoods, destroying thousands of family homes. On the morning of January 8, as businesses burned on North Lake Avenue, a group of migrant workers met 2 miles to the south in neighboring Pasadena. They gathered at 6 a.m. to discuss an emergency response to the fires.
For the past 25 years, the Pasadena Community Job Center on South Lake Avenue has connected employers with skilled migrant labor, ensuring safe work environments, a living wage for workers, and quality work for customers.
Run by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the job center has also been a hub for much more: strengthening rights and protections for migrant workers, being of service to the local community, and sharing the culture, stories, and music of its members. NDLON’s work is intersectional, bringing together labor rights, fair pay, immigration, racial justice, climate resiliency, and community solidarity.
Less than two weeks before Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, migrant workers, who were poised to oppose the incoming administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, quickly pivoted to emergency fire relief. Omar Leone, NDLON’s arts director, helped organize “fire relief brigades,” to clear debris and brush from burned and smoke-damaged areas in the wake of the deadly 100 miles per hour winds.
NDLON put the call out for volunteers and workers and, over several weeks, trained members of the brigades outfitted them with protective gear and cleaning equipment, and sent them to impacted neighborhoods with trucks bearing the slogan “Solo El Pueblo, Salva Al Pueblo,” translated to “Only the People Can Save the People.” Immigrants worked alongside citizens, and workers stood........