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The flag of Mexico has emerged as a symbol for many demonstrators. That has provoked strong criticism from top Republicans and many conservatives. NPR's Adrian Florido spoke with LA protesters about why they're waving that symbol now.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: On conservative media outlets, there's been a steady stream of outrage all week. This is Fox News' Jesse Watters.
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JESSE WATTERS: Anarchists on dirt bikes are waving Mexican flags around LA while the city's engulfed in flames. And they love this country so much that they're waving the flag. This doesn't look like assimilation. This looks like what it is - an invasion.
FLORIDO: But on the streets of Los Angeles, protesters are shrugging off that criticism.
JESUS: They can attack all they want. It doesn't matter. It doesn't change the fact that we're going to be waving the Mexican flag.
FLORIDO: That's Jesus (ph), who was waving a giant Mexican flag over a freeway overpass. He asked us to use only his first name because he fears online retaliation. He said his flag is an expression of pride in his family's history.
JESUS: I'm proud of my Mexican heritage, you know? Even though it was several generations ago, my family members were immigrants, you know? And obviously, if you come from immigrant family members, you have to have respect for them.
FLORIDO: Another protester, Cristina Carion Ramos (ph), says she is a proud Mexican American. She was wearing her Mexican flag like a cape and said every time she sees its green, white and red bars and its golden eagle, she feels a surge of emotion.
CRISTINA CARION RAMOS: The color is, like, (speaking Spanish). So, like, we're proud of these colors, you know, like, the same way I'm proud of the red, white and blue. This keeps me close to my heritage.
FLORIDO: She said, she felt compelled to bring out her Mexican flag because she feels that President Trump's deportation campaign is sending a message that if you aren't white or native-born, you can't be American. She rejects that.
RAMOS: There's nothing that I can be told that will make me not proud of who I am.
FLORIDO: This is not the first time immigrant rights protesters have been told not to wave the Mexican flag, but the criticism hasn't always come from the right. There have also been divisions on this within the immigrant rights movement. Pedro Rios (ph) remembers the massive protests that overtook Los Angeles and other American cities in 2006, when House Republicans passed a restrictive immigration bill that ultimately failed. The protests started small, with high school students walking out of class and waving Mexican flags. But by the time hundreds of thousands of people marched in Los Angeles weeks later, it was a sea of red, white and blue. Rios, a longtime immigrant rights advocate, says the large immigrant and Latino rights groups organizing those protests made a conscious decision.
PEDRO RIOS: These established organizations were saying, don't wave flags of other countries, especially the Mexican flag.
FLORIDO: It was a strategic choice to gain national support for immigrant-friendly reform.
RIOS: The message of waving the U.S. flag was one of, we are part of the fabric of the U.S. We can assimilate. We can fit into the larger narrative.
FLORIDO: The reform advocates wanted never passed. Over the years, anti-immigrant rhetoric has only taken deeper hold within the nation's politics. Rios says that today, protesters no longer see the point in hiding where their families came from. They now assert it with pride.
Laura (ph) is one of those protesters. She gave me only her first name because she did not want to endanger her parents, who live here without legal status. She brought a flag to the LA protests that reflect both her identities - Mexican eagle in the middle, stars and stripes on the side.
LAURA: It is a statement that I do belong here, and it doesn't matter if they don't want us here because of the way that we look. We do belong, and we equally belong as much as, you know, anybody else.
FLORIDO: The fact that I have Mexican roots, she says, doesn't change the fact that I'm a U.S. citizen.
Adrian Florido, NPR News, Los Angeles. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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