We tell ourselves stories to survive. Joan Didion famously wroteand this is what Democrats in California have been repeating for decades: Proposal 187.

Californians of a certain age I can recite: A 1994 ballot initiative sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants; Advocates argued that uncontrolled immigration was destroying the Golden State by burdening social services and changing the demographics of cities. The bill passed with almost two-thirds of votes, despite opponents accusing it of being racist. Protests attended by hundreds of thousands of people across the state.

This was the darkness before the light for Democrats: While Republicans won the battle for Proposition 187, they ultimately lost the war.

The ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a lawsuit to block the proposal from becoming law. A federal judge eventually ruled it unconstitutional in 1998with the then California Attorney. Gen. Dan Lungren withdraws state’s objection the following year.

Until then, Latinos, the primary target of Proposition 187 and harmful ads — were running for office in record numbers as Democrats. Over the decade, the California GOP has largely disappeared from Sacramento as the state grows more diverse. until 2012 Democrats gain majority in state legislature they have rarely given up since.

The lessons of Proposition 187 seemed so clear that a 2013 report from the Republican National Committee concluded that the party should tone down its anti-immigrant language; otherwise “our Party’s appeal… would continue to narrow to a core electorate of angry, old gringos.”

On the proposal’s 25th anniversary in 2019, the California Latino Legislative Caucus recorded an ad sarcastically thanking former Governor Pete Wilson: tying his sagging campaign to 187. achieve a comeback victory to bring them to power. “I hosted it that year too.”This is California: The Battle of 187A one-hour podcast about the legacy of the proposal.

I was part of the generation of Latinos who left the Republican Party. I have talked about how this shift is reshaping California’s political landscape in dozens of conferences, articles, and interviews over the past two decades. But as I was developing the podcast, I realized there was one important point that many historians, politicians, and activists rarely focus on: the fact that Proposition 187 was overwhelmingly passed in the first place.

They dismissed the measure’s victory as the last gasp of white voters and reassured Latinos living in the resulting states. dozens of imitation laws, measures and politicians By retelling the Democrats’ victory side as if it were gospel. Their prediction was that if Republicans ever dared to campaign on anti-immigrant policies again, the blue wave engulfing California would spread across the country.

And here we are.

More than 200 UCLA students marched in 1994 to protest Proposition 187, a ballot measure aimed at making life miserable for undocumented immigrants in California that passed with nearly two-thirds of the vote.

(Paul Morse / Los Angeles Times)

Donald Trump and vice president J.D. VanceHe orchestrated the most anti-immigrant presidential campaign of modern times, spreading lies about Haitian refugees eating cats in Vance’s home state of Ohio and complaining that the new arrivals were “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Still, they easily beat Kamala Harris and Tim Walz; Or rather, they won with the help of their hatred. Exit polls showed that Trump, who started his first race in 2015 by declaring that Mexicans crossing the border were “rapists and drug dealers”, increased the Latino vote share in the second consecutive election. do better More than any GOP presidential candidate since the statistic has been tracked.

While opponents predicted Trump’s harsh criticism would propel the Harris-Walz ticket to the White House, Trump learned a lot from former Proposition 187 advocates, whom he channeled into his first campaign to talk about how uncontrolled immigration was wreaking havoc in California. He realized that immigrants were thrown away America’s primitive fear of newcomersIt’s such a strong phobia that right now, the Democratic takeover of California after Proposition 187 seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

We now live in an America that, in many ways, is much more open to anti-immigrant policies than it was 30 years ago.

Latinos now oppose opening borders in much greater numbers than they did then. As I wrote in my previous article column23% of Latinos and 63% of whites voted for Proposition 187, UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll Co-sponsored by The Times This year, it was found that 63% of Latinos in California view undocumented immigrants as a “burden,” compared to 79% of whites. Even Harris had to shift to the right on immigration policy to keep up with Trump.

The text of Proposition 187 said nothing about deporting undocumented immigrants; It only stated that local law enforcement and public officials were required to alert immigration authorities if they suspected someone did not have legal status. On the other hand, while Trump promises to deport every illegal immigrant no matter the cost, his immigration adviser is a Santa Monica native Stephen Millerhas previously explored banning birthright citizenship and deporting immigrants for their activism. Miller will undoubtedly pursue these measures and more; News organizations are reporting that he will be Trump’s deputy chief of staff.

There was even a 187-year-old on the ballot this year: Arizona’s Proposition 314, which would allow local law enforcement to detain immigrants who are in the country illegally. The state has become more purple in the last decade, A change that experts have long attributed to Latino backlash against SB 1070, the 2010 anti-immigrant bill.

In a year when Trump won Arizona with just 52% of the vote. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego elected as the state’s first Latino senator63% of voters favored Proposition 314. It even included Arizona’s two predominantly Latino counties, Santa Cruz and Yuma.

Democrats’ circular firing squad is already in full force, but one of the questions party leaders in California must ask themselves is whether the retelling of the Proposition 187 ad nauseum version has neutralized its lessons.

Proposition 187’s narrative convinced party leaders across the country that Latinos would become a key voting bloc because the racism they faced in other parts of the country was driving them toward Democrats. This freed Democratic leaders from trying to appeal to Latinos beyond claiming they were less anti-Latino than Trump.

Besides, assuming that Latinos would break the age-old immigrant tradition of spitting on newcomers was as foolish as assuming Liz Cheney campaigning with Harris would work.

Protesters turn their backs as Jim McDonnell speaks at the Los Angeles City Council and hold signs criticizing his cooperation with ICE during his time as sheriff. McDonnell was approved 11-2 by the City Council as the new Los Angeles police chief and was sworn in Friday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Protests are already ongoing Reactions to Trump’s deportation plans poured in across the country. Immigration activists I know are already preparing for things to get a lot worse before they get a little better. On social media, Trump supporters are already posting about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s hotline to report unauthorized immigrants.

What I would remind the new president and his followers is that history is ultimately not on their side. For all the nonsense about firing people for decades, this country’s leaders are quick to realize their mistakes and just as quickly bust out the proverbial welcome mat.

After the Hoover and FDR administrations forced more than a million Mexican immigrants and their American-born children back to Mexico during the Great Depression, labor shortages led to the Bracero program, which legally brought in millions of Mexican workers.

Dwight D. Eisenhower may have launched Operation Wetback to deport hundreds of thousands of Mexicans in the 1950s; It’s a program that Trump praised in Time magazine as “very masterful.” But in 1965, Congress relaxed immigration restrictions and realigned the demographics of this country.

While immigration agents conducted highly publicized raids in the 1980s, Democrats and Republicans worked on an amnesty that President Reagan would sign into law in 1986. And when Congress tried to pass an anti-immigrant bill in 2006, Largest protests in US history to date It galvanized a new generation of activists who won protection for so-called Dreamers in the following years.

What I want to remind immigrant activists is that the Latino backlash against Proposition 187 was never the magic solution to xenophobia that many people thought it was, and that it was clearly usurped by Democrats.

But it still offers this valuable lesson:

The night is supposed to always be darkest before the dawn, and activists are now looking at a black hole that appears larger than the one they encountered in 1994.

But 30 years ago people finally found the light to move forward. Because the light always shines in the darkness and the darkness can never understand it.