Vendors were selling a variety of colorful national flags in downtown L.A. on Wednesday, but Axel Martinez settled on one with with Old Glory on one half and the Mexican flag on the other.
The 26-year-old was born in the U.S., raised in Mexico City and returned to the States because of the opportunity, he said. On Wednesday, he stood among hundreds of other demonstrators outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A. who were facing off with National Guard troops on Alameda Street. About a dozen other flags — from Mexico, the U.S., California, Guatemala and El Salvador — fluttered over the crowd.
“Everyone has a story here,” Martinez said. “I’m proud to be Mexican and to be born here.”
For eight days now, protesters have made their way to downtown L.A. to protest against immigration detentions in the city and the presence of the National Guard. Images of flags, mostly from Mexico, have spread in news reports and social media — at times drawing the ire of critics. Even supporters of the demonstrations have criticized the display of foreign flags, arguing they send the wrong message. Members of the Trump administration have posted images of the ensigns in social media posts, and called the protests an “invasion” or “insurrection.”
“Look at all the foreign flags,” Stephen Miller, President Trump’s deputy chief of staff posted Sunday on the social platform X, calling Los Angeles “occupied territory.”
Vice President JD Vance referred to protesters as “insurrectionists carrying foreign flags” on X.
But when several protesters were asked why they wave a foreign flag instead of the U.S.’ red white and blue, many provided a similar answer.
“Why not?” Martinez said.
Near 1st and Alameda streets on Monday, 46-year-old Christopher Kim draped a South Korean flag over his back like a cape.
It was the first time he decided to participate in the protests, and he didn’t think twice when he grabbed the Taegeukgi.
“I was seeing all these flags flying out there, but there’s not just Korean, Mexican, Guatemalan people here,” he said. “There’s people from all over the world, living here in L.A., and we have a community here.”
For him, bringing the flag was a tribute to his immigrant parents, who came to the U.S. and worked for their children to have better lives, he said.
“They’re not out here, but this represents my roots,” he said. “This flag is my home, it’s my family.”
Asked whether flying the banner of another country during a protest should be deemed offensive or counterproductive, Kim scoffed and shook his head.
“This country is made out of immigrants,” he said. “How could this be offensive to anyone?”
Early in the week, a 21-year-old woman who identified herself only as Jade bought a Mexican flag and joined a rowdy crowd of protesters on Alameda Street.
“These are our people,” she told a reporter Monday.
Both she and her parents were born in the U.S., but her grandparents immigrated from Mexico. Carrying the red, white and green flag was a nod to them and their sacrifices, she said.
“I came from a family of immigrants, and I’m here for them,” she said. “This is my country. This is my family.”
Farther down the street, Ariel Miller moved away from the police line, hoping to avoid the rubber bullets being fired by officers trying to disperse the crowd.
She looked back toward the police line and waved the blue and white flag of El Salvador. She’s not Latin American, she said, but she was waving the flag for a close friend who couldn’t go to the protests.
“I got this for her because I wanted her to know that, she couldn’t be here, and I love her, and I’m here for her,” she said. “She has family that this is a really scary time for.”
In the sea of people marching and chanting, the emblems of Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador and other countries were markers of the makeup of the community, she said. The flags are like hallmarks of the history that brought them to the same place to protest the treatment of new immigrants and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence in Los Angeles.
The flags “say, you can’t erase me, and I matter,” she said. “You can have pride in who you are, and where you came from.”
Miller wasn’t the only demonstrator this week to carry a flag for someone else.
Najee Gow, who is Black and grew up in Minnesota, arrived downtown Wednesday with a Mexican flag on his back and led the crowd in chants with a megaphone outside the Metropolitan Detention Center.
His fiancee is from El Salvador, he explained, but the men who were selling flags had run out of the blue and white flags. He opted for the familiar red, white and green tricolor.
“It’s affected me personally,” he said of the recent immigration raids. Like other immigrants, he said, his fiancee is afraid.
He’s heard critics who say foreign flags should not be carried in protests, but he shrugs it off.
“That’s like saying, ‘Don’t wave your heritage, your history,’” he said.
In protests where demonstrators are trying to stress the important contributions of immigrants and diversity, the assortment of national banners helps to underscore that message, he said. And that includes the Stars and Stripes.
“It’s beautiful and, look, most of the [U.S.] flags are upside down,” he said, looking into the crowd. “It should be every flag.”
In front of the Metropolitan Detention Center, where protesters have gathered for several days near a line of National Guard troops, one flag vendor was selling a variety for $10 a piece.
On Wednesday, he said he ran out of flags of Guatemala and El Salvador fast. Before he goes home, he’ll probably give out the rest of the flags free to protesters, he said. It was his third day at the protests, and he said he’d just bring in a new batch the next day.
He declined to give his name, but said he was selling flags not just to earn a few extra dollars for his family but to support protesters.
When a demonstrator in a face mask tapped his pants’ pockets and signaled he didn’t have the cash for the flag, the vendor handed him a Mexico flag anyway.
“I got family that got deported too,” he said. “They got picked up when all this started.”
Despite the images displayed by critics, there have been U.S. flags flown during the protests as well.
Javiera Burton, a 25-year-old from Chile, carried a U.S. flag Wednesday.
“We are living in the U.S., and this is the flag,” she said, but she added that she had no qualms about foreign flags being flown in the protest. “I think people should do what they want to do.”
At one point during the protest Wednesday, she said, a supporter of President Trump’s immigration policies approached her and assumed that, because she was flying an American flag, she too supported the immigration crackdown that has occurred in the last few days.
So, she said, she detached the U.S. flag from its pole and hung it upside down — a symbol of distress.
“We’re fighting for this country, fighting for our people,” she said.
For some of those carrying foreign flags, the intent was to connect a disparate community of demonstrators, they said.
“The flag I carry is not my flag. It is our flag,” said Kim, who carried a South Korean flag. “It represents an entire people, struggling to survive with dreams and hopes that are common to every human.”
When he saw flags from Latin America in newscasts of the protests, he said, they seemed like an invitation for him to join in.
“Everyone out there holds their [flag] because of what it represents: we the people of Los Angeles,” he said.
