"ICE Out of Boyle Heights!"


Mayor-elect Raman joined protestors on Saturday (11/7) outside Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital over in East L.A. 

She led protestors in an “ICE Out of Boyle Heights” chant and decried the previous evening’s episode wherein ICE brought a detainee to the emergency room and then blocked any further inpatient traffic to the facility; purportedly a tactical requirement. 

Didn’t go over too well as protestors from around the neighborhood converged upon the emergency room dock. 

The hospital is not in Raman’s council district so the intervention must be interpreted as that of a unique hybrid… the private citizen/mayor-elect. 


This is an activist in public office bringing the force of that office to bear on the side of those tangling with federal law enforcement. A slight woman, Nithya appears as comfortable in the street as a lamppost, evincing the experience of street level work in the slums of Chennai, India and Silverlake’s homeless encampments. 

There is precedent for advocacy in municipal politics.

In the 1970s, a progressive coalition led by communist mayor Renato Zangheri took control of Bologna, Italy. It member were often found in the protestors’ ranks and union picket lines of the city they administrated. They took the fight to an overly centralized Italian state, staking out bits of sovereignty in legal battles that benefitted local government everywhere. 

Keeping a count of the times Raman is photographed in protest will establish a unique metric of mayoral duties. 

Here’s a news report about the hospital affair, which hasn’t quite died down completely.


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