Business
A day without Mexicans in Mammoth? Locals mull how to get a message to Trump
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — If all the service workers born in Mexico stayed home from their jobs for just one day in this thriving resort town perched high in California’s Sierra Nevada, the humming tourist economy would probably faceplant harder than a first-time skier on an icy expert slope.
Most of the restaurants would have no staff, residents say. Hotels and Airbnbs would suffer the same fate. Construction projects across this posh skiing destination would come to a grinding halt.
“I think that would be like one of those zombie movies,” said Jose Diaz, 33, from Sinaloa, a supervisor at the Stove, a cozy breakfast spot in the heart of town.
Like so many others who have made their way here from small towns in Mexico, Diaz didn’t come for the skiing. He had heard through the grapevine that Mammoth was a good place to earn a steady paycheck.
Restaurant kitchens and hotel break rooms in Mammoth Lakes have been buzzing with the notion of Latino workers staging a one-day strike to demonstrate the town’s dependence on imported labor.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
That was 14 years ago. Now, Diaz and his wife — she’s from Guadalajara, and they met working at a Mammoth restaurant — are both here legally, he said. They have two kids born in the U.S. and recently bought a condo in town.
But, like almost everyone else in this alpine community of about 7,000 people, they have friends and family who would be vulnerable if President-elect Donald Trump’s pronouncements about deporting millions of undocumented immigrants actually come to pass.
Locals are torn about how exactly to respond. Some workers say they are counting on Trump, given his business background, to take a softer stance when it comes to resort towns such as Mammoth and South Lake Tahoe, whose economies would be devastated by mass deportations.
Others urge something more proactive: Restaurant kitchens, hotel break rooms and group chats have been buzzing with the notion of Latino workers staging a one-day strike to demonstrate the town’s dependence on imported labor.
Mayor Chris Bubser said she sympathizes with the growing anxiety around deportations, but hopes the strike doesn’t materialize.
Mammoth Lakes residents say their resort town would be devastated if the undocumented workers who provide much of the labor were swept up in mass deportations.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
“I feel badly for the business owners, because they’re not the ones making these awful threats and they’d be left in the lurch,” Bubser said.
As state and local officials across California grapple with the potential consequences of Trump’s proposed deportations, the natural focus is on farm communities in the Central Valley, where roughly half the people working in the fields and orchards are believed to be undocumented.
But pricier ZIP Codes are vulnerable, too, and it’s hard to imagine anywhere in the state that would suffer more than Mammoth Lakes if a substantial percentage of its undocumented workforce suddenly disappeared.
That’s because almost all of the tourists who flock to this internationally renowned resort are white-collar professionals. And the people who own property are, by and large, real estate investors, skiers with enough money to afford a second home or well-to-do retirees who headed for the hills to escape the congestion of coastal cities. None of them are likely to respond to help-wanted ads for line cooks and snowplow drivers.
So, immigrants end up doing most of the labor.
A worker moves lumber at a condominium construction site in Mammoth Lakes.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
About a third of Mammoth’s population is Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and more than half the students in the local public school system are from Spanish-speaking homes.
Many of the Latinos in town are citizens or green card holders, some from families who have lived here for generations. But residents guess at least half are in the country illegally. They’re not hard to find.
On a recent chilly afternoon, about a half dozen men were clearing snow from a commercial office building in town. The roofing company owner asked to be identified only as Julio, because he is undocumented. He said he has been doing construction work in the U.S. since 1989, most of that time in Mammoth Lakes.
His company has 15 employees, he said. He also has three kids, all U.S. citizens; his oldest is an officer for the California Highway Patrol.
He has doubts about the benefits of a one-day strike by Latino workers: “The purpose of doing it is to show that Hispanic labor is necessary, but I’m pretty sure everyone already knows that,” he said with a shrug.
Roofing contractor Julio at a Mammoth Lakes job site last week.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
He mentioned the record snowfall in the winter of 2022-23, when homeowners were desperate to get snow off their roofs before their houses collapsed.
“I didn’t see a whole lot of Americans, you know, white guys, up on those roofs,” Julio said.
He’s not worrying much about the talk of deportations, he said, in part because he sees no point in stressing about something he can’t control. But he also said he thinks Trump is a rational businessman who must know how much undocumented laborers add to the economy.
And Trump is in construction, Julio joked, so, “I’m pretty sure he’s got some undocumented people working for him, too.”
In fact, while Julio was put off by the sweeping, derogatory comments Trump made about Mexicans during the campaign, he thinks Trump is “a pretty good president.” He’s right about deporting people who come across the border illegally “looking for free stuff,” Julio said.
“I’ve been working my ass off,” Julio said. “I pay all my medical bills out of my pocket, my dentist, my vision. I didn’t get any low-income housing, because I don’t think I need it.”
He hopes Trump will spare hard workers, like him, who “make the country stronger,” he said. But he’s fine with deporting lazy people.
A kitchen worker at a popular Mammoth Lakes restaurant takes a short break for breakfast.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
“Whoever doesn’t benefit the country, kick them out of here,” he said.
For others, the shocking breadth of Trump’s threat to deport up to 11 million undocumented U.S. residents is terrifying. It’s hard for them to imagine how a dragnet of that size could pause to consider the merits of individual cases.
A secretary in the Mammoth school system, who asked only to be identified as Maria, is one of the people who is worried.
She said she came from Mexico with her mother when she was a kid and has since been granted U.S. citizenship. But her husband, who has worked in construction in Mammoth for more than 20 years, is undocumented.
He got caught coming across the border illegally when he was 14, and has not been able to “adjust his status,” she said.
Maria and her husband have three kids, all born in the U.S. One is about to join the military, she said. But the kids follow the news and hear the gossip at school, and their anxiety is building.
“My 10-year-old is terrified with the new president saying he’s going to deport everyone,” Maria said.
In addition to working in construction, her husband has worked as a bus driver for the school district and recently started his own snow removal business. He has an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITN, a document issued by the Internal Revenue Service to foreign nationals — including undocumented immigrants — so that they can pay taxes like everybody else.
“He is a responsible guy, a hard-working guy, with no ugly background at all,” Maria said.
Mono County Sheriff Ingrid Braun worries that fear of federal immigration agents will prevent crime victims from reaching out to her for help.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
A few years ago, his kidneys failed. He was able to get dialysis and, eventually, a transplant, thanks to the health insurance Maria gets through her job at the school district. But he now depends on very specific medication to stay alive, Maria said.
If he gets deported and has to return to the village they’re from in Michoacan, Maria worries that he’ll lose access to the lifesaving pills.
“People in Mexico die from things like that,” she said.
Like many law enforcement officers in California, Mono County Sheriff Ingrid Braun said she won’t help round up undocumented residents for deportation. But she worries that fear of federal immigration agents will prevent people from reaching out to her for help when they’ve been robbed, assaulted by a romantic partner or otherwise victimized.
“They’re not going to call if they’re afraid he’s going to get deported, or that they’ll be separated from their kids,” Braun said.
For the moment, Braun said, she’s skeptical the roundups will actually materialize. “I don’t think they have a plan. I think it was all a bunch of talk,” she said.
Though she can’t do anything to stop federal agents if they show up, she said, news travels fast in a small town and she thinks outsiders who don’t know the lay of the land would struggle to catch locals who would almost certainly know they were coming.
Mammoth High School students walk home after school in Mammoth Lakes.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
She also thinks the disruption to the economy would be so severe that immigration officials would get little cooperation from others in town. One way or another, most everyone here depends on the immigrants.
“People think resort towns like Mammoth are just full of rich people playing,” Braun said. But it’s immigrants who do all the work and keep the “industry humming.”
The luxury shopping center in Pacific Palisades will reopen next month after more than $100 million in renovations forced by the January 2025 wildfire that devastated the Los Angeles neighborhood.
Palisades Village will reopen Aug. 15, owner Rick Caruso announced Wednesday. The outdoor center survived the blaze that destroyed homes and other businesses but needed refurbishment to eliminate contaminants that the fire could have spread.
Crews are putting finishing touches on mall buildings after tearing them down to the studs, treating the wood and rebuilding the walls, Caruso said.
“Everybody’s working, and stores are moving their products in,” he said. “It’s a really cool feeling that people have really locked arms and are working together.”
An electrician installs lighting for a restaurant at Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village on Thursday. The shopping center is scheduled to reopen mid-August.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Pacific Palisades resident Allison Polhill, who is rebuilding the home of 30 years that her family lost in the blaze, said she is “thrilled” at the prospect of returning to the mall she used to frequent. Its comeback is a boost for the community, she said.
“Every single step that we make to reopen our commercial corridors is going to bring more people back into the Palisades,” said Polhill, who expects to move back into her home at the end of August.
A total of 6,822 structures were destroyed in the Palisades fire, including more than 5,500 residences and 100 commercial businesses, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Caruso previously attributed the mall’s survival to the hard work of private firefighters and the fire-resistant materials used in the mall’s construction.
The $200-million shopping and dining center opened in 2018 with a movie theater and a roster of upmarket tenants, including Erewhon, which may be the only grocer in the heart of the fire-ravaged neighborhood when it opens.
Caruso’s company was able to fill the mall with tenants despite the long shutdown.
Palisades Village is 99% leased, with the majority of tenants returning, said Jackie Levy, chief financial and revenue officer. Nearly one-third of the shops and restaurants are new to the property.
A firefighter carries a hose back to his rig while walking through a destroyed home from the Palisades fire in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, 2025.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Last year, Pacific Palisades-based fashion designer Elyse Walker said she would reopen her eponymous store in Palisades Village after losing her 25-year flagship location on Antioch Street to the inferno.
Other neighborhood shops destroyed in the fire that are reopening at the mall include K Bakery and Loomey’s Toys, which caters to children up to age 12 and used to be across the street from Palisades Elementary Charter School.
“It’s been a journey and I’m excited because I wasn’t sure that there was going to be a place to come back to,” said toy store owner Amanda Rastegar. “Hopefully we can bring some of that magic back.”
Rastegar’s home in the Palisades survived but was damaged by the fire. The family returned about eight weeks ago. Her last memory of the fire was a burning supermarket.
“I just couldn’t wrap my brain around what was happening,” she said. “By the time I left, Gelson’s was on fire.”
Among the returning tenants is Angelini Ristorante & Bar. Well-known Los Angeles chef Gino Angelini said he will be in the kitchen next month for a return of the Italian restaurant.
“We won’t do a big celebrity open,” he said. “We want to have a very soft opening and see our customers come back.”
Construction takes place at Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village on Thursday. The shopping center is scheduled to reopen mid-August.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
An elaborate celebration would not feel “correct for me,” Angelini said, because the devastation has been “very sad” for so many.
Other new tenants include local chef Nancy Silverton, who has agreed to move in with a new Italian steakhouse called Spacca Tutto. Women’s activewear retailer LESET will open its first West Coast location.
Caruso said he is optimistic that customers will return to the center, even though many Pacific Palisades residents are still dispersed. One tracking system estimated that about 30% of the Village’s customer base was impacted by the fire, he said.
“That means 70% did not get impacted, so there’s a lot of customers still left out there,” Caruso said. Historically, the center drew customers from as far away as Beverly Hills and Calabasas, as well as Malibu, Brentwood and Santa Monica.
He also hopes many will be inspired to visit the revived mall.
“I believe in the goodness of people and I believe that people are going to want to support the Palisades,” he said. “They’re going to want to be there and support the businesses that have had the courage and the heart to reopen.”
Walmart is rapidly expanding its network of electric vehicle chargers designed for customers to use while they shop.
The network could help fill gaps in EV infrastructure in states with greater need for chargers. Walmart, which has more than 5,000 locations in the U.S. and hundreds in California, says more than 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of one of its stores.
The chargers also offer an incentive for customers to choose Walmart — Walmart Plus members will receive a 10% discount off an average price of $0.46 per kilowatt-hour of energy at the company’s chargers.
Walmart chargers are already available at more than 75 locations in 17 states, with Texas boasting the most charging stations, followed by Florida and Arizona.
Matthew Nelson, Walmart’s director of energy policy, said last week on LinkedIn that the network will soon reach 29 states, including California.
“We are delivering on the promise of affordable, reliable and convenient charging,” Nelson said in his post.
According to Walmart’s website, six charging stations are coming to California soon, though the company did not offer a specific timeline.
The chargers will be installed at stores in Antelope, Brea, Fresno, Stockton, Suisun City and Vallejo.
Most charging sites in California will include eight to 16 fast-charging stalls, said Walmart spokesperson Kelsey Bohl.
The company first announced plans in April 2023 to install its own EV chargers at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores, with a goal of installing thousands of chargers by 2030. Partnering with ABB E-Mobility and Alpitronic, it added 25 new charging sites this past May and six more in June.
“Walmart is building a leading retail-integrated EV fast-charging network, focused on delivering an affordable, reliable and convenient charging experience where customers already shop,” Bohl said in an emailed statement. “Customers can charge while they shop, access stations through the Walmart app they already use, and benefit from affordable pricing.”
The charging stations already available include 612 individual charging stalls using 400-kilowatt chargers. Each stall has a dual charging cord with both Combined Charging System and North American Charging Standard connectors. The standard connectors, designed by Tesla, are smaller and lighter than the combined systems.
The primary way to pay for the chargers is through the Walmart app, but the company is also experimenting with built-in credit card readers to allow those without the app to use the stations.
Customers can check charger availability on the Walmart app. The company said the chargers will be available 24 hours a day.
Robotaxis could be turning into robocops.
A self-driving Waymo reported two teens to San Mateo, Calif., police on Monday after they were found drinking alcohol and shooting toy guns in the back of the vehicle.
According to a social media post from the San Mateo Police Department, officers detained two 15-year-olds after the Waymo they were riding in contacted the department and stopped in a parking lot until law enforcement arrived.
“Parents do you know where your teens are?” the San Mateo Police Department wrote on Facebook following the incident. “Waymo does!”
Officers removed both teens from the vehicle and determined they were using toy guns to shoot Orbeez out the windows. Orbeez are small, water-absorbing beads sold at toy stores.
“Toy guns, water guns, and BB guns all pose real dangers, especially to an untrained eye,” the Police Department said. “The simple handling of them can cause fear in [passersby].” “
A video posted on Facebook shows at least five officers and a police dog responding to the scene and approaching the Waymo with their weapons raised.
Waymo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Waymo vehicles have internal cameras and microphones that may be used in an emergency or to “promote safety and security,” according to Waymo’s online support page.
The cameras are also used to ensure the vehicles are clean and to help find lost items, according to the support page.
The company said it does not use facial recognition or other biometric identification technologies to identify individuals.
“In more urgent circumstances, support may access live video during a trip,” the Waymo page said.
The San Mateo Police Department’s Facebook post has garnered nearly 60 comments, with one user accusing Waymo of “snitching.”
“At least they got a designated driver?!” one user commented.
-
World7 minutes agoCritics say Turkey’s verbal attacks on Israel have crossed into antisemitism
-
Politics10 minutes agoWATCH: Dana White drops 2028 hints while raving about his favorite Trump cabinet secretary
-
Health15 minutes agoKatie Couric couldn’t remember the year or the president during frightening brain episode
-
Sports22 minutes agoJustin Verlander announces he will retire after this season: ‘I’ve realized that time has come’
-
Technology24 minutes agoApple AI security update proves hackers move fast
-
Business30 minutes ago
Fire-damaged Pacific Palisades shopping center sets reopening date
-
Entertainment37 minutes agoRhea Seehorn celebrates her ‘Pluribus’ Emmy nomination as she waits to hear about Carol and the atom bomb
-
Lifestyle40 minutes agoUrban Jürgensen: Introducing Elite Watchmaking to New Audiences
