Fascism came to our neighborhood. Last Friday, Buona Forchetta, a beloved, immigrant-owned Italian restaurant in South Park, was the subject of a brutal ICE raid where a team of 20 or so agents and wings of law enforcement, many of them masked and fully militarized, hit the scene like it was a battle zone. Reports are that three workers were detained while most of the staff was handcuffed and treated roughly during the raid. A crowd of South Park residents in the immediate vicinity quickly responded, surrounding vehicles, regaling the invading army with chants of “shame” and yelling at them to “get the F*** out of here!” Flash bangs were used to disperse the crowd.

Of course, the whole thing unfolded in real time on social media as City Council members, activists, and community members flooded their feeds with live updates and more. San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera posted a picture of agents in full military gear marching down Beech Street with this message:

This isn’t a war zone—it’s a neighborhood in our city.

In San Diego, they’ve targeted parents dropping off their kids at school, people following the law inside courthouses, and workers just doing their jobs at local restaurants.

These are federal agents carrying out raids under the false pretense of “safety.”

This isn’t safety. It’s state-sponsored terrorism.

And anyone who cares about freedom—and true safety—should be fighting back.

This of course, drew a response from the Trump administration’s Stephen Miller, which Elo-Rivera promptly and surgically eviscerated as Fox News reported:

Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and a homeland security advisor, took to X to respond to Elo-Rivera's posts, writing, "We are living in the age of leftwing domestic terrorism. They are openly encouraging violence against law enforcement to aid and abet the invasion of America."

Elo-Rivera responded by calling Miller "one of the most dishonest and worst people in America," noting "nothing makes me more confident in my position than knowing he hates it."

Elsewhere on social media, one longtime activist, Pedro Rios, observed:

In its time of glory, before gentrification, Barrio Lomas, was the home of workers, intellectuals, and artists, today those times have remained in oblivion and only the memory of some remembers the bars and cafes, where the strategies of popular organization were debated and was going Taco shops to see their poets.

Today, on the afternoon of the last Friday of May, just as families gather to celebrate the beginning of the weekend and the end of the school year, to the Lomas neighborhood, now known as San Diego's South Park, federal agents arrived in military court uniforms and weapons long, surrounded one of the most popular restaurants in the neighborhood. Their aim, to kidnap waiters and cooks.

It was dinner time, as usual, the Buona Forchetta was full of diners. Without thinking twice, the officers detained the workers, the caterers resisted and to the shout of "Fuck ICE" they blocked the officers' vehicles with their bodies. Neighbors joined the resistance of the eateries. First came the neighbor from across the street, then the neighbor from the side, until the people were more than the cowardly agents.

Officers fled, but not before they threw tear gas grenades to frighten the resisting community.

It is feared that at least three workers were detained and the Lomas neighborhood and its residents, pulled out the caste and resisted, with courage, with solidarity, as it should be, as it should, in these terrible times, in every city, and in every neighborhood.

I hope the local governors also know how to follow the example of South Park, formerly Barrio Lomas, but their silence, stuns more than the explosions and echoes of boots in the street of esbirros.

South Park resident, Camille Ku’ulei Sallave, a local singer and musician who was present at the scene, observed that:

I am paralyzed with words at the moment.

This is our community. These are people we see every day. We love Buona Forchetta - and all the staff members.

Word is they entered initially pretending to be regular every day citizens then came back.

Two of the vehicles had no license plates front and back.

I am glad that people (the surrounding community) rushed down there as quickly as they did.

We need to stay vigilant!!!

We need to stand up. We need to shout. We need to raise our voices. We need to yell!!

This makes me very angry.

For those who aren’t familiar with Buona Forchetta, it is a place where the waitstaff remembers you. People go there for celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries, graduation dinners, or just a lovely meal out. The owners do fundraisers for local schools and raise money for many other good causes. It’s the kind of place where you are likely to run into folks in the activist community, union peeps, progressive electeds, or just the parents whose kid was on your kid’s North Park Little League team.

We went there with our son from the time he was a toddler to more recent visits home from college. We have never gone there and not run into someone we know well and want to see—a friend, neighbor, coworker, student, fellow writer, artist, or politico. It is one of the hearts of the community, a third place where you can find a kind of beloved community over a plate of excellent ravioli and a glass of Barbera.

And South Park, a part of greater Golden Hill as old timers like to think of it, is a liberal neighborhood where a stroll through the community reveals a lot of support for social justice causes and progressive candidates, so it makes sense that in the midst of the Trump administration’s campaign to punish counties, cities and communities hostile to his mass deportation agenda, a place like this would be targeted. The restaurant itself does not overtly promote any political party or agenda, but it is part of the fabric of a neighborhood that largely does. By grabbing three workers with such an absurdly disproportionate show of force, they are threatening everyone who might dare dissent.

The truth is that even with the large increases in resources for ICE and other agencies, they simply cannot deport the number of people they say they want to, so these lawless displays of public cruelty and humiliation are all about inflicting trauma and spreading fear. That’s how fascism works. The minute everyone is too afraid to speak out, they have won. So we are proud of our neighbors for showing up and giving ICE hell.

On our daily walk, early in the morning the day after the raid, we stopped and checked-in with a long-time staffer at Buona Forchetta who was still stunned and traumatized at being handcuffed and roughed up by ICE agents in full military gear. He simply couldn’t believe that such an action would happen in this little corner of South Park, which is just a block away from an elementary school. In fact, he told us that he was worried that kids who they were going to do a fundraiser for would see what happened and be haunted by the images of ICE and police officers marching people out of the restaurant.

His concern not for himself but for his workers, his patrons, the children in the neighborhood was moving, as was his deep gratitude for the outpouring of love and support from community members who burst out of their houses and onto the streets to confront the jackbooted thugs harassing them.

In an official statement released the day after, Buona Forchetta wrote:

Later that day, neighborhood folks flooded the restaurant with love, lines out the door, and a moving show of support from neighbors and outrage at Trump administration policies. There were flyers posted by Union del Barrio on lamp posts about “How to Identify ICE Vehicles.” It was a scene of love and resistance. We will need a lot more of that in every neighborhood across the country. It's on and we need to be brave and fight back.

In the meantime, if you are in South Park, stop and patronize Buona Forchetta. Show them some love as an act of resistance.

Cross-posted at The Jumping Off Place

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