An annual Riverside County celebration honoring Mexican culture has been canceled due to community concerns over ongoing immigration enforcement operations across Southern California.
The Festival Monarca y Feria Educativa has taken place for over 40 years in downtown Perris, according to event organizers with TODEC Legal Center, which offers legal services and job training to immigrants. They say that the event celebrates the resilience, culture and shared fight for dignity and justice of the region’s Mexican community.
“Monarch butterflies migrate, depending on seasons, they migrate, but they always come home, and that’s who we are as immigrants,” said Luz Gallegos, the executive director of TODEC.
However, this year the organization’s board of directors opted to cancel the celebration out of an abundance of caution. Gallegos said that the recent Supreme Court ruling that sweeping immigration enforcement stops could continue in Los Angeles is led to the cancellation.
“We do this with heavy hearts but with absolute clarity: our first responsibility is to protect our community,” a statement said. “With heightened immigration enforcement on the ground and credible fears of ICE raids in our area, we cannot in good conscience invite our families into a space where they could be at risk.”
Organizers noted that the only other time that the festival was canceled in the past was during the COVID-19 pandemic, which they called “another moment of profound crisis.”
“Today, we face a different but equally urgent threat, one that targets immigrants simply for being who they are,” the statement said.
The decision follows the cancellations of Mexican cultural celebrations by a number of other Southern California cities. Over the weekend, Long Beach announced it would cancel the annual Día de Los Muertos parade and celebration for the same reasons listed by Festival Monarca organizers.
Gallegos said another major community concern is the mental health of residents due to the enforcement operations. She said that TODEC typically serves 100,000 immigrants in their community annually, but this year they’re expecting to quadruple that number.
“We would never put our community at risk. It’s easy for many of us that have privilege, that have an immigration status, that speak English, to say, ‘Let’s go and celebrate our culture, let’s have our festival,'” she said. “We are taking things very seriously and taking all the precautions that we need to take.”
Despite their decision to cancel the festival, TODEC has not yet announced a change in plans for their annual Día de Los Muertos celebrations.