The momentum for support of a cease-fire reflects a broader anti-war sentiment that has been spreading across the country at a time of deepening political divides.
Unlike wars of the past, the conflict in Gaza is livestreamed across social media in real time, creating a sense of urgency not experienced by previous generations. Voters, especially young people, question engaging in conflicts abroad while the U.S. faces its own problems, such as housing affordability, student debt and climate change.
“A lot of our community was seeing the brutality of it on their phones,” said Daisy Lomeli, a City Council member in Cudahy, a small majority-Latino suburb of Los Angeles.
“Our people have been suffering in our own communities for the same reason — colonization,” she added, referring to the European conquests of Mexico and other Latin American countries.
When she was mayor of Cudahy last year, Lomeli, a former schoolteacher and a first-generation American whose family immigrated from Mexico, introduced a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and accusing the Israeli government of “engaging in collective punishment” against the Palestinian people.
The resolution passed on a 3-1 vote in November. It was inspired by a similar resolution approved by the city of Richmond in the San Francisco Bay Area. That one, the first in California, was proposed by Mayor Eduardo Martinez.
Martinez said his was just one of five Latino families in the small Texas town where he was raised. He was often bullied and harassed by white classmates until he fought back, he said. When he did, he said, he would be sent to the principal’s office, not his tormentors.
“You can use the analogy for Palestinians,” he said, referring to decades of fighting over the territory of Gaza. “You can only take so much before you fight back.”
Lomeli said constituents reached out to her about Cudahy’s taking a similar stand after they saw images of children and their mothers…
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