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And now Rob on the Road exploring Northern California.

Help Wanted Leave Now it's the powerful new exhibit at the California museum, and it's taking a hard look at a cycle that is repeated for generations in America.

Immigrant workers welcomed when they are needed, then pushed out when the political or economic climate changes.

Pablo Espinosa is a driving force behind bringing the exhibit to life.

Pablo, nice to see you.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much, Rob, for the opportunity and for your kind words.

Thrilled to have you here.

Tell us, first of all, the main message of why you wanted to make this exhibit come to life.

My mother used to talk about the golden rule.

Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Such a simple concept.

Such a difficult thing to follow every day.

And I was holding the hand of my knowledge.

Adrienne, who was behind you in that picture?

Who is behind me in this picture?

Who was about ten ish, something years old and visiting the California museum in the wonderful exhibit on Japanese internment camps.

They do such a great job with that.

And at the same time, I didn't know about that part of history from South America.

I came here with a student visa, and my parents later came with a visa.

But even though they were documented, they still experienced, you know, a certain level of racism and but nothing, nothing like the folks that came through the 20s and 30s and 40s.

The program when help was wanted and then they were told to leave now.

And that is at the centerpiece of the exhibit.

And the story is that I was also working then at the Capitol and transitioning from my days as a journalist, and they were working on legislation to to give an apology on behalf of California to Mexico.

So I thought, I don't know that story.

And if I don't know that story as a journalist, how many other people don't?

And I thought my son could have been deported.

He looked the part.

He was born here in Sacramento, but he looked the part.

And much like now, they're not asking.

They're just checking to see if you look the part and off you go.

You know, so many people do not know that history lesson as well.

And I'm talking about all across the board with America's history, with deportations.

This exhibit chronicles 100 years of mass deportations, the the luring of workers, and then a political or economic tide will change.

And it's the it goes from bringing to go that's the name help wanted slash leave now went back.

The revolving door of mass deportations and why operation wetback such a horrible word, a slur that no one would ever want to pronounce.

And we need to find out.

Say, we know that that is a slur and that was chosen intentionally.

And explain.

Absolutely.

Because language matters and language is a reflection of the times that we live.

Languages are reflection of our values as a community, as society.

Operation wetback was in fact the governmental name of President Eisenhower's mass deportation program in the in the 50s, and one that the current occupant of the white House quoted during his campaign for reelection, saying that he will model his mass deportation program on the successful quote program set up by Dwight Eisenhower, such as sad chapter in our history that what are we talking about?

70 during my 70 plus years later, here we are.

You know, the officers being captured on audio on their vests using that word paraphrasing, saying, that's got to be a wet let's go get them.

And these are not criminals.

Again, these are people that are working hard in every sector of society.

There are lawyers in California that are undocumented.

In the exhibit.

We also talk about neurosurgeon who is a leader in his field that came when he was undocumented, put himself through school, and he's now a renowned neurosurgeon.

What do you feel this exhibit accomplishes?

The there's a quote, a wonderful quote on the exhibit that says, we went looking for workers and we got human beings.

I hope that people come in with an open mind, with an open heart, heart, and with time to explore not only history but explore humanity.

This could be your brother, your sister, your father, your mother, your grandmother or your grandfather.

Or if you're not connected directly, maybe your neighbor or your friends family.

We're all connected.

And you, if you have an ounce of humanity, are not going to help yourself, but to shed some tears about what the situation that has helped build this country.

And I think it is important to understand our challenges, either as a family or as a country, as a community.

Because if we understand, I think our challenges, then we can work to avoid them, to prevent from making the same mistakes you made.

My ten year old son Nico during the media day when I said mistakes are not bad.

You know, I say that to my kids all the time.

As long and he finished the sentence, he finished?

Yeah.

What did he say?

Do you remember?

As long as we learn, as long as we learn and we don't make the same mistakes over and over again.

So that is the hope, Rob.

The hope is that through education, we raise up the level of awareness and through that also bring about accountability in to ourselves, to just just be kind to one another.

I love this country.

I love what it has given me and because I love it, I also need to look inside of all of us and see our challenges to again avoid the same mistakes from happening over and over again.

You and I walked through the exhibit the day that it opened.

Actually, it was the day before that.

It opened on on media preview.

It is open now.

And when we walked through there, Pablo, I you quickly realize this is not about politics, it's about people.

It is not.

It is.

It is a history.

Unveiling that you start with all an amazingly shocking number, which is climbing and climbing and climbing a digital clock right there.

When you walk in a ticker, I should say of of numbers.

But those numbers are names.

And when you go into the exhibit and by the way, the numbers are of people who have been deported.

You walk in and you go through all of the decades, every decade of the past century ish, and it and it takes you through the personal stories that have of people who have come to this country and then been forced away.

The how did you pull this?

And stories also of people born in this country?

Yes.

One of those people, one of those stories that you see there when you sit at my favorite part of the exhibit, when you sit at a bus and you hear the stories of people.

He was only seven years old when his family was given from, from from San Diego.

He was only given three days.

Victor.

That's right.

Victor.

Thank you for remembering.

He was only seven when he was visited with an agent with a 45, as he says, in a long trench coat, and told that they had three days to leave.

And you just brought up the bus, and I have to go there because when when you go into the exhibit and you've gone through the, you know, it's intentionally showing revolving doors, if you will, on displays and you get into the main hall of the exhibit and, and there is a bus and there are seats, there's a line of seats from front to back, and you sit in the seat and you are surrounded by stories of people like Victor, who tell the tale of horror that they went through.

He talks about the police coming to his house and saying that immigration will be there in less than three days.

The officer that came to the House had a, like you said, a gun poking out of his London fog coat.

He recounts this experience vividly, and then his mother wailing through the night.

Imagine being seven years old and going through that experience in the country, in a country where you were born, remember, his family was loved.

His family was loved.

They were good students.

They were hardworking people.

And then the tide turned, and in three days they went from heroic to just get out of here.

It was horrifying.

Yeah.

In this story, another story is that of a young woman who was deported just last year, the year before she had become a nurse.

She was detained for several months in a detention center.

And their incredible.

Pressure, psychologically, is what she says to, in her words, put people in a situation where they just want to give up, have suicidal thoughts, and finally they think about self deporting.

And that's what she did.

And in the end, she is now a nurse in British Columbia, Canada.

So we invested in education.

Somebody else is reaping the benefits when we have a nursing shortage.

And that's just one example.

And then in the videos that you see also there you see Senator Alex Padilla, who came to visit the museum this week and at the bus and was just quietly in retrospection, he sees the video also later of him being thrown to the ground, handcuffed during that press conference that many of us remember.

And I asked him as he was looking at it, I go, do, what do you think when you see those images?

Again, not as a senator, but as Alex.

He was quiet and he said that it's been almost a year since that happened and he's still processing.

He says he paraphrasing again, he says that I, I was in a little league.

I was a choir boy and went to school, became a senator.

I didn't matter at that moment.

And that's what was really shocking for a lot of people, not just in my community, but beyond, to see somebody well-liked again, like you said, you know, Victor's family, respected, tall, quiet demeanor, a US senator being thrown to the ground and treated that way.

So if he didn't have a chance, what chance do people standing in the corners of Home Depot looking for a job half.

And frankly, it doesn't matter if someone is well liked or is a senator or not being not being treated as a human.

Back to the beginning, right?

Like my mother used to say, Golden rule.

Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

I have to also say that I don't.

I've often wondered this, and I think about like my grandparents who are all gone, but they were all born around the 1920s, the World War Two generation as they have died.

I often wondered if they were alive with what we're seeing happen today have happened.

That's a super interesting question.

I'm from Ecuador.

My grandfather was the chief of the armed forces for Ecuador, and for the longest time Ecuador has had, you know, political and military disputes with our neighbor to the south, Peru.

And I anchor the news for Univision and the Peruvian Association in Sacramento, used to invite me for every Christmas to be their MC.

And I kind of ask a similar question to the one that you just ask.

And I used to think, I wonder what my grandfather would think if he knew I was MCing the Christmas party for the Peruvian Association.

So I said it out loud and I said, hey, blah blah blah.

As I'm talking to all of it attendees, my grandfather was the chief of the armed forces in Ecuador, Luis Arsenio Rodriguez Sandoval.

And the older people in the back looked up.

You know, the new generation didn't care.

And I think the answer that I have to your question is that my grandfather would have been really proud, because I believe that the folks, usually young people that serve in our military forces, understand the challenges that come with war and fighting others, and that is the last thing they want to do.

At least the people that I've talked to, they always say, hey, we hate war.

So I think that they will have a clear understanding that talking to one another, learning from one another is the key to is the key to living in a better community.

You know, I, I have to say, I, I always look for signs and as your camera just zoomed in on you, I see your son holding your younger son.

I believe in the background.

Yeah.

Adrian and Nico.

Right.

Correct that as a father walking through that exhibit, what did it do to you?

Because I don't have children.

And I left there.

And I'm going to be honest with you, I had to go and pull myself back together before I came back and saw you afterwards and all that.

Because it is it is horrifying to hear these stories because they're true.

It is difficult to see that because I became a different journalist when I became a father.

And I just think you look at the world in a different way.

You put the faces of your children or you, you know, or your family members.

Their as I said, my my parents came here as you know, you as residents, yet they still experience discrimination.

My brother also came.

They opened the doors for me.

There wouldn't be me in the US if it wasn't for them.

There wouldn't be the end.

There wouldn't be a Nico.

And again, to what I was saying, they are our sons, our brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers.

Our grandparents are friends of ours or of or of our families.

And I think we just such an important thing to be mindful of our negativities, because we are having both our flaws and faults, because we all have them and be less reactionary, which I tend to be sometimes.

So if there's anything that this exhibit does from a glass half full perspective is to give us a little time to reflect and ends up with a message of hope that there's, you know, people getting together that has the monarch butterfly that I've learned is this beautiful tradition of thousands of butterflies that travel from one place to another, creating this beautiful waves in the sky and the wise people behind the exhibit.

The designers thought that that would be a wonderful message to end to with all of the stories also of people that are making a difference in our community, that are Latinos, whose parents or who themselves have been undocumented.

Senator who was on our advisory board, her mother had been there with senators grandfather when he was the head of the editorial board for the Sacramento Bee, who came yesterday, also said, my mother came with a bracero program when she was 22, which was a surprise to me because I didn't realize that women were also recruited.

The exhibit reveals that as well.

Yeah, yeah.

So anyway, In the end, I hope my son will be proud of me.

Yes.

What did Nico say to you when you left?

That?

Just give me a hug.

And he he.

I've been careful not to expose him to too much.

Right.

Yet I think it is important for them to be educated as well to have information.

The museum is interactive.

It has sensory aspects to it, where children can lift up something and smell the garlic and smell the leather of the bags that were used, or the dirt, and in the end, Nico is aware of what's happening because I want him to know how privilege he is to have the opportunities that he has.

Yet I also want him to know that sometimes people get treated differently because of the way they look, and to never do that.

I mean, you heard him.

You know, I think that he knows there's, you know, I always tell him what's what's the worst thing that can happen, you know, that I don't like.

He goes repeating yourself, right?

Because I want him to learn.

I want him to develop good habits.

And I don't know, just the hard sell says it all that does.

And he just sat there so patiently with me, and I think it's because he understands.

And I think young people and this generation, also the late teens to the early 30s, sometimes are misunderstood.

People think that they don't care.

They care a lot.

If anything, the young people are the ones that are embracing their immigration status.

For those that are undocumented, they don't hide it.

They put it on their social media platforms and they have become activists.

Maybe one day there will be another Dolores Huerta, who had 96 years old.

You know, that's a life interview the morning of a pre-opening of the exhibit at 845 in the morning, then goes to the exhibit.

Then at 1030 at night, there's another live interview with CNN.

It's just admirable.

There should be more.

More like her.

We.

That same day, I had called her before 8 a.m.

and she answered.

So her day was, wow, I didn't know that one.

I mean, all day.

And she has the ability and the drive to to transcend her age.

And also we don't have to be Delores Huerta.

We don't have to be this huge that we can change one person, or we can help one person today that she talks about the movement and the and the and she talks about, you know, how we all can be messengers and and in fact, you stood with her the night of the opening of the ribbon cutting.

And I wonder what that felt like for you.

Oh, my God, it's a ev'ry time I'm next to Delores Huerta I feel like a little kid.

I feel like if I was Nico, ten years old.

And I reminded her because I've known her for a long time.

How?

Three years ago, at another event at the California museum, I. They were playing music and I took her out to dance, and I couldn't believe I was doing that.

And I said, remember Delores that he goes, yeah.

He goes, you know, I was raised to be respectful, but I yada yada and go, do you remember what I said to you, what you said to me?

And she goes, I remember I said, hurry up, boy.

It was more like, you know that Dalai muchacho?

You know, I love that.

It was like.

And then she goes, but I can't, I can walk now, but I don't, I cannot dance.

Give it time, give her some time.

No, no.

That night, as we were approaching the ribbon, there was music playing.

What is Delores Huerta to the 96 year old activist?

Do she started dancing towards the ribbon cutting?

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

But, you know, anyhow, I. I am grateful to also my colleagues on the on the California museum board.

The museum is fantastic.

This exhibition is one of the latest opportunities to learn.

There's another one there.

It's called unity that has been there for a very long time.

As I mentioned, the Japanese internment camps exhibit is one of the best.

There's another one about women in the difference that different women have made.

You know, in our state, After all of this, I mentioned at the top of the show that and this is by all accounts, with the people who helped work do this with you.

They all pointed to you and said you were the driving force, that you kept this dream alive for over a decade to make this exhibit come true.

Those aren't your words.

Those are your those are your peers words about you.

What do you feel as you step through this?

Maybe a highlight of your life having to be able to do being able to do this as you've gone through, what do you think you were going to say something?

Yeah.

Well, first off, I could never imagine feeling or thinking that I know what the people that truly went through mass deportations will feel like.

There's no comparison.

And it makes me really proud because my mother used to say, and I quote her a lot, but she used to say, you can be a public servant even as a journalist.

And I was like, how can you do that?

And she was like, well, make sure that you are educated and that, you know, history or background information on different topics because, you know, Jose Maria or Joseph and Mary perhaps don't have access to the type of people that you would have access as a journalist.

So it is your responsibility to ask questions.

So since I was a little kid, I was persistent or hardheaded, depending on who you ask.

And I think persistence pays off when something is important we shouldn't give up.

I was talking to to my stepdaughter the other day, who is scheduled to take her driving test in a couple of weeks and gets a little nervous, much like all of us did at the time.

And I said, look, it took me so many years to get this done.

You know, it doesn't matter if it takes you 20 attempts to get your driver's license, no one's going to know.

They're just going to know that you have a driver's license.

So to me, the most important thing, while I am grateful to my peers saying that is that this is there, the exhibit is there.

What people need to know is the stories that are being told through that exhibit and that unfortunately, this is still happening and that we can play a role in avoiding this mistake from being repeated over and over again and educate ourselves about our history.

Because, as Daniel would said with the museum, she says, history is repeating itself as we speak.

It is unfortunately.

Pablo Espinosa, thank you so much for being so generous with your time.

I appreciate you joining us here again.

The exhibit is at the California museum through January and then nationwide in 2027.

Thank you, Pablo, thank you for being such a wonderful storyteller.

Thanks so much for joining us on At Home Region Rising.

We will see you next time right here.

Murphy Austin Adam Schoenfeld LLP, focusing on business law and commercial litigation, is proud to support Rob on the Road Region Rising.

More information available at Murphy Austin.