On the Eastside, communities turn to healing circles to cope with the trauma of ICE raids

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on June 20, 2025.

After a week marked by fear and disruption over a series of ICE raids and protests in Los Angeles, a group of women and children gathered for a healing circle outside Eastside Café’s Mercado Del Pueblo Co-Op in El Sereno.

Seated on black metal folding chairs as copal and sage smoke filled the air, participants shook Indigenous rattles, tapped on turtle shells and blew wooden flutes to the beat of a traditional ceremonial drum.

Some were local mothers. Others had spent a week organizing, patrolling neighborhoods, tracking ICE activity and showing up at demonstrations. All were there seeking grounding, emotionally and spiritually.

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“This week has been hard,” said an undocumented single mother of two who works as an Uber Eats driver. “My friends are hitting me up, telling me to stay home, but that’s the only source of income I have…It’s hard thinking about the what-ifs. I don’t know Mexico. It wouldn’t be easy for me to take my kids there.”

Recognizing the emotional toll, Mercado Del Pueblo Co-Op collective member Xochitl Palomera, 40, helped organize the healing circle in partnership with Patty Cihuacoatl Xochitltlalokzin Ramirez of Klbri Institute. Together with Eastside Café’s WOC Sister Collective, they launched Community After Care– a series of gatherings that offer gentle touch, ancestral medicine, herbal support kits and a space to speak or simply be.

For Palomera, the work has been deeply personal. Just days earlier, on June 8, she joined hundreds of protesters outside downtown L.A.’s federal detention center when she says a law enforcement agent fired a rubber bullet directly at her face.

Mercado Del Pueblo collective member Xochitl Palomera plays a traditional ceremonial drum at Eastside Cafe’s WOC Collective and Klbri Institute’s Community After Care circle.

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Kamren Curiel

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Boyle Heights Beat

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“We walked into the street and saw this black SUV driving into the crowd,” said Palomera about the incident captured on video. “We all linked arms to form a chain block. An agent hangs out of the window, points a gun directly at me and without hesitation shoots. No countdown, no warning, nothing. It happened so fast. I never thought he would shoot at us like that.”

After tending to a friend who had fallen on the ground, Palomera realized a man had pulled them out of harm’s way. Another man who was on a bicycle behind them lay on the ground unconscious and bleeding after being struck by the rubber bullet.

Palomera was in shock for several days.

“These protests and marches are not normal,” she said. “These are not the regular demonstrations we’ve been a part of. They are not safe spaces. They’re very dangerous.”

In response to the community’s need to process trauma, more local spaces have stepped up to offer support. Earthy Corazon in City Terrace and People’s Yoga in East L.A. have hosted healing circles and donation-based classes, while the Summer of Resistance Coalition is organizing 30 healing events in the community this summer.

Traditional Indigenous instruments.

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Kamren Curiel

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Sound bath are part of a healing circle at Eastside Cafe’s Mercado Del Pueblo Co-Op.

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Kamren Curiel

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Boyle Heights Beat

)

Back at the El Sereno healing circle, the emotional release continued. A woman who recently lost her mother spoke of feeling her presence in the circle. Another woman said the space allowed her to process a week struggling to be present for her kids after patrolling the streets, identifying and tracking ICE agents.

“Seeing a video my homie sent me being roughed up by police and confronting the horror at the hotels where ICE agents sleep was starting to tear away at my nervous system and spirit,” she said. “Being in community allowed me to reset and feel what I’ve been bottling up and compartmentalizing inside. Hearing other testimonies gave me permission to share a little bit about the work I’ve been doing.”

The circle’s power lingered for the San Gabriel Valley-born activist when she went out to patrol the streets the next day.

“I called on the ancestors I felt close to the day before to be my navigation and guide my route,” she said. “I felt a strong desire to play music that had the same Indigenous spirit, so I pulled over and tried to connect to Bluetooth. Out of nowhere, this beautiful danza Azteca song came on. At that moment, I didn’t feel alone. I rolled down the windows, blasted the music and started driving.”