Looking Back at Proposition 187 Ahead of Supreme Court Hearing on DACA

November marks the 25th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 187, which aimed to prohibit undocumented immigrants living in California from receiving medical, educational and other social services.

While most of the law never took effect, its passage — with broad support from California voters — might have the most lasting impact on California’s politics of any proposition in a generation.

KQED’s Brian Watt spoke with Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, who hosts a new podcast about the proposition, “This is California: The Battle of 187.”

The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

We are a day ahead of a Supreme Court hearing about the DACA program. Do you see parallels between the campaign to pass Proposition 187 25 years ago and what the Trump administration is doing today?

Absolutely. In many ways, this is the dream of the backers of 187 manifesting itself in the Supreme Court. But let’s not forget, one of the main tenets of Proposition 187 was to deny public education from kindergarten all the way up through universities to anyone who was undocumented. And that’s what the DACA generation is, but now we’re seeing this, it’s [a] blast from the past … about to be heard at the Supreme Court.

You focus a lot on how Proposition 187 inspired Latinos in California politically. How exactly did that happen?

Think about it, my generation: I’m a sophomore in high school. People younger than me, people older than me, a lot of us have parents who are undocumented or are undocumented ourselves. And now we hear from the governor of California, Pete Wilson, that we’re the reason why California is in such dire straits. And we start seeing commercials saying that we are the ruin of California. Yeah, you’re going to be a little bit upset.

Even though 187 passed by [a] big margin — 59 to 41% — it inspired that generation of Latinos like myself to say, “You know what? Never again. We’re not going to take this in California. We’re going to get into politics. We’re going to get involved in our community.” … Really, we are the children of 187. Now we hold a supermajority in the California state Legislature, the Democrats do. But the people who are running it really is the Latino legislative caucus, and they’ve made California into a sanctuary state — the absolute antithesis of what 187’s backers ever imagined.

Do you feel like people are looking to Prop. 187 and what happened to reverse it in the campaign against it — even once it had passed by voters — as they consider how to combat President Trump’s policies today?

Absolutely. It’s two lessons, actually. On one hand, it teaches you what happens if you demonize Latinos, if you demonize immigrants, there’s gonna be a backlash. But at the same time, another article I did for the Los Angeles Times, it gave a blueprint for anti-immigration groups to then spawn similar measures on both the local and the state level all across the United States. It really created that runway for which Donald Trump was able to take off using very nativist rhetoric. Now with this DACA hearing in the Supreme Court, it’s almost like, OK, we’re almost the end game at this 187 fable. But, hey, if it happens in California, it’s going to happen everywhere else.