Alamogordo NM
12-27-2025 6:14pm

From Defiant Anthem at Dodger Stadium to Sundance Spotlight: Nezza’s Act of Solidarity Resonates Locally Amid Ongoing Deportation Fears

I've not posted in a while, but as I look back at 2025 and look forward to 2026 with more reporting for 2nd Life Media and other independent outlets, this story resonates with me and many in small towns across America.

In a summer defined by sharpened immigration enforcement under the second Trump administration, pop artist Vanessa Hernández — Nezza to her fans — transformed what should have been a routine national anthem performance into a moment of unapologetic resistance.

On June 14, 2025, standing under the bright lights of Dodger Stadium, she chose to sing El Pendón Estrellado, the official Spanish-language version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” even after being instructed to sing it in English.

The beautiful performance can be heard below..

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Before going into the meat of the event here is some context on the rendition.

The official Spanish version of the U.S. national anthem, El Pendón Estrellado, was commissioned in 1945 by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration as part of the Good Neighbor Policy. The U.S. State Department sought a translation that could be sung to the original melody and used across Latin America and with Spanish Speaking and within the US to promote cultural diplomacy. The winning translation was created by Clotilde Arias, a Peruvian-American composer living in New York, who was paid $150 for her “satisfactory translation.”

Beginning in the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt emphasized cultural diplomacy with Latin America — a strategy to strengthen hemispheric ties and counter Axis influence during WWII. By 1945, the U.S. wanted official Spanish and Portuguese versions of patriotic works to distribute through across Latin America and in Americas inner-cities and the southwest to engage in stronger ties to those speaking Spanish and invite them into the feeling of patriotism within United States.

Fast Forward 80 Years Later to 2025

On June 14, 2025, standing under the bright lights of Dodger Stadium for many, it was a surprise. For those of us who study the politics of belonging — especially at the University level, rather in California of New Mexico — it felt like a familiar tremor in a long fault line of struggle.

Nezza’s decision came during a wave of ICE and DHS raids across Los Angeles, raids that tore through workplaces like Home Depot and schools and neighborhoods, detaining hundreds and igniting protests.

Nezza’s parents’ journeys from Colombia and the Dominican Republic shaped her response; she described singing in Spanish as an act born from “pure heartbreak.” Looking out at Latino families in the stands, she said she simply wanted them to know she stood with them. That she, too, was part of the American story and their story.

The backlash was swift — praise, condemnation, and even death threats. The Dodgers initially seemed to distance themselves, though they later denied any ban of her and said she is welcomed back. Yet the moment propelled Nezza into a new chapter: a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! with Diego Luna hosting, recognition from the Los Angeles City Council, and invitations from artists like Shakira. And now, her story is headed to Sundance in Cristina Costantini’s short documentary La Tierra del Valor — The Home of the Brave — a title that feels less like a translation and more like a challenge.

Costantini, whose work often centers on people who push against institutional silence, called Nezza’s act “the kind of bravery we need.” It’s a reminder that courage rarely feels triumphant in the moment; more often, it feels like fear with nowhere left to hide.

Echoes in Southern New Mexico — Including Alamogordo

While Nezza’s defiance unfolded in one of the nation’s largest cities, the reverberations reach places like Alamogordo — the town where I am studying its history and its political engagement. listening, and learning for my dissertation on New Mexico's complicated political culture. Here, in a community shaped by military history, agricultural labor, and generations of migration, the same tensions hum beneath the surface. Alamogordo's Hispanic population is a significant portion of its residents, at 32% alongside a larger non-Hispanic White population.

    In 2025, federal prosecutions tied to border enforcement have become weekly fixtures in U.S. Attorney’s Office reports. Many involve high-speed flights from checkpoints just outside Alamogordo — a reminder that even communities far from the border live in the long shadow of immigration policy.

    Advocacy groups across the state, from the ACLU of New Mexico to the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, have expanded “know your rights” trainings. Families in southern New Mexico — especially those connected to agriculture, construction, and Holloman Air Force Base and within the Mescalero Apache Tribe— describe a rising fear that shapes daily life. Schools report increased absences. Survivors of domestic violence hesitate to seek help. And a recent Pew survey found that more than half of U.S. Latinos worry about deportation for themselves or someone they love.

    During a recent phone interview with an Alamogordo resident she said something that stayed with me: 

    “Nezza’s story inspires us here too. It reminds us that solidarity doesn’t have to be loud to be powerful.”

    Why This Matters as We Approach Dr. King Day in January

    As we move toward the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service and Rememberance across the nation on January 19th, 2026 in Alamogordo, Berkeley, and Washington DC and beyond — a march and an event that brings together Black, White, Hispanic, Mexicano, Indigenous, and immigrant neighbors — Nezza’s story feels especially resonant.

    Alamogordo has its own complicated history with race and justice. This is a town where Blacks and Hispanics were not allowed to cross 10th Street until the 1950s, Black and Hispanic airmen once navigated segregation-era banking and access restrictions in the New York Avenue shopping district, where Mexican and Black  labor built the railroad infrastructure, and the nations agricultural backbone but were also segregated, where White families, many with military ties, have long shaped civic life. It was those White and Brown Military influences that championed change in Alamogordo on behalf of the local voices of color that were silenced by the local power structure that continues to try to silence those that challenge the status quo, even today.

    And yet, year after year, people here and across the nation still gather to honor Dr. King’s insistence that justice is not a theory but a practice — lived, local, and collective.

    For me, as a Black woman from Berkeley studying the political heartbeat of Southern New Mexico, this moment feels like a reminder of why I engage in the study of this region in the first place. The struggle for a just society is not abstract. It is lived in stadiums and school hallways, in desert towns and borderlands, in the quiet choices people make when they decide to stand with one another.

    Nezza’s anthem — sung in Spanish, sung in defiance, sung in love — echoes far beyond Los Angeles. It reaches communities like Alamogordo, La Luz and even deeper in Chaparral, where patriotism and empathy often collide, and where the question of who belongs has never been simple.

    Nezza’s voice reminds us and her story continues to remind us that America’s story has always been multilingual, multiracial, and unfinished. And as Alamogordo ans cities across America prepares to march January 19th in Dr. King’s name, her act of courage offers a timely truth:

    Justice begins when ordinary people decide that silence is no longer an option.

    Guest Commentary: by Mica Maynard, university intern and a proud black American woman and contributor to 2nd Life Media and independent publications in New Mexico and California.

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