As President Trump held a military parade this past Saturday to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Army, millions of people across the country took to the streets to protest the Trump administration’s policies — including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids taking place in Los Angeles and other parts of the country — in what they referred to as No Kings Day.
In Los Angeles, pop singer Vanessa Hernandez — professionally known as Nezza —engaged in a small-scale, one-woman protest at a Dodgers baseball game by just singing the national anthem.
Instead of performing the English rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Nezza, who had been invited by the Dodgers to sing the national anthem, decided to sing the official Spanish version, an homage to LA’s immigrant population and as a nod to the protests happening around the country.
In doing so, she went against the wishes of the Dodgers, who had earlier rejected her request to sing the national anthem in Spanish.
“I felt it was my duty to represent my people,” Nezza said. “I will regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t stand by my people today.”
After her performance, she left the stadium and took to the internet to explain her side of the story. The incident went viral.
@babynezza para mi gente ❤️ i stand with you♬ original sound - nezz
A team spokesperson told Here & Now, “There were no consequences or hard feelings from the Dodgers regarding her performance. She was not asked to leave. We would be happy to have her back.”
5 questions with Nezza
How did everything go down? Walk us through the sequence of events.
“I got asked to do this a month ago. I was super excited. Obviously, LA is my city where all my dreams came true, so I was honored to do it.
“About a week prior, as things started to escalate — especially here in LA with the protests and the ICE raids — I felt it was my duty to represent my people. And so I asked if I could do the English anthem and the Spanish anthem, and they told me, ‘You have a 90-second window.’ And so I say, ‘Okay, I’ll do it in Spanglish.’ And then as we got closer, three days prior is when I realized that it was June 14. No Kings Day … and I was like, ‘Look at God placing me in that stadium, on this day out of all days. I’m going to go in there and just do it fully in Spanish. I’ll make sure that I do that 90- second window that they requested. But I’m going to go in there and do it in Spanish to honor the Latin community.’”
What was going through your mind as you walked up to the field, and you decided you really wanted to do this in Spanish?
“From the moment that she was like, ‘We’re doing it in English,’ I was just shaking, because I just didn’t understand what was happening and how [today], out of all days, we didn’t want to have the 50,000 Latin Americans that were in the stands feel included that day. I truly think that everything that’s just been happening is what fueled me in that moment. And I closed my eyes, and I locked in, and I was like, ‘Just do it. If you don’t, you’re going to regret this.’
“One of my best friends that passed away, his saying was, ‘Live with the ‘oh wells,’ not the ‘what-ifs.’’ So I went there and I was like, ‘You know what? I don’t want to live with that ‘what-if.’ And I will regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t stand by my people today.’”
What is your response to the Dodgers’ comment on welcoming you back, and do you feel like there is room for conversation?
“I would absolutely be open to a conversation, because that was not the message that I received that day. Ten seconds after I left the field, I overheard the conversation that happened between the Dodgers executive that told me no in the video [and my manager]. She said, ‘What was that? Don’t email us again. Don’t call us ever again. Your clients are never welcome here again.’ So I don’t hold it against the Dodgers official who put out that statement yesterday. Maybe they were unaware of that conversation. But as of right now, in this moment, I do not feel welcome back in that stadium.”
Were you familiar with the history of the Spanish version of the national anthem — ‘El Pendón Estrellado?’
“No — and that’s what’s also been such a beautiful outcome of this, too. I think I’ve been able to shine light on this because I didn’t know about it. My family didn’t know about it. I didn’t learn about it in school. But in 1945, the U.S. commissioned this under [former] President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt, under his Good Neighbor Policy to honor the Latin community for being such a big part of this country. And that is so beautiful.
“It still sings in the lyrics that I’m a proud American, home of the brave, land of the free. And I think it is such a beautiful thing for the Latin community to have — to still sing from the top of their lungs that they are a proud American — but to be able to do it in their language so that they feel included in this country, that they’ve been such a big part of it.”
If you could do it all again, would you make the same decision?
“Oh, yes, absolutely. A million times over and over again.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Hafsa Quraishi produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Quraishi also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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