Bakersfield in California, where strong views about race
are part of everyday life.
Now on BBC One, with Donald Trump poised to become the Republican
candidate for the US Presidency, Hilary Andersson visits
Bakersfield in California, where strong views about race
are part of everyday life.
There are some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting
in Panorama.
Our country needs a truly great leader.
Love him or hate him, Donald Trump today
seeks the Republican nomination for president...
Leave the area.
...at a time when race is taking centre stage...
They're bringing drugs.
They're bringing crime.
They're rapists.
...in an election campaign marred by violence.
They get called neck is at school.
That's the key word around here - not or, monkey.
I'm in Bakersfield California, a Donald Trump stronghold.
I am sick of fair and reasonable.
I want somebody that's going to take the bull by the horns and at least
attempt to do something.
I'm just tired of it.
Vote Trump.
I am angry.
A place where minorities fear Trump's vision for America.
How can somebody get so much support with so much hate?
Tonight, we ask: Is America angry enough to vote in President Trump?
I wouldn't count him out by a long shot.
It looks like a Civil Rights march, but it's a presidential
campaign rally, Trump-style.
Inside, it's almost all white.
Outside, it's not.
Lines are being drawn.
I don't want my tax dollars to buy Spanish books,
pay for Spanish signs, pay for all this crap, just so you
don't learn English.
Learn English.
Respect us - who said that?
Oh, man what a great line that is.
David Rogers is here to see his hero in the flesh.
He loves Donald Trump.
If you go to the Mexican neighbourhoods, where a lot
of illegals are, I've seen some of them, I don't know who's legal,
who isn't, I'm not an authority on that, but they're all dirty.
A lot of people would say that's racist, what you're saying,
painting a group of people dirty.
Fine, then call it what you want.
I don't hang around dirty people.
I don't want to hang around people that throw trash out on the street.
Nothing but street people live around here.
David's from Bakersfield in California.
There's no Hollywood glitz and glamour here.
Bakersfield is poor and deeply Republican.
I came here to try to understand why the Trump message
is hypnotising America.
Now that's, where that stop sign is on the other
side of the red truck, that starts the bad area.
Oh, really close to your house.
Right there.
And who lives here?
All Mexicans, all Hispanic, Mexicans.
What's the crime like over here?
A lot of crime, a lot of killings, a lot of fighting, a lot
of them, a LOT of theft.
Nothing is safe here.
In its heyday, Bakersfield, in Kern County, was a prosperous,
mainly white, American city, a country music capital.
# I'll never swim the Kern river again.
# That's where I lost my best friend.
# It was there where I met her.
# It was there that I lost my best friend...#
This was really a nice area when I was a little kid,
really a nice area.
So this is pretty much unrecognisable
from how it used to be?
A few of the houses look the same, they're old houses, but it's
just absolutely trashed.
I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better
than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively.
I will build a great, great wall on our southern border,
and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.
Mark my words.
A wall to keep illegal immigrants out of America.
You've got to have a boundary if you're going to have a country.
It's Sunday night and David, who runs a home-based computer
business, is having a barbeque.
The wall is symbolic.
The wall is symbolic of all the problems,
and being in Bakersfield we have a lot of them.
What they should do is they should shoot them as they get to the top.
If they fall over on the Mexican side, we're in the clear.
If they fall on the American side, then we pay for their
(BLEEP)ing medical.
I'm American, I expect robust opinions here,
but this took me aback.
It's the ones that want free sort, the same thing with the Americans
here who want free sort, they're all the same - whether
they're white, brown or black.
They're all the same.
Their dad was worthless and their mom was worthless.
They want something for free.
David has many Mexican-American neighbours.
This once virtually all-white town is now half Hispanic and black.
How does it feel living on the same street as people
who really like Trump?
I think I'll grow into it.
Everybody has their right.
It's funny.
It shows a bit of ignorance.
People dislike the Mexicans or anybody brown or of Hispanic
culture, because we're not doctors, engineers, lawyers
or anything like that.
We're just here to work.
David, like most here, says he has no objection
to immigrants as a whole, only to those here illegally.
I have Mexican friends.
I have black friends and just that alone makes me not a racist.
Because I truly have those friends.
They can call me up and I'd do anything for them.
That shuts down the racism right there.
When Mexico sends its people, they're sending people that
have lots of problems.
They're bringing drugs.
They're bringing crime.
They're rapists.
And some, I assume, are good people.
You get this clown out there saying that they come
here to rape and deal drugs.
How can somebody get so much support with so much hate?
There's been a lot of controversy over the language that
Donald Trump has used.
Who cares, this is real life.
Wait, wait, suggesting that all the immigrants are rapists or -
He didn't say that.
A major percentage of them are though.
The thing is, if they had something going for them in Mexico,
why would they come here?
I've always jokingly said that we're the new black people
as for as Hispanics, we're the new black.
We're getting all the hatred.
Raul's partner, who used to be in the US military, resents Trump.
I didn't fight for him to have the right to hate
and to spread the hate.
I fought for him to fight for unity and for us to be united
because it's the United States.
How are you going get this people to build this wall?
Take all the illegals and they're the labour.
Jesse's an air conditioning installer and a good
friend of David's.
He lives next door.
We're building the wall.
The wall's going up and Mexico's going to pay for it.
I've talked to the president of Mexico and he's going to pay it.
He knows he's going to pay for it.
No, he's not.
They say anything.
I know you.
You're a very intelligent man.
It scares me that I know this many intelligent people
that are this gullible.
But nothing horrifies David's neighbours as much as Donald Trump's
most radical proposal.
We're going to have a deportation force and you're going
to do it humanely.
Deportation en masse of an estimated 11 million illegal
or undocumented immigrants, most of whom are from Latin America.
11 million people he's going to deport, whether
documented or undocumented.
If your parents were undocumented while they had you,
you're going to Mexico, kids that have never
even been to Mexico, don't even know Spanish.
Hey, send them back, send them over there.
Dean Haddock, a Bakersfield psychologist, is also
the local Republican leader.
Like many Republicans he's sceptical about Trump's deportation plan.
It's just not going to happen.
The people have been here so long, they're our families.
They're my family too.
Nobody's going to allow them to take them and move them back.
It's not even their country any more.
Mexican population that comes up here from Mexico, they don't
assimilate into the community and become with us.
They want to break away.
They want to cause trouble.
That's what scares me the most, all these people that came out
of the woodwork being racist and supporting Trump
and not acknowledging that it's hurting people.
Bakersfield was built on the riches of the land.
This is an oil town.
But the glory days are no more.
Look at all of them that are stopped.
Never seen this many oil rigs anywhere.
Look how many are stopped.
They're all stopped.
You have to look for one that's running.
Yeah.
The fall in global oil prices has had a devastating impact
on jobs here.
Last July, it dropped like a rock.
Ensign laid off like 5,000 people overnight.
Just because of the drop of the oil price?
Yeah, they're gone.
It's like a ghost town.
I'm losing my house and I have no money to pay for it.
On the edge of the oil field, on a back street, Shari Kent
is selling up all her possessions.
You're selling your stuff to try to make some money
to pay your mortgage?
Not my mortgage, just to buy food.
Shari's been surviving on $10 an hour night shifts
at the grocery store.
Now her life's falling apart - divorce, stress and less work.
It affected me by my hours being cut at work.
Everybody, everybody's been laid off.
It's all going to be crazy, because people got to eat.
They've got to eat.
They have to eat and they've got to pay bills.
What are they going to do?
I don't get it, any more.
Shari believes Donald Trump will bring jobs.
He seems like he can handle business.
This is a business.
I mean, taking care of the country is a business.
This area has one of the highest unemployment rates in California.
Shari's neighbour Ramona says many white people here blame Hispanics
for taking the jobs.
Hispanics will work for less money, you know, because they will live
more people in one house.
Normally, white people don't do that, you know what I mean?
It's not really normal.
Right, so some people feel that their jobs
are being taken away.
Right because they can undercut the price, uh-huh.
The Hispanic population has overwhelmed our state,
overwhelmed our jobs, overwhelmed our education,
overwhelmed all of our social services that we put in place.
They say 10 million.
It's more like 20 million.
They were here illegally.
They don't stand in line.
They don't wait.
They have taken the jobs.
There's an estimated eight million illegal workers in America today.
They help drive the economy.
The head of the local Democrats, an Hispanic immigrant herself,
thinks America needs a more measured approach.
I don't see the average American working in fields, picking produce.
Our economy would have a huge impact, if other workers
were having to be brought in to complete the jobs that
undocumenteds were doing.
But Donald Trump's message, that illegals take jobs,
is music here to white Americans, who feel undercut, dispossessed.
Our country needs a truly great leader and we need
a truly great leader now.
Over the years, Bakersfield's racial make-up has changed dramatically,
but it's always been deeply divided.
We're going to take you across the bridge.
This is the bridge right here.
So this bridge divides...
Bakersfield and Oildale and in my era, a big divide,
no blacks across that bridge after dark.
They all had to get their butts back over.
Oildale, the rough side of Bakersfield, used to be known
as a sunset town.
Unless you were white, you weren't welcome after dark.
We ran them out.
Ran black people out?
Throw stuff at their cars, whatever.
We ran them out of Oildale at night.
They looked so different from us, we don't like them.
So were there any black people?
No, none.
100% white.
My dad bought that house.
Now they've turned this into public housing.
They had to put that fence up just to keep it halfway safe.
There's some black people in there, they're all OK, they're
just on welfare.
If they catch you walking by yourself, and there's two
of them and one of you, anything could happen.
Across the road from where David was born, we met Shawana
an unemployed mother.
Recently, she says, a group of white racist thugs
turned up on her street.
It was like 10 to 11 cars, white people all over here for just
a handful of black people.
What were they trying to do?
Fight.
They had bats, cans.
Like baseball bats?
Uh-huh.
What were they saying?
Not or; that's the key word around here, not or, monkey...
It's ridiculous.
Oildale seems a bleak place to fight over.
But it's fertile ground for extremism.
This always happens.
Today is one of the cooler days, but Friday, don't be out.
What happened on Friday?
If you come out Friday nights, there's a possibility
that you'll get jumped.
Shawanna says she decided to quit waitressing after a white customer
complained she was black.
And your children; has it affected your children?
They get called neck is at school.
How do you live like this?
Why don't you move?
Well, I'm in a process of moving but it's hard to relocate,
you know, it's hard.
I went to the university in nearby San Bernardino, to meet Brian Levin.
And I need your assignment by the end of class...
He's studying the effects of seismic shifts in America's racial make-up.
One of the things what we are seeing today, for instance 26% of Americans
are either immigrants or the children of immigrants.
Over the last half century, 59 million immigrants, many Mexican,
have changed the face of America.
In 40 years, white people may be a minority.
This demographic change has caused fear.
Not only fear because they believe that immigrants are causing issues
with regard to resources, but issues with regard to what's
happening to our cultural heritage and the colour of our country.
Donald Trump's message is simple and alluring.
Put America first.
The American Dream is dead.
But if I get elected President, I will bring it back bigger,
and better and stronger than ever before and we will make
America great again.
Donald Trump's campaign tactics are stoking division.
The American Dream was never about a country tearing
itself up over race.
In the last fortnight, eight policemen have been killed
following the recent police shootings of two black men.
This year in America, police have killed over 200 black
and Hispanic people.
By night, Bakersfield is alive with the sound of sirens.
Police across Kern County killed 13 people last year.
More per head than any other county in the US.
What did you name him?
This is Ronnie Ledesma - a local 39-year-old oil worker -
and a new granddad.
Back up, back up!
He's screaming, he's screaming just for his life.
Joseph Gomez is his son-in-law.
Ronnie was arrested - presumed drunk.
Then struck repeatedly with a baton on his body and head.
Put your hands behind your back.
Three officers held him down while the police dog savaged him.
He's obviously been mauled on by the canine which he's,
the officer's allowing him enough room on the rope to continue
and he's just simply trying to get away from the dog,
he's simply trying to avoid it.
Quit resisting, do not kick the deputies again.
They shout out these, stop resisting, stop resisting,
and he's not resisting, he's just, he's hurting,
he's in pain.
Joseph Gomez believes racist attitudes amongst local police means
Hispanics are targeted.
I would say there is racists within it, I wouldn't say everybody,
but I know there is coz you feel it, it's very evident here,
it's very evident.
It's dark over here.
It's dark.
Ronnie Ledesma died eight days after his beating.
Police say he "appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and drugs"
and physical force was necessary because he "became combative".
His death was ruled accidental.
But his family is taking legal action against the police.
At David's local cafe most people we spoke to want tough policing.
Kern County Police have the highest number of killings of anywhere
in the United States so is that a...
Go cops.
I love it.
What do you think of that, Steve?
Go cops.
But you don't have any problem with that...
None whatsoever.
..number of police killings?
It could be 500, I wish it was higher.
David was not alone in his views.
I'm an American man and Americans over the centuries we don't tolerate
BS from anybody.
That's right.
It's the name of the game for America.
If you're gonna mess with us, you're gonna get messed back.
We don't know whether these people are guilty or innocent
until it's too late.
I don't know, but you can ask him...
Isn't that a bit of a problem?
If a man pulls a gun on you, you're trained to take care of him.
Tommy, a retired local police officer, was
a lone voice of dissent.
I know of several shootings here in Kern County
that absolutely stink.
So you think there's a problem?
Yeah, absolutely, and they're cleared constantly.
Most of them have been non-whites?
Well, that's because they do most of the crime.
When you've got a tonne of them out there doing the crime,
sure their numbers are going to be higher because that's
what they're doing.
Donald Trump has stoked this perception.
He retweeted an inflammatory and inaccurate claim.
That 81% of white people are murdered by black people.
He is tweeting a figure that says that 81% of whites are killed
by blacks, it's not true, it's completely a wrong figure.
OK, so it's not 81, so it's 77, so it's 65, so it's 40,
the idea is that black people commit a lot of crimes.
In fact, FBI figures show most whites are killed by whites.
But David and his friends weren't in the mood to let statistics get
in the way of their belief that black people and immigrants
are responsible for high crime levels.
More immigrants have not meant more crime.
We have had a sustained decline in both property and violent crime
from 1990 into today, but it doesn't matter because facts
will not reverberate as much as fear and emotion.
Donald Trump has said he likes to plays to people's fantasies.
He's selling himself as America's strongman.
I am sick of fair and reasonable.
I want somebody to take the bull by the horns and at least attempt
to do something.
Whether he can get it done or not, that's a different story.
He's a salesman.
I mean, he's a businessman.
He's selling the idea of what folks wanna hear and what they wanna see.
And many Americans want to see a tough line on Islamist terror.
Trump has one.
Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown
of Muslims entering the United States until our
country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.
It was a calculated move.
Coming soon after the terror attack not far from Bakersfield,
in San Bernardino.
Here 14 people were killed when a local couple
of Pakistani descent opened fire in an office party.
Our plan was to make it in three phases.
First it's the community centre, then we'll build the mosque,
then the school.
Saif Ahmed wants to build a large new mosque in Bakersfield
for the Muslims here.
We've always found when we build a mosque, pretty soon
we run out of space.
There's local resistance.
Saif no longer feels welcome here.
When I came to this country in 1978, I was so impressed how
the minorities were treated, how everybody was treating us.
Trump has more recently said the ban would apply only to Muslims
from countries with terrorist ties.
But that hasn't made Saif feel any more secure.
There is more animosity now as compared to after 9/11
because now the presidential candidate, people on TV are talking
anti-Muslims and so people think that's the right thing to do.
Now they look at you as if, you know, you belong to a religion
which is mostly terrorists.
To lay people like me, Muslims have a certain look
and I don't know that that's right, I just feel like OK,
I don't like that person, you know.
I would just stop the whole thing long enough to figure out
what we got because if we save one person's life, American's life,
it's worth stopping everybody from coming in.
What Trump has said is, it's the other, these people
who are not quite Americans, indeed possible enemies of America.
Mexicans who are rapists and criminals and maybe some good
people, or Muslims who, gee, Islam hates us.
What Donald Trump has created is an authoritative leadership brand
that will say that the other is not going to have sway over
this country anymore.
In May, David finally got to see the man who's shocked much
of America, and inspired the rest.
We're gonna keep winning, winning, winning and we're gonna make
America great again!
Many of Donald Trump's core supporters are white,
low income, less educated.
Not all have views as extreme as David's.
But they're all fired up by Trump's campaign.
I will gladly accept the mantle of anger.
Illegal immigration is beyond belief.
Our country is being run by incompetent people -
and ,yes, I am angry.
The question now - can Donald Trump take
the White House?
Donald Trump is going to have a difficult time winning key
states with large Latino and immigrant populations
like California, but here's the thing.
If God forbid there's a terrorist attack or some kind of catalytic
event that feeds into these fears, people are gonna vote with emotion
and their gut and not with their head and policies.
America has never seen a candidate quite like this.
Many Republicans, worried they could lose November's election,
want him to tone down his message.
Politics can turn on a dime, you know, so he's still running
and if or when he is the candidate to run for President,
I think we'll see a new Trump, that's what I'm hoping for.
But Donald Trump has built an entire movement on the raw
emotions of millions.
He speaks to their fears, directs their frustration.
I think Donald Trump opened up Pandora's Box to what's been hidden
with all the racism and hatred that's been in the United States.
I figured they gave him, like, a free card to go
ahead and be racist.
The Trump phenomenon, I realised in Bakersfield,
is not so much about the man, it's about the anger and resentment
of millions that now has a voice.
I've never seen my country so fearful and divided.