At Southern Cal businesses owned by folks of Venezuelan descent, the mood is celebrative

Maria Rondón, owner of Pepiteria +55 in Gardena, said the eatery specializing in Venezuelan food enjoyed a flurry of customers, most of them ordering up empanadas and celebrating Saturday’s news on the U.S. strike in Venezuela, she said.

“We are happy, what we dreamt and longed for, for so many years, has been the liberty of Venezuela,” Rondón said in Spanish.

Related: What we know about a US strike that captured Venezuela’s Maduro 

After months of escalating tensions in which the U.S. conducted deadly strikes against alleged drug boats from Venezuela, seized an oil tanker and ordered a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers, the U.S. military launched the large-scale operation in Caracas overnight Friday and early Saturday.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is under federal indictment in the United States for allegedly running a cartel that has funneled drugs into the U.S., and his wife were taken from their home and were being transported to New York to face charges.

When watching the news last night with her family, seeing that there were bombings, at first they didn’t believe it, she said.

“Later, we started crying because it’s been many years of lots of pain and so much has happened to us as people due to the government’s fault,” she said. “After we were just shocked because we couldn’t believe what was happening and we couldn’t sleep.”

“This morning, when President Trump spoke and confirmed that everything was true, that it wasn’t fake, we felt that at last that dream became a reality, our prayers were answered, that finally,” she said with a big sigh, “finally we’re out of that situation, thank God.”

Not all in Southern California were celebrating the news. Local activist groups pulled together hastily arranged protests at sites including in Los Angeles and Rancho Cucamonga on Saturday.  Union del Barrio, the Community Self Defense Coalition and other organizations denounced the U.S. attack. And CodePink, working with other organizations, planned an “emergency protest” at Pershing Square.

Related: Southern California’s lawmakers weigh in on US capture of Venezuela’s president 

Democrats from Los Angeles County’s congressional delegation are expressing outrage at the U.S. military action in Venezuela, taking aim at President Donald Trump for not informing Congress before launching the action.

Both California senators condemned the move. “Trump’s military action in Venezuela is unlawful without approval from Congress. There’s no clear objective, no endgame, and no plan for what comes next,” Sen. Alex Padilla wrote.

And Sen. Adam Schiff said: “Nicolás Maduro was a thug and an illegitimate leader of Venezuela, terrorizing and oppressing its people for far too long and forcing many to leave the country. But starting a war to remove Maduro doesn’t just continue Donald Trump’s trampling of the Constitution, it further erodes America’s standing on the world stage and risks our adversaries mirroring this brazen illegal escalation.”

Rep. Young Kim, R-Anaheim Hills, voiced support for the decision. “Maduro was a brutal dictator and indicted narco-terrorist responsible for flooding our country with deadly drugs and contributing to countless American deaths,” she said. Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Palm Desert, also expressed support for the action.

Rondón, meanwhile, said she still has family back in Venezuela but they live in a different state from where the bombings took place. She said that they’re all celebrating at home, because they’re still afraid to leave right now.

A majority of her family has migrated to the U.S., Rondón said, and since arriving eight years ago, the 29-year-old small business owner and her husband have worked to get their restaurant open last year.

“A year ago, we made our dream come true of opening the restaurant and bringing a little part of Venezuela to our people here in Los Angeles,” she said.

She wanted to let people know that feelings that she’s seeing from people is happiness and emotional.

“We’re also waiting to see what else is going to happen,” she said. “We really hope that they rebuild Venezuela to how it used to be. That it returns to what it once was years ago, a Venezuela that welcomed foreigners because of the amazing economy that it had.”

In Pasadena, Chamo Venezuelan Cuisine was packed with Venezuelans celebrating, their cheers echoing throughout the restaurant.

Yesika Baker, owner of the restaurant, has been in the community for eight years and said that even though the rain slowed people down a bit, the weather didn’t stop them from having a full house.

“We’ve laughed, we’ve cried,” Baker said as she held back tears, “we’re very excited about what is happening, and it’s the first step. We’re here and we’ll continue to be here.”

Baker was at home last night when a family member from Venezuela called her to share what was going on; she said she couldn’t believe it. The restaurant owner said that she’s been up all night keeping up with what was unfolding.

“No one has slept,” Baker said in Spanish. “I don’t think a single Venezuelan has slept.”

“This is a very emotional time,” she added. “It’s a moment to celebrate, laugh and cry. It’s something that we’ve been waiting for, for 30 years. For 30 years, we’ve waited for any president to do this and well, this president (Trump) did it. He’s allowed Venezuelans to take a sigh of relief.”

“This emotion that all Venezuelans are feeling, it’s not just here but in every part of the world, those who have gone out onto the streets to cry and sing – in Spain, Italy, and other parts of the world – it’s for a reason,” Baker said. “It’s because this is so personal to us, it’s a sigh of relief and it’s hope. For the first time in 30 years, we have a glimpse of hope.”

“What will happen tomorrow, we don’t know,” she added, “we don’t know what the next step is, but today, that they’ve captured the man who has destroyed our country, we’re all celebrating. It’s something so personal to us, we’re not talking about politics, petroleum, or who will be in power next. We’re talking about the hurt that Venezuelans have carried for 30 years and for the first time we can take a breath. That’s why we’re celebrating.”

Baker said that Jan. 3, will become a historic day for Venezuelans. Those who don’t understand, she said, it’s because they haven’t lived through what their home country has gone through.

“This is so personal to so many children, youth and elders,” she said, “we’ve had to move to different parts of the world, that’s why there are so many people celebrating everywhere.”

She said that her family members still in Venezuela are still in their homes, sheltering in place because they don’t know what will come next. But at her restaurant in Pasadena, they’ll keep their doors open to continue the celebrations for the community.

“We haven’t slept the whole night,” Norah Briceno, a Venezuelan-born, Laguna Beach resident, said Saturday afternoon.

She said she’d been at home with her parents “glued to the TV,”  watching Telemundo’s coverage of the situation unfolding in her home country.

“Everybody was happy. There’s uncertainty of what’s going to happen next. But for now, they super happy,” Briceno said.

She’d been texting and calling some family members who live in Caracas. “We have hope.”

She said much of her family has fled from their home country over the past few years. And the stories that they bring with them paint a picture of a “horrible situation” in their native country.

“My cousin and my aunt from my dad’s side, they applied for asylum and came because literally they didn’t even have food to eat,” she said.

Briceno, 56, first emigrated from Venezuela in Dec. 1999, 10 months after President Hugo Chávez took office.

“I didn’t vote for him. I didn’t like him. So I left,” she’d say 26 years later. “All this Maduro stuff started because of Chávez.”

From Venezuela, Briceno landed in Orange County, joining her sister who was already living in the area. Briceno in 2003 opened Mil Jugos, a Venezuelan restaurant on 5th Street in Downtown Santa Ana. The restaurant closed in 2024. Briceno says she’s in the process of relocating to 4th Street and plans to reopen in the near future.

Mil Jugos — meaning 1,000 juices in Spanish — was also the name of the areperia Briceno ran in her native town of Maracay.

Briceno said she’s hoping that the Trump administration’s next step is “that they take all the narcos to the jail and the country can be free and prosper.”

And after, she hopes for Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado to take office.

“A woman can be president and be so successful,” she said. “And the county loves her.”

In Laguna Woods, Pilar Corff, 74, agreed. “Machado is a wonderful woman,” she said. “I will love her to run the country.”

Corff was full of “mixed feelings” Saturday afternoon.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Corff said she’d been “crying all night,” concerned for her friends and family who live in the city that had endured the brunt of last night’s military strikes.

“It was hard to hear and to see on the TV, the bombing,” Corff said. Between watching CNN and Telemundo on her TV, Corff messaged friends and family on WhatsApp.

“They sent me videos right away,” she said. “So I saw the videos through the window of [my nephew’s] house because he was close to one of the army buildings and he saw a lot of things and I could hear the bombs.”

“And this morning they showed me a video that they have to wait in line all day to get food,” she said. “They don’t have any food and now they are trying to get food and everything is closed.

She said her loved ones are “fine, but nervous and worried.”

But regardless of the “difficult situation,” Corff said her friends and family in Caracas “want to celebrate.”

It’s a sentiment Corff said she shares.

“I was happy also,” she said. “Because Maduro and all his family deserve to go to jail for the rest of their lives.”

At a news conference Saturday, Trump said the United States would “be running” Venezuela indefinitely until a “judicious” transfer of power could take place. He added that the United States would be taking over the country’s oil fields, increasing production and allowing U.S. oil companies to sell the oil to other nations, including China and Russia.

“We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years,” Trump said. ” … We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country.”

Trump accused Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores of a “campaign of deadly narco-terrorism against the United States and its citizens.”

The president said previous U.S. strikes on drug boats had knocked out 97% of drugs coming into the United States by sea, “and those drugs mostly come from a place called Venezuela.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Saturday that the nature of the military operation, which officials planned for days but waited to launch until weather conditions were ideal, did not allow for congressional notification. Trump added that Congress was known to leak information, and that could have jeopardized the mission.

The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report