Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement The listing that ran in the Dec. 31, 1874, edition of the Los Angeles Herald was as short as it was dismissive.“The ‘high-toned’ colored folks,” the unsigned story stated, “will celebrate the anniversary of their emancipation” on New Year’s Day with a dinner and dance.But the blurb nevertheless remains significant: It’s one of the earliest documented records of African Americans in Los Angeles celebrating the end of slavery in the United States.AdvertisementAnd parties, picnics and parades to mark the occasion have continued ever...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement The listing that ran in the Dec. 31, 1874, edition of the Los Angeles Herald was as short as it was dismissive.“The ‘high-toned’ colored folks,” the unsigned story stated, “will celebrate the anniversary of their emancipation” on New Year’s Day with a dinner and dance.But the blurb nevertheless remains significant: It’s one of the earliest documented records of African Americans in Los Angeles celebrating the end of slavery in the United States.AdvertisementAnd parties, picnics and parades to mark the occasion have continued ever...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement When I visited this small Central Valley town on a recent Friday afternoon, the most happening place by far was the public library.Teens sped around on their bikes in the ample parking lot, then went inside to peruse the bookshelves. Classical music — Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Tchaikovsky‘s “1812 Overture,” a couple of Bach harpsichord jams — blasted from someone’s Spotify. A couple of adults browsed the Spanish-language section. Tykes did crafts with branch supervisor Frank Cervantes; others worked on a Snoopy puzzle. Restless...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement When I visited this small Central Valley town on a recent Friday afternoon, the most happening place by far was the public library.Teens sped around on their bikes in the ample parking lot, then went inside to peruse the bookshelves. Classical music — Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Tchaikovsky‘s “1812 Overture,” a couple of Bach harpsichord jams — blasted from someone’s Spotify. A couple of adults browsed the Spanish-language section. Tykes did crafts with branch supervisor Frank Cervantes; others worked on a Snoopy puzzle. Restless...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement The playground at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton buzzed with the joy of recess on Jan. 17, 1989, as second-grader Sam Leam waited his turn for tether ball. It was a sunny winter day, near noontime, and Leam and his fellow classmates tried to get in some last-minute fun before heading back to their studies.Suddenly, there was a sound. Firecrackers? A well-bounced dodgeball? It was Patrick Purdy firing off rounds from a semiautomatic rifle. At them.Students tried to run to safety but were gunned down by Purdy’s ceaseless...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement The playground at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton buzzed with the joy of recess on Jan. 17, 1989, as second-grader Sam Leam waited his turn for tether ball. It was a sunny winter day, near noontime, and Leam and his fellow classmates tried to get in some last-minute fun before heading back to their studies.Suddenly, there was a sound. Firecrackers? A well-bounced dodgeball? It was Patrick Purdy firing off rounds from a semiautomatic rifle. At them.Students tried to run to safety but were gunned down by Purdy’s ceaseless...WW…

Every Saturday night from my doorstep, I witness the agony and stupidity that is the coronavirus in Southern California. I live in Santa Ana, a supermajority-Latino city that has recorded 18 percent of all COVID-19 cases in Orange County and 18 percent of related deaths, .When I step outside my home, I see plastic signs staked next to sidewalks asking—urging, really—in English and Spanish for everyone to wash their hands, wear face masks, and practice social distancing. The hashtags #ProtectSantaAna and #ProtegeSantaAna top these instructions.The earnestness and importance of the messages...…Every Saturday night from my doorstep, I witness the agony and stupidity that is the coronavirus in Southern California. I live in Santa Ana, a supermajority-Latino city that has recorded 18 percent of all COVID-19 cases in Orange County and 18 percent of related deaths, .When I step outside my home, I see plastic signs staked next to sidewalks asking—urging, really—in English and Spanish for everyone to wash their hands, wear face masks, and practice social distancing. The hashtags #ProtectSantaAna and #ProtegeSantaAna top these instructions.The earnestness and importance of the messages...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement Lucia Daniella Saldivar-Lozano approached her canvas on a recent December morning: a curbside utility box in Sylmar that she had painted three times in the past month.Only to have vandals deface her work thrice.The 20-year-old took stock of the necessary materials for the day. Brushes, rags, rolls. Cans of acrylic and spray paint. Cutouts of monarch butterflies so Saldivar-Lozano could stencil them around her installation’s centerpiece: a raised black fist.Family and friends served as cheer squad and security team.Wendy Lozano stood...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement Lucia Daniella Saldivar-Lozano approached her canvas on a recent December morning: a curbside utility box in Sylmar that she had painted three times in the past month.Only to have vandals deface her work thrice.The 20-year-old took stock of the necessary materials for the day. Brushes, rags, rolls. Cans of acrylic and spray paint. Cutouts of monarch butterflies so Saldivar-Lozano could stencil them around her installation’s centerpiece: a raised black fist.Family and friends served as cheer squad and security team.Wendy Lozano stood...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement So ready for the coming lockdowns? Of course you’re not!That’s why your humble columnist is here to help the best way a nerdy Mexican with glasses can: offer a Christmas reading list.One of the few good things Southern California saw in 2020 was a bounty of history books on the region. The ones I’m going to recommend all hit issues — protests, politics, representation and the Dodgers — that are ever-present ’round here but which shared the spotlight with the coronavirus.What’s past is prologue, as Shakespeare wrote in “The Tempest,”...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement So ready for the coming lockdowns? Of course you’re not!That’s why your humble columnist is here to help the best way a nerdy Mexican with glasses can: offer a Christmas reading list.One of the few good things Southern California saw in 2020 was a bounty of history books on the region. The ones I’m going to recommend all hit issues — protests, politics, representation and the Dodgers — that are ever-present ’round here but which shared the spotlight with the coronavirus.What’s past is prologue, as Shakespeare wrote in “The Tempest,”...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement As a columnist, I’m supposed to offer blistering opinions about the news of the day, with often easily defined contrasts. Heroes and villains. Sturm und Drang. The good (Dodgers and democracy) and the bad (Angels and Trump).Nuance? Leave that to Steve Lopez.But today, I’m struggling with how to feel about a two-story building at 435 S. Boyle Ave. in Boyle Heights that’s been on sale since last year.AdvertisementBuilt in 1931, the Spanish Revivalist structure was home until last year to the , a legendary nonprofit that offered classes...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement As a columnist, I’m supposed to offer blistering opinions about the news of the day, with often easily defined contrasts. Heroes and villains. Sturm und Drang. The good (Dodgers and democracy) and the bad (Angels and Trump).Nuance? Leave that to Steve Lopez.But today, I’m struggling with how to feel about a two-story building at 435 S. Boyle Ave. in Boyle Heights that’s been on sale since last year.AdvertisementBuilt in 1931, the Spanish Revivalist structure was home until last year to the , a legendary nonprofit that offered classes...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement No matter who ends up winning the presidential election, one thing is already clear:It’s all the fault of Latino voters.We were supposed to be the phalanx in the war against Donald J. Trump. An immovable mass of multihued tribes hurtling like an unstoppable force to smash white supremacy in the name of democracy.Instead, too many of us broke ranks. Too many vendidos. Sellouts.That was the narrative pushed — at least during the programming of this crazy election when Trump seemed on the fast road to victory — by liberal pundits,...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement No matter who ends up winning the presidential election, one thing is already clear:It’s all the fault of Latino voters.We were supposed to be the phalanx in the war against Donald J. Trump. An immovable mass of multihued tribes hurtling like an unstoppable force to smash white supremacy in the name of democracy.Instead, too many of us broke ranks. Too many vendidos. Sellouts.That was the narrative pushed — at least during the programming of this crazy election when Trump seemed on the fast road to victory — by liberal pundits,...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement As Rudy Monterrosa wrapped up his final year at Notre Dame Law School in 1998, he also readied a return to Southern California.South Bend, Ind., had treated him well, but the son of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants didn’t see a future there. His family and friends lived in unincorporated Bloomington in San Bernardino County. He was a volunteer with the, which has trained generations of high schoolers to better their communities.And that’s what Monterrosa planned to do back home — set up a law practice, then eventually enter...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement As Rudy Monterrosa wrapped up his final year at Notre Dame Law School in 1998, he also readied a return to Southern California.South Bend, Ind., had treated him well, but the son of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants didn’t see a future there. His family and friends lived in unincorporated Bloomington in San Bernardino County. He was a volunteer with the, which has trained generations of high schoolers to better their communities.And that’s what Monterrosa planned to do back home — set up a law practice, then eventually enter...WW…

BlogsTop blog StoriesCategories:Regular readers know I'm obsessed with the California burrito: the Cal-Mex staple stuffed with French fries that was born in San Diego sometime during the 1980s. But in researching my book on the history of Mexican food in the United States, I came across a fascinating stumbling block: it wasn't the first burrito named after the state--not even the second. And what most of the United States knows as a California burrito isn't what San Diegans call the California burrito.Confused? Don't be. Let me tell you more...The earliest reference I could find to a...…BlogsTop blog StoriesCategories:Regular readers know I'm obsessed with the California burrito: the Cal-Mex staple stuffed with French fries that was born in San Diego sometime during the 1980s. But in researching my book on the history of Mexican food in the United States, I came across a fascinating stumbling block: it wasn't the first burrito named after the state--not even the second. And what most of the United States knows as a California burrito isn't what San Diegans call the California burrito.Confused? Don't be. Let me tell you more...The earliest reference I could find to a...WW…