Iglesia de Dios de la Profecia, where a police officer was caught beating a suspect on April 27th. Photo by J.N. Arias . By Jeremy Arias I t was a hot afternoon. All week the humidity had driven me out of the house and into the shade offered by the fig tree out front. It was much cooler outside, and aside from the usual squirrel foraging for food from a perch above my shoulder or the occasional blare of a car alarm, there weren’t many distractions. I was reading from one of my textbooks when I heard a man screaming. Although it was the only voice being raised so loudly, I figured my neighbors had gotten into an argument. I tried to focus on my reading again but was compelled to look toward the east where the yelling appeared to come from. “ Get inside! Get inside!” shouted another angry voice, as if yelling at a dog. I grabbed my camera and rushed out to the sidewalk. I saw a man facing the gate in front of the duplex next door to a neighborhood church....

By Abel M. Salas, Editor With our twelfth annual year-end, holiday season issue in production, Brooklyn & Boyle extends heartfelt and infinite gratitude to the greater family of readers, contributing writers, advertisers, artists, educators, advocates, activists, organizers, community builders and dreamers that have made this significant—but no less hard-won and hard-earned—milestone possible. Conceived, discussed and developed in the fall of 2007 in and around East L.A., El Sereno, Lincoln Heights, City Terrace and Boyle Heights, our plucky, still standing and still independent East Side arts, culture and community issues print publication and online media platform proudly welcomes a new decade with at once vividly intense and subtly provocative cover art by East L.A.-based visual artist Maritza Torres . We acknowledge, of course, the respected curators and arts community colleagues who hipped us to her work early on, foremo...

A 1993 hunger strike at UCLA that led to creation of the César E. Chávez Center for Chicana and Chicano Studies was modeled on a 1987 student action, says Dr. Álvaro Huerta. Photo © 1993 by Abraham Torres/RumbleSkout3.com Editorial by Dr. Álvaro Huerta To borrow—more like crib—from the great James Baldwin’s writings and speeches, I declare to America’s racists that I am not your “wetback.” I am a man. I am a Chicano. I am a proud son of Mexican immigrants—the salt of the earth. I say these words from a place of privilege, having earned advanced degrees from world-class universities. These include a Ph.D. (city & regional planning) from UC Berkeley, as well as an M.A. (urban planning) and a B.A. (history)—both from UCLA. I also say these words because my personal and family backgrounds were indeed plagued by abject poverty, violence and a sense of hopelessness. I spent the earliest years of my life in a Mexican slum (Colonia Libertad, Tijuana, Baja California) and my form...

Josefina López, seated at center, and the cast/crew of Chicanas, Cholas y Chisme at Casa 0101.        by Stephanie Serrano I first heard about Casa 0101 in one of my Chicana Studies classes. My bad ass chingona professor Dr. Terri Gómez gave us—mostly young fiery women of color—glimpses into worlds and options beyond the neighborhoods we grew up in. Josefina López—like Gloria Anzaldua, Ana Castillo, Rigoberta Menchu, Dolores Huerta, and Frida Kahlo—is a staple, a pillar in Chicano/Chicanx community. She, like each of those named, became a change-maker through diligence and hard work.  They all continue to spark fires in successive generations of revolutionary spirits, and they breathe life into Chicana Feminists when the world attempts to drown out our voices. Since hearing of it, I have wanted to visit Casa 0101, which had grown to include two spaces over the last few years, according to what I’d heard sometime after graduating fro...

Central Park in the Winter, Acrylic on Canvas, 2017 by Roberto Gutiérrez. Review by Abel Salas Artist and studio painter Roberto Gutiérrez isn’t pulling any punches these days. In fact, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say the native son of L.A.’s Eastside is coming up aces more often than not. And when he isn’t walking away from his latest self-imposed challenge with a resounding victory, he’s holding his own with a combination of skill, panache and charisma that forces a split decision in his favor. And with the title belt all but his, he’s primed and ready to face off once more with a few of the most important metropolitan centers in the world. Having taken them on one after another in an allegorical ring where the traditional ropes have been replaced by the outermost edges of a canvas stretcher or a sheet of artist’s paper, the plucky maestro has returned whole, unscathed and reinvigorated from his arresting and emotional encounters with Los Angeles, Paris, and, of late,...

Wendy Carrillo, Candidate for U.S. Congress , was raised in Boyle Heights an d City Terrace. by Ulisses Sánchez The disconnect between government and the people it serves is often so profound, it seems as if they are worlds apart. It matters little if we are discussing local neighborhoods in relationship to either city hall or Congress.  Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in his 2005 inauguration speech, observed that “It may be a short way from City Terrace to City Hall, but fellow Angelenos, we all know what a vast distance it truly is.” It is a sentiment shared by many, especially on the Eastside where there is a widespread and perhaps legitimate perception that the needs and concerns of its working-class and marginally middle-class residents have been historically subordinate to the interests of outsiders. It is was that disconnect that led Wendy Carrillo to pack up her bags, rent a car and make her way from Los Angeles to the Standing Rock Sioux reservatio...