A Short Story by Clodomiro Calvo The old man had enrolled in a workshop for beginning writers. The workshop was offered in a converted old apartment on the second floor of the J.S. Schirm Building, on the corner of First and Cummings, in Boyle Heights. Each Monday evening the old man grasped the rickety unstable handrail and climbed the twenty-six worn out steps. By the time he arrived at the first landing his knees were complaining with pain, and he was forced to stop and rest. After a few moments, he continued his slow ascent of the remaining steps. The old man then managed to shuffle down the dark corridor to the doorway of what must have been at one time a tidy modest apartment. Not counting the past sixteen Monday evenings, the only other time he had stood at this doorway was more than sixty years ago when he was a mere 12 year old shy boy. Pausing at the open doorway and smiling at no one in particular, the old man reflected on the ironical coincidence and began to rem...

To celebrate Día De Los Muertos and the Latino art community, Red Bull invited Southern California artists to submit designs for a concept called Red Bull Latagráfica- the Calavera Edition.  Artists were challenged to draw inspiration from the Mexican holiday and submit original artwork, with the top design to be immortalized on two million 12 oz. cans slated to hit shelves this October.  East Los Angeles’ native and current Long Beach resident David Flores has been announced as the winning artist. The Red Bull Latagráfica concept gives an artist the opportunity to expand their portfolio and put their work in front of millions of consumers.  Flores’ design will virtually turn supermarket aisles and convenience store cases into mini art galleries in cities including Los Angeles, San Diego, Tucson, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Chicago as well as parts of Norther...

A Short Story by Roberto Leni Olivares Old man Pablo never missed a game.  Rain or shine, he stood there on the side of the field sipping his Yerba Maté, as if he was Uruguayan, or, a prisoner in one of the distant concentration camps everyone wants to forget. His head floated from one end of the field to the other, following every play. The black and white checkered ball moved revolving in the opposite direction through the air as it traveled towards the left pole of the opposing team’s cage.  The play made him smile, but it was a contained smile.  Really, he felt like jumping up and down, even if it meant spilling the hot cup of ultra-sweet maté in his hand.  Seeing the left wing offensive player of his team, jump and with a fast motion of the forehead lose the sphere in the annals of the opposing team’s cage. He was the first one there for all of the Sun...

by María Cabildo Today’s patriots make self-deprecating jokes about their height and use sports analogies to describe the depths of the foreclosure crisis and the devastation it has caused across the country. Others have floppy salt and pepper hair that rivals my fourteen-year-old son’s worst bed head.  These patriots work at the White House, 2,700 miles away from us. Their names are not household names, but the policies they fight (in less partisan times I would have said ‘work’) to implement and to block have everything to do with our future as a nation. There was no compassion deficit in evidence when I, along with housing advocates from across the country, met with and heard from the President’s economic team, I felt reassured that their hearts and our hearts were in the same place. I came away knowing that the compassion deficit in Washington, ...

by Patricia Soto      I thought I was drowning. I tried to suck in air, but not enough would enter my lugs. I felt a tight pressure on my back, almost like a piercing pain. "I must be drowning..." I thought to myself! I opened my eyes to see where I was, and in the dimly lit outlines of my surroundings I remembered that I was on my bed at Oasis of Hope Hospital. I glanced at the bed next to me and saw my mother sleeping. I realized I was stuck in the twilight between consciousness and sleep, and the reality of the situation began to come back to me. I was not drowning in a watery place... I was drowning in the emotion of my current situation. I woke up from my drowning dream and remembered, "oh yes, mom is here at the hospital... she has a fever... she's nothing like I know her to be normally... and she has a pancreatic cancer... and I can't handle the situation... and I am alone."      I got up and popped one of my mom's Vicodin pills to numb myself...

by Josefina López as told to Jeremy Rosenberg My father came to the U.S. as a bracero. This was the guest worker program initiated during World War II because most of the capable men had left. Women started working in factories and hundreds of thousands of Mexican men were brought in to do the jobs that there weren't men here to do. My father was one of those men who came. After working contracts he decided to stay in Los Angeles. He was undocumented for a couple of years; he got deported four times. Eventually he was able to get help from a friend and bring in my mother. Then my sister was born in the country- that helped my parents get legal residency. My family came from San Luis Potosi, in a little town called Cerritos, in central Mexico, about five hours north of Mexico City. It takes thirty-two or thirty-eight hours to drive from there to here. My father used to drive it all the time. When my father sent for us, it took three days and several buses to get from Cerr...

The 4th Annual Día De Los Muertos Issue features Altar Al Almarz, Josefina Quezada , and a great fiction story entitled "North of a Tree". Pick up your copy at local East LA shops, diners, and galleries.