By Margaret Medina I was in my Chicano Studies class with Dr. George Garcia when I got the call. We were in groups, and my phone would not stop vibrating in my book bag. I politely looked at Dr. García and mimed that I had to take the call. I figured it was important. I stepped outside the classroom in Sierra Hall north in front of the beautiful Chicano mural. There were two voice messages and one text from my sister-in law Jamie announcing that my mother had passed. As I walked back in, Dr. García’s face asked me silently if everything was okay. I shook my head no. I was still in shock despite the fact that Mamá had been in hospice, and it was no secret she was dying. I knelt down and could feel the tears well up in my eyes. I gathered my books and put them in the knapsack. I looked up at Dr. García hoping to find some calm with which to soothe the emotional blow. Dr. Garcia gave me a very compassionate look, and said, “Mi’ja, your universe has changed forever. You’re half orphan,...

A Sacred Journey , Fernando Barragán 2008, exterior wall, Sacred Heart Elementary       By Abel M. Salas Ernesto Quintero entered the world a year-and-a-half behind his brother Juan. Of the six children born to Micaela and Roberto Quintero, they were the nearest in age. “Growing up, we did everything together,” says Quintero, an independent filmmaker from Lincoln Heights, the cornerstone East Side community his family has called home since 1966. “We played on the same [Little League] baseball team… Pop Warner football… basketball…  we  were inseparable.” There, nestled below Flat Top, Montecito Heights and Elephant Hill—hilltop vantage points the pair of brothers explored as a duo—the Quintero family grew and prospered in the wake of the Chicano Movement and the fervent tide of cultural arts expression it spawned. As a result, the brothers would come of age in an era and an environment that validated their heritage and their identity even as their ...

Award-winning Chefs Hugo Molina and Aricia Alvarado, partners in life are now partners at Genovese's Italian Kitchen. From Staff Reports April 25, 2019 Alhambra, California —When two acclaimed chefs come together to operate an eatery, it is usually good news for foodies and fine dining aficionados because the pairing is most always the basis for a winning recipe.  Energized and excited, Chefs Hugo Molina and his wife Aricia Alvarado, long-standing partners in life and now in a long-standing local eatery, are the new proprietors of Genovese’s Italian Kitchen, a neighborhood spot on the western edge of Alhambra. After years of successful restaurant ventures, the couple is bringing their passion for great food closer to home, to a well-regarded but never pretentious bistro, where they will serve up delicious comfort food along with lighter, California-inspired  fare. Reopening Genovese’s with a refreshed menu curated from the perspective that suggests it is not only po...

Over 10,000 children are being held in U.S. detention centers as a result of Trump's inhumane 'zero tolerance' policy. By Elias C. Herrera The policies currently in place that deal with unauthorized border crossings, immigration, and asylum seekers must be reformed and made to conform to international law and basic humanity. In March of 2017, the Trump administration started a ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy for people that were crossing the southern border of the United States without authorization, kicking off one of the most morally corrupt and reprehensible actions of Trump’s presidency (Hirschfeld Davis, Shear, & Benner, 2018). Shortly thereafter, the Trump administration would expand that program to those that were seeking asylum, regardless of how they approached the US border (Hirschfeld Davis, Shear, & Benner 2018). This policy has led to a deplorable incarceration for thousands of children who automatically become ‘unaccompanied minors’ when their parents...

Luciana Souza headlines the South Pasadena Public Library Carnegie Concert on Saturday. Photo: Anna Webber By Sven Fieldsteen and Aleja M. Sierra The  Library Carnegie Stage Concert, an essential and always compelling component of South Pasadena’s annual Eclectic Music Festival & Arts Crawl, will be held this Saturday, April 27th and headlined by jazz singer extraordinaire Luciana Souza. One of the foremost jazz vocalists in the world, Souza will be accompanied for this unique presentation by Otmaro Ruiz, a renowned Venezuelan pianist. The duo are slated to take the stage at 6:30 pm inside the beautifully restored South Pasadena Public Library Community Room—an acknowledged historical, architectural and cultural landmark—at 1115 El Centro Street. Julia Vari returns to L.A. for the Eclectic Music Festival. Photo: Charlotte Bell Photography Back by popular demand, acclaimed jazz and world music composer-pianist-vocalist Julia Vari kicks off the concert at 4pm. Vari is...

Gushan, a self-taught painter and sculptor who is, ironically, a highly sought after ecclesiastical artist, in City Terrace. By Abel Salas   Gushan is something of an enigma. To begin with, his name is not really “Gushsan.”  The word is a hybrid compound of sorts.  Think Gustavo. Think “h” something and think Sánchez. But since 1997, when the interdisciplinary artist arrived in Los Angeles and located himself in the middle of one of the most notorious barrios on the Greater East Side, he has worked very hard to grow as an artist and become a more conscious human being in the process. And, as a consequence, he just might be the most famous and important L.A. artist you’ve never heard of. That is, unless you watch Spanish-language TV, listen to Spanish-language radio or read Spanish-language newspapers or magazines, because he’s been on or in almost all of them. Born in Guadalajara but raised in Tijuana, he began teaching himself to be an artist in many diffe...

From Staff Reports For well over two decades, Angels Walk LA has focused its efforts on preserving and commemorating the important history and special character of L.A.’s diverse and culturally rich neighborhoods. And for the next two months, historic and modern-day Boyle Heights will be at the center of the unique work and ground-breaking contributions to historical preservation that Angels Walk offers greater Los Angeles as it develops a self-guided historical walking tour with support and input from the Boyle Heights Historical Society (BHHS), lifelong neighborhood residents and community stakeholders. Journalist and Chicano art historian Abel Salas, a founding editor at Brooklyn & Boyle as well as a 22-year resident of L.A.’s East Side, has also signed on to assist with the research and writing part of the project. “Angels Walk Boyle Heights,” comprised of 15, all-weather, outdoor informational stanchions and a companion guidebook, will highlight and celebrate the people...

Supporters of Maduro defy interventionist designs on Venezuela represented by interim opposition leader Juan Guaidó. By Alci Rengifo One of the great anarchist anthems from the period of the Spanish Civil War begins with the proclamation, “Black storms agitate the winds, dark clouds won’t allow us to see.” Dark clouds are indeed gathering in the southern hemisphere, over the shattered dreams of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Having already broken families in the southern border, imprisoning children in detention camps, the Trump White House now pretends to spearhead a campaign of liberation aimed at Caracas. The question the current coup attempt and possible march to war poses for progressives and radicals—in particular those of us here in L.A.’s Latinx community—is how to approach the issue of Venezuela soberly, while strongly opposing imperialist designs on our southern neighbors. First it must be made clear that any U.S. intervention in Venezuela, already ongoing, wh...

By Xochi Flores-Castro I was never afforded the luxury of living life as a bystander. I believe, at birth, or perhaps before birth, I was granted the responsibility to search for and tell the truth, the pretty truth, the ugly truth, the honest and lifesaving truth and sometimes the brutal and lethal truth. All of them. Ask me and I will tell you. Don’t ask me, and I still might tell you. Stand too close and my truth can find its way into you. I am full of truths that my tongue has spewed, my eyes have rolled, my fists have pounded and my whole body, shouldered. It is the longevity of this one truth that has led me here, on this V-Day. It is one that I have wrestled with in my own home, with my parents, my brothers by birth, my partners, and mis hermanos en la lucha. In my almost five decades of life, all of which, lived and operated in social justice circles, I have seen harm done to oh so many women and queer folks all in the name  of the movement or of progressive dogma. Here...