Vanessa Noemí Rodríguez, February 13, 1978 - December 11, 2019 Family members, loved ones, friends and acquaintances whose lives had been touched, graced and enriched for having known her are saddened to announce that Vanessa Noemí Rodríguez transitioned to the great hereafter on Dec. 11th,  2019. A beloved daughter, mother, grandmother, sister, partner, aunt, godmother, niece, cousin, and friend, she passed during the early afternoon while surrounded by her loving family, relatives and friends. They are understandably grief-stricken by her untimely passing. Welcomed as a blessing and a gift from the creator by parents Sandra Aguirre and Jaime Rodríguez, Vanessa was born on February 13th, 1978. Over time, a substantial number of others would grow to regard her with similar gratitude and affection. It goes without saying that all will mourn her departure deeply. An extraordinarily compassionate human being from childhood on, she readily opened her home to anyone in need, at...

Deborah (r.) and Denise Lewis, at 8 and 9-years-old. Photo courtesy of the Lewis Family. By Shirlee Smith Boyle Heights - African Americans Were There, our organization, seeks to develop a historical perspective documenting the early arrivals and the continuous influx of our elders into this vibrant and multicultural community. Through stories, pictures and more, we work to present the facts surrounding our existence. We work to restore our history.  And equally as important, we work to educate the public. Please contact us (626) 296-2777 with stories or other information regarding African Americans in Boyle Heights. The stories of Black families in Boyle Heights have a common thread—moving from Boyle Heights but coming back to the “home place,” race relations, and the unique ability to never be too far away from their local relatives. African Americans N Boyle Heights - We were there stories focus on where they worked, where they came from, their hopes and dreams. African A...

Andy García in Key Largo at The Geffen. Photo:Yann Rabanier By E.M. Fredric Key Largo based on the classic Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall film and the reimagined version of Maxwell Anderson’s blank verse play, lionizes producer, co-writer and star Andy Garcia. The play was originally produced in 1939 and the film was hulled from there. This iteration is co-written by Jeffrey Hatcher, co-produced by Frank Mancuso with Andy Garcia and directed by Doug Hughes as a vehicle that spotlights Andy Garcia’s head mobster Johnny Rocco. Originally the focus in the film was on McCloud played by Bogart but here the target shifts to Rocco as Andy Garcia snares Edward G. Robinson’s shoes with stiletto ease. Garcia is on fire in both acts and is the main reason to visit the Geffen to see Key Largo . The Academy Award Nominee proves he’s an unstoppable beast on stage, profoundly immersed into the character and adding to the apocalyptic atmosphere of the play as its main fire and dragon ag...

Altarista Ofelia Esparza heads to Washington D.C. this year to create a Día de Los Muertos ofrenda honoring her indigenous ancestry for the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. Image: L.A. Museum of Natural History  By Abel M. Salas Although she will blush and shudder with nervous embarrassment to hear it said, or read aloud from these pages, Doña Ofelia Esparza is clearly on her way to becoming synonymous with the ofrenda. Literally an “offering,” the ofrenda, or “altar” is a spiritually-based expression of reverence or love traditionally assembled to honor the lives of departed loved ones. Today, however, it is just as likely to represent an idea or a political message. In the course of a quiet and unassuming second-act career as a fine artist over the last 30-years, Ofelia has earned a pristine reputation as one of the nation’s preeminent altar-makers. Widely acknowledged as a leading exponent and master practitioner of a cultural tradition she was first made awar...

Ofrenda by Isaac Pelayo, mixed media, 2019 A TRIBUTE IN HONOR OF THE 10TH ANNUAL EL VELORIO DAY OF THE DEAD FIESTA By L.N. Amoratto It’s all about the ofrenda , you know, the trunk-load of plywood cut into uniform shapes. Pelayo has it down. You give an army of artists what passes for a universal canvas that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and obligates everyone to work with the same piece of wood shaped into a cross or lucha libre mask or something else he’ll dream up soon and which will allow him to include pretty damn near 100 artists in an exhibition which will grace the walls of the Plaza de la Raza Boathouse Gallery at Lincoln Park. And all 100 of them, well, most of them, will be asked to try and sell ten tickets. Few will succeed.  They will, instead, give the tickets away and pay for them out of pocket. A substantial portion of the money goes to keeping the lights on at Plaza de la Raza, and the look of worry off of director María Jimenez’ face, because you wouldn’...

From left: Rene Rodríguez, Tomás Benitez and Rosemary Rodríguez By Guillermo de la Luna Rene Rodríguez, director of Teatro Urbano, a Los Angeles Chicano Theater group, passed away on December 16, 2018.  The beloved Chicano theater leader, community arts advocate and family man leaves a behind a creative and artistic legacy reaffirming his life-long pride in and love for a significant and specific Latino heritage in the United States. Playwright and director, he authored and was responsible for staging perhaps the only nationally prominent theatrical production in the history of American theater to directly address and commemorate the slaying of legendary journalist Rubén Salazar and the National Chicano Moratorium of 1970 in his play, The Silver Dollar . Rodríguez was born in El Paso, Texas. He attended Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, enlisted in the army and did a hardcore tour of duty in Viet Nam. He never talked about it.  He was the recipient of many aw...

By Abel M. Salas Ending a four-year hiatus, LéaLA—the unique literary event presented successfully in downtown Los Angeles by the University of Guadalajara Foundation USA under the auspices of the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) in the years 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015—returns to L.A. this month. Organized as a celebration of Spanish-language letters, the festival was launched with considerable expectation as the “sister” or satellite edition of the literary festival held annually in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Founded there in 1987, the “Feria Internacional del Libro” is the largest and most important publishing industry trade show, book fair and literary event in the Spanish-speaking world. Globally, it ranks second only to the one hosted yearly by Frankfurt, Germany. The anticipation which accompanied the arrival of LéaLA was justified. Latinx Angelenos flocked to the L.A. Convention Center by the thousands to peruse Spanish-language titles from among the catalogs of over 2...

Tenango de Doria is an evergreen valley where indigenous languages such as Otomi and Nahuatl are still spoken. By Avelardo “Lalo” Valdez We arrive by car to Tulancingo, about one-and-half-hours from Mexico City. It’s a hectic drive. We’ve contended with hundreds of cars escaping the city for the weekend. We’d departed from Roma Sur and driven north on Avenida Insurgentes and through the hard-scrabble, working-class suburban municipality of Ecatepec, Estado de Mexico. In stark contrast to the casual bohemian opulence of Colonia Roma where we’d begun our journey, Ecatepec is impoverished and bleak. From where I’m sitting, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the favelas of Brazil. On the road, we also pass near the Tenochtitlán pyramids, every tourist’s favorite spot, before arriving at our destination.   Tulancingo, Hidalgo  (pop. 151,582) is a city serving the eastern rural area part of the state whose economy is largely based on agriculture with a mixtu...

By E.M. Fredric Perennial Off-Broadway and Broadway favorite, Little Shop of Horrors —a darkly comic rock musical with music by Alan Menken and a book by Howard Ashman based on the 1960 classic cult film by legendary B-movie director Roger Corman made from a screenplay by Charles Griffith—is enjoying a national resurgence with revival productions sweeping both coasts simultaneously from Pasadena to New York City. There’s no doubt that Pasadena’s unique version—directed by Mike Donahue and starring George Salazar and MJ Rodriguez—is a certifiable hit. The current West Coast incarnation is addictive comedic fun that satiated a full-house on a recent Thursday night and had the audience screaming with appreciation for the by now familiar rock & roll, doowop and Motown-inflected musical numbers. (Pictured at left: MJ Rodriguez stands and George Salazar listens. Photo by Jenny Graham) For those who don’t know the tale, it’s a simple one. Little Shop follows meek plant store worker...

Raul Ruiz at an L.A. City College event | La Raza photograph collection. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. By Thomas Varela Raul Ruiz, a photojournalist who documented Chicano history during the turbulent era of the 1960s and 1970s died on June 13, 2019.  He was 78-years-old.  His work as editor-writer for publications he started like Inside-Eastside, followed by Chicano Student Movement, chronicled the growth of political consciousness among a new generation of upwardly mobile Latinos. He later volunteered to take the reins of La Raza newspaper from Eliezer Risco and Ruth Robinson and began shaping it into a portal of current events. The latter publication at times printed 20,000 to 50,000 issues locally and its influence reached beyond Los Angeles.  Consequently, the accessibility of the paper inspired, to some degree, the creation of several Chicano college newspapers, like El Machete , at Los Angeles City College, El Popo at Valley College (N...