“On a Saturday afternoon in late summer, in the midst of a Long Beach multicultural neighborhood inhabited mostly by Cambodians, Latinos and African-Americans, an empty lot came alive. Families walking with their children, teenagers running on skateboards and curious drivers slowed down their pace to watch live performances by an Hispanic theater group made up of day laborers, and by a group from CSULB’s Dance Department.” — Filmmaker Rick Meghiddo.
neighborhood
Around Our Town: Where to go, what to do this July 4
FIREWORKS: Mission Pocho Viejo American Legion Post 536 once again presents their Annual Fireworks Extravagonzo Thursday at sunset. This year the pyrotechnics are sponsored by the Japanese-Mexican-American-owned Mexikosher in LA’s Pico-Robertson district. The show, America Such A Country, is a tribute to new Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti who is Jewish, Mexican AND Italian! Such a country! Moms: bring your blankets and sit the kids on the grass at Sotomayor Stadium. Dads: Do NOT bring your own fireworks.
INK AND DRINK: Two businesses in the El Rancho Pocho Downtown Historical District are getting together for a patriotic combo deal that’s hard to beat. Get any flag or patriotic tat at Inky Dinky’s House of Pain on Porciuncula Place Wednesday through Sunday and Inky will slide you a $10 pre-paid bar tab for the Loco Lounge next door. And guys, if you like thick chicks, you’ll love new tattoo artist Salma’s Fernando Botero-inspired portraits of your true hyna, right over your heart.
How many generations until Latinos become ‘Americans’?
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I consider myself Latina, close to my family’s Mexican culture; I’m bilingual and I’m happy with that identity. But, more often than not, it seems like everyone else is trying to corral me into some other identity, telling me that mine is not sufficient.
The neighborhood where I live (photos, above) is a perfect example.
It’s split in two: one part of it is gentrifying rapidly, and the other is filled with Mexican and many immigrant families. I where it’s more Mexican, which makes me — in all my professional hipster-ness — stand out sometimes, but people still speak to me in Spanish and often I just become part of the scenery. But then there are other times.
Around Our Town: Where to go, what to do on St. Patrick’s Day
LUCK OF THE IRISH: Look for a pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow Sunday at Gustavo O’Grady’s Bar y Grill on East Olmos Boulevard. The popular hangout will serve corned beef tacos, potato-stuffed chiles rellenos and beer-marinated enchilada irlanda sliders at $1 each during Happy Hour. Happy Hour, you lucky leprechauns, lasts all day long, and GO’G’s always keeps 100 bottles of beer on the wall.
For $144 and a signed damage waiver, you high-rollers can try GO’G’s One Night in Dublin Lifestyle Tasting Menu — generous pours of Guinness and Jameson’s followed by a course of impassioned story-telling and poetry, more pours, then a rich hour of melancholy singing, pours again, all capped off by your choice of a bar fight or vomiting in the alley. Wear a wee bit o’ green and Gay Gus O’Grady himself will kiss your Blarney Stone.
Mas…Around Our Town: Where to go, what to do on St. Patrick’s Day
It’s a beautiful day in POCHO’s cyberhood (toon)
Here’s what we see when we open the cyberwindow at the POCHO Ñewsroom in downtown Rancho Pocho, CA.
Local woman tired of having personal relationship with bodega owner
(PNS reporting from DA BRONX) Area resident Paloma Campos is fed up with the “familiarity” at her local bodega.
Campos, a molecular biologist, complained to friends last week about the exhausting personal relationship she’s expected to maintain with bodega owner Victor Martinez (photo, right.)
“Why can’t I just buy a can of soda without discussing my personal life? Just give me my goddam Jupiña,” Campos said.
Campos first started visiting the bodega on the corner of 182nd and Grand as a young teen when her family moved to the area. Though she moved away for four years to attend college, Campos was eventually guilt-tripped by her mother to move back to the West Bronx.
Campos ended up renting the apartment directly above the small store where she has lived for the past eight years. While she was able to sublet the apartment from her cousin’s step-sons’s girlfriend’s cousin at a great price, she cannot make a simple grocery purchase without a 20-minute discussion.
Mas…Local woman tired of having personal relationship with bodega owner
Around Our Town: Where to go, what to do for July 4th
FIREWORKS: Mission Pocho Viejo American Legion Post 536 once again presents their Annual Fireworks Extravagonzo Wednesday at sunset. This year the pyrotechnics come from Zamboni Bros., new to California, with their presentation Hella Hockey Holiday – a tribute to the Estanley Cup World Champions, Los Reyes de Los Angeles. Moms: bring your blankets and sit the kids on the grass at Sotomayor Stadium. Dads: Do NOT bring your own fireworks.
INK AND DRINK: Two businesses in the El Rancho Pocho Downtown Historical District are getting together for a patriotic combo deal that’s hard to beat. Get any flag or patriotic tat at Inky Dinky’s House of Pain on Porciuncula Place Saturday through Monday and Inky will slide you a $10 pre-paid bar tab for the Loco Lounge next door. And guys, if you like thick chicks, you’ll love new tattoo artist Salma’s Fernando Botero-inspired portraits of your true hyna, right over your heart.
Everyone waits, time slows down and then there’s magic (video)
Everyone is waiting; time seems to have slowed down and the air is full of possibilities. As the boy walks home from school, all eyes follow. What comes next? This beautiful video, shot in L.A.’s Westlake/MacArthur Park neighborhood, celebrates the magic.
Letter to the Editor: The Ghetto Manifesto by Lady D (NSFW audio)
It came in exactly this way via our handy SUBMIT form. (On the go? There’s a NSFW two-minute audio podcast version we created at the bottom of this article):
This is to every person who wants to get out and break free to be human and not be a fucking stereotype. I call it the Ghetto Manifesto. I was bred from a culture that lives in fear to succeed. We were once the Gods of the Temples- the living legends standing proud on the steps of Tenochtitlan- Now we are on our knees glorifying the filth around us. Our streets are filled with soldiers of ignorance and rage- fighting brother against brother- for what? A piece of land that we don't even own? For the love we did not receive at home? We call out names- spill our hateful rhetoric, beat each other to be let in to an exclusive group of clowns with silly names. Taking family trips in to unknown territories using hurtful toys to shed innocent blood. The family. What a fucking joke.
Mas…Letter to the Editor: The Ghetto Manifesto by Lady D (NSFW audio)
Around Our Town: Ñews from the Neighborhood
Basketball: The undefeated Pocho High Fighting Santos meet the Chupacabras of Don Fernando Valley High for the state hoops semifinals next week in Rancho Cucamonga. Booster Club president Cal Ifas wants to remind fans the vuvuzelas have arrived and you can pick up your order at his auto upholstery shop weekdays and Saturdays. Califas Tuck y Roll is in the Pocho Industrial Park behind the Tapatio plant.
Tourism: The El Rancho Pocho Downtown Historical District has once again garnered a mention in Zagat’s Off the Beaten Path Travel Guide: “A sketchy tattoo parlor, Lupe’s Mistic Yerberia and a car battery recycling joint take you back to an earlier time, a time that wasn’t really all that good, actually, but if that’s what you’re looking for, the El Rancho Pocho Downtown Historical District has it all.”
Politics of chonies: What I learned when I sent my laundry out
I might be renting out a room this summer to a friend. She made a phone appointment with me and asked a list of questions about living in my place in Brooklyn. How far is it from Manhattan? What trains do you take? Do you have Internet? Can I use the kitchen? Then she asked about laundry.
“I heard you take your laundry on the bus!” she said like it was some sort of urban myth. I took one of those prolonged intakes of breath.
Laundry is complicated.
Mas…Politics of chonies: What I learned when I sent my laundry out