Adela Ruiz, a 54-year-old immigrant from Oaxaca, Mexico, was one of the millions of women in the United States who became unemployed because of the pandemic. Today, her family owns and operates La Cocina Oaxaqueña Con Adela in LA.
Category: Representation
Posted inPolitics
Attendees of People’s Summit for Democracy share visions for Latinos
LA leaders last week hosted The People’s Summit for Democracy from June 8-10 at the Los Angeles Trade Technical College (LATTC), which was organized in opposition to the Summit of the Americas. Numerous world leaders, including Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, boycotted in response to the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the Summit of the Americas. The People’s Summit was intended to uplift the voices of the working-class people in the Americas and prioritize “people’s democracy first,” as stated on their website. The Biden Administration’s summit did not represent the people of the Americas, according to the organizers of the People’s Summit. “The exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have already made Biden’s summit a political disaster,” organizers stated in a declaration letter.
Posted inElections
ADRIANA CABRERA, Grew up in South LA, now running to represent District 9
Adriana Cabrera said that she began organizing and getting involved in her South LA community as a 12-year-old after losing a boyfriend, cousin, neighbors and classmates to gang violence. In addition, she believes that her experiences sharing a one-bedroom with family, being a first-generation college graduate and surviving “extreme poverty” make her an ideal candidate to serve the neighbors she grew up with. “Me running has nothing to do with me and everything to do with my community,” she said. “It means the world to me that young people believe in me.”
Posted inCulture
RUDY RUIZ, Host of “Drinks and a Movie” podcast on how he became a Chicano film influencer
Check out “Drinks and a Movie,” a podcast created and hosted by Rudy Ruiz that critiques Hollywood films through the lens of Latinx history and culture. Ruiz shares good booze and hearty commentary with guests ranging from cinematographers, actors and directors.
Posted inCulture, Education, Opinion, Representation
COMMENTARY: Higher education, La Raza, reflections of LA Chicano scholar
Yet, if not for my participation in Upward Bound (a federally funded program to help prepare historically marginalized, first-gen kids to pursue higher education), I wouldn’t be able to compete at the highest level in my mathematics. More specifically, if not for my childhood friend Hector from the projects, who peer pressured me to apply to Upward Bound at Occidental College (Oxy) – a six-week, residential program – I would be oblivious to the college application process.
Posted inCulture
Daniel Villarreal and Danny De La Paz dish on “American Me, Chicano films
Many credit Olmos for the bravery it took to risk his career and reputation on such a violent and dark subject matter. Moreover, the anti-crime and Latino community wake-up call messages behind “American Me,” continue to resound today.
Posted inCulture
BRUNA PORTUGAL, small city girl from Brazil takes on comedy, acting and LA
When Portugal was 6, her mother showed her on a map where they lived and where in comparison the famous actors Portugal looked up to lived in Hollywood and Los Angeles. Portugal remembers breaking down into tears over the news. From then on, she promised her mother that she was going to leave one day.
Posted inCulture
JOY BUCK$, life as an LA Chicana rapper
What Joy Buck$ loves more than being in front of the microphones is the positive message that she can deliver and leave behind via rap verses. “In high school all of my friends would freestyle, that’s how we would vent to each other. We were a tough crowd, kids who wouldn’t like to show emotions,” Joy Buck$ said. “We would just bump a beat and rhyme our words with what we were going through.”
Posted inRepresentation
Sustaining and formulating a solid foundation for local and ethnic media
The second annual “Media and Democracy Policy” event aimed having a public conversation about California’s media policy and to identify strategies that could help rebuild and sustain a strong news information ecosystem for the state.
Posted inCulture
TATIANA FERNANDEZ, Latina spreading awareness through TikTok
Tatiana Fernandez relishes her many interesting identities, such as being autistic, 1st Gen and queer. She credits her rave passion for driving her to look for work in the social media industry.
Posted inJustice
DULCE VASQUEZ, South Central migrant making a difference through politics
Vasquez is a migrant from Tampico Tamaulipas, Mexico. She arrived in the U.S at the age of 7 and lived as an undocumented migrant for 7 years. She recalls cleaning houses with her mom because money was tight while her dad worked as a farmworker. Now she is running for LA City Council.
Posted inCulture
What Latinx likes to be called and why
For the Latinx community, there is a connection between ethnic identity and cultural identity, which varies for everyone, depending on family, socio economic status, environment and lots of other factors.