I’ve lived in the same place for 7.5 years. In that time, I’ve had the same neighbors in the units across and above me. There are 8 apartments in each of the two buildings, both managed by the same company. We share a driveway so we see each other come and go, wander around and smoke a cigarette, hang out on the balcony, pick up our email or barbecue behind the cars in the carport.

Of all the people who live in the two buildings, I only know two names. It’s the same with Isa, my roommate. We keep to ourselves. This feels odd considering I came from a neighborhood where we knew our neighbors quite well. I mean, one neighbor held a small 4th of July block party.

The only names I know are those for Carlos, the building manager. We need to talk to him to fix stuff, like our bathtub that won’t drain making it impossible to shower. And there’s Yuri, who lives with his family across the hall from us. When he was in middle school, he used to ask for help on his homework. He’s no longer a kid. I know when he gets home ’cause I can hear his hip hop music blasting from his car.

I don’t know the Latinos living upstairs nor the elderly woman across from them. She’s the one I wonder about these days. The woman in unit #3 drove a green sedan with a Culver City Senior Citizens decal on the window. I’d only see her mid-morning when she’d return from errands. If she had groceries, sometimes she’d ask for help getting them up the stairs. I’d help, of course. Of course, I never knew her name.

I haven’t seen her car in a while. I haven’t seen her in a while. Yesterday, I noticed men moving away furniture out of her apartment. When I returned from a May Day activities and a meeting on campus, I noticed furniture out on the curb waiting to be picked up by the trash collectors.

I came back in and asked Isa, “do you know what happened to the woman upstairs?”

We both agreed it was weird that the Latina woman upstairs was driving the green sedan. Neither of us had seen her green sedan or her in a while.

“Do you think she died?” I asked Isa.

“Possibly.”

“How sad… we don’t even know,” she said.

“Yeah.”

I had a weird vision of seeing her taken away in an ambulance, but then remembered that was a scene in Dagoberto Gilb’s The Flowers.

I’ll find out what happened. I’ll just talk to my neighbors.

I celebrated May Day with thousands of other marchers in MacArthur Park and Downtown LA. The organizers of the march called for an end to the deportation raids (or redadas), legalization and a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants and dignitity and peace for all workers.

The march was fun and festive like the last immigrants’ rights march I attended in 2006, A Day Without an Immigrant/Un Día Sin Inmigrante. I went alone, but knew I’d find someone I knew. I did. Almost as soon as I caught up to the march (I was a little late because it’s tough to find parking in MacArthur Park), I ran in to some friends from school. They were lion dancing and playing drums and cymbals.

Sadly, I had to leave around 3:30 to make it back to campus in time for a meeting. I missed the rest of the march and rally. Anyone want to fill me in?

For a slide show of march photos, click on the image above.

My cousin, Nancy, celebrated her 23th birthday last week but I didn’t get to see her until this week for our periodic Wednesday lunches.

We’ve had dim sum, tortas and tacos on our lunch dates. All our lunches are on the Eastside (or Chinatown) because it’s close to Nancy’s school. For this belated birthday lunch, I chose El Huarachito in Lincoln Heights. I’d never been before, but it comes highly recommended by both Chimatli and El Chavo.

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I discussed Ruben Salazar a few years ago while contributing to blogging.la. I was inspired by César/EMC’s post in which he summarized Salazar’s life.

The post and César’s blog no longer exist, but if I remember correctly César — an awesome writer himself — felt cheated as he watched a documentary on Salazar. César felt cheated, as I’m sure many of have, when we learn of people and events like Salazar and the Chicano Moratorium in 1970. We wonder, why are we just learning about this now, more than 12 years in to our education?

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In January, I got an invitation from the blogger behind Eastside Scene to have coffee, tea and just chat about blogging. He invited other local bloggers. The first meeting was small. Just me, Eastside Scene and P3000. The next meeting in February was much better attended. I skipped out on the March meeting because I was touring Texas.

I left work on time to make sure I wouldn’t arrive at El Gallo Café the site of our monthly meetings too late. Eastside Scene was the only one there for a while and we chatted about art and blogging over smoothies. Soon we were joined by Ed from View From A Loft.

Ed’s great. Not only does he have some cool photos of major LA events posted on his blog, but he also comes up with some witty headlines. Well, more like blog titles. He complimented my writing, and I mentioned that I’d like to have his ability to write succinct titles.

“You know, you should re-name some of my posts,” I suggested.

Ed pulled up my blog and looked for recent posts. Ed, Eastside Scene and I came up with some titles for my simply-titled Nopalitos post:

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Chicano satirists don’t need fancy signs

On Friday, I met up with the Puro Pedo Magazine staff for dinner in Alhambra. We had Hawaiian food and a brown buffalo (i.e., white elephant) gift exchange. Later, we drove south to Montebello for the Pocho Night of Power hosted by the same guys who do the Pocho Hour of Power show every Friday afternoon on KPFK.

It was a fitting event for the Puro Pedo staff considering the work of some of the Pocho Hour of Power guys, like Lalo Alcaraz and Esteban Zul, inspired our take a satire. We passed around copies of new and old versions of the magazine while checking out the bands and vendors.

More photos after the jump.
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So I showed up at my favorite cafe early this morning to finish writing a paper. The coffee shop is just outside the LA city limits in Culver City, but within a 5-mile radius of at least two big studios. Right now, it’s pretty empty, calm and quiet. The indie-music the baristas play in the evenings has been replaced with some radio station playing 1970s era music.

The college students studying for finals and writing papers have been replaced with older adults. I’ve already noticed two who are writing screenplays (at least that’s what it looks like).

Ah… sometimes I feel so LA. You know, in the stereotypical and white-washed Hollywood sense.

[P.S. I have no clue why the background and header images won't show up, I'm trying to fix that, but this paper needs to get done, like yesterday! Seriously.]

November 2, 1969, Los Angeles

I know I’m one of many LA bloggers drooling over all of the photos in the easily searchable UCLA Library Digital Collection Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990. The photos are easy to search through a keyword in captions and/or titles and subjects. They’re also CC licensed — perfect for bloggers! — so that you can share the photos in non-commerical use and remix to make a derivative work.

I immediately started searching for photos of the Chicano Movement, and found some pretty cool photos. My favorite was the one above, but I’ve included some other interesting ones in a set on Flickr.

Hat tip: LA Observed

Photo credit: Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library. Copyright Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library (link).

I arrived in Chicago last Wednesday afternoon and returned to LA on Sunday morning. It snowed one day and was cold and damp for the remainder of my trip. As soon as I left, I’m told the weather got “nice.”

I returned to LA on Sunday morning and found mostly sunny skies, a few wisps of clouds, and 60-something degree weather. I left this nice weather on Tuesday morning.

I arrived in Washington D.C. on Tuesday afternoon. It was cold and cloudy, but not rainy.

Can anyone guess why I love LA?