EPISODE 97 – GUSTAVO ARELLANO ON LATINOS AND JOE ROGAN, SHERIFF VILLANUEVA, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND MORE

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For our 97th episode, Gustavo Arellano (@GustavoArellano), author of the “¡Ask a Mexican!” column from The OC Weekly from 2004 – 2017, and now a columnist for the L.A. Times, as well as host of The Times: Daily News from the L.A. Times podcast, joins us for a dynamic conversation on the state of the world, particularly for Latinx communities in the U.S. Among other things, Arellano chats with us about “rancho libertarianism,” or what for a growing bloc of Latinx voters is belief in “rugged individualism, distrust of government and elites, conservative moral beliefs, a love of community and a hatred of political correctness — that are like catnip for Republicans,” in his words. We analyze just how such a political philosophy may play out in local elections and across the nation, especially given recent history in Orange County, and more; a can’t-miss convo on the culture at this time, for sure!

J.T.

EPISODE 31 – THELMA REYNA, GOLDEN FOOTHILLS PRESS

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In our thirty-first episode, listeners meet Dr. Thelma Reyna, P.h.D., editor-in-chief of Golden Foothills Press in Altadena, California, and an accomplished author of more than ten books, including nonfiction, poetry anthologies, and more. Dr. Reyna describes her upbringing as a baby boomer, whose formative years were spent with her working-class family in the small conservative town of Kingsville, Texas, followed by her eventual journey to Pasadena, California. She also tells us about two books she published this year, including Dearest Papa: A Memoir in Poems,a tribute to her late husband of 50 years, as well as When The Virus Came Calling: COVID-19 Strikes America, an anthology of work by 46 different authors, including Richard Blanco, President Obama’s Poet Laureate at his 2013 inauguration, not to mention, work by yours truly.

J.T.

This Juneteenth: Emancipate History to Make Way for A New Future in Los Angeles

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(Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 92)

On June 19th, 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, General Gordon Granger for President Lincoln’s Union army issued an order to the people of Texas from Galveston, Texas:

The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.”


Why does this matter in Los Angeles, California, which wasn’t even a part of the U.S. northern states until 1848? Because chattel slavery in the United States was critically an economic condition, in which masses of laborers toiled daily for next to nothing as a small handful of masters profited immensely in a system enforced by laws, armed forces, and lies.

155 years later, today the relation between labor and profit is still a shining model of masses toiling daily for little return while CEOs like Jeff Bezos stand to make over a trillion dollars. Closer to home, one can find a myriad of bodies at countless L.A. kitchens, delivery, transportation and sanitation services, and at warehouses and factories, where sometimes workers produce for as little as $4.66 an hour, and where sometimes they’re not even properly paid that.

It’s clear then that we’re much closer to the past than it might seem, Los Angeles. But once we learn it, it’s also true that we’re that much closer to the better future we can aspire to.

J.T.

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