Category Archives: history

Juanita’s Foods says it all

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There is nothing like bowl of homemade menudo, but even though Juanita’s Menudo is in a can, it still is one of the best and oldest canned menudo companies around.

The menudo factory has been located in Wilmington Ca for over 60 years.  Founder George De La Torre Jr who  recently passed away this year managed to keep the company a family business. You got to love the company logo as well ” Life without Mexican Food is No Life At All”.

History of Juanita’s Menudo

The company also makes  other products  I did not know they had here is a list of Juanita’s other products.

List of recipes

They did have a bit of controversy in 1987 when someone claimed they found something unwanted in the menudo which at the end was false read story here

Stock up on the menudo now because we always hear about that big earthquake we are expecting you can’t be left hungry!

Peace

Doña Junta

P.S

Sorry to my vegetarian friends =)

Happy Birthday Los Angeles!

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Hand-tinted photograph of the Plaza and the Plaza Church, as seen in 1869 photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library. The Eastside can be seen in the distance.

The City of Los Angeles was founded September 4, 1781 which makes our little pueblo 227 years old today.
The indigenous residents of this area, of Hokan and Uto-Aztecan ancestry have a history stretching back between 6,000-10,000 years ago.

Artists Not Paid by Villaraigosa’s Summer Night Lights Gang Reduction Program

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I was copied on the following email by east-side artists who have been working on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Summer Night Lights project, now in its 2nd year.  A week ago the Mayor visited the Jordan Downs housing Project (pictured above) for a press tour.  Artists have worked diligently to provide what they could with their own resources to children who have no other summer alternative.  I took this picture above and witnessed how crucial art is to inner city youth who are starving to learn and desperately need patient mentorship.  –Victoria Delgadillo

FROM: Community Artist, Apprentices, and Master Artist/SNL 2009

RE: Summer Night Lights (SNL) Contract

DATE: September 2, 2009

To Whom May It Concern,

We the artists of the SNL Gang Reduction Program demand immediate payment for our services.  Many of us turned down other work to be a part of this important effort. The SNL programs success is majorly due to the arts component that is present at all 16 parks.  We all depend on this – this is our work, we have committed ourselves not only to our craft but to our community to provide the services they all deserve. Likewise we deserve to be treated as professionals in our field of expertise.  The Arts community is one of the most effected groups from the current economic downturn and continue to be disregarded by this neglect on the part of the City of Los Angeles.

The experience working hands on with the community has been remarkable. Many of us artist have gone through various lengths and have over exceeded in order to sustain the art, music and dance workshops for Summer Night Lights. For example, asking our colleagues, friends and organizations to donate materials, paying directly from our pockets, swiping our credit cards, borrowed money for equipment and materials. Although we have been partially reimbersed for materials, we have not been paid for our time and professional experience.  There has been a significant amount of preparation, time, planning and effort to make SNL a success. Our efforts have over exceeded our expectations and requirements. Continue reading →

Plaque honors forgotten Chinese residents

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The city has installed a plaque so current Boyle Heights residents can honor and pay their respects to Chinese residents who were not given equal burial treat meant back in the 1800’s. The plaque is in English, Spanish and Chinese and it gives a little history about Evergreen Cemetery, some history on some of the more prominent deceased Chinese residents resting in the cemetery and why the plaque was placed there. Which is to acknowledge the wrong doings of the past so that the bodies that were found during the Linia de Oro construction can also rest in peace as well. I came across it yesterday evening walking my dogs. They should be finished by today because the plaque still had pieces of wood holding it in place. As I stopped to read it most people didn’t bother to read was on the plaque and only guessed at what it was. Then there are those who just say stupid, racist things and choose to completely ignore the importance of such a plaque. None the less, it’s good to see that they’re getting the respect they deserve and that even though racism and classicism are still around, they’re not as bad as they use to be back in the day.

Eastside Beer Strike

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Strike at the Pabst Brewery on North Main St, Lincoln Heights, 1954
Photo courtesy of LAPL

It’s called The Brewery for a reason, it used to be home to Pabst Beer. A beer reviled by people with good taste everywhere and now has surprisingly made a comeback with the Los Angeles bar crowd. How? Why? There is no answer that will stop my eyes from rolling, so keep on drinking the swill fellas, I’ll be enjoying my Craftsman brew!

Oh, did I mention that The Brewery is in Lincoln Heights?

The photo caption reads:

“A lone picket parades across the entrance of the Pabst Brewing Co. plant at 1920 North Main street as workers went on a strike in wage dispute. More than 1100 men were idled when picket lines were set up around this brewery and another in Van Nuys by AFL International Union of Operating Engineers. Photograph dated September 27, 1954.”

Separate but Equal Treatment via Rail Lines in L.A.

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The Rail around Indiana

If you look at this photo you wonder what is this? And how did anyone think this was safe?

Why is the safety method on the Eastside going to be of the “pull yourselves up by the bootstraps” variety via cameras to blame personal drivers and old men in yellow vests reminding people to “be safe,” while the City of Los Angeles west of LaCienega get the “silver spoon” variety of safety with expensive barriers and elevated stations?

Why will there will be no testing out Darwinism theory of survival of the fittest on the Westside?

Only the neighborhoods with higher concentrations of poor people and brown and black people are tested with sink and swim theories.

The rail dips just one mile into the magic dividing line of LaCienega and the people on that side of LA who don’t walk or even use public transit as extensively as people on the Eastside get all of our tax dollars spent protecting them from being hit by a train that most of them won’t even take or even be near outside of driving by its protected barrier.

(This is an excerpt of a very long post entitled “Cameras Aren’t Going to Make Fewer People Die.”)

by Browne Molyneux

Bone-shaking volume

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CDs by Mr. Sánchez. Mexicans know him as a valiente, a brave one: armed, dangerous and doomed (he was ambushed and executed after a concert in Mexico in 1992). Comparisons are superficial, but you could think of him as part Billy the Kid, part Bill Monroe. Photo: Eric Grigorian for The New York Times

Photo: Eric Grigorian for The New York Times

This past weekend, the N.Y. Times‘ Travel section revisited Los Angeles, focusing on narcocorridos and venues that play an important part in its spread throughout Los Angeles. It went better this time than the last time they visited L.A.

Narcocorridos, and by extension, any form of Mexican music that is born and nourished in Los Angeles, are not covered much in the United States. Almost every time narcocorridos are mentioned in media, it’s tied with the current Mexican Drug war fiasco and spoken about negatively. I once sat in on a discussion with a well-known Mexican journalist at a university and she all but blamed the whole situation in Mexico & the Americas on narcocorridos. The whole time I sat there, I shook my head, unable to comprehend how someone could explicitly blame corridos for the “drug war” in México.

Coverage of narcocorridos in the U.S. is much different than in México. The United States is much less subjective than México in its coverage of narcocorridos. Mexican journalists have bought the Mexican government’s argument that narcocorridos are to blame for the drug trade and must be banned from radio play. American journalists have gone further into narcocorridos, documenting its rise and popularity among Mexicans in the United States and the constant airplay in radio. It’s a musical form that allows the children of Mexican immigrants to become immensely popular, though the singing is sometimes sub-par. Continue reading →

The Sky is Falling, for real this time.

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Today is my favorite time of the month. Today is August 7 and  it’s the day that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out who got fired aka the employment situation, economic news release. This is where all of the media gets the numbers that they spin. Why don’t they just provide the numbers with no commentary? I guess that would be boring. Here is my entertaining spin on the pieces of clouds that are hitting me on the head.

Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 247,000 jobs (we needed 100,000 jobs a month to continue to employ the job market BEFORE La Crisis, so don’t let the corporate people lie to you and let you think everything is ok now since last month it was higher, it’s not ok, it’s nowhere near ok.)

“Another way of looking at the above task is to determine how long it will take the nation to return to full employment — basically an economy in which everyone who wants to work can find a full-time job to match their skill set and experience. It’s no minor task: the U.S. economy has to create about 200,000 jobs per month — a roughly net 100,000 job gain over the monthly gain needed to keep unemployment from rising — for the next 5.5 years to replace the roughly 6.8 million jobs lost during the recession.” Joseph Lazzaro, Daily Finance.

Also there are now 796,000 discouraged workers up by 335,000 over the past 12 months.

And there are now five million people who have been unemployed longterm (longterm is more than 27 weeks.)

On Chart A12 section U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached   workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.. is now 16.3%.

The Employment Situation for August is scheduled to be released on Friday,
September 4, 2009, at 8:30 a.m. (EDT).

–Edited by Browne Molyneux

The Art of Art Activism

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I fell into my art genre, tearfully waiting for my head to explode from the pressure of making a major life decision. It’s true what they say about giving birth to new ideas, and deciding on possible roads to take, they are painful and sometimes regretful. Nervously, you dive into your choices, like a first time Acapulco cliff jumper, hoping you’ll hit the right timing of the waves.

As I mentally engage for another art activism workshop this week—I give into its course, not knowing what to expect. I trust that my genuine effort to create something meaningful has its place in the world and like kinetic energy creates a small droplet of human hope into the universe. I see myself far and removed from the distant tragedies in the world, my voice against injustice seems so small and ineffective way over here in East LA. Continue reading →

Poppies and Bears

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My grandfather Atanasio Garcia, circa 1940

While going through my grandmother’s family photos, I came across a few prints that had this curious commemorative Los Angeles border. They look to be some kind of souvenir stock for the 1932 Summer Los Angeles Olympics. One of the symbols is the Los Angeles Coliseum which I imagine was quite the accomplishment for our city during this time. I also like the motif of the bears and poppies.

The Games of the X Olympiad started almost exactly 76 years ago on July 30, 1932 here in Los Angeles.