Trading Posts

California Senator Carol Liu, who is Chinese-American, acknowledges her father and grandfather did not have to endure the ordeal of thousands of Asians and Pacific Islanders who entered the United States through Angel Island in the first half of the twentieth century. But as one in a long line of sc

Consider taking a tour of Los Angeles, and you might think of a star map to the mansions in Beverly Hills or a walk down Hollywood and Vine, or even, if you’re a little adventurous, maybe an excursion down to the famed, Gaudi-esque Watts Towers in South Central LA. But what about seeking out the … R

Music has always been part of the festivities in the 150 years that Cinco de Mayo has been celebrated in Southern California. But among the archives at the Autry is a popular song that could have been intoned at that first known pachanga to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, in May 1862 in Columbia, CA, not …

In the 1970s, when her own brood of five girls was growing up, author Gabrielle Burton became fascinated with Tamsen Donner, the matriarch of one of the families of the Donner Party, the doomed group of pioneers that in 1846 joined a wagon train heading to California and got lost in the Sierra Nevad

If you missed it Wednesday, here’s a transcript of our Facebook chat with Gustavo Arellano, slightly edited for order. Thanks to Yadhira De Leon for moderating! Let’s welcome ¡Ask a Mexican! columnist, OC Weekly editor, and author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, Gustavo Arellano! In

It’s true that Cinco de Mayo is more popular and more celebrated in California than in Mexico, where the Battle of Puebla that it commemorates actually took place. But contrary to popular belief, that is not because of U.S. Latinos’ flimsy grasp of history, says David Hayes-Bautista. In fact, it’s j

Updated April 18, 2012 — I had a chance this month to chat with Gustavo Arellano, the original “¡Ask a Mexican!” columnist and now OC Weekly editor, about Mexican food in the U.S., the subject of his new book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. Arellano is one of the featured speakers at t

Given the interest in genealogy sparked by shows like Lisa Kudrow‘s Who Do You Think You Are?  on NBC and Henry Louis Gates Jr.‘s Faces of America on PBS, and given the ubiquity of social media networks like Facebook, it was just a matter of time before somebody somewhere would start using Facebook

Anyone who only remembers Lisa Kudrow as the guitar-playing flower child Phoebe Buffay in Friends, or as prudish Lucia DeLury in The Opposite of Sex, has clearly not been paying attention for the past, oh, decade or so. Since 2003, Kudrow has been careful in picking roles that challenge her acting a

Actor/director Joe Mantegna‘s bio gives no hint that he is a fan of shooting sports. Not that he hasn’t had his share of pistol-packing roles, including David Rossi, the FBI profiler in the long-running CBS series Criminal Minds. But real shooting? “I grew up in a city. I grew up in Chicago,” Manteg