Stephen Lemons

Today in America, one in four Latino voters knows someone in deportation proceedings.The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court don’t care.What else can be concluded from their questions and comments during oral arguments over Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s notorious stab at ethnic cleansing?And Latinos shouldn't expect any succor from our......

Editor’s Note: Last week, the two top executives of Village Voice Media, owner of the L.A. Weekly, were arrested for publishing a story in Phoenix New Times abo...

Photo by Ted Soqui Seated behind a pane of smudged Plexiglas, his white prison garb a suggestive contrast to the puke-colored walls of the dingy cubbyhole he’s in, prisoner #SK931, Damien Echols, is explaining how he became Jyoti Priya Karuna, Lover of the Light Compassion. “That’s the name my teacher......

Since the true-crime bombshell Black Dahlia Avenger was released back on April 11, author Steve Hodel and publisher Arcade have been raking in the sales faster than a water vendor in Saddam City. The book accuses the ex–LAPD detective’s dead dad, Dr. George Hodel, of Elizabeth Short’s gruesome 1947 slaying......

Photo by Jack Gould It’s a windy afternoon on the Plaza of the People, and Ruben Bermejo is staring at one of the most sacred images to Latin American Catholics, the Virgin of Guadalupe, revered as the “Empress of the Americas.” Bermejo’s prickly salt-and-pepper eyebrows, though, are furrowed in anger......

Incense tugs at my nostrils as I bite into a Danish at the Hollywood apartment of director Jack Hill. Photos of Indian saints and multilimbed Hindu goddesses hang on the walls, and Hill, dressed in chinos and a pale-blue shirt that matches his eyes, is eager to talk about how......

Photos by Ted Soqui A peculiar sculpture sits in the traffic island in North Hollywood where Burbank and Lankershim boulevards intersect with Tujunga Avenue. It’s a bronze ball about 4 feet in diameter on which an iron chair is balanced. Atop the chair stands a phoenix, its wings poised for......