El Salvador

Salvadoran Hip-Hop Is On the Rise

Filmmaker Junior Gonzalez made it his goal to show his Salvadoran culture in a positive light. Or, in any light at all, really. There were no films that he could think of on the subject, save for those on the notorious MS-13 street gang. "When I say I'm Salvadoran, some people will throw up gang si ... More >>

Meet Emanuel Pleitez

He's the Most Amazing Person Who Won't Win the March 5 Los Angeles Mayoral Primary

Cafeina Galeria: A New Silver Lake Spot With "One Bitchin' Espresso Machine"

"This is the story of a cappuccino," says John Ownes, the owner -- as well as the barista -- behind the Spaziale Vivaldi espresso machine at Cafeina Galeria, the new Silver Lake coffee shop that Ownes insists isn't really a coffee shop. "We're a gallery with one bitchin' espresso machine," he says, ... More >>

Cassandra McGrath's Stories to Make You Cry

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.] Cassandra McGrath is telling me the saddest story I've heard in a while. We're in the dining room of the 28-year-old folk singer's Echo Park house and sh ... More >>

Euripides' Helen Adapted for the Kardashian Era, and Other New Theater Reviews

This week our critics liked Euripides' Helen at the Getty Villa, adapted for today's celebrity age, plus the new Groundlings Sunday night show, the 24th Street Theatre's play Rome at the End of the Line, and a new political dance performance from the Indian company Navarasa Dance Theatre. In our th ... More >>

Earthquake 'Swarm' in Imperial Valley Still Raging, Could Signal Larger SoCal Event

An underground thunderstorm of seismic activity, officially called a "seismic swarm," hit a farm town called Brawley in the Imperial Valley yesterday -- gearing up around sunrise with some magnitude 2s and 3s, peaking with a magnitude 5.3 and 5.5 just after noon, and rolling into Monday morning with ... More >>

5 Cold Drinks That Aren't Lemonade: Milk Teas Affogatos

Make cooling off an exercise in geography by investigating the cold drinks you'll find from East Los Angeles to Koreatown. Here are five that should keep you happy when there's a heat wave. Like right now. Turn the page.

Jose Francisco Pineda Posed as Teen Boy, Got 12-Year-Old Girl to Take, Email Nude Photos

L.A. has to be the sex crime capital of the nation. We have so many creeps that we actually seem to export their crimes to places as far away as New York state. The U.S. Attorney in Buffalo today announced that Jose Francisco Pineda, a 32-year-old who's originally from El Salvador, pleaded guilty t ... More >>

The Elegant Elegy

Poll: Latinos Like Obama Less After His Latin America Tour, Univision Town Hall (Ouch)

Michelle's cheeseball Latina look didn't fool the voters​President Obama made his first major outreach effort to the giant Latino voter block last month, spouting on immigration reform in Latin America and chatting with minority students on Univision about how much standardized tests, like, s ... More >>

If Arizona Legalized All Latino Immigrants (Fat Chance), State Would Collect $1.6 Billion More in Taxes, Says UCLA Report

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer: generally wrong about things​We know wackjob Arizona officials aren't really too into facts anymore, in their SB 1970 crusade to hunt down every last undocumented Latino and throw 'em all back to the drug lords down south, but UCLA professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda jus ... More >>

Taking the Bait: What Happens on TruTV's Bait Car Happened to Guillermo

Guillermo came to L.A. from the village of Soyapango, El Salvador, when he was 4 years old. His belly swollen with parasites, he rode on his uncle's shoulders as they navigated a well-worn trail in the night jungle to avoid the heat. Guided by a rope and a vision, they aimed for El Norte. Sam Slovic ... More >>

Potluck Purpose: New Hollywood Chapter Of Dining For Women Launches Tomorrow

Michael Sears, www.jsonli.jpgAfghani Culinary Themed Potluck At A Milwaukee Dining For Women​Charity dinners at restaurants are great presuming you can afford the high dollar price tag that comes along with them. For the rest of us, or at least half of us, Dining for Women's first L.A. chapter ... More >>

Vinyl of the Week: Sister Mantos' Lo-Fi Mutant Disco, 'Tough Love,' Out on Manimal [MP3]

In the strange wake of music's digital rebirth, vinyl has experienced a modest boom in popularity, seen by many as a replacement for the awkward middleman that is the compact disc. INCHES reviews the output of L.A.'s healthy vinyl community, believing that good music deserves much more than a handfu ... More >>

A Roundup of 2010 Restaurant Openings and Closures

Since our Restaurant Roll Call in January, there have been several food truck launches and restaurant openings. Unfortunately, some eateries didn't make it long past the New Year. As we welcome the newbies, we also bid farewell to those who simply couldn't keep afloat (and in one case was shut down ... More >>

World's Largest Pupusa: Why? Why not!

Sure, it's fun to make giant-sized versions of food, like twenty-pound hamburgers and torso-esque burritos. But how about a giant pupusa? "When you cook it, you have to turn it," says Liborio Market's CEO Enrique J. Alejo. "Fry it on one side, then turn it and fry on the other side. But it's imposs ... More >>

Bloodstains on the Chin: El Ogrito and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

Non-Mexican Latinos: Hold de Mayo

"La Adelita" painting by Angel MartinYou thought Columbus Day has a bad rep among non-Anglos -- the Associated Press reports that non-Mexican Latinos increasingly bristle at Cinco de Mayo celebrations that honor Mexico's 1862 battlefield victory over French forces. "Our kids go to this school system ... More >>

Coming Home

Editor's notes

Tuesday's Presidential Debate: A Death Rattle Not Only for the McCain Campaign but for a Political Era

Flatlining

Griffith Park's Empty Canvas Problem

Will an obscure "cultural" board resist the density hawks?

Bad Rap: How Aspiring Hip-hop Star Herbie Gonzalez Got Pegged as the Manhattan Beach Housekeeper Murderer

Anatomy of a false confession

Theater Reviews: Regretrosexual, 1776

Also, The Boychick Affair, Othello

The Trouble With Mario Beltran

Convicted Bell Gardens Councilman is no stranger to the law

Don’t Look Down

And the opinions of others

Saved in MacArthur Park

Remember the Immigrant-Rights Movement?

The case of Elvira Arellano inspires L.A. organizers

The $3 Billion Death Machine

Democrats once again waste a chance to stop the killing

Immigrant Women Speak About Leaving the Church

Jonathan Gold’s 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants - Part 2

From The Hungry Cat to Providence

Calm Down, Sgrena

The outlandish tale of the Italian journalist

Reverend Starbucks

The Day of the Jackals

Mythmaking at the Republican Convention and getting punk’d on Kudlow and Cramer

New to the List

Our Exit Strategy

The delusional Bush, his quagmire and November

Familiarity and Contempt

Lisa Loomer's new play about nannies, and the people who hire them

Southern Front

The Bush administration’s shell game in Colombia

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Politics in the Street

The debate that matters on gang injunctions

Beyond the Verdict

The real Rampart scandal is citywide

Gimme Some Truth

Gang members make or break Rampart case

Street vs. Suite

Why L.A.’s janitors will win their strike

INS-Style Justice

Plea bargains approved, but future remains unclear for the El Centro Five

The Dutiful Daughter

I wish Councilman Joel Wachs would get the message about Maria Luisa Forester

Hunger Haunts the Farm Workers

Aid comes late after the freeze; many go wanting

Polls, Pols and Propositions

Twenty years of political coverage

Inside Agitators

The City's Most Effective Activists

The Year I Ate Pico Boulevard

where have you gone, mr. coleslaw burger?

Thus Spake Lennon

Macaroni & Cheese

And the crossing of cultural borders