"Memories of the Past and Images of the Present"

I've been a fan of legendary Chicano muralist Emigdio Vasquez even longer than I knew who he was. The Alcoholics Anonymous in Anaheim where I'd accompany my dad from my toddler years through my teens is right up the street from a supermarket that hosts his epic Memories of the Past and Images of the Present, painted to commemorate the Little People's Park Riot of 1978. I'd always stand there in awe, then marvel at how the same artist had murals across Anaheim--at City Hall, near a park, at a Mexican restaurant.

Once I actually learned who Vasquez was, my appreciation only grew, even if the county didn't bother and tried its damndest to eradicate his murals. So that's why I'm glad that the Latino Arts Network is honoring Vasquez this Saturday in SanTana with their prestigious Maestro Award--and honored that I'm the keynote speaker.

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News came out last week that the Los Angeles Unified School District plans to name a school after Dr. Sammy Lee, the legendary Olympic diver who served as a longtime coach for another legendary Olympic diver, Greg Louganis. And while that's a wonderful development, it just shows again how backwards Orange County is with the times, and how soon we forget.

Fact is, Lee is ALL Orange County, having lived here since the 1950s, and having coached Louganis in South County, along with many other Olympic divers over the years. Plus, there's that whole civil-rights thing Orange County always tries to forget.

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Poor Stanton. It's the only city in OC that has a worse reputation than SanTana, having been the butt of politician jokes ever since Anaheim tried to turn it into its sewage farm almost 100 years ago. Any coverage it receives is almost universally negative--and that's if Stanton ever gets covered in the first place. I think the last time we ever covered the city in earnest was back in 2006, when we used the city as an example of the coming housing crisis that destroyed us all.

Poor Stanton. Well, the city's going to try to become cool for the umpteenth time thanks to those hep cats at the City Council.

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Last month, I wrote about how the family of longtime Stanton and Santa Ana police officer Jose Vargas was asking for letters to lift their papi's spirit. This past Friday, unfortunately, I got a new message from the family: God had called Vargas, after a long battle with Parkinson's. Services are pending but will no doubt bring out all the brass of OC's various police departments, who to this day still try to follow in the kind-yet-tough footsteps of Vargas' approach to the Latino community from where he came.

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"You talk in Fullerton and you hear about the citrus orchard grower himself, but they (longtime Fullerton residents) don't talk very much about the Mexican labor. It's as if somehow or other the orchards got fumigated; and they suddenly had fruit ripening; and they were irrigated somehow or other; and the fruit was picked; but the Mexican labor--it just isn't discussed.

--Interviewer B.E. Schmidt, during a 1968 oral history on file at the Center for Oral and Public History at Cal State Fullerton. Schmidt was asking a Fullerton old-timer about Mexican labor in the city, and why the Mexican side was never discussed or acknowledge; the old-timer wouldn't respond.

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With a message from the podium, literally!

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The cover to Nick Schou's 2000 cover story on El Cargadero

Early last week, the New York Times did a so-so story about how there's so few Mexicans left in rural Mexico that any amnesty would probably not motivate more of them to migrate to the United States. I say "so-so" not just because I think the reporter, Damien Cave, is an apologist for the Mexican elite, but because the story was better reported by Los Angeles Times reporter Sam Quinones about 15 years ago, as documented in his awesome True Tales from Another Mexico.

But if the Gray Lady did a middling job, then the Orange County Register just fucked up the story royally, and proved yet again that you can throw all the money you want on a laughable publication--and it'll still be a laughable publication if you don't solve the problem that makes it a laughable story in the first place. See, the Reg republished the Times' piece, only adding a flourish noting that a lot of OC residents came from the region mentioned in the article: Zacatecas.

Um, no shit.

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If you don't already know, I'll just say it here: we at the Weekly love to tell the hidden history of Orange County, those stories that never made it into the master narrative, whether it's its about the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the Orange County chapter of the Black Panther Party, the Great Flood of 1938, OC's Gabrieleños, or any number of Mexican pioneers. We find these gems just like any other gems: by working our asses off. But I want to take a moment to discuss how I found out about my cover story this week, about a community of hundreds of legal Mexican immigrants and their American-born children that lived on Fullerton's Bastanchury Ranch who were unceremoniously deported 80 years ago last month. It's a tale of footnotes, microfilm, reportorial stupidity, and sheer will that any college student or aspiring writer should read and follow closely.

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"In the matter of picking citrus fruits, the writer has tried repeatedly to use white men and Japanese. Our experience shows us that the white man does not like the tedious routine work of picking and will promptly leave this for any other job available, even at smaller wages. The Mexican, by nature, seems to be peculiarly adapted to this class of work. He is patient, and apparently enjoys the work itself. Transient white labor in California will only take picking jobs when there is absolutely nothing else in sight and with a view of holding it only long enough to secure a few meals or a job at some other occupation."
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2013 marks a decade since billionaire Arte Moreno bought the Anaheim Angels, and I think we can all say he's been good for the franchise, even if your Halos have yet to win a World Series under his reign. But one group that's never been happy with him is Aztlanistas, who from the beginning have demanded Moreno be political and shit, while Moreno has steadfastly refused.

Let's see them smoke this mota: Moreno has finally come out as an Aztlanista...in his hometown of Tucson?!

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