Latest news with #MexicanAmerican
Eater
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Eater
4 Restaurants to Try This Weekend in Los Angeles: May 30
Every Friday, our editors compile a trusty list of recommendations to answer the most pressing of questions: 'Where should I eat?' Here now are four places to check out this weekend in Los Angeles. And if you need some ideas on where to drink, here's our list of the hottest places to get cocktails in town. For Oaxacan food and margaritas: Sabores Oaxaqueños Eighth Street mainstay Sabores Oaxaqueños continues to be one of Los Angeles's best destinations for Oaxacan specialties like tlayudas, mole, and alambres, but beyond the food, it's also really fun. Plenty of restaurants can turn out consistent dishes, but Sabores Oaxaqueños also understands the vibe that its customers are looking for. The colorful interior is lively even when not entirely full, as frozen margaritas and tortas emerge from the kitchen and land on floral-tablecloth-topped tables. The restaurant is open literally all day, from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., which makes it easy to swing by for a breakfast of huevos rancheros or a late dinner. And while the Koreatown location has the same parking issues as any other restaurant in the neighborhood, Sabores Oaxaqueños also operates a second location at the edge of Hollywood. 3337 1/2 W. Eighth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90005 . — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest For a relaxing pre-theater snack in Downtown LA: Abernethy's Chef Adolfo Perez of Cilantro Mexican Grill spent a career learning various cuisines and dishes from the Cheesecake Factory before striking out on his own restaurant, a gas station establishment with some of the San Fernando Valley's best burritos. Perez began a residency at Downtown LA restaurant Abernethy's in late April, serving crowd-pleasing Mexican American dishes like surf-and-turf fajitas, barbacoa taquitos topped with ancho chile ranch, and achiote-marinated roast chicken. Abernethy's occupies prime pre-theater dining real estate at Downtown's Music Center, and Perez's food works as a delightful snack prior to the area's high-quality shows. The tables on the patio are especially desirable, with views of City Hall down the hill and the iconic John Ferraro/LADWP building surrounded by a faux lake. It's on late afternoons like this, when the breezes turn from chilly to pleasantly warm, that summer has finally arrived in Los Angeles. 220 N. Hope Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. — Matthew Kang, lead editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest For a breakfast sandwich that beats them all: Calabama Los Angeles fell in love with Cara Haltiwanger's inventive pop-up in 2020, where she dropped breakfast sandwiches from a fire escape with a bright red bucket. Calabama was one of those local sensations that brought some joy for everyone in lockdown at a time when social distancing was at an all-time high. Haltiwanger made her pop-up permanent in late 2024, where she opened the same concept (without the bucket drop) in Hollywood, serving breakfast sandwiches layered with bacon, egg, cheese, grilled onions, and avocado. She still makes that spicy-sweet sandwich dipping sauce, along with other staples from her Alabama childhood, including sweet tea, buttermilk biscuits, and a Southern staple: pimento cheese. The cheery stand is located on Santa Monica Boulevard, slightly east of Highland. Calabama is impossible to miss; look for a compact, free-standing white building near the sidewalk with an egg-yolk-colored awning. They even serve coffee and dog biscuits. 6751 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90038 — Mona Holmes, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest For an unimpeachable Japanese-style omelet: RVR Go to RVR in Venice on a weekend morning when you feel particularly patient. All good things are ultimately worth the wait, including (or especially) its tamagoyaki omelet, an ovular spiral of luminous golden eggs that is sliced and crowned with shaved Comté, chives, and cracked black pepper. The omelet is so well-constructed that more than one passerby stopped while I was eating it — in front of the window for a peak Abbot Kinney view — to admire its form. The right and only move is to get the refreshing red gem lettuce salad (spotted with crisp Brussels sprouts and doused in an aged black vinaigrette) to alternate bites. If you're into something sweeter, however, the mochi beignets and black sesame pancakes seemed to be popular on other tables. Not-too-sweet teas over ice or the pour-over coffee complete the picture. 1305 Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291. — Nicole Adlman, cities manager Related The 38 Essential Restaurants in Los Angeles Sign up for our newsletter.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How 'Uvalde Mom' director Anayansi Prado captured the heart of a town in trauma
Three years ago, an armed young man entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 students and two teachers. Hundreds of law enforcement officials reportedly stood around the school campus for more than an hour without approaching the shooter. In the midst of the inaction, one mom — Angeli Rose Gomez — pleaded with officers to take action or let her go in to get her two children and nephew. She was apprehended and handcuffed, but ultimately talked her way out of arrest before she sprinted inside the school to grab the kids. Videos on social media captured the moments that Gomez brought her sons and nephew out of the school. The Texas field worker and mother of two was quickly dubbed a hero in national and local publications for her courage. The new documentary film "Uvalde Mom" follows Gomez after becoming nationally recognized — while examining the forces at play in the Uvalde community which allowed for the shooting to take place, as well as the aftermath of such a tragedy. "All I wanted that day was my kids to come out of the school alive, and that's what I got," Gomez says in one pivotal moment in the film. "I don't want to be called a hero. I don't want to be looked at as the hero because the only job that I did that day was being a mom." Read more: Abcarian: The pathetic lessons of the Uvalde school shooting in Texas The feature's director Anayansi Prado was "moved" and "horrified" by what had happened and felt motivated to make a film about the event after seeing members of the affected families on TV. "I saw that there were Latinos, they were Mexican American, that it was a border town, that it was an agricultural farming town, and that really resonated with me and with communities I've done film work with before," Prado told The Times. Prado began reaching out to people in Uvalde shortly after the shooting, but didn't hear back from anyone for over two months due to the inundation of media requests everyone in the city was receiving. The only person to reply to her was Gomez. Ahead of the film's screening Saturday at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, Prado spoke with The Times about the process and the challenges of making her documentary. This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity. Was the idea always for this project to be a feature-length film? Or were there talks of making it a short or a series? I've always thought about it as a feature because I really wanted to dive in and understand Uvalde as a character. I wanted to understand the history of the criminal justice system, the educational system. I knew I wanted to make something that was going to be of a longer form rather than just a piece that was about Angeli or something. And a few people told me this would make a great short, but as I uncovered more about Uvalde, I was like, "No, Uvalde itself has its own history, just like a person." Read more: Families of Uvalde school shooting victims are suing Texas state police over botched response When it came to choosing Angeli, was she the first and only person who responded to your outreach? I think the people in town were oversaturated with media coverage, and Angeli was the one that got back to me. What was really interesting is that I learned on that first trip [to Uvalde] about her backstory and I learned about how the criminal justice system had failed her. I saw a parallel there of how the system failed the community the day of the shooting and how it was failing this woman also individually. I wanted to play with those two stories, the macro and the personal. Once I learned who she was, beyond the mom who ran into the school, I was like, "I have to tell this woman's story." How did you go about balancing her personal stuff and the failures that happened on a larger scale? So much of the way the film is structured is reflective of my own experience as a filmmaker. It was a sort of surreal world, these two worlds were going on: what was happening to Angeli and then what was going on outside with the lack of accountability and the cover-up. So that informed the way that I wanted to structure the film. In terms of the personal, it was a journey to gain Angeli's trust. At some point at the beginning, she wasn't sure she wanted to participate in the film, and so I told her, "You don't owe me anything. I'm a stranger, but all I ask is that you give me a chance to earn your trust." And she was like, "OK." From there on, she opened up and, pretty quickly, we became close and she trusted me. I was very cognizant [of] her legal past and even the way she's perceived by some folks. I also didn't want Angeli to come off as a victim and people to feel sorry for her, but I still wanted to tell her story in a way where you get mad at the system for failing her. What kind of struggles did you have trying to get in communication with some of the officials of the city? We used a lot of news [archives] to represent that part of the story. The [authorities] weren't giving any interviews, they were just holding press conferences. So access was limited, but also the majority of the time that we were filming, we were very low-key about the production — because Angeli was on probation and there was retaliation for her speaking to the media. We tried to keep it under wraps that we were filming, so not a lot of people knew about it [besides] her family. Obviously other folks in town [were] part of the film, like her friend Tina and family members. Outside of that, it was too risky to let other people in town know what was going on. Read more: Justice Department report finds 'cascading failures,' 'no urgency' in Uvalde shooting response Ultimately I wanted to make ["Uvalde Mome"] a personal portrait. I was just very selective on the people that we absolutely needed to interview. I'm happy with Tina, who's an activist in town, and Arnie, a survivor of the shooting and a school teacher, [plus] Angeli's legal team. I felt like those were people we needed to tell a fuller story. But we just couldn't be out in the open making a film about her and let people know. What kind of reception have you gotten from people of Uvalde that have seen the film? We had our premiere at South by Southwest, which was great. A lot of folks came from Uvalde and spoke about how, almost three years later, a lot of this stuff is still going on. Every time Gov. Greg Abbott came on-screen, people would scream, "Loser!" It was really moving to have those screenings. As was expected from the folks who are not fans of Angeli, there was some backlash. It's the same narrative you see in the film of, "She's a criminal, don't believe her." It's a town that is an open wound. I just try to have compassion for people. Ultimately, Angeli's story is the story of one person in Uvalde of many that need to continue to be told. And I hope that other filmmakers, journalists and other storytellers continue to tell the story there, especially with the lack of closure and accountability. I'm happy that the film is putting Uvalde back into the headlines in some way; that way we don't forget about it. Had you ever spent an extended amount of time in Texas before? I had been to Texas, but I hadn't done a project in Texas. Because I'm an outsider, it was very important for me to hire a 100% local Texas crew for this film. My crew was entirely Texas-based, from our PAs to our sound to our DPs. I also wanted to have a majority Texas-born Mexican American crew so that they could guide me. We began production in September of 2022 and the atmosphere was very tense. This is a story that is deeply rooted in the Latino community and the tension about the law enforcement in Uvalde. What was it like dealing with that tension and how did you personally feel that when you went into the town? When I got to Uvalde, I saw that the majority of the Latino community had been there for several generations. You would think a town with that kind of Mexican American history, and them being the majority, that they'd be pretty cemented and represented, right? It was really eye-opening to see [how] these folks are still considered second-class citizens. A lot of them are being repressed. And then you have folks that get in positions of power, but they're whitewashed in line with the white conservative agenda. So even those that are able to get into positions of power don't lean towards the community. They turn their back on it. I heard from folks that the history of neglect was what led to the response that day at Robb Elementary. And they're like, "Yeah, that's what happens on that side of town. You call the cops, they don't come. Our schools are run-down." You really see the disparity. This was a Mexican American community that had been there for a long time. It's fascinating how the conservative white community, even if they're the smaller part of the population, they can still hold the power. Get our Latinx Files newsletter for stories that capture the complexity of our communities. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
How ‘Uvalde Mom' director Anayansi Prado captured the heart of a town in trauma
Three years ago, an armed young man entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 students and two teachers. Hundreds of law enforcement officials reportedly stood around the school campus for more than an hour without approaching the shooter. In the midst of the inaction, one mom — Angeli Rose Gomez — pleaded with officers to take action or let her go in to get her two children and nephew. She was apprehended and handcuffed, but ultimately talked her way out of arrest before she sprinted inside the school to grab the kids. Videos on social media captured the moments that Gomez brought her sons and nephew out of the school. The Texas field worker and mother of two was quickly dubbed a hero in national and local publications for her courage. The new documentary film 'Uvalde Mom' follows Gomez after becoming nationally recognized — while examining the forces at play in the Uvalde community which allowed for the shooting to take place, as well as the aftermath of such a tragedy. 'All I wanted that day was my kids to come out of the school alive, and that's what I got,' Gomez says in one pivotal moment in the film. 'I don't want to be called a hero. I don't want to be looked at as the hero because the only job that I did that day was being a mom.' The feature's director Anayansi Prado was 'moved' and 'horrified' by what had happened and felt motivated to make a film about the event after seeing members of the affected families on TV. 'I saw that there were Latinos, they were Mexican American, that it was a border town, that it was an agricultural farming town, and that really resonated with me and with communities I've done film work with before,' Prado told The Times. Prado began reaching out to people in Uvalde shortly after the shooting, but didn't hear back from anyone for over two months due to the inundation of media requests everyone in the city was receiving. The only person to reply to her was Gomez. Ahead of the film's screening Saturday at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, Prado spoke with The Times about the process and the challenges of making her documentary. This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity. Was the idea always for this project to be a feature-length film? Or were there talks of making it a short or a series? I've always thought about it as a feature because I really wanted to dive in and understand Uvalde as a character. I wanted to understand the history of the criminal justice system, the educational system. I knew I wanted to make something that was going to be of a longer form rather than just a piece that was about Angeli or something. And a few people told me this would make a great short, but as I uncovered more about Uvalde, I was like, 'No, Uvalde itself has its own history, just like a person.' When it came to choosing Angeli, was she the first and only person who responded to your outreach? I think the people in town were oversaturated with media coverage, and Angeli was the one that got back to me. What was really interesting is that I learned on that first trip [to Uvalde] about her backstory and I learned about how the criminal justice system had failed her. I saw a parallel there of how the system failed the community the day of the shooting and how it was failing this woman also individually. I wanted to play with those two stories, the macro and the personal. Once I learned who she was, beyond the mom who ran into the school, I was like, 'I have to tell this woman's story.' How did you go about balancing her personal stuff and the failures that happened on a larger scale? So much of the way the film is structured is reflective of my own experience as a filmmaker. It was a sort of surreal world, these two worlds were going on: what was happening to Angeli and then what was going on outside with the lack of accountability and the cover-up. So that informed the way that I wanted to structure the film. In terms of the personal, it was a journey to gain Angeli's trust. At some point at the beginning, she wasn't sure she wanted to participate in the film, and so I told her, 'You don't owe me anything. I'm a stranger, but all I ask is that you give me a chance to earn your trust.' And she was like, 'OK.' From there on, she opened up and, pretty quickly, we became close and she trusted me. I was very cognizant [of] her legal past and even the way she's perceived by some folks. I also didn't want Angeli to come off as a victim and people to feel sorry for her, but I still wanted to tell her story in a way where you get mad at the system for failing her. What kind of struggles did you have trying to get in communication with some of the officials of the city? We used a lot of news [archives] to represent that part of the story. The [authorities] weren't giving any interviews, they were just holding press conferences. So access was limited, but also the majority of the time that we were filming, we were very low-key about the production — because Angeli was on probation and there was retaliation for her speaking to the media. We tried to keep it under wraps that we were filming, so not a lot of people knew about it [besides] her family. Obviously other folks in town [were] part of the film, like her friend Tina and family members. Outside of that, it was too risky to let other people in town know what was going on. Ultimately I wanted to make ['Uvalde Mome'] a personal portrait. I was just very selective on the people that we absolutely needed to interview. I'm happy with Tina, who's an activist in town, and Arnie, a survivor of the shooting and a school teacher, [plus] Angeli's legal team. I felt like those were people we needed to tell a fuller story. But we just couldn't be out in the open making a film about her and let people know. What kind of reception have you gotten from people of Uvalde that have seen the film? We had our premiere at South by Southwest, which was great. A lot of folks came from Uvalde and spoke about how, almost three years later, a lot of this stuff is still going on. Every time Gov. Greg Abbott came on-screen, people would scream, 'Loser!' It was really moving to have those screenings. As was expected from the folks who are not fans of Angeli, there was some backlash. It's the same narrative you see in the film of, 'She's a criminal, don't believe her.' It's a town that is an open wound. I just try to have compassion for people. Ultimately, Angeli's story is the story of one person in Uvalde of many that need to continue to be told. And I hope that other filmmakers, journalists and other storytellers continue to tell the story there, especially with the lack of closure and accountability. I'm happy that the film is putting Uvalde back into the headlines in some way; that way we don't forget about it. Had you ever spent an extended amount of time in Texas before? I had been to Texas, but I hadn't done a project in Texas. Because I'm an outsider, it was very important for me to hire a 100% local Texas crew for this film. My crew was entirely Texas-based, from our PAs to our sound to our DPs. I also wanted to have a majority Texas-born Mexican American crew so that they could guide me. We began production in September of 2022 and the atmosphere was very tense. This is a story that is deeply rooted in the Latino community and the tension about the law enforcement in Uvalde. What was it like dealing with that tension and how did you personally feel that when you went into the town? When I got to Uvalde, I saw that the majority of the Latino community had been there for several generations. You would think a town with that kind of Mexican American history, and them being the majority, that they'd be pretty cemented and represented, right? It was really eye-opening to see [how] these folks are still considered second-class citizens. A lot of them are being repressed. And then you have folks that get in positions of power, but they're whitewashed in line with the white conservative agenda. So even those that are able to get into positions of power don't lean towards the community. They turn their back on it. I heard from folks that the history of neglect was what led to the response that day at Robb Elementary. And they're like, 'Yeah, that's what happens on that side of town. You call the cops, they don't come. Our schools are run-down.' You really see the disparity. This was a Mexican American community that had been there for a long time. It's fascinating how the conservative white community, even if they're the smaller part of the population, they can still hold the power.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Health
- San Francisco Chronicle
Too much salt? How sodium consumption varies by culture
It's no secret that adults in the U.S. consume more sodium on a daily basis than what's recommended – often through prepared foods, such as pizza, cold cuts, canned soup and bread. But sodium intake patterns can vary by race and ethnicity, suggesting a need for culturally tailored advice, according to new research. On average, an adult in the U.S. consumes about 3,400 milligrams of sodium each day. That's significantly more than the maximum 2,300 mg – about a teaspoon of table salt – recommended by federal dietary guidelines and the American Heart Association. Excess sodium consumption can increase the risk of high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. For adults with high blood pressure, the American Heart Association says the ideal daily limit of sodium is 1,500 mg. "High sodium intake can even affect non-heart-related diseases like kidney disease," lead study author Dr. Jessica Cheng said in a news release. Cheng is a postdoctoral research fellow in epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Cheng and her team used National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data collected from 2017 to March 2020 to analyze differences in sodium intake by race and ethnicity. Their findings were published May 28 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The roughly 8,000 survey participants self-reported what they ate in the previous 24-hour period, as well as the type and frequency of salt used in cooking and at the table. Pizza, soup and whole pieces of chicken ranked among the main sources of sodium regardless of the participant's race and ethnicity, researchers found. Tacos, burritos and Mexican mixed dishes – which Cheng said included enchiladas, tamales and chiles rellenos (stuffed peppers) – were among top sources of sodium for Mexican American adults. For Black adults, chicken patties, nuggets and tenders were a unique source of sodium. For white participants, the main sources were cold cuts and cured meats, cheese and mixed meat dishes. Among Asian American adults, four culturally unique foods made up more than 14% of their daily sodium consumption: soy-based condiments; fish; fried rice and lo/chow mein; and stir-fry/soy-based sauce mixtures. About two-thirds of Black participants reported making an attempt to reduce their sodium intake, more than any of the other groups. They also had the highest rate of being advised by a doctor to lower their sodium consumption. The study also found that Asian American adults were most likely to use salt while cooking, but they were least likely to use it at the table. Cheng and her team also examined an assumption within the NHANES database that rice is salted. Changing that assumption to unsalted had little effect for most groups in the study. However, it reduced the daily sodium intake of Asian American adults by nearly 325 mg. Cheng said sodium intake among Asian Americans may have been overestimated because it was assumed salt was added to rice. That assumption led to research that showed Asian Americans have the highest sodium intake of all racial and ethnic groups. However, "culturally, not all Asians salt plain rice. If they don't add salt to rice when cooking, then their sodium intake is among the lowest across all racial and ethnic groups." Dr. Stephen P. Juraschek said the new study raises awareness of how sodium is introduced across cultural groups in the U.S. "Such knowledge is critical for health professionals counseling patients on how they can reduce sodium in their lives and within their families," said Juraschek, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He was not involved in the research. Efforts to target sodium reduction "should account for differences among groups and tailor to patients' unique needs," he said in the news release. Cheng agreed. "Researchers, health care professionals and policymakers should help people understand the sodium content in packaged foods, restaurant meals, home cooking and table salt while suggesting methods to cut their salt intake," Cheng said. And lowering sodium intake doesn't have to be difficult, Cheng said. Either use a salt substitute or just vary your diet and add more potassium-rich foods such as vegetables, which can also help reduce blood pressure, she said. "You don't have to avoid pizza completely; eat it less often or try making it at home with low-sodium cheese, dough and tomato sauce you make from scratch."
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Miyagishima enters Democratic race for governor, vows medical malpractice reform
Former longtime Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima formally launched his campaign for governor Tuesday, promising to make medical malpractice reform his top priority. "We're facing an epidemic of losing some of the greatest doctors we've ever had simply because it's too expensive to practice medicine here because the medical malpractice laws are outdated," he said during a 16-minute speech. "Would you believe that we rank second in the nation in medical malpractice lawsuits? Second. We're the only state that is losing doctors — only state," he said during his announcement event in Las Cruces, which was streamed live on Facebook. Miyagishima issued a challenge to the two other announced Democratic gubernatorial candidates — Deb Haaland, a former congresswoman and U.S. interior secretary, and Sam Bregman, a former Albuquerque city councilor who has served as the district attorney in Bernalillo County since 2023. "When I was mayor, I never took money from anyone as a contribution, anyone who did business with the city," he said. "I won't take any campaign contributions from anyone who does business with the state, and I will never take money from a trial lawyer. So, I make the challenge to Sam and Deb not to take any money from trial lawyers." Miyagishima, who served as the Las Cruces mayor for 16 years, from 2007 to 2023, also vowed to tackle crime and affordable housing as governor. He said he worries for his wife's safety if she goes out by herself when they visit one of their sons in Albuquerque. "The FBI now says New Mexico is the most dangerous state in the country," he said. "We lead the nation in violent crime, aggravated assault, robbery and rape. The numbers are the untold stories of lives shattered, families traumatized, communities living in fear." New Mexico can't address its crime problems "absent a crackdown on gang violence, on drug cartels and mandatory sentences for repeat offenders," he said. Miyagishima advocated for doing away with a pretrial risk assessment process known as the Arnold Tool, saying it creates "stumbling blocks" that prevent judges from doing their job and protecting communities. "We deserve a system where justice is swift, where justice is fair, where justice is focused on protecting innocent lives and not sending violent offenders back into our neighborhoods. We deserve better," he said. "Nosotras merecemos algo mejor," Miyagishima, a Mexican American of Japanese descent, repeated in Spanish, which he did several times throughout his speech. Miyagishima also said New Mexicans deserve a state "where families can finally reach the American dream," adding too many hardworking New Mexicans are just struggling to find a safe, clean affordable place to live. The Democratic and Republican primary elections will be in June 2026, with the general election in November 2026.
