Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, covering Southern California everything and a bunch of the West and beyond. He previously worked at OC Weekly, where he was an investigative reporter for 15 years and editor for six, wrote a column called ¡Ask a Mexican! and is the author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.” He’s the child of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.
Latest From This Author
I don’t regret my decision to turn on Fox News on New Year’s Day, because it was a sobering, necessary reminder of the fetid information ecosystem that put Donald Trump in the White House,
The Hall of Administration was named after Janice Hahn’s father in 1992. She argues it shouldn’t be razed, even after the county bought a nearby skyscraper.
Latinos are no longer the sleeping giant. We are the giant. Where we decide to go politically is where the country will go.
My Magic 8 Ball sees little to look forward to except a lot of laughs — because we’ll need to crack up at the cruelty to keep from crying, you know?
There are two trees that I need to kill. When I get rid of them, that’s it. I can’t plant replacements. I live in a quarantine zone.
The Virgin of Guadalupe’s image is part of Southern California’s visual landscape.
Over the phone, Lena Gonzalez’s voice had the patient but proud tone of a lawyer charged with defending the damned.
I was excited to see so many voices, new and familiar, dominate the 2024 nonfiction releases, showing that Latinas have played important roles in the Southern California story and deserve far more recognition.
Madrigal vs. Quilligan continues to be taught in universities and retold in academic books as a cautionary tale, its plaintiffs hailed as reproductive-rights heroines.
I’ve spent my career trying to sway skeptics that people here illegally are no different from native-born citizens. That nearly all embody the immigrant spirit.