The Brief

Bo Uce still vividly remembers his experiences as a child soldier under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia — the freezing nights, the constant hunger, the violence. He doesn’t talk much about his past. But his daughter, Victoria Uce, wants to know how her dad’s childhood during the Cambodian Genocide affected him and influenced how he raised her.

Emily Kwong, host of the LAist podcast series Inheriting, guides Bo Uce and Victoria Uce through a conversation about their family history, and how to care for generations of survivors and their descendants.

Bo Uce (left) and his daughter Victoria Uce (right) at the Khemara Buddhikaram Temple in Long Beach.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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Meet Victoria Uce

The Khmer community in Long Beach is a constant for Victoria Uce, defining and surrounding her throughout her life. Her temple, the Khemara Buddhikaram Buddhist Temple, has become an important sanctuary for Victoria Uce’s family and their Khmer community.

“Everyone here [at the temple] is a survivor of the genocide,” she says.

What Victoria Uce is talking about is the killing of Cambodian citizens and other ethnic minorities under the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. An estimated 2 million people in Cambodia died from starvation and mass execution by the Khmer government.

Both of Victoria Uce’s parents came to the United States as refugees, having grown up under the Khmer Rouge. Her father, Bo Uce, was orphaned at a young age and was forced into the regime’s youth brigade.

What Victoria Uce doesn’t understand is how she and her sister were raised with so much warmth and love, even though her parents experienced harsh and traumatic childhoods. While in the brigade, her father often suffered from starvation.

“[My dad] … used to steal food for his siblings. But if you're caught you risk death,” Victoria Uce says. “How is that something you go through as a kid?”

Though she can’t comprehend the magnitude of her parents’ trauma, Victoria Uce wants to understand how they survived. She hopes by doing that, she can start to understand her own behaviors.

“I did notice that with me and my sister, our hunger cues were definitely a lot more skewed than most people,” Victoria Uce says. “I would eat past [being] full, because I was always told ‘I didn't have food growing up, so you're lucky.’ So to this day I still hate wasting food. But I also have to work around my hunger cues.”

A brief history of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide 

The Khmer Rouge fully claimed power in Cambodia on April 17, 1975, after the regime captured the country’s capital, Phnom Penh. Under the new regime, leader Pol Pot attempted to purge Cambodia of its previous culture and history.

• Citizens were forced to take up farming in the hopes the country would establish an agrarian society.
• Doctors, lawyers, and former military personnel from the previous Cambodian government were executed.

Bo Uce says his father, a high-ranking military official, and his mother, were among the estimated 2 million Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge during the regime’s multi-year campaign of genocide.

Uce family photos

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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Bo Uce and the rest of his family were evacuated to the countryside, where they lived in communes.

The Khmer Rouge established work and military units with thousands of kids, including then 7-year-old Bo Uce. These children were separated from their families and worked from sunrise to sunset, making fertilizer for crops, herding animals, and carrying weapons to battlefields. They also worked during harsh weather conditions with inadequate clothing. If they questioned superiors, they were beaten, Bo Uce says. He was in the children’s brigade for a year, before the regime lost power. Though he ultimately made it to the U.S., Bo Uce’s memories still haunt him.

“[He tells me] ‘I didn't know you [could] still carry that kind of pain in your body. It's been decades. I was just a kid. But it still affects me to this day,'" Victoria Uce says. "And it is things that he's always brushed off.”

How can I listen to more of this story?

Hear Episode 3 of "Inheriting":

Listen to all episodes of "Inheriting" wherever you get your podcasts and on LAist.com/Inheriting.

When Terri Huerta called local winemakers about a problem with a meandering vine at Mission San Gabriel in the city of San Gabriel, she thought she'd get gardening help. Instead, she sparked a revival of L.A.'s oldest wine.

Mission San Gabriel's 250-year-old grapevine, one of the oldest living vines in California, continues to produce grapes for the Angelica wine revival.

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The vine in question isn't your typical grapevine. It's a 250-year-old beast with a trunk so massive two people can't wrap their arms around it. Because it served as the source for cuttings that spread throughout California's early vineyards, it’s now known as the Mother Vine.

For centuries, it just sprawled across the mission courtyard like some ancient, living pergola that refuses to quit, with no one taking any notice of the grapes flourishing each season.

But now, thanks to a group of determined local winemakers, that fruit is being transformed into Angelica, a sweet wine fortified with brandy that Franciscan missionaries made there in the 1700s — making it the city’s oldest wine.

A limited edition batch was launched Nov. 28 by the Angeleno Wine Company. There are fewer than 200 bottles for sale, and at $75, it's not cheap. But break that down by the vine's age, and you're paying 30 cents per year of history.

How it started

The collaboration began in 2020 when Huerta, director of mission development at Mission San Gabriel, reached out to the Los Angeles Vintners Association looking for help to manage the grapevine.

The association — a partnership among three L.A. wineries: Angeleno Wine Company, Byron Blatty Wines and Cavalletti Vineyards — sent winemakers Mark Blatty, Patrick Kelly, Jasper Dickson and Amy Luftig to assess the situation. They found something bigger than a courtyard cleanup project. They found grapes. A lot of them.

"The vine was full of fruit, and I told them it was just a nuisance every year," Huerta recalls. "They asked, 'What are you going to do with all this fruit?' and I said, 'I really don't know.'”

That's when the group offered to help take it off Huerta’s hands.

Grapes from Mission San Gabriel's 250-year-old grapevine used in the Angelica wine revival.

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Wine history

Although the Napa Valley now reigns supreme as the region’s wine industry, L.A. once was the center for the entire state. Mission San Gabriel’s vine was planted by Franciscan friars after the establishment of the mission in 1775 to make sacramental wine to be used during mass. DNA analysis has since revealed its forebears: It's a hybrid of Spanish Listán Prieto grapes and native California Vitis girdiana.

This vine’s cuttings helped launch the many vineyards that began to crop up around the newly founded grape fields, which became numerous. By 1850, L.A. boasted over 100 vineyards. If you look carefully, even today, the city of L.A.’s seal has a bunch of grapes hanging at the top.

The official seal of the city of Los Angeles.

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Courtesy city of Los Angeles

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The wines were popular with fortune seekers headed north to the Gold Rush. The industry flourished until 1883, when an outbreak of Pierce's Disease destroyed thousands of acres of vines across SoCal. Urban sprawl replaced vineyards with housing through the mid-20th century.

Today, almost nothing remains of L.A. 's once-dominant wine industry — with the exception of the Mother Vine and a handful of its descendants scattered across the city.

Across from Union Station a direct descendant is still growing over tourist and vendor heads. It’s a 200-year-old vine at Olvera Street's Avila Adobe, the oldest standing residence in the city of L.A.

Storing up the grapes

The winemakers started picking the fruit at the Mission in 2020. But it wasn’t enough to make a substantial batch of wine, so the grapes were stored. For the past five years, the winemakers, joined with volunteers, have harvested the fruit each season, carefully packing it away.

In the meantime, they began to dig into mission records for mentions of grapes and winemaking. One day they came across a document from the 1800s, which outlined a recipe for Angelica, a fortified wine made from grape juice and brandy.

"Angelica is said to be made by mixing one gallon of grape brandy with three of grape juice, fresh from the press," it said. "It is a thick, sweet and strong drink, yet of very delicate flavor."

The fortification wasn't just about taste — it was a necessity. In an era before refrigeration, adding brandy preserved the wine, allowing it to survive California's heat and long journeys between missions.

Two of the winemakers, Dickson and Luftig, were especially interested. They’d been making wine from grapes grown locally in the SoCal region since 2018 at their winery Angeleno Wine Company, which produces everything on-site near Chinatown.

They became intrigued by the idea of recreating Angelica. Following the historical recipe, they pressed fresh Mission grapes and fortified the juice with brandy before fermentation. Then they used the solera system — a traditional Spanish method that blends wines across multiple vintages — aging the wine in oak barrels for years.

Initially, they made limited batches solely for the company’s wine club members, which quickly sold out.

This year’s Angelica is the group’s third batch but the first to go on sale to the public. It includes grapes that have been harvested from 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The wine pours a pale cherry color and has a syrup-like consistency. The brandy comes through right away, caramel and warm spices with refreshing acidity cutting through the sweetness. It's thick, decadent and undeniably strong — a small glass (or two) is all that’s needed after a warm holiday meal.

The harvest

Harvesting the grapes doesn't look like the romantic wine country fantasy you see in magazines.

Instead of long rows of vines with grapes easily accessed, harvesters have to pick the fruit from below the canopy.

"Everyone has to bring ladders because we're picking like this," Dickson says, gesturing upward in the Mission’s courtyard. "We're literally placing ladders on ancient monks' tombstones to reach the fruit above the graves."

This year the harvest happened in October.

Volunteers harvest grapes at Mission San Gabriel for the Angelica wine revival project.

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Amy Luftig

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Angeleno Wine Co.

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John Pryor, a volunteer, has done multiple harvests. He describes it plainly: "You're not in a vineyard. You're in a garden at a Catholic church. The vines are trellised 12 feet high and go on for a hundred yards."

For his daughter, 27 year-old Meg Pryor, seeing the massive trunk drove home what "old" actually means.

"Whenever we're there, I'm thinking, 'People were doing this a century ago, two centuries ago,'" she said.

John and Meg Pryor help harvest grapes from Mission San Gabriel's historic grapevine for the Angelica wine revival project.

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Courtesy of John Pryor

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Understanding who most of those workers were centuries ago means confronting some difficult issues. Huerta of Mission San Gabriel acknowledges the mission system relied on Indigenous labor, and the vine's hybrid nature suggests native plant knowledge may have contributed to its development.

But she doesn't shy away from the complexity.

"You can't tell Mission history without including all the parts," she says. "You can't tell one story without telling another story. Winemaking has always been a part of L.A. history. The grapes were brought by the Franciscans. They didn't just start here in California. They started in Mexico, so its complexity makes it interesting, but it also makes it controversial."

Going forward, Angeleno Wine Company plans to release a limited batch of Angelica as a seasonal offering each year, as long as the Mother Vine continues to produce fruit.

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to use a new congressional map that could help Republicans win five more U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterm election.

The decision released Thursday boosts the GOP's chances of preserving its slim majority in the House of Representatives amid an unprecedented gerrymandering fight launched by President Donald Trump, who has been pushing Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to benefit Republicans.

The high court's unsigned order follows Texas' emergency request for the justices to pause a three-judge panel's ruling blocking the state's recently redrawn map.

After holding a nine-day hearing in October, that panel found challengers of the new map are likely to prove in a trial that the map violates the Constitution by discriminating against voters based on race.

In its majority opinion, authored by a Trump nominee, the panel cited a letter from the Department of Justice and multiple public statements by key Republican state lawmakers that suggested their map drawer manipulated the racial demographics of voting districts to eliminate existing districts where Black and Latino voters together make up the majority. For the next year's midterms, the panel ordered Texas to keep using the congressional districts the state's GOP-controlled legislature drew in 2021.

But in Texas' filing to the Supreme Court, the state claimed the lawmakers were not motivated by race and were focused instead on drawing new districts that are more likely to elect Republicans.

In November, after the panel blocked the new map, Justice Samuel Alito allowed Texas to temporarily reinstate it while the Supreme Court reviewed the state's emergency request.

The mid-decade redistricting plan Texas Republicans passed in August sparked a counter response by Democratic leaders in California, where voters in a special election in November approved a new congressional map that could help Democrats gain five additional House seats. A court hearing for a legal challenge to that map is set for Dec. 15.

The rest of the redistricting landscape remains unsettled as well. Lawsuits are challenging new gerrymanders in places like Missouri, where there is also a contested referendum effort. And other states, including Florida, Indiana and Virginia, may also pursue new districts prior to the midterms.

Last week, a federal court ruled to allow North Carolina's midterm election to be held under a recently redrawn map that could give Republicans an additional seat.

Another wave of congressional redistricting may be coming soon depending on what — and when — the Supreme Court decides in a voting rights case about Louisiana's congressional map. After the court held a rare rehearing for that case in October, some states are watching for a potential earlier-than-usual ruling that may allow Republican-led states to draw more GOP-friendly districts in time for the 2026 midterms.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2025 NPR

Growing up in Whittier, tamales have always been part of who I am — whether from local bakeries like La Moderna, where my mother always orders the day after Thanksgiving, or our annual tamalada with family friends, where we churn out hundreds in slightly drunken assembly-line fashion.

Over the years, I've explored beyond the traditional Mexican versions: El Salvadoran styles from What's That You're Cooking in Orange County to the Chinese lo mai gai found at dim sum spots across the city. My pursuit of new tamal variations is relentless, especially this time of year.

So when I heard about a $27 lamb neck tamal in Venice, I had to know: could an elevated, chef-driven approach ever justify that price? Since a few other restaurants are also recreating the humble dish with a high-end approach, I decided to go and try them.

What I discovered was that these aren't replacements for traditional tamales — they're explorations of what happens when fine dining ambition meets this centuries-old form.

Si! Mon (Venice)

Si! Mon opened in 2023 in the former James Beach space, a collaboration between chef José Olmedo Carles Rojas and restaurateurs Louie and Netty Ryan, known for Venice-adjacent mainstays Hatchet Hall and Menotti's Coffee Stop. Si! Mon offers Carles Rojas' take on Panamanian fine dining, drawing on Panama's melting pot of Chinese, French, Spanish, African and Caribbean influences.

For the holidays, Carles Rojas is offering a $27 lamb neck tamal — a clear departure from the Mexican versions most Angelenos know. And while the price might cause some sticker shock, it’s worth considering what goes into it and how much food there is.

Wrapped in a banana leaf, the tamal uses a lighter, softer masa enriched with the lamb neck’s braising liquid. Rojas pulls the meat, tosses it with sofrito until it takes on a sauce-like consistency, then adds Indian-style quick-pickled dates for sweetness and olives for brine. Finally, the tamal is finished in Si! mon's wood-fired oven, adding subtle smokiness.

My verdict? After taking that first bite, I can tell you… it’s worth the splurge. One tamal is meant to be shared between two people, which partly explains the price point (though I had no problem finishing mine solo). I’ve had plenty of Central American tamales over the years — Salvadoran versions with their silky masa, Nicaraguan nacatamales loaded with vegetables and pork — but Carles’ take pulls out all the stops. This is a deluxe, bells-and-whistles vision: sweet, salty, and deeply savory all at once, comforting yet unlike anything I’ve tasted before.

Yes, it is a high price, but I’d say it reflects the time, technique and premium ingredients behind it.

KOMAL (South L.A.)

A Guatemalan-style chuchito tamal from KOMAL at Mercado de Paloma in South L.A.

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KOMAL is L.A.'s first craft molino (mill), founded by Fátima Júarez and Conrado Rivera, former employees of Michelin-rated Holbox, who opened this masa-centric counter inside South L.A.'s Mercado La Paloma. The name is Nahuatl for "comal," the traditional flat griddle used to cook tortillas.

I wanted to try the chuchito ($11), a regular menu staple at KOMAL. Júarez refers to the dish as a gift — both for the unwrapping it requires and the labor of love behind it. Each one takes more than 22 hours to make, starting with nixtamalizing heirloom corn to create the masa. (Nixtamalization, an ancient Mesoamerican process, involves soaking and cooking corn in an alkaline solution to improve its flavor, texture, and nutrition).

The result is a fluffy steamed tamal filled with tender pork and crowned with roasted pepper and tomato sauce, pickled cabbage and vegetables, and crema. The dish honors her kitchen team, most of whom are from Guatemala, and it's KOMAL's way of putting their heritage front and center on the menu.

KOMAL’s strawberry tamal dulce comes bright red and crowned with pineapple and fruit compote.

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Frank WonHo

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Courtesy KOMAL

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Komal’s tamal verde at Mercado de Paloma comes stuffed with tender chicken and topped with zippy green salsa.

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Frank WonHo

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Courtesy KOMAL

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Beyond the chuchito, Júarez is offering three special tamales as holiday pick-ups for Christmas and New Year's: a deep, complex tamal rojo filled with sweet corn and squash calabacita, a vibrant tomatillo-based tamal verde filled with chicken, and a tamal de leche made with oranges and strawberry jam, a sweet version that hints at the pre-Hispanic tasting menu they're developing.

After the holidays, these tamales will transition to appearing exclusively at Komal's planned ancestral and ceremonial dinners in 2026 — making this a rare chance to try them before they become part of a more formal dining experience.

Available by the half-dozen ($45) or the dozen ($90), they can be ordered for pick-up at KOMAL on Tuesday, Dec. 23, or Tuesday, Dec. 30.

Campesino Café at The Ecology Center (San Juan Capistrano)

Aaron Zimmer, head chef of Campesino Café at The Ecology Center, works within a unique constraint: everything on his menu comes from the 28-acre regenerative organic farm surrounding the restaurant. That includes the corn he grows, dries, harvests and processes into masa for his tamales.

For the winter season, Zimmer is offering two versions that reflect what's abundant on the farm right now. The shelling bean and cheese tamal ($21) features beans from one of four varieties they grow on-site — shelling beans are harvested before they're thoroughly dried, prized for their creamy texture and delicate, earthy flavor. The cooked-down beans are incorporated into the fresh masa with cheese, then topped with chili con queso made with pickled giardiniera from their summer harvest.

Campesino Café’s tamal duo pairs winter squash in walnut mole with a shelling-bean-and-cheese tamal topped with chile con queso.

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Gab Chabrán

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The winter squash tamal ($21) features squash finished with a walnut mole sauce. The sweet, nutty texture, combined with the squash's sweet, earthy flavors and soft, fresh-tasting masa, creates a highly multidimensional bite.

Both are wrapped in masa and steamed in corn husks, then topped with whatever's available in the larder at any given moment, such as freshly grown cilantro or pickled onion.

It's a hyperlocal, intensely seasonal approach that makes each tamal a snapshot of what the farm is producing — versatile, sustainable, and entirely tied to the land it comes from.

A federal judge heard arguments today in a case to decide whether California should have to give the federal government sensitive data about its more than 23 million voters.

California is one of 14 states the U.S. Department of Justice has sued in recent months in a nearly nationwide effort to collect voter data, including sensitive information that typically is under state control and kept private.

The California case is further along than any other, so it serves as a kind of test that’s being closely watched by election officials, voting rights advocates and election integrity hawks. The U.S. Department of Justice has requested complete voter registration data from at least 40 states.

Here's a closer look at the legal showdown — and why it ultimately might be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court:

Why does the government say it wants the data?

The U.S. Department of Justice says it needs the data to ensure “free and fair elections.” In court filings, the department says it wants to make sure states are complying with federal election law, specifically a requirement that states keep voter registration databases current, including by removing ineligible voters.

Why won’t states just turn it over?

Two states have, Indiana and Wyoming. But California, plus allied states and voting rights groups, says state and federal privacy rules prohibit the sharing of voters’ sensitive personal data, namely driver’s license and social security numbers.

Wait, doesn’t the federal government already have this info?

Yes and no. The Social Security Administration has your data. But there are rules and protocols about sharing that data — even with other government entities.

Driver’s licenses are issued by the state. A lawyer for California said in court that driver’s license information is connected to other state programs and, therefore, giving that information to the federal government would potentially give it access to a much broader range of private information.   

What are the deeper concerns?

For one thing, the U.S. Constitution delegates the running of elections to the states, and some critics worry this may be an effort to usurp some of that power. They say the federal government could use the data to cancel the registration of valid voters.

Others say that amassing the sensitive personal data of almost the entire voting population of the U.S. could have devastating consequences if hacked.

More than anything, lawyers arguing on the side of California and elections experts who spoke with LAist said they’re concerned about the fact that they don’t know what the government intends to do with the information.

“They haven't really told anybody, in particular the folks who they're asking for this data, the exact purposes to which the data will be used. And that’s the problem,” said Michael Alvarez, a Caltech political science professor who specializes in elections.

Media outlets have reported, however, that the Department of Justice is considering sharing voter information with the Department of Homeland Security for criminal and immigration-related prosecutions.

What happened at the hearing?

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter heard from lawyers for California, the NAACP and the League of Women Voters on why they think the case should get dismissed. Their main arguments are that the government hasn’t stated a valid purpose for wanting the data, such as to investigate a specific civil rights violation.

A lawyer for the Department of Justice said the government is “clearly entitled” to the voting records. He also said California was “maybe the most worrisome state in the nation” in terms of anomalies regarding its voter registration data and that it would be "irresponsible for the government to not come in at this point to ensure free and fair elections.” The attorneys for California disputed that characterization.

Carter indicated that whatever his ultimate decision, the issue likely would end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.