The Brief

In the months after she graduated college with a computer science degree, Anaid Garcia applied to over 100 jobs. They didn’t get any offers, and the experience left them feeling deflated and unmoored.

But with the job market in shambles, Garcia had time to look inward. They’ve loved to paint since childhood, and, in college, they took at least one art class every semester — “to de-stress.” Garcia began researching MFA programs. But before taking the leap, they explored a potential career in the art world by signing up for a museum studies program at East Los Angeles College, and a special course that blended science, environmental justice, and art.

Opportunities to partake in museum exhibitions are rare for burgeoning artists. This class would provide a path.

And so, on a chilly spring morning earlier this year, Garcia found herself enjoying a tamal and café de olla aboard a small flat-bottomed boat in the canals of Xochimilco, a borough of Mexico City. As she listened to the sound of the paddle hitting the water, she marveled at the world around her.

Over the next few days, Garcia and her classmates at ELAC learned about the region’s chinampas, islands the Aztecs created in the 15th century to grow crops. They also learned about what local residents are grappling with now. And soon, they'd use this experience to make art.

ELAC students and VPAM curator Joseph Valencia page through a zine they created ahead of their trip. In Xochimilco, they shared copies with their collaborators.

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Andrés Jurado and Eduardo Velazco

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Courtesy Ruta del Castor

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Bringing students into the artistic process

This ELAC course grew out of a years-long effort to bridge education and art under the banner of the Getty’s giant, cross-site PST ART initiative.

Each edition of PST ART is planned long in advance; the Getty set this year’s theme, “Art & Science Collide,” in 2019.

That theme resonated with ELAC leaders.

“Being one of the few partners who is on a community college campus, we thought it'd be really important to try to integrate students in any way possible,” said Joseph Valencia, a curator at ELAC’s Vincent Price Art Museum who co-taught the course.

In addition to developing the class, ELAC reached out to Carolina Caycedo, an L.A.-based artist with roots in Colombia, to design an exhibition and collaborate with students.

The result is the exhibition “We Place Life at the Center/Situamos la vida en el centro,” now on view at the college’s museum.

“We Place Life at the Center” is presented across two floors of the museum’s galleries. The show is teeming with paintings, photographs, drawings, video installations, and other forms of art.

ELAC students and faculty observe a farming technique in Xochimilco.

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Andrés Jurado and Eduardo Velazco

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Courtesy Ruta del Castor

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In preparation for the exhibition, Caycedo undertook four years of research and fieldwork, including conversations with Seres de río, a collective made up of water protectors in Colombia.

'What waters do you belong to?'

Over Zoom, the students also met with members of Seres de río and, together, they designed a mural that’s now in the exhibition.

During the design process, Garcia thought back to their time at Xochimilco, where they were confronted with an important question: “¿A qué aguas perteneces?” — What waters do you belong to?

The question compelled her to think about the L.A. River, wending its way through concrete walls. It made her think about the Santa Fe dam in the San Gabriel Valley, where she and her cousins splashed around as kids. It made her think about her father’s side of the family, which hails from a lake community in the Mexican state of Jalisco, and about how, even after they migrated, they continued to find places where they could fish. It made her think of “this idea of trying to find home outside of home,” of “how water is all connected,” and “how you try to find water everywhere you go.”

While co-developing the mural, Garcia recalled that, sometimes, a harmless water snake would glide into the dam, and all her family would rush out. She shared that memory with the group. Among other elements, the mural at VPAM has a snake, along with landmarks and figures representing the importance of water in L.A. and Colombia.

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Paul Salveson

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The students signed their names on the artwork, alongside professional artists.

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Photo courtesy of Vincent Price Art Museum.

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The mural is “a series of vignettes,” said Gloria Ortega, an ELAC alumna who’s now an assistant curator at the museum. “There's a lot happening at once, but if you take a step back and spend time with each image, you're able to see that each piece is trying to speak for itself.”

In addition to collaborating on the design, Garcia and her classmates had the opportunity to bring the mural to life under the guidance of Caycedo and Pavel Acevedo, an artist based in Boyle Heights.

Garcia had been wanting to paint a mural since middle school. Crossing that goal off her bucket list, she told LAist, strengthened her confidence — both in herself and in the work she’s now pursuing.

The installation "Bionave Flotilla, 2024," surrounded by other artworks at the exhibition.

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Paul Salveson

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After years of being away from home, and after years of being one of just a few Latinos in any given room, it felt good to be someplace where she didn’t have to prove or over-explain herself. She also loved learning from students with different majors and from different age groups. Above all, it felt good to start building an arts community.

“Being in the class, being in Mexico, being surrounded by artists,” she said, “I was like: ‘Wow, this is what I want to do.’”

What you might find at the VPAM exhibition

On the ground floor: Drawings by Coyotl + Macehualli, a community organization focused on education, environmental protection, and land stewardship in El Sereno. The group formed in response to a developer’s plan to build luxury homes on a hillside, threatening the survival of local residents, including black walnut trees.

On the second floor: A huge green vinyl contraption hangs from the ceiling, surrounded by smaller ones. Akin to cartoon spaceships, they appear to be flying in the direction of passersby. The piece pays homage to the Red Colombiana de Energía de la Biomasa (the Colombian Network of Biomass Energy), which teaches communities across the country about the benefits of DIY biodigesters. In these sealed containers, microorganisms break down organic material into fertilizer through a natural process.

Caycedo's geochoreography "Sembrando humedad" in Xochimilco.

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Carolina Caycedo and Ruta del Castor. Satellite imagery on vinyl.

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Courtesy of the artist and Ruta del Castor.

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Visitors will also find a photograph of a geochoreography, a group performance designed by Caycedo. The performance served as the culmination of the class journey to Mexico City. In addition to ELAC students, the work features local artists, activists, scientists, farmers, and faculty. Collectively, their bodies form a germinated seed with roots and corn stalks, representing the promise of growth and a commitment to the ecological restoration and sustainability of Xochimilco.

Inglewood officials are working on a full rewrite of the city map for the first time in nearly 40 years, laying out how they want the city to grow and change for the next two decades.

Along part of Manchester Boulevard, city planners are setting up an option for developers to rebuild rows of small storefronts with a mix of homes and commercial space. On La Brea Avenue, south of Centinela Avenue, they envision the possibility of dense housing and business blocks as high as six stories.

Jerome Johnson, an Inglewood local, said he’s lived through three decades of change in the city. He recalled watching a “raggedy market” at the corner of La Brea and Centinela make way for the two-story shopping center that’s there today. He said the potential developments around the intersection could be a catch-22.

“There’s a shortage of housing,” Johnson said. “But you don’t want it to turn into New York City.”

It’s all part of the ongoing process for Inglewood’s new general plan, the foundational guide that governs things like what kind of buildings can be built where in the city and how they need to look. A draft land-use plan will go before the Inglewood City Council on Tuesday, then go into the environmental impact review process.

“This is really a historic milestone for the city,” Bernard McCrumby, Inglewood development services director, told The LA Local. 

McCrumby said planners are aiming to open up room for new housing and to revitalize some of the city’s flagging business corridors, without changing the city’s existing residential blocks or sacrificing the grocery stores, barbershops and local restaurants that make neighborhoods tick.

“The stadiums and arenas are here, they’re not going anywhere,” McCrumby said. “Now we can plan around those.”

The last time the city did a full update of its general plan was 1987, when horses were still racing at Hollywood Park and the “Showtime” Lakers were winning championships at the Forum. Edward Vincent Jr., the city’s first Black mayor, had only been in office for four years. 

The city has made intermittent updates to its planning guidelines since then — notably remapping a band of Inglewood along the Metro K line before it opened — but city documents indicate planners spent the past couple years working on a comprehensive rewrite. 

The new update to the general plan could set the city’s direction until 2050.

Planners hope to change some of the city’s commercial corridors into mixed-use zones that allow for housing and businesses alongside each other or even stacked on top of each other.

Those zones could go in place along Century Boulevard and Arbor Vitae Street as well as Manchester, Centinela and La Brea.

The rest of the update, McCrumby said, is aimed at lining the city’s zoning regulations up with state law and the city’s current reality on the ground.

City staff held several community meetings over the last year as they put together the draft and still aren’t done gathering feedback. 

The next year will see at least one more community meeting and a 45-day public review period, according to city documents. McCrumby said that, with the anchor of the land-use map in place, planners will continue to work on the rest of the general plan, targeting final City Council approval of the plan and accompanying environmental impact report next spring.

You can get all the details on the general plan at nextlevelinglewood.com and attend the City Council meeting at 2 p.m. on Tuesday to give a public comment.

We also want to know what you think of the proposed changes. Email isaiah@thelalocal.org with your questions or thoughts.

Students within the Los Angeles Unified School District showed improvements on state reading, math and science standardized tests for a third consecutive year, district authorities announced Tuesday.

Superintendent Andrés Chait revealed the preliminary results at the annual opening-of-schools address at East L.A.’s Garfield High School— his first as the district’s leader since the board appointed him to the job in June.

“ These are not just numbers on a page,” Chait said to an audience that included about 1,000 principals, administrators and district supporters. “They are the result of your passion, your persistence, your belief in what students can achieve. These are collective accomplishments.

"They reflect the dedication, skill, and commitment of our entire community,” he said.

Jai Gant-Leau, principal of Eagle Tree Continuation High School, said the “back-to-basics” focus of Chait’s speech was a welcome departure from the tone of recent opening addresses.

“We will continue to rise for the outcomes and expectations for the success of our students. That's the message I got,” Gant-Leau said. “Very different than the others where it was a lot of… bells and whistles.”

Why it matters

Student achievement, as measured by test scores, plummeted during the pandemic. Los Angeles Unified’s growth in 2025 outpaced the state, as test scores exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

This year the percentage of students in all grades who met or exceeded the standard are 39.7% for math, 48.3% for English and 32.1% for science. It’s unclear how this compares to students statewide because those results have yet to be released.

Challenges ahead

Chait also acknowledged the challenges posed by declining enrollment, community fears of immigration enforcement actions and proposed budget cuts.

 “The decisions will be hard, but we cannot lose sight of what defines us,” Chait said. “We are the system that lifts students to opportunity, turns potential into achievement, creates spaces of belonging, healing, growth.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

We hope you’ve gotten used to the hot weather, because it’s going to be here for a while.

The National Weather Service has issued yet another heat advisory for much of Southern California, less than a week after other high-temperature warnings were lifted.

This week’s advisory will be in place from 10 a.m. Wednesday through Monday. Forecasters expect temperatures to climb steadily over the course of Wednesday and Thursday.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas in L.A., as well as Riverside and San Bernardino counties, will likely see highs ranging from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Areas closer to the coast, including downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange County, will hit the 90s. Beaches will hover mostly in the upper 70s.

Humidity will also add to the discomfort. Even though it’s decreasing slightly, it makes cooling down harder, especially at night.

People who work outdoors or do not have air conditioning are especially at risk from the heat and humidity, along with people over 65, young children and other sensitive populations.

Fire risk

Forecasters are warning that conditions are ripe for fires, driven by a combination of wind and dry vegetation.

Southern California hasn’t seen much rain recently, despite the humidity, leaving plants with little moisture and turning them into the perfect fuel.

“Even though the air feels kind of moist, we're in the time of season where it doesn't matter. The fuels are dry and they're ready to go,” said NWS meteorologist Ryan Kittell.

Kittel said people should take extra care with anything that could create a spark, and residents in fire-prone areas should remain aware of their surroundings in case a fire starts.

The fire risk is likely to be concentrated in a few specific areas that will experience higher winds than others, including parts of the 5 Freeway corridor in northern L.A. County, especially around the Grapevine, and in southern Santa Barbara County.

For most of the region, though, winds should stay fairly mild.

Dangerous beach conditions

Southern Californians also have to contend with some ocean-specific risks this week.

Forecasters expect dangerously large waves and strong rip currents to hit the coastline at a time when the heat may drive more people to the beach. The conditions are expected to persist through the weekend.

If you decide to head to the beach, it’s a good idea to ask a lifeguard for advice on the conditions before entering the water. It’s also recommended to swim only near occupied lifeguard stands, stay off of rock jetties and avoid turning your back to the waves.

South-facing stretches of coastline will bear the brunt of the swell, which is being driven by two tropical storms churning hundreds of miles away in the Pacific Ocean.

“Those two systems generated the winds and the waves locally that are pushing towards us, and so that's creating elevated surf and some stronger currents than normal,” Kittel said.

The swell is not expected to cause significant coastal flooding as high tides remain relatively low.