Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published October 22, 2024 5:00 AM
A baseball field under construction at the Manzanar Historic Site.
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Courtesy Dan Kwong
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Topline:
Volunteers are rebuilding the baseball field at the former World War II Manzanar concentration camp. The goal: healing.
The history: After the U.S. declared war on Japan, it incarcerated people of Japanese ancestry at 26 camps, including Manzanar. Two thirds of the incarcerated were born and raised in the U.S.
L.A. artist leads project: Performance artist Dan Kwong is the lead volunteer. Kwong's late mother was a teenager when the government ordered her and her family to leave their South L.A. home and report to Manzanar.
Why it matters: Since it became a historic site, staff at Manzanar have balanced the camp's painful history with stories of resilience. “The baseball field was a part of the camp where people could live the life that they had before the war,” Kwong said.
For decades, the Manzanar National Historic Site has educated visitors on a painful chapter of United States history: the incarceration of thousands of Japanese and Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.
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An LA artist is rebuilding the baseball field at a former incarceration camp for Japanese Americans
A new project is now putting the finishing touches on something that the site's managers hope will bring more healing: the rebuilding of Manzanar's baseball field.
“The baseball field was a part of the camp where people could live the life that they had before the war,” said Dan Kwong, a Los Angeles multimedia artist. “It was a place where they could express their American identity through this quintessential American activity, the game of baseball.”
Kwong is the lead volunteer on the project to rebuild the field, working alongside the National Park Service.
Kwong's late mother was a teenager when the government ordered her and her family to leave their South L.A. home and report to Manzanar.
That process has been called incarceration, internment, and detention. But many people believe those are euphemisms.
“This place meets the dictionary definition of a concentration camp,” said Manzanar National Historic Site Park Ranger Sarah Bone.
The fabric of Japanese American neighborhoods was torn apart and individuals and families struggled to regain their social and economic footing when they were freed from the camps after the end of the war.
“People Dan's age and my age, so often we would hear our parents talking about camp, not realizing they were talking about a concentration camp … it just wasn't openly discussed,” said Mitch Maki, president and CEO of Go For Broke, an L.A.-based organization that commemorates Japanese American World War II veterans.
Los Angeles artist Dan Kwong is the lead volunteer in a project to rebuild the World War II era baseball field at the former Manzanar concentration camp.
The bleachers under construction at Manzanar National Historic Site.
Displays at Manzanar detail President Franklin Roosevelt’s use of the term concentration camp to describe Manzanar and the other sites.
“It was wrong what we did to them,” said Chris Siddens, a retired construction worker who lives in nearby Independence.
He’s lending his construction know-how and elbow grease to the project.
The effort to rebuild the baseball field at Manzanar Historic Site has been two decades in the making.
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Courtesy Dan Kwong
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Siddens has strong feelings about the injustice the incarcerated people endured. He’s not Japanese American. He’s a self-described history nut since he was a teenager growing up in the 1970s east of San Diego. But after meeting Japanese American survivors of the camps, he now believes the history he learned in high school left out a lot.
“I'm giving back to the generation that was wronged,” Siddens said.
Fall baseball at Manzanar
The Historic Site has worked to balance stories of resilience within the camp with stories of the loss of constitutional rights.
“And those two things are both true, but it's hard for the average visitor to see all of that easily,” Bone, the park ranger, said.
The site has already rebuilt a large garden as well as parts of the orphanage that operated in the camp.
Since August, Kwong, Siddens, and historic site staff, along with several dozen others who’ve driven to the Owens Valley, have nearly finished the baseball field where only the archeological remains of the one before rested.
They made sure the distance between the bases is 90 feet. They welded the backstop, and built bleachers and benches out of wood.
I think of all my family members and so many other friends of mine whose families were incarcerated here, just how excited they would be to know that we're doing this really exciting, inspiring, and healing thing.
— Artist Dan Kwong
Kwong received permission from the Park Service to hold a game this fall on the rebuilt baseball field between the Japanese American baseball team he plays for, the Lil Tokyo Giants, and a team from Lodi.
“I think of all my family members and so many other friends of mine,” Kwong said, “whose families were incarcerated here, just how excited they would be to know that we're doing this really exciting, inspiring, and healing thing.”
The Lil Tokyo Giants is a team in a Japanese American baseball league. Artist Dan Kwong is third from right, back row.
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Courtesy Dan Kwong
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Kwong said he wants October baseball at Manzanar, with its colorful players, gamesmanship, and cheering to become a yearly tradition. He says a public opening is planned for October of next year.
The field isn’t done. This week, they’ll begin installing home plate and the other bases and painting the baseline stripes. There are also plans to build a 22-foot announcer’s booth and a scoreboard after spring of next year.
“I often imagine my late mother,” Kwong said. “How happy she would be if she knew what I was doing.”
Jordan Rynning
has been following this case for months, including interviewing the man at the center of allegations.
Published October 31, 2026 7:00 AM
Michael Angel Alvarez, 41, spoke with LAist on Sept. 16, 2026, about the federal body armor case against him being dismissed.
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Jordan Rynning
/
LAist
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Topline:
The L.A. County District Attorney’s office dropped its felony body armor charges against Michael Angel Alvarez earlier this week. Alvarez was sentenced to time served on a lesser charge — a probation violation. He served more than 100 days in jail earlier this year while awaiting trial.
Most serious claims haven’t materialized: Though federal prosecutors made headlines claiming in court documents and on social media that Alvarez was “leading a violent street gang, while claiming to be a gang interventionist for the City,” they have not filed charges related to those claims.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office dropped its felony body armor charges against Michael Angel Alvarez on Wednesday. Alvarez was sentenced to time served on a lesser charge — a probation violation. He had served more than 100 days in jail earlier this year while awaiting trial.
Why Alvarez’s arrest made headlines: Alvarez was working as a city-contracted peace ambassador in MacArthur Park when he was arrested by federal agents in May. Federal and county prosecutors each brought felony charges against him, claiming he was in possession of body armor as a violent felon.
Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A., pointed to the case on social media to criticize city officials for allowing taxpayer money to be “shelled out to a convicted gang murderer.”
About his criminal record: Judges in federal and state court have now dismissed prosecutors’ felony charges against Alvarez, after U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang found on Sept. 9 that Alvarez did not have a violent felony conviction. Alvarez was 15 when he committed a gang-related murder. He was tried and convicted as an adult in 2002. After a change in state law increased the age at which minors could be sentenced as adults to 16, Alvarez’s case was sent back to juvenile court, and he was released in 2024. At that point, he had served more than 20 years.
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Mariana Dale
explores and explains the forces that shape how and what kids learn from kindergarten to high school.
Published October 31, 2026 5:00 AM
Myrna Velasco (left) performs as Dolores Huerta in “¡Sí Se Puede!” at Boyle Heights City Hall on April 2, 2026.
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Carlin Stiehl
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LAist
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Topline:
An all-ages play about the life of Dolores Huerta and other under-told stories of the farmworker labor movement is back on tour in Los Angeles.
The backstory: Center Theatre Group commissioned ¡Sí Se Puede! from Eliana Pipes in March 2025 and it debuted in L.A. this spring. “There's this perception that farm work was only done by men,” Pipes said. “There were women on the fields, there were women on the picket lines, and there were women in leadership in the United Farm Workers movement.”
An all-ages play about the life of Dolores Huerta and other under-told stories of the farmworker labor movement is back on tour in Los Angeles.
The show's extension had been announced prior to the news that Huerta died Wednesday, Oct. 28., at her Bakersfield home. She was 96 years old.
“There's this perception that farm work was only done by men,” said playwright Eliana Pipes. “There were women on the fields, there were women on the picket lines, and there were women in leadership in the United Farm Workers movement.”
Center Theatre Group commissioned ¡Sí Se Puede! from Pipes in March 2025 and it debuted in L.A. this spring.
CSULA seeks memories from underground music scenes
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published October 31, 2026 5:00 AM
CSULA is seeking memorabilia from LA's underground music scenes for its research archives.
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Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles.
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Topline
There’s a whole world of underground Southern California music history that’s hidden in storage boxes — photos, fliers, cassettes and other memorabilia. Research librarians at the California State University, Los Angeles are holding a community archive event on Nov. 5 to ensure the cultural memory of L.A.’s underground music scenes are preserved for future generations.
Why it matters: The memorabilia are the physical remnants of the supportive L.A. communities built around music and enjoyment. But many of these objects languish out of sight, and run the risk of being lost, along with the memories attached to them.
Why now: For four years, archive staff have held an annual day to receive ephemera from the public. They're doing it again on Thursday, Nov. 5.
Read on… to hear how goth, rockabilly and other underground clubs in L.A. inspired the head archivist.
Right around the year 2000, there was a club night in Hollywood called Clockwork Orange. Fans of The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Bauhaus and other bands came for the DJ’s mix of their favorite songs but also for a vibe that welcomed people regardless of race, ethnicity or sexual and gender identity.
“I was a pretty shy person, and so that was a place where I could sort of be myself and express myself,” said Azalea Camacho, a regular there in those days.
She had just graduated from Workman High School in the City of Industry and was also clubbing at rockabilly music nights in Rosemead and goth club nights in downtown L.A.
Camacho said there was lots of memorabilia from those times, such as photos taken in and outside the clubs, ticket stubs and promotional fliers. They're the physical remnants of those supportive communities built around music and enjoyment, but many of them languish in shoeboxes and storage units, at risk of being lost — along with the memories attached to them.
Cal State LA has hosted Sounds of the Underground Archive for the last four years. It's an opportunity for people to donate their underground music scene memorabilia.
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Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles
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“I think the danger is maybe those stories are not being told, or people don't know about the story,” she said.
Keeping stories alive
More than two decades later, Camacho is now in a position to make sure those stories are kept alive. She’s head of special collections and archives at the university library at California State University, Los Angeles.
Four years ago, she and library staff created an annual day for area residents to donate or digitize memorabilia for their Sounds of the Underground Archive. This year it's on Thursday, Nov. 5. They’ll accept physical donations, but they’ll also have a scanner to digitize printed material, so people can keep items that are precious to them.
SOUNDS OF THE UNDERGROUND ARCHIVE
Date: Thursday, Nov. 5 Time: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m. Location: Cal State LA Library Community Room, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles
Camacho is hoping this year will bring in a bumper amount of memorabilia. It's taken time to get the word out, she said.
“From the actual community archiving day [we’ve collected] maybe 100 or less than 100 items. … It's not a lot,” she said.
She said they're on the lookout for a wide range of mementos, including:
Fliers
Handbills
Zines
Newsletters
Posters
Set lists
Photographs (prints, negatives or digital files)
Cassette tapes, CDs, or vinyl records
Ticket stubs
Wristbands
Band merchandise (stickers, buttons, patches, T-shirts)
DIY press kits or liner notes and correspondence (letters, emails, messages related to music scenes)
Venue or collective ephemera (membership cards, schedules, announcements and more)
