The Brief

Bricia Lopez has spent years inviting friends from Oaxaca to visit her in Los Angeles. Lately, they have declined.

"They say, 'So I can be taken in the streets?'" said Lopez, owner of Guelaguetza, the landmark Oaxacan restaurant in Koreatown. "And I say, 'It's not like that.' But then I think, maybe it is."

Lopez came to Los Angeles from Oaxaca when she was 10, shortly after her parents, Fernando Lopez Sr. and Maria Monterrubio, opened Guelaguetza on Eighth Street in 1994. Growing up undocumented, she was terrified of the police, convinced "everybody was immigration" who could "snatch us up any time." She was naturalized in the early 2000s. When the restaurant outgrew its space and moved to Olympic Boulevard, Lopez worked the floor as a hostess.

Bricia Lopez, owner of Guelaguetza, is hosting a $55 tlayuda experience on Feb. 3 as part of the Anti-ICE Supper Club fundraising series.

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Courtesy Roads & Kingdoms

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In 2012, her father retired and returned to Oaxaca, turning the business over to Bricia and her three siblings. Now running the much-loved institution, Lopez describes herself as "the byproduct of the bravery that my parents had," and said she sees the fear she once felt now reflected in her community.

She's also experiencing its effects at the restaurant. When she started as a hostess, she said parties of 25 to 30 would walk in on any given Sunday. Those gatherings rarely happen anymore — and some of her own staff have even returned to Oaxaca.

That's why on Tuesday, Feb. 3, Guelaguetza will host a tlayuda experience as part of the Anti-ICE Supper Club, a fundraising dinner series launched by Roads & Kingdoms, the Emmy- and James Beard Award-winning travel and media company that was the longtime publishing partner of Anthony Bourdain.

The series, which will expand to Minneapolis, Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., later this year, feels like a continuation of Bourdain's advocacy for immigrant restaurant workers, said Matt Goulding, co-founder of Roads & Kingdoms.

"Bourdain was a very outspoken proponent of the role that Latin American cooks play in the restaurant world in the United States," he said.

All net proceeds will benefit Al Otro Lado, a nonprofit based in San Ysidro that provides free legal support to refugees and immigrants on both sides of the border. Roads & Kingdoms has previously partnered with the organization, Goulding said.

A shared immigrant history

Meanwhile, at the other end of the price spectrum, is the $1,000 per person, 11-course tasting menu being offered on Saturday Jan. 31 by Daniel Patterson, the two-Michelin-star chef behind San Francisco's Coi and co-founder of community-focused fast-food venture LocoL, and his wife Sarah Lewitinn, a music industry veteran known professionally as Ultragrrrl.

The sold-out evening is a spin-off of their popular Jaca Social Club, which regularly seated 14 people at a private residence. By the end of the night, said Lewitinn, the other guests "were not your family when they entered the room, but they're your family when they leave."

Their immigration stories make the cause deeply personal: Patterson's mother's side were Russian Jews escaping pogroms in 1908, while his father's side were Irish potato farmers who immigrated in the early 1900s. Sarah's parents are religious refugees from Egypt, forced to leave in 1956 for being Jewish. Her mother was "brought to tears" watching current events, Sarah said, because "it reminds her a lot about what she experienced as a child."

A dish from chef Daniel Patterson's Jaca Social Club popup, which ran out of his home for four months in 2024. The Anti-ICE dinner will feature an 11-course tasting menu.

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Courtesy Daniel Patterson

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For Patterson, who's been working in restaurants since he was 14, supporting the immigrant workforce isn’t just part of the restaurant industry — it's central to it.

"Restaurants have always been a place where people who don't have a formal education or are new to the country, who need multiple jobs," he said.

Goulding echoed that.

"The movements of ICE disproportionately affect the food world," he said. "The individuals who grow our food, cook our food, serve our food form vital links in the food chain that is at the heart of the daily American diet. And to dismantle that chain is both a terribly inhumane thing and also an incredibly damaging one for our society."

Temperatures are on the rise these next few days and breezy Santa Ana winds are back, triggering wind advisories for some L.A. County mountains.

The warming spreads from the coasts to valleys to the low desert where temperatures will reach the mid-70s up to the low 80s. Downtown Los Angeles, for example, will reach up to 82 degrees.

The Antelope Valley, meanwhile, will stay cooler with max temperatures from 64 to 67 degrees.

And there's a wind advisory out for the Santa Susana, West San Gabriel and the Highway 14 corridor, where wind gusts could reach up to 50 mph. Those conditions are expected to last until 2 p.m.

The U.S. Senate has until Friday night to approve a package of funding measures or else risk another government shutdown. That package includes funding for child care subsidies, Head Start, and other services for young kids.

Senate Democrats have said they oppose the spending measure because it also includes funding the Department of Homeland Security. They want new restrictions on immigration enforcement, and to split it off from the other funding bills in the package in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti by federal officers.

In addition to Head Start and child care, the bills in the six-part package include funding for infant and early childhood mental health, maternal health, and home-heating assistance,

“There is no reason that funding for children, for babies, for meeting their very basic needs should be contingent on whether or not ICE gets funding,” said Melissa Boteach, the chief policy officer at Zero to Three, an advocacy organization for babies and young kids. “[Young kids] are in the most rapid stage of brain development. They have immediate needs that need to be met.”

Head Start disruption: What could happen?

The last government shutdown in the fall lasted 43 days, and several Head Start programs in California nearly closed; at least one temporarily shut its doors. Boteach said there may be a few centers that are immediately affected, and others later on if a shutdown drags on, depending on when the center’s grant cycles starts.

Those most at risk are programs that have a Feb. 1 start date, said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California, of which she estimated there are around 6-10.

Head Start is a federally-funded program that provides early education and other services to children in low-income families. “ For many of these children, these are also the most nutritious meals that they get every day [at Head Start],” Cottrill said.

“It's not guaranteed that they'll close their doors if there is a government shutdown. It really depends on whether they have other funding sources,” she added.

Federal funding for childcare subsidies for low-income children (which is administered through the state) is also part of the funding package. Earlier this month, President Trump said he would freeze that funding to California, though that action has been tied up in court.

“There's already been a good deal of instability in these programs and for families who rely on them and are just hopeful that the Congress can finish this off and, uh, be able to move forward,” said Donna Sneeringer, president of the Child Care Resource Center, which runs Head Starts and child care subsidy programs in the Los Angeles area.

“[Parents] feel very insecure — these temporary pauses… the family's lives don't pause,” said Mary Ignatius, who heads Parent Voices. “ Real harm happens to the child care providers, the families, and the children who cannot afford any delays."

In August 2024, the city of Los Angeles approved an agreement to pay more than a half-billion dollars to resolve a substantial number of schedule and compensation related disputes with the main contractor it hired to design, build and operate the LAX Automated People Mover.

It was thought at the time that some of that money would be passed down to subcontractors who were working on the 2.25-mile long elevated train, which is still scheduled to begin shuttling travelers around airport terminals and to the greater L.A. Metro system later this year.

A year and a half later, a major subcontractor alleges it still hasn’t received a penny of the tens of millions of dollars it says it’s owed from the settlement, which the city funded using public money it generates from airport-related fees and charges.

Early last year, LINXS, the main contractor, initiated a lawsuit blaming the subcontractor, Rosendin Electric, for deficient work. Rosendin Electric has responded in court filings, calling the lawsuit part of LINXS’ scheme to withhold settlement proceeds. The subcontractor has accused LINXS of engaging in “secretive, deceptive and improper conduct” and blocking testimony on key documents.

“Subcontractors whose work generated those funds are entitled to understand and recover their rightful share,” lawyers for Rosendin Electric wrote in court documents from October 2025. “Transparency here is not merely procedural; it is a matter of public trust and legal obligation.”

The design and construction of the train has been rife with disputes between the city and main contractor, leading to cost overruns that have eroded public confidence in the last piece of a rail-only connection to LAX. The case involving Rosendin Electric is one of at least two lawsuits that detail how LINXS’ relationship has frayed with the people the contractor hired to bring the long-awaited train into service.

LAist’s reporting for this story is based on publicly available documents related to the legal battle.

LINXS and Rosendin Electric declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

Jake Adams, deputy executive director overseeing $5.5 billion in LAX upgrades, including the People Mover, said Los Angeles World Airports “provides contract‑level oversight, but does not track how a developer allocates funds internally.“

LINXS sues Rosendin, blaming subcontractor for bad work and delays

Rosendin Electric anticipated completing its role on the project in July 2022, three years after it entered into a nearly $262 million contract with LINXS, according to court documents. LINXS hired the subcontractor to provide the labor, construction and assembly of various electrical components of the project, including the technology that powers the train and fire and life safety systems, according to an excerpt of the subcontract included in court filings.

Rosendin Electric’s lawyers said in court documents that despite “pervasive disruptions,” the subcontractor has continued to work on the project. The subcontractor’s lawyers continued, saying the company “relied on the expectation” that it would receive its “fair share” of any compensation the city provided to LINXS related to project delays.

The company wasn’t alone in expecting the funds to be filtered down.

According to a July 2024 presentation to the Board of Airport Commissioners, city staff said the settlement would be “advantageous” because it would ensure “subcontractors are paid sooner…providing cashflow to facilitate schedule certainty.”

In August 2024, L.A. City Council approved the agreement, known as the global settlement, to cover a wide swath of issues, including timeline, access to the airport’s IT network and compensation.

The settlement was to be paid out in increments as LINXS completed certain project milestones. All of the project milestones have been met except the final one, which is opening the train to the public. So far, that means the city has paid out more than $430 million.

Five months after the settlement was approved, LINXS filed a lawsuit against Rosendin Electric claiming breach of contract.

LINXS, which is a joint venture between four large international engineering and construction companies, alleges in its complaint that Rosendin Electric provided “defective construction services” that “deviated from technical requirements” and caused delays to the project.

Rosendin Electric denies the claims in LINXS’ lawsuit and later filed a cross-complaint.

LINXS’ alleged “secretive, deceptive and improper conduct”

Rosendin Electric claims the legal action LINXS initiated soon after the global settlement agreement was forged amounts to “excuses” that the contractor “began manufacturing” to avoid paying out settlement proceeds.

Among other allegations in its cross-complaint over breach of contract, Rosendin Electric claims LINXS:

• Rejected the idea that the subcontractor is entitled to any amount of the settlement.
• “Embarked on a scheme” to retain all of the settlement proceeds for itself by going after subcontractors who assert a “rightful claim to a share of recovery.”
• Stopped paying Rosendin Electric entirely, including “routine progress payments” unrelated to the settlement. 

In the latest development in the legal battle, Rosendin Electric’s lawyers said LINXS is trying to avoid testifying about two documents that “conclusively demonstrate that (Rosendin Electric) is entitled to prompt payment of tens of millions of dollars” from the settlement.

Another subcontractor sued

Within a month after the 2024 settlement was secured and before its legal action against Rosendin Electric, LINXS had also sued the design and engineering firm it hired in 2018 for breach of contract.

In its September 6, 2024 complaint, LINXS alleges that HDR overcharged for its services and produced work that “deviated from technical requirements.” That subcontractor denied the claims and later issued a cross-complaint, alleging LINXS owes more than $57 million for the work it’s done on the project.

Rosendin Electric’s lawyers called into question the timing of the lawsuit against HDR.

“LINXS could only advance this position after securing the LAWA Settlement because claims of fundamental design defects by its own design team would otherwise have provided LAWA with powerful defenses against LINXS’ claims for delay and compensation,” lawyers for the company have argued.

Both cases are ongoing.

After coming close to closing permanently just a few years ago, the historic Bob Baker Marionette Theater is about to have its biggest year yet.

In April, the 63-year-old puppet theater is set to perform at Coachella, the same week as its 12th annual Bob Baker Day festival. And in May, it will premiere Choo Choo Revue, their first fully original show in over 40 years.

Everything kicked off this past weekend with the premiere of Hooray LA!, marking the beginning of what the nonprofit theater’s leadership is calling a “milestone” year.

After a 'rough year for LA,' Bob Baker says, 'Hooray LA!'

Hooray LA! is a celebration of Los Angeles that was first performed in 1981. It was the last original show produced by the theater’s founder, Bob Baker, who passed away at age of 90 in 2014.

When the show was revived in 2024, it was updated to better reflect the diversity of L.A. history, with additions like a Grizzly Bear named Huunot and a rainbow trout named Wiggles explaining the significance of the L.A. River to the Gabrieleño Tongva people.

Huunot is a puppet featured in "Hooray LA!"

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The Bob Baker Marionette Theater

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This year, the show is back with even more new elements to celebrate L.A.

The theater’s co-executive director and artistic director Alex Evans says, “Last year was a very rough year for Los Angeles and we thought it was a perfect time to mount the show and celebrate everything that's special about the city.”

The new additions include Mexican hat dancers, a marimba player and a mariachi band with costumes modeled on the local LGBTQ+ mariachi band, Mariachi Arcoiris.

The first fully original show in 40 years

The theater is also now in preparation mode for Choo Choo Revue, which has been in the works for the past five years.

The idea is that the audience is on a train ride across America, looking out the window and having their imaginations sparked by things like a giant moose singing about the Pacific Northwest, glow in the dark bats, trees on skis and a sea lion singing a sea shanty.

“This is the first time,” Evans says, “that we have the resources, the support of the community — we had an incredible fundraising campaign at the end of last year — so we have truly just hit this milestone of being able to do it,  and it is tons of work and tons of money to put on a puppet show, and we’re so proud that we’re at that juncture now."

Back from the brink, and thriving

The milestone is all the more significant considering where The Bob Baker Theater was in 2020, along with so many other live performance venues.

Just four months after opening their new Highland Park location (after losing their original theater in Westlake/Echo Park), the pandemic shut them down. They pivoted to socially distant shows, created walk-through experiences for small groups and did performances online, but that wasn’t enough to keep things running.

So they made a public plea for $365,000 to stay open for a year, and Fagot says the community "turned up, and we had the support that we needed [...] in less than a month.”

That led to “a lightbulb moment” for the theater’s leadership, where they realized, “This isn't just about scraping by and trying to keep this alive. This is about building something for the future of the city because the community wants it.”

And all the big things happening for the theater this year, Fagot says, “ that's thanks to the support of the community here in L.A. and reflective of their desire for us to thrive and survive.”