The Brief

Growing up in Santa Clarita, Ellie Magsaysay was one of the few Asian American kids in her neighborhood, and certainly one of the few Filipino Americans. Some people seemed confused by her background, she said, and assumed she wasn’t Asian.

It’s affected her sense of identity and, at times, her self-esteem. Was being Filipina or having darker skin, she wondered, why boys didn’t seem interested?

“I remember just vividly experiencing not being the ideal type as an Asian and not being an ideal type as a white person or anything else,” Magsaysay said. “It’s like where do you really fit in?”

It’s one of the questions Magsaysay, an incoming senior, got to explore in a peer-to-peer program promoting mental health awareness among younger Filipino Americans.

Faciliator Jeslyn Cortel works with Mary-Clare De Los Reyes, 14, and Tala Ancheta, 15, as they fill out their Walang Hiya or Without Shame workbook.

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Over a couple of weeks during the summer, a dozen people met regularly in Historic Filipinotown in a light-filled multipurpose room at Search To Involve Pilipino Americans, which developed the program.

A handful of college-age facilitators trained by the community organization taught eight teenage students about signs of depression and anxiety — and ways to cope through journaling and breathing exercises.

Ethan Munsayac, a student at UC-Davis, (l.) volunteered to be a facilitator working with teen participants such as Mary-Clare De Los Reyes.

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But just as Asian Americans are incredibly diverse, so are the mental health needs of different ethnicities. The facilitators made sure to discuss issues familiar to the Filipino diaspora such as colorism and cultural expectations. One exercise had the teens thinking up of comebacks to harmful statements like “I can only be a nurse to be successful.”

A suggested counter-statement? "I can be an actress to be successful.”

'Not Filipino enough'

The name of the program is called Walang Hiya, which translates to “shameless” or “without shame.”

“What's funny is that the saying in Tagalog is actually kind of derogatory,” said Kevin Sandoval Casasola, youth development coordinator for Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.

The organization, which offers youth leadership training and afterschool programs among its services, created Walang Hiya to help teens who may be struggling with the stress of being bicultural. Three years into running the program and refining it with tweaks, the group hopes to share the curriculum with more Filipino American communities outside of Historic Filipinotown.

Teens at the Walang Hiya program fill out a workbook that contains exercises on mental health awareness that are also specific to the Filipino American experience.

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The highly participatory program requires teens to draw from their own experiences in group exercises.

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“We really want to reclaim the notion of living without shame towards mental health, for the experiences we have as Filipinos, Filipino Americans,” Casasola said.

Casasola says a lot of that shame is rooted in a colonial past. The teens hear about how Spain ruled the Philippines for more than 300 years, followed by a U.S. occupation that lasted nearly 50 years. Western customs and beauty standards took hold. Speaking English was prized.

Rocks with affirmations created by participants of the Walang Hiya program.

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When Filipinos emigrated to the U.S., many didn’t teach Tagalog to their kids. That was Casasola’s experience.

“But you're kind of looked down upon if you don't speak the language,” Casasola said. “We recognize through this program, as students talk to one another, that something that's shared — this feeling of not being Filipino enough.”

Sharing space

Casasola said it’s a commonly-felt sentiment in L.A. County, home to more than 300,000 Filipino Americans. Households can be spread out. Some young people grow up feeling removed from their Filipino heritage.

“Having a space with lots of other Filipino Americans, that's something I haven't really had very much before,” said Tala Ancheta, one of the teen participants.

Ancheta said speaking about mental health issues with teens from the same background came easily.

Posters hung for the Walang Hiya program lay out ground rules for group discussions.

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The program takes place in a building of the Search to Involve Pilipino Americans in Historic Filipinotown.

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“I want to know what people are going through, or what they could be going through, and how I may be able to help,” Ancheta said.

Her father Mark Ancheta said he and his wife were happy to ferry their daughter from their home in Manhattan Beach to L.A. several times a week because the program teaches teens about mental health through a cultural lens.

Tala Ancheta, 15, says the program has allowed her to share space with other Filipino Americans her age -- something she doesn't get to do often.

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MJ Manalo, 16, says the Walang Hiya program is teaching her "self-regulation and de-stressing" which will be vital when school starts up again.

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He wants her to be able to articulate her emotions — not to feel pressure to put on outward appearances as they had growing up in their families.

"They boast about success all the time but of course, we're not going to talk about struggles," Mark Ancheta said.

Graduation day

At the end of two weeks together, teens who started out as strangers now have a shared vocabulary about mental health.

On their last day, they each wrote an affirmation to read after they receive a certificate of completion in front of an audience of family members. Ancheta strode to the front of the room to share hers.

At the end of the Walang Hiya program, parents are invited to come and learn what their children have learned about throughout the two week course meant to increase self-awareness through a lens of social justice.

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“I am extraordinary,” she said to applause while giving herself a hand.

Ellie Magsaysay had written her affirmation in big bold pink letters, underlined for emphasis. She said she better understands how Filipino history has shaped cultural norms. But they don’t define her.

Mary Ellie Magasaysay, 17, writes affirmations next to her sister and father on the last day of the Walang Hiya program.

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Mary Ellie Magsaysay writes affirmations on the last day of the program.

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“I wrote that I am smart, I am strong, I am beautiful,” Magsaysay said — words she’ll try to live by after she leaves these four walls.

It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.

“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.

Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.

The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.

“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.

A second-generation welder

Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.

The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.

“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.

Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.

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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.

LA civic pride travels to Japan

Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.

“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.

For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.

Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.

While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.

“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.

The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”

“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”

The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”

Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.

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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.

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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.

Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.

All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.

Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.

A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.

“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too.
It's beautiful.”

Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.

“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”

While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.

Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.

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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”

While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”

Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.

“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”

A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.

The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.

The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.

It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.

"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.

People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.

The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.

Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.

And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.

"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."

A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.

"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.

Here's a preview:

A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.

A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.

Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.

Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.

“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”

Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.

Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.

A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.

The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.

A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.

Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.

Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.

“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”