The Brief

For some who lived on the streets of Los Angeles, Inside Safe was a lifesaver — giving them a roof over their head for the first time in years, then helping them find a permanent home.

For others, it was a major disappointment.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is banking on her Inside Safe initiative to help her solve the largest homelessness crisis in California. The program, which brings people from encampments into hotels until housing becomes available, has moved hundreds of Angelenos into permanent homes.

But hundreds more have gone from those hotels back to life on the street.

Nearly two years in, the program is successful enough that it spawned a copycat county-wide effort. Yet it has not affected the vast majority of the nearly 30,000 Angelenos who sleep outside. A lack of long-term housing and a shortage of health care, mental health and addiction services remain huge obstacles, as does the program’s high price tag.

“Lots of people that have been brought inside under Inside Safe, and that’s great,” said John Maceri, chief executive officer of The People Concern, a nonprofit that runs two Inside Safe hotels. “We still struggle with the exit strategy: Where are people going to move to?”

Proponents say data proves the model works: Overall homelessness dropped slightly in the city of Los Angeles in 2024, and the number of people sleeping on the city’s streets is down 10%.

“Homelessness in LA is down for the first time in years,” Gabby Maarse, spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass, said in an email. “ The progress made by a new comprehensive strategy, which includes Inside Safe, is a marked improvement since before the mayor took office and she will not be satisfied until street homelessness is ended.”

But the newer county-run copycat program, called Pathway Home, appears to be connecting people with services and permanent housing more quickly — suggesting there are ways the city program could continue to improve.

How LA’s program has improved, and where it still lags

Inside Safe is supposed to be an alternative to the aggressive, law enforcement-heavy sweeps ramping up since the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled cities are free to ban camping even if they have no shelters. More than a dozen California cities already have passed new anti-camping ordinances or updated existing ordinances to make them more punitive.

Mayor Bass publicly eschewed that strategy, and as of July, police had made no arrests during Inside Safe operations, according to the city. Even so, a report by Human Rights Watch earlier this year accused LA of not doing enough to protect the rights of its unhoused residents.

Bass launched Inside Safe in December 2022. Seven months later, CalMatters reported that fewer than 6% of the people who moved into Inside Safe hotels later went into permanent housing. People living in the hotels weren’t getting the help they needed accessing everything from medical care to mental health and addiction services — something Bass acknowledged at the time was a problem.

“It was a little chaotic when it first started,” said Maceri.

Tents line the streets of the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles on Oct. 8, 2024.

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There has been improvement since then, but challenges remain. To date, Inside Safe has cleared 67 encampments and moved 3,254 people into hotels — nearly 23% of whom have gone on to permanent housing.

That improvement from 6% to 23% is “great,” said Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who has hosted more than two dozen Inside Safe operations in his district. “But it’s obviously not where anybody wants to see it. At the end of the day, interim is interim and permanent is permanent. We want to see folks permanently housed.”

As of July, more people had returned to homelessness from Inside Safe than were permanently housed at the time — 819 compared to 650.

Getting medical and mental health care, addiction treatment and other resources inside the hotels is still an issue, as service providers continue to struggle with staffing shortages, Maceri said. But it’s gotten “a little bit easier.” The county now sets up resource fairs at the hotels. The mayor appointed Dr. Etsemaye Agonafer as the city’s first deputy mayor of homelessness and community health, tasked with coordinating those services. The mayor also brought in USC and UCLA’s street medicine teams to provide services at the hotels.

It’s still not enough, said Tescia Uribe, chief program officer for the nonprofit PATH, which operates three Inside Safe and three Pathway Home hotels. They have clients with severe mental health and addiction issues who need intensive care.

“We are absolutely not set up for that,” Uribe said.

In some cases, living in a hotel room behind a closed door actually allows people’s problems — such as domestic violence between a couple living together, or substance use — to escalate into a crisis, because staff don’t see what’s happening in time to intervene, she said.

Cost is another huge obstacle for the program: The hotel rooms cost the city an average of $121 per night, and it’s unclear for how long the city will be willing and able to keep paying that. The city bought one hotel in an effort to mitigate those expenses, and is looking into buying additional sites.

“The challenge ahead is about what is the next step?” said Councilmember Nithya Raman.

‘Ready to go:’ One woman’s experience with Inside Safe

When 51-year-old Shameka Foster moved from her tent on Skid Row into an Inside Safe hotel in October 2023, she was happy to be off the street.

A chef who makes vegan meats and cheeses from scratch, and who also works at a Skid Row nonprofit helping other unhoused people, Foster thought she’d be in a hotel for three to six months before she found permanent housing. Instead, she’s been in the program a year.

“(I’m) just ready to go,” she said. “Been ready, but I feel like it’s time now, like it’s past time.”

Shameka Foster outside the Los Angeles Community Action Network offices near where she used to pitch a tent in the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles on Oct. 8, 2024.

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Foster’s time in the hotel hasn’t always been easy. She’s had multiple bad or humiliating experiences — such as when a staff member walked into her room while she was changing, when the nurse in the hotel wouldn’t give her her blood pressure medication, or when she got food poisoning from a breakfast served, she said. There’s a long list of rules that she sometimes chafes under: Guests aren’t allowed, for example, and residents can’t get fresh toilet paper rolls after 2 p.m., she said. Foster doesn’t know how to access the counseling she wants to help her process the stress and trauma of everything she’s been through in the past few years.

“I’ve been going through it and shedding a lot of tears,” Foster said, “getting angry and stuff, and sick, humiliated, and just treated like I wasn’t a human.”

Her journey into housing has been frustrating, too. Whenever Foster had a question, such as how to apply or what next steps she should take, her case managers never knew the answer, she said. It took six months for her even to be matched with a housing navigator who had more expertise, she said.

Eventually, she took matters into her own hands, applied for an apartment in a newly constructed building, pestered the manager with emails and showed up at the building’s ribbon cutting.

Management at the building told her she should be able to move in by the end of the month. But she’s trying not to get her hopes up.

A tale of two encampment programs

Eight months after the city of LA launched Inside Safe, LA County kicked off its copycat program, dubbed Pathway Home. The approach was basically the same: Clear encampments throughout LA County, move the occupants into hotels, and then move them from there into permanent housing.

But the county learned from the city’s challenges. Before the county removes an encampment through Pathway Home, it makes sure it has enough rental subsidies for every camp occupant who is expected to need one. As a result, people are getting housed faster.

The nonprofit The People Concern runs two city hotels and one county hotel. People stay at the city hotels an average of 240 days, according to Maceri. At the county hotel, it’s just 99 days.

Nonprofit PATH, which operates three city and three county hotels, sees a similar disparity. And people in the county program also are more likely to get permanent housing. Just 36% of those who moved out of PATH’s city-sponsored hotels went into permanent housing, compared to 63% of those who moved out of the county-sponsored hotels, according to the nonprofit.

The county’s program is smaller than the city’s. Pathway Home has moved 145 people into permanent housing so far, while Inside Safe has moved 741.

It’s also easier for residents in the county hotels to access resources such as mental health care because the county is the one running those programs, according to Maceri and Uribe. When the county clears an encampment through Pathway Home, everything from animal control to the department of mental health has staff on site, Uribe said. That’s incredibly helpful, she said, because people are connected with those services from the beginning.

“The county, definitely, they bring the resources,” Uribe said. “It is very different.”

Some cities have said no to those resources. City councils in West Covina and Norwalk both voted down the county’s proposals to open Pathway Home hotels there, after a backlash from the community.

But the program made a big difference in Signal Hill, a tiny city of fewer than 12,000 people near Long Beach. In March, LA County helped Signal Hill move about 45 people from encampments directly into permanent housing.

As a result, the city achieved the elusive white whale status of “functional zero,” which means it has the ability to quickly find housing for anyone who becomes homeless.

“Immediately after the operation we had zero, literally zero, because everyone we knew was housed, including people living in cars,” said Signal Hill City Manager Carlo Tomaino. “That was literally everybody.”

The city had started trying to move people indoors a year earlier, and its outreach team had developed relationships with everyone living on the street, Tomaino said. But Signal Hill, which has no homeless shelters of its own, wouldn’t have been able to house everyone without the county’s resources.

The city has kept its functional zero status since then.

One couple falls through the cracks; someone else gets housing

LA County launched its Pathway Home program in August 2023 by clearing an encampment known as The Dead End along a cul-de-sac in unincorporated Lennox, near the airport. The operation moved 59 people indoors.

On a recent Tuesday more than a year later, that stretch of road was empty — no tents in sight.

But nearby, a handful of people had pitched tents under the 405 Freeway overpass. Perched on a milk crate on a hill above those tents, 52-year-old Jennifer Marzette ate Burger King for lunch with her partner, Enrique Beltran, as cars whizzed by.

The couple lived at The Dead End encampment off and on for about eight years. But when county workers came to move the camp’s residents into a hotel, Marzette and Beltran were told they weren’t on the list, Marzette said. She speculates they probably weren’t at their tent when staff first came by to collect names.

Jennifer Marzette and her partner Enrique Beltran kiss each other while in a cove under the 405 freeway in Inglewood on Oct. 8, 2024.

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So they’re still sleeping on the street, now a few blocks away from their former camp. They’ve been trying to get into housing or a shelter program together, but have had multiple false starts. They got a housing voucher, but it expired in January, before they could find an apartment that would take it, Marzette said.

In February or March, they were told they could move into a “family room” at Exodus Recovery’s “Safe Landing” shelter, she said. But they were two hours late to their appointment (the complexities of life on the street sometimes make it hard to get to places on time, Marzette said) and lost the spot. Then, earlier this month, a caseworker said they would get a room at a local hotel. That fell through, Marzette said, and she suspects it’s because they found out she was arrested for domestic violence and jailed briefly in December, over what she says was a misunderstanding during an argument with Beltran.

“I was crying the other day,” she said, as she recounted all of the missed opportunities for someone to help her. “I felt like…that’s just how it goes.”

Chris Felts had a much different experience. He was homeless for two decades, sleeping on sidewalks and in parks, or in doorways when it rained. The 68-year-old had tried several times to get into housing, but it always took so long that he got discouraged and gave up. In February, the county moved him into a hotel in Santa Monica through Pathway Home. Then, in June, he got his very own studio apartment, subsidized with a rental voucher.

Now, he’s re-learning how to live indoors. He’s practicing his cooking and trying to take care of his health by walking between 5,000 and 7,500 steps a day in his neighborhood.

But the best part, Felts said, is finally having privacy.

“I have a chance to just be by myself,” he said. “When you’re homeless you don’t really have that opportunity. There’s always going to be people around.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using spyware tools that can intercept encrypted messages as part of the agency's efforts to disrupt fentanyl traffickers, according to a letter sent last week by the agency's acting director, Todd Lyons.

Lyons' letter, which was reviewed by NPR, said ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is using various tools as part of its mission to disrupt and dismantle foreign terrorist organizations "particularly those involved in the trafficking of fentanyl."

Lyons wrote "in response to the unprecedented lethality of fentanyl and the exploitation of digital platforms by transnational criminal organizations" he approved HSI's "use of cutting-edge technological tools that address the specific challenges posed by the Foreign Terrorist Organizations' thriving exploitation of encrypted communication platforms."

His letter, dated April 1, was a belated response to an October inquiry from three Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform expressing concern about the agency's potential use of the spyware Graphite, which was created by an Israeli company, Paragon Solutions.

The letter is the first time ICE has indicated it is using Graphite. The agency initially signed a $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions for an unspecified software product at the end of the Biden administration. But the contract was swiftly paused until it was revived by the Trump administration last fall.

Graphite uses what is known as "zero click" technology so that it can gain access to encrypted messages on a targeted device even if the user never clicks on a link.

The encrypted messaging app WhatsApp disclosed last year that it discovered some 90 journalists and members of civil society in various countries were targeted with Graphite. Researchers at The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy later identified specific journalists and humanitarian aid providers in Italy whose devices were infected with Graphite through WhatsApp messages. Paragon ended its contract with Italian government agencies in 2025.

Lyons' confirmation that the agency is using spyware comes as ICE has ramped up its use of surveillance technologies to find people in the U.S. without authorization as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign. Those tools have also been used extensively on American citizens who have protested ICE's activities. The revelation also comes shortly before Congress is set to debate whether to reauthorize a surveillance law, and whether to close a legal loophole that allows the federal government to buy data about millions of Americans in bulk from commercial data brokers.

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., one of the authors of the October letter asking for answers about ICE's use of spyware, told NPR in a statement, "The response I received from ICE makes one thing clear. They are moving forward with invasive spyware technology inside the United States."

Lee expressed disappointment that Lyons did not provide substantive answers to her questions, including who could be targeted with the technology and the legal basis for using it within the United States.

"The people most at risk, including immigrants, Black and brown communities, journalists, organizers, and anyone speaking out against government abuse, deserve more than secrecy and deflection from an agency with a long record of overreach and abuse," Lee's statement said.

Lyons' letter said any use of the tool "will comply with constitutional requirements" and will be coordinated with the ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor.

The Paragon Solutions' contract was initially put on hold in 2024 to review its compliance with an executive order then-President Joe Biden signed in 2023 that bars the use of commercial spyware that poses a national security risk to the United States or poses a risk to be misused by foreign governments.

Lyons wrote in his letter that in accordance with the 2023 executive order, he had "certified that HSI's operational use of the specific tool does not pose significant security or counterintelligence risks, or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person."

Paragon Solutions was purchased by an American private investment firm AE Industrial Partners in late 2024, which merged with the cybersecurity company REDLattice. Neither AE Partners or REDLattice returned NPR's request for comment.

Lyons' response alarmed civil liberties advocates who worry about the potential for ICE to abuse the tool and use it against targets beyond drug traffickers and terrorists.

"The biggest concern now is that Lyons' response doesn't rule out ICE using an administrative subpoena to deploy this malware against people living in the United States as part of their ideological battle against constitutionally protected protest," said Cooper Quintin, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital privacy.

"An extremely invasive surveillance capability such as this should require the strongest judicial oversight and confirmation that such intrusion is necessary and [a] proportionate response to the crime being investigated," Quintin said.

Maria Villegas Bravo, a lawyer with the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the U.S. does not have sufficient regulations in place "to stop the U.S. government from abusing Constitutional and human rights in the process of using this technology."

In response to an NPR inquiry to the Department of Homeland Security about its use of Graphite and the concerns raised, a DHS official who did not identify themselves wrote, "DHS is a law enforcement agency. ICE is no different. Employing various forms of technology in support of investigations and law enforcement activities aids in the arrest of criminal gang members, child sex offenders, murderers, drug dealers, identity thieves and more, all while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests."

Villegas Bravo said that by paying for Graphite, the U.S. is helping to bolster the market for technologies that are being exploited by foreign governments to undermine the privacy of messaging applications and carry out invasive surveillance of phones.

"This is a grave national security risk because it weakens American critical infrastructure, including our telecommunications networks," Villegas Bravo said.
Copyright 2026 NPR

New research is backing up what many residents in the Vernon area have already feared: the Exide cleanup is missing a lot of lead.

UC Irvine researchers found excessive lead in the area 11 years after the battery plant closed, as well as evidence that the remediation area may need to be expanded.

Lead is a toxic metal that can cause short- and long-term health effects, including neurological and reproductive changes. Exposure is especially dangerous for children and pregnant people.

A brief history of the Exide cleanup

Exide Technologies operated the 15-acre smelting facility in Vernon between 1922 and 2015. It processed 11 million auto batteries a year, releasing an estimated 3,500 tons of lead into the surrounding communities of Maywood, East Los Angeles, Commerce, Bell and Huntington Park.

After the federal government shuttered the plant over hazardous waste violations, California declared it an environmental disaster. It has since spent more than $750 million so far cleaning up the site and residential homes. The remediation zone was set at a 1.7-mile radius around the facility.

As of March 27, over 6,000 properties have been cleaned, according to the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control, which oversees the effort.

Residents have complained for years about issues with the process and its thoroughness. Even though homes were deemed clean, investigations have found excessive lead on the grounds. Contractors have also reportedly violated state standards for soil removal and environmental regulations with toxic dust spread.

Key findings

Jill Johnston, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at UC Irvine and lead author, said this is the  first peer-reviewed study looking at the problem and how it extends beyond the remediation zone.

Between October 2021 and September 2024, the researchers worked with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice to collect more than 1,000 soil samples from 373 residential properties.

This figure shows the approximate locations of residential soil samples collected for the study.

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More than two thirds of samples from remediated homes still had over 80 ppm of lead, the state’s threshold for use, with 19% of those samples reaching over 200 ppm.

The study also looked at neighborhoods outside the state’s defined cleanup area. Nearly 90% of those sampled homes were beyond acceptable levels. Seven in 10 homes had at least one sample above 200 ppm, according to the findings.

The study suggests two things for remediated homes — either contaminated soil wasn’t fully removed, and/or it was recontaminated by historically present lead, like that in paint or freeway exhaust particles.

“ We don’t think that if you adequately remove the soil from the home, that we should be seeing this much recontamination just from lead paint that’s on the exterior of the house,” Johnston said.

Another author on the study, East Yard’s mark! Lopez, an  Eastside community organizer, said the research helps affected residents, many of whom are predominantly Latino, fight against  environmental racism.

“ We’re bringing the personal narrative, the collective experience, peer review data to the table," he said. "It’s an extra layer of credibility to be able to really push the agency to do right, to push the state to do right by our communities.”

LAist has reached out to the California Department of Toxic Substances Control for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication. We’ll update this story once it’s received.

The L.A. County Department of Public Health, which participates on the Exide Technical Advisory Committee (a public forum for residents and agencies to communicate about the cleanup), said in a statement the study matters from a public health perspective.

“The findings underscore the importance of continued evaluation of cleanup effectiveness, consideration of post-remediation testing and ongoing efforts to reduce exposure,” the department added.

Calling for change

The study makes multiple policy change suggestions — some of which have already been implemented, such as third-party monitoring of cleanup crews.

East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice is calling for expanded remediation beyond the 1.7-mile boundary. They also want a commitment to resampling every cleaned up home, and if needed, correcting lead problems. He wants those results to be shared with communities in a timely manner.

As of 2025, Johnston said all new homes are getting cleaned and are getting retested. For homes cleaned prior to that, a sample of homes are being rechecked.

In mid-March, the cast and crew behind a new play about the life of labor leader Dolores Huerta and the rise of the farmworker movement were preparing for their debut.

Then, on March 18 — the last day of the production’s tech rehearsal — the New York Times published an investigation into United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez detailing allegations that he sexually abused and raped girls and women. Huerta wrote in a statement that Chavez had coerced her into sex on one occasion and forced her to have sex on another. She said she got pregnant each time and hid the pregnancies.

“Hearing the news and reading it, I was in absolute tears,” said director Sara Guerrero. “I didn't know what to expect.”

She wondered if the play, ¡Sí Se Puede!, would be pulled before it had a chance to begin.

“What would be the best way to continue to elevate this woman who endured a lot?” Guerrero said.

The answer Guerrero and the rest of the cast and crew landed on reflects a struggle for many since the allegations against Chavez were published. How do you square the gains of a movement that humanized and improved the lives of farmworkers — led by a man who inspired generations of activists — with the harm done by that same leader?

The origin of '¡Sí Se Puede!'

Today, Center Theatre Group is most known for the shows hosted at its flagship downtown L.A. theaters and in Culver City, but decades ago, the organization toured.

“We have to exist outside of the institutions, otherwise we’re not part of the global citizenship,” said Jesus Reyes, director of learning and community partnerships. “ There's so many young people and older people who have lost touch with art … So it's also our responsibility to put it out there.”

Director Sara Guerrero (left) and Playwright Eliana Pipes stand in front of the set for "¡Sí Se Puede!." Both have longstanding ties to L.A.'s theatre community.

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Center Theatre Group commissioned an all-ages play about Huerta from writer Eliana Pipes in March 2025 to kickstart a pilot program that would bring shows to lesser-known regional venues.

Pipes devoured documentaries, books and conducted her own interviews with people connected to the farmworker movement.

“There's this perception that farm work was only done by men,” Pipes said. “But… 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.”

A necessary pivot

On the day the New York Times' investigation published, Guerrero got together with Pipes and others from Center Theatre Group to discuss how to move forward.

“ What really stood out to us was that we had always intended to elevate the story and call to action of Dolores Huerta,” Guerrero said.

The United Farm Workers' grape boycotts depicted in the play are credited with helping the union win contracts with growers and eliminate the use of certain pesticides.

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The decision: Chavez would remain a minor character — albeit with fewer lines. Pipes re-typed the play and drove to the final rehearsal at East Los Angeles College. She pulled over once to cry.

The cast performed a dress rehearsal for an audience of ELAC students.

“There were some tears, there was a lot of laughter and celebration, and I think it felt really healing for everybody to get to celebrate her, especially in this moment,” Pipes said.

El Teatro Campesino

¡Sí Se Puede! also highlights farmworker leaders like Larry Itliong, who’d organized Filipino farmworkers for years before Huerta and Chavez started working with Mexican laborers. Filipino farmworkers, historically less visible, started the 1965 Delano Grape Strike and Itliong later became a leader in United Farm Workers under Chavez.

The language of the play — English, Spanish and Tagalog — and the production design reflect the culture of the farmworker movement, incorporating a style of skits performed for farmworkers from the backs of flatbed trucks.

“El Teatro Campesino was not just entertainment, but it was also an organizing tool,” Pipes said. “The actors that they put on were meant to educate farm workers on the fields about their rights and incentivize them to join the strike.”

This El Teatro Campesino workbook belonged to Pipes’ grandmother who met Huerta through United Farm Workers meetings hosted at Santa Monica’s Unitarian Universalist Community Church.

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The style of El Teatro Campesino is big and theatrical. The politician character's devil mask is also a nod to the archetypes often found in the style's skits.

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Pipes was also tasked with translating the complexities of the farmworker movement into a narrative appropriate for all ages.

Sometimes that meant taking a few creative liberties with the character’s personal traits, like swapping Itliong’s trademark cigar for a lollipop.

More difficult was acknowledging the sometimes violent backlash the farmworkers faced. For example, a police attack on United Farm Worker demonstrators in San Francisco in 1988 left Huerta, then 58, with a ruptured spleen and fractured ribs.

“I think sometimes TYA — theater for young audiences — and for families has a reputation for being sort of toothless or apolitical,” Pipes said. “This piece does have something to say and it says it loud and proud. And even though it's in an age appropriate way, we never shy away from acknowledging the injustices that women face in the movement.”

“¡Sí Se Puede!" opens by asking the audience to think about the origin of their food before diving into the history of farm work in California. Juan De La Cruz plays several roles in the show, including a grape harvester.

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The "capitalist pig" is another archetype of El Teatro Campesino. Sol Joun plays the grower and several other roles in "¡Sí Se Puede!"

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In one scene, a TV broadcaster interviews Huerta and Chavez  at the terminus of the 1966 farmworker march from Delano to Sacramento.

“ I'm here at the State Capitol with Cesar Chavez and his secretary, Dolores Huerta — could you grab me a cup of coffee sweetheart?” the broadcaster asks.

When Huerta asserts herself as a co-founder of the union, the broadcaster calls her Chavez’s “sidekick.”

“It's so hard not to be heard,” Huerta’s character reflects after the interview ends. “Even in my own movement, some of the campesinos can't stand listening to women  and I try to pick my battles, but God, sometimes it feels like I'm battling a fight on two fronts.”

How audiences are reacting to the show

Center Theatre Group retains the right to produce the play in the greater Los Angeles area, but the play is available for anyone to produce elsewhere.

“ I would love to see it across the country, and particularly in places that have a long history with the farm workers movement, like Arizona, Texas,” Pipes said. “But I would love this play in every city, in every state.”

At the end of the show, the actors asked everyone in the audience to close their eyes and think about their personal answer to "What is the change you want to make in the world?"

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The show’s initial 10-show run included libraries, recreation centers, schools and Boyle Heights City Hall.

The Toxqui family drove from Pomona and sat front and center for the April 2 show.

Mom Noelle said her great-grandfather worked in the orange groves.

 “It's something that's important to me and my own family history,” she said. “[I have] the desire for my kids to understand the fights that have happened before them and that will continue to happen.”

Izel Toxqui (center), 8,  said she felt inspired after watching the show. Her 4-year-old sister Ameli said she liked how Huerta helped people get food when they were hungry. “Ese parte me gusta que cuando ella estaba luchando por sus derechos,” she added, saying she liked that Huerta fought for their rights.

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Ruffy Landayan came to support friends in the cast, but left with a deeper understanding of the farm worker movement he “barely” learned about as a San Bernardino high school student.

“[The play is] about history, but it also felt very current because it is really current,” Landayan said. “That's when I realized the power of theater.”

The show also affirmed the experiences of people familiar with the movement.

Raul Cardona has worked with El Teatro Campesino since the 2000s and is a community organizer in East L.A.

“ There's a place for everyone in the revolution,” Cardona said. “If you don't belong to an organization, find one that you stand with and become part of it. The work needs to be done and it's not gonna do itself.”