Today in How To LA:
A visa backlog disproportionately affects the AAPI community, growing chocolate in Southern California and celebrating 30 years with Hopeless Records.
Top Story: In Southern California, thousands of immigrant families are waiting to bring loved ones to the U.S. But a severe visa backlog has thrown applicants into limbo, forcing them to wait years… sometimes decades.
My colleague Josie Huang says calls are growing to revamp the visa system.
More news you need to know
Today is Civics Tuesday here at LAist, and we’re digging into visa backlogs disproportionately affecting the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities.
In Southern California, thousands of immigrant families are waiting to bring loved ones to the U.S. But a severe visa backlog has thrown applicants into limbo, forcing them to wait years… sometimes decades.
My colleague Josie Huang says calls are growing to revamp the visa system. She talked to Mina Manzano, a Filipino American who is the sole breadwinner of her family and who is taking care of her elderly father, a disabled husband and a son with a rare genetic disorder who can’t eat on his own.
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Manzano is trying to get her brother to emigrate to the U.S. from the Philippines to assist with care. But about 10 years later, she is still unable to bring him to the States. Read more about it here.
Have a great Tuesday, friends. There’s more news below - just keep reading.
(After you stop hitting snooze)
*At LAist we will always bring you the news freely, but occasionally we do include links to other publications that may be behind a paywall. Thank you for understanding!
Being an emo kid was not a phase for me. I’m a lifelong listener of sad, brooding songs from the early aughts. One of the first record labels I ever associated with the genre is Hopeless Records, and they are celebrating their 30-year anniversary with an exhibit right here in SoCal!
Some of its most well-known acts include Thrice, The Used, Circa Survive, Avenged Sevenfold and Yellowcard. The label was founded by Louis Posen when he was a film student at Cal State Northridge and started out representing punk, ska, metal bands — and later, alternative musicians more broadly.
If you want to see the exhibit, visit the Valley Relics Museum through Jan. 7. Plus, listen to the How To LA episode all about Hopeless Records here. And … I’ll be adding “create a new emo playlist” to my to-do this week!
Got something you’ve always wanted to know about Southern California and the people who call it home? Is there an issue you want us to cover? Ask us anything.
Have a tip about news on which we should dig deeper? Let us know.
Topline:
The Garfield Bulldogs defeated the Roosevelt Rough Riders 28-24 at the 91st East LA Classic.
Why it matters: The event drew crowds in red and gold, blue and white, all there to cheer on their team and claim Eastside bragging rights.
Check out ... some of the night’s best moments. The fans in the stands. The players on the gridiron. The Friday night lights.
The fans in the stands. The players on the gridiron. The Friday night lights.
Those were just some of the scenes inside Weingart Stadium, where the Garfield Bulldogs defeated the Roosevelt Rough Riders 28-24 at the 91st East LA Classic.
The event drew crowds in red and gold, blue and white, all there to cheer on their team and claim Eastside bragging rights.
Here are some of the night’s best moments.
The post The best moments from the 91st East LA Classic appeared first on LA Local.
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.
Most serious claims haven’t materialized: Though federal prosecutors made headlines claiming in court documents 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.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday, Oct. 7 that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles.
The ruling is the latest roadblock to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate — something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support.
Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote.
The order won’t take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal. Essayli said he doesn’t agree with the court’s order. He said the president and Attorney General “have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.”
— Associated Press
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.”
What's next: ¡Sí Se Puede!’s upcoming free shows are:
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.
The next free, family-friendly shows are:
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.
“I think the danger is maybe those stories are not being told, or people don't know about the story,” she said.
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.
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:
