The Brief

Los Angeles might be a melting pot of ethnicities, cultures and communities, but for some, living in the United States can still be a challenge — especially if they don’t fit within someone else’s narrow definition of what it means to be an “American.”

Wrapping up 'Being American'

Last Thanksgiving, my colleague Leslie Berestein Rojas wanted to hear what Angelenos had to say about their experiences navigating their American identity. Since then, she’s edited several stories that define and illustrate the American experience. Those stories became our “Being American” series.

On Friday, the series ended with the fascinating story of Arnulfo Puentes, an Angeleno who started off as a hard-working shoeshine boy from Mexico and eventually became the president of A&A Aerospace, Inc.

I recently chatted with Leslie about her thoughts now that the "Being American" series has winded down:

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Aaricka: Why did you start this series? 

Leslie: So between 2020 and 2021 I edited a very similar series called “Race In L.A.,” in which members of our audience wrote personal essays about how their race and/or ethnicity shaped their lived experience here in L.A. One of the strongest themes I kept noticing was this question of “Americanness” — so many people talked about being viewed from the outside as never “American enough,” because of things like their perceived national origin, the color of their skin, their last names. And I felt there was another series to be done here, where we could redefine “Americanness” as it really is here in this city, a city of immigrants and migrants. “American” is not a race, or an ethnicity, or a birthplace. It’s something far bigger and more fluid. So we sent a callout to our audience, lots of people wrote in, and some wound up writing essays for us. And for the past year or so, I’ve been working with them to edit these great, deeply personal essays.

Aaricka: What were some perspectives people shared that we don’t usually hear? 

Leslie: First, the range of perspectives from the contributors has really been as diverse as L.A., everyone’s story is different. One perspective I loved including was migrants to L.A. have come from within our own borders. For example, a few weeks ago, contributor Mark Broyard wrote about how his family and a wave of other Creole families left New Orleans in the early 60s, leaving what was still a segregated South, and turned part of Jefferson Boulevard into the center of Creole L.A. Another contributor, Kylowna Moton, traced her family’s L.A. roots to the Great Migration long ago, when Black Americans left the South seeking safety and freedom, much in the way that refugees from other parts of the world do today.

I wish I could list them all here — each story is fascinating in its own way. They show us so many facets of what being and becoming American is through the eyes of folks who make L.A. what it is.

Aaricka: What is your biggest takeaway from this series?

Leslie: There are rich stories, expertise and perspectives that reaching out to our audience like this gives us a window to, and that we may not hear otherwise. Another takeaway from this series is that we have this wonderfully engaged audience that’s always ready and willing to think about the themes we put out there, whether it’s about our lived experiences with our race or ethnicity, or redefining Americanness in a city of immigrants. Angelenos have such a wealth of stories to share, and I’m so grateful to all our contributors in this series for sharing theirs.

Read all of the "Being American" essays here.

Stay safe and cool, L.A. There’s more news below — just keep reading.

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• Not only will the California State University board of trustees announce a new chancellor on Wednesday, it will also consider increasing tuition. My colleague Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has the latest on what may come this week. 
• The latest Medi-Cal reform, CalAIM, is supposed to address costly issues like housing instability and food insecurity, but mental health providers believe it could force them to cut services. CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang has the latest. 
• Since the Middle Class Scholarship launched last year, it’s been helping students in higher-income families afford college. Some advocacy groups, however, believe the state should give more to lower-income students who may not qualify for some financial aid. 
• All six people aboard a small plane died after a crash in Riverside County on Saturday. While officials are still investigating, they said heavy fog might have been a reason for the crash. 
• In an effort to address the need for affordable housing amidst a homelessness crisis, Los Angeles city officials sought to make residential hotels low-cost. But Capital & Main and ProPublica recently discovered that landlords have been spiking the price of rooms for tourists. 
• California legislative staffers will wait at least a couple more years in order to obtain the right to form a union. CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff has more. 
• Los Angeles Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani is a skilled pitcher and hitter who got his start as a baseball prodigy in his hometown of Mizusawa, Japan. NPR’s Anthony Kuhn wrote about how others around saw his talent as a young child. 
• Bring your little ones to see The Lion King tonight for Movie Mondays at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Learn all about Central Avenue’s historic jazz scene at the Central Avenue: Open House at The Beehive. One for the Books host Traci Thomas talks all about food, culture and cookbooks with professional foodies Bricia Lopez, Javier Cabral and Keith Corbin for the latest show at the Crawford Family Forum on Thursday night. Check out these events and more in this week’s Best Things To Do list. 
  

Wait... one more thing

The Top Three Tea-Sipping Trends

Margot Robbie meets fans during a pink carpet event to promote her new film "Barbie" in Seoul on July 2.

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Jung Yeon-Je

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AFP via Getty Images

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THREE — Banning Barbie? 

Everywhere I go, I see either Barbie or Oppenheimer advertisements (check out this fan-made ad). But if I asked you which of these movies would be banned in some Southeast Asian countries because of a sovereignty dispute, I’m sure you would say the movie about the atomic bomb, not the doll.

Turns out the Philippines might be the second Southeast Asian nation to push for a ban of the Barbie movie because of a scene with a map. Read Ashley Westerman’s NPR article for more details.

TWO — Could Threads Be The “Twitter Killer”? 

Mastodon. Blue Sky. Spill. Several apps have tried to snatch Twitter’s cultural throne since Elon Musk’s reign. Facebook’s parent company Meta threw their hat in the ring with Threads. The new social media app was off to a good start, gaining 30 million users in less than a day. But could it be the official “Twitter Killer”? NPR’s Emily Olson wrote about what it would take for a new app to take Twitter’s top spot.

ONE — A Long Heat Wave Is Here 

If you live in the desert, mountains or interior valleys, please take extra caution this week and weekend. According to the National Weather Service, there will be HOT conditions starting tomorrow in areas like the Antelope Valley, Santa Clarita Valley and the Western San Gabriel Mountains. Please don’t leave children, older people or pets inside vehicles and stay hydrated. Here’s a tip on how to help people who are unhoused in these conditions.

Netflix plans to lay off about 6% of its workforce, amounting to nearly 1,000 positions, as the streaming giant makes wider “organizational changes.”

Co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos announced the job cuts in a memo to employees Wednesday. They said the company’s product, tech, legal and human resources teams would be the most impacted.

“Decisions like these are never easy, and we don’t take them lightly,” Peters and Sarandos wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The Associated Press. They maintained business was strong — but that Netflix needed to be “disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources” as it invests in future growth and “high impact areas to improve our service.”

Beyond the memo from its chief executives, Netflix declined to comment further about Wednesday’s cuts.

Between membership signups and price increases, Netflix’s profit has grown this year. In its second financial quarter, the company earned $3.4 billion and racked up revenue of $12.56 billion — up 9% and 13%, respectively, from the same period last year.

Still, Netflix’s forecast for the third quarter fell below Wall Street’s expectations. The company plans to report those earnings next week.

Competition in the streaming space is growing more crowded overall. Netflix continues to be a dominant player (accounting for 19% of the market per the latest data from streaming guide JustWatch), but rivals like Amazon’s Prime Video and Disney+ are close behind.

HBO Max and Paramount+ are also now under the same roof — Skydance — after Paramount’s $81 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery closed last week. The new Hollywood giant plans to unify its streaming products “into a single service over time.” Netflix initially inked a deal to buy Warner’s studio and streaming business late last year, but walked away from that offer back in February.

At the end of 2025, per regulatory filings, Netflix had about 16,000 full-time employees worldwide. The layoffs announced Wednesday mark the biggest round of cuts the California-based company has rolled out in years.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Wednesday’s news of the layoffs.

A craving for dumplings can hit at any moment. If you live near a dumpling stronghold like the San Gabriel Valley, satisfying that urge is pretty easy. But what if that hankering for steamy, soupy goodness strikes miles away from Valley Boulevard?

The answer may surprise you: Torrance.

Sure, the offerings aren’t as deep as the SGV’s. But within a few miles, you’ll find great options at every price point, from an outdoor market stand to a sit-down dining room.

Buckle up. We’re heading out on an old-fashioned dumpling crawl, South Bay style.

Bun Boss

An $8 order of pork dumplings from Bun Boss at the Torrance Farmers Market topped with chili crisp.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Let’s ease into things at the Torrance Farmers Market, held every Tuesday and Saturday. If you love some of the freshest, hard-to-find seasonal produce in the L.A. area, you probably already know about it.

Enter Bun Boss, the locally beloved small stand near the market’s Oak Street entrance. The tiny stand might not look like much, but it serves a range of dumplings, bao and even a few dim sum items.

Keeping things light, I went with the pork dumplings (small, $8). They’re steamed half-moons, with the wrappers expertly folded around the filling. They’re great on their own, but a small spoonful of chili crisp over each one adds a savory, spicy kick to every bite.

Bafang Dumpling

Bafang's Taiwanese dumplings — the combos offer the most value.

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Gab Chabran

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LAist

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Moving from ultra-casual to fast-casual, less than 10 minutes away is Bafang Dumpling, a Taiwanese chain founded in Taipei in 1998. It opened its first U.S. location in 2022 and has since spread across SoCal, with 14 locations from L.A. to San Diego.

It sits in a newly remodeled strip mall not far from the Del Amo Fashion Center. The space is bright, and you order at the counter. With plenty of options, the combos offer the best value. I went with the 12 signature potstickers and a mini wonton soup ($14.95).

The potstickers alone are enough to fill you up. They’re slender, with crispy bottoms made for dipping in the sauces on hand, from black vinegar to chili sauce. I kept going back to the garlic sauce, upping the savory factor, just how I like it. My few slurps of the mini wonton soup hit just as hard, with a full-bodied broth and plump wontons.

Din Tai Fung

Crab and pork xiao long bao ($19.50 for 10) at the Din Tai Fung in Del Amo Fashion Center.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Is it an obvious choice? Sure. But despite its omnipresence on the SoCal dumpling scene, Din Tai Fung still holds its own as the sit-down dumpling experience. Being a five-minute drive from Bafang makes it a no-brainer for our crawl.

The always-busy location is on the second floor of the Del Amo Fashion Center, and you’ll usually need a reservation at peak lunch and dinner hours. That’s no surprise: DTF built its reputation on a lineup of dumplings you can turn into a meal at any time of day.

Once you’ve nabbed a table and gotten the rundown from your headset-wearing server, order the dish that gave the place its name: xiao long bao, or soup dumplings. Start with the crab and pork ($19.50 for 10 pieces), which gets a hint of sweetness from the crab and richness from the pork. To make the most of the broth inside, bite a small hole near the twisted tip and sip some. Then douse the rest with black vinegar and chili oil, and pop the whole thing into your mouth.

Save room for the potstickers, another fan favorite ($13). They’re fried together into a single rectangular sheet, adding another hands-on element to an already fun meal.

The U.S. Department of Justice has threatened California with possible legal action over what it says are noncitizens believed to have received mail ballots for next month’s midterm elections.

A letter sent Tuesday to Secretary of State Shirley Weber from Trent McCotter, the acting deputy U.S. attorney general, says the department has provided officials in Los Angeles County with a password-protected thumb drive with a list of names the federal government believes are likely noncitizens who were sent ballots to participate in the Nov. 3 election.

California mails ballots to all registered voters.

The letter obtained by The Associated Press gives the state 48 hours to determine whether any citizens are included on the list. For individuals whose citizenship cannot be independently verified, the state is to instruct local election officials to segregate their mail-in ballots until their status can be determined, and to not provide a ballot to anyone who has not yet received it. The letters warns that legal action may follow if the state does not meet the 48-hour deadline to review the list.

“If you cannot implement this process by then, given the ongoing federal election, the United States will have no choice but to seek emergency relief,” the letter states.

A separate, similar letter was sent to the registrar’s office in Los Angeles County, which the U.S. attorney’s office had investigated during the state’s June primary.

Neither the California secretary of state nor the Los Angeles County registrar immediately responded to requests seeking comment.

The Trump administration has made the hunt for noncitizen voters a priority this year, even though the problem is exceptionally rare. The Justice Department has charged about 90 people for various types of election misconduct so far this year, including 50 who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens. There were more than 227 million registered voters in the United States during the 2024 presidential election.

In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent letters to California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, alleging that as many as 250,000 noncitizens were registered in those states. Election officials there were skeptical of the claim, including Weber, the California secretary of state.

“I have serious doubts about the reliability of your data and accuracy of your claims, since my office has not shared our statewide voter registration list with DHS or any other federal agency or official,” Weber said in response.

That same month, the Republican administration claimed Nevada had 1,500 noncitizen voters on its voter rolls. But after the federal government identified them to the state, the number of actual registered noncitizens turned out to be zero.

As part of its project to find noncitizens on the voter rolls, the Justice Department has been seeking detailed voter information — including dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers — from the states. Some Republican-led states have turned over the information, which has been run through a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database that has been criticized as inaccurately flagging U.S. citizens.

The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for that information, but so far has lost those cases in court. California is among the states that successfully sued, in part by arguing that turning over the data would violate state privacy laws.

Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber, who is president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said she had not seen the letters but said the 48-hour deadline to vet voters flagged by the federal government was “completely unreasonable.”

She said when there is a report of an ineligible voter incorrectly on the rolls, her office does due diligence to investigate. That involves looking at the voter’s registration history, identifying whether that person had voted before and, most importantly, reaching out to the voter, she said.

“It would take more than 48 hours to even begin to get the full picture,” Webber said. She also questioned how the federal government came up with a list of alleged noncitizen voters since it doesn’t have access to the state’s detailed voter information.

Webber added that throughout the course of her decades-long career working for local election agencies, she has “never seen anything that would make me believe that our voter records are filled with fraudulent voters.”

Topline:

What’s happening? Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the weather service, told LAist the warning is here because of a combination of heat, strong Santa Ana winds, low humidity and dry brush.

“Really, all of L.A. County has some risk for wind and fires, but the places that typically get windy with Santa Anas, those areas are under the Red Flag Warning,” he said.

In the county’s windy areas, such as the mountains and foothills, Kittell said winds could peak between 20 and 40 mph. A few mountain spots may see gusts up to 70 mph. “We’re classifying this as a moderate to locally strong type event,” he said.

The warning is currently scheduled to end Friday night, but  that’ll likely be extended to Saturday.

A look at the conditions for Southern California.

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Courtesy National Weather Service

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What about power? Southern California Edison is considering shutoffs for about 90,000 L.A. County customers, including in Malibu, as of Wednesday.

According to the city, the shutoffs would be to “prevent [SCE’s] equipment from starting fires due to forecast dangerous fire conditions.” You can stay updated on SCE’s outage status page here.

How are officials preparing? At Tuesday’s NBC4/Telemundo 52 debate, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said the L.A. Fire Department has requested additional state resources and will position crews ahead of time in high-risk fire areas, including in the Palisades.

Park agencies covering the Santa Monica Mountains will close Oct. 15. That includes Leo Carrillo, Malibu Creek, Point Mugu and Topanga state parks, and Will Rogers and Santa Susana Pass state historic parks.

The forecast for Southern California's Santa Ana winds.

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Courtesy National Weather Service

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How should you prepare? To state the obvious, avoid doing things that could spark a fire, such as lighting a campfire or shooting off fireworks.

Kittell said that with shutoffs possible, charge your devices. You should be aware of your surroundings, especially in high-risk areas, and know your evacuation plan. It’s also a good idea to fill up your gas tank so you’re prepared to leave just in case.

Go deeper: Red flag warnings? Here’s how to prepare