The Brief

Many of us learned it in history class. In 1781, 44 men, women and children traveled from Mexico under the banner of Spain, settling indigenous land to found what is now Los Angeles.

But did you know that over half of those pobladores, as they were known, had African ancestry? For decades, the information was repressed or derided by racist historians and civic leaders, eager to Europeanize the past.

“The Spanish, like most colonizers, had systems where they categorized people on racial grounds,” says Susan D. Anderson, History Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum.

“The census in Spain, like all European censuses, included information about the settlers that revealed this very complicated racial system of categorization. So, the reason that we know the background of the demographic background of the settlers is because of this ancient census-taking system.”

According to El Pueblo: The Historic Heart of Los Angeles by Jean Bruce Poole and Tevvy Ball, in 1777, Felipe de Neve, Spanish governor of the Californias, asked the Colonial Spanish government in Mexico to help him establish a new pueblo near the flourishing Gabrieleño village of Yang-Na. The land was prime for farming — “a very spacious valley, well-grown with cottonwood and alders, among which ran a beautiful river,” Father Juan Crespi recorded.

Agricultural settlements were badly needed in fledgling Alta California, to provide food for the string of missions and presidios (military garrisons) being built across the colony. They were also needed as a buffer against Russian and British aggressors. Neve’s request was granted and agents for the Spanish crown began searching for “men of the field” who were “without vices or defects” to recruit as settlers.

A statue of Felipe de Neve at La Plaza

(

Los Angeles Public Library

)

Agents focused their recruiting efforts on what are now the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa. According to America’s Black Heritage, one-third of the people living in Sinaloa were of African descent. Intermarriage was common in Spanish Mexico, leading to an elaborate caste system which classified people according to their racial heritage.

In the Sinaloan town of El Rosario, where most of the future settlers lived, two-thirds of the residents were of Spanish and African descent and classified as “mulattos.”

Enslaved Black people were essential to the success of colonizers all over the western world. “The only reason people were settling on Indigenous land is because of the slave trade,” Anderson says.

“And it doesn't matter if it's Uruguay or Mexico or the U.S., it's all the same. There were so many Africans that were brought to the New World. So, for us to think that Mexicans aren't of African descent or Chileans aren't of African descent? It's crazy.”

Compared to enslaved people in the United States, people in bondage in Mexico were often able to purchase their rightful freedom.

“In Mexico, slaves were permitted to marry, and no master could sell and separate wives and husbands or children, and it was relatively easy for a slave to obtain his freedom,” William A. Mason and James Anderson write in America’s Black Heritage. “There was a place in society for the freed slave in Mexico. He was not an outcast.”

By the 1780s, roughly 90 percent of those classified as “mulattos” in Sinaloa were free. Many had probably been free for generations. Spanish agents scoured the area, promising land, rations, salaries, and livestock to potential settlers. Those who signed up included the eleven families who eventually became known as the founders of Los Angeles.

Settlers of Black descent

According to the anthology Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, of the eleven original families of Los Angeles, seven involved couples of different racial backgrounds, while two couples were of African Spanish descent.

Some of these couples were Luis and Maria Quintero, Manuel and Maria Tomasa Camero, Jose and Maria Guadalupe Moreno, Antonio and Maria Ana Mesa, and Basillo and Maria Manuela Rosas.

The pioneers left home and made the arduous journey to the Mission San Gabriel, around twenty-five miles away from the new pueblo of Los Angeles. Despite popular belief that they all arrived together at the new townsite on September 6, 1781, records in The Founding Documents of Los Angeles: A Bilingual Edition make clear they arrived in L.A. in waves, and each family received both a plot of land for a home and a field to till.

“The first homes, earth covered willow-and-tule huts, were soon replaced by adobe dwellings with flat roofs, which were later waterproofed with a coat of brea from the tar pits a few miles west on the Indian trail toward the ocean,” Poole and Ball write. “The pioneers constructed a dam and irrigation canals, including the zanja madre, or mother ditch, to bring water to the pueblo, and set about tilling and planting the fields.”

Life on the frontier was hard, and there were tensions between the settlers. In 1782, three families were “expelled” from Los Angeles. Antonio Mesa, who was said to be disillusioned with pioneer life, returned with his family to Sonora. Luis and Maria Quintero also left, but they didn’t go far. They settled in Santa Barbara, near three of their married daughters. Quintero became Santa Barbara’s first tailor, and his grandson Josef Rafael Gonzalez, served as alcalde (mayor) of Santa Barbara in 1829.

According to the LA Almanac, the Camero and Moreno families stayed in Los Angeles, where both Manuel and Jose served as city councilmen. They were joined by other settlers of Black descent, including Fernando Reyes, who was the first elected mayor of Los Angeles in 1793.

Pobladores' descendants

By 1790, census records indicate 18% of colonists throughout Alta California were of African descent. This number was probably incorrect, since many Afro Latinos had already begun changing their names and racial classification.

Maria Guadalupe Perez, the wife of Jose Moreno and the last of the Pobladores, lived to see California become an American state in 1850. She died in 1860. Her granddaughter, Catalina, became the life partner of Mexican soldier Don Andres Pico (who also had African ancestry), the brother of the last Mexican governor Pio Pico.

Maria Rita Valdez, the granddaughter of Luis Quintero, was a brilliant businesswoman who ran her family’s prosperous 4,500-acre rancho known as El Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. She sold it to Henry Hancock and Benjamin D. Wilson in 1854. The area is now known as Beverly Hills.

John Gómez, Adelina Mutaw de Lugo, Minnie Lugo de Gómez, Mary Abelar de Lugo, Isabel Lugo de Wilson, Suzanne Lugo de Barker in May 1937. The Lugo women are direct descendants of Luís Quintero, one of the original pobladores.

(

Los Angeles Public Library/Shades of LA collection

)

But, by the time Maria Guadalupe Perez died, these women’s heritage was being consciously blotted out by the new xenophobic, racist American elites of Los Angeles. “Once the U.S. took over California and then getting into the 20th century, white historians started whitewashing California's history,” Anderson notes.

According to historian William M. Mason, the uproar began in 1884, when historian Hubert Howe Bancroft published the 1781 census of the Pobladores, which included their caste, in his book History of California. The backlash was immediate, with fellow Californian J.M. Guinn deriding the Pobladores’ contributions, claiming they “were mongrels in race…poor in purse, poor in blood, poor in all the sterner qualities of character that our own hearty pioneers possessed.”

Los Angeles boosters, eager to lure more white Americans to Southern California, increased their campaign to erase L.A.’s multi-ethnic beginnings, and paint the Pobladores as European Spaniards. This meant that many of the founders’ thousands of descendants were unaware of their Black heritage.

This campaign continued well into the twentieth century. “The racial background of the founders was in the textbooks in the 1940s,” Anderson says. “By the 1950s, when the district put out new textbooks, they erased that information.”

Reclaiming the city's Black heritage

There were some L.A. historians who insisted on reclaiming the city’s Black heritage. In the 1950s, Glen Price, a curator for the Plaza Park Project, commissioned a plaque which pointedly included the race of each of the original 44 settlers. “The plaque soon vanished without a trace,” Cecilia Rasmussen reported in the Los Angeles Times. “Rumor had it that several Recreation and Parks commissioners had been displeased by its public display of the role blacks played in the city’s founding.”

California historian William A. Mason also advocated for reclaiming the founders’ heritage. “In view of our great debt to the pobladores,” he wrote in 1975, “we should celebrate them for what they really were — a racially mixed group with a decidedly Black cast.”

Charlotta A. Bass, publisher and editor of the California Eagle newspaper in the 1950's

(

Los Angeles Public Library/Shades of LA photo collection

)

But it was two Black women who would make sure the Black Pobladores were recognized and honored. “I would say that there are probably two heroes in my book who are associated with these campaigns,” Anderson says. “One is Charlotta Bass.”

Bass, the legendary publisher of The California Eagle, used her paper to tell the truth about the settlers’ heritage. “Of the eleven founding families, 56% would be classified as colored today!” she wrote in 1941, per Victoria Bernal of PBS SoCal. “These are no idle statistics, since the names, lot numbers and race of the founders are preserved in the archives of the State of California and City of Los Angeles."

“In 1948,” Bernal writes, “she opined about the city's 167th anniversary, ‘When celebrating anniversaries, the City of Angels has always avoided any mention of the fact that among the first settlers (the first 44 persons) there were some important Black angels…’”

As Anderson notes, the other hero in the story was the pioneering Miriam Matthews, who was the first certified Black librarian in California. Known as the “dean of Los Angeles Black history,” Matthews worked tirelessly to chronicle Black history in Los Angeles, including reclaiming the origins of the city’s founders. "It is a sad commentary when the names of these black families — Antonio Mesa, Manuel Camero, Luis Quintero, Jose Moreno — were omitted from many history books,” she wrote in The Los Angeles Sentinel.

When Matthews was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to the bicentennial committee to put together L.A.’s 200th anniversary celebration, she was determined to have a new plaque honoring the Pobladores placed near where the city began. “And that was my top priority: a proper founders monument to be erected in the plaza, in the State Historic Park” she later said in an interview.

On September 4, 1981, a plaque recreating the 1791 census, complete with the racial backgrounds of each settler, was unveiled on the southern side of the Los Angeles Plaza. There it stands to this day. “A result,” Anderson says, “of a a generations long battle to expose the historical truth.”

Annnnnnd they're off — blockbusters chasing award contenders everywhere you look. Disney animation, a new Knives Out mystery, an afterlife romance, a bazonkers Brazilian thriller, and a tale of Shakespeare and the healing power of art. Good thing you caught up with Wicked: For Good last week, right?

Here's what's new in theaters for the holiday weekend. (And here's what came out last week, and the week before.)

Zootopia 2 

In theaters now 

Back in 2016, Zootopia grossed over a billion dollars worldwide — so it's no surprise we now have Zootopia 2. In the first movie, our heroes, Judy Hopps, a bunny voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, and Nick Wilde, a fox voiced by Jason Bateman, became partners in the Zootopia Police Department, having worked together to catch a corrupt assistant mayor and put her away. Now, they're settling into their new jobs, trying to get used to the fact that she's a strict rule-follower, and he's a little more laid-back.

And there's a new problem: a snake has appeared in a reptile-free zone, and he brings to light a mystery from Zootopia's complicated past. New voices like Ke Huy Quan and Andy Samberg add something new to what has already been a winning formula for Disney. Judy and Nick get a little help from a friendly beaver with the voice of Fortune Feimster, and they naturally cross paths with lots of their old pals from the first movie. — Linda Holmes 

Eternity 

In theaters now 

Larry (Miles Teller) chokes on a pretzel, and the next thing he knows, he's on a train with just one destination: a version of purgatory known as the Junction. After that unfortunate event, however, he has two strokes of luck. The first, his assigned Afterlife Coordinator is Anna (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), an efficient, compassionate guide to help him figure out where he wants to spend eternity. The second? His wife of 60+ years, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) joins him at the Junction shortly thereafter.

But there's a hitch in this story co-written by Pat Cunnane with director David Freyne: Joan's first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), who died in the Korean War, has been waiting there at the Junction for Joan ever since, determined to pick up where they left off in the hereafter. So Joan has a big choice to make: stick with Larry, or gamble on a forever with her first love. — Sarah Handel 

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

In limited theaters; on Netflix Dec. 12 

The following trailer contains an instance of vulgar language. 

Rian Johnson's deliriously topical Benoit Blanc threequel is as gothic as its upstate New York church setting. A young pugilist-turned-priest named Jud (Josh O'Connor) is sent there to assist the hate-filled but popular-with-his-flock Monsignor Jefferson (Josh Brolin). Variously sketchy parishioners Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, and Thomas Haden Church remain loyal no matter how vile, crude, or destructive their Monsignor becomes. So Jud, being the only person in close proximity not in thrall to him, is immediately the lead suspect when Jefferson drops dead during a service. The filmmaker's jests this time are often jabs at religious hypocrisy and how blind faith binds followers to leaders who are entirely focused on themselves and the power they wield.

If there were any doubt about who exactly is being poked here, it's laid bare when Daryl McCormack, playing a craven conservative politician who's seeking favor with Jefferson, runs down a quick list of far-right talking points that have failed to land for him. There are twists enough to tangle a spider in its own web, jokes and sight gags aplenty, and Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc is as sharply etched as ever, in what is, to my mind, the most rewarding episode in the series. — Bob Mondello

Hamnet

In limited theaters

A woman in scarlet curled up among forest tree roots awaits her hawk's return from hunting in the film's opening image. Agnes (Jessie Buckley) is thought by townsfolk to be the daughter of a witch, and she certainly bewitches young Will (Paul Mescal), the Latin tutor teaching her brothers. The year is 1580, the place, a town near Stratford-upon-Avon, and the two young lovers will soon have three lovely children: firstborn Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Based on Maggie O'Farrell's acclaimed 2020 novel based on the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife, better known as Anne Hathaway, Chloe Zhao's breath-catchingly beautiful film luxuriates in these joy-filled early scenes, painting the family and the natural world around them in sumptuous, earthy tones before bringing that world crashing down around them.

Will, who by this time is writing plays for a theater troupe, is in London when tragedy strikes at home. Buckley's Agnes faces the death of their 11-year-old son alone, and can't forgive Will for not being there. Her grief all-encompassing, she barely registers that he also grieves as he rushes back to London and the theater. The film, though, is more than a portrait of a family tragedy. In its final quarter-hour Zhao shows us that this story has always really been about the transcendent, healing power of art. That sounds almost simpleminded, and it takes some directorial sleight-of-hand and historical fudging to make it work. But work it surely does, in a knockout climax that reduced me, and much of the audience at various film festivals, to sobs. Agnes reaches for the son who is no more, Will brings forth a play that will never die, and if there's been a more staggering cinematic catharsis in recent years, I've not experienced it. — Bob Mondello 

The Secret Agent 

In limited theaters

Marcelo (Wagner Moura) is a dissident on the run in director Kleber Mendonça Filho's bizarro Brazilian thriller, which takes place during Carnival, and mixes (among many, many elements) hitmen, corrupt cops, a '70s movie palace showing Jaws to a shark-obsessed public, a supernatural "hairy leg" that hops around gay cruising spots, officials intent on undermining science and marginalizing women, and an underground resistance movement that operates safe houses and a fake document mill. The central storyline involves Marcelo trying to escape the long reach of a casually brutal regime that's branded him a troublemaker. He needs papers for himself and his young son, and is also trying to find information about his late mother, for reasons that will be revealed in a modern-day framing sequence (in which Moura appears in a second role).

If that all sounds complicated, rest assured it's just the start of a rousing, suspenseful, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately unnerving 160-minute tale of battling political oppression. Mendonça began his career as a journalist and film critic, and his stylistic choices suggest a fondness for the work of De Palma, Scorsese, Fellini, Antonioni, Hitchcock and Tarantino, among others. What he's concocted, though, is strikingly original and speaks to the current political moment. — Bob Mondello
Copyright 2025 NPR

This story is part of ICE vs. LA, a collaborative reporting project by LA Public Press, Caló News, Capital & Main, Capital B, LA Taco, and Q Voice.

Four months after nearly 5,000 federal troops descended onto Los Angeles, Marsha Mitchell, a Black organizer in South Central, explained what made it impossible for her not to act: her neighbors.

At the peak of the federal immigration raids this summer — when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was arresting an average of 540 people per week in the city — her neighbor, Erica, and her husband and friend were taken by federal agents while eating breakfast in their home.

All three were placed in a van and driven toward downtown Los Angeles.

But Erica knew she had to get back to her small children, recalled Mitchell, a lifelong South Central resident, from a conversation she had with her neighbor.

“As a mother, her whole thing was, I got to get to my babies,” Mitchell said.

When the agents opened the van doors in downtown L.A., Erica broke free — still tied up, still terrified — and ran. While Erica managed to escape, her husband was placed in the detention center, where he said conditions were unbearable. According to Mitchell, he self-deported rather than endure them, choosing to escape the system that had trapped him.

Erica was the family’s breadwinner through her tamale stand, but with her husband gone, she is too afraid to leave her home. The family has collapsed financially under the weight of a single raid, Mitchell said.

“Not only has she lost her business, but also her husband and the ability to give her family what they need to survive,” said Mitchell, an organizer with Community Coalition, the long-standing anti-violence and drug addiction group founded by now-Mayor Karen Bass in 1990.

In South L.A., where Los Angeles City Council Districts 8, 9, and 10 have transformed from predominantly Black to predominantly Latino, and where the highest percentages of undocumented residents in the city now live, Erica’s story is part of the new normal.

For some South Central residents, the raids have triggered economic and social catastrophes. During the first weeks of concentrated immigration enforcement, 465,000 fewer workers reported for work. One local business owner told the economic justice group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy that he’d lost 80% of his business in the first month of the ICE crackdown. Other shops across South Central and downtown lost business for weeks.

The raids are posing a new hurdle for Black and Latino families to pay rent in one of America’s most expensive cities. But they’ve also catalyzed Black neighbors to act.

“[Erica] is a member of our community, and she is afraid to come outside,” Mitchell said. “She is not alone, and that is why we’re helping with mutual aid.”

Immediately, that looked like bringing her family groceries and referring them to resources for free mental health care.

Community Coalition, known as CoCo, is training dozens of block captains to canvass their communities and coordinate food drop-offs, safety check-ins, and care referrals in real time. They’re organizing their neighbors around the threats facing everyone, regardless of their race or residency status.

The immediacy of this care network — 18 block captains now, with hopes to reach 28 — emerged after Erica’s abduction by ICE, according to Mitchell, who works for CoCo.

L.A. County’s Black residents — 20% of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants — are standing in solidarity with their Latino neighbors, saying they are part of a shared fight against over-policing and racialized violence. Nine out of 10 ICE arrests have been of Latinos.

“Seeing families torn apart is so reminiscent of the white supremacist playbook that we’ve seen historically in communities of color, and that starts with our Indigenous siblings to slavery and through these latest ICE raids,” Mitchell said.

Neighbors moved to action

Pamela Riley envisions her South Central neighborhood with all the resources it needs to thrive, but that starts at the block level, she said.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

On a quiet stretch of 92nd Street, Pamela Riley propped open her front gate around 8 a.m. For one Saturday in October, her front yard — one of the typical South Central flair caged in by a sagging iron gate — became the heartbeat of a block fighting back against abandonment.

Within minutes, her neighbors began to gather. Grandmothers sipped coffee, young mothers munched on donuts, and teenagers organized flyers printed in Spanish and English.

Just steps from the 110 freeway and the ghostly remains of shuttered shops and clinics, her community is forging new lines of solidarity amid chronic neglect and a deep need for connection. This is the new frontline in South Los Angeles, where a coalition of Black and Latino residents is launching a network of “Neighborhood Action Hubs” along the Vermont and Broadway corridors to keep mutual aid alive as official support shrinks.

The goal: to weave a grassroots shield against ICE crackdowns and social services cuts and offer a model for how neighbors, not institutions, can bridge fear and isolation.

“That blueprint of success is there. The road is paved, we just need to walk it together,” said Riley, a 64-year-old lifelong South Central resident.

Later that morning, as the sun tried to fight through the gloomy sky, a group of three of the women who showed up at Riley’s event — two Black, one Latina — passed the same mural-painted utility boxes and chain-link fences that mark so many South L.A. blocks. Old-school Chevys, some missing hubcaps, were parked next to pickups and battered minivans, while the sound of cumbia drifted from a doorway where a woman watered her agave under the music’s sway.

As they moved from house to house, the group stopped at gates and asked neighbors about the specific issues facing their blocks and individual households. At one, a longtime Latino immigrant, gray-haired and smiling, shared how she planned to vote in the now-passed November election.

Riley’s block has become a lot more quiet and less frequented since ICE raids began.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

Deeper onto the block, the canvassers encountered two undocumented migrants — one a young father, the other a middle-aged woman. The father spoke to tangible issues in the neighborhood: “People have started stealing car tires at night and cutting wires from light poles for quick money,” he said.

The mother spoke quietly about work drying up and more neighbors “laying low” as rumors of ICE sightings swept through the area. The Latina canvasser asked directly about food access and whether anyone still sold homemade snacks. The woman hesitated, then explained in Spanish that she stopped selling crepes out of fear.

The canvassers turned to the others and suggested a solution: organizing a block-wide food vendor party, so people could sell their products safely.

Walking farther, they found themselves cautiously welcomed by a Black city worker who had lived on the block for decades. She described losing sleep as the city’s racial demographics shifted and her worry about Black and Latino votes being split or erased.

At each stop, the canvassers handed out cards with voting information and explained how to register, where to find drop boxes, and how to access rapid response teams if ICE was spotted or the lights went out again.

“Solidarity is literally in L.A.’s DNA,” Mitchell said. “We know that when communities come together, we weather all kinds of storms — governmental, financial, whatever comes our way.”

L.A.’s long-history of racial coalitions

Neighborhood canvassers speak to a women. This specific Saturday, these two canvassers knocked on dozens of doors for over 2 hours.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

Riley said her memories are filled with better days: bustling shops, a hospital on 94th, neighbors who’d send their kids to college together. She has watched her neighborhood swing from prosperity to depression and now, uncertainty.

Today, Riley’s yard and days are devoted to strategizing — she and other block captains count names, rehearse response plans and dream of new “welcome to South Central L.A.” signs at every corner. During meetings, they talk about how, in other parts of the city, neighbors stand by each other in crisis; here, too, unity could mean survival. The terror of recent abductions — a beloved tamalera torn from her routine and dayworkers swiped off the streets — still haunts these blocks, sharpening every knock at the door.

“I grew up in a civil rights era of the ’60s, and I’m starting to realize this is the new era of civil rights,” Riley said, explaining that the attack on civil rights today has extended far beyond immigration raids. “It is requiring more from all of us.”

Having lived through what she considers broken promises following the devastation of the 1992 L.A. Riots, Riley said she understands that revival cannot rely on state intervention alone, and it bridges racial divides. Instead, she insists, “what’s going on in Washington DC is showing us we need to join together and support each other.”

It also reminds her of the power of community. During the 1992 protests against police brutality, Latinos constituted the largest portion of arrests despite making up a smaller percentage of the overall population at the time.

Dozens of volunteers began their Saturday at 9 a.m. to door knock.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

The roots of Black and Latino collaboration go back to the founding of L.A. itself, where 26 of the city’s 44 original settlers in 1781 were Black/Afro-Latino with Spanish surnames — establishing a tradition of mixed neighborhoods and joint political action. This foundation was later strengthened during the Great Migration and again throughout the 20th century, when Black and Latino residents forged working alliances in the face of shared exclusion from citywide power.

In recent decades, the demographic mix in South Central has shifted further. Where once the community was predominantly Black, Latino residents now form the majority. The change created new opportunities for solidarity, as well as challenges, especially after Latino L.A. City Council members were caught on tape using racist anti-Black language while discussing concerns about the political power of Black residents. The tapes reopened wounds over neighborhood displacement.

Today, the skepticism remains real for a lot of Black people in L.A. In June, a viral moment spread across the internet after Latino protesters hurled racial insults at a Black L.A. police officer.

“A significant number of Black folks don’t see this as their fight,” author and commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson said after the protest in June. “They’ve seen anti-Blackness in Latino communities. They’ve felt left out when it came to our issues. That breeds skepticism.”

But “if anything, the debate over whether Blacks should link hands with Latino activists in the immigration battle seems age old,” Hutchinson wrote on his daily blog.

Hector Sanchez, CoCo’s Deputy Political Director, agreed.“It takes a lot of work. I’m not going to say it’s very easy … but it’s people that are willing to have those difficult conversations at times to ensure that we have each other’s back.”

Just a day after the city council tapes leaked, more than 400 people came together in Boyle Heights “to talk about the importance of multi-racial solidarity,” he said. Despite the tensions, neighbors continue fighting side by side for justice and belonging.

When canvassers could not get in contact with residents, they left behind these door hangers with a list of resources.

(

Adam Mahoney

/

Capital B

)

In the years since, organizers have responded by promoting cross-cultural events, joint canvassing efforts, and language exchange programs. Language exchange workshops and “know your rights” sessions — alongside mutual aid deliveries — have become linchpins of the hub approach.

“We are not just helping Black folks, not just one population. It’s for all of us,” explained Sequarier McCoy, a 49-year-old lifelong L.A. resident.

“I grew up in a Black and Brown community,” she added. “I smelled Black-eyed peas, but I also smelled tortillas. I like corn on the cob and Esquites.”

McCoy is also acutely aware that the issues of migration, detention and deportation are far from just Latino issues. “It’s also for Dominican folks. It’s also for Belizean folks. It’s also for Caribbean folks,” she said. She said her partner, a Belizean migrant, is living in fear too.

Black undocumented migrants are deported at a rate four times more often than their numbers would suggest, according to an analysis of federal data by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

It is why this practical solidarity spans crises, organizers said. When SNAP benefits run dry, when an ICE van is spotted, or when a neighbor’s lights go out, the same phone trees and rapid response plans kick in.

“This work is an honor as a human being, not just as an activist,” McCoy said.

Botox has become increasingly popular with people in their 20s seeking to stave off wrinkles.

Clinics market what is known as "Baby Botox," lower dose treatments administered less frequently than those for midlife adults — perhaps only once or twice a year.

Patients share the process in online videos filmed from injectors' offices, asking for a touch up to blur away any hint of crows feet or 11 lines between the brows.

It may seem absurd that anyone so young would be worried about aging. But like putting on sunscreen, patients say their use of Botox is preventive.

Botox is a brand name for botulinum toxin type A, an injectable neurotoxin derived from the bacterium that causes botulism. Other brand names include Dysport, Xeomin and Jeuveau. When administered in small amounts, the treatments block the nerve signals to the muscle causing it to relax, thereby temporarily reducing the appearance of wrinkles.

Attorney Stephanie Moore started getting Dysport when she was 27 to slow the formation of wrinkles around her eyes, which she attributes to her expressive face.

She pays about $460 per visit, and says these thrice-yearly injections are one of her favorite ways to treat herself: "I feel a lot more confident."

With Baby Botox, is age just a number?

There aren't comprehensive stats on what age groups are getting Botox, but data from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons shows that between 2019 and 2022, the use of injectable neurotoxins grew by more than 70% across all age groups under 70, including Gen Z adults.

It is not approved for use in minors, so the youngest someone can get Botox is 18.

Demand for other types of aesthetic procedures and surgeries, including cheek implants and fillers, has also jumped since the COVID-19 pandemic.

This timing is no coincidence says sociologist Dana Berkowitz, author of the book Botox Nation: Changing The Face of America.

During the pandemic, people's lives migrated to virtual spaces. That included younger people who had this experience at a formative age. They attended high school or college on Zoom during the day, and then logged onto TikTok and Instagram for socialization in the evenings.

Berkowitz says by looking at curated images of others far more frequently, inevitably, people were comparing those faces to their own.

At the same time, Berkowitz says some celebrities, along with social media influencers, now openly earn income through endorsements of various cosmetic procedures, further normalizing it.

While the 20s seem young for Botox, Dr. Kristy Hamilton, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Houston, says young adults can start to show signs of aging — a lot of it comes down to genetics and sunscreen.

"Sometimes we see people in their mid-20s that have a lot of wrinkles, and that's just life," she says.

But what's wrong with having wrinkles?

Ageless beauty is seen as a "status symbol" in today's society, says Berkowitz. Young women she researched told her these treatments show they were able to invest in themselves at a very early age: "It was like they were part of this elite kind of social club."

As Berkowitz explores in her book, falling short of society's definition of feminine beauty can incur a professional tax. "Our ideal femininity is a youthful one," she says.

Research shows that people who are perceived as beautiful get better treatment, says David B. Sarwer, who studies the psychological aspects of appearance and cosmetic procedures at Temple University's College of Public Health.

Sarwer points to a robust body of literature on how attractiveness can positively influence one's academic performance, professional advancement and legal outcomes. One study even found that newborns who are seen as more attractive by hospital nursing staff get picked up more frequently.

"It may make some, dare I say, strategic sense for people to say, 'I want to find a way to improve the way that I look,'" he says.

Are there any risks to starting young?

Botox was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration for cosmetic use in 2002. Physicians interviewed for this story note that since then millions have gotten it safely.

Reports of dangerous side effects are extremely rare, and typically linked to counterfeit or mishandled Botox.

There are still some risks. For one, it can stop working because your body forms a resistance to it.

This can be frustrating for patients, says Dr. Paul Durand, a Miami-based board-certified plastic surgeon. He hasn't seen any research explaining why this happens, but theorizes that younger people might be at higher risk because of their more robust immune systems.

Another concern is that too much Botox at too high a dose over time can cause excessive atrophy, or shrinking of the muscles. Since we lose volume in our faces as we age anyway, a person's face can start to look hollow instead of youthful.

Durand says well-trained clinicians can avoid that result by not overdoing it, i.e. not injecting too deep or using too much of the drug. But assessing a clinician's skill level may be difficult for patients.

Any medical doctor, regardless of specialty, can legally administer cosmetic injections without any special training or certification. That includes dentists.

Durand and Hamilton both recommend going to a plastic surgeon or dermatologist's office. Though Berkowitz says there are skilled injectors outside these specialties. She recommends that a Botox-curious patient ask friends or family for a referral.

Most people who get cosmetic procedures say they're happy with the outcome. Sarwer says the patients who are most satisfied are seeking to address discontent with a specific feature — like Moore's desire to soften the lines around her eyes.

But the evidence on how these procedures improve self esteem and quality of life are inconclusive, Sarwer says.

When cosmetic patients chase an unattainable ideal of beauty due to a mental health condition like body dysmorphic disorder or severe depression, Sarwer says Botox and other procedures don't improve their symptoms.

He explains these patients are, "better treated by a mental health professional than they would be treated by a plastic surgeon."

A life-long habit ... and expense

Durand turns away patients who want so much Botox that it would essentially freeze their face, blocking their ability to form expressions. "That looks terrible," he says.

But in his experience, a determined enough person will eventually find a clinician to say "yes," given that administering Botox can be a lucrative revenue stream with relatively few overhead costs.

Not only do clinician training and skill levels vary, so do prices. Discount treatments are unlikely to yield desired results, as Berkowitz warns. Amateur Botox can result in an obviously treated face.

And there's another problem: Once patients start with Botox or a similar injectable, they're unlikely to stop, says Berkowitz: "You get people in their 20s, you have a lifelong consumer."

Berkowitz herself is one of those lifelong consumers: She started getting Botox at 32 and now at 47, needs higher doses, paying about $800 per appointment.

For someone who starts young, that money — which could add up to tens of thousands of dollars in your 20s and 30s — could be spent paying off student loans, investing for their future, or traveling the world.

If you stop getting the injections, the effects wear off and wrinkles reappear.

In this way, Botox is addictive, argues Berkowitz, who admits that getting it feels in conflict with her feminist ethics, which aim to decenter appearance.

But Hamilton, the Houston plastic surgeon, says for many of her young patients, Botox is simply part of their overall investment in their health and appearance.

"Gen Z have this very different view on these things," she says. "This is part of their self-care. It's part of their wellness."

Stephanie Moore in Pittsburgh, says shaping her appearance with Botox makes her happy. She notes that her husband has tattoos, which she thinks are unnecessary and expensive.

"But that's his body and his choice," she says. "And this is my body and my choice."
Copyright 2025 NPR