Topline:
New research examines Latinos' experiences with the Spanish language, finding that while three-quarters of Latinos speak Spanish fluently, over half of those who don't speak the language have been shamed because of it.
Who it affects: The study looks at attitudes to the Spanish language from recent immigrants to third generation and higher Latinos.
A question of identity: Over three-quarters of Latinos say that you don't have to speak Spanish to be considered Latino.
About a quarter of Latino adults in the United States do not speak Spanish well enough to carry on a conversation, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.
“It’s really tied to the recency of immigration. For example, virtually all Latino immigrants speak Spanish, as you might expect,” says Mark Hugo Lopez, director of race and ethnicity research at Pew Research Center. “But when you talk about the U.S. born children of immigrant parents, about 70 percent of them are fluent in Spanish enough to be able to carry on that conversation.”
For Americans born in the U.S. who are third-generation and higher, Spanish-speaking ability decreases significantly. “Only about a third, 34 percent, say that they're able to carry on a conversation…understanding and speaking Spanish,” Lopez says.
LAist 89.3's daily public affairs program AirTalk asked listeners to share their own experiences of growing up with one parent speaking Spanish and the other English.
“My mother spoke to me in Spanish… My dad, he was bilingual, but spoke to me in English, and I resisted [Spanish] many years as a youth, and my mom, I think she was hurt by that,” said Ricardo in Valencia. But he says he had a change of heart after college.
“I decided to sell my car, to go and live with some relatives in Mexico… I spent a year and [when] I came back, and I was able to speak to my mom, really, in her native language for the rest of her life.”
Raul in Highland Park said his parents “tricked me into being bilingual because my dad only spoke English to me if I wanted toys or anything like that. And my mom at home would speak Spanish to me if I wanted food or anything to do with the house.”
About being bilingual, he feels “very lucky about that, to be able to have that extra asset.”
For listeners of a certain generation, speaking Spanish was discouraged to promote assimilation. Rochelle in Duarte told "AirTalk" host Larry Mantle “I'm 50. My family pushed me away from speaking Spanish. Even my father barely spoke it. I'm ashamed I can't speak the language.”
Denise in Pasadena shared a similar story: “My father grew up in Corona and was punished in school for speaking Spanish. My father didn't want us to experience that, so my level of Spanish is probably equivalent to a third grader, and my children aren't fluent.”
Frank in Pasadena also spoke of generational trauma associated with speaking Spanish. His parents “were children in California public schools in the thirties through fifties and were physically abused by teachers and school administrators due to poor English skills, Spanish accents, etc. Because of that, they deliberately didn't teach our generation to speak Spanish to defend us from incurring the abuse they had themselves.”
Pew reports that more than half of non-Spanish speaking Latinos have been shamed by others because of their lack of fluency.
Alexis in Brea said her daughter “understands [Spanish] but doesn't speak it, but she's being teased at school because she doesn't know the language and she's being mad to feel like she's not Latino enough.”
Alexis continued, “so now we're working on paying for classes for her to not feel that way at school.”
“One of the questions we've been asking about for a while now is, do you have to speak Spanish to be considered Latino?” asks Mark Lopez. “And even though the majority of Latino adults, 78%, say that you don't, what's interesting is that we still do have some folks who are ‘gatekeepers.’”
For Saul in Highland Park, Spanish “was something I took for granted growing up…I'm second generation, so we always spoke Spanish at home…It wasn't until later, when I became a father, that I realized the importance of preserving that part of the culture and speaking Spanish to my daughter.”
Stephanie in Alhambra stressed the importance of being able to communicate with older generations who may not speak English: “I know too many people with the experience of not being able to communicate with their grandparents because they never learned Spanish.”
Pew's Mark Lopez added “When we've asked Latino parents, do you want your children to learn Spanish? Virtually all Latino parents say yes.”
Topline:
L.A.’s homeless services agency has not completed any internal audits in years — and one that was started two years ago is still incomplete because management is taking months to provide responses, officials said Monday.
Details: The delayed audit has been looking into why the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, failed to spend $7 million in federal dollars it was granted to house and serve people in need. The roughly six-page audit report hasn’t been released because it’s missing LAHSA management responses that were requested over two months ago, officials said.
Why it matters: Internal audits are considered critically important to protecting taxpayer dollars at every level of government. L.A. County auditors, for example, issued about 100 reports in a recent fiscal year.
Not the first rodeo: The audit is examining a repeat problem. A previous audit in January 2022 found LAHSA had left $3.5 million in federal grants on the table by not using them.
L.A.’s homeless services agency has not completed any internal audits in years — and one that was started two years ago is still incomplete because management is taking months to provide responses, officials said Monday.
The delayed audit has been looking into why the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, failed to spend $7 million in federal dollars it was granted to house and serve people in need. The roughly six-page audit report hasn’t been released because it’s missing LAHSA management responses that were requested over two months ago, officials said.
Internal audits are considered critically important to protecting taxpayer dollars at every level of government. L.A. County auditors, for example, issued about 100 reports in a recent fiscal year.
“ We haven’t gotten anything,” said Erum Shahnawaz, LAHSA’s chief internal auditor, referring to the lack of response from LAHSA management at a meeting of the agency’s audit committee on Monday.
“That’s the only thing that's holding us from issuing the final report,” Shahnawaz said of the underspending audit.
That audit is examining a repeat problem. A previous, external audit in January 2022 found LAHSA had left $3.5 million in federal grants on the table by not using them.
Shahnawaz flagged management’s delays to the LAHSA Commissioner Justin Szlasa, Szlasa said. He chairs the commission’s audit committee, and has repeatedly called out LAHSA executives’ delays in providing information about taxpayer spending over the past year.
“ I've been trying to intervene and use whatever I can to try to help provide support,” said Szlasa as he described his attempts to get the auditor the answers needed to complete the report.
Szlasa was appointed to the commission by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.
“It shouldn't take us two months to receive a…management response to an internal audit,” Szlasa said at Monday’s meeting. He said the industry standard for internal audits is eight or nine weeks from start to finish. That compares to the two years — and counting — for LAHSA’s federal underspend audit.
“We haven't had a single internal audit completed here in the last couple of years, which is nuts,” Szlasa added. He called for internal audits to happen much more frequently.
Long delays to LAHSA audits also are not new. In November 2024, the county issued a widely-seen audit that included findings that LAHSA was failing to complete internal audits.
Half of LAHSA’s governing commission is appointed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors. Bass is also the only elected official on the commission. She served on the audit committee for several months last fall. Records show she was absent for all of the meetings during that time.
Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy chief financial officer, said management’s responses to the audit on underspending haven’t been provided yet because LAHSA leadership did not have clearly defined roles for who is supposed to coordinate responses to internal audits.
“ We need to work on clarifying that role internally,” Lim said.
“The last two months have been probably some of the most stress-filled two months that we've had at LAHSA,” said Paul Rubenstein, chief of staff to LAHSA CEO Gita O’Neil, pointing to mass layoffs.
Szlasa said there’s not that much in the audit for management to respond to.
“It's like, six pages or less,” he said.
Szlasa said another option is to “just say we've asked management for responses and we're awaiting management response. We can publish the results.”
In response, Shahnawaz said that if management doesn't have an updated timeline for a response, then she’ll go ahead and issue the report without the response.
Once they floated that idea, Lim committed to providing the responses by next Tuesday.
LAHSA’s leadership has downsized the internal audit team — dropping from a staff of three to just one in the agency’s proposed budget up for approval Friday.
The delayed responses from management are not the only thing that’s been slowing down audits, Szlasa said at the meeting.
LAHSA policy, approved by its governing commission, says internal auditors are “ authorized to access all organizational records, personnel, and systems necessary for conducting audits,” he said.
But the auditor has faced challenges in actually getting that access, Szlasa said — including delays in being allowed to view LAHSA’s databases that show contracts and financial payments.
”We finally were granted access, but it wasn't, it wasn't easy, it wasn't immediate. It was slow,” Szlasa said.
The delays on the internal audit come even after LAHSA failed multiple external audits in recent years, which have found the agency — overseen by city and county elected officials — has neglected to properly track billions of dollars in spending.
Largely in response to earlier audits, L.A. County supervisors pulled funding from LAHSA and are having the county instead oversee it directly. L.A.’s mayor and City Council have continued to have LAHSA manage the city’s homeless spending while the council delays plans to start studying a possible plan to transition away city tax dollars.
LAHSA is also in the midst of a different internal audit — expected to finish in late August or early September — examining whether top officials followed requirements when signing contracts and letting others sign. It was launched in the wake of LAist reporting that found LAHSA’s then-CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum’s signature finalized a $2.1 million contract with her husband’s employer.
If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is ngerda.47.
LAist also discovered Adams Kellum’s signature, as LAHSA’s CEO at the time, finalized a quarter-million-dollar contract between LAHSA and a longtime service provider she led up until two months earlier.
That contract was signed so soon after she left the service provider — St. Joseph Center — that the contract paperwork still listed her as one of St. Joseph Center’s points of contact and authorized signers.
She is currently under a state ethics investigation into whether her actions were an illegal conflict of interest.
Topline:
Chef Tyler Burges came upon genshiyaki, an ultra-rare ambient-heat grilling method, at a single robatayaki spot in the coastal city of Fukuoka in Japan — and spent six months building a custom pit to bring it to his new Arts District restaurant.
Why it matters: L.A.'s Japanese dining scene defaults to ramen and omakase; Bengara's fire-driven menu, built by a Michelin-starred Saison/Angler alumnus, offers something genuinely uncommon, even in Japan.
Why now: Bengara just launched an eight-course tasting menu ($98) centered on the technique, giving readers a fresh reason to visit.
When Bengara opened in Los Angeles' Arts District earlier this year, its owner and head chef had something special lined up in their kitchen arsenal.
It was genshiyaki, a rare traditional Japanese grilling method that dates back 1,500 years.
Chef and co-owner Tyler Burges had only encountered it once while traveling in Japan at a robatayaki spot in Fukuoka, a port city on the island of Kyushu.
Robatayaki, a style of slow, ember-cooked grilling rooted in Japan's rural coastal kitchens, usually centers on an open charcoal hearth. But the restaurant Burges visited had something even more noteworthy: a genshiyaki pit, a gentler, ambient method of cooking that uses radiant heat instead of direct flame.
Loving the unusually subtle, delicate flavor and texture it produced, he and head chef Phil Mireles decided to bring genshiyaki back to the U.S. and build their Arts District restaurant around it. The genshiyaki pit is a rare enough technique that Burges had to work with fabricator Phil Roxworthy for six months just to get the grill built to spec.
It's Burges' and Mireles' first L.A. project. The pair are also behind Smoke Door, their acclaimed Lake Tahoe restaurant, and Bengara brings a more casual, day-to-day take on the same fire-driven cooking.
Burges and Mireles both got their start at San Francisco's Saison and Angler under chef Joshua Skenes — who's now just down the street in L.A. at LYNX with fellow alum Brandyn Tepper.
Burges traces Bengara's DNA back to two mentors: Ron Siegel, who introduced him to Japanese ingredients and technique in his mid-20s, and Skenes, who taught him to cook with live fire. It was Skenes, Burges said, who showed him that fire didn't have to mean char and bravado.
"The one thing I loved about wood-fire cooking is you get this subtle, sweet barbecue flavor when you cook correctly over embers, and you don't cook directly over the fire," Burges said. "Most places, when you think about grilling something, you think of char, bold flavors, masculine flavors. But Chef Josh — it's like a master art, getting really delicate, subtle flavor using that grill method."
Take their luscious miso cod. On a normal grill, the marinade's sugars would blacken before the fish cooked through. On the genshiyaki pit, the cod sits at a distance from the embers, cooking gently until the very end, when it's given one last pass directly over the coals — what Burges describes as a final "kiss" of heat before it hits the plate.
To fuel genshiyaki's slower, ambient style, ordinary charcoal or wood is replaced with binchotan, an ultra-dense, pure-carbon hardwood charcoal traditionally made in Japan, which burns hotter and cleaner.
A perfect example of how this cooking style comes together is the uni kiritampo, the Akita prefecture rice skewer, reimagined with uni and cooked via genshiyaki — born of an offhand kitchen conversation with one of the restaurant's Japanese chefs about regional dishes cooked over fire.
Once they realized genshiyaki was the dish's original, historic cooking method, the rest fell into place.
"It's like the most delicious thing," Burges said. "I don't know why it never made it over to the United States earlier."
The chewy exterior, with just a hint of smoke, gives way to a creamy inside, like a caramelized custard, that’s topped with a decadent amount of uni, providing a semi-sweet finish — one memorable bite.
Bengara recently added a daily eight-course tasting menu ($98) that doubles as a greatest-hits tour of the kitchen — Toyosu carpaccio with chili coffee oil, pork belly "tacos" wrapped in mochi crepes, miso cod, Mary's half chicken, and handmade citrus soba, with optional wagyu and uni add-ons.
The price includes a beverage pairing, with a full non-alcoholic option alongside the boozy version. Walk-ins are welcome, and reservations can be booked via OpenTable.
Location: 806 E. 3rd St., Ste 140, Arts District
Hours: Sunday, Tuesday–Thursday, 5–9:30 p.m.; Friday–Saturday, 5–10:30 p.m.; weekend lunch 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.; closed Monday
Topline:
General admission tickets are now on sale for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art ahead of its fall opening with thousands trying to secure a spot, according to Tuesday’s virtual queue.
Why it matters: Museum officials said you will “likely experience high demand and long wait times in the queue" and thanked people for their patience.
LAist saw estimated wait times up to 6 hours, and it took a little more than 4.5 hours for this reporter to get through. On the bright side, there were still plenty of tickets left, including for the first day. Do not refresh the page or you may lose your spot.
The details: All tickets are timed entry. Tickets are $25 for adults and $21 for those 65 and older. Children, members, active-duty military, personal aides or attendants and EBT cardholders have free entry. Museum neighbors in the LM37 program will also be free, with that pass opening in August.
But how do I buy: Each person is limited to nine tickets, and you’ll have 20 minutes to check out once they’re added to your cart, according to the museum. You can find the link here.
What's next: The grand opening is Tuesday, Sept. 22.
Go deeper: How to secure Lucas Museum of Narrative Art tickets ahead of the fall opening
Topline:
General admission tickets are now on sale for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art ahead of its fall opening with thousands trying to secure a spot, according to Tuesday’s virtual queue.
Why it matters: Museum officials said you will “likely experience high demand and long wait times in the queue" and thanked people for their patience.
LAist saw estimated wait times up to 6 hours, and it took a little more than 4.5 hours for this reporter to get through. On the bright side, there were still plenty of tickets left, including for the first day. Do not refresh the page or you may lose your spot.
The details: All tickets are timed entry. Tickets are $25 for adults and $21 for those 65 and older. Children, members, active-duty military, personal aides or attendants and EBT cardholders have free entry. Museum neighbors in the LM37 program will also be free, with that pass opening in August.
But how do I buy: Each person is limited to nine tickets, and you’ll have 20 minutes to check out once they’re added to your cart, according to the museum. You can find the link here.
What's next: The grand opening is Sept. 22.
Go deeper: How to secure Lucas Museum of Narrative Art tickets ahead of the fall opening
Topline:
Inglewood officials are working on a full rewrite of the city map for the first time in nearly 40 years, laying out how they want the city to grow and change over the next two decades.
Why now: It’s all part of the ongoing process for Inglewood’s new general plan, the foundational guide that governs things like what kind of buildings can be built where in the city and how they need to look. A draft land-use plan will go before the Inglewood City Council on Tuesday, then go into the environmental impact review process. The new update to the general plan could set the city’s direction until 2050.
Mixed use development and housing: Planners hope to change some of the city’s commercial corridors into mixed-use zones that allow for housing and businesses alongside each other or even stacked on top of each other. Planners are aiming to open up room for new housing and to revitalize some of the city’s flagging business corridors, without changing the city’s existing residential blocks or sacrificing the grocery stores, barbershops and local restaurants that make neighborhoods tick.
Inglewood officials are working on a full rewrite of the city map for the first time in nearly 40 years, laying out how they want the city to grow and change for the next two decades.
Along part of Manchester Boulevard, city planners are setting up an option for developers to rebuild rows of small storefronts with a mix of homes and commercial space. On La Brea Avenue, south of Centinela Avenue, they envision the possibility of dense housing and business blocks as high as six stories.
Jerome Johnson, an Inglewood local, said he’s lived through three decades of change in the city. He recalled watching a “raggedy market” at the corner of La Brea and Centinela make way for the two-story shopping center that’s there today. He said the potential developments around the intersection could be a catch-22.
“There’s a shortage of housing,” Johnson said. “But you don’t want it to turn into New York City.”
It’s all part of the ongoing process for Inglewood’s new general plan, the foundational guide that governs things like what kind of buildings can be built where in the city and how they need to look. A draft land-use plan will go before the Inglewood City Council on Tuesday, then go into the environmental impact review process.
“This is really a historic milestone for the city,” Bernard McCrumby, Inglewood development services director, told The LA Local.
McCrumby said planners are aiming to open up room for new housing and to revitalize some of the city’s flagging business corridors, without changing the city’s existing residential blocks or sacrificing the grocery stores, barbershops and local restaurants that make neighborhoods tick.
“The stadiums and arenas are here, they’re not going anywhere,” McCrumby said. “Now we can plan around those.”
The last time the city did a full update of its general plan was 1987, when horses were still racing at Hollywood Park and the “Showtime” Lakers were winning championships at the Forum. Edward Vincent Jr., the city’s first Black mayor, had only been in office for four years.
The city has made intermittent updates to its planning guidelines since then — notably remapping a band of Inglewood along the Metro K line before it opened — but city documents indicate planners spent the past couple years working on a comprehensive rewrite.
The new update to the general plan could set the city’s direction until 2050.
Planners hope to change some of the city’s commercial corridors into mixed-use zones that allow for housing and businesses alongside each other or even stacked on top of each other.
Those zones could go in place along Century Boulevard and Arbor Vitae Street as well as Manchester, Centinela and La Brea.
The rest of the update, McCrumby said, is aimed at lining the city’s zoning regulations up with state law and the city’s current reality on the ground.
City staff held several community meetings over the last year as they put together the draft and still aren’t done gathering feedback.
The next year will see at least one more community meeting and a 45-day public review period, according to city documents. McCrumby said that, with the anchor of the land-use map in place, planners will continue to work on the rest of the general plan, targeting final City Council approval of the plan and accompanying environmental impact report next spring.
You can get all the details on the general plan at nextlevelinglewood.com and attend the City Council meeting at 2 p.m. on Tuesday to give a public comment.
We also want to know what you think of the proposed changes. Email isaiah@thelalocal.org with your questions or thoughts.
