Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published September 28, 2025 5:00 AM
Yue Wa market owner Amy Tran holds a bundle of yardlong beans at the entrance to her Chinatown grocery.
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Josie Huang
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LAist
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Topline:
Yue Wa Market, a Chinatown grocery known for hard-to-find produce and a neighborly vibe, is shutting down this week. After 18 years, rising rents, pandemic losses, thefts and a family crisis proved too much for owner Amy Tran.
The impact: Chinatown is losing one of the few places to buy fresh Asian produce close to home. Older residents and working families now face fewer affordable options to put culturally familiar food on the table.
Cruise down Broadway in Chinatown and Yue Wa Market is easy to miss. Not much bigger than a studio apartment, the store hides under a green awning, wedged between a souvenir shop and a pharmacy.
But inside, it’s been a place of connection. For 18 years, owner Amy Tran has greeted customers with a ready smile and hard-to-find produce like Chinese sponge gourd, yardlong beans and heart-shaped cherimoya.
One recent morning, Tran held up a bunch of moon drop grapes she bought at a downtown warehouse just hours earlier.
“Very beautiful,” she said in Mandarin as a group of retiree friends crowded around, murmuring in agreement.
Yue Wa Market specializes in Asian produce and harder-to-find food items like moon drop grapes.
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Josie Huang
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Satisfying customers is what Tran loves about running the market. But she said it’s time to let go.
This week is Yue Wa's last. Climbing rent and business drop-off since the pandemic — compounded by increased thefts and this summer’s immigration sweeps — have forced 57-year-old Tran to shutter her business.
She breaks the news to her regulars, largely Asian and Latino shoppers who live or work nearby, bouncing between Mandarin, Vietnamese, Spanish and her native Cantonese.
Yue Wa Market blends into the storefronts of Broadway in L.A.'s Chinatown.
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Josie Huang
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“The business is slow,” she said in English to a Thai customer, who looks crestfallen. “Everything not so good for us.”
A neighborhood cornerstone
It’s a story oft-heard across Los Angeles. Mom ‘n pop’s that anchor immigrant communities are disappearing under economic strain and gentrification pressures as new housing developments and upscale businesses move in.
Yue Wa is the latest grocery to close in Chinatown in recent years, leaving the neighborhood with fewer options for fresh food.
Ott Bhandhumani, a retired Thai caterer who lives in subsidized senior housing just blocks away, said Yue Wa has been essential for him and his wife. After Chinatown’s last two full-service grocery stores closed in 2019, just a handful of street vendors and small grocers like Tran’s were left.
Yue Wa's closure leaves Chinatown with fewer options for those who live and work in Chinatown to buy fresh produce.
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Josie Huang
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“I came to this place only because she was nice to me,” said Bhandhumani who wishes now he was more of a "big customer" at Yue Wa.
For Tran, the decision to close comes after years of struggle.
Business never rebounded after the pandemic, when many shoppers left Chinatown, some to move in with families like in the San Gabriel Valley, she said. Many of the newer residents skip shopping at an old-school, Chinese-style market where prices aren't listed and haggling is expected.
“She doesn’t want to let go of the store,” said her son, Derek Luu. “But she just feels very hopeless about the situation.”
Family support
Luu, a filmmaker who works with AIDS nonprofits, came home from New York this month to help his mom close up shop.
He grew up in Yue Wa Market, which his mother bought when he was 10.
Before becoming a shopkeeper, Tran held an assortment of jobs in Chinatown after emigrating from Vietnam with her Chinese family — from waiting tables to working shifts at a bakery. For a spell, she was driving to different businesses, hawking plastic shopping bags.
“I remember our living room was just kind of swimming with boxes of bags,” Luu said. “She has always had this entrepreneurial spirit.”
Derek Luu, Amy Tran's son, came home from New York to help his mom close up shop.
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The previous owner of Yue Wa sold herbal supplements and tea before approaching Tran to take over the business in 2007. She at first added yams to her inventory for its medicinal properties. But at customers’ request, she kept expanding the produce section until stacked crates of fruits and veggies spilled onto the sidewalk.
As a teen, Luu pitched in at the store after finishing classes at his arts high school a short walk away from Yue Wa.
He returned there to work during the pandemic, leaving UCLA so he could protect his mother from the surge in anti-Asian attacks from strangers.
“They would come in, take product and throw it into the street,” he recalled. “They would yell slurs at my mom. It got to a point where I just felt like I needed to be here.”
Since the pandemic, thefts have become a weekly occurrence — with losses ranging from stolen register money to pilfered fruit. CCTV shows both Tran and her sole employee, 75-year-old Shi Zong Xu, being robbed. The family estimates they’ve lost tens of thousands of dollars over the last several years.
Seventy-five-year-old Shi Zong Xu, Amy Tran's sole employee at Yue Wa Market, plans to retire after the store closes.
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Tran reasons that more people are suffering hardship, and will often just give away food or cash if she sees someone loitering around her shop.
Tran took out loans to keep the shop afloat as the monthly rent rose to $3,450. But the strain only deepened. The ICE raids this summer scared off some longtime customers and vendors. And then the family became crime victims in their own home.
A family crisis
The family, which includes Tran's husband Hugh and younger child, Tiffany, saw their San Gabriel Valley home go through several break-ins — likely by criminals targeting Asian households in the region, they've been told by investigators.
Luu said in the most recent incident in June, his sister was assaulted and injured. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which is investigating, has not identified the suspects.
Seeing her daughter suffer has been crushing for Tran.
Amy Tran and her son Derek Luu speak with a neighborhood friend.
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“My mom just ran out of things to say to my sister,” says Luu. “She felt like she didn’t do enough to protect us. I told her she didn’t fail. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
To help her out during this time of transition, Luu started a GoFundMe for his mom, who herself is dealing with diabetes and cataracts.
Tran doesn’t share her family trauma with customers. She only tells them she can’t afford to stay in Chinatown.
Customers adrift
For regulars, the closure is a heavy loss.
“It makes me upset,” said Sarah Mondol, a nursing student who shops weekly at Yue Wa for her family of six.
She relies on the market for produce like okra, cauliflower and eggplant to make traditional Bangladeshi dishes. “Everything is fresh, and it’s convenient to where I live.”
Mondol said she’ll likely start taking the bus more often to a full-service grocery store about two miles away.
Yue Wa regular Sarah Mondol says she was sad and upset the market was closing after making weekly visits for the five years she and her family have been living in Chinatown.
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“I can go to Smart & Final, but you know, there are not good Asian vegetables I can find there,” she said.
Bhandhumani, the retired Thai caterer, has been battling cancer and said he often doesn't have the strength to shop far from home.
He can’t begin to guess what will replace Yue Wu, but said Chinatown is changing to where it’s not so much for older people like him on a fixed income.
“You can see that they have a new apartment come up, and the price [is] sky- high,” Bhandhumani said. “You can't touch it. We can’t do luxury.”
Tran hasn’t heard what will open in her spot. All she knows is she must be out when her lease ends this month to clear the way.
“Everything that doesn't sell, I’ll try to store it at home,” she said.
Tuesday is her last day. She’s inviting customers to stop by to pick up some tea or fruit, pose for a picture or just say hello — one last time.
Where to go
Yue Wa Market 658 N. Broadway, Los Angeles (213) 680-4229
Mariana Dale
explores and explains the forces that shape how and what kids learn from kindergarten to high school.
Published October 31, 2026 5:00 AM
Myrna Velasco (left) performs as Dolores Huerta in “¡Sí Se Puede!” at Boyle Heights City Hall on April 2, 2026.
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Carlin Stiehl
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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.”
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.
CSULA seeks memories from underground music scenes
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published October 31, 2026 5:00 AM
CSULA is seeking memorabilia from LA's underground music scenes for its research archives.
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Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles.
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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.
Cal State LA has hosted Sounds of the Underground Archive for the last four years. It's an opportunity for people to donate their underground music scene memorabilia.
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Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles
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“I think the danger is maybe those stories are not being told, or people don't know about the story,” she said.
Keeping stories alive
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.
SOUNDS OF THE UNDERGROUND ARCHIVE
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:
Fliers
Handbills
Zines
Newsletters
Posters
Set lists
Photographs (prints, negatives or digital files)
Cassette tapes, CDs, or vinyl records
Ticket stubs
Wristbands
Band merchandise (stickers, buttons, patches, T-shirts)
DIY press kits or liner notes and correspondence (letters, emails, messages related to music scenes)
Venue or collective ephemera (membership cards, schedules, announcements and more)
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L.A. exceeds a mark set in 1983, with more to come
Kevin Tidmarsh
is a producer for LAist, covering news and culture. He’s been an audio/web journalist for about a decade.
Published October 30, 2026 4:21 PM
Tidewaters flood businesses and homes along Pacific Coast Highway in Orange County's Sunset Beach.
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Robert Gauthier
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
Los Angeles has handily broken its record for most days of coastal flooding in a year. And that’s without including October in the tally and with a wet El Niño winter ahead — a worrying sign for coastal homes and infrastructure.
The record: The number of days of coastal flooding observed at NOAA’s tide gauge in San Pedro are the highest recorded since observations started being taken in 1923. The previous record was set at nine in 1983, during another El Niño event.
What's ahead: An oceanographer couldn’t say with certainty when flooding might occur next. She noted that high-risk times ahead coincide with Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Why? Around then, the moon will be at its closest point to the Earth. The stronger gravitational pull from the moon causes what are commonly known as king tides, a nonscientific term for the highest predicted tides of the year.
Read on ... for more about the record high tides and flooding.
Los Angeles has handily broken its record for most days of coastal flooding in a year. And that’s without including October in the tally and with a wet El Niño winter ahead — a worrying sign for coastal homes and infrastructure.
Researchers can’t yet project how many more days of flooding we’ll have in 2026 — but we’re already well ahead of what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s models had forecast up to this point.
NOAA oceanographer Karen Kavanaugh said models had predicted three to six flood days between May 2026 and April 2027. Those models took El Niño and sea level rise into account. She said that there have already been nine flood days in that window and added that the 12 flood days so far in the calendar year are “abnormally high.”
The number of days of coastal flooding observed at NOAA’s tide gauge in San Pedro is the highest recorded since observations started being taken in 1923. The previous record was set at nine in 1983, during another El Niño event.
When might we see more flooding?
Kavanaugh couldn’t say with certainty when flooding might occur, but noted that high-risk times ahead coincide with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Around then, the moon will be at its closest point to the Earth. The stronger gravitational pull from the moon causes what are commonly known as king tides, a nonscientific term for the highest predicted tides of the year.
In addition to these factors, the wide range of events affecting our tides this year, including storms, climate change, El Niño and related Kelvin waves, could very well cause other flooding events or cause the existing ones to become stronger.
Kavanaugh said a combination of factors — specifically Kelvin waves and astronomical high tides — was exactly what was responsible for the flooding seen this week.
“That could happen, perhaps, again in November and December if we have another pulse of a Kelvin wave,” Kavanaugh said.
Flooding inundated coastal communities around Southern California this week, including Orange County's Sunset Beach.
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Robert Gauthier
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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How high will the tides be?
Unfortunately, Kavanaugh said, there’s no way to predict the severity of upcoming king tide events at this moment in time.
“But as we move closer to an event, there are good models that the National Weather Service uses to forecast flooding,” she added. “But they need it to be within seven days, sometimes shorter timelines.”
High tide resources
These NOAA resources can help you plan for and monitor high tide events:
Kavanaugh recommended keeping an eye on National Weather Service reports for the latest information and predictions. (There are separate pages for Los Angeles and Orange counties.)
Kavanaugh stressed that, given this year's unpredictability so far, people should be as prepared as possible.
“It's an unusual type of phenomenon to plan for for some communities,” she said. “We're used to planning for a big storm, maybe, and flooding from that, but not planning for, ‘Oh, it's gonna be beautiful sunny weather, and also you might have flooding on the roads.’”
Kavanaugh also recommended paying close attention to local emergency officials’ guidance and being mindful not to park cars in low-lying areas that could end up being inundated.
“If [local officials are] asking you to get sandbags or things like that, keep those sandbags because you might need them again in a few weeks,” she said.
President Trump speaks to reporters after arriving on Air Force One, Friday, at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach.
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Mark Schiefelbein
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AP
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Topline:
The federal government must pull three taxpayer-funded Trump administration ads that appear to have been made for political or propaganda purposes, including one touting the president’s claim that every American will get $5,000 if Republicans keep control of Congress in the upcoming election, a judge ruled Friday.
Why now? U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon in New York sided with a coalition, including the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, in ordering the government to take down the advertisements titled “$5,000 to Americans,” “Every Democrat Voted Against No Tax on Tips,” and “Cost of Socialism.” She declined to pull several other ads.
Why it matters: The plaintiffs sought the removal of at least 13 ads, but Rochon only ordered that the three be pulled, at least for now. She noted that the Government Accountability Office has observed that there are instances when the president’s office is entitled to inform the public of its policies, justify its policies and respond to attacks on its policies. Rochon said the plaintiffs were seeking to restrict the office in ways that were “broad and far-reaching,” and she found herself concluding that the government will ultimately prevail legally with regard to many of the ads.
The backstory: Rochon ruled during a hearing in which she considered expanding a temporary restraining order she issued two weeks ago, when she banned a series of ads that glorify Trump and echo his political messaging going into the midterms.
What's next: After Rochon issued the order, she noted that she was doing so on a Friday afternoon and that the government would have no excuse to delay taking them down immediately. A government lawyer acknowledged that he would be able to immediately notify relevant individuals responsible for taking down the ads.
The federal government must pull three taxpayer-funded Trump administration ads that appear to have been made for political or propaganda purposes, including one touting the president’s claim that every American will get $5,000 if Republicans keep control of Congress in the upcoming election, a judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon in New York sided with a coalition, including the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, in ordering the government to take down the advertisements titled “$5,000 to Americans,” “Every Democrat Voted Against No Tax on Tips,” and “Cost of Socialism.” She declined to pull several other ads.
She said the three ads must be taken off official government websites, including social media sites such as YouTube, Instagram and the like. Rochon also ordered the cancellation of any plans for the airing or distribution of the ads through authorized third parties, including by President Donald Trump’s flagship super PAC, MAGA Inc.
Rochon was nominated to the court by then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and once served as a law clerk for Trump’s sister, the late Maryanne Trump Barry, a longtime federal appeals court judge.
Responding to the ruling, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said: “This Biden-appointed activist judge issued a lawless order to stop the administration from sharing patriotic videos.”
Rochon ruled during a hearing in which she considered expanding a temporary restraining order she issued two weeks ago, when she banned a series of ads that glorify Trump and echo his political messaging going into the midterms.
The plaintiffs sought the removal of at least 13 ads, but Rochon only ordered that the three be pulled, at least for now. She noted that the Government Accountability Office has observed that there are instances when the president’s office is entitled to inform the public of its policies, justify its policies and respond to attacks on its policies.
Rochon said the plaintiffs were seeking to restrict the office in ways that were “broad and far reaching” and she found herself concluding that the government will ultimately prevail legally with regard to many of the ads.
The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have made to promote various policies. But the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they don’t try to help the public benefit from specific government programs, according to the plaintiffs.
After Rochon issued the order, she noted that she was doing so on a Friday afternoon and that the government would have no excuse to delay taking them down immediately.
A government lawyer acknowledged that he would be able to immediately notify relevant individuals responsible for taking down the ads.
“Everyone is here. Everyone can hear my order. No one is at the theater,” the judge quipped in a reference to excuses offered by government lawyers when her recent order, issued over a weekend, wasn’t immediately obeyed.
Rochon said irreparable harm could result to the plaintiffs if she didn’t ban the ads while the court case proceeds, though she noted that she could reverse herself and restore the ads or ban additional ads after hearing more evidence in the coming weeks.
“This court can neither postpone an election nor turn back the clock,” Rochon said after concluding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims regarding the ads and would suffer harm if they were not taken down.
“This temporary restraining order will stop the administration’s wanton disregard for the law while the court hears the full case,” said Bradley Girard, a lawyer with Democracy Forward. “Congress has made clear that partisan ads cannot be funded with taxpayer dollars, and we are proud to work with this coalition to earn today’s result.”
In court papers, the coalition’s lawyers wrote that Congress did not appropriate funds to the president’s office “to run a PR shop to help the President’s allies and attack his perceived ideological opponents.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Oestericher wrote in response to the plaintiffs that there was nothing wrong with White House staff compiling advertisements to “inform the public about his policies and to rebut attacks on those policies and his Administration.”
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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
