The Brief

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on May 23, 2025.

When East L.A. native and author Julie Sands’ father returned from the Vietnam War in 1968, he was not the same man who had left.

Sands explained that while many veterans come home and “get a job, resume their married life and have children,” it’s not always that simple.

Her father, Ruben Amaro, came back to East L.A. with post-traumatic stress disorder, struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, “and he could never resume a normal life,” said Sands.

“Growing up and having to experience the ramifications of war on a child is something that no one talks about. Everyone speaks about the veterans, but they don’t speak about the children of veterans.”

Sands chronicled her experiences in her 2010 memoir, “War Dad: A Daughter’s Story of Surviving PTSD and the Effects of War,” which recounts growing up in a military family in East L.A. The book led her to connect with other veterans and their families who had dealt with the same pain.

Ruben Amaro, Sands’ father, served in the Vietnam War.

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Courtesy of Julie Sands

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Now, for the 14th year in a row, Sands will help organize the Memorial Day celebration at the Mexican American All Wars Memorial at Cinco Puntos in Boyle Heights. With a small-but-mighty team of planners, she works to honor those who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.

“I am grateful to be able to do this for the city of Los Angeles,” Sands said. “No matter how hot the political scene gets in CD 14, community [members] are always the ones who come to the ceremony.”

We spoke to Sands about her advocacy for veterans and how writing a book about her father helped her begin to heal. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BHB: How did growing up in a military family – especially with a father struggling with PTSD – shape your life and perspective?

Julie Sands: Growing up with a parent who has a military background can be very tough and it’s tough growing up with a parent who has PTSD, because it affects generations, and it affects your home life. It makes you grow up fast. It makes you aware of political situations. There is fear and uncertainty, and you have to learn how to manage all of those feelings and emotions and still make it through life yourself. So it can be a tough road when a family member takes the military route.

BHB: What emotional challenges did you face while revisiting your story to write “War Dad”?

Julie Sands: The entire book was challenging because I had already healed. I had already put those memories away. I was married, I was raising my children, and to write that book was like getting a knife and slicing my heart open and letting it bleed. It was extremely painful, extremely difficult, extremely emotional, but I did it because I knew I could help other people.

BHB: What drives you to keep honoring veterans through the annual Memorial Day celebration at Cinco Puntos?

Julie Sands: When I wrote [“War Dad”], I thought to myself, ‘how am I going to reach out to the families of the veterans and try to rescue the daughters and the sons that are going to go through what I went through with the soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan?’ And the best way I could do that is to plug myself directly into the veterans community. And that’s what I did. In doing that, I was able to connect with family members and children and daughters of fathers of war and begin to help them to heal as well, and to teach them the skills on how to heal from their childhood when they had a parent with PTSD.

My father didn’t have a choice. He went to war, he was drafted, he came back with PTSD, and he wasn’t able to resume a normal life. So I wanted to represent my father, and that’s why I stand on that stage in Boyle Heights and East L.A., because I’m representing my father and his name and showing that no matter what happens in life, you can rise above your situation and you can make things better again.

Mexican American All Wars Memorial at Cinco Puntos on May 21, 2025.

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Andrew Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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A plaque can be seen at the Mexican American All Wars Memorial.

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Andrew Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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BHB: What kind of impact have you seen from holding Memorial Day events in East L.A. and Boyle Heights?

Julie Sands: Every single time I walk off that stage at the Mexican-American All Wars Memorial at Cinco Puntos, there are people just coming up to me crying, hugging me and telling me thank you. They thank me for telling my story, because they also went through that. And then they want me to talk to their daughters. They want me to meet their family member who has PTSD. Back in the 60s and 70s, there was no help for us. There was no counseling for families. So no one spoke of it. And so when they hear my story for the first time, it’s almost like, if they’re liberated as well, like they’re free now to speak about the trauma they went through, and that’s what I get every single ceremony.

BHB: Beyond Memorial Day, how do you continue to support families of veterans?

Julie Sands: I have a company called the Be Amazing Project. My objective was to use the skills that I created, exercises, verbalizations, and thought process, and take them into the schools so that I can get to the children of military families. And I’ve been blessed to be able to get into the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Montebello Unified School District. I’ve gone into high schools, middle schools, and continuation schools, and I connect with children of veterans and any children who have military family members, and I teach them how to rise above their situation and succeed in school and succeed at home.

BHB: Are you planning any new elements for this year’s Memorial Day celebration?

Julie Sands: This year, what I’d like to begin doing during the ceremony is to hold a space for people to stand with a picture of their fallen loved one, whether they passed in combat or they passed away after they came back from war. I’m going to give them the opportunity to call out their name. And I think that would be very, very powerful, because Memorial Day is a day to remember.

May gray has come and gone, and now it's time for June gloom.

Overcast skies will be present this morning, especially along the beaches and valleys closest to the coast. Otherwise, we're in for a partly cloudy afternoon.

Today's temperatures at L.A. County beaches will stay around 66 to 71 degrees, and reach 76 to 80 degrees for places more inland.

In Orange County, expect similar temperatures with highs from 67 to 74 degrees for Huntington Beach and surrounding areas. More inland areas like Anaheim and Garden Grove will see temperatures of up to 79 degrees.

Moving on to L.A. County valleys, expect high temperatures in the low to mid 80s.

In the Inland Empire, temperatures will range 80 to 89 degrees.

Election Day is here, but now comes the waiting.

Do you have something to watch on Netflix? Maybe you've been meaning to pick up a hobby — how about crochet? Whatever you do, take a deep breath and keep busy because it could be days (or weeks) before we get some California election results.

The state is often knocked by the rest of the country as being "slow" to count votes. But here's the deal: that's a feature, not a bug, of the election system.

The backstory

Things take a while here largely because California works so hard to expand the ways people can vote. For example:

• Californians in recent years overwhelmingly vote by mail — nearly 90% of votes cast in the 2024 presidential election were mail-in ballots. In that same year's primary the percentage was just as high. Those ballots can be postmarked up to and including Election Day. They're counted as long as the ballot arrives within seven days (for the June primary, that's June 9).
• California offers same-day voter registration at any voting center. These new voters must cast a provisional ballot, which is counted once election officials confirm their eligibility (they are overwhelmingly accepted — for example, Los Angeles County reports that historically between 85% to 90% have been counted.
• Voters also have the right to cast provisional ballots if there's any problem on election day — like if poll workers aren't able to void an outstanding mail-in ballot, or if there’s any issue calling up voter information from e-pollbooks. Again (see above), provisionals take longer to process because eligibility has to be confirmed.
• Vote-by-mail ballots require signature matching. When the one received doesn't match the one on file, county registrars must contact that voter to let them know — and give them the chance to correct it.
• And, with more than 23 million registered voters, we're really, really big. In the 2024 general election more than 16 million Californians voted (down from nearly 18 million in the 2020 presidential election). Either way, that’s more people than the total populations of all but three other states.

Why things have sped up, some

But things have sped up considerably in the 30 counties that have adopted a 2016 law called the Voter's Choice Act, including L.A., Orange and Riverside counties. In recent elections, the changes associated with that law — like voters not being locked into a designated polling location — drastically cut down the number of provisional ballots cast, which helped move things along faster than they had before.

A closer look at ballot counting times in California where an increasing number of vote-by-mail ballots has slowed ballot counts.

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Courtesy California Voter Foundation

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Still, accuracy and a commitment to "expanding the franchise" — translation: allowing more people to vote — means the process is not designed to produce instantaneous results.

Why you should take a deep breath Election Night

You'll have to get that endorphin hit elsewhere on June 2.

A few things to keep in mind: You may recall that during the 2024 primary, it took about a week to call the results for L.A. City Council races in District 4, where incumbent Nithya Raman was fighting to avoid a runoff election, and District 14, where challenger Ysabel Jurado wound up overtaking incumbent Kevin de León by just a few hundred votes.

It took an even longer 15 days to call the results of Prop. 1, during which opponents conceded, walked back that concession, and conceded again when the measure won by a razor-thin 0.4% margin. And it took 23 days to call the second-place winner for Orange County's 45th congressional district — it ultimately went to Democrat Derek Tran who went on to beat Republican Michelle Steel in the general election. Tran is now up for reelection and rematch with Steel is considered likely in November.

Depending on how close some of these races end up being, we may face similar waits this election cycle.

TL;DR: Officially, county and state election officials have until July 10 to certify election results — including a mandatory audit that requires hand-counting all of the ballots at 1% of precincts. Nevertheless, you're going to see a lot of national media headlines about California's relative "slowness." Brush it off. We have sunshine, beaches, and a highly enfranchised population.