This Series
Race In LA was conceived following the 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. LAist staffers gathered and shared stories about being racially profiled; about being put in a racial or ethnic box; about feeling unsafe; about never being "enough" of an American. Our newsroom realized there was more we could do to make sure diverse voices are heard in our coverage.
From June 2020 to July 2021, we published your stories each week to continue important conversations about race/ethnicity, identity and how both affect our lived experiences.
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When you grow up identifying as "half white and half Mexican," the task of choosing what box to check on a government form isn't easy. -
Soon after arriving in the U.S. from Saudi Arabia, he learned he was expected to check "white" for racial identity in the census. But amid the anti-Arab hate that followed the 9/11 attacks, he quickly realized that his "white" label came without the privilege.
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An American of Indian descent reflects on hate and hope: the hate that generations of her family have experienced -- and, as the mother of three girls, the hope that she has for their future.
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Facing wage discrimination at the clothing store where she worked as a tailor, his mother decided to quit and strike out on her own. Working out of her basement, she built a clothing business that lasted more than three decades.
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Growing up as the son of a Filipino immigrant dad and Russian American mom, Mark Moya felt equally attached to both cultures. He still does. Lately, he's been thinking more about their immigrant legacy and how it shaped him, especially after losing his dad earlier this year to COVID-19.
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Growing up Chicano and gay on the Eastside in the '60s and '70s, James Rojas often felt like an outsider. He found safe space and acceptance amid Black and Brown peers and disco music as "we blurred the L.A. redlining map and found identity, and community, in the fusion."
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A Black Armenian Angelena reflects on her identity -- the discrimination she's endured because of her race and feelings of being excluded because of her ethnicity -- the legacy of the Armenian Genocide and the current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
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He grew up surrounded by the status quo: myths of good guys versus bad guys, white suburban casual racism. But when a close friend who is nonwhite was beaten by police, he was forced to challenge his assumptions.
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In a series of recollections, Judy Jean Kwon reflects on what her Korean American family lost when they settled in the U.S. -- and what it's taken for her to reclaim at least part of it.
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"I came to deeply embrace anti-racism in slow, sustained increments. To do so, I had to embrace my own identity as a Brown person -- and understand my own complicity in white supremacy."
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Growing up in a family of New Orleans transplants in L.A.'s Jefferson Park neighborhood, Jervey Tervalon wasn't always appreciated by educators. It took some special teachers to take a deeper look and recognize his talents.
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A racial slur was part of Omar Amr's first experience playing Division I water polo at UC Irvine. It wasn't the first time he'd heard racist comments. Growing up in East L.A., Amr was groomed to "behave appropriately" so that hate directed toward him would not turn into harm.
THE ORIGINS OF RACE IN LA
The conversation started around a table in summer 2019. It resumed two days after a mass shooter in El Paso went gunning for Latinos at the local Walmart. And it's more relevant now than ever.
On Aug. 5, 2019, KPCC and LAist staffers gathered around the big newsroom table where we usually talk about stories, to vent, grieve, and try to wrap our heads around what had just happened.
As we talked, and some of us cried, many of us began sharing personal stories about how our skin, face, surname, perceived national origin — any and all of these — have factored into our lived experience.
A Latina producer with dark skin talked about the time a store employee treated her like she could not afford to pay her bill; a Latina reporter with light skin talked about the anti-Latino slurs she has heard when people are unaware of her ethnicity.
It was an emotional conversation — and now, we're having it again as we once more try to wrap our heads around the senseless death of a black man at the hands of police. Another. Again.
So we are grieving again as our community, and the nation as a whole, faces a reckoning. It's a reckoning sparked not just by the shocking killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, but by an ongoing catalog of abuses suffered by people of color in this country. The protests are fueled by centuries of racism and institutional violence that is disproportionately directed at black Americans.
We know that racism is pervasive. We also know that even in L.A. — diverse on the whole, but still very segregated in reality — it happens every day, casually and overtly. And we know the media bears responsibility for failing to speak more forcefully about this injustice.
This is how Austin Cross explained it in an essay he wrote about coming to the realization that as a black man he had no way to escape racism:
"For so long, I wanted, needed, to think that there was something I could do to be safe in the world. There wasn't. There never was, really."
In hearing the raw emotion of colleagues willing to share stories about being profiled; about being put in a racial or ethnic box; about feeling unsafe, daily; about never being "enough" of an American; about privilege and discomfort, we realized there was more we could do to make sure those voices are heard. Our job is not to lose focus on this. We are asking for your help, both in joining the conversation and holding us accountable to keep it going.