Over 11 years and 570 episodes, John Rabe and Team Off-Ramp scoured SoCal for the people, places, and ideas whose stories needed to be told, and the show became a love-letter to Los Angeles. Now, John is sharing selections from the Off-Ramp vault to help you explore this imperfect paradise.
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As part of our ongoing series on local writers, Off-Ramp producer Queena Kim brings us this interview with Reyna Grande. Grande came out with her second book “Dancing with Butterflies,” which is centered around the four women who belong to a Folklorico group in East LA. Folklorico is the general term used to describe “folk” dances that originate from Latin America.
Reyna Grande says that she's drawn to characters who have flaws. So while the portions about Folklorico offer a romantic portrait of Mexican culture, her narrative and characters are raw and not always unflattering.