Museum exhibit features history of Asian American activism in LA, new license plate supports state parks, traffic saga for Corona's 91 FWY nears its end.
Shining a light on Asian American activism in LA
The 1960's were a time of big changes in America. The civil rights movement helped African Americans and Latinos shape new identities.
A similar thing was happening among Asian Americans.
Now, the Chinese American Museum is hosting a new exhibit that traces that community's activism from the 60's to the 80's.
It's called "Roots: Asian American movements in L.A."
Near the entrance of the exhibit, there's a large gray wall dotted with multi-colored post-its. The notes have handwritten answers to a question displayed in huge yellow text that reads:
What does Asian American mean today?
"This really enables our visitors to engage with fluid identity. To share with us, what they think Asian American means. Our exhibit definitely gives one perspective of how we define Asian American, but it is a fluid identity."
That's according to museum curator Steven Wong, who partnered with Ryan Wong to put the exhibit together.
KPCC's Josie Huang headed there for a tour:
When folks first walk in, they immediately see an image that features women at the forefront. The women are organized in a large group, rallied together megaphones in hand to protest. Where is this scene from?
"This scene is from a photograph in Little Tokyo. It was a photograph from an anti-war demonstration and it resonates with me because there are primarily women marching with their hands raised. And for the Asian American movement women were the backbone and all too often their voices, their stories are sidelined to Asian American male activists.
So, it's nice to really represent and showcase as our signature image Asian American women fighting for their issues, fighting for equality."
Year of the People
"Within Chinese Astrology 1971 is the year of the boar or pig but ironically he developed this poster that says 'Year of the People, off the pigs'
...this was definitely inspired by the Black Panther party using police officers representing power structures, representing oppression and this is before community policing and so this was symbolically a way to represent a community fighting back against that oppression."
Personal connection
"There's this flyer, newsletter, about saving the international hotel. For the museum, it shows that the Asian American movement was a national movement coming from different places, but for me personally this was an artifact that was given to me by my aunt who was active in the Bay area."
"Roots" will be at the Chinese American Museum until June 11th. For more information, click here.
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
The end is in sight for work on the Corona 91 Freeway
The 91 Freeway is the only major East/West connection between Orange County and Riverside County.
According to the traffic watching firm Inrix, the six-mile stretch through the city of Corona is one of the worst drives in the country. Many in Corona agree, including Briana Nuñez and Dorothy Catanese.
Nuñez:
"I would describe it as very hectic, very chaotic, very busy."
Catanese:
"Avoid it at all cost."
Over the years there’s been a lot of efforts to bring the freeway up to modern expectations. The lanes have been restriped to improve traffic flow and toll lanes were added in Orange County, for instance.
But residents like Dorothy Catanese say it’s all done little to improve what’s infamously known as the “Corona Crawl."
"It’s just always a mess whenever I go on it," Catanese said. "I call it the blue collar highway because everyone's just there trying to get to work."
That’s why in July of 2014, Riverside County Transportation Commission began the 91 expansion project. When complete, two toll lanes and one regular lane would be added to the freeway in both directions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsdV5CVYpKs
Today, those lanes are finally open. While there’s still some landscaping and shoulder improvements that need to be done, the new lanes represent the bulk of this project.
It’s a day that Vice Mayor Karen Spiegel has looked forward to.
“What's unreal is when you drive on it and you see it and you're like 'Oh My!' when you see the massive work that has been done on our town,” Spiegel said.
Spiegel has an especially big stake in the 91 expansion project. She was the chairperson on it when groundbreaking was done and has been involved in getting funding from nearly the beginning.
“I know there's a lot of inconveniences, and we thank the community for tolerating it, but remember: this is 1.4 billion dollars worth of infrastructure that they can't pick up and take away. It's here. It's permanently in Corona.”
What seemed permanent to many Corona area residents was the on-going construction.
While the project was meant to solve the traffic problems in the Corona, the almost three years of construction made some wonder if it was worth it.
Exits and lanes were closed during rush hour. The accident rate increased. It’s all caused a lot of confusion.
"When we first moved to Corona 27 years ago we could get to our work in Torrence in an hour. Now it takes us an hour to get to the freeway," Corona resident, Ira Yawnick, said.
Vice Mayor Spiegel has heard a lot of those complaints in recent years. But now that these lanes are finally open, she hopes that people will see how beneficial the 91 expansion will be in the long run.
"I’m just hoping that they're going to be happy with it at the end," Spiegel said. "It wasn't to upset people or make their lives miserable; It was to make our lives better. People will now understand that it really wasn't a bad thing, it was a great thing for corona."
There are skeptics. Many traffic engineers point out adding lanes to freeways rarely results in shorter commute times, which Catanese agrees with.
"I’ll believe it when I see it."
But others like June Yawnick are optimistic.
"I think it's great. I know how long it takes to get to the freeway in Corona so I think everyone will be happy."
There will be a special ceremony to mark the opening of the 91 expansion on March 31st.
To hear the full story, click the blue player above.
What California license plates say about our car culture
A new license plate design could be coming to the market soon and this one's got a mighty Redwood on it.
The idea from the DMV aims to help make the state's famous forests and state parks more visible and, ideally, valued.
The plate has already been designed, but it'll only be put into production if 7,500 people order them by May 18.
It will join another dozen specialty plates the state offers drivers.
"These kinds of license plates add yet another level of distinction," Leslie Kendall said to Take Two's A Martinez. Kendall is the chief curator at the Petersen Automotive Museum.
Kendall says it's a special part of the car culture unique to the golden state.
"In California, we express an awful lot of ourselves through our cars and that extends through our license plates."
https://a.scpr.org/i/119e71ef09c2a5b48d4e4a4086a48c31/85979-small.jpg
Photo courtesy Steve Lyon/Flickr Creative Commons
On the black and gold license plates of the 1960's
"I like the black plates with the yellow/gold lettering on them. I think they speak to early California. They speak to a very formative period of the motoring landscape in our state."
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/pz66o0/picture25405696/ALTERNATES/FREE_960/04.1970s%20plate
Photo courtesy of CA.DMV.gov
On the Blue plates of the 1970's
"In the 1970's, California ran out of letter and number codes so what they did was, they switched them around. Instead of two letters followed by three numbers, it was three numbers followed by three letters. To highlight the differences, they changed them from black to blue. But if you kept your car with the black and yellow plates on it, and some people did, it's still legal today to have a car like that."
https://a.scpr.org/i/9c922def352bcfd73c75397a229c741f/64763-small.jpg
Photo courtesy Flickr/Fabi Dorighello
On the modern white license plates
"It's bland yes, but it gets the idea across. All you're doing with your license plate as far as a lot of people are concerned is telling people how to find you if you do something wrong."
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above
On the Lot: Disney's Beauty and the Beast dominates box office
Helped by a lack of competition, Disney's live action version of the classic, Beauty and the Beast crushed everything else Hollywood was offering up for the weekend.
This, in spite of some controversy. As our On the Lot guide, Vanity Fair's Rebecca Keegan explains, the film's director stirred up some controversy when he pointed to a brief scene in the film and called it "an exclusively gay moment." Keegan notes, if he'd not made the comment, no one would have probably noticed.
But there was reaction. Censors in Malaysia demanded that four minutes be cut from the film. Disney refused and the film was pulled from distribution in that country. Meanwhile, Russian film officials gave the child-focused film a rating barring anyone under 16 from attending. And a drive-in theater in Alabama also pulled the film, citing moral reasons.
None of that dented the box office figures, and the movie's success cements Disney's position as the number one studio in Hollywood.
Keegan also brings some news from the small screen. Next month, Saturday Night Live will live across the country, meaning it will be broadcast here at 8:30 PM. It's partly a ploy to attract a bigger audience for the long-running show. SNL's ratings are way up, at levels not seen in two decades, and the "live" strategy also solves the problem of learning about all the best bits on Twitter hours before the show is aired in California.