books on a bookshelf

Announcing VIDAS: Los Angeles Chronicles 2015 – 2025

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After more than a year “behind the scenes” as author and editor, Henry Lara and yours truly finally announce the release of VIDAS: Los Angeles Chronicles 2015 – 2025. In Lara’s own words: “For the past ten years, I’ve walked the streets of Los Angeles with an Android and a DSLR, meeting people, photographing moments, and collecting stories. Between 2015 and 2025, I captured nearly 400 stories. For this book, I chose 70. Seventy stories that stayed with me. Seventy moments from a city that has given me so much to capture, write about, and remember. Some stories are told through photographs. Some through prose. And some found their way into poetry…This book is my way of bringing those moments together and sharing a part of Los Angeles as I have felt and lived it over the past decade.”

VIDAS is now available for PRESALE! Copies arrive in mid-October, when there will also be an official LAUNCH PARTY. And I don’t think you’ll have to think hard to guess just who’s planning it. For now, your early support would mean the world for my friend’s work, as well as for mine towards the finish line!

Thanks so much for supporting this gargantuan undertaking by Angeleno Heart and yours truly.

J.T.

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Why Should We Be Deported? This is very, very hard for a family

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In 1905 Donald Trump’s grandfather Friedrich Trump, originally born in Kallstadt, a small village in Germany, was threatened with deportation for failing to report for military services in the 1880s and instead migrating to the United States. While in New York during this time, he met his wife, Donald Trump’s grandmother Elisabeth Christ, who herself had immigrated to the U.S. from Kallstadt in 1902.

In an effort to remain in Bavaria, where he had resettled by 1904, Friedrich Trump pleaded with Prince Luitpold, a stand-in leader of Bavaria who himself was only in charge because of his nephews’ mental incapacities for governance.

In the letter quoted above, published by Harper’s Magazine in 2017, Friedrich Trump cites undue hardship upon him and his family due to the news of the pending deportation from Bavaria, noting in particular its adverse effects on his mother, his wife Elisabeth, and his daughter Elizabeth.

Ultimately, Prince Luitpold rejected this plea, and Friedrich Trump and his family were forced to return to the U.S. in June 30, 1905.

Their son Fred, Donald Trump’s father, was born just four months later in October, and due in no small part to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 14th amendment just seven years earlier, was officially a U.S. citizen for being born here. The rest is Los Cuentos; let the city know!

🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽

J.

Zoot Suit Heritage Week in L.A.

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This was a special and yet very difficult day at the center of Los Angeles for yours truly. Having committed to this production with the Sueño Team in advance, little did I know that I would have to show up to the event less than a week after the devastating loss of two brothers in my community, which by extension was a loss for the heart of Los Angeles.

But I showed up for the inaugural Zoot Suit Heritage Week nonetheless because I knew that’s what our brothers would have wanted. Sure enough, I found myself uplifted by the beauty of our people, our culture and our enduring strength even while facing great challenges. Please check out the full video for this day from Whittier Blvd to Broadway via the link in my bio, and be sure to subscribe to J.T. the L.A. Storyteller Podcast and to follow the Sueño Team for more from our collaborative Palabra series soon.

J.T.

J.T. OBSERVES MLK JR. DAY

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Today regarded as an American icon, in his actual life, Martin Luther King Jr. was mostly villainized for his human rights efforts. On this MLK Jr.’s Day, yours truly reflects on the toll inflicted on Black Los Angeles over the last two years of the pandemic; Black people remain over-represented in L.A. County hospitalizations for COVID-19, as well as in the county’s traffic stops, jail cells, and–most deplorably of all–L.A.’s homelessness encampments.

J.T.

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EPISODE 61 – SOCIAL STUDIES WITH NICOLE GERRON

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In our 61st episode, we’re joined by LAUSD teacher, Nicole Gerron. Nicole and I talk about LAUSD’s progress in returning to the old routine over the last five weeks of the semester with students, as well as the district’s preparations for a full reopening in the Fall. We also touch on LAUSD’s food program for communities over the last year, Nicole’s Social Studies course on U.S. history, challenges for students and families in the next school-year for all stakeholders to keep in mind, and more. A fun conversation for educators everywhere, but especially in Los Angeles!

J.T.