Hispanic LA: Empowering the Latino Community in Los Angeles and Beyond

2023-08-12 14:58:19

Since its foundation in 2009, HispanicLA.com Not only does it report and provide a space for debate on issues that impact the Latino community in Los Angeles and the United States, but it has gone further and has joined initiatives that aim to combat prejudice, racism, and discrimination. .

In June of this year, Hispanic LA, LLC received a grant from the California government to implement the “Ralph Lazo Project: Latinos in the Heart of Japanese-American Concentration Camps and Current Challenges to Civil Rights.”

22 projects approved

The Ralph Lazo project, which is administered by the California State Library, is one of 22 proposals that were approved for the period 2023-24 by the government of California. It is worth mentioning that, in the case of Hispanic LA, the online magazine has a fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco Study Centerand with the support of Ethnic Media Services.

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Other educational, community, newspaper, radio, theater and museum organizations that received part of a $1.5 million grant included Chapman University, located in Orange County; Japanese American National Museum, in Los Angeles; Pasadena Educational Fund, in Pasadena: Public Media Group of Southern California (PBS), in Pleasant Hill; The Regents of the University of California Santa Cruz, in Santa Cruz; Little Tokyo Historical Society, in Los Angeles; Berkeley Society for the Preservation of Traditional Music, in Berkeley; Teatro Campesino, in Orange County; and LA Theater Works, in Venice.

Concentration camps, Ralph Lazo and migrants

The Hispanic LA project proposes an analysis of the military and political events that, following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, led to the arrest of people in various concentration camps. More specifically, the arrest of some 120,000 US citizens and immigrants who did not commit any crime, but all they had in common was their Japanese ethnicity. This figure includes approximately 2,300 Japanese who were brought from Latin America.

120,000 men, women and children of Japanese descent were detained in American concentration camps in the 1940s. PHOTO: MC

Among those detained was a 17-year-old boy named Ralph Lazo that he was not Japanese American or Latin American, but Mexican-American. A 17-year-old Belmont High School student who grew up in a multicultural Los Angeles neighborhood where, in the 1940s, many Japanese immigrant families resided. And when Lazo saw that his friends and neighbors of Japanese descent were being sent to concentration camps, in an extraordinary act of solidarity he decided to join them.

The Hispanic LA project is inspired by the symbolic connection that Lazo establishes between these two communities: that of Japanese Americans and that of Latinos.

And taking the violations of civil rights that the Japanese Americans experienced in the American concentration camps in the 1940s as a historical reference, it explores and reports the challenges faced by Latino migrants who in 2023 request asylum in the United States and the United States. hundreds who are in detention centers like the one in Adelanto, California. Places where, for many, the ‘American Dream’ has become the ‘American’ nightmare.

project components

The project itself consists of four essential components: a series of articles, an essay contest, two community meetings, and a video.

Between August 1, 2023 and July 31, 2024, HispanicLA.com will publish a weekly article. The theme of the notes will focus on the experience of the Japanese American community in the concentration camps of the ’40s; the reality that Latino migrants live in the aforementioned detention centers of the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) will be analyzed; and the work of organizations that work to protect their rights will be promoted.

Ralph Lazo was in the Manzanar concentration camp in California. PHOTO: Wikipedia

Another aspect of the project includes organizing an essay contest at middle schools and high schools in the region. Essays should focus on Latino migrants and their ongoing struggle to survive in a context characterized by economic, social, and political obstacles.

In the middle of the year, in December, a Zoom meeting will be organized, in which a special guest will speak regarding the experience of Japanese Americans in the concentration camps and, in addition, a panel of migrants and experts will be presented to discuss the current situation of Latino immigrants.

At the end of July 2024, a second and last meeting will be convened, in a public place, in which the project will be closed with the delivery of prizes to the students participating in the contest and the various activities carried out throughout the course will be reported. throughout the year

All the most relevant events of the Ralph Lazo Project will be documented in a video that will be available to the public.

For more information on the Ralph Lazo Project, please contact [e-mail].

This article was supported in whole or in part by funds provided by the State of California and administered by the California State Library.

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