Literary Innovation and From Whence It Came

A New Reading Series Debuts; Established Literary Fest Arises From Flames

Michael Sedano

May 2025 marks the return of LitFest to Pasadena itself. In previous years, the literary communities of Altadena and Pasadena held festivities in disparate locations in both towns, and South Pasadena, a separate community, wasn't part of the denas.

Then LitFest moved into the spacious mausoleum building of Altadena’s Mountain View Cemetery and took on the name “LitFest in the Dena”. But the fire. Hence, the Dena is now just Pasadena until we Altadenense get back on our feet. A ver.

LitFest in the Dena or Pasadena, that’s not what La Bloga-Tuesday focuses its spotlight today. Instead, South Pasadena is bringing poetry under its own umbrella with a new poetry series, Poetry In the Afternoon, hosted by Aaron Hernandez.

The poetry readings are housed in the lovely SPARC Centre Gallery a thriving cultural hub in the center of the civic neighborhood, 1000 Fremont Ave, South Pasadena, CA. In the rear, lots of parking!

Open Mic readers

Thursday, April 17 marked the launch of this fulfilling series with featured poets Thelma T. Reyna and G.T. Foster. Joining them are Open Mic poets, Beth Baird, Joseph Nicks, Ron Koertge, Chris Cressey, Ethan Kwok, Rick Leddy, Barrywom23 (not pictured).

 

Aaron Hernandez organized the reading

Foster reads poems and from his Army memoir. The audience enjoys his song poem mixing a Thai language song with a soldier's recollection of a good night in the Ville.

Reyna reads love poems, a man cradles his wife's face for a gentle kiss; a girl remembers the poverty and nurturing environs growing up treading the caliche ruts of a dusty Texas town.

Audience and readers enjoy a round of applause. Next Poetry In the Afternoon will be packed with readers and listeners. Who knows, maybe there'll be busloads coming into South Pasadena from Pasadena's LitFest in the Dena?

A ver.

Rich Weekend Anticipates Writer Trade Show

Pair of Readings Launches Writing Week in Cityof La

Michael Sedano

AWP is coming to the city of LA, and with the coming of the peripatetic writing industry trade show come dozens of offsite poetry-centric literary readings. It’s going to be a stimulating week and endurance test for night owls. I’m not, so I won’t be seeing AWP week’s stellar lineups nor doing a lot of communing with long-distance friends from out-of-town. 

I got to make up for the anticipated losses in the recent weekend’s pair of stellar readings, both coming at reasonable afternoon hours. 

Alicia Viguer Espert

The first event, the Los Angeles Public Library Eagle Rock Branch's Saturday poetry series featured the luminous work of Alicia Viguer Espert (link) and a host of open mic readers. Eagle Rock supports a lively poetry community that comes together regularly thanks to the library staff's commitment to connecting poets and listeners.

The second event, in Pasadena, a joyous celebration combining dance, outstanding open mic poets, and a roster of spotlighted poets that included an enchanting two-generation presentation by mother and daughter poets. 

Tribute dance to all things good and positive, community, poetry and poets.

The Pasadena event, “Still A Rose, An Ode to Altadena,” sponsored by International Black Writers & Artists/Los Angeles, co-sponsored by Poets & Writers, brought enthusiastic listeners to Alkebulan Cultural Center, only a few blocks south of the Eaton Fire devastation. 

The poetry program featured Tricia Cochee accompanied by special guests Teresa Mei Chuc, Hazel Afia Clayton, Angela Ama Clayton, and Thelma T. Reyna. 

Angela Ama Clayton

Angela Ama Clayton gets a triumphant
abrazo from mother Hazel Afia Clayton

Thelma Reyna

Teresa Mei Chuc

Hazel Afia Clayton

Two dancers frame the program's elements. The first dancer opens the readings by the special guests with a glorious dance celebrating the upcoming voices. The second dancer captivates in a glorious blue gown to evoke the orisha Yemoja as an introduction to the day's featured poet.

The program’s featured poet, Tricia Cochee, polls the audience. In another's poll, I join only a few other hand-raisers who’ve lost their homes to the Eaton Fire. Everyone else raises a hand that they know people who’ve lost their place. 

Water quenches fire 

Tricia Cochee

The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (link) and its offsite readings coming to Los Angeles March 26–29, promise a daily program of talks and readings followed by after hours socializing and celebrating the best of contemporary U.S. writing and poetry. 

Even if I miss the whole AWP thing, my need for great art has already found satisfaction in this weekend’s pair of sublime celebrations of culture and art that happened while the sun was out.

Tim Z Hernandez at Vroman's. Eaton Fire Survivor: Fragment of a Mask

Patty Rodriguez and Tim Z. Hernandez Explore "They Call You Back"

Michael Sedano

A dark and rainy night doesn't daunt the eager collective gathering in Pasadena's venerable independent bookseller, Vroman's Bookstore, to hear Tim Z Hernandez in conversation with Patty Rodriguez about They Call You Back. Hernandez and Rodriguez reward the intrepid audience with a music-filled platica featuring music by Joel Rafael (link).

Hernandez' publisher, the University of Arizona Press (link), summarizes the work, noting, Hernandez’s mission to find the families of the twenty-eight Mexicans who were killed in the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon formed the basis for his acclaimed documentary novel All They Will Call You, which the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed “a stunning piece of investigative journalism,” and the New York Times hailed as “painstaking detective work by a writer who is the descendant of farmworkers.”

In this riveting new work, Hernandez continues his search for the plane crash victims while also turning the lens on himself and his ancestral past, revealing the tumultuous and deeply intimate experiences that have fueled his investigations—a lifelong journey haunted by memory, addiction, generational trauma, and the spirit world.

Patty Rodriguez

Hernandez kicks off the event reading one of the most powerful scenes from a book filled with powerful accounts of lost souls, naming the nameless, communing with spirits, personal insights, writerly writing. 

The scene recounts the day the California State Legislature honors the author and acknowledges the humanity of the long-erased deportees by calling their names from the California Senate floor.

As a senator names a name, Hernandez' nine year old son whispers, at first, then louder, then aloud calls out "Presente!" after each name. Politicians one by one stand and soon the chamber fills as if with one voice, "Presente!" as each deportee's name is called out, "Presente!" A child has led them.

Tonight, the boy leads us here, as well, listening to the words. Hernandez reads his text interspersing sotto voce presente and, as in the narrative, the audience joins the boy, the author, and the long-ago legislature, Presente! Presente! Presente! The moment offers a stark contrast between the rot infecting U.S. immigration politics, and tonight's puro humanism connecting souls across time and place in Los Gatos Canyon, the senate chamber, wherever it was the deportees called home, and Vroman's right now.

Hernandez writes how, in the minutes before he and two families take to the senate floor, Joan Baez privately sings to them Woody Guthrie's song, Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) (link). Hernandez' guest, composer performer Joel Rafael, shares the touching song's haunting melody. Rafael composed music for the documentary, "A Song for Cesar," where Rafael sings Deportee for the soundtrack.

Joel Rafael

It was a dark and stormy night, that night in Pasadena. Those assembled at Vroman's had come to resist. This is what that looks like:

Being there. That's resistance.

Taking the roll call of the airplane crash victims, and responding for them, "Presente!", that's resistance.

Acknowledging the humanity and peoplehood of gente decente caught in the spotlight of xenophobia and political scapegoating, that's resistance.

Reading They Call You Back (publisher link), that's resistance. 

Memory

Eaton Fire Survivor: Fragment of An Alfredo de Batuc Ceramic Mask 

It was so many years ago I don't remember the year. I remember walking into Frank Romero's Frogtown studio where his annual Christmas sale was going strong.

As I enter, my eye catches a table adorned with prints and a wondrous ceramic, double-faced mask, a moon face fashioned in the style of the artist's paintings and prints on display. 

I chat up a fellow in a fashionable brown suit who's tending the display. We don't introduce ourselves. I buy the ceramic mask. I learn later the anonymous vato is the artist himself, Alfredo de Batuc (link). 

The double-sided ceramic mask, along with de Batuc's serigraph pastiche of Frida Kahlo's Las Dos Fridas, perished in the January 7 Eaton Fire that destroyed the land and house where I lived. 

I held no hope to find any vestige of Alfredo de Batuc's captivating dos fridas DDLM serigraph's paper substrate. But when my daughter sifted ashes from her living room she pulled out the chin nose and left cheek of Alfredo de Batuc's clay sculpture. The obverse retains its deep crust of ashes where the inverted bowl of the face lay upon smoldering coals of books, hardwood, and stereo records. This piece of burnt clay is a fragment of whole memories, a piece of a lifetime's treasure, stuff to make dreams on because that's what we have left.

Mira nomás, artifact of the 2025 January 7 Eaton Fire, known provenance. 

Fire takes stuff and converts it into new stuff. 

Aftermath: Firestorm and Immigrant Poets

Mail Call
Michael Sedano

Snow covers the higher elevations of the mountains above fire-scarred slopes. Gente lined up at the post office aren’t enchanted by the sight on a perfect California winter day. We are the survivors of the firestorm that incinerated the residential heart of the community of Altadena.

World Central Kitchen serves free meals, water, fruit. Spirts remain upbeat.

The fire was miles to our east but my daughter insisted I leave my bed and head downrange. A foolish skeptic, I disbelieved a fire over there could reach us. I grabbed my prescriptions, my laptop, wallet, glasses,and shaving kit. My camera and long lens were already in the car. The next morning my entire worldly possessions were the clothes on my body and the stuff I’d taken for a night’s stay in a motel.

The fire scattered us. My granddaughter was welcomed to the primos’ spare room. My daughter and I found motel rooms. My daughter worked exhaustively to find lodging, competing with hundreds of burned-out families. She did and today we’re under the same roof again.

At first, I took refuge in a simple motel room. After a week and a half, disenchanted with restaurant food, I moved into a kitchenette motel. Angel Guerrero and Thelma Reyna gifted me cooking pots and utensils. Thelma took me shopping at Home Goods for stuff I denied needing. She was right; I needed them.

Clothes loomed as urgent needs. I scored a few serviceable threads at the Salvation Army and Ross Dress for Less. Friends in deed come to ones in need: Jesus Treviño outfitted me with a near complete wardrobe of stylish warm clothes including nice jackets that defeat the daily chill. Mary Cannon is holding some clothes for me.

This morning packed to move out of the Motel 6, I looked into the back of my car to realize I was staring at all my worldly goods. That’s a fact. And I’m not alone living out of a car. We’re in line to collect mail that has no place to go. 

After 79 years living and working, here is all the stuff I own.

Let Me Count the Ways: Loving A Panel of Immigrant Poets

Two weeks ago I was happy to attend the fifth iteration of a marvelous panel of poets who happen to be Immigrants, Writing from Our Immigrant Hearts. In the wake of the Eaton Fire, I gained a new perspective on the four poets’ experiences. Hearing these four poets will have impact on any number of preconceived notions, and will likely raise new insights.

Teresa Mei Chuc and Thelma T. Reyna

Moderator Dr. Thelma T. Reyna asks the panel two questions. Tell about their homeland and circumstances leading to their decision to emigrate to the USA, and second, what’s life as a United States American, what dreams and hopes have you developed? Three panelists, Lisbeth Coiman, Toti O’Brien, and Alicia Viguer-Espert share similar arrival stories: wife of a man coming to work here. Teresa Mei Chuc fled Vietnam on a refugee boat.

Lisbeth Coiman

My enlarged understanding of the immigrant experience grows out of our mutual experience of profound displacement. The three married poets divorced the man they accompanied and the women began new lives. The poets speak of returning as visitors with some estrangement. Coiman is an “enemy of the state” and cannot return. The phrase,  Ni de aquí, ni de allá, touches on that experience.

Alicia Viguer-Espert

Here in Altadena, authorities slowly are reopening blockaded areas allowing people to return to sift through ashes. There’s no aquí here and no allá there, that’s why we’re lined up at the post office.

After the immigrant poet panelists have offered their answers to Reyna’s queries, they treat the audience to poems reflecting what the narratives conveyed. The reading makes a powerful conclusion to an engrossing and eye-opening presentation.

Teresa Mei Chuc

The energy of this face-to-face panel makes attendance the highlight of any conference or reading series. The drawback of any oral presentation is you have to be there at the right time or you miss everything. Now, there’s a book in the works. La Bloga doesn’t have many details of the published work but when we have it, we’ll share.

Toti O'Brien

Peter J. Harris QEPD

Peter J. Harris leaves a resounding legacy in memories of astounding performances of the poet's work. Every performance offers a constant reminder that Harris is a consummate reader and interpreter of poetry, one of the language's two best male readers. 

Sharing fotos and accounts over the years of Peter J. Harris readings illustrate the poet's ability to make a difference in the lives of an audience, a readership, and fellow poets. In memoriam, I share a pair of columns, Harris' farewell performance as Co-Poet Laureate of Altadena, California, and a reading with Luis J. Rodriguez at a critical point in one listener's life.

La Bloga is privileged to have shared Peter J. Harris, the man and his work, witnessed at his September 2023 farewell reading, when Harris and his Altadena Co-Poet Laureate Carla R. Sameth, concluded their two-year service. The event also marked Harris' goodbye to his longtime Southern California home. (Click the link below to read the full account.) 

Hail and Farewell forms the heart of an evening's poetry reading with Altadena, California's co-Poets Laureate, Carla R. Sameth and Peter J. Harris (link to biographies). The audience quickly fills every seat and staff bring more chairs, and more people arrive. There's a buzz in the air, electric excitement you feel on rare occasions. Something Significant occurring here.

The news had reached many attendees: Peter Harris is really sick. Peter Harris is hospitalized. Peter Harris might not attend his own reading. Tonight, Peter J. Harris sits at the front of the room. He's using a 4-wheel walker and a cane, looks frail. The Poet takes the lectern. He shares his news: Peter Harris is moving to Florida.

Familia and friends have thronged to be with the poet this important, landmark evening. https://labloga.blogspot.com/2023/09/hail-laureates-atque-vale-peter-j-harris.html

Peter J. Harris, along with Luis J. Rodriguez, resuscitated my soul the evening I'd checked my wife, Barbara, into a memory care ward where I feared she would live her remaining years. (Click the link below to read the full account.)

The two poets reading in a local bookstore I'd never set foot in offered a powerful lure. Luis J. Rodríguez and Peter J. Harris need to be experienced in writing and in person and together, and they were reading in Pasadena at Battery Books at the city's least amenable to foot traffic address. Siri knew where it was but damned if I had confidence in where she was leading me. But I have an imperative tonight. It's the night of the day my wife went into Memory Care and just like that, I am living alone. 

Tonight, I test my sea legs as an independent entity. I'll deal with the guilt later, at having fun and being out among 'em without her. We hadn't done much going out the past few years as the Alzheimer's progression expressed itself by fatigue and agoraphobia. Gente came to Casa Sedano and that's how we got our poetry read aloud, the Living Room Floricanto.

These guys write kick-ass poetry. These guys write break-your-heart-for-all-sorts-of-reasons poetry. Poetry that breaks your heart for its stories and voices of tragedy, privation, desperation, love. Poetry that breaks your heart for being il miglior fabbro stuff. Rodríguez is the emeritus Poet Laureate of the City of LosAngeles, that kind of quality. I don't know why Harris hasn't been named to a Laureateship, that breaks your heart.

https://labloga.blogspot.com/2019/07/recharging-at-battery.html

Eulogies to il miglior fabbro

Luis J. Rodriguez

The extraordinary poet, activist, and wonderful human being, Peter J. Harris, has passed. I send my deepest condolences to his family and countless friends and admirers. He was also a dear friend. We met 44 years ago at the University of California, Berkeley where we were part of the 1980 Summer Program for Minority Journalists, an 11-week training program. He was my roommate in the university dorms. The program consisted of young writers of color from all over the United States. Peter and I also had two small children each. Mine were six and four when I entered this program. His were in Washington D.C. Mine in East Los Angeles. Twenty-six years old, I no longer had a wife or a family, although my children were constantly in my heart, and I had to forge a loving relationship with them despite a messy breakup and years of abandonment on my part. Peter and I talked about this: love, children, broken relationships, being imperfect in our responses, and then what we had to do to become the fathers they needed. Too many wrongs can make right, but it takes work, dedication, and love, love, love. I have had a hard time, but I'm now good with my oldest children (and two other sons, five grandkids, and seven great-grandkids). I know Peter has filled this gap as well. More importantly, while we struggled to be journalists of color at a time when we were less than three percent of U.S. newsrooms, we both also became renowned poets. While I lived in Chicago for fifteen years, when I returned to Los Angeles I was glad to know Peter was already here. We renewed our friendship, and took an active part in this city's expansive poetry scene. I was also honored to publish Peter's powerful poetry collection "Bless the Ashes" with Tia Chucha Press (link), my small press (now 35 years old), also part of a larger cultural space and bookstore known as Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore (link). Peter was not only a friend, but one of the most amazing poets. More importantly he was generous of heart, a sweet soul. He fought for happiness in a world that didn't seem to have much. He was about spreading joy; he was joy. I honor Peter J. Harris, griot for the ages.

Thelma T. Reyna

Our world was diminished with the passing of Peter J. Harris, a literary star whose brilliant, musical poetry and prose awakened our senses and broadened our understanding of humanity. He was a consummate Co-Poet Laureate in Altadena, CA, one of the finest Laureates any of us has known. He gave us his best work, his best thinking in each project he undertook: as journalist, editor, speaker, blogger, advocate, community leader, and founder of the Black Man of Happiness Project. He mentored, collaborated, and inspired, always kind, thoughtful, honest, and courageous. Those of us who knew him and worked with him will deeply miss him.

Peter was the brilliant Editor of my Golden Foothills Press' Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology 2024 (link). Battling a critical illness, he singlehandedly vetted over 350 poems submitted to us for the anthology from throughout the U.S. He culled these to 178 poems, and the anthology was born. In a conversation with me, Peter said he considered this book his "gift" to the poetry community. It was his labor of love and excellence. It was his last published book.

Link to the Press: http://www.goldenfoothillspress.com/

John Martinez

When a mountain disappears from the surface of earth, the people are left, shocked, with disbelief, unaccepting. Fact is, a mountain, a true mountain, never leaves. It gazes over, all that is terminal, the animals, the mumbling trees; it stands, above and is always, always present. This is what I feel about the passing of Peter J. Harris. We mourn, that we won’t see him again, those glasses, tipped on the rim of his nose, his straight shoulders, the time colored grey-his trimmed gotee the light bronze of his face. We won’t hear him, on stage, clutching his open book, slightly hunched into the mic, eyes wide open, drawing us all in, as he peers back at us, then back to his open book, then, back to the audience. But you see, he’s a mountain. He emerged from the earth, eons ago. And we could see him, from afar, his presence, in the blue, blue, between the green hang of tree branches. 

Once, I gave Peter J., a ride to his home, after a poetry reading in East Los Angeles. We were in my convertible BMW. The air was brisk, the sky, an emergence of firefly’s and stars. I was in my dark mode (as usual) existential angst, this uselessness I felt, about writing, about poetry, and the thought of death was so overwhelming. And he was patient as a seasoned doctor, always on call. I, then, reminded him, that all of this was in contrast to the sheer optimism in his writing, the love he had for his community, for all of us-his poetic and precise love for life itself. He responded with Patience. Patience for an old poet, 59, going on 15., “What is important here,” he said, as the night sky breeze chilled our faces, the wind ruffled through his sheep’s pelt hair…“It’s all about, happiness.” He said. And he looked over at me and grinned. It was that look that Vic (my brother) would give me when my observations were off put, that it might be time for me to shut up and listen.  Besides, it was foolish of me, to act out my fears, before legendary poet. A man, who had already risen from such nonsense. “Happiness.” This is the word. This is what makes the ink, worthy. And so, on the way, Pasadena is green. Greener than I have ever imagined. Even though, I passed through, many, many, times-this time, the hues were vamped, like someone sloshed on the landscape with a photoshop saturation brush. And the streets are shimmering, tar mirrors from a rain that was less than a mist. And when we stopped at the entrance to his home, he said to me; “Always write, and consider happiness,” as he gathered his books and a few tattered  notebooks, crunches them to his chest and opened the door. And in my trek to my own home, I took the 210 Freeway, East, and to my left, the soft outlining of foothills and behind them, the dark blue bold of snow peaked mountains, I felt the permanency of it all, how something’s in life, remain, always remain. 

RIP Peter J. Harris.

Reading Poetry At Matter Studio. Hail & Farewell Richard Alatorre

A Good Place to Read Is Good to Find

Michael Sedano

The Gallerist spoke sincerely, “we want to hold poetry readings in this space.” The space is Matter Studio Gallery on Pico in mid-city Los Angeles. Gerda Govine-Ituarte, who had interviewed artist J. Michael Walker in a gallery talk, heeded Karla Funderburk’s invitation and, together with long-time colleague, Thelma T. Reyna, organized the reading October 19.

Surrounded by abstract drawings and contented listeners, featured poets Govine, Reyna, and Hazel Clayton, were preceded by an open mic featuring Pauli Dutton, Lester Graves Lennon, GT Foster, Vibiana Chamberlin, Carolina Rivera Escamilla, who read poems published in Altadena Poetry Review Anthology 2024 (link). This superb lineup includes the founder of Altadena’s enduring laureate program, two Laureates Emerita, and Altadena’s current Co-Laureate. 

Gerda Govine listens as GT Foster reads

The afternoon’s listening joy springs from seeing and hearing poets comfortable in their own work, public speakers alert for adaptations available with this audience and ambience, poets offering considered reading and gesture consistent with the poets’ personal style. It is an afternoon of sublime moments, expression, thought, and motivation.

The reading begins inside the automobile driving into dismaying LA traffic. I am chauffeur to the three spotlight poets. The computerized map leads the route onto surface streets then changes her mind, directing the car back toward the congested freeway system. I drive onward into the heart of Koreatown, the edge of Pico-Union, then nondescript mid-City environs where Matter Studio Gallery needs to thrive at the corner of Pico and Redondo Blvd., 5080 W. Pico Boulevard LA, CA 90019

We arrive just as a busload of itinerant art collectors wrap up a visit to the exhibition. We mingle and share wine, water, fruit, cake, cookies laid out by the gallery for the tour and the reading. The collectors leave as the poetry friends filter into the space.

Driving to Matter Studio is no deterrent even on trafficky days. From Altadena, the drive will be half an hour or forty-five minutes. That’s better than most journeys in LA where gente know it takes an hour to get anywhere, even on the train.

Gallerist Funderburk has suggestions on seating and lectern placement. She asks about introducing the panel, only to learn she’s working with seasoned professionals. Reyna and Govine enlist Karla to distribute copies of the program and biographical notes, printed in sufficient number for every listener to get their own copy.

Printed material is essential to a top-quality audience experience. A portable P.A. system amplifies, and fuzzes, articulation.  With printed materials in hand, audiences will both hear and read the introductions. Nothing is lost owing to technology and acoustics. 

Vibiana Chamberlin

Pauli Dutton, who founded the Altadena Poet Laureate Program

Lester Graves Lennon, Co-Poet Laureate of Altadena, Ca

GT Foster

Carolina Rivera Escamilla 

Gerda sets the tone for the afternoon recounting the origins of today’s invitation. Thelma holds together the program, introducing each Poetry Review poet and the featured readers as each takes the lectern. 

Hazel Clayton, Poet Laureate Emerita of Altadena

I am impressed at the efficiency Karla Funderburk and an assistant display, clearing the gallery floor within minutes of the final spoken syllable! It’s not unusual to see audience and poets pitch in to clean up a space after a reading. Matter Studio isn’t the usual place.

Gerda Govine-Ituarte, founder of Pasadena Rose Poets

A few weeks ago, someone asked me if I knew where she could organize an AWP Off-site reading when AWP hits LA in March 2025. My friend chose a site on the Eastside. AWP Planners will want to consider Matter Studio. Mid-City is close to the convention center where AWP convenes; not walkable, but inexpensively ride-sharable.

Thelma T. Reyna, Poet Laureate Emerita of Altadena

For the poets of the Altadena Poetry Review Anthology 2024, the afternoon marks yet another productive outcome of their publication in the book. Publisher Thelma T. Reyna plans additional readings in coming months in venues like Matter Studio and backyard floricantos. La Bloga is happy to be included on the guest list and as chauffeur. 

(Fotos taken with iPhone)

Note: Richard Alatorre lived large in Los Angeles politics. A pioneering campaigner who held statewide and city office, he died in August 2024.

In memoriam

Richard Alatorre El Guerrillero Del Pueblo

By Jorge “Coqui” H. Rodriguez 

Richard Alatorre was a believer in possibilities 

He was the ultimate people’s politician…….

No one before him or after him can get near his tallones or accomplishments…….

Richard always did things to help people and impact the well being of their lives especially RAZA!…….

Richard could deal with Chancellor of Universities, police chiefs, heads of corporations, the Los Angeles Metro Board, heads of countries and tell them what he needed and what had to be changed……

Richard made them aware they were not getting the money they wanted for their projects if the people in State of California, City of Los Angeles, people in his 14th Council District,  weren’t treated with dignity, fairness, and justly attended to……..

Richard held firm to his principles to serving the Mexican people and others during his time in elected office…….

Richard was totally a grassroots politician……..

Richard brought the expansion of affirmative action at the universities, colleges and realigning the political redistricting lines for RAZA’s representation and inclusion across the Golden State, the City of Los Angeles and as Chair of the MTA he built the frame work for what is now the Los Angeles Metro Transportation System…….   

Richard brought us the world famous Mariachi Plaza on Boyle Avenue and First Street, in Boyle Heights…….

Richard march in 1984 down Broadway locked in arms with then Presidential Candidate Jesse Jackson and icon civil rights attorney Antonio H. Rodriguez what was then the largest pro-immigrants rights march in Los Angeles…….

Richard was the people’s Guerrillero, Advocate, Defender, Champion and the grassroots voice for the voiceless……. 

Richard was the marker of possibilities who changed the landscape of politics for Mexicans for future generations always delivering on his commitments…….

Richard Alatorre PRESENTE! …….   Richard Alatorre PRESENTE…….

About the author:

Jorge “Coqui” H Rodriguez is Founding member of the Sin Fronteras Project y First LA Annual Street Poetry Committee. Jorge is a long time civil, labor, immigration, environmental right activist. Sent from my iPhone