The Mindbuzz
The Mindbuzz is a pragmatic conversation that explores culture and society. An archive of interesting stories from today's creatives with a high range of commentary from artists, entrepreneurs, activists, podcasters, and people just like you!
The Mindbuzz
MB:202 with Janette Villafana Cuisine, and Controversy: A Deep Dive into the Latino Community
Janette Villafana is a journalist and multimedia reporter for LA Taco.
https://linktr.ee/Janette_V?fbclid=PAAaa-N0oRT44h3t6_orPENeJ-t46WnogPsdzmQIGwfkvOntW8kvXuX0gBLMU_aem_AbloTMSnjsYj0HmguNBPT3bJl-pjkY5kBpV26qpnBR6x5H8YGkejE6-kh03JeGTtEdI
Jeanette from LA Taco spices up our conversation with a side of journalism and community-based reporting. We stir up topics from her work covering the vibrant street vending communities in Los Angeles to the delicious Latino cuisines that have captured our hearts. You'll get a taste of the challenges these vendors face, and the flavorful solutions that organizations like Inclusive Action, Community Power Collective, and Revolution Carts are cooking up.
On a more serious note, we bite into the hard-hitting issues of Univision's controversial interview with Trump and the shockwaves it sent through the Latino community. We wrap up the episode by shedding light on the process of story selection at LA Taco and the importance of timeliness, impact, and relevance.
Ever thought about the grit and grind behind the laughter at a comedy festival? Strap yourself in as we engage Gill, comedian and performer at the upcoming Soy Funny Comedy Festival. He leaves no stone unturned as we traverse his comedic journey and upcoming projects.
So, come along for this rollercoaster ride that marries laughter and food with a dash of hard truth.
My Grito Industries
mygrito.net
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"King without a Throne" is performed by Bad Hombres
King without a Throne Official Music Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNhxTYU8kUs
King without a Throne
https://open.spotify.com/track/7tdoz0W9gr3ubetdW4ThZ8?si=9a95947f58bf416e
3, 2, 1. Boom, what is up? Mind Buzz Universe. Welcome back to another podcast episode of the Mind Buzz podcast. I'm your host, gil, and working the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5's and 6's, and also the co-producer of the Mind Buzz, is Amber behind the boards.
Speaker 2:Hola, you're clapping for me?
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for all your. It's a producer appreciation day.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I didn't know. I just started appreciating me right now at 7.18.
Speaker 1:November 21st. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the podcast. We got a full fledged episode tonight. I am so excited for our guests for this evening. But before all that good stuff, amber is going to lead us with the MyGrito Weekly. So what do we got in the world of MyGrito Amber?
Speaker 2:I will tell you right now. So 3LH will be performing with Necromantics and other bands at Observatory in Santa Ana on November 22nd.
Speaker 1:That's tomorrow night.
Speaker 2:That's tomorrow already.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's a day before.
Speaker 1:Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:We went last year. Huh, that's tomorrow, so tickets are still available. You should go out there. It's a great show, great venue. Burn some calories before you eat them all the next day. And also don't forget to pick up the MyGrito vinyl bundle at MyGritonet. We own that and it's a very cool collection. I believe it's five vinyls from the bands on the MyGrito label. So go out and get that. It'll be a great addition to your collection, or even just something, for I was going to say Halloween For Christmas.
Speaker 1:I got a great Halloween bit. Do you want to hear it?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tomorrow 3LH is playing with Necromantics Awesome show at the Observatory in Orange County, right?
Speaker 2:Santa Ana. Oh, no wait, did I say Santa?
Speaker 1:Ana Observatory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Santa Ana.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. Is this Santa Ana? You sure, yeah, santa Ana. Janette's giving us the nod, yes, but yeah, tickets are going to be in at 3LH's Instagram page. You'll see that, with the Necromantics, my personal favorite Psycho, billy band, what else do we got?
Speaker 2:That's all I got. Oh wait, but your show on Saturday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. Thanks for the segue into that and giving away the punchline, stepping on it all the way. Well, I kind of want to highlight this week's Open Mic's. This week we had an open. Well, not we, but did I take it down? I did take down the picture. Okay, oops, sorry, gibby. Gibby Lopez throws an awesome Open Mic in the city of Claremont at First Amendment Pizza Joint Awesome night. This week. He hosts that every Monday night. So if you want to work on your craft, work on your 3-minute, 5-minute, 10-minute set, just look for that link on my page. And then also, if you're following Gibby Lopez on all the socials, on Instagram, and then every Wednesday in the city of Belle is it Belle, right? I get so confused because there's Belle, belle Gardens, belleflower, pacific Belle, all those crazy stuff.
Speaker 1:It's like they ran out of names for towns. But in the city of Belle, at Beer Thug Brewery, is the soy funny Open Mic night. Tomorrow night's going to be awesome because they're having a comedy competition. So if you're a big fan of comedy, you are a comic yourself. Come out to Beer Thug, it's going to be a good night. I will be there, hosted by Sergio El Checo, and then yeah, come out, come watch our stuff.
Speaker 1:It's pretty great, but let's see what else. What else? Saturday I'm going to be performing live at the soy funny comedy festival in the city of Long Beach and I am super, super duper stoked. Tickets right now are 50% off. So go to my page, go to the link and the I'll put it down in the show description, of course, so you can go to my personal page at Ghibli Delic or go to the at the mind buzz Instagram, and it's right there in the link. It's going to be super fun. Come hang out, come eat some great food and enjoy some comedy.
Speaker 2:Yeah Cool.
Speaker 1:Cool, all right, you have anything else before we get into today's guest.
Speaker 2:I got nothing.
Speaker 1:You got nothing? All right, cool, all right, miss Nothing. Well, without further ado, let's get into today's interview. Jeanette from LA Taco, thanks for being here today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for inviting me. I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Of course, me too. I'm super excited to talk to you.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:So you are a journalist and creator. So how long have you been a journalist for?
Speaker 3:So officially I want to say three years because that's kind of when after I graduated. But I've been writing and like freelance scene for more than three years. So when I was in school I was still like trying to get my name out there, the stories out there, like right, trying to write outside of school. But officially, three years.
Speaker 1:So you're a journalist and reporter, right and creator.
Speaker 3:I say creator because I love, like you know, to talk. Nowadays I'm in, like I love sharing not just my work, like that I do like on a daily basis, but also like just my everyday life, like cooking and all coming mom and stuff like that Nice.
Speaker 1:Okay, Amber. What was the last part that she said?
Speaker 2:Jeanette, a girl doesn't speak Spanish, but I'll translate you be you.
Speaker 1:Amber's my translator.
Speaker 2:She likes to cook with her mom.
Speaker 1:Oh, perfect Documented on.
Speaker 3:You know cooking just like cooking, just anything really just everyday stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, I feel like.
Speaker 2:Those are my favorite videos to watch on Tik Tok, though. Food videos right Like food and like real life videos. So good job yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot of cooking videos right now on Tik Tok. I feel like that's all you watch too, Amber.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, because that's that's my passion is food.
Speaker 1:So I watch what I, what I want you know do you make cooking videos too, or is that what you just look at?
Speaker 3:So I love watching cooking videos. I just I love cooking whenever I get the chance, because I'm too busy and no, like you can't, but but yeah, I love doing like recording myself with my mom, Like last time. I think one of the last videos was like us cooking carne en chile and we like go through the steps. I've also done like a bolillo and hot chocolate and stuff like that, Like how to make it from scratch.
Speaker 2:That sounds good, it's good I'm like well, that sounds good.
Speaker 1:What is it?
Speaker 3:Bolillo, and okay, the bread right, yeah, and then you dip it in the hot chocolate. What?
Speaker 1:Is it like sweet.
Speaker 3:No, the bread itself. You can use it for like to dip it, like with one with hot chocolate or like you can use it to make tortas, like sandwiches.
Speaker 2:It's like the one I like to eat in breakfast with my egg. So it's like salty savory but, then you put it into hot chocolate and it like balances. I like, I like that combination. Right and savory is like my go to Definitely.
Speaker 3:And it is a chocolate season already, or hot chocolate season, so it's perfect.
Speaker 1:What do you like? Do you like a champurrado or abalita hot chocolate?
Speaker 3:You know we had this conversation at work. It was split. Some do not like champurrado and I'm just appalled because I'm like how can you not like champurrado, like I love champurrado, like hot chocolate and champurrado cannot be in the same section because champurrado is a lot thicker and you know, like with a tamal, it's just so good.
Speaker 2:You're going to hate me, then why I'm not like champurrado? I think. For me it's the consistency I don't like the thickness of, because I like all the flavors, I like all the ingredients that go in there, but I don't like the thickness, just like I don't like like a rosconleche and like things like that.
Speaker 3:I think it's like the thick. I know, I'm sorry, I just cooked a rosconleche this week because they're raining. You know, like, as soon as like we get a little bit of gloom, I'm like, okay, we're cooking hot chocolate, calor or something.
Speaker 1:It's like right on the stove, ready to go Once rainfall hits. I remember eating that when I was a child the rosconleche.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so good. But yeah, champurrado, I get it. I mean I get people who don't like it. It is. It could definitely be a texture thing, but I love it, like with tamales, and I know it doesn't make sense because tamales are made with masa and that's also included in the champurrado.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:So I get why people are like.
Speaker 1:But maybe overwhelmed with the different gritty textures. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's so good, but it's like people that eat chilaquiles with tortillas. Have you ever heard of that? I haven't.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I had a friend whose uncle used to she's a tamale. She's like, yeah, my uncle eats chilaquiles with tortillas, like, like if he was eating like beans like he would rip up tortillas and then grab the chilaquiles and I was like that's funny.
Speaker 1:Or who does the chilaquiles burrito?
Speaker 2:Evil cook.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh my God, that thing is delicious Tortilla overload.
Speaker 2:But I fucking amazing, but it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it works, it works out really well. But you work for LA Taco and you report for them. So tell me a little bit about what you do for them, because obviously you you are a foodie too, because you guys throw these amazing Latino food festivals. So tell me about your work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I've been with LA Taco for about three years this year and a lot of the work that I've done with them has been community based reporting. And I think for sure like the one thing that I'm most known for is my coverage on the street vending communities in Los Angeles. It's like really deep diving into why they're still being criminalized, how they're impacted by robberies, attacks and laws that are in place, and that's kind of like one of the biggest things that I'm most mostly known for, I would like to say, is my coverage for street vending. But of course, I also help out with social media. I do.
Speaker 3:I love food, I love sharing and writing about features, especially highly local businesses in Los Angeles, and sometimes I get to do that in Santana. I'm from Santana, so sometimes I get to cover OC restaurants and it's just amazing to be able to do that To highlight a family business. But yeah, that that that I do a lot at LA Taco. I mean I feel like we all wear many hats despite, like, whatever title we have. We're a small team but we're a mighty team. That's what we like to say. Somos pocos pero locos we're, we're a little bit, but we're crazy. But we like we get it done.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 3:Um, and you know, la Taco, we cover news, food and culture in Los Angeles and we like to say that we like to cover the real Los Angeles, like the Los Angeles you get to know when you're, you know whether you've actually been living there, or the Los Angeles you get to know when you're actually interacting with community on a day to day basis.
Speaker 1:So for up until this year, following you, following all your work, I had no idea LA Taco did everything else besides just cover food, which was. It was kind of kind of nice to to see that. Did you fall into the street vendor um beat, or was it just something that you were very passionate about?
Speaker 3:I feel like I've always wanted to cover street vending, but I wasn't sure. I remember when I was in a Cal State, long Beach, I really wanted to tap into that but I was still very much insecure in like my writing skills and my reporting skills so I just felt like, uh, I wasn't going to touch it. And then once I uh got with LA Taco, one of my first pieces was a more casual piece about um, the Tamalera Queen in downtown Los Angeles during the pandemic. Um, how her business that she used to work as a dishwasher at closed down and, uh, she had to turn to selling tamales to make money. And then basically she was being harassed by the health department and her job. Her boss told her you can come sell your tamales here. Like we're not even open, you can use the space. Um, and then from there I just started to dig deeper, so I was kind of thrown into it without knowing that I was going to be sticking to this beat for so long. Um, but I love it and I do have a background Like I thought I asked myself too, like why am I so interested in this?
Speaker 3:Besides, like the obvious, and like wanting to inform people about what's going on, um, and help get these voices out there, you know, and these stories out there, um, but you know my family, they had their street vendors, um, we have, I have friends who are street vendors here, um, like in the U? S and in Los Angeles, a family who are street vendors, taco vendors, and then in Senada, in Mexico, you know, my dad's family has a line of, like Marys ghettos, which they sell seafood and their seafood stands, and that was my dad's first job too, when he first got to the? U. I mean not to the U? S, to Mexico, like the city. So, yeah, I just feel like I'm, it's a passion of mine. I also feel like it's just people trying to make a living and they're entrepreneurs, after all, you know, and like you notice it when you go out in the street um, they're just trying to make a living, like you and I, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, that's pretty deep rooted into your background as a person. Yeah, street vending.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, definitely. I mean a lot of the stuff that I've heard from street vendors. I know somebody who has gone through something similar, um, you know, whether that's in my family or like just a friend or um, somebody that I know.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And so I mean obviously I mean I grew up here, I grew up in Paramount, you know, and I go to LA anywhere, even right there in Compton on Atlantic Avenue, you go at, you know, after five o'clock and there's already all these food vendors there. So I'm well aware, and I think anyone growing up here in California kind of that's our culture, right.
Speaker 2:The food vendors, like that's what you see, whether you go and you participate and you buy stuff from them or you don't, but you'll always see someone selling fruit or a taco person and things like that. Um, we've had it. You know. I could say, like for me, 33 years, right, my entire life that I've seen it. Um, why do you think that it's been so difficult? Like why? Why do you think we're not progressing? I mean, obviously we have right and some aspects, but why do you think that it's still it's such a hot topic of? Like why haven't we found other ways to be able to have these people vend? You know the way that maybe quote the city wants or what?
Speaker 2:what's the what's happening that it's not letting you know these things happen, or these people get permits, or or then legally.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So a lot of people have this really misconception that street vendors don't want to get their permits, and the reality is that a lot of them have tried multiple times. Not only is it expensive, I mean a blueprint for your car which you have. It's required by the health department. By the way, I call the health department permit like the golden ticket, um, like in Willy Wonka, like literally the golden ticket, because when you have that then you're basically safe from like getting, you know, your stuff confiscated or anything like that. Um, but there's still a lot of hurdles that vendors have to go through. Vendor permits are expensive. Blueprints are almost like $1,000 per blueprint and then let's say you go to the health department and you submit everything and there's something wrong with your blueprint and you have to go back and like correct it. That's like your money by blueprint?
Speaker 2:you mean like an actual blueprint of what your cart looks like and where you're setting up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, like a blueprint of the cart itself, cause the cart itself has to be approved by the health department. And should they say, hey, you know, like it's actually still missing a sink or this or that, like you have to go back to the drawing board and that's like you know, you're having to pay everything again, depending how long it takes you to like modify your cart to those requirements.
Speaker 1:And each application takes like there's a fee, right, there's a fee along with that.
Speaker 3:There's a fee that goes along with that, and you know not only that, but there's a lot of lack of outreach, although there's a lot of great organizations out there, like Inclusive Action, community Power Collective and even Revolution Carts, who are helping street vendors get their permits and get carts in their hands. Like, revolution Carts is the one who created the first Ligo Tamal cart in LA.
Speaker 3:And when you think about it it's been years, like over a hundred years, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, and we can go back in this and reference it to one of my stories, cause I mentioned it. Do you have it on one of your? It should be, if you. Revolution Carts, la Taco. I don't know if it's on the link tree. Revolution Carts, la Taco. We covered when they first like, when the health department first like approved their cart, and it is crazy to think that so many years have passed. I think one of the first LA Times reports of a street vendor was a Tamal cart and to think that all the way back then and we're now in like 2022, 2023, I don't recall if it was- Is it this one?
Speaker 3:Create one of a kind Ligo Tamal carts? I believe so, and we did give away carts with Rockstar and Revolution Carts. We got really lucky to give away some carts, but to think that it was so many. And these are what the carts look like. He has them designed by local artists.
Speaker 1:Those are awesome. Can you put that on the screen, Amber.
Speaker 3:And they are. I mean, they're fully equipped with everything that you need. These are Tamal carts and ever since then they've had so many vendors that they've been able to get their hands on them like for them, and a lot of them are like free, so they've been able to give them away. And but to think that the first Ligo Tamal cart that we have, and it's been so many years of having street vendors and we're barely getting the first Ligo Tamal cart.
Speaker 3:That just puts into perspective a little bit of how hard it is to actually get an approved cart, like right now. If you're a taco vendor you're technically illegally cooking in the streets because their setup isn't approved by the health department. But how do we get to the point where the health department what a lot of things that the vendors say is how do we get to communicate with the health department and the people making the decisions that are putting the requirements on us? Because they need to understand that a lot of the stuff that they're asking of us doesn't work for a street vendor. Before this year, the food cor la was actually outdated and it was written for brick and mortar businesses, not street vendors. So they were asking vendors for like sinks, microwaves, I mean a huge cart that you don't picture. You're a little bit all pushing around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a temporary food facility is totally different than a brick and mortar.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And sometimes in, because I've seen these applications before and most of them are exactly that. They're asking for things that a typical temporary food facility won't have. But I think that there's definitely ways to work around it, especially with sinks. If there's, like they have, the gravity sinks, that you can do. You don't well for hand washing stations, but when it comes to like three compartment sinks, not a lot of temporary stands have a three compartment sink for that. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:And then there's also like I do believe that in the perfect world, brick and mortar businesses could work together with street vendors because they can provide the bathroom and the cleaning station without them having to actually have it in their cart, because they can set up right in front. Of course, that depends You're not gonna put a tamal vendor in front of a tamal business but I think that there is so much room. There's always this war or this battle between brick and mortar and street vendors, but I think, seeing like even revolution carts, with the carts they're setting up vendors that are having like their full shifts and everything Like in front of Home Depot's and they have like a contract with Home Depot like they can be there and they're have like consistent income and they know how much they're gonna be getting X day or week or whatever ballpark you know.
Speaker 3:But it's sustainable and they don't have to worry about the health department or anything because they have everything approved. But I think there's a huge room there for the city to sit down with street vendors, to sit down with the health department, to sit down with you know brick and mortar business and say how can we make this work? And what does that look like? That works for everybody.
Speaker 2:And even in a humane way, because I've seen videos of health department going, or whether it be like the police and literally dumping, everything knocking over stands Like why? Why the need for all of that? Like what's the purpose behind?
Speaker 1:it. Is that still going on? Like people, what's the? What has been the latest? Anything like that?
Speaker 3:I believe it was in Fontana, I may be wrong.
Speaker 1:Oh Fontana is digging themselves a hole right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I believe it was Fontana.
Speaker 1:You're freaking wild right now, even though I'm a little. Fontana is wilding out right now. Can you pull that up, amber?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think Enamorado backup I believe it's his right now his current account, but I think he posted about it and it was this was actually a crazy video because you see the health department and usually they have to identify themselves. Usually the health department always comes with the police. What we've been told by the health department is that usually the police assist the health department and is there for the safety of the code enforcement officers. Should somebody try like you know anything?
Speaker 1:So there's two. So there's a code enforcer and a public health.
Speaker 3:So the public health has code enforcement officers that they send out to, like you know, check on the stands, the food trucks and everything to make sure that they have everything permitted. But but yeah, Enamorado, what was it Enamorado?
Speaker 2:the backup one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I should say, if you type in Enamorado, it probably should be the yep and he's already like but yeah, he posted the video and it's that. I think it's that one that says code enforcement, where he's pointing on top of that one. Oh, actually, right there, where the bottom, that one, this one, yeah.
Speaker 1:City of Fontan, yeah, and these.
Speaker 3:these code enforcement did not show, they didn't identify themselves. Usually they'll show their ID, they'll go up to the business and let them know hey, we're code enforcement, we're here to inspect your space. But many times, like in this case, things get violent. There was a different case where Geez yeah.
Speaker 1:Enterprise rental vehicle.
Speaker 2:This is where we seen, it right yeah.
Speaker 3:But there's so many instances like this and I feel like a lot of people ask like why is there a rise in this right now? But the reality, I feel, is that this has always happened. We're just equipped with phones now. And like we're able to. You know, like now, it's not gonna be something that happens behind the scenes, like no, if something happens, you know somebody's gonna pull out their phone, record it and post it online. Journalism is everywhere now, right.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah like and just people like, they just they're gonna record it and they're gonna post it and they're gonna hold you accountable for things, right? And in this instance, the health department of Fontana, who's obviously cracking down on street vendors and it's horrible instead of like trying to work with them, especially with you know, sb946, which legalized street lending, and SB972, which modernized the food corolla that we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1:And this is Sember, you know county, or is it California in general? California in general?
Speaker 3:So when SB946 passed, which was legalized street lending, they allowed cities like cities are still allowed to implement their own rules. So they'll follow whatever you know the state law is, but they're allowed to implement their own rules on street lending.
Speaker 1:And this is by city, so if cities are able to create their own rules.
Speaker 3:Or add to yeah, to add to okay, yeah, and they can regulate street vendors as they please. In a way, I wanna say that very loosely because I do think that there are limits to what they can and can't do, and I'm looking into it as we speak because the Fontana situation really just shook me, like I was just like what you know? They're trying to recriminalize street lending. They're trying to implement, like, not fines but actual citations that will become misdemeanors, which is what 946, sb946 took away. Sb946 took away street vendors getting how long did that last?
Speaker 1:for Like, how long was it?
Speaker 3:2018 was when SB946 passed, and then I believe, last year I'm not trying to get my dates mixed up, but last year is when the food court law it's been 9, 7, 2 passed and basically that rewrote the food court law a little bit and tweaked it to kind of like help vendors a little bit more out when it comes to the requirements for the cards. But of course, with everything there's loopholes and there's other things. But yeah, so SB946 legalized street lending and took away them getting misdemeanors or being arrested. And basically Fontana is like no, we're bringing it back and we wanna do it and they're having like a task for this, gonna be going out six days a week enforcing all of this and should someone try and stop them, like, let's say in the video, they can get arrested or get a misdemeanor, which is crazy.
Speaker 2:More things that they need to be putting money and effort and funds into, then coming in and harassing street vendors. That's ridiculous. And I'll tell you like an instance of kind of with, like health department I know that different health departments, I can't generalize the entire health department but when years back we were looking at an establishment to for one of our brick and mortar and it was a donut shop right Prior to us getting it. It was a donut shop and it was probably one of the most disgusting facilities that I had ever seen in my life. And it's a brick and mortar. You walk in there, you get where you get. They had an A in front and I kept thinking to myself how, how are they in business, how are they doing all of this and how is public health coming? I mean, yeah, like, how are they coming and giving them this A?
Speaker 3:Like how.
Speaker 2:Like I'm telling you, like complete grime, like grime on everything.
Speaker 2:Things have not been washed, cleaned properly in probably years, years, and they were still running and functioning and had an A right up in front. And I'm like I get it that street vendors maybe certain things that they can't do or anything but like, how do you justify that? Just because you have the funds to provide space for yourself, versus someone that doesn't Like it should all be treated equally. And even like having conversations with someone that we knew that did that, he was like no, he's like you would like probably never go and out to eat in restaurants that you think are these five star restaurants, that are these beautiful restaurants? He's like. If you saw their kitchens and I'm like and how how are they still being let you know to be served? And versus street vendors that can't at all Like, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I think it all boils down to the how much money the restaurant makes for the county. 100%. I think that when it comes to the public health and like, say, for instance, one of the biggest events in Los Angeles County, those like that event is it has a lot of hold on the public health department in that county. It does because it makes a lot of money and if that event doesn't get those permits, I mean it, it's a lot of money, like it's like in permits, it's a lot of money and we're talking about 200 vendors yeah at what like a hundred and say 160 each, but that's not per vendor, it's per space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's like thousands of dollars, right?
Speaker 3:and people also, you know, vendors have also said they've suggested, like, let's use spaces in the city there aren't being used and let's work with the city, let's make a market that's, you know, legal and like that people can go to in the day or night, however they want to make it, but let's utilize these spaces that aren't being used and let's put him to use. But yeah, I agree with you, I think it has to do with money. Everything rules the world, unfortunately, right, you know. But let's not forget too that the city does make money off of vendors too. Oh yeah, I'm, you know, misconception. A lot of people say vendors don't pay taxes yes, they do, yeah, they do they contribute to to the money flow in the community?
Speaker 3:because they're purchasing items in bulk yeah, from local businesses and serving their community. You know there's vendors who are in food desert locations where there is no affordable, healthy or good food. They're there. It's affordable. They provide safety. I say this a lot if you're a woman walking down in the street and you arrive to a dark patch, you're gonna feel nervous walking by that dark patch. But if a street vendor at Taco stand is set up with all of their lights and everything and there's people there, you automatically feel like, oh okay, there's people around, I feel safe, I'm gonna walk by like nothing, you know.
Speaker 3:So they provide a lot and there's also been studies that show that brick and mortar businesses, like you mentioned, aren't necessarily the cleanest you know, a lot of people like to say they need to get permits, like like the restaurants and all of this, like why not just follow the rules? One vendors do want to follow rules. They're not against rules, they're no want a free for all, like anything like that yeah they want to follow rules.
Speaker 3:They're okay with following rules. It's just, you know, they want the respect that they are actual businesses and that they do clean their food or product, whatever it is that they sell, because their studies have been shown that you're more likely to get sick out of at a restaurant than you are at a food stand right, like I'm trying to figure out where this misconception started, like this weird pre-fuck notion of street vendors and them being, you know, not as clean or not, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Where do you think that that comes from?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, I think it comes also from the health department itself. When you see them shut down a market or shut down a vendor themselves, you'll see then use almost like the same language. You know, public safety there it's a danger to public safety. They're blocking the sidewalks and I'm not saying just like there's restaurants that you know may not be five-star, I'm sure there's street vendors, you know like where, everywhere, everybody, like nobody's perfect, you know. But again, I just think that there's a misconception that vendors are dirty, and that is I've. I can confirm. I've eaten at many, many stands and markets and I haven't gotten sick and you know it's just delicious food.
Speaker 3:And I think it's just about seeing the importance of them and seeing how we can like work together like when I say we, I mean like you know, like street vendors, the community in the city, because people want to go eat at food stands. You know like it's a different experience than when you go into a restaurant. No shade to restaurants, I love restaurants and love supporting them as well, but there's just a different vibe. You know, when you go to a food stand, the food just tastes different. When you're standing there and you know that you can just order another taco after you're done, you know it's.
Speaker 3:It's different and experience it's culture, you know, like yeah it's not just Mexican culture, like there's food vendors selling all kinds of food, you know.
Speaker 1:Asian food, indian food, italian. You go to New York, right, and there's pretzel vendors, there's hot dog vendors, there's Mediterranean vendors. It's it's worldwide. It's not just Mexican and Latino, it's international.
Speaker 3:It's worldwide and it's I don't know. I just feel like street vendors.
Speaker 2:If you were to take them away, it's like taking a part of LA soul, yeah oh yeah, I'm gonna lay you see street vendors everywhere, whether it's the flower vendor selling, you know flowers in the corner, the fruit vendor, yeah, but you will always see a vendor and it's one of those things that it's like I don't want to say ingrained in you, but like even like here, like with me, like when one you know I moved out here a couple months ago but being so close to you know Atlantic, that Compton Street that I was telling you to coming out here and I'm like, oh, I want tacos. And then we have to like drive around out here for a while to even look for one and you know and then it becomes we're like, well, where are they?
Speaker 2:and they're, they're everywhere over there. You know closer things like that, like it just becomes as part of your identity too, of just like going and eating taco at night, or you know, I don't want to cook and I'm gonna go, get easy access yeah, or tamales in the morning, something it's yeah, it's it's definitely part of our culture.
Speaker 1:I wish we took a picture of that sign we seen today. I'm not too sure if it was Chino or Chino Hills, but no, I think we were already in.
Speaker 2:Pomona no, we were in Pomona, chino Hills where do we get the carnitas from Ontario?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Can you look it up? Because I think it was already it had a huge sign I think it was on which street pipeline the lookup pipeline no vending zone, because there was that whole street. It was like every other ten feet had a big sign of no food vending alone and they used to, because I remember some ladies that would those are new signs, tacos de canasta, right there.
Speaker 2:One time that I was like, oh, I want to go back, and we never went back.
Speaker 3:But it was there and those signs weren't there yeah, and that's what right now, street vendors in Los Angeles actually are suing the city of LA for no vending zones because they there is no vending zones basically in the most populated areas, like Hollywood Boulevard, where there's a lot of you know, the arenas and things like that, and they're considered no, no, no vending zone. So they're fighting that right now.
Speaker 1:So the big question for me is like, why? Like, is that a loaded question? Like why don't? Why? Why don't they allow vending in certain spots?
Speaker 3:that would be a question for the city. Yeah, I would like to know myself that's a big question right, you know what they say, or at least what they've said and previous when we've asked them questions or even other reporters that have written about this. You know they say it's just restricting public right away.
Speaker 1:Obviously again, health hazard and things like that but is there like traffic involved, like public enforcement?
Speaker 3:when you go, because I visited I mean I've been there a couple of times. Just speaking of Hollywood Boulevard and stuff like it's not I don't know if, like they're going on a different day or maybe, but like it's not really the way they make it seem like they make it seem like it's so crowded that like your sardines like walking and like they're blocking the sidewalk and things like that, but there's enough space for everybody and there's so many other things, yeah well, it's not just the vendors, exactly.
Speaker 3:It's like a busy street. You know, also in the Santa Monica pier and things like that, these are tourist areas. These are busy areas, you know, like, even if you were to take the vendors out, they're still gonna be busy areas. They're just that's just how they are. They're tourist areas, you know. So it's not the vendors that are the issue. Why they're going against them, I have no idea. I always say like and I asked them, and I do ask them, you know, do you try and talk to them, do you try set up meetings with them or anything like that? And they say no. You know that they pass out pamphlets and things like that, but that's not really outreach, yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2:It's such a like a cop-out to say that because, again, I'm only gonna speak on like my experiences we had an experience with with our city one time with some permits, right, we, we were doing our open mics at our, at our, you know, at the coffee shop, and things like that, and we said, okay, well, we have an establishment, we're inside, we're not being loud, we're not bringing, you know this, a lambda, you know 15-piece, but nothing like that.
Speaker 2:I was yeah, by the way it's coming soon it's coming soon, when I yet and we we had someone come, I remember the day, and well, actually they called, they called the shop and obviously we don't really answer the shop one, you know, the staff does things like that and then someone came with a letter, mm-hmm, and they literally left the letter in the front and like scurried away, like didn't even say hey, can you give this to me? So, and so nothing, you know things like that. They called whatever. So the whole gist of it all was that we were making too much noise for surrounding places, that someone had seen us making carne asada, grilling carne asada outside, and I'm like, why would we be grilling carne asada outside of a coffee shop? Like like, that's such a I don't even want to say races, but it's such a like stereotype, like why the hell would we be making outside, like you know. So, anyways, what what I'm trying to get at is that they, once they finally had a conversation with us, they were like, well, we sent a, b and C. And we're like, okay, well, you sent a, b and C literally on the day of, like not prior, not a month, not a week. You didn't give us any notification. You literally did everything because you knew you didn't have it done prior, so you did everything all at once and sent it all at once. So all these things that they had said like, oh well, we gave you guys a warning.
Speaker 2:While the warning was on that day, on the same day, we got the letter, on the same day that somebody called and and we said, okay, that's fine, we'll pay for what we need to pay. Because they were saying, oh, it's a permit. Well, we went to the city and we said, okay, well, what's the permit we have to get? Oh well, we're not too sure. And we're like okay, so if you're not sure, how are we gonna be sure exactly? And then, you know, weeks past, and then they were like okay, well, it's because we have to make the permit. And I'm like what do you mean? You have to make the permit? Oh well, it's because your business doesn't fall in line with some of the other permits we have. So then we have to create a permit just for you. And I was like are you kidding me? Like this was something that that, to me, was ridiculous, because they were making something out of nothing and.
Speaker 2:I remember sending this huge letter and I literally was like really pissed off. And I sent a letter and I was saying you know, there's other things happening in the city that should be looked at, that should be taxed at, I said, and you're gonna come after a business, a family business, people that have lived and contribute to the city and are contributing to something you know positive to the city, and this is what you choose to focus yourself on. And I feel like that's how these cities are. They're choosing to channel all their energy and their resources on things that are of such low caliber like this of, you know, trying to stop people from making a livelihood, and it's it's ridiculous that they they're making up their own rules as they go and I think that like kind of answering your your question kill.
Speaker 2:It's like they don't even know themselves why they don't want it. They don't they're, they're doing it as they go right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the code should like how, who and when were these things written? Yeah, like how long have we been following these city rules or public health rules, like I believe that I believe decades, centuries maybe. But I feel like, at a certain point, as society evolves, so should some rules. Yes, right, and I guess the popularity of street vending if it's popular, then maybe some of the rules need to be, you know, re, re looked at like see how you can instead right instead of yeah.
Speaker 1:I think they just don't want to use their resources on figuring that out.
Speaker 3:Which is unfortunate because you know, like similar to what you experienced, a lot of vendors experience that, let's say, they do get that warning or they have that first experience where they get their stuff taken away. They'll try to go get those permits. But it's confusing. I mean, when I first started looking into it, like pretending, like, like going to the website and seeing how, like if I were to become a vendor, like what do I need If the language is confusing and it's-.
Speaker 1:In this LA or San.
Speaker 3:Bernardino, la, la, yeah, and it's-.
Speaker 1:Orange County is tough.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Orange County is probably the strictest public health that I've ever worked with, ever in my life. It's so ridiculous. Yeah, that's a whole other situation LA is pretty, it's pretty lenient, but, like you said, yeah, compared to the others. San Bernardino is, eh, but Los Angeles, if you don't know the verbiage, if you're not well aware of these different codes, and it's difficult and it's a it's very hard.
Speaker 3:A larger city, so it's hard, you know, like if you have to go to a specific office, it may be out of the way for a street vendor.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And there's just a lot of things that they need to do and a lot of places that they need to go to, and a lot of them are like like I wanna do it, I don't care, like I'll do anything, I just want my permit. But again, when it comes to the carts, if they don't have what the health department is asking for, then they don't get the permit.
Speaker 2:And there's no like. Another thing that I experienced was just there's no one really leading you to what you're supposed to do Exactly. They tell you you need to pull this, permit this, this and that, and if you've never dealt with that, it's like, well, where do I go? What do I do? What does it look like? And then you get to a place and they're not helpful at all. And then I can only imagine with street vendors some, you know the language barrier. Yes there's a huge language barrier.
Speaker 3:And that's why I give props all the time to, you know, like inclusive community power collective, Inen enamorado, who obviously everybody knows him. He supports street vendors big time and he does a lot of behind the scenes stuff that doesn't get posted online. You know, he's helping literally physically, helping street vendors fill out applications and walking them through the process. Revolution Cards does the same thing and, like that's the kind of work that the city needs to be putting money into is literally getting. Instead of getting a task force to enforce rules, they should get a task force that is literally focused, solely focusing on talking to vendors and building a relationship with vendors, Cause you're not just going to go up to a business and be like you need permits. Here's a pamphlet you need to do it Like.
Speaker 3:you need to build relationships with these people that work in your city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's the, that's how you do it. Right Is build the relationship with the city or public health or whatever. Like it's that human interaction right, like if without that it's easy to exclude people and groups and vendors. It's hard. Yes.
Speaker 3:And it's a big topic, you know, but we'll be here all day. And we like break it down to like everything.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it's a tough situation. But you know, the good thing is that there is people out there trying to shine light on it and who are constantly fighting to 100% legalized street lending, not just in Los Angeles. I feel like there's a big movement there, but this is a problem that's affecting New York, that's affecting Orange County, that's affecting many cities within and outside of California Do you think we'll see some progression in the next couple of years.
Speaker 3:I hope so, At least in Los Angeles. You know the street vendors do have a lawsuit against the city for no vending zones and I hope that that will open up. Depending, obviously, where it goes, I'm hoping that that will open up a conversation within the departments to be like okay, really. Like, instead of trying to fight everything that's coming at us, what can we really do? Like let's sit down for a second and like try to figure out what we can do to actually make tangible change, not just like put a like band-aid over it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I'm pretty sure that the health department doesn't have that many employees. Well, at least the last time that I was involved with them, they did not Like. I think this was like 2000, like 2019, especially with the thing that went down in San Bernardino. Do you remember that in 2015, at the RAC building in San Bernardino?
Speaker 3:Can you remind me?
Speaker 1:Were they. Can you look this up, amber, before I put you this? 2015 public health, san Bernardino. There was a man that went in and started shooting all these different public health officials oh, wow. In the city of Redlands, or was it San Bernardino? It was San Bernardino and they lost so many workers in San Bernardino County and most of them were health department public officials. There we go, san Bernardino shooting. Scroll down so I can read the gist of it. Is there anything on there? No, just what. Is it a video?
Speaker 3:I think so.
Speaker 1:I don't want a video. Maybe it kicked out. Now try to. Can you try to find something? But anyways, my point was maybe they don't want to do it because they don't have enough people. But what I'm saying is they have people for this task force, right? I think about it's strange, it's just weird.
Speaker 3:I think about Santa Monica. I remember they had a task force as well, and you just see all of these task force officers. This was at the beach, so like they're Santa Monica. Yeah, and I'm just thinking, if each one of them was properly trained to talk to a vendor and to kind of walk them through it, versus just trying to enforce a law or rules like that, would make a huge difference.
Speaker 3:You'd probably see more permitted vendors in that area, rather than a lot of these unfortunate videos that we see almost. It used to be like every other month, now it's almost like every week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like too, I mean I could be wrong. But to be a health instructor, it's also like it's one of those jobs that's not for everyone and not anyone wants it right, because of everything that comes with it.
Speaker 3:It's like being like-.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's like being like a ticatero, you know, almost like people hate the people that are behind the streets, weep or giving tickets, things like that. It's like one of those hated jobs, right. So I feel like it's not. People aren't flocking to become a health inspector too, so it's-.
Speaker 3:True, and maybe we should have more people you know, like people who maybe get it becoming part of the health department so they can voice these situations and opinions within, within the department. I think that would be amazing and I agree there could be I mean, over 10,000 street vendors in Los Angeles. I understand that. Unreported ones too, so you can imagine how many more. Yeah, so I totally get that, just for one department to be in charge of this is a huge task.
Speaker 3:But again, talking about resources, if there's funding, you can put some of that funding to creating like a specific group that focuses solely on that. It's doable. Why hasn't it been done?
Speaker 1:I guess.
Speaker 3:Hopefully it'll happen in our lifetime.
Speaker 1:When we did the I'm not gonna name it, but when we did the biggest event in Southern California, I believe, with over 280 vending spots for 16 days. In the event there was about seven public health officers throughout 16 days, they had their own office and everything. It was crazy. Yeah they Six for 280. What is the scroll up? I'm just gonna read the headline 14-day 21 injured in San Bernardino at the. Yeah, this happened December 2nd in 2015.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was crazy, and I think it was like a terrorist attack too.
Speaker 3:That's crazy. No yeah, was that personal.
Speaker 1:Was that?
Speaker 2:I said it wasn't personal.
Speaker 1:I can't remember the story Just going fast. At least 14 people were killed, 21 others injured by salons who opened fire Wednesday morning on a training session of county employees at the facility that serves development oh yeah, develop mentally disabled people. The shooting at the Inland Regional Center on Waterman Avenue, just south of Orange show road marks one of the largest mass shootings in the country in recent years and triggered lockdowns at schools, hospitals and entire neighborhoods across the city. As federal and local law enforcement and official search for the suspects there was two Apparently three.
Speaker 1:Three, oh yeah, third suspect scene fleeing. Wow yeah, this thing was all over the news. I remember, after this thing, the venue that I worked at we had active shooting drills, drills and everything, specifically because of this.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, no, nowadays I feel like there's shooter drills, there's, I mean, everything, the total.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this, like you said, we can go on forever about this, but that's what's happening right now, right.
Speaker 3:At least with the street-rending world. Yeah, but again I just like street vendors say they're hopeful that there will be changes that happen overnight and unfortunately sometimes it's like you gotta put in years.
Speaker 2:But hopefully it'll come. How do you choose a story or an angle Like how does that come to you or what's the process in that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on the story that I'm working on. If it's a feature, I mean it's straight up interviewing the person and writing about how they got to where they are. But for these more in-depth reporting, for the mental health street-rending story that we did Jack Ross and myself did where we reported for five months talking and serving street vendors throughout Los Angeles for five months and we realized there was a mental health crisis within the street-rending community. Like we didn't go into it saying there's a mental health crisis in it because you can't determine that unless you're talking to vendors. So we build community with street vendors, we go talk to them and we talked to happening 26 vendors there. We talked to a street vendor named Jose Luis who was shot and I had reported about what happened to him.
Speaker 3:I think the year prior to the big report being released and catching up with them and seeing like how did they went through impacted their mental health. But as far as angles, I think again it depends. You can go in a story thinking this is my headline, this is how the story is gonna be, and then you start reporting and talking to you when you're like, whoa, there's like a totally different story here than what I thought.
Speaker 1:How often does that happen? It does happen.
Speaker 3:Like I promise, sometimes it does happen. I'm thinking even like with features, you think like you kind of skim the person's profile and you're like-.
Speaker 1:And what's a feature?
Speaker 3:A feature.
Speaker 3:So basically highlighting a business, or a person and you kind of highlight their journey. So if it's like a brick and mortar restaurant or like I've covered, street vendors who were street vendors and now are opening like their first brick and mortar, you know like how did they get there? And you think you know the story. And then you sit down with them and you're like, ooh, it's way bigger than what I thought. But, yeah, I think.
Speaker 3:And as far as like how to find stories, of course we have people who send some in, but then also just being out there in the community, like talking to people, I have a long list of street vendors that I have on my phone that I stay in communication with, regardless of whether I'm reporting on something or not. And again, that's just building that relationship. And there's been many times where one of them will reach out and it's like, hey, this is happening not to me, but somebody that I know, another street vendor, can you look into it? And then that ends up becoming a story. Or even sometimes they'll help out vendors. Nothing relating to like my stories, because you know, like you never wanna feel or at least I never wanna feel like I'm just talking to people, because I want something from you, like at the end of the day, we're humans, we're journalists, we're reporters, but we're humans and we gotta treat the people that we're interviewing the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Did you always wanna be a reporter? No, that's the thing.
Speaker 3:I was at this madrosa. So I was a troublemaker when I was younger, didn't go to college right away. I went to continuation school, graduated, did horrible, tried college like twice, failed miserably. And then it wasn't until one of my good friends, my best friend, who's a year older than me she had decided to go back to school and she's like why don't you try journalism? Like you know, I knew that I wanted to do something where I helped my community out, but I didn't know how I was gonna do that, or let alone that I could be a reporter. Like when I thought about reporting, I would think of, like Marielena Salinas and Jorge Ramos on Univision, because that's what my parents used to watch, you know, art de Le Mundo. So I'm like how can I be that? Like no, but it opened my eyes to a whole new world and I was super intimidated at first because you're like who the fuck am I?
Speaker 1:To like. You know, it's that imposter syndrome that always kicks in at the wrong moments.
Speaker 3:I swear it's like ah, but then I just continued pushing through and I really saw something in it.
Speaker 1:How did you do that? How did you push through the imposter syndrome that we all face every day?
Speaker 3:A lot of self-talk, A lot of like no, like you know you can do this, and also like just having a good support group around me. People that are like that see sometimes, that see things in you that sometimes you can't see yourself, or that like you need that reminder because at that moment you don't have the mentality to like be like, go for it, Like you got this, you know. So having a good support group too, and talking to colleagues too, like just being vulnerable and then being like hey, I think about the same things.
Speaker 3:you know, like I feel like imposter syndrome all the time too, so it's hard though that it comes and goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's exactly it. It comes and goes, like one day you'll get rid of it for I don't know, like a day, and then it comes back right in the morning when you're looking at yourself in the mirror ready to go on stage.
Speaker 3:It does that.
Speaker 1:Even when, or when you're in the middle of doing whatever you're doing, it just kicks in like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1:But you have to build the thick skin to kick its ass and move it away.
Speaker 2:I always wonder if other people feel that, or is it like a like first gen slash, like Latino thing?
Speaker 1:Well, it's not a first gen thing. I'll tell you that right now. No, that's why I said slash. That's why I said slash like.
Speaker 2:Latino thing being here.
Speaker 1:I think it's just a human thing that people feel.
Speaker 2:Well, no, because I feel like imposter syndrome is like you feeling that you're not meant to be doing what you're doing or meant to be right, and I feel like maybe people that are a little well off or maybe grew up in that society or within that they feel like they belong, they know they belong, they feel that this is their given thing right.
Speaker 1:I'm hoping to be that. Oh yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 2:And for us it's like, yeah, maybe you're not first gen, but you're a few generations and you're still new to this country. Your family is still new to this country, to where we still don't feel like we're 100% in, and I don't know. I always think about that. Is it only us that get imposter syndrome, or is it?
Speaker 3:everyone. I definitely think it's everyone, but I do think that it does to some people, tie to that to being first gen and stuff. Because I mean, I don't know, I can't speak for everybody, but I feel like you just wanna make your parents proud, right? They're supposed to be doing better than they are, doing the things that they couldn't do, and things like that. And that's always in the back of your head and you're like I need to do more. If you're already reaching a high or something huge happens, you even second guess yourself then yeah, it's crazy, but, like you said, you gotta push through it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you gotta push through it Because if I always tell people, if you're not doing what you're doing, then who else is gonna do it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who's gonna do it for you, right? You have something that you wanna do. You just, step by step, just day by day, inch your way to where you wanna be in life, right, Exactly?
Speaker 3:No matter how small the step forward is, it's still a step regardless, See that's important because a lot of people will see a small step and be like it's nothing. But it's a step that nobody else took. And you decided, you woke up today and you said I'm gonna take this first step to making X, y and Z.
Speaker 2:No matter how small it is, it's still a move forward to wherever you wanna be, and I think that that's something, too, that we as a culture and a society need to learn how to do is give ourselves credit.
Speaker 2:You know, we're constantly looking for the future, and, oh, when I get better, when I do more, when I do this when I do that, when I land this job, and then you forget of where you were at, you know, five years ago versus now, like all of that is an accomplishment in itself and it's all working towards, you know, you being a better person and we forget to see that.
Speaker 3:Yes, and it's so important to cheer yourself on and just like pat yourself on the back of the time you gotta be your own best fan, right?
Speaker 1:What would they say Number?
Speaker 3:one fan yeah, your own number one fan, number one advocate yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Number's my second. I'm my own fan and worst critic Same right.
Speaker 3:I'm my worst critic, like everything. I'm just like double like. Oh like, is it right? Like. I know with all people like I don't care what I'm writing, whether it's a short hit story or like a big report. I'm always freaking out like oh hard people are gonna react to it.
Speaker 1:Dude, how was the first time when you wrote a story Like what was the first time and it got published and how nerve-wracking was that?
Speaker 3:I remember exactly the first time I got published. It was at school at Cal State, long Beach, and I was. I shared a byline with my best friend who was the one that what's? A byline. So, basically, who wrote the story? It'll say like your name or whoever.
Speaker 1:Oh, byline, duh okay.
Speaker 3:Now you're good, and my best friend, who was a year ahead of me, she's like let's go. I think we covered the women's march during the Trump era and it was like the huge march in LA and it was gonna be front cover and everything and it was my first story for my first semester and I had just said yes because it was my first semester and I wanted to start off strong.
Speaker 3:I was so intimidated by how fast-paced everything was. It was like you're going. We woke up like at five in the morning, we took the train to LA, we covered the march for the majority of the day, came back home and we're writing and editing up until like two, three in the morning and then we went back into the school newsroom the next day to finish off like editing, but then seeing that print and like seeing your name in print and then, depending on the story that you're covering and how important it is, you're just like damn, like I did that. You know, like it's crazy.
Speaker 3:And then, obviously, as a reporter, what you'd really want to see, especially when you're writing about issues, is to see change. And when you actually get to see that change happen, you're like damn, like we did that. You know it's a whole it's. You know it's the people you're interviewing, it's not just me as a writer. It's like my stories aren't anything if it's not for the people who allow me the time to talk to them and get to know them and put their stories out there. You know, like we're as journalists, we're nothing without our community.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Wow. I can only imagine like how nerve-wracking that must have been. Yes, everything, every time I publish a story.
Speaker 3:I'm like just like, oh hard people are gonna react. I hope you like it, I hope the person that. I interviewed liked it, and again, it depends on the topic, but sometimes if it's something more controversial, I'm like I don't care, like I'm just gonna publish you know, but I just hope people enjoy it and see the importance of the stories being told not just by myself but other reporters as well.
Speaker 1:So what's going on right now in the? The Amber just shared the story with me, Was it yesterday?
Speaker 2:The Univision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Univision story that's been going on. She was showing me some TikTok, some Instagram stuff. So what's the, what's the info on that?
Speaker 3:Univision. What's going on? So I guess, like the summary from what I know is you know they had a for a lot of viewers concerning interview with Trump, where there was no pushback at all, like it was basically here's the mic, take it away you know, and Univision. I mean, you know we've known the relationship between Trump and Univision has never hasn't been a great one. You know we saw a Trump kick out Jorge Ramos during a press conference when he was president.
Speaker 1:And he's not there anymore, right, Jorge Ramos? I believe he's still there. Is he still there?
Speaker 2:Is he, yeah, he's still there.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, but I must have read fake news then.
Speaker 3:But no, yeah, he's still there. No, okay. But one of their OG reporters recently quit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Oh, okay, so it wasn't that guy, it was somebody else that quit.
Speaker 2:It was a woman, right.
Speaker 3:No, it was a guy. Oh okay, I think.
Speaker 1:Look it up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel horrible because I know exactly who he is, because my parents watch Univision religiously, which is why it makes it troubling, because Univision caters obviously to the Latino community and to have or to give Trump this platform without giving pushback or not that you have to give pushback to candidates or anybody that you're interviewing, but specifically him. If there's things that he's saying that are not factual or anything, as a reporter, as a news station, you're gonna wanna challenge that right. And it was the opposite, him Leon.
Speaker 1:Kraus.
Speaker 3:I believe so, if you go to images Six days ago. Yes, and who left? He left Univision.
Speaker 1:Because of the new buyout right.
Speaker 3:Yes, I don't. I'm not sure he specifically specifies that in his statement, but it's right hand on hand. And I believe another reporter a female reporter who used to work for Univision I think I saw a TikTok or YouTube that she spoke about it and why it was so controversial or why it was blowing up online and people were so upset by it. But it's because of that People look to the news to inform themselves about whatever's going on, whether it's a presidential campaign or local news. People tune in to the news because they trust where you're gonna tell them. And for you to bring this person in and just kinda again, just give him the stage without really having a formal interview was concerning Because again we do have the elections coming and all of this and then them blocking other advertising ads.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were saying any democratic election ads will not be.
Speaker 1:So how many other they won't be playing? I'm sorry, I'll cut you off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's what it said right that they weren't going to broadcast any democratic commercials.
Speaker 1:How many other news stations are doing this with Donald Trump? None, none.
Speaker 2:Fox News maybe, oh yeah maybe Fox News. It's becoming like the Latino Fox News type of oh, I'm not saying that it's there, but I guess it's leaning in that direction of, or at least that's what people are thinking yeah, they're thinking like ah, where is the Nibbision headed?
Speaker 3:You know, because, again, like you can't deny, their target audience is the Latino community and we're going to be misinforming the Latino community or putting someone on there who has actively talked bad about the Latino community. What does that say?
Speaker 1:Can you look up how many viewers yeah, how many they have like on a given? Whatever Must be a lot. Mm-hmm, yes, yeah because it's all over.
Speaker 2:And it's all over the United States Right.
Speaker 1:Whoa Is it really?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, because it's not only Mexicans or people in California, it's Latinos in general, people in Miami, people in, you know, everywhere it literally everywhere, colombia, I mean, I think they have reporters everywhere.
Speaker 3:So it's a huge platform. So it's not just like a small, you know, publication. This is a network, a news station that is well known.
Speaker 1:Whoa. In the second quarter of 2022, una visión's growth more than doubled yo. What is that? To an average daily reach of five million, while Telemundo's average daily reach increased by 46% to about 2.2 million, according to data Samba TV provided to marketing group. Wow, five million.
Speaker 3:So imagine a huge shift that you're giving people on a random day and people are just shocked and, honestly, just disappointed. I myself am disappointed, not even like forget the title of being a reporter, but just as somebody whose parents consumes una visión Like it almost feels like a betrayal.
Speaker 1:Right. So how do we begin to like, okay, this is happening, right, like, how do we get begin to start the conversation about, like why this isn't a good idea?
Speaker 3:That's a good question, right.
Speaker 1:I mean, how do we do that? Like, what do we do? I think that's hard why?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the main reason. I mean, besides what this person has shown us, like you know, he has no filter Again, it's the station, it's the fact that it is a station that caters to the Latino community and it almost feels like are you trying to get the Latino vote, like for Trump, or are you trying to sway voters by not you know the in the whole commercial thing about them not airing any other candidates?
Speaker 1:Is that legal?
Speaker 3:That's crazy to me, that's like something new that they implemented with the new. You know how they bought they were bought. That's something new, yeah. So it's not something that's been part of, when we see on for like years or so they like rewrote the contract.
Speaker 1:It's a new policy, policies.
Speaker 3:And that's troubling because as a new station again you want to show both sides and this and that. And if you're going to interview, it doesn't matter if you're interviewing a Republican or a Democrat, you're going to want to ask the right questions. You're going to if there's ever a need to do a little pushback, like give that pushback and again that's what people it just felt like a a special interview with, like Trump, and like hear from him.
Speaker 1:So how recent was this interview? And it was with him. Yeah, it was with him.
Speaker 3:It was recent. I'm not sure exactly what day it was. In the past it was, yeah, like in the past week. Yeah, so it was super recent, recent, sorry, it's super recent, but again it's people automatically reacted to.
Speaker 1:I heard they called it like a one of the softest interviews with with Donald Trump.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The reporters said it was as soft as pillow. Oh yeah, it was so soft that they were going to start hitting each other with pillows or something like that.
Speaker 2:No, he said it was. It was as soft as pillow stuffing. So like the inside of the pillow stuffing. So no pillow fights, no pillow fights.
Speaker 1:Trump interview and insult to Hispanic community. What is that the Guardian Conservatives defend? Wow?
Speaker 2:I'm trying to see one, but I, you know, I think that that maybe I don't like him. I'm going to say no, but I think that even with okay, whatever they did the interview, it was not what we expected, things like that. But then, like the cherry on top of, like the icing is just them saying like we're not going to pass. You know these commercials, like because there, and then they're establishing like we're only going to pass right wing or right. You know these things and and everything else doesn't matter. So how?
Speaker 1:much did, so it got bought out right. Go back. I want to go back to the Before. Before all this so 2019?
Speaker 2:Am I wrong, Janet? Do you know?
Speaker 1:I don't know the exact date.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was 2019 when it started getting like transition bought out is what I read, and I'm not sure how much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the amount was, but.
Speaker 1:Because that's how much they wanted. The Latino vote Is what I'm. I'm just, I'm thinking.
Speaker 3:That's what people are thinking $14 million.
Speaker 1:Okay, for $14 million I can get the Latino vote for however long that contract is going to be.
Speaker 3:Because even if you see, like previous comments by Trump about Winivision and its reporters, like there were bad stuff that he was saying, about them. And then after this interview, it was like they're great people over there, you know like the hardworking people? Yeah, and it's just like okay, so it just. I think it just caught everybody off guard, and I think especially for viewers that have been religiously watching Winivision for years and been tuning in. Hey, you almost got it. Oh it was close. Yeah, you're so close $13.7 billion.
Speaker 1:The concertorium ended up selling Winivision communications Almost $1007. Whoa, oh, so this is different.
Speaker 3:This is a new one. Right, it was. Was it, Azteca, oh?
Speaker 2:I think Azteca 19,.
Speaker 3:I think, is when I seen.
Speaker 1:Whoa. While details of the transaction were not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reported that the investment firms paid about $526 million for the 64% stake in Univision. That leaves Univision an equity valuation of $821 million and an enterprise value of about $8 billion, including debt of $7.4 billion as of July 2019.
Speaker 2:So let's let's even say that that it's not only for Trump's benefit, right, but it's. It's for the benefit of the right-wing agenda in any in any way, shape or form, because we already see how many people watch it on a daily basis. How many people are gonna be influenced to vote this way, do this, do that, maybe, even if it's not even voting, it's just something within their communities or skewing their perception of things.
Speaker 3:Right. I think that's what people are scared of. You know, it's not like something's happening right now automatically, but they're worried that like, okay, you did this and clearly are taking a stance. Where does that leave you in our lives, that we're consuming your news every day?
Speaker 1:Right, like what other, it's just Like, can I trust you Basically, yeah.
Speaker 3:After years of building trust with everyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it just goes to show how much as Latinos, how much power we actually have in this country, that someone would go that lengths to even try to change the agenda on us because they know how powerful and how much impact we have on this country, and it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. Well, where's? Do you know where? Univision's corporate?
Speaker 2:place is Florida, if I'm not mistaken. Florida, I think Florida. Miami.
Speaker 1:Florida too, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then they have one out here in LA as well.
Speaker 3:You can see it from the freeway, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:That's crazy, it's sad, it is, it is. I think it's sad just again because so many years this Univision Telemundo, like these two are like household names.
Speaker 1:Are they like subsidiaries or are they like two different companies? They're two different companies.
Speaker 3:Telemundo is with NBC. Oh, okay, so Peacock and all of that, and then Univision is its own thing.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 3:But yeah, like these two have been household names.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 3:You know for years. So for something like this to happen, it definitely shook things up.
Speaker 1:Man, I wonder what else can be like. This is a crazy one, this is wild. And the first thing I thought about was like is this legal? Like, can you do that? Can you buy out big publications like that and only have a policy to show different things? Because that's a way of censoring?
Speaker 3:Right 100%.
Speaker 1:That's what they're doing with different forms of information. It's censorship.
Speaker 3:And we're seeing a lot of them right now On a big huge scale. Yeah, a huge, huge scale, I mean again, you're talking about Univision, one of the most famous Spanish news stations Right.
Speaker 2:But I think their defense would be that it's privately owned, you know, or not privately, but it's. But yeah, I mean essentially it's almost privately owned, where they're gonna be. Like I can say I can do, I can put whatever as I want because I own it. I think that that's where it's dwindling down to and it's a disservice.
Speaker 3:Yeah To the community that has long supported them for years. Yeah, we'll have to see how that unfolds like in the next couple of weeks, months. It's gonna be interesting to see, like, what's happening there and how Univision is gonna be like.
Speaker 1:Are you writing anything on this or I'm not at the?
Speaker 3:moment I'm actually working on a few pieces for Streetbending, looking into what's happening in Fontana, in Santa Clarita and a few other places. So just a lot of things going on. It's very the news world like never stops. So it's like just like a constant. There's always something happening right, there's just a constant flood of like information like coming through, so you're just like what am I gonna focus on?
Speaker 1:this week. Yeah Well, that's which is hard. That took us to our. One of our first questions is like how do you choose to do all that when there's a lot of things happening in the community?
Speaker 3:I think, especially with LA Taco, obviously we'll try and focus. Okay, out of all these stories that you presented, let's say me, I presented a couple of stories which one's like more timely. So meaning if I were to write it next week it's just not gonna make sense, but also sorry. But also you know what's more important right now, like what do we need to get out? And is it close to LA? Does it concern LA? Who does it impact? How many people is it gonna impact? And for me, obviously I'm known for my beat for street bending, so I usually tend to prioritize those. But again, we're new, so should something break, we're there. Yeah, you know, like we have to like pause this and then jump on the next story. But it's hard picking stories, cause I mean, everything is important, you know, but to pick what's going now each week it's hard and it takes a group effort.
Speaker 3:It's usually like brainstorming within the newsroom like what do you guys think? And then they're like everybody votes, you know, like this story. And then it's like okay.
Speaker 1:That must be so cool.
Speaker 3:I mean, it is, it's you know, interacting with the. You know my colleagues, I love them.
Speaker 1:And it's like real world stuff that are happening around you.
Speaker 3:And we get to like, you know, like kind of what's the word De salgarnos, like yeah, and I'm like my English brain is in working.
Speaker 2:Why are you there? Hold on. De salgarnos like To vent?
Speaker 3:Yeah, to vent, yeah, that's the proper word, like to vent about what's going on, cause, obviously, again, I feel like people think of journalists and we're just robots, are reporting like news, but like it does impact you, you know, like seeing all of this or getting all this information, seeing everything, talking to people, hearing their stories, like, but oh, we are the best.
Speaker 2:How do you, how do you deal with that? Like, how do you not, how do you go home and not let this impact you 100% cause I'm sure that it's always in the back of your mind and I'm sure that it comes up in conversations. I'm sure that you know things like that. But how do you disassociate sometimes with your work, journalism, life, with your? You know real like not your real life, they're both your real life, but with your outside of home life, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I'm very lucky to to also have, like a job and you know, an editor who, like, is super understanding. I remember when I finished the reporting for the mental health story on street vending with Jack, you know we had taken five months again, it was a big toll. We had interviewed over 30 street vendors, held public forums where you know, spend like a whole day like with a street vendor, like on his route and stuff. It was time consuming, you know. And then on the other side you're hearing especially this story, cause it was mental health related. You're hearing all of these horrible traumas, you know, and at the moment you're not thinking about it because you're trying to hold space for the person and it's not about what you're feeling, it's about them, you know, and you have to have that respect and hold space for them.
Speaker 3:But you know what it does make you feel like, ah, like, what more can I do? Like sometimes you feel like, is this report gonna change at all? Like, is it enough? You know like I have that feeling all the time, just because I know changes aren't gonna happen from one day to the next. But sometimes it feels like ah, like am I doing enough with my reporting and I know reporting is important, but I can't help but feel like that sometimes you know like am I doing enough? But to your question, to answer your question, I have to like completely like go offline and, you know, go walk my dog and get out of the house. Actually like get out of the house to like just not like time away from work is so important, you know, no matter what you do, but especially when you're working, in situations where you are hearing a lot of hard stories and as humans, we're consuming a lot of news right now and it's you know, it's a lot of it's sad stuff that is happening, you know, not just locally but in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and especially like where you're getting your news and how you consume it too, right.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I get all my news from Amber, yeah.
Speaker 2:I did journalism when I first started college and I really liked it. So I'm gonna choose Melissa out of heart.
Speaker 3:That's what I say. I'm intuitive. I was a journalist before I knew I was a journalist.
Speaker 1:I was a cheese mozza too.
Speaker 2:So I was like you're a cheese mozza. I'm like, no, I'm intuitive.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, that's, it's intuitive Ness, for sure.
Speaker 2:I think it comes down to genuinely caring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:It's wanting to make a change and see a change and be an impact and be a voice, because there's people that don't necessarily know how to channel their inner self or say what they wanna say, and when you have that ability and that power and that platform, it just it comes in natural. So I commend you for doing that and putting yourself out there and really creating a change for the community. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you Again. I feel sometimes like I wish I could do more, but again just cause I care, yeah, I like to hear things that sometimes don't go into a story out of respect for the vendors and stuff, and you're just like edge, you know like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What more can I do?
Speaker 1:Well, if there's anything that we can help out with, don't hesitate to I always tell people just share their stories.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we work so hard and I feel like people don't read anymore. It's getting harder and harder. I still read. Yay, no, but like, just read the stories and I'm not to say you know LA Taco LATACOcom, but really just support journalism. It's so important and we're living in such hard times that the reporting and, like journalists, are so important, just to make sure that they keep us informed and that we know the latest of the latest, you know.
Speaker 1:Janet, thanks for being here today. I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming out and doing the podcast Share, where we can find you and what you have coming up and what you're working on.
Speaker 3:So Janet on Instagram, underscore Janet, underscore V on Twitter same thing and follow LA Taco. As far as where we have going on, just go to our IG and you'll see the latest stories.
Speaker 1:Cool, and Amber has Janet's LinkedIn or not LinkedIn her link tree on the screen right there. I will put her all the links that she just talked about in the show description if you're listening to on Spotify or you're watching us live on YouTube. All the links are gonna be down in the show description. I appreciate it. Thanks for being here. I love talking to you. It is awesome, like all the cool stuff that you're doing.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Noah. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1:Of course, we've been wanting to get you here for so long. You have no idea.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad we made it happen. You don't understand. I'm like damn, get me for the more opportunity the first time.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I'm glad, we're glad you're here.
Speaker 1:We don't take no for an answer.
Speaker 3:Or at least I don't. You're like it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen regardless.
Speaker 1:But yeah, everybody check out what LA Taco is doing. Do you have any events coming up?
Speaker 3:No events at the moment that I can think of. We do have Black Friday's out.
Speaker 1:I'm not okay.
Speaker 3:From LA Taco merch, but I'm hoping I'm not missing anything. But no, no events so far. But if we are gonna have any events, like end of the year events or anything like that, which I do believe we're planning- to. La Taco. You'll find it there. We always post flyers and give you all the information to show up and eat and enjoy the time.
Speaker 1:Where's my LA Taco hat Amber.
Speaker 2:I don't know, you have a shirt too.
Speaker 1:I have a shirt too. Oh, yeah, I do. I should have wore that today.
Speaker 3:I shouldn't have. I didn't go to the office this week, Otherwise I would have brought you some merch.
Speaker 1:It's all good. It's all good. Thanks for being here. Check out my show this week the Mama Mine Bus, the Mama Mine Bus, the Mama Mine Bus, the Mama Mine Bus, the Mama Mine Bus, the Mama Mine Bus, the Mama Mine Bus. Remember, I'm performing live in the city of Long Beach. Check out my links. Bye.