SACRAMENTO – Following President Trump’s signing of illegal Congressional resolutions attempting to roll back California’s clean cars and trucks program and make the state smoggy again, Gov. Gavin Newsom last week signed an executive order doubling down on the state’s efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. This action builds on the lawsuit Governor Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta filed earlier today against the Trump administration to protect California’s clean air authority. It also follows last month’s announcement that California and 10 other states launched a coalition to continue advancing clean cars.
Today’s action comes amidst a backdrop of President Trump’s war on California – a concerted effort by the federal administration targeting the state with its illegal militarization of Los Angeles and anticipated funding cuts.
With this executive order, California will begin work on the next phase of the state’s clean vehicles program, crafting regulations that will continue protecting communities from harmful air pollution while creating jobs and fostering an already dominant clean transportation industry in the state. Text of the executive order is available on the Governor’s website.
The Governor’s order also steers state vehicle purchases to manufacturers that continue to comply with clean vehicle regulations and calls for recommendations on additional actions to further the state’s clean vehicle transition.
The executive order:
Reaffirms the state’s commitment to zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) deployment
Initiates the development of Advanced Clean Cars III regulation to advance new strategies for emissions reduction
Updates state purchasing requirements to align with manufacturers that continue complying with clean car regulations
Prioritizes funding for state incentive programs for clean manufacturers and fleets
Continues Clean Truck Partnership work and requires reports on progress every six months
Directs state agencies to assess additional actions for ZEV adoption and issue recommendations within 60 days, including strategies for consumer protection, infrastructure, voluntary efforts, and local partnerships
Zero-emission vehicles are often less expensive to operate than their gasoline fueled counterparts due to generally lower electricity prices and minimal costs associated with maintenance and repair over the life of the vehicle.
LOS ANGELES — June 12, 2025 – The Los Angeles Harbor Commission June 12 approved a 2025/26 fiscal year (FY) budget of $2.7 billion for the Port of Los Angeles, a 3.1% or $82.5 million increase over the previous fiscal year’s adopted budget. Port investments in the coming fiscal year will continue to focus on strategic priorities of business, community, sustainability and workforce development.
“We come into this budget in a strong position, with nine consecutive years of positive cash flow,” said Port Executive Director Gene Seroka. “Yet in the face of global trade and economic uncertainties, it’s more important than ever to navigate with a steady hand, remaining focused on our planning and priorities.”
The proposed budget for FY 2025/26 anticipates cargo volumes of 8.2 million TEUs, a decrease of approximately 9.9% over the previous fiscal year’s adopted budget.
In the FY 2025/26 budget, operating revenues are forecast at $657.6 million. Approximately $470.3 million of those revenues are expected to be generated by shipping services at the port. Operating expenses are estimated at $427.1 million.
The port’s capital improvement program focused on strengthening it’s operational capabilities and financial stability will continue in FY 2025/26, with an investment of $231.3 million, down $18.1 million or 7.2% relative to the FY 2024/25 adopted budget.
Funding to support major terminal and transportation construction projects in the coming year include $47.6 million toward the $130 million State Route 47/Vincent Thomas Bridge & Front St./Harbor Blvd. Interchange Reconfiguration; $26.3 million to support the $73.8 million Berths 302-305 On-Dock Rail Expansion; and another $24.4 million for two Marine Oil Terminal Engineering and Maintenance Standards (MOTEMs) projects at Berths 238-239 and Berths 167-169.
Public access and environmental enhancement projects are slated to receive $23.2 million in the coming fiscal year. That total includes $2.8 million toward the $76.6 million Wilmington Waterfront Avalon pedestrian bridge and promenade gateway project, and $8.6 million toward the $501 million zero emissions port electrification & operations or ZEPEO project.
LONG BEACH — Dignity Health – St. Mary Medical Center or SMMC proudly celebrates the contributions and achievements of Black healthcare leaders in our community. We recognize the vital role these individuals play in ensuring equitable access to quality care and fostering a more inclusive healthcare environment.
This year, SMMC spotlight’s Carolyn Caldwell, President and CEO, and Gloria Carter, Chief Nursing Executive Officer, of SMMC respectively.Caldwell has been instrumental in advancing patient safety and maintaining SMMC’s “A” rating for hospital safety from the Leapfrog Group. Carter has led clinical nursing initiatives to improve maternal care outcomes sustaining SMMC’s rank among the nation’s best maternity hospitals.
“Juneteenth is a time for reflection and recommitment. We must continue to break down barriers and create opportunities for Black healthcare professionals to thrive,” said Caroyln Caldwell,
FACHE, President and CEO. “By ensuring diverse leadership, we can better address the unique health needs of our community and build a healthier future for all.”
Caldwell and Carter’s leadership exemplifies the dedication and excellence that are essential to advancing healthcare for all. SMMC supports and celebrates Black professionals in healthcare, ensuring their voices are heard and their contributions are valued.
Update: June 16 Homicide detectives have made an arrest regarding the June 14, 2025 murder of Jesse Stiles, a 43-year-old resident of Long Beach.
Through their investigation, Homicide detectives identified the suspect as Orlando Joel Villarreal, a 41-year-old resident of Long Beach. Detectives located and arrested Villarreal on June 15, in the city of Carson. Villarreal was booked for murder, and his bail was set at $2,000,000.
The motive remains under investigation.
Detectives will present the case later this week to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for filing consideration.
Original News Release
Homicide detectives are investigating the murder of a male adult that occurred on June 14, in the area of 17th Street and Santa Fe Avenue.
About 11:31 a.m., officers responded to a report of a person who had been shot. Upon arrival, officers located a male adult victim with a gunshot wound to the upper body. Officers rendered medical aid until being relieved by the Long Beach Fire Department. Fire Department personnel transported the victim to a local hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries.
Homicide detectives are investigating the motive and circumstances leading up to the shooting and are working to identify a possible suspect(s).
The victim has been identified as Jesse Stiles, a 43-year-old resident of Long Beach.
Anyone with information regarding the incident is urged to contact Homicide Detectives Juan Carlos Reyes and Jesus Espinoza at 562-570-7244. Or anonymously at 800-222-8477,www.lacrimestoppers.org
Editor’s Note: On June 7, the City of Los Angeles commemorated the memory of Mexican Hollywood at the Cruise Ship Terminal, the historic site of the beloved neighborhood that thrived from the 1920s to the 1950s. The event honored the rich cultural legacy of the Mexican-American community in the Los Angeles Harbor Area. Random Lengths News is reprinting an updated version of reporter Jaime Ruiz’s 2005 story.
Sitting where the Los Angeles Cruise Center now stands, Mexican Hollywood still occupies a special place in the hearts and memories of the people of San Pedro, particularly the people who used to call this neighborhood home.
Described by local historians as a quaint little village, north of Second Street between Harbor Boulevard and the waterfront, the story of how Mexican Hollywood arrived at its name is various, numerous, and anything but quaint. One story has it that in the 1920s, the name emerged due to its obvious contradiction ― namely that Mexicans made up the majority of residents while the neighborhood was anything but Hollywood in terms of wealth or fame.
Delfina Aguilar Rivera who lived on the other side of Pacific Avenue had friends who lived in Mexican Hollywood. Rivera recalls a story that captures the spirit and pride of the residents.
“Years ago, when the canneries were down there, they were filming a lot of the old movies,” Rivera began. “When they used some of the girls as extras, they started saying they were movie stars. And it was Mexican Hollywood because they were all Mexican. That’s the way I understood it.”
Lillie Gonzales Nunio recalled how, “They would say that everybody was so beautiful, because all the girls there were beauties, they really were.”
Joe Sanchez Salazar believes the name was due to the number of performers that lived in Mexican Hollywood. Salazar’s father, Don Jose “Pajaro” Salazar, wrote a song in the 1920s not long after he moved to the neighborhood.
Translated, the song goes:
The angels are beautiful, with the port of San Pedro, where my prieta (dark-complexioned love.) grew up, where I bring my memory, I bring my guitar.
According to Salazar, Mexican Hollywood got its name because there were singers, dancers, and everyone used to get in the act, Joe explained. “Somebody came up with the name Mexican Hollywood. And I asked, Where in the hell did they get that name? Because everybody here was a celebrity.”
Mexican Hollywood has often been described as a “tight-knit” community by those who knew it best. But extensive interviews with some of the Chicanos who grew up in the barrio indicate something more: Mexican Hollywood through familial and extra-familial relations with the creative mechanisms of an informal economy served as a life jacket in a sea of economic inequality.
Great-grandmother and San Pedro resident, Irma Rodriquez Contreras recalls the community spirit she felt during the 1940s. “Everyone that lived in Mexican Hollywood helped each other,” she says. “Everyone worked so hard for their families.”
Still, poverty stood at the forefront of the community’s experience. An examination of the 1939 WPA Census for Ancon Street, Mexican Hollywood, said that the conditions of the houses were marked “unfit for use,” made of wood estimated to have been built in the late 1910s and 1920s.
Not unusual considering that the houses built there, some with recycled building material, were between 1923 and 1924 and were intended to be workforce housing, primarily for single men working on the waterfront. The land was owned by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, which was later bought by The Admiral Line in 1916 but retained the former’s name.
Monthly rents ranged between $8 and $12, which included heat, light, cooking fuel, and water. More often than not, several structures stood on the same lot. Houses stood on stilts since residents owned the home but not the lot. Until the 1930s, there were no sewer systems and the streets were still unpaved.
Though people of Mexican descent have existed in the Los Angeles Harbor for centuries, modern Mexican migration into San Pedro began in the 1900s with the ongoing building of the port, railroad expansion, and agriculture. It is not entirely surprising that Mrs. Contreras would have such powerful recollections of her childhood in Mexican Hollywood and its tight community.
Mrs. Contreras was the eldest daughter of Maria and Francisco Rodriguez’s seven surviving children when they began renting at 420 Ancon Street. Their landlord was Don Fermin Gonzales, the uncle of Lillie and Loui Gonzales (also known as “Luyo”), who lived down the street at 423 Ancon Street.
When her son set up a website memorializing the heyday of Mexican Hollywood, Mrs. Contreras received an email from a grandson of Frank Castillo Sanchez who now lives in Northern California. In 1923, Mr. Sanchez was born and raised in the house Mrs. Contreras’ family had adopted. According to Frank, the house was built by his father, Don Eduardo Sanchez, known as “El Panadero” for his bakery in the backyard. Sanchez said his dad knew how to “hustle” ― meaning he was adept at making extra cash.
Behind the house, he built a little shed out of which he baked Mexican bread to sell, Sanchez explained.
“As I grew older he used to make menudo on weekends when me and my older sisters and brothers used to go down to the barrio, and at every house on Sunday morning, knock on doors and ask the people if they wanted menudo. Selling for a nickel a pot, “We would take the pot and the nickel back to dad and he’d fill the pot with menudo and we would take it back to them.” And this was just a couple of the “side hustles” in which Don Eduardo was engaged.
Weathering the Depression Tough choices faced Mexican communities during the Depression. Like today, their labor proved crucial to the lifeblood of key industries in the US economy, but during economic downturns, they become scapegoats for structural deficiencies inherent in capitalism.
Donald Galaz was representing the Galaz family who lived in Mexican Hollywood as early as the 1940s. Photo by Terelle Jerricks
In the late 1920s and 30s, most Mexicans like the Gonzales family, who had lived and contributed for decades, stayed in El Norte and continued their struggle to survive. Others had no choice, as the US and Mexican governments collaborated to force nearly a half-million residents and US citizens of Mexican descent back to Mexico in a process known as “Repatriation.”
Families such as the Salazars tried their luck in Northern California picking fields. But Don Eduardo Sanchez decided to return to his birthplace with his family. After losing everything, including all his bank savings, coupled with being labeled an “undesirable” for spending time in jail on a cockfighting charge, Frank Sanchez recalls his father saying, “No, no me voy para mi Mexico.”
The Sanchez family spent the next two years in Nogales, Mexico where “we almost died of hunger.”
Louie Gonzales learned early about survival and working for the family. For extra cash, he began shining shoes and selling newspapers by the age of 10. Like other boys his age, Gonzales woke up at 4 a.m. when Navy men docked in the harbor and needed their shoes shined for inspection.
“So you’d go over there with your shinebox and shine shoes for five cents,” Gonzales explained. “But you had to go early in the morning because they had to be aboard ship by seven. A lot of them didn’t want to shine their own shoes. So we shined them.”
During the epic 1934 coastwide longshore strike, Gonzales, still carrying his shoe shine box, watched and waited for scabs. He recalls that “longshoremen would get the scabs, beat them up, and throw their money in the air.” Gonzales and the other kids would then pick up the money.
“We used to go into like Todd Shipyard ― they had a press and punched a hole that would have a piece of steel an inch thick round, and we used to make slingshots and throw them at the scabs,” Gonzales recalled.
Longshoremen appreciated the show of solidarity. “The longshoremen had a big tent on 11th Street and there was a big cafeteria. So they’d give us a pass for a free lunch for throwing the steel at the scabs.”
When he was 16, Gonzales told the principal he was 17 to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps, earning money for himself and the family as the government sent back a portion.
The only jobs available to Mexican Americans were in lumber, fish canning, and parts of the waterfront. Mexicans were often assigned some of the dirtiest and most dangerous workarounds. However, the predominately Mexican scaler’s union followed the path of the longshoremen, first as a non-unionized shape-up hiring to a union with a dispatcher. Before the union, “They used to go to the corner of Ancon and O’Farrell in a truck and pick you, you and you. Get in the truck,” Gonzales recounted.
A scaler’s work, as Gonzales explained, was dirty.
“You come out dirtier than hell. Anything dirty, the scalers used to do it. You come out full of oil, or you come out full of soot or full of paint or any god darn thing that was a filthy job, that was it. But it paid good,” Gonzales said. “That’s the only type of work Mexican people could get.
With the United States’ entry into World War II, the port transitioned into a wartime economy as Uncle Same called on draftees and volunteers to serve.
Like other Mexican Americans, Mexican Hollywood boys served in the military. Gonzales volunteered after his cousin Fabian Gonzales was drafted and soon after killed in action. Mr. Sanchez ended up in the Battle of the Bulge, was captured, and nearly died as a German prisoner of war. Joe Salazar was a part of the second wave of the Normandy Invasion.
On the eve of WWII, Mexican Hollywood had structurally and culturally stabilized into a permanent barrio. The relative permanency allowed children to receive an education, a journey that took them from Barton Hill Elementary, Dana Junior High, and San Pedro High.
The New Deal and the Works Project Administration (WPA) built a sewage system and the streets in Mexican Hollywood were paved with asphalt.
Across from Barton Hill, Holy Trinity (Now St. Peter’s) Church served the community’s religious needs. Although primarily Catholic, Mexican Hollywood did have at least one Baptist family that held “hallelujahs” in the garage.
Tobeman Settlement House, which began operating out of San Pedro in the 1930s ― maintained a clubhouse in Mexican Hollywood. Toberman offered activities for parents and kids alike and was well-appreciated by the Mexican community for its work.
Nuño remembers the indispensable role that Toberman played in her childhood.
“I remember we had a big playground,” recalled Lillie. A playground was built in a big empty lot next to the clubhouse, complete with monkey bars, swings, a baseball diamond, and a basketball court. Lillie still remembers the director, Mrs. Clark.
“She was always reading to us, and teaching us how to sew, and how to do little girl things,” Nuño said.
Each Christmas, Tobeman House gave gifts to the community’s children ― either a truck for a boy or a doll for a girl.
One of the lead authors of Mexican American Baseball, journalist Ron Gonzalez noted that Mexican baseball teams flourished throughout San Pedro, from the little neighborhood of La Rambla hugging nearby hillsides to Mexican Hollywood.
According to “Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay“Young Mexican men – and women – “organized teams that played at Myers Field at the southeast corner of Ancon and O’Farrell streets in Mexican Hollywood.”
The neighborhood’s original team name was the Hollywood Mexicans, which took to the field in 1931. Team members soon voted to rechristen themselves as the San Pedro Internationals, competing under that name until 1934. Among its managers was longtime baseball aficionado Mike Lomeli Sr., who lived on Ancon Street. Other Mexican teams used the field too, including the San Pedro International Girls, the Hermosa Athletic Club, the Sonora Club, and the San Pedro Sharks.
Mexican teams from throughout the South Bay and Los Angeles County, as did teams representing U.S. Navy ships played there. Mexican Hollywood teams played against many squads fielded along other racial and ethnic lines, including Italians, Croatians, Filipinos, Chinese, and African Americans.
Mexican Hollywood Culture Society president, Madeline de Alba with LA County Supervisor Hahn’s Torrance field deputy, Jennifer LaMarque. Photo by Chris Villanueva
A Community of Play There were at least two circus acts that came to town, including Barnum and Bailey’s Escalante and the cowboy Tom Mix. Each time they came to town, they would park alongside Mexican Hollywood. Kids from the barrio would work for tickets. Some would help set up tents or as Lillie would say, “Carry water for a free ticket.”
“I remember when we heard that they would be coming in. Everyone was so excited,” Lillie recalled.
Theatres in San Pedro provided another source of entertainment, particularly the Globe Theatre on 6th Street and Palos Verdes since it occasionally featured Spanish movies. Sometimes the darkness of the theatre was disturbed by the light of the exit door, as a kid would purchase a ticket so that several of his friends could get in for free ― a kind of community discount for the price of one deal.
The most unique aspect of the barrio is that it had its own beach called BAB, a beach located in what today would be Berth 93 where China Shipping now stands. The beach was correctly known as “Bare Ass Beach,” though it was more politely referred to as the “Best American Beach.”
“We didn’t have any money to wear swim trunks or nothing,” recalled Joe Sanchez Salazar.
“So we used to go bare ass, Bare Ass Beach.”
BAB had about a block of white sand with two sides, a shallow mudflat side referred to as the “little side” where beginning swimmers would start their journey. Clams and jellyfish abound in this area, officially known as Bosche Slough.
Swimmers at the beach swam across the main channel and divers jack-knifed or swan-dived off telephone poles and a two-story building, putting on a show for onlookers riding on the Red Car. The conductor blew the car’s whistle to cheer the divers on. Mike Contreras, Mrs Contreras’ husband and retired longshoreman, said that the motto of the divers was, “We don’t jump, we dive,” reflecting the flavor of the daredevil divers. Contreras’ brother, Steve, and fellow divers known as Popeye and Charlie Castenada had a reputation for being great divers. Popeye Castenada recalled with pride, “I was eight when I first swam across the channel.”
The fields between the beach and the homes made for a farm for the exclusive use of Mexican Hollywood residents. “If you were at the beach and you were hungry, you just go to our field and pick some fruit or vegetables and eat tomatoes or carrots, Lillie Nuño recalled. “They would help themselves.”
The community grew potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, and onions. “On the other side,” Nuño remembers, “they had all the animals, goats, turkeys, chickens, rabbits, and geese. We even had a plow horse named Virginia that my dad let me ride while he was plowing land.”
From time to time, kids from the barrier swimming at the beach would “borrow” tomatoes and corn for a bonfire shindig, catching the ire of Mexican Hollywood residents.
Gonzales recalled how he and some friends would build bonfires in the evenings, at the corner of O’Farrell and Harbor where there was an empty lot.
“We’d go over there and build a fire. And before that, we’d go get a couple of buckets of clams,” Gonzales explained. “Then we’d sit around the fire and put the claims along the fire. And when they heat up, they opened up.” Elders told stories about trips to Alaska or the days of Pancho Villa, the great northern caudillo during the Mexican Revolution.
About once a month, the community had a celebration for one thing or another, birthdays, holidays, jamaicas. Sometimes, celebrations lasted days from Friday night through Sunday night. Perhaps a pig would be roasted, enough to feed everyone in the barrio, along with music and dancing.
On Cinco de Mayo, Mexican Hollywood cordoned off Ancon Street for a block party. Everyone in San Pedro was invited, while residents of Mexican Hollywood set up tables and sold various forms of prepared food.
These benevolent relations reflected a town known for its union culture and its cosmopolitanism. As local historian Art Almeida says, “…this was a kind of meeting place of people traveling over land, riding the rails, coming across the border and jumping ship.”
Also known for its roughness, Mexican Hollywood residents recall the city’s dark side as well. San Pedro’s European immigrants, many of whom were first and second-generation, referred to them as “monkeys that fell out of trees,” or threw such epithets as “spic” or the ever-popular “greaser.”
In one instance, a young Chicano was voted queen for Barton Hill’s May Day celebration, only to be told by her teacher that she wanted another girl who happened to be white to fill the position.
The Demise of Mexican Hollywood The transformation of the barrio into a passenger-cargo facility took time, as residents of Mexican Hollywood were gradually removed beginning in the late 1940s. By the mid-1950s, they were gone. Apparently, the Board of Harbor Commissioners at the Port of Los Angeles agreed to build a passenger-cargo terminal at Berths 90-93, giving preferential assignment to American Presidential Lines (APL) according to its 1958-59 annual report. This continued the path of port industrialization, which over the twentieth century continued to distance the communities of San Pedro and Wilmington from the waterfront in exchange for commercial growth and environmental destruction.
It was also in 1959 that the last Mexican-American residents were expelled from Chavez Ravine, to make way for Dodger Stadium, also at the end of a decade-long process.
As renters of land and owners of the housing structures, residents reportedly were notified in advance and given a small settlement. Rather than a brush fire of destruction, the wooden houses were bulldozed each time a family left the neighborhood.
Irma’s family moved from 420 Ancon Street to the Rancho San Pedro government housing, which was built to house the burgeoning number of laborers working on the waterfront a few blocks over. The Gonzales family moved to Harker Street in Mexican Hollywood, only to have to relocate again when preparations were being made to build the Vincent Thomas Bridge.
While destroying Mexican neighborhoods in the name of progress is a time-honored act for many U.S. cities, the values learned and communal nature of surviving in the face of extreme economic odds remain strong among former residents and their descendants.
As Mrs. Contreras says, “To this day, we all have a strong bond with the families that lived there. The memories of living in this lil barrio will never be broken.”
Thirty-one years ago today, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were brutally murdered — a crime that shocked the nation and launched a media frenzy. Race, class, celebrity, and spectacle collided on live television as the white Bronco chase unfolded. With it, the American public was swept into a drama that revealed our deepest social fissures of racism and classism. But amid the chaos and obsession with O.J. Simpson’s trial, other lives lost to equally horrifying violence faded into the background.
One such case is that of Andrea Hines.
Just a few months after Nicole and Ronald’s deaths, Andrea — a teenage girl from Holtville, California — was found face down in her backyard. Her throat had been slashed; her body, stabbed repeatedly. Her father discovered her body shortly after the family returned from a local bar in celebration of a high school football game. The local media in Hotville dubbed the killing an O.J. Simpson Copycat murder.
There were chilling parallels to the Simpson-Goldman killings — the slashed throat, the frenzied violence — but beyond that, the stories diverged. Nicole Brown Simpson had become a national symbol, while Andrea Hines remained largely unknown to most. She lived and died in a quiet agricultural town near the U.S.-Mexico border, a place that took pride in its faith, football, and safety. But Andrea’s death shattered that illusion.
In 2005, filmmaker Natoma Lillie Keita — formerly Constance L. Jackson — released The Blitz Attack: The Andrea Hines Story. Keita, known for her socially conscious work exploring race, justice, and public health, turned her camera toward Holtville. This town, 15 miles from the border, could have been any rural American town, with its neat rows of houses and Friday night lights — but beneath its wholesome image, Keita uncovered something darker: a rising tide of opioid addiction, domestic violence, and communal silence.
The film centers not only on Andrea’s murder but on the boy accused, charged, and convicted of killing her: 13-year-old Adan Garcia, a family friend described as both gifted and troubled. Obsessed with O.J. Simpson, Adan was a voracious reader of Stephen King, a Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons, and a student in a GATE program. But he also battled ADHD, clashed with authority, and displayed troubling signs of emotional disturbance.
Keita interviewed the families of both the victim and the accused, along with teachers, neighbors, and friends, to piece together a complex, often contradictory narrative. What began as a portrait of grief evolved into a deeper investigation of the social and familial conditions that allowed violence to flourish — and to be ignored.
In one interview after the next, Keita unflinchingly exposed the relationship dynamics between the Garcias and Hines that will leave the viewer questioning the identity of the victims and perpetrator in Andrea’s murder.
Through these conversations, the film challenges the notion of a single truth. Within the Hines family alone, perspectives diverged. And as Keita dug deeper, the official story became less certain. The Blitz Attack does not offer easy answers; instead, it forces viewers to confront uncomfortable questions about accountability, community, and what we choose to see—or not see—in the aftermath of tragedy.
Keita’s film is not just about one girl’s murder. It is a haunting exploration of a town in denial and a country still struggling to reckon with the violence it buries beneath headlines and spectacle.
As we mark the anniversary of Nicole Brown Simpson’s death, it’s worth remembering that for every high-profile case that captures the national imagination, there are others — like Andrea Hines — whose stories remain in the shadows. And sometimes, the silence around them speaks the loudest.
Visit https://permproductions.com to see the documentary films Blitz Attack: The Andrea Hines Story and Blitz Attack: The Andrea Hines Story II, Revelations, to see the final conclusion and aftermath of the murder of Andrea Hines.
David Calloway’s “If Someday Comes” Traces America’s Unfinished Reckoning With Its Past
Retired film and television producer David Calloway, a San Pedro resident for more than 20 years, is a modern-day griot — a term of French derivation that describes a class of West African storytellers who preserved the true stories and lineages of their people.
Calloway shares this title with an elder brother, a schoolteacher from fall through spring, who spent his summer breaks traveling the country, chasing down leads on background research, family history, and tracking down distant relatives with even a bit of information to glean.
Calloway didn’t know he was a griot, but he had been steeped and marinated in his family’s oral history from birth, the stories becoming as real as flesh and blood.
Calloway’s career, when read in linear fashion, sounds like a blueprint of my television viewing habits in the 1980s. In our household, I had to complete my chores before my parents came home from work. So between washing dishes, vacuuming all the carpets, and wiping down all the mirrored furniture so that not a fingerprint or a smudge was visible, I was watching all the after-school cartoons from Looney Tunes to Tom and Jerry, from He-Man to Battlecats on one of the two televisions in the house. One in the living room, the other in my parents’ bedroom.
My father was usually home by 5:30 in the evening, and that meant the living room television would be turned on to Monday Night Football or a Lakers game. My mom returned from work by 7:30 in the evening. So that meant I got to slow walk my chores as I took advantage of my television privileges when and where I could, watching all the pre-prime-time shows from CHiPs to Three’s Company. Calloway’s shows largely aired during prime time, during hours I couldn’t watch television.
Calloway got on the ’80s primetime soap opera Falcon Crest as a cinematographer in 1981. He worked on the Freddy’s Nightmares series from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, a franchise I watched mostly on VHS, but not the series on television that I could remember. Nash Bridges and The O.C. were shows I heard and read about on occasion in the newspaper. Calloway worked on Dark Justice for CBS and eventually wound up as vice president of production for WWE, which had its own film and television studios. While there, he made 10 films in three years.
And then his wife and children decided it was time for him to retire, he revealed during a May 6 interview with Random Lengths.
Calloway’s retirement freed up time to pick up where his brother left off when he died and document a pivotal moment in his family’s history. It was the story of his great-grandfather, George Calloway, an enslaved Black man in Cleveland, Tennessee.
Calloway recounted this story in the book, If Someday Comes, a historical fiction that is 80% fact, based on oral histories, journal entries of his ancestors and their contemporaries, news clippings and historical reference sources. About the only fictional thing was the dialogue.
Calloway’s story struck me as a perfect Juneteenth feature, an idea that became more important to me after my conversation with San Pedro’s own Maj. Gen. Peter Gravett about the erasure of Black progress as we headed toward Memorial Day. Both Gravett and Calloway are among the featured authors at RLn’s Ink UnChained Black authors event on June 20.
Calloway explained that one of the biggest pieces of information that pulled his book together was when his brother found cousins in Washington, D.C., who still had the family Bible with the inscribed names, birth dates and locations of their ancestors beyond the 1860s.
Calloway was able to build upon this research to write If Someday Comes, which focuses on the years leading to and through the Civil War. The story depicts the divided political climate, propaganda and social decay that led to war before the first shot was fired.
He shows how laws tightened around both enslaved and free Black people, and how division fractured families and businesses. This history, he argues, must be understood to move the nation forward.
In the last edition of Random Lengths, James Preston Allen connected Memorial Day’s radical origins — rooted in grief and desire for national reconciliation — to traditions like the 1865 Charleston ceremony led by freedmen and abolitionists, as well as efforts of the Ladies Memorial Association in Georgia. The federal government credits that association with inspiring Gen. John A. Logan, a Union veteran and leader of the Grand Army of the Republic, to issue General Order No. 11 in 1868. Logan called on Americans to decorate the graves of the Union dead “with the choicest flowers of springtime.” Memorial Day was born in that spirit of remembrance and unfinished reckoning.
Calloway believes the Civil War’s end should have marked a true reset, grounded not in false reconciliation but in truth and reparation. Instead, the nation clung to the lie of white supremacy, which enabled the Southern Strategy, the Ku Klux Klan, the Tea Party movement, and, ultimately, the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“It saddens me to see so much stereotypical dislike, even bordering on hatred, for people who are ‘not like us,’” he said.
Calloway’s great-grandfather was legally chattel to his biological father, yet was taught to read and write and trained to manage the family’s farm and business. George’s biological father and master thought it was cheaper to have someone in-house to do the job than to hire an overseer from outside. George and the rest of his enslaved family were active in the anti-slavery resistance movement, better known as the Underground Railroad. After emancipation, George ensured his children were educated — an act of resistance and legacy. For Calloway, education remains the clearest path to equity.
On education, Calloway noted that George’s three surviving sons all graduated from Fisk University, establishing a tradition of education in his family.
“So we are either teachers or professionals,” Calloway explained. His great-grandfather established a pathway to freedom for the rest of his family by saying, “This is how you’re going to live your life,” Calloway explained.
“My father used to say to me that the one thing they can’t take from you is what you’ve learned in school. So, ‘You’re going to get an education’ was the family motto,” Calloway said.
Calloway referenced President Lyndon B. Johnson’s discussion about poverty among the people in Appalachia, and explained how those people were just as broken and exploited as enslaved Blacks.
“It’s just really a phenomenon of how this country works,” Calloway said. “We need to make amends.”
Calloway said reparations are one of those things people talk about a lot, but he doesn’t believe the United States, under any administration, is going to write me, him, or any of our children a check we can cash.
“That’s not going to happen,” Calloway said. “But what could happen is that the country could recognize its obligation to the Aboriginal Americans from whom they stole the land, and the Black Americans from whom they stole their lives and labor. And the poor working whites who were worked to death in coal mines.”
He blames today’s political climate on Ronald Reagan, who, Calloway argues, mainstreamed the idea that government is the enemy — a legacy now weaponized under Donald Trump.
“What we’re seeing today is some combination of that,” he said. “‘Cultural elite’ is just code for educated people with real opinions, and that clashes with traditional structures of power.”
Citing journalist Anne Applebaum, Calloway said constitutional rights have often been ignored at the local level — from Wilmington (North Carolina) to Tulsa (Oklahoma) — whenever power felt threatened.
“I’ve had to give that a lot of thought,” he said. “I don’t think it’s black and white. It’s grayscale, like everything else. But I think there’s truth in that point of view.”
And that truth — uncomfortable, complex and long buried — is what we must confront if we are ever to finish what the Civil War attempted to complete: the work of becoming a more perfect union.
It was, like so many contemporary protests are, first shared online: ICE OUT OF SAN PEDRO, the flyer read, 1st and Gaffey at 5 PM. San Pedro is a town with a vibrant tradition of protest in its history and culture, and as expected, the city’s residents passionately turned out. What may have surprised some drivers, though, was just how young the cohort was. Depending on who you listen to, the youth of today are a listless lot with no interest in politics or their community. Anyone who actually knows and listens to young people knows that couldn’t be further from the truth, and San Pedro’s next generation showed out in peaceful and playful force.
On June 12, 100 teenagers protesting the ICE raids throughout the county at First and Gaffey Street. They were met with overwhelming police presence and police resources. Photo by Chris Villanueva
For the first hour, the protesters diligently followed traffic laws and stoplights as they walked around the intersection at 1st & Gaffey in San Pedro, convening at the corners where supporters offered free snacks and water to those who had turned out in the late afternoon sunshine. Signs that read “ICE Out of Los Angeles” and “Immigrants Don’t Shoot Up Schools” bobbed above the heads of local teenagers and families with strollers and babies in hand.
It was very much the definition of the peaceful protest that politicians and community members have been calling for, so this reporter must ask the following question: Why as the protesters began walking, slowly and on the sidewalks, to San Pedro Sister Cities Park did 15+ LAPD Squad cars arrive and shutdown the entrance to the Freeway and the lanes of Gaffey down to Sepulveda? What was the need for the white vans filled with cops wearing riot gear? And the dedicated police chopper that circled the protest into the night?
Photo by Chris Villanueva
The influx of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and the incendiary arrival of the National Guard have sparked nationwide protests, which, yes, began in Los Angeles. However, those protests have, for the most part, been confined to a few blocks of our immense city. And it seems a vast overreaction to police a small local protest with around 100 attendees as if there is a dedicated threat to our community in teenagers and grandma’s holding handmade signs while their neighbors honk their horns at them in response. As usual, the LAPD will surely claim that their presence was necessary to protect the Port of Los Angeles, or in this case, because of proximity to the highway, after the Los Angeles 101 was briefly closed by protesters recently.
San Pedro, like so many areas in Los Angeles, needs investment in our community members and its most vulnerable inhabitants. Longshoremen are being impacted by Trump’s tariffs, families cannot pay their rent, and people are being kidnapped by ICE. Yet instead of the tens of thousands of dollars that this show of force cost being invested into our community, it once again goes instead to policing it.
Ultimately after five hours of peaceful protests surrounded by a heavy police presence and circled by a police helicopter – which local residents who weren’t protesting could hear late into the night – there was according to the Harbor Division Commander Brent McGuyre a reported fight amongst protestors at around 10pm at night. But even with that taken into account according to McGuyre’s own social media posts there was ultimately only one arrest, three citations for reckless driving, as well as two for curfew violations all of which took place hours after the protest had begun.
As one of the young protestors was chanting while the police moved them from Sister Cities Park down Gaffey a copter circling above them “This is what your tax dollars are being spent on.”
Below is a reprint of LAPD Harbor Division’s Commander Brent McGuyer’s update on the June 12 rally after it dispersed.
Quick update on the protest in San Pedro: At around 5 pm, approximately 150 people gathered at 1st/Gaffey to protest “ICE Out of San Pedro.” The group was boisterous but lawfully protesting.
After about an hour and a half, the group began to march northbound on Gaffey towards the 110/47 Freeway entrance. LAPD and CHP officers blocked access to the freeway, but allowed the group to continue to protest.
After another hour, the group marched back southbound on Gaffey and marched between 1st and 4th Street, where they continued to protest relatively peacefully for several more hours
However, as night fell, the tenor of the crowd began to change. Officers observed members openly drinking alcohol, pedestrians blocking the streets, lighting fireworks, and doing car burnouts in the intersections. A little after 10 pm, after five hours of protests, a large fight of approximately 30 people broke out in the group, with several being overpowered and knocked to the ground. Officers intervened, and an unlawful assembly was declared. Officers provided multiple warnings to the crowd as some members threw hard objects at the officers and lit more large fireworks. After an hour and a half, the final vestiges of the 150-person group cleared the area.
LOS ANGELES — United Food and Commercial Workers or UFCW local unions representing 45,000 grocery store workers, June 11 announced an overwhelming membership vote in favor of authorizing their bargaining team to call for an Unfair Labor Practice ULP strike to protest Kroger and Albertsons’ labor violations throughout negotiations that have prevented workers from getting the fair contract they deserve. Kroger and Albertsons are the parent companies of Ralphs, Vons, and Pavilions grocery stores.
The UFCW Locals 324 and 770 Bargaining Committee said the following:
“The results are in, and we have overwhelmingly voted to authorize an Unfair Labor Practice strike at Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions throughout Southern California. Our message is clear: we are fed up with these corporations’ union-busting tactics designed to intimidate us and prevent us from getting the fair contract that we’ve earned and deserve.
“For four months, we’ve negotiated with Kroger and Albertsons, offering solutions to the staff shortage crisis that hurts store operations, working conditions, and customer service. The companies have dismissed our proposals and claimed that our concerns were ‘anecdotal’, downplaying the real challenges we and our customers face daily.
“At the same time, the companies have broken labor laws by engaging in unlawful surveillance, interrogation of members at actions, threats, and retaliation for union activity. This is unacceptable.
“We’re at the breaking point. We are disrespected, overworked, and undervalued by Kroger and Albertsons. We’re tired of asking these corporations to invest in their workers and customers, only to see no results. We’re tired of asking the companies to respect our labor rights and seeing our co-workers intimidated.
“This strike authorization vote means that we expect the companies to return to the bargaining table, negotiate a deal that works for everyone, and desist from their unlawful tactics, before we walk out and hit the picket lines.”
Grocery shoppers are also feeling frustrated by major grocery chains like Kroger and Albertsons, and recent reports show why. Consumer Reports caught Kroger overcharging customers by 18.4%, while the Economic Roundtable’s “Bullies at the Table” study shows 92% of workers have witnessed this practice. A customer survey conducted by UFCW Locals 770 and 324, along with LAANE, reveals most shoppers report severe understaffing at Kroger and Albertsons stores, resulting in empty shelves, unbearable checkout lines, and shifted burden to shoppers.
Forty-five thousand UFCW members across Southern California who work at Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions took unfair labor practice strike authorization votes the first two weeks of June. Negotiations are scheduled to continue on June 25, 26 and 27.
Tens of thousands of additional union grocery workers across the country who are employed by Kroger and Albertsons –the parent companies of Ralphs, Vons, and Pavilions– also voted to authorize a strike last week, bringing over 100,000 grocery workers to the brink of a strike at the same time. Should the workers call a strike, it could create the largest grocery strike in modern history, and a major labor disruption for two of the nation’s largest grocery chains this summer, their busiest season of the year.
Grocery Workers Rising are employed at Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions, Stater Bros., Gelson’s and Super A stores. Their contracts expired on March 2, 2025.
These 65,000 grocery workers make up the largest union grocery contracts in the nation, are rising up and fighting for:
Living wages
Affordable healthcare benefits
A reliable pension
More staffing and better working conditions for a better customer experience
As construction continues on the Port of Los Angeles and Caltrans SR 47 Interchange Project, crews will close the northbound SR 47 on-ramp at Gaffey Street in San Pedro, beginning 7 p.m., June 21, for about six months to perform retaining wall construction and roadway widening. From June 16-20, overnight closures to the northbound SR 47 on-ramp at Gaffey Street and off-ramp at Harbor Boulevard will occur in preparation for the work.
A suggested detour to an alternate northbound SR 47 on-ramp is accessible at N. Gaffey Street and Miraflores Avenue in San Pedro.
Drivers should follow posted traffic signs accordingly. Those with questions may leave a message on the public phone line at 310-732-7778. Calls will be returned within 24 hours.
The SR 47 Interchange Project is replacing the existing southbound SR 47 off-ramp from the Vincent Thomas Bridge, currently on the south side, with a new off-ramp on the north side. Additional improvements include realigning the existing on-ramp to the northbound I-110 connector; modifying the northbound SR 47 off-ramp onto Harbor Boulevard; modifying the northbound SR 47 on-ramp onto the bridge toward Terminal Island; and improving local streets near the interchange.
