Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is hosting a food distribution and COVID vaccination clinic from 9 a.m. until supplies last on Friday, May 7.
In all, 250 families will receive a bag of nonperishable groceries, fresh vegetables, restaurant and gas gift cards and a soft huggable from Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.
If you would like to save a spot for yourself or a friend, employee, neighbor or someone who has been resistant to get vaccinated, please send their name, birthdate and phone number as soon as possible to Caroline Brady, Executive Director of Friends of Cabrillo Marine Aquarium at . Reservations are available for up to 125 people.
Everyone is welcome to get a vaccination ( they will not ask about immigration status). Second shots of Moderna are okay as well. We ask everyone to bring their vaccination card to document the second shot.
It’s okay for people to come just for the shots or just for the food.
The event is sponsored by a grant from SoCal Gas. Partners include Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, Providence Community Health, Valero Wilmington Refinery and the Wilmington YMCA.
A family tradition shows how to make a Mother’s Day special
As May rolls around each year, I watch the ads for ways to celebrate Mother’s Day. Florists suggest roses, chocolatiers beg to differ, spas suggest a relaxing massage and restaurants suggest that Mom should take a day off from cooking. Retail stores offer sales, and there’s probably a plumber somewhere who advocates that what Mom really wants is for the bathroom sink to drain more quickly.
At one level, it’s hard to argue with any of these. Some people really appreciate chocolates and flowers, and unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t like strangers touching you, a stress-relieving rub sounds great. Taking a day off from cooking may be appreciated, though it’s possible that moms who are spending time in the kitchen nowadays are there because they like it. I won’t argue against retail therapy, and having the sink drain quickly may lack a certain romance but is certainly practical.
All the same, these strategies for celebrating motherhood leave out something central: a mother is a mother because she has children, whether by birth, adoption, marriage, or something more informal. Where are the kids in all of this? How do they share in that day, show their love and appreciation for the person who brought them into the world, who gives her time and energy to build their character?
The peddlers of various goods and experiences are offering things that a woman might like any day of the year, but they’re things that a friend or acquaintance might buy as a gift. They’re separate from the concept of family, nice but not meaningful, and probably destined to be soon forgotten.
Then what, you might ask, would be a way to invoke the concept of family and make the Mother’s Day special? Our family tradition has been for the children to assist in making her brunch that day, and later when they became capable of it, to make it themselves. Our son was older and was first to be allowed to cook the eggs, which were at least theoretically going to be fried, but in the early years invariably came out scrambled. If my wife found bits of shell in them, or they were either overcooked or runny, she was too polite to mention it.
Our daughter, Rebecca, was younger but showed more culinary creativity, at first by carefully making pancakes in the shape of letters so she could spell out cheery messages. Her talent really manifested when she was judged competent to use a knife and cut fruit for the salad, which she carved with ornate flourishes before arranging it artistically.
A fruity rendition of mom’s face on a plate for Mother’s Day 2011.
I credit my daughter with advancing the Mother’s Day brunch further when, at the age of about seven, she started sculpting breakfast into faces. The first ones were not portraits of any particular person — for instance, a clown made from a slice of cinnamon raisin toast with applesauce ears, nuts for eyes, a blueberry smile and a shirt made from cheese with raisins for buttons. As Rebecca’s skills increased, the food sculptures became portraits of her mother, the first made with a croissant for hair, and a tortilla, white and yellow cheese, bacon bits and chocolate drops making facial features around a nose sculpted from leftover chicken.
More ambitious and accurate portraits followed, and by the time Rebecca was eleven she was baking brownies the previous night so she could cut them into a fairly accurate representation of my wife’s hairstyle. This was accented by barrettes made of cheese in the places where my wife wore them, and framed a face made of a slice of bologna with cheese, jicama and fruit. The next year she created a masterpiece with a pancake topped with a fantasy of fruit, jam and chocolate-covered raisins that was artfully designed and delightfully silly. Our son meanwhile, got much better at eggs and also made breakfast meats that included homemade sausage.
Though I had started out as the architect of the meal with the children helping, as they became more capable I was relegated to making coffee and opening the Champagne. I might occasionally be asked whether the raspberry jam or the blueberry better matched the color of her eyes, but if not consulted, I stood back until it was time to clean the kitchen and do the dishes.
Each year the portrait in food and its accompaniments was delivered with ceremonial solemnity so my wife could enjoy breakfast in bed. When it was unveiled, there was much giggling, expressions of amazement, and parental pride. Each portrait was eaten gratefully and joyfully even though in early days the combinations were chosen more for visual than culinary effect. Pictures were taken and shared with colleagues at work, and though some may have found each annual creation odd, every mother who saw it understood. It was an expression of love and creativity devised by the children for their mother, and as such, priceless.
The Mother’s Day faces continued until Rebecca moved out of state to go to college, and our son and I haven’t continued it — those were hers to create. By that time, though, both children had a solid ground in cooking and had firsthand experience with the joy of giving and receiving food made with love. It didn’t take a fancy kitchen or professional skills, just a sense of whimsy and ingredients as simple as fruit, bread and the condiments that might be in any refrigerator and spice cupboard.
Not everyone has children who love to cook as mine do — growing up with a food writer as a father could possibly have something to do with it. However, any parent might consider whether there is something that your children can do with their mother or for their mother that can show their devotion. If mom really likes flowers, might the children plant and tend that garden, even if it’s a few pots on a balcony? If there’s a fragrance she enjoys, could the children assist with infusing it into soap or candles? There are videos online for these and other skills, and the act of making the surprise for Mom together is a bonding moment for the rest of the family. Consider what she loves, have it made by whom she loves, and make it a truly special day.
Your article regarding Safe Encampments is brilliant!
Your definition of “economic refugees,” the possible reasons for being “shelter resistant,” the ridiculous cost of “clean sweeps” and the understanding of the human need to create social networks, all point to your suggested “Safe Camping” sites.
I wonder if there is a legal reason keeping these camps from being formed because it seems like a realistic and humane solution.
Michele Vanderlip, Rancho Palos Verdes
Los Angeles has opened its first government-run homeless encampment, on a parking lot by the 101 freeway in East Hollywood. This comes weeks after officials shut down what was one of the city’s largest encampments at Echo Park Lake, two miles away. The question for Councilman Joe Buscaino is whether he’s going to wait for Judge David O. Carter to issue an order to do the same in CD15?
James Preston Allen, Publisher
California Recall
It’s hard to know where to begin.
Last week, celebrity and television personality Caitlyn Jenner announced she was running as part of the Republican recall effort to unseat Gavin Newsom.
The facts speak for themselves:
Jenner supported Donald Trump when he first ran for President. And before her campaign launch, we learned that Trump’s former campaign manager — someone with direct access to Trump and his donor base — was leading Jenner’s campaign team.
The last thing California needs is a celebrity governor beholden to Donald Trump. Not while we’re getting COVID-19 under control and our economy back on track.
Unlike Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom put science and public health first, and that’s exactly why Trump Republicans are going after him.
Gavin Newsom is up for re-election next year, but Republicans know they can’t win a general election in California, since their policies are so backward and unpopular. Instead, they are wasting millions of taxpayers’ dollars on a recall campaign.
This is a critical moment for our state and we need to defeat the Republican recall efforts against our governor.
Adam Schiff, Congress Representative California’s 28th District
Trump Back On Facebook
We have reason to believe that Mark Zuckerberg, and the Oversight Board he created, will make the wrong decision later this month by allowing Donald Trump back onto Facebook.
Zuckerberg has a well-established pattern of behavior whenever his platform faces public criticism of its record on white supremacy and disinformation. He trots out meaningless actions designed for PR, not for real change. And all of us pay the price.
If Facebook again prioritizes greed over our democracy, safety and health, our movement must be ready to stand up and fight.
The fact is, we have little reason to expect that the Facebook Oversight Board will do what is clearly the right thing. Facebook selected board members and pays them to do their work. Facebook decides what they review and limits the content they can base their decisions on.
No one would respect a climate-change study funded by Exxon Mobil. Or a nutrition report from sugar-industry scientists. A ruling from the Facebook Oversight Board is the same thing, dressed up for the internet age.
Free Press and Free Press Action are nonpartisan organizations fighting for your rights to connect and communicate. Free Press and Free Press Action do not support or oppose any candidate for public office.
Editorial Board of Free Press, Florence, Mass.
Chicago Fighting Cocks
“I hate Illinois Nazis.” — John Belushi
(AKA Jake Blues)
Sweet Home Chicago, do yourselves a favor and make this the final season for the National Hockey League’s Chicago Blackhawks. “Blackhawks?” Seriously?
It’s 2021, folks. Don’t be afraid of joining the rest of us in the 21st century already!
Here are my 15 favorite new team name options for Chicago’s NHL franchise. Pick one, if you please, wonderful people of the Windy City:
We humans are social. We have a strong desire (need) to be acknowledged and that’s why my #StartsWithOne movement is such a big deal. To witness another’s life and to be witnessed by another, those basic constructs are foundational to alleviating the existential dilemma’s pressure to define self. It comes down to, “I’m seen/acknowledged, therefore I am.”
The problem is, we miss things.
We’re just not that observant. In fact, we’re lazy, relying on a built-in psychological construct from infancy called Object Constancy. If a ball rolls behind a block, we anticipate that same ball will roll out from behind that block. If we park our car in a certain spot, we expect it to be the same car in the same spot when we come out.
It’s why magical illusions are so fascinating — what was once a woman is now a tiger! Poof!
The problem is that because we expect things to remain the same, we miss things about ourselves and we miss things about each other. We overlook the growth and development that we’ve each experienced. The old, “my how you’ve changed” exclamation that comes from grandparents typically expresses the reality of a difference in height from the last visit to present.
We don’t do the same for each other as adults. That could be a new greeting, instead of “Hi, how are you?” let’s begin with “Tell me what’s changed!”
As much as we each crave the novel experience, it’s a basic human need, so too do we rely on things remaining the same. We damage relationships with each other when we do so. And this is especially true in families. Reflect on how often people revert or feel like they’re expected to revert to some old childhood role when they visit “home.” This happens among family members who connect beyond the bounds of what used to be home.
Become intentionally aware.
We miss things… unless we’re deliberately vigilant. Here’s a quick practice you might want to take up: The next time you meet up with a family member or friend, even someone you talk to regularly, even someone you see daily —ask yourself, “what’s changed? Where has this person grown since I last connected with them?”
Take inventory for yourself, as well.
It’s a great practice. If you’re going to be intentional about looking for the growth in others, start with that practice for yourself. How has your thinking changed since yesterday? What enlightening idea did you encounter? What new experience did you bring into your life that expanded your thought process? The answers could be found in something as simple as reading a post like this that invites you to examine your thinking or in a conversation with a friend who offers a unique perspective on world events.
What happens when someone offers their worldview? Do you argue your stance or might you take the time to understand their perspective? They’ve changed and you can’t see it if you’re stuck looking through your old glasses. Maybe their worldview hasn’t changed the way you’d like; maybe it’s gotten further solidified. Notice. Just notice.
You’ve changed and you know it.
You might not know all of it… yet. You’re not the same person you were 20 years ago. You’re not the same person you were 10, five, or two years ago. You’re not the same person you were last year! Heck, look at how resilient and courageous you became! Might you acknowledge in some self-reflective place, that you’re not the same person you were last month, last week, or even yesterday?
I’m certainly not who I was. Not from 20 years ago, not from a couple of months ago, and not even from yesterday when a casual meeting with a friend sparked a new idea for how to reshape my business model. It affirmed something in me and changed my outlook. A casual meeting created a life-changing directional thrust. My lunch-date has no idea that our conversation had such an impact on my trajectory.
The problem is we miss things.
Most people won’t see the changes others have experienced unless they dare to ask. They won’t notice how thinking, personal worldview, or values have evolved. Sure, we can live them and model them, yet most people won’t see them unless they’re called out. We have a picture of who the other is or is supposed to be. That “supposed to” is a subconscious process based on the need for object constancy. We need each other to be who we were to each other.
Unless we don’t.
Growth is predicated on the expansion of life in all forms. Thought is the first place that any reality exists. First thought, then comes physical expression of that thought. To grow and encourage the growth in others, we need to unpaint the picture that we held.
What was is no longer what is.
Seek a new perspective. Look for what has changed in the world around you and especially in the people around you. Unpaint the picture enough to recognize that your life is dynamic. So too are the lives of others. The picture isn’t static. See yourself — and others — for who you each are now… and now… and now… and now….
Dr. Wayne D. Pernell is the president of Dynamic Leader®, Inc. He founded the #StartsWithOne™ movement, he is a member of the Forbes Business Council, he is a TEDx Speaker, has been featured in the Amazon Prime Television series SpeakUp Season 2, and is regularly seen on television as well as heard on radio and podcasts around the world.
Actions by the Joe Biden administration, in refusing to share the U.S. government-owned patent of the coronavirus vaccine, ensures the profits of the rich who own the giant for-profit pharmaceutical and medical insurance monopolies. It also guarantees that tens of thousands more will die — just as in Brazil 5,000 are dying per day for lack of vaccines.
But there is another approach championed by Cuba, the World Health Organization and World Trade Organization: free vaccines for every single person in Cuba and for every country in the world that wants it by ending the “intellectual property rights” of the vaccine and allowing others to manufacture it.
This was the policy of Jonas Salk who developed the polio vaccine six decades ago. He gave it freely to the world.
It’s essential that all workers and their families get vaccinated to stop coronavirus and reach what is known as “herd immunity.” Working people, farmers and youth have been decimated by layoffs, job combinations and speedup, accelerated by the pandemic. Our response must be to band together where we work to defend our jobs, wages and to campaign on a national level for a public works program to create millions of jobs at union-scale wages, with safety committees organized by us.
Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and other pharmaceutical companies received $2.3 billion in government funding (i.e., our tax dollars) for vaccine research, development and distribution. Yet they refuse to share their vaccine formula.
This medicine-for-profit approach, along with protectionism, and vaccinating rich countries first leaves billions in underdeveloped countries without the possibility of vaccination for months to come, if at all. Prolonging the pandemic will continue to devastate the livelihood of millions, and increase the potential of viral mutations that can sweep across the globe, as we are already witnessing.
Most of the 142 countries enrolled in Covax, a program run by the World Health Organization, are in dire straits. The Guardian reported in January that Africa, with a population of 1.3 billion, will receive only 140 million doses by June, at best. And the Covax program is unraveling as pharma giants prioritize deals with the highest bidders.
More than 7 billion vaccine doses had been purchased globally, with 4.2 billion going to major capitalist countries, the Guardian reports.
The truth is the scarcity of vaccines is created by the workings of capitalist for-profit medical systems. Rather than mobilize all the resources of society, vaccine creation and production is left to the “market” and its “profit motive.” There are many facilities internationally that could produce the vaccine if given the hoarded formula. The winners hope to make trillions. Working people are the losers.
Cuba: ‘We share what we have’
Cuban people greeted with excitement and pride the progression of late-stage trials of two of the five vaccines they developed — Soberana 2 and Abdala —with Cuba becoming the first Latin American country to make its own vaccine. It will vaccinate 1.7 million people — most of the adult population of Havana — by the end of May. The goal is to inoculate 70% of the population by August, the rest by the end of the year, Dr. Ileana Morales Suárez of Cuba’s Ministry of Health reported on Cuban television.
How is Cuba able to do this?
Cuba’s program relies on four basic principles.
• Vaccination efforts encompass the entire Cuban people.
• Vaccination is integrated into primary health care services.
• The program relies on active community participation.
• Vaccination is free of charge.
Cuba’s goal is not only to provide inoculation against COVID-19 to its people, and to anyone who visits Cuba, but also to make it available around the world. Cuba’s government is organizing to provide free vaccines to the most exploited nations and at a sliding scale to others.
Like other internationalist aid Cuba has provided around the world, the vaccine development is done under the principle, “We don’t give what we have left over. We share what we have.”
While Cuba has the vaccine in near trial completion, they lack syringes and vials. Thus, an international campaign in Europe and in the U.S. (through the “Saving Lives Campaign”) is raising money to buy and send these critical, yet simple, medical supplies. For more information and to assist, contact the Los Angeles U.S. Hands off Cuba Committee at: la.us.handsoffcuba@gmail.com
SpaceX is coming to the Port of Long Beach, said Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia in a press release on April 26. Starting May 1, the aerospace company will occupy the port’s Pier T, which was formerly occupied by Sea Launch, which vacated it a year ago. Sea Launch occupied the property for 20 years, and before that, it was the site of a United States Navy Complex.
The Port of Long Beach Harbor Commissioners unanimously approved a two-year lease for the project on April 26. SpaceX will occupy about 6.5 acres, including 2.85 acres of land, 3.54 acres of submerged land.
Eamonn Killeen, director of real estate for the port, said that this deal took a lot of effort from his staff, including moving Sea Launch out, and getting the facility market ready.
“We worked closely with our engineering division as well as our maintenance division to address any deficiencies that needed to be brought up to par,” Killeen said at the April 26 meeting of the harbor commissioners.
Killeen said that SpaceX will be using the majority of a 90,000 square feet warehouse and some acreage adjacent to the pier. In addition, it will have full control of the pier for its recovery barges. It can also berth ships, boats and other watercraft.
SpaceX will pay $107,000 per month, but this will be subject to annual consumer price index adjustments. The two-year lease can be terminated with 90-days written notice by SpaceX. Killeen said the port would be open to extending the lease.
SpaceX will be responsible for the repair and maintenance of the property including the buildings and any improvements. However, the port will maintain the primary wharf structure of the pier. Any improvements will be done on SpaceX’s dime, but only with the port’s approval.
SpaceX will be required to apply to federal, state and local environmental standards. Because of this, it will need to use tugs with the cleanest available engines, and any off-road equipment that it purchases must meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tier 4 final engine standards.
Frank Colonna, board president of the commissioners, praised SpaceX for sending astronauts to the International Space Station in one of its capsules just a few days prior to the meeting.
“What an extraordinary situation compared to how it was a number of years ago,” Colonna said. “This is now private enterprise that’s working in conjunction with government and NASA to deliver this type of technology and transportation.”
Alex Chairin, a representative of Curtin Maritime, a local business that operates in the port, expressed support for the project, as well as some concerns. He said that Curtin Maritime has been working with port staff for the past year to try to find a permanent location within the port’s boundaries.
“Unfortunately, this property … was a prime location for the relocation of Curtin Maritime,” Chairin said. “While we understand the desire of the commission staff is to go with SpaceX, we would respectfully request that in order to prevent the displacement of Curtin Maritime and their relocation to Northern California, that as part of the motion today, if you could convince staff to continue to work with Curtin Maritime to find a location that will allow them to continue to service the port and its tenants.”
Colonna said it was unnecessary to add what Chairin requested to the motion but said that the commissioners will ask port staff to continue to work with Curtin Maritime.
Mario Cordero, executive director of the port, said there were several entities interested in that property, including Curtin Maritime.
“This is not a situation where they’re being displaced, at least from that area,” Cordero said. “We’ll continue to have our discussions with our parties that are interested in being present in the Port of Long Beach.”
To state the obvious, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a painful reality for theatre, forcing many companies unable or unwilling to stay dark for the duration into unfamiliar waters. But sympathetic as a theatre critic may be to their struggles to stay afloat, reviewing such work entails focusing on the finished product.
Unfortunately, International City Theatre’s productionof Wendy MacLeod’s Slow Food, is plagued by a poor script and technical deficiencies that are conspicuous despite the play’s straightforwardly minimal conceit.
To celebrate the commencement of their life as empty-nesters, a man (Stu James) and woman (Meredith Thomas) have come to Palm Springs for their 23rd anniversary. But so far things have not gone well — problems with the hotel, etc. Ravenous, they’ve come to one of the only nearby restaurants with a kitchen still open late on a Sunday night. But with Stephen (Perry Ojeda) as their waiter, it seems like they may never get to eat.
That is almost literally all there is to Slow Food, which faithfully observes the Aristotelian unities of time, place, and action. For 90 minutes we’re at the couple’s table as they talk with each other and their curiously cunctatory server. His motivation for not bringing their food is never even implied; we’re just meant to take it as funny, as if MacLeod is trying to comedically transplant a strand of No Exit while denuding it of meaning. And although the conversation does occasionally stray from (to paraphrase) “We want our food,” “Can’t we get our food?,” “Gosh, I’m hungry — I wish we could get our food!,” the sorties into middle-aged married life are boilerplate at best.
Although undoubtedly many in ICT’s core audience (of which I have a decent sense from over a decade’s worth of plays) will like MacLeod’s sense of humor better than I (even if Slow Food is one of the weakest scripts ICT’s put on), the shortcomings in the production itself cannot be written off as a matter of taste. Because by its very nature Slow Food does not require many different set-ups or shots, the few that are employed better be good, particularly because so little action happens in frame. Alas, all of them suffer from one prominent defect or another. For starters, it is painfully evident that the actors were never in the same room, each recorded at home via Zoom (or a similar service) against digitally-inserted backgrounds. Good for COVID safety protocols, bad for theatrical viewing, particularly as director Marya Mazor has chosen to tell basically the entire story as a series of single shots, preventing us from ever seeing the characters interact. Yes, half the battle is already lost when you can’t get your actors in the same room to play off each other; but ICT surrenders the other half without putting up any kind of creative fight.
This shortcoming is all the more pronounced for the fact that even the framing of these few, simple shots is generally lacking. The most prevalent problem here is how Thomas is consistently closer to her camera than James is to his, meaning an extra loss of continuity resulting from her head being notably bigger than his each time the shots cut back and forth between them. A slight direction to Thomas or James to minutely adjust her/his position is all it would have taken to eliminate this particular problem. This may seem like a mere cavil, but seeing the disparity over and over, often several times a minute, is jarring.
Subjective valuations of the script aside, ICT may have been on the right track to choose for an internet production a show with a simple setting and minimal action. But without creative approaches to the inherent challenges of delivering theatre this way, Slow Food feels like no more than a stopgap measure by thespians unsure what else to do right now.
International City Theatre’s Slow Food streams on-demand Thursday–Sunday through May 16. Cost: $33. For “tickets” or more information, visit ICTlongbeach.org.
Mother shares her challenges and successes as a businesswoman
By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor, and Ruby Muñoz, Editorial Intern
Editor’s Note: In this edition, Random Lengths News features a woman balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship. She is an example of how humanity will find a way to survive, if not thrive, even in the midst of a pandemic. She owns Las Palmas Cafe, a Carson restaurant serving authentic Zacatecas cuisine. The restaurant itself celebrated its 60th anniversary at the start of the pandemic.
Sonia Rodriguez-Fuentes, 51, is a vanguard of a second generation of entrepreneurs. From her youthful appearance and staff uniform of blue jeans and black Las Palmas T-shirt, she is virtually indistinguishable from the staff with whom she works alongside on a daily basis.
Rodriguez-Fuentes is a woman who, despite her sense of guilt about the amount of time the restaurant takes from her and her children, enjoys working side-by-side with her staff, making the restaurant’s longtime clientele happy.
“It’s a strange feeling because I want them to know I’m working just as hard as they are,” Rodriguez-Fuentes said. “I have always done my best to understand my employees’ needs, and I try to make our working environment harmonious.”
Her two children, 17-year-old Brian Dean Pearson and 9-year-old Jacqueline Fuentes (whose father she married) watched their mother’s struggles firsthand, balancing the struggles of entrepreneurship and motherhood.
Rodriguez-Fuentes talks about her biggest disappointments, noting that they include prioritizing the restaurant high enough to cancel family plans to address an emergency. Her children recount the specific instances in which their mother had to go to the restaurant instead of vacationing with them.
“It is upsetting, and when my kids were younger they didn’t understand but now they’re used to it,” Rodriguez-Fuentes said. “Running a business is a full-time endeavor and I do my best to navigate both my career and my family…. I carry guilt about my role as both a mother and a businesswoman.”
The cafe is a few blocks north of the train tracks separating Wilmington from the City of Carson. Established in 1960, the restaurant is a classic old-style place with red tuck-n-roll booths. Originally operated by the Reyes family, the Rodriguezes purchased the restaurant from the Reyeses in 1985 and Rodriguez-Fuentes has worked there in one capacity or another ever since. You could say she grew up there.
Dreams and Ambitions
The fourth child of six, which included three brothers and two sisters. Rodriguez-Fuentes attended local schools, and earned degrees from Cal State Long Beach in business administration and international business. She once aspired to work in international trade and worked for three years at Liberty Mutual insurance in the workers compensation department. Her younger brother was running the restaurant at this time. But when the opportunity to become a full fledged member of the ILWU arose, he took the opportunity. Her father, Benjamin Rodriguez, the family patriarch who originally established the family’s restaurant holdings, offered her a choice: continue the path she had taken or take over the restaurant.
Rodriguez-Fuentes took the reins of Las Palmas Cafe and shortly after she became a single mother of her first child. Most of her 12-member staff have been with the restaurant for a long time. Rodriguez-Fuentes noted there are employees who have been with the restaurant for 40 years and have retired. A significant part of the restaurant’s clientele have visited the restaurant since the days it was operated by the Reyes family and still remember the restaurant’s prior proprietor. The restaurant is an institution and Rodriguez-Fuentes works hard to maintain this atmosphere.
“I’ve made friends [who] have become as much family to me as I am to them,” Rodriguez-Fuentes said. “I’ve always been told that I created an atmosphere where it’s like the TV sitcom Cheers, a place ‘where everyone knows your name.’”
Rodriguez-Fuentes has hired locally, high school and college students, and the down-and-out out of a sense of civic duty. She also created a food delivery program for families with a loved one stricken with cancer, called Irma’s Meals. The program is named for her elder sister who died from breast cancer.
“We feed a family who is going through cancer to relieve them of the burden of cooking and enable them to gather together to enjoy their loved one who is dealing with cancer,” Rodriguez-Fuentes said. “I created Irma’s Meals as a way to honor my sister’s memory and a way to give back to others who are battling cancer.”
Beginnings of the Family Enterprise
Benjamin Rodriguez started off in the United States as a bracero worker picking fruit. “Bracero” references a World War II-era guest worker program that brought millions of Mexican guest workers to the United States. The program ended more than four decades ago. The pay was low, but Benjamin had greater aspirations. He eventually found work as a busboy at the Velvet Turtle, a high end Torrance steakhouse, back in the 1960s. He worked, he learned and he saved his money and purchased Rodriguez Billiards and placed a little taco stand right next to it. From there it expanded.
Benjamin eventually opened a second Pollo Lico in Wilmington before finally purchasing Las Palmas. The values of family first, hard work, commitment and perseverance are apparent.
Rodriguez-Fuentes had just turned 15 when she had entered high school and her family had purchased Las Palmas Cafe from the Reyes family in 1985. Right off the bat she started helping out on the weekends ringing up bills as a cashier.
“No questions asked. I just knew back then,” Rodriguez-Fuentes said. “Your parents told you what you had to do and you had to do it.”
A conversation with her son quickly revealed that the values of family hard work had clearly passed down to him. Brian, a strapping 6-foot young man who’s serious about his future and his family, worked at the restaurant just like his mother did before him. When his father fell ill with prostate issues, he elected to move to San Bernardino to care for him. That meant changing schools and getting a part-time job on his own and contributing to the household. Pearson described himself as lackadaisical about life before he encountered this season of his life.
“I really had to grow up,” Brian said. “My dad was having a hard time going to work and so he was like calling out. He went on disability because he couldn’t move at all.”
Before joining his father, Pearson was an average student carrying a 2.8 GPA, who just helped out around the restaurant. After leaving to care for his father, he became a 4.0 GPA student, graduating near the top of his class with honors.
“Before everything happened I was just like dangling,” Brian said. “[I thought] this is really what reality is.”
Like many children of immigrant parents Sonia Rodriguez-Fuentes has worked hard and endeavored to make a place for herself and her family even with all of the impediments that life has thrown her way. In short she has persevered through it all and doesn’t expect a hand out but has received a hand-up.
Las Palmas Cafe proprietor Sonia Rodriguez-Fuentes. Photo by Arturo Garcia-Ayala
Behind the Las Palmas Name
The name, Las Palmas, has long signified authentic Mexican cuisine, even if lines of what’s authentic versus not are sometimes blurred. One of the biggest success stories bearing the Las Palmas brand, and reinforcing this signifier, was created by Ramirez and Feraud Chili Co. in the early 1920s.
According to company lore, the recipes that ended up being marketed by the company belong to Rosa Ramirez, wife of company founder Rafael B. Ramirez. Pillsbury, a subsidiary of Diageo purchased the Las Palmas brand, which was still later acquired by B&G Foods.
The difference between the companies that owned the Las Palmas brand and the restaurateurs who chose to make Mexican cuisine under the Las Palmas banner is that many of those businesses remain tied to the families that run them. It’s an element that keeps Rodriguez-Fuentes grounded.
I was reminded this week that one of the subtlest yet insidious forms of censorship is just not to be invited to the meeting where you don’t ask uncomfortable questions. As a journalist, this happens more often than you might expect and with the virtual meetings of the pandemic, it’s only gotten worse. Let me explain.
In my last column, “Economic Refugees and Safe Encampments,” I argued for port properties, Lots E and F at the foot of 22nd Street in San Pedro, to be used as a site for a safe homeless encampment. This issue was first addressed at a March Board of Harbor Commission meeting where as the designated representative I was given five minutes to read, but not discuss the motions from two neighborhood councils.
I filed a public records act request with the port after Gene Seroka, the executive director of the port, responded to two San Pedro Neighborhood Councils requests for a temporary use of the same property to serve the homeless. He replied both during a Harbor Commission board meeting and in a letter to the neighborhood councils that, “these lots are situated on a site that contains contaminated soil.”
He continued, explaining:
The site is currently under oversight by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, and use of it for homeless individuals could jeopardize their health. Once cleanup of the contaminated soil is completed, a health risk assessment must be conducted to consider what types of uses are appropriate for this location going-forward. Second, Lots E & F are currently being used to support development of the waterfront. Specifically, they are needed as overflow parking lots by tenants of the former Ports O’ Call site.
The problem with the virtual Board of Harbor Commission meetings is that even as an allowed speaker, I couldn’t be seen on the Zoom video and the syncing of the video with the phone audio was frustratingly dysfunctional. Yet the motions were presented and Seroka did respond, similar to above. But there could be “no discussion” because of their interpretation of the Brown Act — a curious interpretation.
In Seroka’s formal written response to the neighborhood council presidents, he stated the same position. Then his letter gets placed on the agenda item for a private meeting consisting of neighborhood council presidents and the executive officers at the chamber of commerce. This was a meeting few area residents knew about and did not adhere to the Brown Act. I was intentionally excluded from attending even though the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council voted for me to speak on this issue on its behalf. Yet, the invitations sent out by Augie Bezmalinovich didn’t include one for me, with the permissive acquiescence of Lou Caravella, the new president of CeSPNC, who had only held the title a week drinking the Kool-Aid.
So there’s a private meeting, with an overwhelming number of port employees and a bunch of people who couldn’t read (or care to read) a toxicology soil study if they were forced to.
My point is that even though Seroka has admitted that the “homeless crisis is an existential threat,” he and others don’t get that it’s an “immediate threat,” not just to the unsheltered but also to the entire community. And that if this is a crisis, then it should be addressed as a crisis with an all-hands-on-deck kind of cooperation from all departments of the city, including POLA.
What I find unacceptable is that in the world’s wealthiest nation, in the shadows of America’s most profitable ports, less than half of 1% of our population is living in destitute poverty. This has nothing to do with being existential — it’s just morally wrong if not economically stupid.
However, what we have gotten in the form of an excuse is a fact that reveals something the rest of San Pedro and all of Los Angeles have long ago forgotten (kind of like the DDT barrels dumped in the San Pedro Channel) — that the parcels of land down near lots E and F, once known as the GATX Annex, are still contaminated from an industrial fire that happened there almost 50 years ago! A San Pedro News Pilot article written by none other than Xavier Hermosillo recorded this event. The toxic mix of chemicals at that facility was later further exposed in Random Lengths News’ very first issue in 1979.
Don’t get me wrong, there has been some “remediation” of this property over the years. Yet, if you travel down 22nd Street you’ll see a large parcel completely fenced off — that was GATX. That fenced off area was not Lot E and F, formerly known as Warehouse 12. The areas called Lot E and F are being used as a public parking lot.
James Campeau recently emailed me saying, “I think the port has put people in danger over many years with their contamination BS, as they have allowed use of Lot E & F as it is currently.”
Yet, it is not certain that the entire property is so contaminated as to be unusable. Campeau noted that, “after the 1972 fire at the GATX ANNEX, Warehouse 12 was used for 20-plus years after the fire. I think an attorney would love this case. The Port of Los Angeles wants it both ways. It is either safe or close it up.”
However, this is just one part of the not so public discussions that have been taking place while the rest of San Pedro have been in quarantine or otherwise preoccupied by not getting COVID-19 and dying.
Public attendance at virtual meetings has limited access for many reasons — old computers, lack of resources or the complications of being on the right-somebody’s email list to get the Zoom invitation. And that’s only if it’s not a private, invitation-only Zoom meeting.
The main reason why San Pedro and the rest of Los Angeles feel so disempowered is not that nearly everything can be found on your computer, it’s just that there is so much junk that gets on the internet that navigating around any particular website is like looking for Waldo — and then there’s the insidious censorship of not being given the password or link to actually speak at a virtual meeting.
Once people recover from this lost year of the pandemic, they are actually going to want to know what’s been going in their name while they’ve been in quarantine. You may just have to watch the archive Zoom videos where only 20 people showed up, if you can find them. But by then it will be too late to speak and be heard.
“Wage theft, unsafe working conditions, no safety net. This is the reality of thousands of port drivers like me,” said Juan Carlos Giraldo at an April 6 press conference. “And it doesn’t just hurt us. It hurts our families and it hurts our communities.”
But that could finally start to change with passage of three bills whose proposal to the California legislature was announced that day in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis on top of the long-standing exploitation of drivers misclassified as independent contractors.
“Today, we’re saying loud and clear again that we’re not [going to] continue to have our port drivers treated unjustly,” said Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a daughter of a port trucker and the author of Senate Bill 338, which would have large retailers liable for trucking company violations, strengthening enforcement and plugging loopholes in SB 1402, passed in 2019.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic this included a failure to provide PPE at our ports, the largest ports in the nation,” Gonzalez declared. “Sanitizing shared equipment, notifying workers about potential COVID-19 exposures were non-existent. This is not what California stands for. How can we, as the fifth-largest economy, allow these injustices to continue at our port? It’s not fair and we must fight.”
For five years, Giraldo has worked for Container Connection, a subsidiary of Universal Logistics Holdings, the subject of a recent Cal OSHA complaint he helped file on March 15, and the subject of an April 14 strike that was honored by ILWU dockworkers who refused to load Universal Logistics Holdings trucks.
“Container Connection denies us our basic rights for a minimum wage,” Giraldo stated. “They do that by calling us independent contractors. But we’re independent in name only. We have to follow the company rules. The company can discipline us. We don’t run our businesses. We’re just like any other employee except without the protections.”
Unemployment insurance is one of those protections, the lack of which constituted a pandemic within the pandemic last year. Another bill, Senate Bill 700, introduced by Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, would directly redress that problem, making trucking companies responsible for unemployment insurance.
“My work dropped by 80%, when the pandemic hit,” Giraldo said.
But he was just one of thousands.
Teamster port truckers shut down a Port of Los Angeles major terminal on April 12 for illegally firing truck drivers, denying drivers back pay, and refusing to recognize and bargain with their union the drivers voted to join. File Photo.
“As the pandemic hit and the amount of cargo in the ports dropped many, many drivers found themselves out of work,” Durazo said at an April 19 hearing on her bill. “When they applied for benefits, many were denied. Even worse, some of those classified drivers were deemed to be employers of other drivers, making them liable for … [unemployment insurance] taxes, instead of the companies profiting from their work.
“[Those] decisions are being overturned on appeal, but workers cannot and should not wait. Their very survival, their ability to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table depends on timely access to benefits when work dries up.
“SB 700 is critical to provide certainty and clarity to the EDD on who the true employer is, so that port trucking companies cannot evade liability under California’s complex UI code.”
“To be clear, the legal system has weighed in,” said Teamsters Port Division lawyer Julie Gutman Dickenson in that hearing. “In every California state and federal court case, at every agency from the CUIAB [California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board] to the DLSE [Division of Labor Standards Enforcement], the DOL [US Department of Labor] to the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] port drivers have been uniformly found to be employees of the trucking companies they work for, not employees of an LLC their employers incentivized them to obtain, and not employers or employees of their coworkers with whom they share a truck.”
In short, SB 700 is simply codifying existing law, as interpreted by those responsible for enforcing it, removing a baseless cloud of confusion. SB 338, in contrast, is addressing shortcomings in a previous bill SB 1402, which have become apparent since it went into law. As Random Lengths News explained in 2019, it made retailers like Walmart and Target jointly liable for port trucker wage theft violations, along with the trucking companies directly responsible.
Violators were placed on a list, so there could be no claims of innocent mistakes.
“[T]oo many loopholes have left the bill ineffective in achieving system change,” said Shane Gusman, testifying on behalf of the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council on April 21. “We need SB 338 to fill these loopholes and make sure the exploitation ends once and for all.”
Caitlin Vega, representing the Teamsters Port Division, provided specifics.
“SB 338 proses three important changes to make the law more effective in raising labor standards at the port,” Vega said. “It adds health and safety violations, it creates a category for prior offenders who continually misclassify, and it adds an audit requirement to ensure that illegal conduct has stopped before a company is removed from the list.”
The California Trucking Association has opposed the bill, but the teamsters have met with them several times.
“And today we are accepting amendments on many of the issues they’ve raised,” Vega said.
Violations would be limited to final determinations, and the definition of prior offenders would be narrowed. Differences remain, but discussions continue.
The third bill — Assembly Bill 798, the Climate Jobs and Equity Act authored by Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo — represents a major part of California’s climate/jobs agenda. It would ensure that public funding to manufacture and purchase cleaner vehicles — including port trucks — is tied to labor standards, including proper classification.
“AB 794 will get us to zero emission vehicles and secure compliance with labor laws, high-road workplace standards, create jobs for many of those who need them the most, and address climate and equity issues in our local communities,” Carrillo said at an April 21 press conference. “We need long term equitable and sustainable solutions, with economic development strategies to build back better for the COVID-19 pandemic and address systemic racism and economic justice. AB 794 shows how to do this with two iconic American industries: truck driving and auto manufacturing.
“This is very personal to me. I grew up in a neighborhood with poor air quality. My little sister developed asthma, and we almost lost her.”
Her current situation is similar.
“The 51st Assembly District is surrounded by the 5 or 10 the 60 the 710 to the 134 and the 110 freeways,” she stressed. “This is a very real issue in my community.
“California vehicle incentive programs function like a gate: vehicles enter the gate and trucking companies drive them out. AB 794 sets baseline standards for company performance on treatment of workers — domestic manufacturing and hiring disadvantaged workers — for a manufacturer to send a vehicle through the gate, and trucking companies to drive trucks out of the gate.”
Manufacturing-side requirements include apprenticeship programs, domestic production and competitive pay requirements, hiring of disadvantaged workers and preservation of dispute resolution options. Trucking side requirements include compliance with labor, health and safety laws.
“The bottom line is this: California should not subsidize companies that violate workers rights or shift the cost of going green onto the backs of workers or the state safety net,” Carrillo stated. “Public funding should reward companies that follow the law and respect workers because experience has shown us that these policies and incentive programs to upgrade fleets without labor standards do not work. The misclassification of port drayage truck drivers for instance has been an obstacle to meeting climate change action goals and ensuring California air resources board air quality targets are met, because misclassified drivers have been unlawfully forced to bear all the cost of transitioning to clean trucks.”
“AB 794 is a blueprint not only for California but for the working class throughout the United States,” said Romeo Torres, chairman of the United Auto Workers in the Ontario parts department. “Under the current law manufacturers receive taxpayers dollars for electric vehicles but don’t have to meet any requirements for creating jobs in California. This bill would help support U.S. job creation and support quality jobs so workers can support their family. California is the largest electric vehicle market in the United States. The message that California sends to the auto industry matters.”
Together, this trio of bills may finally put an end to the systemic misclassification of port drivers, and the resulting wage theft and loss of worker protections. It’s telling that this will only happen in conjunction with responding to two other crises — the climate crisis and the COVID pandemic — which have highlighted injustices ignored for so long. After decades of struggle — at times with no allies at all — justice for port drivers is long overdue.
