United States
I’m a reporter based in the Los Angeles area, where I was born and raised. I explore Latino identity in politics, religion, entertainment and culture.
Most recently, I was part of a team that launched De Los, a new section of the LA Times exploring Latinidad in L.A. and across the country.
As a staff writer, you can find my bylines in the Los Angeles Times, Religion News Service, The Press-Enterprise in Riverside and The Orange County Register. My work has also appeared in Eater, the Associated Press and the Washington Post.
In 2018, I was named as an influential Latina journalist by CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California.
Verdolagas and other edible wild greens fed generations. Now, cooks are embracing them even more as part of a "food as medicine" movement that centers cultural traditions.
Started by millennial activists, the Avocado Heights Vaquer@s are helping mobilize equestrian communities to fight expansion that threatens an agrarian way of life.
'People are just not feeling accepted within that box that the Catholic Church is desperately holding on to.'
Cudahy is the first city in Southern California to support the Palestinian people of Gaza with a resolution that calls for a cease-fire.
'Language isn't the only thing that defines who we are and our relationship to our Mexican heritage.'
A former gang member who left his criminal past behind, Richard Cabral has found success in Hollywood. His next move? A coffee shop in Pasadena.
Most also say it's not necessary to speak Spanish to be considered Latino, the Pew Research Center analysis found.
Special guests join Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for "Canto En Resistencia" ("Singing In Resistance") at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Homeownership rates, household incomes and attainment of U.S. citizenship vary among different Latino groups, the analysis finds.
Netflix released its first biannual engagement report, detailing the number of hours a program was viewed in the first six months of the year. Six of the top 25 featured a Latino lead or co-lead.
Oak Flat, a mountainous area east of Phoenix, is an Apache sacred site where Native Americans gather to pray and perform coming-of-age ceremonies and sweat rituals.
Christian nationalism has 'infiltrated' the Latino Christian community 'in such a powerful way,' said one clergyman, 'that they are not even aware of the position they are supporting.'
Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated in many Catholic parishes across Southern California on her feast day, Dec. 12, but Guadalupe finds her way into shrines and murals in Latino neighborhoods year-round, and chroniclers document her to pay homage to the culture, faith and traditions of their L.A. neighbors.
Advocates and scholars are working to reclaim their Islamic history at a time when they say discussions around reproductive justice have often excluded or misrepresented Muslim voices.
Advocates have been stunned by the number of cases that surfaced during this revival window.
More than 80 Muslim candidates won local, state, federal and judicial seats in over 20 states.
In Los Angeles, a team of atheist lookouts, who call themselves the Atheist Street Pirates, track and occasionally take down illegally placed religious signage on public streets and overpasses. Most signs proselytize a specific religion, and they say, it’s almost always Christianity.
With Roe v. Wade overturned, new data show that among Latino Catholics, 75% say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. That’s a big jump from the 51% who said so in 2010.
For many non-Christian Americans, Christian nationalism is an unavoidable fact of life.
As the four martyrs are one step closer to sainthood, Salvadorans in the United States hope the designation could inspire the Catholic Church to center the poor and marginalized.
The life and death of the Rev. Francisco Valdovinos highlights the important role faith leaders and churches fill as trusted messengers in their communities. Their roles are especially important during a pandemic that has disproportionately affected communities of color.
In less than a decade, the number of nonreligious Latinos in the U.S. has increased 67%, doubling from about 4 million to more than 8 million, the Latinx Humanist Alliance found.
The church served the area’s Black and Latino residents until 2017, when then-pastor Horace Allen, citing a shrinking congregation, moved the congregation and sold the church for $6.3 million to Jay Penske, whose Penske Media Corporation publishes Rolling Stone and Variety magazines.
It's billed as the largest Catholic parish in the United States and it's being constructed about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, in what's often referred to "as the heart of California's dairy industry."
Poet Amanda Gorman sang in the youth choir, did her sacraments and recited her poetry at an Afrocentric Catholic church in South Central Los Angeles.
Chicanos in Los Angeles commemorate a 1969 confrontation with the Catholic Church that urged religious leaders to stand with the Mexican American community.
For Sarah Chavez, it's important her death reflect the beliefs and values that guided her in life.
Known as EXLLDM, the message board has about 1,400 subscribers and has been active since about 2017. Members are anonymous and have usernames like FreeAndLovingLife, secular_mind and free4romthatcult.
In 2018-19, 47% of Latinos identified as Catholic. That's down from 57% a decade ago, according to the Pew Research Center.
For Paul Parrish, a white native-English speaker born in South Africa, his identity gives him an unusual perspective on what it means to be undocumented under the Trump administration. “It is amazing how accepting people are when you look like one of their own.”
Recipients of an Obama-era program that provides deportation relief are making plans to leave the country if Trump repeals it.
Ramon Ruiz’s case is one that Southern California immigration advocates signaled as a shift in enforcement. He was an undocumented immigrant with no criminal record who was deported when his application to adjust his legal status was denied. Previously, people who did not qualify were just denied, not deported.
Concerned their legal status in the United States could be upended by Donald Trump, 25 college students and recent graduates who initially arrived here illegally left John Wayne Airport for Mexico on Thursday and will return before he becomes president.
Rhyan Lowery, who is Black with roots in Compton, is making waves as a singer in the Mexican Regional music scene. “I’m crossing and removing the music border because music has no race," said Lowery, who goes by El Compa Negro.
While police say they investigated the cases of the missing women without regard to their background, the women’s relatives, sex workers and their advocates expressed frustration about the way the women are viewed.
Growing up off First Street and Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana, the Adame brothers soaked in the custom-car, motorcycle, tattoo and barber culture of one of Orange County’s early Mexican American barrios. But they couldn’t afford one vital component: pomade.