The corrido of Ignacio Lujano, the San Juan Capistrano man who has tended to some of the county's last standing orange groves for the past 40 years, continues. The Los Angeles Times, KCAL-TV Channel 9, and KTLA-TV Channel 5 have covered his battle with the city of San Juan Capistrano to boot him out in favor of a maintenance yard, and each story has provoked increasingly disgusted reactions from readers and viewers aghast that city officials would seek to boot out an 84-year-old man and pave ove
We met San Juan Capistrano councilmember Lon Uso a couple of months ago at the Friday morning coffee klatches organized by Capistrano Dispatch editor Jonathan Volzke and thought him a swell guy for daring to speak good about Mexicans in a room full of elderly, crotchety gabachos who didn't believe Mexicans assimilate. But as my mentors at the Weekly always teach me, never like a politician too much, 'cause they'll always do something to prove themselves a fool.
That's exactly what Uso did today
We failed, Orange County, to keep 84-year-old Ignacio Lujano in the San Juan Capistrano orange groves he's tended to for the past 38 years. His son Alex texted me today that his papi is having a big yard sale this weekend before moving in the next couple of weeks to Lake Elsinore. City officials, instead of listening to the dozens of county residents who expressed their outrage at bureaucrats booting an old man from his livelihood, painted Lujano as a welfare case--cold bastards. If you want to
With apologies to Orange County Register sports genius Randy Youngman, notes, quotes and observations from my Sept. 18 book signing at the Yost Theater for my new book, Orange County: A Personal History:
*About 500 people showed up to hear my lecture! About 500! I add the qualifier because the Yost's bottom shell seats 500--there were empty seats, but not many, and there were also a lot of people standing in the lobby or in the aisles. Gracias to everyone who attended; to everyone else, you mis
I get two kinds of reactions whenever I state Orange County is the Mexican-hating capital of America: knowing nods or protestations saying another domain is worse. Never any debate, though, about the Mexican-hating essence of us. I make the case for this dishonor in my book, and I keep digging up more material even when I don't mean to. Didja know, for instance, that SanTana had its own Minuteman Project decades before Jim Gilchrist ever attended a CCIR meeting?
The truth is found in The Story
The OC Weekly--as in ORANGE COUNTY Weekly--plot for Los Angeles media market domination has been slow to achieve but persistent, as evidenced by the impressive showing Weeklings make on the Los Angeles Press Club's list of finalists for the 51st annual SoCal Journalism Awards.Winners will be announced June 14 at the "newly renovated" Sheraton Universal hotel. Which means several of us will be consulting MapQuest between now and June 14. Most certainly MapQuesting will be Daffodil J. Altan, who i
