Yeah.

So then I started talking to her, and it turned out, like, she started saying that her views were more nuanced.

She's not necessarily against street vendors, it was just against that street vendor.

She was very disappointed that the conservatives did not stand up for her, even though she was a Donald Trump voter, and that her politics could be...

And she herself was Mexican American, grew up in Mexico, was born in the United States, but lived her life in Mexico until she was 18.

And I...

Just seeing in her, seeing the disappointment that for Latinos, conservatives are not gonna be for you, or they're not gonna be there for you specifically.

[laughs]

And where do things stand? Like, how does this race look?

That is a question that everyone...

I know I'm not trying to weasel my way out of it, but it's like if I shook my eight ball, I would say outcome unclear.

Because on one hand, Karen Bass is historically unpopular for an incumbent.

I mean, she won with only...

Geez, I think it was 33% of the electorate in a deep blue city as an incumbent.

Those are terrible, terrible numbers.

So is she in trouble with Latino voters? Is that what you're seeing on the ground?

You argue here basically that the cost of a burrito, maybe like the cost of a gallon of milk, right, is our gauge of cost of living, right? Yeah.

It is my barometer wherever I go.

And look, to tie it into you folks out in Phoenix, what was it? Last year, I stopped by Carolina's, which, of course, legendary spot.

I needed one of their big, humongous burros.

And I hadn't been to the Phoenix area in a couple of years.

And I mean, the price was, geez, like, let's just say I had sticker shock.

And I'm like, I do not remember it being this expensive.

What do you think all of this, you know, all of these kind of Mexican food examples says about the fate of the Trump administration right now, especially among Mexican-American voters?

So tell us about that story and how that restaurant came to be.

Yeah.

Diego, uh, was, you know, born and raised here in Southern California, then life took him to different places.

He ended up in Louisiana, fell in love with Memphis, then fell in with the art crowd here in Costa Mesa in the mid-1990s, and they wanted to create this new...

Like, basically a place where you could go and enjoy what youth culture was at the time.

And for them, you know, you had a rockabilly scene, you had an art scene, and then you had the Southern-style food that he wanted to do.

And so Memphis Cafe was a small...

It is legit delicious.

You write, "It's a salsa that can be as thick as gravy or thin as water, mellow or scorching, a cheeseburger, a snack, a meat rub, a full meal, an appetizer." So the definition of chili was pretty broad, right?

Yeah, it's interesting because in the, in the United States when we think of chili, we think of course of a stew of, uh, usually ground beef with beans, although Texans will always say ch- uh, real chili doesn't have beans.

You put some cheese, sour cream, uh, chili powder, and that's about it.

And then sometimes we'll talk about chili peppers, maybe chili sauce.

But along I-25, chili means something completely different.

It's, and it means multiple things.

So first and foremost, the question along the Chili Highway is always red or green because there's two different types of chilis that everyone goes by, the red chili and the green chili.

And you, you make this point a lot.

Oh.

No, you know, full stop and all of that.

The same way how Mexicans hated Oscar De La Hoya.

There's this idea that if you're Mexican, you cannot possibly like anything related to the United States when it comes to Mexico, even though the United States gave us the American dream, gave our parents amnesty, gave our parents jobs and all that.

But no, no, when it comes to US, everything is evil, which is complete bull.

Like, give me a break.

And not only that, Mexicans, we've always loved the underdog.

Crazy

That's correct? So the, the, the left is having a moment in LA too.

Okay, so this is really interesting because, yes, again, national media not paying attention.

All they are are enamored of Pratt saying, yes, there is a conservative, not Republican nec- necessarily, but even... 'Cause one, one of the tropes you see, like, oh, you know, this liberal hates Trump, is just disgusted with Karen, for, so is going for Spencer.

You have a populous right-wing revolution brewing.

And you also see that kind of with Steve Hilton, the, the Republican who is currently leading in the gubernatorial race.

But they're not paying attention to what's going on, because on the left side you have the Democratic Socialists of America, the LA chapter.

They have been playing the Mamdomi game.

Oh, wow.

This was the first time she revealed these details of her life.

And she said she hid it all because she did not want to be seen as trying to throw a leader of a movement that was just starting under the bus.

So it was a sacrifice of the most painful kind.

She sacrificed her own mental health, her own everything, on behalf of this man.

I cannot even imagine holding this pain for decades.

She's now about to turn 96.

She is in the winter of her life, still as active as ever.

In the meantime, those who have long celebrated Chavez as a hero are now confronting a much more complicated legacy.

I just kind of want to sort of end with this sort of what the fuck is going on with media here.

Yeah, but I mean, let's start with social media.

This predates the Trump administration, though.

I got, when was it? In 2000, well, this was under Trump, I guess, but in 2017 or so, was it 2017? maybe a little bit earlier, but my Twitter account got suspended.

And this is Twitter, so this was before Musk took it over, that much is sure.

But my Twitter account got suspended because I made fun of someone for going to a community college.

Meanwhile, I'm a member, like I'm a proud graduate of the community college system.

So where's your freedom of the press here? We are in the Gilded

But give me a word or two about what's happening with ICE agents on the streets.

Oh, I mean, my colleagues at the Los Angeles Times, we've been reporting it ever since the Border Patrol invaded Los Angeles.

You know, one of the important things that the rest of the country needs to realize is that Los Angeles gave the warning, Claxton, if you will, the big, huge alarm saying what happened to us is coming to you.

And we have seen this in Chicago, in Charlotte, in New Orleans.

in now Minneapolis, the largest one.

And it's like a snowball turning into an avalanche of just a bunch of brutes and thugs who don't care about the law, who openly lie.

The court records have proven it.

What can the people do? What do the people of these communities do?

Now, something happened after I wrote this thing that involved you.

Yeah, no, I was...

Well, it was a fun, it was a meeting for the California Chicano News Media Association.

Yeah.

The original location of Marche Modern in South Coast Plaza, now occupied by Knife Fleet, which is an absolutely amazing restaurant, Michelin starred.

Go check it out.

And so Jonathan was there and he admitted, he's like, I kind of don't know what I'm doing here talking about food.

And he's going to steal that, and then that's going to be more interesting than this Mexican-American food or something in the north.

Give me, give the people who have not read the article yet a sort of, a taste of, of what, uh, capirotada is.

Yeah, so capirotada is Mexican bread pudding, but you do it specifically during Lent on Fridays.

And this particular, and so my favorite dessert of all time, just partly because you can't get it any other time.

So this particular recipe, though, came from a collaboration of two of my cousins, two of my older cousins, and my mom, as she was dying from ovarian cancer.

Like literally, I was not able to have it for, she passed away in 2019, so I wasn't able to have it till two, two years before, because she was sick.

She couldn't do it.

And then finally for this, at, I'm like, you know, she's gonna pass away.

So what are the sort of specifics of your family's?

And you have a special reason for thanking them.

Yeah, look, you're younger than a teenager.

You're coming from Central America.

You're going through Mexico.

You're being exploited.

You're God knows what else is happening to you.

You're going by yourself.

Would you like to say anything about the undocumented people who are your friends, your interns, your coworkers?