Introducing the De Los 101

Like all of my professional work, this newsletter is fueled by coffee. Lots of it.

I mostly brew my own — I keep a French press at home and at my office desk. Once a week, I head to Café Café Mobile, located inside the Boyle Heights mixed kitchen space Milpa Grille, to stock up on coffee beans and drink a cup of their delicious pourover coffee. Given how much of my day is spent looking at screens, I make a concerted effort to not stare at my phone while I’m there, choosing instead to take in my surroundings or make small talk with the staff if they’re not too busy.

It’s become a ritual for me, one that began after my friend Chuy Tovar (q.e.p.d.), a bon vivant and lover of good coffee (and food and mezcal), suggested that I check it out. I am forever grateful that he did because his recommendation led me to find an establishment that has become something of a third space for me, a place that’s not my home or office, where I can just hang out. It’s more than just a place for me to exchange my money for a great cup of coffee; it’s an opportunity to be in the presence of neighbors.

“Latino-owned businesses are a big part of what makes L.A. special, and one of the best ways of taking in culture is through food and art,” actor Xochitl Gomez told De Los as part of our recurring “Mi Los Angeles” series, which asks prominent Latino Angelenos about their favorite Latino-owned spots.

It’s in that spirit that De Los set about compiling a list of 101 Latino-owned and/or -led businesses and organizations that have created third spaces for Latinos in Southern California. Launched on Monday, the project is composed of 10 lists that the De Los team feels represent the best of Latino Los Angeles — from the 10 best places to check out Latino art to the 10 best coffee shops. (Café Café Mobile made the list, but I swear, I had no say in its inclusion; my involvement in this project was limited to editing.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, various entrants on the list have been the subject of past De Los stories (LA Libreria, Avocado Heights Vaquer@s) or have served as the setting for them (Eastern Projects, Latino Theater Company).

“One of the missions of De Los is to chronicle Latino Angeleno life,” said De Los design director Martina Ibañez-Baldor, who spearheaded the project. “These stories have to happen somewhere, so why not compile a list of places where Latino life and culture is taking place?”

In case you’re wondering why we decided to go with 101 places, that number is sort of a thing here at the L.A. Times, whether it be restaurants, tacos or West Coast experiences.

Our hope with this list is to do for you what Chuy did for me, to help you find that third (or fourth or fifth) space.

This list is by no means definitive. There are thousands of Latino-owned businesses in Southern California, so it’s inevitable that we may have missed a few spots. Did one of your go-to places not make the list? Tell us about it here.

Check out the 10 lists below, and make sure to follow De Los on Instagram, where we’ll be posting the video component of this project. We’ve also made a zine, which you can purchase here.

11 places connecting Angelenos to their Latinidad

10 Latino-owned places to get your body moving

10 best Latino-owned plant stores in L.A.

The 10 best places to see Latino art in Los Angeles

10 Latino-owned places in L.A. to show yourself some love

10 places to explore the best of L.A.’s Latino nightlife

10 places to pick up a new hobby taught by Latino Angelenos

10 Latino-owned coffee shops in L.A. serving flavor and community

10 places creating community for Latinos in Los Angeles

10 Latino-owned bookstores and comic shops

What I’ve been watching: ‘Mo’ (Season 2)

At some point last year, I decided to become a “serial churner,” someone who signs up for one or two streaming services for a month or two, binge watches the shows, and then cancels their subscription to sign up for other platforms. Rather than pay more than $100 a month for all of the services, I save money by keeping a rotation.

This month, I reactivated my Netflix subscription in order to watch the second season of “Mo,” the semiautobiographical sitcom co-created by stand-up comedian Mohammed Amer, who plays Mo Najjar, a Palestinian refugee who grew up in multicultural Houston and is seeking asylum.

Season 2 begins with Mo living in Mexico City after he’s accidentally smuggled into the country by olive tree thieves connected to a drug cartel. He’s desperate to make his way back to the United States because of a scheduled hearing on his asylum claim, so he decides to cross the Rio Grande with the help of a coyote. Unfortunately for Mo, he gets caught by an anti-immigrant vigilante group and is sent to an immigrant detention center. All of this takes place in the first two episodes. My description might not make the show sound funny, but trust me, “Mo” is very funny, all while highlighting a reality that many people seeking a better life end up facing.

“We’ve heard so much about detention centers but we’ve never really seen inside, and certainly not in a half-hour comedy,” Amer told my colleague Lorraine Ali. “So we thought, let’s explore it and the sliding scale of each person’s experience of getting to America. When he’s locked up, Mo overhears one of the other immigrants talking about his journey: ‘The mud slides, the snakes, the jungle, the cartel. And that’s just to get to Panama.’ Then Mo is asked what it was like for him, and he’s kind of embarrassed to say, ‘Oh, I took the bus.’”

Sadly, the second season of “Mo” is also its last. Don’t let the fact that this wonderful sitcom had a short lifespan dissuade you from watching it, though! It’s very much worth your time.

Stories we read this week that we think you should read

From the L.A. Times

Column: Cruising into the mainstream with a lowrider professor

Times columnist Gustavo Arellano spent some time with Denise Sandoval, a Chicana and Chicano studies professor at Cal State Northridge and the preeminent scholar on lowriders. Sandoval helped curate “Best in Low,” an exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum that closes on May 25.

Willy Chavarria on some of his finest celebrity fashion looks

Willy Chavarria is having a moment. A month ago, the Mexican American fashion designer had his first runway show at Paris Fashion Week, and in the last few years, he’s become your favorite artist’s outfitter. Contributing writer Cat Cardenas put together this quick primer on some of the higher-profile celebrities Chavarria has worked with.

After the fires, job losses and deportation threats, L.A.’s migrant workers are under immense stress

In Los Angeles, countless domestic workers and service workers lost their jobs as a result of the Palisades and Eaton fires that destroyed thousands of homes in Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Many of those workers also are feeling the threat of mass deportations under the Trump administration and struggling to get access to services because they are undocumented. De Los contributor Yvonne Condes talked to workers and advocates about the immense pressures all of it is putting on the men and women whose work keeps L.A. going.

Commentary: After the fires, my comadres and I are grieving for the place we knew as ‘Jotadena’

For several years starting in 2018, writer Melissa Mora Hidalgo was part of a group of Latina lesbians who found refuge and community in Altadena. It was, she writes, “the place where we strengthened our bonds as chosen sisters and affirmed our creative powers as artists, writers and teachers striving to do good work in a world that often seeks to destroy us.” They called it “Jotadena” and in the aftermath of the fires, they’re mourning what was lost.

Beyond Bad Bunny: 5 essential Puerto Rican history reads

For the release of “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Bad Bunny collaborated with Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Puerto Rico: A National History,” to turn the album’s visualizer videos into history lessons about the island. It’s in this spirit that De Los staff writer Andrea Flores compiled this list of books for anyone looking to learn more about Puerto Rican history.

From elsewhere

Petition seeks to oust popular Grupo Frontera from playing at Sueños festival for alleged Trump support (Chicago Sun-Times)

Grupo Frontera is facing backlash after rumors began circulating online that its members were Donald Trump supporters. The evidence for this assertion? A now-deleted TikTok video that showed the música Mexicana group dancing backstage to “YMCA,” the Village People song that became a staple of the Trump campaign. Such is the fallout that a Change.org petition was launched demanding that the organizers of the Chicago-based Sueños Music Festival remove the band from its upcoming lineup for their alleged support of someone who has promised to enact the largest deportation operation in the country’s history. On Sunday, Grupo Frontera posted a statement via Instagram Stories clarifying that no one in the band supported any political party that disparaged immigrants.

After the Raid (Texas Monthly)

What happens when immigration agents arrive in a town whose main employer is heavily dependent on undocumented labor? For Texas Monthly, my former colleague Jack Herrera headed to Cactus, Texas, site of one of the largest workplace immigration-enforcement actions in American history. The December 2006 raid at the local slaughterhouse resulted in the town immediately losing 10% of its population. Decades later, Cactus is still trying to recover.