On another note, Quintus Maximus came by for a visit the other day and directed me to the portfolio of Estevan Oriol, an incredible photographer from Los Angeles who's done a lot of documentation of gang culture in East LA, where my mom grew up. Looking through his work, I'm absolutely overwhelmed with nostalgia of the semi-yearly trips I would make with her to visit my grandparents in Boyle Heights. I remember when my grandma would send me down to the bakery on Broadway St. (which has since been renamed Cesar Chavez Ave.) to buy Mexican sweet rolls, with explicit instructions to avoid the alleyways and not speak to cholos, a word which used to roll off her tongue with such obvious distaste that I never dared to ask why. It's interesting to see that while I think I know my mother inside and out, her experiences have contrasted so sharply with my own. I'm a first generation Mexican-American, yet there's a good chance that if I ever have children, they'll be first generation Europeans. Bizarre.
More work from this set can be found here.
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