Throughout my lifetime, my mom has been sharing stories and bits and pieces of memories from her childhood in Los Angeles with me. From her youthful, innocent perspective, east LA was a vibrant and safe place for her to grow up. She mentioned eating tacos on Olvera Street and that caught my attention because I had just read about Olvera Street in “American Tacos: A History and Guide” by José R. Ralat. Olvera Street is a pretty significant place in the history of Mexican food in LA and the United States; a bit of a controversial history, but an interesting history nonetheless.
My mom’s memory of Olvera Street helped me form an itinerary for an adventure: to go back to Olvera Street to have those same tacos and to learn about Mexican and Indigenous food there, and back to downtown Los Angeles to learn more about the generations of Native people who moved to the city—by way of the Urban Relocation program—and created an urban Native community with its own vibe and culture.
Heard:
Kathy Murphy, my mom
Dr. Alisha Murphy, my little sister
Dr. Enrique Ochoa, professor of history and Latin American Studies at California State University Los Angeles
Dr. Sarah Portnoy, producer of “Abuelita’s Kitchen” and professor in the Departments of Latin American and Iberian Studies and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California specializing in Latinx food culture and food justice
Pamela Peters, Diné multimedia documentarian. Her film and video project is called the “Legacy of Exiled Ndnz”
Mentioned:
United American Indian Involvement
El Tepeyac Café
Credits:
Production, hosting, engineering by Andi Murphy
Podcast intro and outro music by CW Ayon
Episode music by Blue Dot Sessions
“Cornicob”-Sugartree, “Sienna’s Regression”-Heringbone, “Sharp Lapel”-Transistor Radio, “The Queen of Cones”-Tarana, “Caravan 9”-The Caravan
Toasted Sister 
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