Julia Wick

6 days ago | latimes.com | Julia Wick |David Zahniser

Claudia Aragon was headed home after dropping her puppy off at obedience school when the first text came in early on Friday, June 6. “Ice showed up at the Home Depot in cypress park. Want to make sure we can help people,” an immigrant service provider texted her. “this is awful claudia.”Aragon, who has directed Mayor Karen Bass’ Office of Immigrant Affairs since March 2023, had been sick and was planning to stay home that day.

1 week ago | latimes.com | Julia Wick

Surely you are familiar with the sprawling, rugged glory of Los Angeles’ Griffith Park. But do you know about the park’s benefactor and namesake, Griffith J. Griffith? The philanthropist and felon endowed L.A. with what was then the largest urban park in the world and still remains a jewel of the city. He also shot his wife in the face. She survived; he served two years at San Quentin; they divorced. We’ll get to that. But first, let’s rewind back to December 1896.

1 week ago | latimes.com | Julia Wick

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has characterized the long tail of the immigration raids as dealing “a body blow” to the city’s economy, with many people scared to go to school, work or out in their communities. Whole sectors of the economy can’t function without immigrant labor, the mayor said. The aftereffects of the ensuing mass protests have also pummeled restaurants and bars in the downtown area, with widespread vandalism in the Civic Center and Little Tokyo areas.

1 week ago | latimes.com | Julia Wick

As a community and cultural center of Boyle Heights, Mariachi Plaza would be an obvious place for families to gather on Father’s Day. But the normally bustling plaza was all but deserted when Mayor Karen Bass visited Sunday morning. More than a week after President Trump’s immigration raids first instilled terror in Los Angeles communities, the federal sweeps have had a profound chilling effect in the overwhelmingly Latino, working-class neighborhood just east of downtown.

1 week ago | latimes.com | Julia Wick

Do you remember that day in March 2020 — five years and several eternities ago — when Tom Hanks tested positive for COVID-19, the NBA announced they were suspending their season and profound upheaval suddenly seemed inevitable? I’ve felt echoes of that feeling the past few days, as downtown businesses boarded up their windows and the facts on the ground grew ever more fantastical. Are we at the edge of some irreparable rupture in American democracy?