Sonic Trace

SonicTrace.org is here!

Anayansi — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 16:42:06 +0000

The Sonic Trace map, sonictrace.org is live!

Over the past year, we’ve been documenting immigrant communities across Los Angeles. We have gathered 200 stories inside La Burbuja – our portable soundbooth, produced seven documentaries and made two short films – with a third in production. Visit sonictrace.org and click on the radio icons to hear broadcast stories. Within the pop-up window click on arrows for Sonic Trace’s transmedia projects. The TV icons represent our short films and the grey dots are stories gathered inside La Burbuja. Each week, a new grey dot will appear for a total of 200 voices.

Listen to Anayansi Diaz-Cortes on NPR’s Tell Me More to get the full breadth of the project this past year.

Since last March, we have targeted communities in LA neighborhoods with shifting immigration patterns. Sonic Trace embedded in the heart of Koreatown, uncovering those spaces where it became Korexico and in turn, Oaxacalifornia.

We spent almost three months in Santa Cecilia Church in South LA, where the clergy lets people celebrate mass as they would in their country of origin. In this case, Guatemala, El Salvador and Southern Mexico. Sonic Trace witnessed rituals, processions, parties and masses to La Virgen de Guadalupe, El Cristo Mojado, La Virgen de la Soledad; documenting the gathering point of recently arrived immigrants in South LA.

Finally, we took on Boyle Heights partnering with high school YouthBuild Boyle Heights to capture the stories of recently arrived young people growing up in East LA, mostly from El Salvador and Mexico.

SonicTrace.org is the digital culmination of our work within the past year. Our aim was to replicate the geographical and emotional space we’ve captures in our microphones, camera lenses and on film. The site is an interactive vessel that carries the immigrant stories of Angelenos, and their bond to countries, cities and villages of origin.

Explore, enjoy and put your story on the map!

Santa Cecilia Church: L.A.’s Original Pop-up Restaurant

Javier Cabral — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:21:29 +0000

The Chapin Breakfast, served only once a month at Santa Cecilia’s church.

Long before the concept of a pop-up restaurant was even established in 2009 by a certain audacious, Los Angeles French chef, Santa Cecilia’s Catholic Church had already mastered it. In 2001 to be exact, when the South L.A. church’s congregants of various ethnic backgrounds formed four different volunteer cooking groups, as a way to fundraise for the church and their own unique culture’s religious celebrations.

Ladies from the Guatemalan group, rolling taquitos for church brunch

The four groups: Grupo Fraternidad de Señor de Esquipulas (Guatemalan), Grupo Guadalupano (Mexican), Grupo Oaxaqueño (Oaxacan) and Grupo Divino Salvador (Salvadoran) take turns occupying the church’s smallish kitchen every Sunday. One Sunday morning, the Oaxacan group is there selling luscious, silky homemade pitch-black Mole. And the next week, it is the Salvadoran group, pat-patting griddled Pupusas stuffed with cheese and chicharron. Every Sunday is a different culture’s cuisine.

Single-item food currency exchanged for cash within the church

Order up

Their ordering operation is simple and made to streamline the post-mass hungry crowd of worshippers: go to the cashier table, order from the whiteboard with the morning’s specials, buy a designated food ticket for that item, take it to the serving table and get your food as soon as it’s ready.

The Oaxacan menu

The Guatemalan menu

The food that is available are humble dishes within the cultures gastronomy, just-like-mom-used-to-make treats. Two fried eggs with ripe, golden plantains, black beans, a chunk of cheese and cultured cream is the sampler breakfast equivalent of Guatemala, lovingly called the “Chapin Breakfast.” When it’s the Oaxacan group’s turn, huge, Tlayudas are the churchgoer’s favorite – thick tortillas shellacked with black beans and toasted lard. The prices for these food items, are even humbler. Tamales de Mole and Chiles Rellenos are available for only $3. Though, whichever group’s turn it is, the church’s popular crunchy taquitos are a mainstay. As are the nachos for the children

A Oaxacan Tlayuda at Santa Cecilia

Despite the low prices for food, the groups do make enough for their cultural religious celebrations. “For our annual Cristo Mojado celebration, we close the city’s streets down, cooking helps us pay for that,” says Alfredo Salazar. The fifty-year-old volunteer cashier that is in the Guatemalan group.

Patrons dining

The dining room is open from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. every Sunday and open to the public.

Santa Cecilia Church
4230 S Normandie Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90037
(323) 294-6628

La Burbuja

*Paola Briseño (Sonic Trace’s Associate Producer) contributed to this article.

Santa María Tavehua, LA: Radio & Video Portraits

Anayansi — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:25:04 +0000

This week, we will be launching Sonic Trace’s interactive story-telling map on sonictrace.org! Stay tuned to facebook, twitter and our blog to explore the stories of Los Angeles that we’ve gathered this past year.

For the past year, the Sonic Trace team has been hard at work documenting pockets of LA that become gateways into villages and towns across Mexico and Central America. You might have heard our radio stories about the indigenous Zapotec villagers of Santa María Tavehua, Oaxaca in the heart of LA’s Koreatown. Just in case you didn’t tune in, we’ve embedded our five-part radio series below.

Alongside our radio documentaries, we’ve been working with Emmy-award winning filmmaker, Carmen Vidal to give these stories life on film and video. Meet Rufina & Ricardo, Dominga & Panchito. Get a glimpse into their stories of departure, arrival and going back.

KCRW’s Sonic Trace presents …. Santa María Tavehua in LA from KCRW's Sonic Trace on Vimeo.

A short-film by Carmen Vidal produced for KCRW’s Sonic Trace with help from Anayansi Diaz-Cortes & Eric Pearse Chavez. A special thanks to Julieta Mendez.

The Five-Part Radio Series:

1. Julieta: LA Born Zapoteca

2. Jocelynda: Going to College

3. Elsa: Oaxacan Artesan

4. Nico: Zapoteco raised in 1990′s LA

5. Julian: Tavehua, Oaxaca & Tavehua, LA

Chef Aquiles Chávez: The Mex-Basics

Javier Cabral — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:09:20 +0000

Mexican Chef with Boyle Heights YouthThe somber cafeteria at White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights is perhaps the last place in Los Angeles you would expect to find Aquiles Chavez, the high profile, Mexican celebrity chef that has his own show on the Utilisima network (Mexico’s equivalent to the Food Network). But last week, the Mexico city-born chef that sports dreadlocks and a handlebar mustache was called to duty in the battle against obesity and diabetes awareness in East Los Angeles.

The battle for health consciousness in this part of town has been relentless since it was first declared a “food desert” last year, calling in such moneyed campaigns as liquor store health-ifications. Though, last Thursday’s effort was privately sponsored by Avocados from Mexico and White Memorial’s medical services. The Mexican produce organization underwrites $15,000 annually for the not-for-profit, faith-based, teaching hospital’s “Healthy Eating Lifestyle Program,” which buys a week-long, avocado intensive menu for the hospital’s regular cafeteria and community workshops such as this one.

Starting them out youngThe interactive all-Spanish workshop started at 4 p.m. and taught children, local families and nurses on their lunch break how to make low-sugar avocado preparations in dessert. A group of six young children acted as the chef’s helpers as he prepared a quick avocado-fruit salad sweetened with honey and lime, and an avocado-banana ice cream sundae. Chavez urged his fellow immigrant compatriot parents to “go back to basics,” alluding to return to their healthful Mexican diet back in Mexico filled with unprocessed, whole foods. Though, the stiff Americanized Mexican audience proved to be a tough crowd for the amusing Mexican chef. At times, he put the parents of the children helpers on the spot, by asking them what foods they fed their first wave Mexican American children at home. The helping kids’ faces turned strawberry-red when Chavez asked similar questions in Spanish to them, their first, unpracticed language.

White Memorial employees learning about diabetes prevention on their break

César Espinoza with his 5 year old daughter Melody and 11 year old son NicolásCésar Espinoza immigrated to Boyle Heights from Ciudad Juárez in 1985, he’s been a resident of Boyle Heights ever since. His wife regularly attends the hospital’s workshops through their “Iglesia Hispanoamericana Partnership” and had informed César about the workshop since it was his turn to pick up the kids from school. He argues “they are plenty of healthy foods and workshops available in the neighborhood, but the community doesn’t use it.” When asked about his diet, he pridefully admits in eating “comidas caseras,” Mexican home-cooked dishes that are often slow cooked, centered on complex carbs, legumes and moderate amounts of meat.

White Memorial Hospital’s Executive Chef Veronica RodriguezThe hospital’s new executive chef Veronica Rodriguez prepped all of the fruits for chef Chavez and has also been hosting free cooking vegan workshops every Friday since she started. “People are receptive” she says. Rodriguez is not vegan herself but wanted to create a healthier menu that reflects the health-giving properties of a hospital. So far, the West Covina native that has Cuban roots has introduced a vegan, chocolate cake as one of the hospital’s weekly offerings.

Is all this enough to change lifelong eating habits? Only the growing generations of Latino-Americans will tell.

Recipe:

Chef Aquiles Chavez’s Helado de Aguacate y Banana (Banana-Avocado Ice Cream)

1 lb of Ripe Avocado
1/2 Banana
Sugar to taste
Cinnamon to taste

Garnishes

Oreo Cookies (crushed)
Whipped Cream

Preparation:

Combine ripe avocado flesh, banana, sugar and cinnamon and freeze until completely frozen. together. Place ingredients in a food processor and blend until completely smooth. Serve immediately and garnish with whipped cream and crushed oreos.

Banana-Avocado Ice CreamPaola Briseño contributed to this article

Meet the Team

Anayansi — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 15:54:31 +0000

Anayansi Diaz-Cortes is an award-winning independent producer for public radio in the US. This year – as part of AIR’s Localore initiative – she moved from New York to Los Angeles to work with KCRW to create the documentary and transmedia series, Sonic Trace. @SonicTrace_KCRW

Eric Pearse Chávez is an independent radio producer, and co-creator of the Localore project, Sonic Trace. His work has aired on PRI’s The World, NPR’s All Things Considered, KCRW’s To The Point and Unfictional. @SonicTrace_KCRW

Sue Schardt is Localore’s Executive Producer and the Executive director of AIR – the Association of Independents in Radio. Schardt is a respected radio veteran and award-winning producer whose path has taken her through public, commercial, community, and international media. Schardt assumed leadership of AIR’s network of nearly 1000 producers in 2007.

Noland Walker is Localore’s Executive Editor and an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer and director. Walker wrote and co-produced the Emmy-nominated documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006), and his film Citizen King (co-writer, co-director) won critical acclaim.

Carmen Vidal directs and produces all Sonic Trace video content. Her work has been shown in international festivals and she’s the recipient of a Student Academy Award. She’s currently a producer/editor for the NY Emmy award-winning TV show “Nueva York” (CUNY TV). @carmenvidalny

Paola Briseño is Sonic Trace’s Community Producer. She conducts ethnographic studies through food research and complemented Sonic Trace with her work as a Research Analyst for the California Migrant Education Program. @PaolaPDX

Harriet Ells is the Program Director for Talk at KCRW. She is a former staffer of NBC Olympics, helping to produce coverage of seven winter and summer Olympics starting in 1996. @harrietKCRW

Gary Scott worked for twelve years as a print journalist, focusing on politics and government. Before becoming KCRW’s News Director, he was the supervising producer of Which Way LA? and To The Point. @garyrobertscott

Javier Cabral is responsible for TheGlutster.com (formerly Teenage Glutster), a food, booze, music, and general desmadre blog. He is the in-house writer for Sonic Trace KCRW and freelances for Saveur Magazine and Grub Street LA. @theglutster.

Jessica Clark is AIR’s Media Strategist and an internationally recognized researcher and journalist focused on media, technology, and what drives change. See her work at jessicaclark.com. Twitter: @airmedia.

Sonic Trace is a co-production of Anayansi Diaz-Cortes, KCRW and AIR, created as part of AIR’s national Localore production, which has primary support from CPB. Additional Localore funding comes from the Wyncote Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The project was co-produced by Zeega, a non-profit inventing new forms of interactive storytelling. Learn more: localore.net.

Very Special Thanks to:
The Fundación Cultural Tavehua – Los Angeles, Comunidad Tavehua in Oaxaca, Julieta Mendez, The Lopez Family and the entire staff at Guelaguetza Restaurant, Enrique Ruiz and everybody at St. Cecilia Catholic Parish, Mr. William Heuisler and Animo South LA Charter High School, YouthBuild Boyle Heights, DnA’s Frances Anderton, Mat-ter Design & Build, Varo Sheet Metal, Èlia Gasull Balada and Yago Busquets, UCLA Labor Center and Gaspar Riva-Salgado, Lindsey Wagner, Kara Oehler, Jesse Shapins, James Burns, Laurie Selik, Samantha Blanchard, Marco Morales, Mario González, Martha Guzman and MOLAA, Laura Krugan and Columbia University’s Spatial Information & Design Lab.

Share Your Story inside La Burbuja

Anayansi — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 01:22:15 +0000

Sonic Trace is KCRW‘s story-telling project that begins in the heart of Los Angeles and crosses into Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Are you or your parents from Mexico or Central America? Do you have Angeleno relatives, friends, colleagues or neighbors that came from those regions? Do you know why they left? What made them stay? Did they go back?

We want to know what it it feels like to turn a corner in Pico Union and find yourself in Tegulcigalpa — the sounds, the faces, the tastes of home. Or, how Los Angeles has changed daily life in cities like San Salvador or Santa Maria de Tavhua, Mexico – places where entire communities have been transformed by “el otro lado” (the other side). Sonic Trace turns the immigration debate into a two-way conversation. A story.

But, this can’t happen without you. Visit La Burbuja, our portable story booth, and help us trace your story.

Where: The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), 628 Alamitos Avenue, Long Beach, CA
When: Every Sunday through April 21st, 11am-5pm

Become a part of Sonic Trace’s oral history map!.

Other ways to share your story:

Answer these three questions about you, your parents, relatives or friends:

¿Por qué te vas? Why do you go?
¿Por qué te quedas? Why do you stay?
¿Por qué regresas? What makes you return?

• Write or Record your story on your phone and email it to: sonictrace@kcrw.org
• Share your story in a tweet: @SonicTrace_KCRW
• Like us on Facebook and upload audio, video and pictures that tell your story: facebook.com/sonictrace

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More about La Burbuja (and the making of…)

January 15 & El Cristo Mojado

Anayansi — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 19:20:04 +0000

The Sonic Trace team is currently embedded with La Burbuja – our portable sound booth – at Santa Cecilia Church in South LA. Every Sunday we gather dozens of interviews asking people why they left their country of origin, why they stayed in LA, and about the importance of going back. We also document many of the church’s activities. At Santa Cecilia Church, the clergy allows communities to celebrate mass as they would in their country and village of origin.

January 15 is a huge day for the city of Esquipulas, Guatemala (222km from Guatemala City). It is the day of the Feast of the Black Christ or Cristo Negro. Esquipulas is a city on the border between Honduras and El Salvador, and receives one million pilgrims from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico every year. It turns out that there are thousands of Black Christ devotees from Guatemala in the heart of Los Angeles, and their abode of worship is Santa Cecilia Church.

Because most Angelenos work during the week, Sunday was the day of the Feast at Santa Cecilia. We arrived at the crack of dawn to find 60 men from the same town in Guatemala crafting and creating the famous ‘alfombras’ of Central America. During religious holidays, entire ‘rugs’ of dyed saw dust are created with stencils and small colanders. These rugs are meant to be stepped on by the people carrying Black Christ from the church into the processions. Months of work destroyed in minutes. The creators consider this a blessing.

Check out our beautiful slideshow:

Photos by Eric Pearse ChávezThe procession started at 2pm. About forty people dressed in black carry the Black Christ out of the church, destroying the ‘alfombra’ or saw dust rug. The music is solemn, as if everyone is mourning. Two blocks ahead of the procession are forty more people dressed in white. They receive El Cristo Negro and walk another two blocks, where forty more people are waiting. This lasts for five hours, and about two miles. The procession is led by the clergy – mayan and mestizo, and the chosen ‘reinas’ or queens that represent a country with their dress and a flag. If the Black Christ conceded you a miracle, the promise is that you have to carry him at least two blocks as part of the procession for seven years.

El Cristo Negro was erected in the Mayan town of Esquipulas in 1595. Legend has it that the artist carved the representation in the image of the Mayans – with dark skin. Others say that the Christ got a dark hue from the incense burnt and millions of candles burnt for him every year.

Santa Cecilia Church in Los Angeles is home to the only consecrated replica of the Black Christ brought directly from Esquipulas for Angeleno residents of Guatemalan origin. This is the birth of El Cristo Mojado or the ‘Wetback Christ’. Making, consecrating and bringing the replica was a journey of years for his Angeleno devotees. El Cristo Mojado literally enters the US as an undocumented immigrant.

Hermanito Felix is the first Mayan Deacon ordained in the United StatesWe interviewed Edgar Mota, the Vice President of the church’s Esquipulas community group. Edgar crossed the Black Christ from Mexico into the United States on his back. He tells us that the replica was made to order from Esquipulas, Guatemala for Santa Cecilia Church in Los Angeles. While at the border of Guatemala and Mexico, they were informed that a representation that size needed ‘papers’ to travel. El Cristo Negro crossed numerous checkpoints in Mexico with ‘mordida’ – a small fee given to officials to look the other way.

When it reached Tijuana there was a whole group of Angelenos waiting for the Black Christ on the US side. This is when Edgar Mota was asked to cross the replica on his back. Edgar is a US citizen, so at least he could vouch for the undocumented replica. So on his back, Edgar crossed the line from Tijuana into the US, and he says that all the US officials at the border that day, looked the other way.

Edgar didn’t think much of it, until he saw the reaction of the group that was waiting for him in San Diego. Everyone was crying and hugging Edgar. To them, it was a miracle. Just like El Cristo Negro represented the Mayan people of Esquipulas by the color of his skin, El Cristo Mojado represents Guatemalans in Los Angeles by the content of this story.

For more info on El Cristo Negro de Esquipulas, Guatemala and El Cristo Mojado of Los Angeles, visit elcristomojado.org

Follow Sonic Trace on facebook for these and other cool stories about the cross between LA and Central America.

Black Gold Boom & Rough Ride

Anayansi — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 20:27:56 +0000

KCRW’s Sonic Trace is part of Localore – an initiative produced by the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR). You may have heard a version of that line in all our crediting. So, what does it mean?

In short, ten producers were given the enormous task to ‘incubate’ at public radio and television stations across the country and innovate, collaborate and help take the sound and sight of public media into the future. That means stories that get into the underbelly of our communities, digital projects that have one foot in the future and a stronghold in the ‘local’, and a vision to make public media engaging, participatory …. and well, truly public. This is all culminating right now in Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Colorado, Minnesota, across California and North Dakota:

Localore: The Story So Far from AIR on Vimeo.
On that note, you must check out the incredible work of Todd Melby’s Black Gold Boom: How Oil Changed North Dakota. The title says it all. And this week, he launched Rough Ride – an interactive documentary co-produced by Zeega, a group of technologists literally transforming how we tell stories on the web and beyond.

All this month: new media life forms are on the rise for all Localore projects thanks to Zeega. We’ll keep you posted on Sonic Trace’s ground-breaking interactive site that will launch at the end of the month.

Props to producer Todd Melby, incubator Prairie Public Broadcasting, and interactive storytelling team Zeega which is co-producing a series of much-anticipated immersive documentaries for the initiative. And many thanks to Localore’s funders: CPB, the Wyncote Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Learn more about Localore at airmediaworks.org.

¡Feliz Día de Los Reyes Magos!

Eric Pearse-Chavez — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 11:25:03 +0000

If you grew up Latin American (or Spaniard) and Catholic, the Chrismas season isn’t over yet. This morning probably finds you celebrating with goodies left by the Reyes Magos, and having a wonderful sweet bread called Rosca de Reyes for breakfast with a huge cup of hot chocolate, atole or champurrado to wash it down. January 6th is El Día de Los Reyes Magos or “Reyes” and Los Angeles is brimming with celebration. To anglos, they are the Three Wise Men, and others refer to this as the Day of the Magi.

In my family, Santa Claus brought kids ‘necessities’ like socks, underwear and school supplies. Los Reyes Magos were the ones to expect a bike or an Atari game from. It is a celebration of innocence and childhood through the birth of baby Jesus. In many ways, it makes more sense than Santa Claus.

The story goes that the three Reyes or Kings – Melchor, Gaspar and Balthasar – came from far off lands in ‘Oriente’ (the East). They had heard of the birth of baby Jesus and for a long time trailed the desert on their camels following a star to Bethlehem. The star, known as the Star of Bethlehem, was an emissary guiding them to the new born. They each bore a gift for Jesus – gold, incense and myrrh.

For our last holiday season installment, Sonic Trace visited Our Lady of Victory Parish in the city of Compton. This community does a re-enactment of the arrival of Los Reyes. Mass ends with candy, a gift give-away and a huge party with a piñata, Rosca de Reyes and a DJ blasting everything from Gangnam Style to Tootsie Roll. See for yourselves.

Lebanon, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec celebrate January 6th. It is the day of the “Epiphany” in Catholicism – Intern extraordinaire Samantha Blanchard is waiting for the Kings cake from New Orleans.
How does your culture celebrate the Three Wise Men? Or the Day of the Magi? Let us know.

And don’t forget to like Sonic Trace on Facebook.

From La Burbuja: Raul Campos

Anayansi — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:13:03 +0000

KCRW DJ Raul Campos talks about his parents’ home in the Maravilla projects in East LA, and how many of his high school peers were phonetically challenged when it came to pronouncing his name.

Photo by Eric Pearse Chávez

Our sonic profile series was recorded inside La Burbuja – Sonic Trace’s mobile recording booth. They aired everyday on KCRW’s Morning thru the holiday season. KCRW’s Sonic Trace is mapping the stories of immigrants in LA – voice by voice.

This profile of Raul Campos was produced by Eric Pearse Chávez and Saul Gonzalez. Sound design by Mario Diaz. You can listen to all the profiles here. A special thanks to all the producers and engineers at KCRW who made these sound portraits rock!

Like KCRW’s Sonic Trace on Facebook!