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Speaker 1: Dear, let you know USA listener. Before we start, you

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Speaker 1: should know that if you want to listen to this

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Speaker 1: gets you behind the scenes access and yes, some cheese me.

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Speaker 1: So click the link in the episode description and after

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Speaker 1: you do that, then click play. Let's go to the show.

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Speaker 2: Three weeks before they Eaten, fires burned Sala's home in Altadena,

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Speaker 2: he was going through a divorce.

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Speaker 3: I had just signed the paperwork before the actual fire,

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Speaker 3: and so Mexico was already in my mind. Okay, like,

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Speaker 3: can you start. I can offer myself and my son

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Speaker 3: something different. You can come back and forth, going to

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Speaker 3: start a new life. Blah blah blah.

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Speaker 2: It was just an idea he thought about parenting his

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Speaker 2: son in his home country. Sal whose full name is Salvadorsoselo,

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Speaker 2: grew up in a ranch in Mexico. His family moved

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Speaker 2: to the Los Angeles area when he was a teenager.

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Speaker 2: Sal worked as an assistant in some of the best

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Speaker 2: hair salons in LA and then at twenty eight years old,

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Speaker 2: he opened his own space in Altadena. He told me

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Speaker 2: about it when I first spoke to him in January

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 3: Altadina. It's the most in my opinion, the most communal,

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Speaker 3: beautiful place. And my salon is about to be seven

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Speaker 3: years old and called Nolo Art Salon, and I love it.

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Speaker 3: It's a safe space where everyone's welcomed, when where people

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Speaker 3: can come in and make the dreams come reality.

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Speaker 2: So he had built this space in la and thought,

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Speaker 2: what a gift to one day be able to do

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Speaker 2: this in Mexico too.

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Speaker 3: And then the fire happens and essentially it was almost like, oh,

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Speaker 3: you wanted to do that, Now we're really doing it.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's almost like here you go.

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Speaker 2: A year ago one of the most devastating fires hit

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Speaker 2: California and it destroyed sales home. I saw the heartbreaking

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Speaker 2: videos that he posted on Instagram of the rubble where

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Speaker 2: his home once stood, and that's why I spoke to him.

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Speaker 3: Then it's almost like when you you know, life flashes

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Speaker 3: before you. You're looking at things like I have some

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Speaker 3: pictures on my parents pictures that we have our pieces.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I love boots. I have these beautiful leather boots.

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Speaker 3: If I would have done a whort to gram my

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Speaker 3: boots because it's probably were my precious things. But I didn't,

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Speaker 3: you know, because you're looking at your animals and you're

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Speaker 3: looking at your family, and I kept checking on my

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Speaker 3: son that he's okay. We did not think for a

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Speaker 3: one second that our house would have get burned. Were

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Speaker 3: very one of the most beautiful things I heard. He

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Speaker 3: was sad.

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Speaker 2: He said, oh man, my school burned.

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Speaker 3: I'm not going to be able to go play anymore.

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Speaker 3: And then a couple of seconds later he said, well,

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Speaker 3: maybe I'll in buy my friends to go play in

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Speaker 3: the ashes. You know, I think children get it as

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Speaker 3: all as possibilities. I hope we can continue to see possibilities.

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Speaker 2: As the weeks and months passed. Sal a self described

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Speaker 2: spiritual person and a bit of a hippie, kept on

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Speaker 2: focusing on those possibilities, and.

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Speaker 3: I took a class for earthing domes with Adobe buildings.

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Speaker 2: That are naturally fire resistant and have a lot of

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Speaker 2: history in California.

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Speaker 3: With the Adobe building. I hired my teachers to be

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Speaker 3: our contractors, and they promised to deliver things practically ready

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Speaker 3: for them go to an architect to draw things, and

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Speaker 3: they failed to do that, and they wanted more money.

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Speaker 3: I think that they just thought I was like a

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Speaker 3: cute hairstyleist rather than like a guy who grew up

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Speaker 3: in freaking terias and mechanicals doing things with my hands.

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Speaker 3: And I'm thinking, like, you guys, this is unacceptable. You know,

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Speaker 3: they wanted more money, and I decided to cut them off.

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Speaker 2: This wasn't all. He kept getting phone calls and messages

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Speaker 2: from people claiming to want to help him recover.

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Speaker 3: It was almost like bleeding in the middle of the

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Speaker 3: ocean and sharks just smelling that. It felt very vulnerable.

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Speaker 3: Long story short, we got scam and it was also like,

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Speaker 3: well damn, but I didn't even have the brain power

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Speaker 3: or capacity to confront them.

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Speaker 2: By summertime, Salm made a decision he would move to

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Speaker 2: Mexico City. He would be part of a growing number

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Speaker 2: of people who are deciding to not return to Altadina,

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Speaker 2: or who are putting a pause on rebuilding for.

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Speaker 3: Now because you had the feelings that you wanted to

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Speaker 3: just throw in the towel. You're looking at your neighbors

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Speaker 3: who are seventy five years old, have lived their whole lives,

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Speaker 3: and they're yes, we'll die in this hill. And then

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Speaker 3: the next day they're like screw it. Why, what's the reason?

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Speaker 3: You know?

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Speaker 2: According to a survey by the American Institute of CPAs,

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Speaker 2: on average, more than a third of people affected by

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Speaker 2: a disaster report experiencing fraud. And almost immediately after the wildfires,

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Speaker 2: La County officials began warning residents of potential scams.

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Speaker 4: There are people in our community who look at this

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Speaker 4: as an opportunity to take advantage over the situation.

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Speaker 3: So I thought, Okay, we got scam. The fire happened,

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Speaker 3: I went through divorce, Okay, we're not going to rebuild,

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Speaker 3: and let's see what's going to happen with the soil.

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Speaker 2: Soil testing efforts in Altadena have found toxic contamination in

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Speaker 2: the soil even after federal cleanup workers finished removing debreeze.

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Speaker 3: I don't feel safe there because what am I building

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Speaker 3: and where am I building for my child to be in,

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Speaker 3: for us to be in, you know. So we decided

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Speaker 3: to just let the land a crew value for now

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Speaker 3: and not sell it for pennies and then see where

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Speaker 3: we're at.

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Speaker 2: Earlier this month, sal had the grand opening for his

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Speaker 2: new salon in Mexico City.

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Speaker 3: The random let's continue creating, I'm.

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Speaker 2: Gonna guess based on the sounds that you're in a

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Speaker 2: busy area.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is.

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Speaker 2: It's a beautiful salon, a place where artists can showcase

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Speaker 2: the work on the walls, where community events take place,

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Speaker 2: and as Sal told me, it's where he's planting new

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Speaker 2: roots away from the contaminated soil where his La home

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Speaker 2: used to be.

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Speaker 3: What I learned from this, I mean one of the

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Speaker 3: things I learned from this is to make everywhere I

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Speaker 3: go my home, you know.

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Speaker 5: Ah.

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Speaker 2: So, yeah, Sal's not sure he's ever going to go

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Speaker 2: back to Altadena permanently, or if he can ever rebuild

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Speaker 2: on that land, because a year after the fires, nothing

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Speaker 2: is certain in Altadena. From Futura Media, I'm Fernande Chavarri

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Speaker 2: in for host Marina Rosa today La a year after

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Speaker 2: the fires. So we just heard how Sal decided to

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Speaker 2: leave Los Angeles, but most people have stayed. A year later,

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Speaker 2: only about a dozen houses have been rebuilt a dozen.

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Speaker 2: The road to recovery is far from over. So to

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Speaker 2: get a deeper senge of what this devastation has meant

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Speaker 2: and continues to mean for Latinos in Los Angeles, I'm

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Speaker 2: speaking with three people who lived it, researched it, and

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Speaker 2: one who even made jokes about it. I want to

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Speaker 2: welcome Chris Garcia, comedian from Alta Diina, California. Chris, it's

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Speaker 2: so nice to have you here, even though I believe

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Speaker 2: you're not in California right now.

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Speaker 4: Right I am in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.

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Speaker 2: Cool. Thank you for making the time. I want to

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Speaker 2: also welcome environmentalist and La native is Sis Welcome to Latino, USA.

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Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me today.

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Speaker 2: We also have Sylvia Gonzalez, director of research at the

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Speaker 2: UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute. Sylvia, thank you so

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Speaker 2: much for your time. Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 5: It sounds like you're all LA born and raised. Yes,

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Speaker 5: I was born and raised in La so Thimes. People

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Speaker 5: don't call the valley La, but you know, and rising

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Speaker 5: costs of prices everywhere. I think living in the valley

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Speaker 5: is closer than living somewhere far.

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Speaker 2: Sylvia, you're laughing at the valley comment. Are you from

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Speaker 2: the valley? Are you an LA Native?

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Speaker 7: I am a valley girl through and through. My family

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Speaker 7: has been in the valley for many decades. I'm currently

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Speaker 7: in Encino, across the mountains where the policy's fire happened,

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Speaker 7: and so as a researcher, for me, the priority was

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Speaker 7: how do we get data out about our community, about

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Speaker 7: the workers that are going to be impacted by this fire,

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Speaker 7: about communities that we're not seeing on the news. And

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Speaker 7: so for the first three days of the fires, of

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Speaker 7: my team and I we worked i want to say,

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Speaker 7: like twenty hour days so that we could publish three

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Speaker 7: reports in the first three days around the impacts that

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Speaker 7: it would have on our community. So in the first

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Speaker 7: report that were released, within the first twenty four hours

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Speaker 7: of the fires, we estimated that about three hundred and

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Speaker 7: twenty five thousand people were directly within the path of

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Speaker 7: the fires, and about those one and forward latinos, so

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Speaker 7: about seventy four thousand people. So within twenty four hours,

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Speaker 7: seventy four thousand people in our community were directly impacted.

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Speaker 7: And then we also released estimates related to jobs. There

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Speaker 7: is no good data source for us to capture the

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Speaker 7: types of jobs that our community does. A lot of

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Speaker 7: informal jobs that are not captured in official data sources.

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Speaker 7: All of those family members that clean homes, that get

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Speaker 7: paid cash, we're not capturing any of that impact. But

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Speaker 7: thirty five thousand jobs held by Latinos within the first

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Speaker 7: twenty four hours were impacted. So I think at this

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Speaker 7: point we're just really starting to understand what that real

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Speaker 7: impact is going to be, because we know that the

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Speaker 7: recovery is going very slow for everyone, particularly for those

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Speaker 7: that are less resourced, and that's going to be Latino communities,

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Speaker 7: of course, and it's going to take a much longer

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Speaker 7: than we had anticipated.

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Speaker 2: And I'm curious if you can tell us a little

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Speaker 2: bit about how your home was one of the only

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Speaker 2: ones that had remained on your street.

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Speaker 4: Yes, I live in West Altadina and I saw it

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Speaker 4: on TV while I was sheltering at someone else's house.

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Speaker 4: Latest I've got new evacuations to tell you about any

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Speaker 4: eating fire behind the reporter, it was just a wall

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Speaker 4: of fire.

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Speaker 2: I want to take you live now. Look at that.

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Speaker 8: We are looking at a home burning in all to Dina.

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Speaker 4: These are live and to see that, I was like,

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Speaker 4: I have to go back. I have to see this

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Speaker 4: is my house still there. And luckily it was one

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Speaker 4: of a handful in the middle of the block that

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Speaker 4: still had not been affected. And I had experienced such horror,

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Speaker 4: but I had never seen so many moments of unexpected

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Speaker 4: beauty of like people helping each other out at black

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Speaker 4: and brown people, the good whites, we're all like helping.

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Speaker 4: And the most unexpected nice thing is that I have

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Speaker 4: this Tollo neighbor that I have beef with because he

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Speaker 4: always parks in my driveway and sometimes he sparked in

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Speaker 4: its sideways, which is like, come on, man, he can't

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Speaker 4: park perpendicular or whatever it sounds.

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Speaker 7: It sounds like he has beef with you.

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Speaker 4: And anyway, he saw me on the street and he

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Speaker 4: ran towards me, and I ran towards him, and he's like,

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Speaker 4: how's your family. I'm like, they're okay. I was like,

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Speaker 4: how's your He's like, my husbands still here.

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Speaker 2: And it was like this moment.

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Speaker 4: We had been beefing for years, and I'm like, so,

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Speaker 4: I'm so glad I thought about you. I'm gonna text you,

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Speaker 4: but honestly I was a little scared. And he stuff

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Speaker 4: sir a second, he looks around and goes, it looks

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Speaker 4: like there's plenty of parking. Now. It's like this nice

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Speaker 4: moment that we had, but in short, we're still not back.

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Speaker 4: We've been able to make repairs on the house to

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Speaker 4: decide what belongings to keep and what to throw away,

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Speaker 4: which is most of everything that we've collected in our

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Speaker 4: entire lives, my daughter's entire room basically like all of

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Speaker 4: her Stuffy's, her first dress, like all these things are

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Speaker 4: completely gone, and then you have to go through and

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Speaker 4: make a spreadsheet of everything that you have lost, which

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Speaker 4: is already traumaticus. There's just so many traumas here, like

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Speaker 4: this has been the most difficult, insane year. My heart

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Speaker 4: goes out to anyone that's been affected by this fire

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Speaker 4: and fighting insurance has been very tough, and it makes

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Speaker 4: me think. I'm like, I'm very on top of it.

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Speaker 4: My wife and I we will become Karen's with insurance

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Speaker 4: when you need to. But I think about the smoke

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Speaker 4: damage and everything in our home, and insurance fought us

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Speaker 4: to replace the mattresses. A mattress.

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Speaker 2: We're gonna take a and when we come back.

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Speaker 6: We don't know about all the unknown chemicals that burned

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Speaker 6: in people's homes.

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Speaker 2: Stay with us, not Bayes. Hey, we're back. I'm Fernande

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Speaker 2: Chavarri in for our host Marie no Josa. Before the break,

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Speaker 2: we were speaking with UCLA researcher Silvia Gonzalez, comedian and

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Speaker 2: Altadena resident Chris Garcia and environmentalist Isaija Sernandez. Together they

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Speaker 2: were breaking down all the visible ways in which the

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Speaker 2: fires have impacted life in Los Angeles, but there are

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Speaker 2: also invisible impacts that are deep within the soil. Let's

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Speaker 2: get back to our conversation when you're talking about the soil.

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Speaker 2: Were there not samples taken? Was there not an effort

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Speaker 2: by the count need, the state, the federal government to

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Speaker 2: look and see how much is in the soil, how

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Speaker 2: much is sort of into people's homes, and was there

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Speaker 2: any of that done.

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Speaker 6: So there's there's a lot of community based research, especially

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Speaker 6: like mothers organizing in the in Altadena to record soil

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Speaker 6: samples of backyards or even public spaces because there is

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Speaker 6: this concern that you know, being exposed to some levels

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Speaker 6: of lead, but we don't know about all the unknown

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Speaker 6: chemicals that burned in people's homes that were released too,

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Speaker 6: that are not recorded on public data.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, so the government was definitely slow to respond. I

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Speaker 7: know of a couple of researchers over at U see

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Speaker 7: your vine that went out at the request of organizations.

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Speaker 7: I think about the image of our workers going up

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Speaker 7: to these communities without any safety gear. Are domestic workers

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Speaker 7: going into these houses without any safety gear or any

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Speaker 7: training for how to clean these properties right, how to

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Speaker 7: deal with these toxic contaminants that they were being exposed to.

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Speaker 7: So there's this hidden impact that we're really not talking

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Speaker 7: about at the moment.

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Speaker 2: What could be the long term effects on people's health.

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Speaker 7: I don't have specifics around the long term effects. I

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Speaker 7: think one of the reasons is we we still don't

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Speaker 7: know right what's in the soil, what's in the water.

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Speaker 7: One of the examples that always comes up is nine

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Speaker 7: to eleven twin towers.

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Speaker 2: According to the CDC, nine to eleven related cancers have

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Speaker 2: more than doubled since twenty thirteen.

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Speaker 7: And the impacts that that had on the health of

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Speaker 7: the people that were there as first responders or that

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Speaker 7: we're doing some of the cleanup, and there have been

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Speaker 7: a lot of cases of cancer.

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Speaker 8: So rimos toil torres, toil, l plomo elas based on

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Speaker 8: to and Thosa says, that is a story that is

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Speaker 8: very commonly shared about the signora that they knew that

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Speaker 8: worked in New York passed away because of the exposure.

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Speaker 7: That they had.

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Speaker 2: I will be honest, it's a little nuts to me

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Speaker 2: that there hasn't been an effort from local authorities, federal government, whoever,

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Speaker 2: to say we need to find out what's in the

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Speaker 2: soil in these communities. We cannot let kids play in

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Speaker 2: the parks that are like this, We cannot rebuild at

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Speaker 2: school on top of something like this, We cannot let

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Speaker 2: the workers go to these places without finding out. But

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Speaker 2: is it because it's it's mostly black and brown people

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Speaker 2: that there's not that push for it? Is it too

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Speaker 2: much to ask it that way? Am I reading too

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Speaker 2: much into this? I think this is the norm for

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Speaker 2: our communities. I think our government was just not prepared

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Speaker 2: for the scale of the disaster. We've never had to

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Speaker 2: deal with something like this. I think now they're starting to.

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Speaker 7: I've heard that there's efforts to do testing, but at

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Speaker 7: least at the beginning, it really fell on the shoulders

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Speaker 7: of community based organizations, of grassroots or organizations to push

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Speaker 7: for partnerships like at universities to go out and do

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Speaker 7: this testing because it wasn't being done.

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Speaker 2: We're going to take a break.

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Speaker 9: Yes, there's a lot going on right now, mounting economic inequality,

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Speaker 9: threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos.

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Speaker 8: In the air.

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Speaker 9: I'm Brook Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want

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Speaker 9: to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives

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Speaker 9: that let us hear, and maybe how to head them

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Speaker 9: off at the pass. That's on the media's specialty. Take

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Speaker 9: a listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Hey, we're back. Let's wrap up my conversation with Sylvia Gonzalez,

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Speaker 2: Chris Garcia, anisaies Roundez. What over the last year has

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Speaker 2: given you hope or strength? What have you seen? What

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Speaker 2: have you experienced? Asked Los Angeles has struggled to recover

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Speaker 2: from such devastating wildfires.

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Speaker 7: That's a loaded question, Fernanda, because I do policy research.

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Speaker 7: My whole job is being a Debbie downer. I'm not

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Speaker 7: from like Chris. It's about pointing to gaps. It's about

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Speaker 7: pointing to where our government fails us, and our government

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Speaker 7: has filed us in many ways right. And what I've

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Speaker 7: seen is the story that Chris is telling of community

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Speaker 7: coming together, and I think that is what just has

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Speaker 7: turned this really difficult moment in our history as a

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Speaker 7: city into something that's beautiful to see. Just community, coming together,

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Speaker 7: people using their skills throughout LA has been beautiful.

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Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, you know as an environmentalist, but I communicate

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Speaker 6: a lot to like different generations of people.

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Speaker 7: Is you know one thing that I really always.

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Speaker 6: Encourage people from an environmental standpoint is the important of

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Speaker 6: native plans and reconnecting ourselves to plant native plants not

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Speaker 6: just because of esthetic purposes or it saves you money

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Speaker 6: on your bill, but because it builds biodiversity, it builds

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Speaker 6: climate resiliency. It's been shown that when you follow the

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Speaker 6: Los Angeles Fire Department has I think in new rules

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Speaker 6: of like where you should plant your plants and like

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Speaker 6: where the burn zone eras are. Is that certain plants

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Speaker 6: are able to absorb certain qualifier ashes. And I really

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Speaker 6: think that when you think about it from a systemic lens,

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Speaker 6: a lot of people are just like, well, it's the

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Speaker 6: government's job, it's the city's job to fix this, and

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Speaker 6: it's like, it's true, it is. But at the same time,

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Speaker 6: as individuals, we can also come back to invest in

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Speaker 6: our communities to teach the importance of like let's plant

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Speaker 6: native plants, Let's bring the monarch butterfly back, Let's teach

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Speaker 6: the kids about why they should care about nature. Let's

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Speaker 6: work with La Composts, that is bringing local composting and

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Speaker 6: build our own food systems because why is it that

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Speaker 6: we have so many fruit trees in Los Angeles? Why

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Speaker 6: don't we start sharing those fruits with our neighbors. So

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Speaker 6: I really feel like from a solution's lens, I think

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Speaker 6: there's so much that's happening in Los Angeles. But I

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Speaker 6: understand too, like the average person can sometimes get doom

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Speaker 6: scrolling on social media because all they see is like violence, violence, violence, violence,

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Speaker 6: And it's true, what is happening in our democracy is

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Speaker 6: unfortunate and unjust. So I think that there's a lot

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Speaker 6: of ways that people can come together to recognize, like

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Speaker 6: you can do one thing, just like as our parents

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Speaker 6: taught us the importance of that. And I thank my

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Speaker 6: dad for teaching me the portance about native plants because

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Speaker 6: he's a gardener himself too, and he taught me at

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Speaker 6: a young age of why I should care.

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Speaker 2: Chris. There are oftentimes that you're going through something and

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Speaker 2: you have to just kind of be like Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 2: gar Marita, and then like let's move on, right. Whatever

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Speaker 2: our job is, we have to go do it. Yours

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Speaker 2: is comedy. So how do you because my understanding is

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Speaker 2: you did even a comedy special and raise some funds

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Speaker 2: after the fires? How do you find that the lightness

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Speaker 2: and there's the funniness in this? Is it literally laughing

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Speaker 2: to keep from crying?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean is a survival mechanism though it's very human.

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Speaker 4: And my parents, my father was a political prisoner, had

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Speaker 4: a very tough life, and my mother is still the

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Speaker 4: funniest person I ever met. Sometimes she deflects a little

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Speaker 4: too much, which I'll say from my next therapy session,

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Speaker 4: But it's just like, what are.

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Speaker 2: You going to do? Special?

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Speaker 4: Like what are you gonna do? Like you have to

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Speaker 4: metabolize what's going on in an honest way and you

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Speaker 4: have to feel it. But still there are funny things

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Speaker 4: that happen along the way. And even when you're completely distraught,

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Speaker 4: you're devastated, and you're tired, you still also have to

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Speaker 4: hold space for funny things and accept that funny things

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Speaker 4: will happen. You know, I have the firefighter and he

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Speaker 4: hads like stubble on his face and is real handsome,

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Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, I didn't know that about myself.

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Speaker 5: Okay, the reveals of the fire.

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Speaker 4: I'm like, I see why people like firefighters now, but

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Speaker 4: just like these small moments, like it's what gets us

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Speaker 4: through life. And I'm always not trying to make fun

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Speaker 4: of the fires or any tragedy is comedy somehow, and

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Speaker 4: laughter is all around and you just have to remember

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Speaker 4: to laugh when it happens because it's part of our

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Speaker 4: humanity and it's part of our survival mechanisms in this world.

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Speaker 2: Sylvia chris Issai. Yes, thank you so much for speaking

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Speaker 2: with Latino USA.

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Speaker 7: Thank you for creating the space for us.

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Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you for having us.

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Speaker 2: Did you and Chollo neighbors become besties or is he

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Speaker 2: still because.

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Speaker 4: He's still hard in my driveway and there's like, I'm like,

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Speaker 4: come on. But we do text each other and check

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Speaker 4: up on each other and it's very nice. It's parking

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Speaker 4: is going to be a problem, but at least we're

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Speaker 4: onunk In turns Now.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's all that matters here. That's it for today.

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Speaker 2: I'm Fernande charvari In for our host Marino Jossa. This

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Speaker 2: episode was produced by Monicamorles Garcia and edited by me.

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Speaker 2: It was mixed by Daja Krubin and Stephanilobo. Nancy Trujuillo

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Speaker 2: is our production manager special thanks to Memo Tejerra Field

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Speaker 2: producer in Mexico City. The Latino USA team also includes

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Speaker 2: Troxanna Guire, Julia Caruso, Freveca Vara, Renaldo Lanos Junior, Luis

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Speaker 2: Luna f Lori, mar Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Paloma Perez, Annelo

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Speaker 2: Rejuez and Arina Rodriguez. Penille Ramirez and Marino Fosa are

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Speaker 2: executive producers. Latino Jos is part of Iheart'smichael Gura podcast Network.

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Speaker 2: Executive producers at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana.

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Speaker 2: Join us again next time and in the meantime, you

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Speaker 2: can find us on social media and don't forget. If

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Speaker 2: you join FUFUA plus, you can listen to this episode

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Speaker 2: at free Get bonus content and special virtual events. See

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Speaker 2: you next time.

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Speaker 7: Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment

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Speaker 7: building a strong State by improving the health of all Californians,

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Speaker 7: Skyline Foundation and funding for LATI You Know USA is

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Speaker 7: Coverage of a culture of health is made possible in

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Speaker 7: part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,