I took this photo of a City of Los Angeles manhole cover during the Great Los Angeles Walk, amused by the "Made in Mexico" notation. If you know anything about Los Angeles history, you know that's true -- even if, in this case, they're literally talking about the manhole cover.
Tu Ciudad editor Oscar Garza was amused, and asked to use it in the mag. Hence, my first photo credit in a major magazine (outside of the two I've worked for, Variety and Electronic Media, where photos of mine have appeared as well).
The photo, which was published in Tu Ciudad's March issue, is paired with a short essay by Daniel Hernandez:
It's not often you get a cultural lesson from a piece of municipal property, but this actual manhole cover plainly conveys the essence of Los Angeles, day after day, politics and media games aside. The message, etched in steel, is not a call by Chicano nationalists for a reconquest of the American Southwest. It is simply a statement of fact.
How? History tells us that L.A.'s roots and soul were indeed made in Mexico, but so does the present. We're reminded in the way the city is laid out, along the former boundaries of old Californio ranchos. We're reminded in the flavors and sounds of the cultural landscape -- la comida, la vibra. In the faces of the people, who come in every shade of brown mismatched with black and white and yellow and red and everything in between.
Today, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Jim Gilchrist, and hordes of faceless lieutenants in the relentless hate-talk war against "illegals" too often cloud our historical perspective. In Los Angeles -- the undisputed capital of modern-day Alta California -- even our manhole covers are smarter than that.
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