Award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley and one of the nation's leading intellectuals, Dr. Cornel West, recently released a new book called The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto (SmileyBooks, April 17, 2012), which challenges our assumptions about poverty. I got a chance to listen in on a...
(0) Comments | Posted May 15, 2012 | 6:50 AM

By Kamren Curiel
If you haven't heard of Mexican acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela by now, you're sleeping. I got the chance to see them perform live at the Hollywood Bowl last year, and was blown away by their mastery of the guitar and strumming...
(8) Comments | Posted May 14, 2012 | 12:14 AM
By Carli Eli
Whether your source of news comes from online media, TV or the latest tabloid, it's hard to ignore the media hype behind celebrity weddings and divorces. A few years ago, we gave our celebrity couples a few years of matrimonial bliss before they called...
(0) Comments | Posted May 9, 2012 | 1:30 AM

By Kamren Curiel
No other artist represents today's bicultural Latino quite like singer-songwriter Gustavo Galindo. Born in Mexico City to an Irish/Scottish/French mother and Mexican father, who met in a swimming class at USC, the 30-year-old Latin pop rock artist spent his childhood between Mexico, Lake...
(1) Comments | Posted May 3, 2012 | 7:15 AM
By Kamren Curiel
Although the May Day march in L.A. yesterday couldn't compete with the historical mass turnout for immigration reform on March 25, 2006, at least 1,000 demonstrators, many from the Occupy movement, convened in downtown to fight for immigration reform and workers' rights. Protesters...
(2) Comments | Posted April 25, 2012 | 4:22 AM

With the fight to keep L.A. street art alive, Urban Legends comes to town to remind us all how important it is to have public spaces to create dialogue through various art forms. The public art auction and exhibition is being presented by the Estria...
(23) Comments | Posted April 19, 2012 | 12:01 AM

By Jorge Steven Acuña
A typical day for a college student usually starts off with the constant snoozing of an alarm clock prior to our first class, but life as we know it doesn't always go as planned. What I thought was supposed to be an ordinary college...
(15) Comments | Posted April 15, 2012 | 7:15 AM
Outernational is on a mission. They just ended the first chapter of their Todos Somos Ilegales (We Are All Illegals) tour, which kicked off at the Texas/Mexico border and weaved through Laredo, San Antonio and El Paso, ending in New York May 24. The...
(0) Comments | Posted April 13, 2012 | 2:06 AM
By Pablo Rodriguez
More commonly known by those who love him by his sobre nombre, Jesse is a self-described Xota (jota) artist and community advocate. A BA in History, Chicana/o Studies, and Native American Studies from U.C. Davis, a master's in History from the University of Texas, and...
(3) Comments | Posted April 12, 2012 | 7:15 AM

By Jacquie Marroquin
During the recent Women in the World Conference in Washington D.C., Liberian Nobel Peace Prize Winner Leymah Gbowee said, "Women need to stop being politely angry." She was referring to the ever-escalating war on women's access to reproductive care in the United States. This...
(16) Comments | Posted April 5, 2012 | 6:52 AM

By Carli Eli
Last week, I was in Alabama for a work assignment and to my surprise it was such an eye-opening and heart-wrenching experience. Usually when one thinks of Alabama, the movie Forrest Gump or Lynyrd Skynyrd's song " Sweet Home Alabama" comes to mind. Unfortunately, for...
(1) Comments | Posted April 3, 2012 | 6:39 AM

By Kamren Curiel
It's not everywhere you see graffiti pieces about immigration, but Brooklyn-based Chilean artist Nelson Rivas aka Cekis makes it a point to explore this theme based on his own personal experiences. His first open studio features a series of new works...
(0) Comments | Posted March 30, 2012 | 6:56 AM
By Marcelino Quiñónez
Washington, DC - Today the White House honors farmworker and activist Rogelio Lona as one of ten leaders being recognized as Champions of Change who, like Cesar Chavez, have dedicated their lives to improving their community and the nation. The Champions of Change program was...
(7) Comments | Posted March 29, 2012 | 7:31 AM

By Andrea Gutierrez
The University of Texas at Austin has always been at the forefront of the battle to use race as a college admissions criteria, and this year is no different. UT Austin's admission policies and the decision made in Gutter v. Bollinger (2003) to allow...
(1) Comments | Posted March 28, 2012 | 7:36 AM

By Viva Samuel Ramirez
Have you ever felt like you were watching history unfold before your eyes? Like the words you were hearing and the people you were meeting were constructing historically significant events for generations to follow? That was the feeling I had in Tucson...
(1) Comments | Posted March 22, 2012 | 7:43 AM

By Marcelino Quiñónez
It's often said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. This country has definitely seen its share of a repeated behavior. For the greater part of the last 50 years, anytime injustice has been committed against a minority, the people who identify with that...
(3) Comments | Posted March 16, 2012 | 1:54 AM

By Carli Eli
If you walked past a newsstand last week, you probably noticed Time Magazine's March 5 cover featuring the many different faces of Latinos with the words "Yo Decido: Why Latinos will pick the next president." As the presidential election gets closer, it's becoming...
(0) Comments | Posted March 15, 2012 | 9:02 AM

By Kamren Curiel
I dedicate this AMP piece to Women's History Month, which celebrates the positive contributions of women throughout the month of March. There are so many dope women doing amazing things in our community, so I decided to highlight a few collectives here. Check them out:
...(27) Comments | Posted March 12, 2012 | 7:29 AM

By Refugio Mata
"We're not going to allow them to treat people like slaves," Linda Dent of Los Angeles told Univision before leaving for Selma, Alabama. "Those days are over. We fought very hard to have the freedom we have today to vote."
Dent alluded to her days...
(71) Comments | Posted March 10, 2012 | 5:41 AM
By Yándary K. Zavala
A long, long time ago, in a country far away, two people got married.
He went to university and worked in the accounting department of a big department store. She also took university classes and owned her own beauty salon. A few years later, they...

(2) Comments | Posted May 24, 2012 | 8:05 AM