National Geographic

At the southern end of Los Angeles, in theoil-refinery and port community of Wilmington,I met the family of Luz Gomez. Three languagesare spoken at the Gomez home: English, Span-ish, and Zapotec. Luz, 17, is a U.S. citizen who’sgrown up following Zapotec Indian traditions. Atcelebrations in Los Angeles, she dons the wovenskirt and blouse worn by women in her parents’hometown—San Bartolomé Quialana, in theMexican state of Oaxaca, a place she first visitedthis year. “When people say ‘Latino,’ they think‘Mexican,’ ” Luz told me. “I call myself Oaxacan.”Her father, Fidel, came to the U.S. as a teen.When his first American daughter was born, hegave her two names: Luz, which is Spanish for“light,” and Zithviani, Zapotec for “far away.” “Somy name means ‘light from far away,’ ” she says.And each fall Luz’s mother, Lola, marks the Dayof the Dead, el Día de los Muertos, with traditionsof her Oaxacan ancestors: cooking special dishesand building an altar in the living room with mari-golds, votive candles, and photos of the departed.IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA el Día de los Muertos isa modern symbol of Latinidad, or Latino-ness, formillions of people. Many are lifelong Americanslike me who grew up speaking English.In Whittier fifth-grade teacher Yolanda Garcianoticed her students did better when their lessonshad Latino themes. Learning about their cultureand history made them feel smarter. She sensedthat this hunger for Latino culture had commer-cial potential too—so she started a store, Casitadel Pueblo, in Whittier’s Uptown in 2004.Later, with the blessing of Whittier oicials,Garcia launched a Day of the Dead festival in anearby park. The festival now takes up a dozencity blocks on an October weekend.Whittier has become a mecca of the Latinomiddle class, a transformation few locals couldhave imagined a generation ago. I grew up inSouth Whittier—an unincorporated, down-market community nearby—and knew Whittieras a place where white people lived. RichardNixon went to high school there.These days some very aluent Latino familieslive in Whittier, including Richard and RebeccaZapanta. Their 12,000-square-foot home in thecity’s Beverly Hills Estates resembles an Italianvilla. They’ve filled it with paintings and otherworks by many of Mexico’s master artists, includ-ing Rafael Coronel and Frida Kahlo.Richard grew up in the barrios of East Los``````Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, but he hadno real, living connection to Mexico. “I’mfourth-generation Mexican American,” he toldme. After he became a successful surgeon, hetraveled to the land of his ancestors again andagain. His Spanish improved, a skill that wasuseful when he met Mexican artists.The Zapanta home is also filled with photo-graphs of Latino politicians they know, many ofwhom have risen to national prominence. Amongthem: Antonio Villaraigosa, who was Los Ange-les’s mayor for two terms, and Hilda Solis, a for-mer U.S. congresswoman who was labor secretaryduring President Barack Obama’s second term.When Rebecca was first dating Richard, shesays, “We started of with $10, eating menudo atCiro’s,” a humble Eastside eatery. Before Obamaleft oice, Secretary Solis invited Rebecca to astate dinner at the White House.``````IN THE LATINO communities of Southern Califor-nia, it is the best of times, and the most diicult.I live in a hillside home with beautiful viewsnear the Los Angeles River, where the realestate boom has pushed the value of someproperties past one million dollars. A shortdownhill walk from my home, undocumentedimmigrants live and work.In February 2017, less than a mile from myneighborhood, Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez wasdriving his U.S.-born daughter Fatima to schoolwhen immigration agents suddenly descendedupon the family. Her mother told Fatima, then13, to record the arrest on her cell phone. “I wassad, and at the same time I was mad, because theywere taking my dad away from me,” she told me.The Avelicas have roots in a seaside town inthe Mexican state of Nayarit, but they’ve livedin Los Angeles for a quarter century. For monthsafter Romulo’s arrest, Fatima and her familyvisited him in an immigration facility. In themeantime the video she’d shot of her father’s``````WHITTIER HAS BECOME``````A MECCA OF THE LATINO``````MIDDLE CLASS, A``````TRANSFORMATION FEW``````COULD HAVE IMAGINED``````A GENERATION AGO.102 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC