267 Gentrification, Grief, and the Labor That Built California with Corey La Rue

In this episode, artist and community advocate Corey La Rue. traces his relationship to the land, labor, and survival—from a near-death experience that altered the course of his life, to his ongoing advocacy for California’s agricultural workers and displaced communities. Raised in the Bay Area in California, La Rue shares his early exposure to fieldwork through family ties to migrant labor. These firsthand experiences, coupled with his own time working in agriculture, shape his nuanced understanding of the exploitation embedded in the state’s economy. What emerges is a critique rooted not in theory, but in lived knowledge: the food systems that sustain us are built on invisible suffering. In a conversation that flows between the local and the global, La Rue and Proenza examine the slow violence of gentrification, the complicity of liberal “investment” language, and the way grief and survival are interwoven. La Rue describes the rapid transformation of his Melrose neighborhood—where new development displaces working-class Latino families—and calls for greater grassroots resistance. The episode draws a powerful line from housing precarity to policy indifference to the long, often invisible, labor histories of California. This is a conversation about who gets to stay, who gets erased, and what it means to fight for the dignity of people and place. Explore Corey La Rue’s work: 🔗 Instagram: @corey_la_rue Support the show and access episodes early: 💸 patreon.com/whatsmythesis Subscribe and share if this story resonates—especially if you’ve felt the pressure of survival, loss, or systemic erasure. #CoreyLaRue #WhatsMyThesis #AgriculturalWorkers #CaliforniaLabor #LatinxVoices #Gentrification #FarmworkerRights #NearDeathExperience #GriefAndResistance #ArtAndAdvocacy #LAArtScene