Natasha Zarate - "More LA Than Everybody Who's From LA"

An oral history of Natasha Zarate.This interview highlights her childhood in Los Angeles, educational background, and career, as well as her family’s history in Palo Verde and the ways they were impacted by displacement. She also shares her thoughts on the Dodgers, reparations, ICE raids, and how she wants this history taught going forward. (0:00:20) Discusses her childhood growing up in Hacienda Heights, her parent's separation, her relationship with her godmother, the 1992 LA riots, her year in Germany, and her experience at Huntington Park High School. (0:16:56) Describes her first job after college as an attorney and her time at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.(0:21:21) Explains how she got into professional styling and how she ended up working for Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, and Iggy Azalea; tells stories about the infamous white-on-white 1980s Cadillac she drove during this period; shares her experience meeting Kendrick Lamar for the first time.(0:36:24) Traces her great-grandparents' journey from Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico to Palo Verde; talks about her great-grandfather's activism as a Magonista and in the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM); describes the commune he and other revolutionaries lived in in Silver Lake; tells the story of how her great-grandparents met; notes that they had 15 kids together.(0:52:44) Explains why her family chose Palo Verde; notes that her family built their home from the ground up; speculates that her great-grandfather was attracted to Palo Verde’s self-sufficiency, sustainability, and sovereignty; describes her grandparents.(1:15:13) Shares how her family described Palo Verde; notes that her family went to Central California during the summer picking season; mentions that her aunt attended Palo Verde School, which is now buried under Dodger Stadium; recalls going to a Dodgers game with her godmother when she was a teenager and seeing the life “sucked out of her."(1:23:22) Talks about the letter her family received from the City Housing Authority in July 1950 saying their home would be torn down to make room for the 13-story Elysian Heights Public Housing Project; says officials used her family as a PR prop after putting them in the “Dogtown Projects" in Chinatown, which she compares to a concentration camp; calls this transition devastating for her family.(1:33:41) Notes that her mother moved out of the Dogtown Projects at 17; describes her as a “quintessential LA woman” who was not celebrated enough before dying of cancer in 2021; shares how her parents met; talks about her father, who owned Apollo Beauty Hair Salon and “cut generations of hair.”(1:40:17) Discusses her family’s varying views of the Dodgers.(1:44:05) Describes her experience at a Los Desterrados reunion.(1:48:57) Shares her thoughts on the movement for reparations.(1:51:39) Speaks about the Dodgers’ response to ICE raids in Los Angeles and near Dodger Stadium.(1:53:43) Says her teachers never once talked about the history of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop; explains why she wants it to be taught going forward.