(upbeat music) - Real LA (beep) right here.

It don't get any more west coast than this.

(camera lens shutter) What's up, Roy?

Let's go listen to the Dodger game and cook some food.

- [Man] Let's do it.

- [Roy] You know there's nothing more LA than spending an afternoon in the hills behind Dodger Stadium, man.

Listening to the game, grilling with my friends, and showing some hometown pride.

But there's a price we all pay for for this experience.

It's hard to reconcile the celebration going on here with the reality of what happened on the other side of this valley.

I'm a street cook.

Even before I was a street cook, I was a street person.

I'm out there doing things, whether it's approved or not.

My whole existence in this world is to nourish and feed people.

I want this show to be about the power of us as humans to come together again.

Let's not make assumptions.

Let's not make stereotypes.

And from there, we can start to talk about these things and maybe understand each other.

Whether your belief's differ from mine, we're breaking bread.

Man look at this crowd.

Thank you all for coming out, man.

Thanks for coming out.

Hey guys.

- How you doing?

- Good to see you.

I just wanted to start off with a party, because a part of the culture is just hanging out and you know, having fun, being together.

- [Man] Is that Asian, Mexican and white boy fusion mix?

(Roy laughs) - [Roy] Even though the Latino community makes up half the population in Los Angeles, they are always fighting the forces of erasure.

The stadium we're looking at now was built on the land where three neighborhoods, full of community, family and homes once stood.

The ballpark, a source of pride in LA, has a messy history that few people talk about.

- [Richard] To look at Chavez Ravine and the three beautiful neighborhoods, and the fact that most of us grew up Dodger blue.

- Yeah.

- But also missing.

- But we don't get taught any of that stuff in school.

None of that.

- We don't.

This is why a story teller must step in and tell those stories.

- [Roy] It's a story of erasure for a group of immigrants that once inhabited the valley where the stadium now stands.

Richard Montoya is a screen writer and playwright, whose work focuses on the issues of racism, immigration and identity in the Latin American communities.

His play, titled Chavez Ravine, tells a story of the Mexican families who lived here before the 1950s.

We're looking at the Dodger Stadium, which is on Chavez Ravine, is that correct?

- [Richard] Right.

- And what is Chavez Ravine?

- So Chavez Ravine was a sort of a hamlet, they never really called it Chavez Ravine.

It was the three neighborhoods of La Loma.

- [Roy] La Loma.

- Bishop and Palo Verde.

- [Roy] Just a few miles from downtown Los Angeles, Chavez Ravine was nicknamed the poor man's Shangri-La.

Home to generations of Mexican Americans, it was a self sufficient and tight knit community where residents ran their own schools and churches, and grew their own food on the land.

That all changed in the early 1950's when the City of Los Angeles forcefully evicted the community to make way for a low income public housing project.

Land was cleared, houses were burned, and residents were forced to leave with the promise that they would have the first pick of apartments in the proposed housing project.

At the same time the City was making plans for the housing project, Walter O'Malley was searching for a new home for his team.

Having outgrown Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, O'Malley broke the hearts of fans across New York when he ventured West to find their new home.

In a controversial and politically motivated move, the City scrapped the plans for housing and sold the vacant land to Brooklyn Dodgers owner, Walter O'Malley.

I'm a huge Dodger fan.

I grew up in that stadium.

As an immigrant kid, this was the only, this was our first introduction to being American.

How come we have such a complicated relationship and the biggest fans are Latinos, when the history is the erasure of Latinos?

- [Richard] It's a paradox.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

- [Richard] It's a riddle.

We're the hugest fans and we lost the most in order to build this stadium.

You see?

Those neighborhoods were precious.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

- [Richard] There were homes on second base.

There were homes in the outfield.

And when you meet someone that actually was born in one of those homes, it's a lot harder to dehumanize them.

When you tell them that from the perspective of veteranos, veteranas that actually lived in those neighborhoods, then you begin to humanize and you begin miss abuela's garden.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

- [Richard] We used to barter, trade apricots for peaches.

That intuition that O'Malley had, and the Dodgers had, it worked.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- You get a feeling when you in there.

- You do.

- [Richard] You can be in the chollo section or in the good seats, with the mayor, you get that same kind of happy feeling, especially when we're winning.

(fans cheer) - [Roy] We're hearing the cheers.

- [Richard] Yeah.

You hear that roar, right?

- [Roy] You hear that roar.

- So that roar sounds awesome, but for me, as the playwright that I am, it also sounds ceremonial.

It's a scream into battle.

There's something a little frightening about it.

And there's something very exhilarating about it too, you know?

- [Roy] Yeah.

- Don't you want an IPA craft beer right now?

A Roy Choi craft beer right now?

(Richard laughs) And a Dodger dog, you know?

We do want that.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- It's something that our children have their right of passage, but we also are going to be teaching our children about those unpleasant things, erasure.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

- [Richard] Devastation, neighborhoods wiped out.

So the feelings, Roy, are very mixed, very complicated.

I participate in going to the games, but I also try my damnedest to remember the folks who lived there.

(roaring fans) (upbeat music) - [Roy] Erasure can happen slowly over time, or in one giant wave.

It's that erosion that impacts cultural traditions and causes them to fade and disappear.

At this tortilleria, Rick Ortega is making organic corn tortillas from heirloom corn, a rare commodity, even in a city known for its taco scene.

- Good to see you man.

- Thank you for having me.

- Thank you for being here.

Welcome to our tortilleria.

In Boyle Heights, the capitol of tortilleria's.

- The capitol.

- [Rick] I believe now we're in the fourth, fifth generation of tortillerias being here.

- [Roy] Wow.

Can you show me around?

- Of course, please.

- [Roy] Kernel of Truth Organics was started in 2014 by Rick and his high school friend, a third generation Bollenero.

Both were set on making sure that access to real corn tortillas, the kind they'd grown up eating, would not be completely wiped out by corporate manufacturers, who make most of the tortillas on the market.

The purity of tortillas starts with the process.

A process that's mostly been lost to industrialization that began in the 1980's.

It made tortillas ubiquitous in supermarkets, putting thousands of tortillerias out of business.

Unlike most brands, Kernel of Truth only uses three ingredients and a very labor intensive method.

- [Rick] We come in actually in the early hours to do the first production, since our corn is a specialized corn.

- [Roy] Okay.

- We use organic grains and, as of recent, we started working with Masienda's single land raised heirloom corn.

- Yeah.

- [Rick] So it's been mixilizing for about eight, ten hours.

- Uh huh.

- Which, mixilization.

- Yeah, can you explain that so that our viewers can know?

- Yeah.

What that does is, it's stripping the outer layer.

- [Roy] Yes.

- [Rick] It's softening the Kernels, and most importantly, it's releasing the nutrients.

- [Roy] Can you eat this just like this?

- [Rick] Oh yeah you can eat it.

- [Roy] You can eat it just like this?

- [Rick] Oh yeah, of course, of course.

Check it out.

- Oh yeah.

- So what do you taste right there?

- It's like eating like a really good nut, that's been lightly roasted, but it has this deep funk to it that just.

I just ate one kernel, but my whole mouth is filled and I can't get rid of the flavor in my mouth, you know?

That's amazing.

- I would say a lot of that has to do with the fact that it is a protected heirloom grain.

- Yeah.

- If we were to be using commodity corn.

- Uh huh.

- You know, those practices are designed to crank out corn at same specifications every year, every month.

- Yep.

- We don't have too many farmers in California that can grow field corn for tortillas.

Now working with this, it's a privilege.

And I'm going to prep the molino right now.

- [Roy] Okay, okay yeah.

- [Rick] And we'll start grinding it.

- Because I really want you guys to see everything that goes into this tortilla.

- [Rick] Let's make some masa.

So what we're going to do is feed it some corn.

- [Roy] Okay.

You don't have to add anything else?

It's just that?

- [Rick] Just water.

- [Roy] Just water, right?

- [Rick] Just water, yeah.

- You're not adding flour, you're not adding anything, right?

- No flours, no gums, definitely no preservatives.

- [Roy] Preservatives.

- Dude, check that out.

Give it a taste.

That's as fresh as it can get.

- Better than cookie dough.

They should make a masa dough ice cream.

Oh.

- [Rick] So while the masa is mixing, let's turn on the oven.

- [Roy] Okay.

- [Rick] And then we'll crank out the tortillas.

- [Roy] Why am I holding these?

- So we light it old school style, man.

Just like lighting a blunt.

- Okay.

- Give it some flame.

- Just like that?

- Perfect, yep.

- Okay.

- [Rick] Lit a better cherry.

- Whoa.

Yeah baby.

Yeah.

- Not safe.

- (beep) insane.

So this is pressing and cooking the tortillas?

- [Rick] Pressing and cooking.

- This is my I Love Lucy moment, right?

- I love that episode, man.

- And your name is Ricardo, right?

- My name's Ricardo.

(Roy laughs) So here we are.

- I'm Lucy.

- [Rick] You're Lucy today.

- All right, so we wait.

You gotta eat the first one, oh wait.

- Yeah, the first one, you gotta see what's going on.

- Oh yeah.

Now what?

- Now we're going to do two.

So you grab two, I'll grab these two.

- Uh huh.

- [Rick] You grab those two.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

I lost count here.

Uh, eight.

- You know that's the point man, you can't lose count.

(Roy laughs) - I tried to ask questions and count tortillas, man, I can't do it.

- [Rick] Dude there are guys who are having full on conversations, and they're so experienced they'll tell you, hey, it's too thick on one side, go adjust it.

Let me show you how we do it in the professional world.

- [Roy] Yeah, please.

- Can you crank that up to max.

- [Roy] I'm going to try to keep up.

- All right.

- This is me?

- Yep.

- I'll catch you if you miss them.

(Roy counting) There you go, you're not falling behind.

- Hey man, I'm trying to hold it down over here.

I cook for a living, so.

- You can come help us at night if you want.

- I've got a little bit of skill, but not that much.

I'm still nervous, man.

I'm in Boyle Heights counting 18 tortillas at a time on a thing that won't stop.

(Roy counting) - Don't lose your count.

- [Roy] I love the smell.

I wish you guys could taste this.

- [Rick] Stacks on stacks.

- [Roy] You have to attach some romanticism behind it like they do sushi rice.

- Yeah.

Okay, okay.

- Every grain has to be washed, and you have to make perfect rice, and fan it.

- Yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right.

- And you can't even touch fish until you perfect the rice.

- The future of tortillas, it's dying.

The tradition is dying.

This skillset, it's fading away.

There are no new kids that want to learn this.

- [Roy] Where does it go from here though?

- [Rick] We need to become more educational, but I do believe that like minded people like myself, and yourself, we're out there.

- Uh huh.

Rick is doing everything he can to keep a tradition alive in the age of fast, cheap production.

Ultimately, his dream is to see Kernel of Truth Tortillas in grocery stores where his mom can buy them.

And he's doing everything he can to keep costs low in order to get his product on shelves.

One of those shelves is at Sara's Market.

Hey, how you doing?

- Hey, how are you?

- How's it going?

- What up guys?

Got some tortillas for you.

- Yeah, for sure.

- For sure.

- [Roy] Sara and Steven Valdez are the third generation to run the family business.

In a neighborhood that's constantly fighting the forces of erasure, Sara and Steven stock local products and welcome vendors on their sidewalk to ensure their offerings meet the needs of the community.

So this store, it feels like it's been in your family.

- It's been in the family for over 60 years.

It belonged first to my great uncle, Pedro Martinez.

He passed it down to my mom and dad, they ran it for 30 years.

- And this store's looked like this, other than the Yankee's bobble heads.

(Sara and Steven laugh) You're from New York?

- Born and raised in the Bronx, yeah.

- The rivalry around here is intense, eh?

- Yeah.

- I think it started because one of our neighbors gave Steven the Babe Ruth bobble head.

- [Roy] Oh yeah.

- [Sara] And people were coming in, they're like, nope, not here, and started donating.

- Oh I'm proud of LA for that.

(Sara and Steven laugh) LA's not gonna let that fly.

If I was any bigger I'd have to go sideways.

(Sara and Roy laugh) - [Sara] We have a variety of products, because essentially, on a day to day basis, the people that really keep us afloat is everybody in the community.

- [Roy] So there hasn't been a big wave of gentrification in City Terrace yet?

- We've seen a wave of it, but we try to just be open as much as we possibly can and not exclude anybody.

- [Roy] People are people, yeah.

Because it's painted sometimes that progress is just erasure and gentrification, but if the progress comes from within, making sure you do it deliberate and slow enough that everyone can come along.

- Yes.

Yes.

- [Roy] That's a beautiful thing.

- [Sara] That's why I made it a point, you know, that we need to keep the community with us.

If we move forward, we need to bring the community with us.

- [Roy] Not only did you make changes within the store, but you're also doing pop ups, which is amazing, people like Goat Mafia.

- Yeah.

Definitely, so let me introduce you to Juan and his crew from the Goat Mafia.

- How you doing, Roy?

- [Roy] Yeah.

- [Sara] One of the food vendors that we have hosting this week.

- [Roy] Goat Mafia, it's Ivan Flores and Juan Garcia, and their birria recipe is over 100 years old.

It's one of the most famous dishes from the State of Jalisco.

And each one of the 125 municipalities within the state has their own version.

- [Juan] We pretty much focus on classic birria, traditional birria, but we put like a little modern twist to it, to kind of introduce a younger generations to old school Mexican.

- What is that twist that you?

- We don't use limes, instead of limes with pickles or onions.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

- [Juan] You know.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- [Juan] Salsa macha is not really traditional.

The right way of serving it has to be on a plate, and there has to be a specific amount of consume on it, so you can grab it with the tortilla and you get everything on.

- [Woman] There you go.

- [Sara] Thank you.

- Wow.

- [Juan] You know it's good because everyone's quiet.

- Uh huh.

(Everyone laughs) (sizzling) - [Roy] Ivan and Juan want to remind younger generations that their recipe, which has deep connections in Mexico, is steeped in history.

Goat Mafia's mission is preserving that history.

And as a fourth generation birriaro, Juan is using their taco stand to fight erasure of flavor and tradition.

- [Sara] That's so good.

- Wow.

Run, don't walk, to Goat Mafia.

It's so good.

(upbeat music) If you want to know everything about the street food scene in LA, there's no better source than Javier Cabral.

A food journalist who got his start scouting restaurants for Jonathon Gold.

Now, he helms the hyper local news outlet, LA Taco, where they received the first ever Emerging Voice Award by the James Beard Foundation, for food coverage that touches on social justice, representation and immigration.

Javier is taking me to Milpa Grille, the creation of Deysi Serrano.

The name of the restaurant is a reference to the milpa system of cultivation, where corn, beans and squash are planted together in order to help each other grow.

Deysi uses her restaurant to do the same thing for budding chefs who don't yet have a brick and mortar.

- It's creating a sort of a unity between brick and mortar restaurants and street vendors.

- [Roy] At the moment, she has two businesses operating under her roof, in addition to her own restaurant, Cafe Cafe and Macheen.

- [Deysi] Hey, how are you guys?

Hi everyone.

Hi you guys.

How's it going?

- [Javier] What's up man.

- Man, it's an honor to be here.

- I'll actually introduce you to Chef Jonathan.

Chef, come in.

- [Roy] Yeah, hey.

- How's it going, chef?

- Hey.

I only know about you because of this.

- [Deysi] We're taking a photo after that.

- Taco champion.

(Deysi and Jonathan laugh) This is amazing.

Jonathan's People's Choice win at a prestigious taco competition, and praise from top food publications, prove that Deysi's dream for using Milpa's infrastructure to lift others is working.

- What kind of tacos you make today, Jonathan?

- [Jonathan] We're going to do like a fried fish taco with our house made flour tortilla.

- [Roy] Damn.

- [Jonathan] We're going our birria taco, we do our guajillo demi glaze, and I got something in store for you, chef.

- Oh, okay.

- [Deysi] He's been telling me about it all week.

- [Javier] Well let's eat, I'm hungry.

- [Jonathan] Yeah.

- [Roy] So how are you able to pull all this off?

Because not only are you a minority in this industry, but you're also a business within an industry that is male dominated, and you're creating a safe space for others to find their own voice too.

- You know what it is?

I think I'm just passionate about helping people.

The community as well, it's very low income.

And making and having these types of options, like the salad, there's not a place in Boyle Heights were I can say I can go eat healthy.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- [Deysi] You know?

And it's true, unfortunately.

But we want to change that.

And how do we do that, and by creating spaces like these and bringing people that don't have a brick and mortar, and giving them that space, like why not?

Please.

It's not for me, it's for the community at the end of the day.

- Have you always been kind of a caretaker or?

- Yeah.

I think as people, right, we go through a lot of stuff interpersonal.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- Like very personal, that shapes you to what you are now.

And for me, it's been like, I've been through pain, and I've been through all that.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

- That I don't want anyone to feel any type of way.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

- And because of that, I want to help.

- Yeah.

- [Deysi] I think my childhood helped me shape me to be this way, but.

- [Jonathan] And this over here, I told you I had something special for you, my version of a Korean short rib taco.

- Oh (beep), damn.

- [Jonathan] So it's passion fruit.

- [Roy] There we go.

- [Jonathan] With (indistinct) and pastor.

- [Roy] Uh huh.

- [Jonathan] A little pickled dicon and napa cabbage.

- [Roy] Oh man.

Wow.

- [Javier] Jon, how many layers is in this, dude?

How much work does it take for you to make a taco like this?

I mean.

- Yeah, it's a lot of work.

- How much is one of your tacos?

How much is this fried chicken taco?

- So I do $5.

- [Roy] $5, okay, so that.

- [Javier] So you can serve these ribs on the plate by itself, without the tortilla.

- Uh huh.

- Serve it to someone, and they're going to be like, okay you can charge like, okay, you can charge like.

How much could you charge for this?

- That right there?

- Yeah.

- You could charge $14.

- Okay, put a tortilla over it.

- It's got to be $2.

- Same thing.

How much would you charge for that?

$2.

- [Roy] A lot of it is conditioned within that Western European cooking has value, and cooking of indigenous cultures doesn't.

You know?

So that if you have a bowl of pho, or a bowl of ramen, or a bowl of chow mien, that it should be $6, or $4 or $3.

But if you have a pasta that has all this story and crushed tomatoes from San Marzano, then you can charge $32 for that.

- [Javier] Exactly.

- So as we're talking about this stuff, so is food a form of resistance?

If we're dealing with these narratives and these separations?

- [Javier] You know, the son's and daughter's of Latin American immigrants, like you know, Mexican and Central American immigrants here in LA specifically.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- [Javier] That are growing up now, like Deysi, and they're investing into these own communities and they're doing things the way they want to do, you know?

- It's important for us to continue the story telling and the information to re-engineer people's minds that a taco is not cheap, you know?

- [Javier] Yeah.

- [Roy] That a tortilla is not cheap.

- [Deysi] The labor, yeah.

- [Roy] It's not just a throw away thing.

How about beyond businesses, are there community things that don't have to deal with money?

I know you were telling me about go run with the bridge runners.

What are the Boyle Heights Bridge Runners?

- They just run around Boyle Heights.

(Roy and Deysi laugh) I mean, it's pretty straight forward.

- And it's people from the community too, which is nice.

- Yeah, so you know, you gotta tap into our ancestor energy and, you know, go run.

- Uh huh.

Yeah.

- You ready or what?

- Uh.

- Not after this, right?

- I don't know about running around.

They've been trying to get me out to run for like eight years, ever since they started.

The work that Deysi and her team do to be inclusive, and lift each other up, should be a model for restaurants in neighborhoods around the country.

She recognizes that working together is more beneficial than going it alone.

The Boyle Heights Bridge Runners operate with a similar philosophy.

You didn't think I was actually going to do it, did ya?

I think this is them.

Sol and Roli started the Boyle Heights Bridge Runners group in 2014 as a way to bring the community together.

- Everybody, this is Roy.

Roy, this is the Boyle Heights Bridge Runners.

- Oh yeah?

Beautiful.

- [Roli] So, welcome.

- [Roy] Thanks for having me.

- We're wondering how fast you run.

- I walk the (beep) out of this city.

(everyone laughs) But I don't run that much, so we'll see.

- We'll give you a head start.

- No, I don't need to beat anyone.

- Yeah, that's actually part of the dynamic of the group, is that like, it's not about oh I'm trying to be faster than him, or her.

- Yeah.

- It's just us coming out and just holding space and being community.

- There obviously is a big focus on like the physical element, but I think given everything that we've been through for the past year, we all can attest, I think yourself included, to the mental aspect.

- Yeah.

- So the mental aspect of having to come together.

- And just being with each other.

- And just to be in a group.

But then also to have the release to feel like safe in your own body.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- Like safe in your community.

- How far do you run usually?

- We have two groups.

So we have a group that does a full three miles.

- Uh huh.

- And then we have a group for folks that maybe are getting introduced to running, or maybe coming off of an injury.

- How long is that?

About a mile?

- About two miles.

- Two miles.

- So it's about a two mile run.

- So I'll start the third group.

(everyone laughs) - The third group is actually that van right there that's going to pick you up and bring you back, so.

- The van.

- [Sol] Are we ready to roll out?

- Are we ready to do this?

- Are we ready to run?

- All right.

Are you stretched?

Are you ready?

Do you need me to.

There you go, okay.

(Sol laughs) - [Sol] Mobility, mobility.

- Okay.

- Well the shorts are perfect, because nobody's going to miss you, so.

- Yeah.

- Cool, let's do it.

(upbeat music) - He runs a three mile faster than I run the half mile.

(Roy laughs) So how do we hold on to tradition while surviving in a world that wants to erase our past?

By remembering those that came before us.

- [Richard] I try my damnedest to remember the folks that lived there.

- [Roy] Carrying on the traditions of our ancestors.

- [Rick] We gotta keep doing it.

We gotta just keep doing it.

- [Roy] And being an example for others to follow.

- [Deysi] It's not for me, it's for the community at the end of the day.

(crowd roars) - [Richard] You here that roar, right?

- [Roy] The stories will live on.

So let's all tap into that ancestor energy and keep moving forward.

Ultimately, we're all in this together.