The Importance of Shade

摘要

I WAS BORN IN MEXICO CITY. When I was three, my father lost his job at a tire factory, so we moved up to Los Angeles to pursue a better life. It was tough for my parents. They worked in the garment industry, in sweatshops.They managed to gain some wealth and move back to Mexico to start a business making clothing. Things went well until NAFTA hit and the US garment industry migrated to Mexico. My family's business couldn't compete, so we moved back to L.A. when I was 11. It was a lot more difficult the second time. When we first moved to L.A., we were living in South Central. It was a good neighborhood-largely African American, with a small, tight-knit Latino community. We lived close to USC and the Coliseum, and I always noticed how much better maintained those spaces were than the rest of the neighborhood. But it was a nice place to live overall.