• Favorite place to eat in SoCal: I like fancy shit. [laughs] Bavel downtown. I like their rack of lamb.
  
  

• Best kept SoCal secret: The Arroyo Seco Trail. It’s off the 110 and it just feels like you’re nowhere along the city. I go running there. It’s a peaceful place. It goes up to the Rose Bowl and by bike or walking you can take it all the way down to the LA River.
  
  

• I love SoCal because...every part of the world is here.
  
  

• Follow Ozomatli on Instagram at @ozomatli
  
  

• Listen to Raul's playlist on Spotify

HONOR WHAT WAS AND COULD BE

Self Help Graphics & Art is based in Boyle Heights. The neighborhood is also home to  Hollenbeck Park, a beautiful site that Pacheco feels is overlooked. “A place like Hollenbeck Park is really kind of fascinating because Boyle Heights was a wealthy neighborhood in the early part of the 20th century,” he explains. “Before and into the 50s, if you were a certain race, you couldn’t buy property in certain parts of the city. But Boyle Heights was an open covenant area, so it was very mixed—Jewish, Japanese, African American, Italian. It primarily became Mexican American after World War II. One of the things that happened is that because the land was valued less, I suppose, they were able to build five freeways there. So you have what are the remnants of these beautiful places. And one that sits in the middle of all these freeways is Hollenbeck Park. It's still very beautiful, and you can imagine what it was like before. And there's something kind of magical about it, right under the freeway. To me, it’s a testament to what was and what still could be, and the existing beauty that it is all on its own.”

Pacheco has also always valued the bridges of LA in part because they can represent, in one architectural moment, both the separating and also the joining of different political and cultural communities. “It’s just a short ride over a bridge, and you're in a different realm,” he says. “One thing I try to [emphasize to people] is, like, those differences are actually good, they’re what make LA special, you know? I think what's unique about, quote unquote, the East Side of LA is that there is a long enough tradition there, a unified Chicano, Mexican American, Latino paradigm and that tradition still exists, and it's something for people to learn about and experience.

The 6th Street bridge is maybe my favorite because it really represents the complexity of Los Angeles. [When they were rebuilding it], it cost like three times as much as it was supposed to. So there’s the political dynamic of money. And then they had to scale some things back. So the bridge is finished finally, and people start driving on it. [Editor’s Note: The bridge opened to the public in July 2022.] There’s this whole social thing going on, representing the different ways people use their public space, and how it belongs to people or how it doesn't. And the bridge isn’t lit right now because someone stole all the copper wiring… Will it ever be perfect? I don't know. But I don't look at these things as negative. I look at them as reality, like, this is where we’re at. And how do we start to create value that's bigger than ourselves in our own communities? So I see the bridge as this beautiful attempt to, like, connect, and it's a beautiful piece of art. I love driving over it. And I hope that it's a symbol of how LA and maybe even the world can keep trying to have shared spaces that serve us all. It's worth trying, you know? That's how I feel.”

HEAR GREAT MUSIC

“Before my mom passed away, I used to take her to Olvera Street on the weekends,” says Bella. “They have a rotation of DJs and they play great music and everybody just dances, right? It’s super cool. I always loved taking my mom because she was already wheelchair bound, but she loved to watch people have fun. There are all these characters there, all these regulars who show up every week to get their boogie on. It’s great because we’re all connected in that, for lack of a better word, primitive style, like, ‘Let's get together and dance, let's enjoy this moment together.’ So I’d take my mom and sometimes my dad too and we’d just sit there and vibe on the music and the crowd. There's this one little old man who just gets down. He's, like, pouring sweat, but no one can stop him, you know? And it's sh** like that…I love it.”

EXPAND YOUR PERSPECTIVE

The cultural center Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Park is the next stop. “The park was a location of what was known as the walkouts in the 60s,” explains Pacheco. “It was the hub of the student Chicano movement. So high school students were walking out of their schools during the height of the Vietnam War, reacting to the disparity between poor people being drafted as opposed to wealthier people, and also to the disparity of what was being taught in their schools, more shop classes, less math or English classes. Lincoln Park was one of the places where the students convened. So you'd have a thousand people meeting, having these discussions, and what came out of that was this cultural hub. Today, it’s an established center with many functions: They offer classes in a wide range of things from acting to writing to painting. There’s a gallery. They’re in line with whatever the cultural traditions are of the community, as well as other general topics that young people might be interested in, like they've had skateboarding events. It’s a well rounded representation.”

VISIT HISTORIC MURALS

Next up on the tour is Estrada Courts, a public housing complex, where in the 1970s a series of powerful murals were painted, part of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. “The whole mural tradition is a big thing in East LA and in Latin America in general,” says Bella, “so that’s a pretty cool and significant place as far as art and history are concerned.”

Right near Estrada Courts is Mariscos Quatro Vientos, a restaurant that makes some of Bella’s favorite tacos. “You can actually see some of the murals from outside the restaurant,” he says. “They have this shrimp taco. It's award winning. They put mint in and deep fry it, and then they cover it with avocado and salsa. It's so good.”

FINISH WITH AN AMAZING MEAL

Bella recommends two more restaurants, both in the Bell and Maywood neighborhoods, not far from where he grew up. The first is La Casita Mexicana, helmed by chefs Jaime Martín Del Campo and Ramiro Arvizu. “Their big claim to fame was that they beat Bobby Flay on his show, [Throwdown with Bobby Flay],” laughs Bella. “It was that thing where Bobby Flay shows up and tries to outdo you at your own dish. Oh, these guys were like, ‘Nah.’ And they beat him. So that's a great restaurant. There’s also Rocio's Mexican Kitchen in Maywood, one of the few restaurants here in the hood that has a Michelin star. Rocio’s has amazing mole.”