Al-muthafuckin- right. The Vota Vato voter guide is back with the vengeance of the 2012 Mayan prediction. And if you thought my ancestors were bullshittin’ when they said the world was coming to an end – you must not be watching the apocalypse unfold before our very eyes.

Public education is incredibly important for our communities – it’s also incredibly controversial. We kick off our next series to dissect the history of public education and the fight for education justice. 

I answered. I couldn’t understand anything she was saying. She was frantically screaming and crying. The only thing I could make out was, “I.C.E took dad, I.C.E took dad!”

Ay, ay, ay! This election is reminiscent of the 2016 Presidential race. Liberals all in their feelings because all of the candidates are meh – yet they’re trying desperately to convince you that their horse is the one to place your bet on.

Meanwhile, Lefties in the hood are shrugging their shoulders ‘cause none of these candidates truly embody the progressive values we seek in our leaders.

Voting season is upon us again and voting is important! But, do you know who & what to vote for? More importantly, do you know why voting is a life and death matter?

We continue our Black Love, Brown Pride Series by discussing the mass incarceration the ways it harms African American & Latino families and communities. Our guest is Ivette Alé, Statewide Co-Coordinator of Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), a statewide coalition working to shift money away from prisons towards human services. 

April 29th: The people became fed up. The city went up in flames. Four days it didn’t let up. Tension grew thick. Awaiting the verdict. Four white officers. Acquitted of hatred. The media took notice. Reported the incidents. South Central was the focus. They blamed its residents.
LA burned down. My community surrounded.

Hood Digest is partnering with Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) to explore the topic of mass incarceration: the people, the streets, the police, the prisons, the justice system, the laws, and the profits. 

We continue our Black Love, Brown Pride Series by discussing organizing in the era of high-profile police killings of unarmed African Americans and other people of color. Our guest is Dr. Melina Abdullah, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Pan-African Studies at Cal State Los Angeles and co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Los…

Ya pasó algún tiempo desde que les trajimos la purititima verdad. Pero honestamente, ha sido un alivio porque al igual que usted, nos empezamos a cansar de tanta pinche elección tan frecuentemente. Sin embargo, tuvimos un descanso y regresamos con la fuerza de mil Chapulines Colorados!  

Embracing my Blackness and my Central American culture is a crucial part of who I am as an Afro-Latina. The crises I have been able to work through with my own identity have left me feeling solidified. Though when I was younger I brushed off questions about race, today I always say “Afro-Latino” when asked about my own. Doing so can spark a conversation and bring awareness to a culture that is often rejected or even forgotten about. Knowing that both black and brown are my one culture I feel enriched and I’m proud to say, “I am Afro-Latina.”

Submitted by: @OtherSideOfDaGame This is my story of Black and Brown love. I met my husband at the airport about 3 years ago. The first time I saw him, I noticed his afro. And I fell in love. He walked with such confidence and conviction. I could tell he was going far in life. He…

It’s been a minute since we last hit you with that hot fire. To be honest, we’re glad because we, too, were fucking exhausted of putting out voter guides every month. But alas, we had a little break and
now we are back with the force of a thousand Chapulines Colorados!

We kick off this series discussing Black/Brown relations including tensions and love. We open up with our experiences with racial tensions and life-changing experiences. Please send us your own by email thehooddigest@gmail.com and we may read your story as part of our series! Meet Rob & Emilee McGowan who provide personal and professional services in the…

Between now and June 2018, the board will be interviewing candidates. They have a search firm helping them, but you know Hood Digest wants to contribute too! We’ve prepared our own list of questions that we recommend asking the candidates vying for LAUSD Superintendent.

On this Episode 2: we talk about Teach For America in Los Angeles, we discuss giving back to the community with Let’s Give, and the need to address tensions between Mexicans, Central Americans & our haters!

This piece is about tensions between my Central American fam and our Mexican brothers and sisters.

Did you know that the war on cannabis or “Marijuana” was started – after the Mexican Revolution – by a racist gringo who was prejudiced towards Mexican immigrants?

Meet co-hosts Elmer and La Mikia, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson talks marijuana, and La Mikia wins a car.

600,000 people have been killed by guns in America since 1999: The year Dr. Dre released The Chronic 2001.

Did y’all watch Congressmember Karen Bass lay it down quite flat for U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions?

With great mastery, she drilled him about the race-based targeting of African American activists by the FBI, but not White Supremacy groups that actually kill cops.

Ask yourself the following: how the fuck are kids supposed to go to school with no electricity? How are doctors supposed to perform surgery when the only source of light is from cell phones? When was the last time I went without light for 6 months? 6 weeks? 6 days? 6 minutes?

This Hood Digest endorsement goes to  Wendy Carrillo. None of the other candidates are hustling harder. 

Wendy has garnered some notable endorsements from the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU), labor icon Dolores Huerta, and the CA Assembly legislative women’s caucus.

Our communities deserve this: not because we are exceptional young achievers, or “good” immigrants, but because we are humans, who want to survive, who want to work, and who want to live without fear.

Get this straight, this is not about making excuses for someone’s fuck ups! Dr. Rodriguez’s missteps have consequences that affect so much more than his political career. Latino candidates who run in future races will be judged by the actions of this scandal.

Echo Park is experiencing gentrification, it has not been fully gentrified. The latter suggests that we don’t exist and that we don’t fight. Gentrification is class warfare and we need to be willing to fight for the communities that raised and nurtured us.

I grew up in the 90’s. An era when lagartos ruled the planet. Everything around us told us that being “gay” and being a “girl” was bad: rap music, Hollywood movies, Spanish TV, sports, the church, the Constitution, corporations, our government.

As if the world wasn’t already turned on it’s head for hard working people in America, President Trump on Friday announced that he plans to kill DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. He said a decision would come no later than Tuesday, September 5th.

In our previous post, we talked about your mom’s sopa on a hot summer day. We also addressed the cruel world of racial double standards in America.

So, to add chile y limón to our deliciously vicious recipe, we dwell into the world of drogas: opioids and heroin to be exact.

It is an understatement that race relations are boiling in the U.S. in 2017. Shit’s so tense right now that even Republicans are speaking out against racism.

Race relations in America today can be compared to those hot summer days when your mom makes sopa de res.

This gang was founded by a group of young men seeking to escape poverty. The founders of this group immigrated to the U.S. and formed bonds with other people – who were born in the U.S. – but shared similar ethnic roots.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced their latest operation known as “El Plan Sepasan Deverga”, “El Plan” for short.

Immigrant rights activists in Los Angeles are grinding their teeth while gearing up to help undocumented youth – as young as 16 years of age- who may be targeted by El Plan.

This report does not give me hope. The audit is recommending that our students be further targeted and criminalized. It reads as though it is scolding LAUSD for not harassing students and disrupting learning.  

Drug addiction doesn’t make you a stupid ass, but it drives you to make stupid ass choices.

That’s what happened to the Dean of the USC Keck School of Medicine, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito.

The National Council of La Raza, (NCLR) surprised everyone on July 10 when they unveiled their new name. This was like a mega gender reveal party – it’s that thing pregnant gringos do to announce whether their baby is gonna be a boy or a girl. It’s like a babyshower, but way more boring.

Comparing President Donald J. Trump to a child is problematic. It’s easier to dismiss Trump’s behavior as childish rather than addressing the fact that he’s an entitled, racist, old, White dude.

By Elmer G. Roldan, @grand.supreme.chapin Are you feeling tired of elections? Well, don’t turn off your bullshit radar just yet!! For the next couple of months, some of us are gonna be seeing more glossy mailers and answering annoying calls telling you to vote for people you ain’t neva heard of! This coming June, voters…

More Latinos are running for this Congressional seat than attended Rubi’s Quinceañera. You’d think they were giving away free tamales in the House Of Representatives the way that so many of my gentes jumped in this race. A point on this crowded congressional competition: saying you will stand up to Donald Trump is easy! Calling out his cadre of racist buffoons is a nobrainer. Shit, Fox News and the Koch brothers are standing up to that mamon!

By Elmer G. Roldan, @grand.supreme.chapin On March 7 get out and vote. Don’t make excuses about you being too busy or feeling like your vote doesn’t matter. Don’t be a pendeja or pendejo… that’s pendejx for people in Boyle Heights. You’re entitled to a 2-hour lunch break. That’s 30 extra minutes than what you already…

By Elmer G. Roldan, @grand.supreme.chapin You already know there are too many damn initiatives on the ballot and you’re too damn busy to learn about them all. #HoodDigest got you! So, grab a lapiz, cafe, pan dulce, and brace yourself!

Está cansada de tantas elecciones? Por favor no apague su radar de promesas falsas todavía!! El próximo par de meses algunos de nosotros vamos a recibir más folletos brillosos y llamadas pidiéndonos que votemos por candidatos que sepa la papa quién serán!

OK, everybody– calmados!

I read this article and tried to watch the video, which has already been taken down– so if you got a bootleg copy of it, holla at me!!

67% of us voted for Clinton, 29% for Trump. Yeah, 1/3 of us went with him. But, why?

Let’s start by explaining what it means to be Latino. Latino/Hispanic is an ethnicity, which creates a lot of confusion about our identity.

I was anti-Clinton until this past weekend. I still don’t believe that she has my, or my two sons’, or my South LA at heart. I don’t believe that her interests are much different than those of other wealthy White Americans.