The Push for Reparations at Dodger Stadium

The Los Angeles Dodgers have one of the largest Latino fan bases in Major League Baseball — a reflection of Los Angeles’s population, but also of the team’s active recruitment of Latino fans over the past half-century.

In 1979, the team signed the star Mexican pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, setting off a craze known as “Fernandomania.” The Dodgers also brought in the first full-time Spanish-language broadcast in the major leagues. Walking into Dodger Stadium these days, you’re almost instantly met with the sound of Spanish.

But there’s an irony to the widespread Latino love for the team: The land that the stadium was built on, now commonly known as Chavez Ravine, was once home to hundreds of families, most of them Latino, who were displaced by the city in the 1950s. Now some of them want their land back.

My colleague Jesus Jiménez recently reported on this tension and the growing call for reparations from descendants of the people who lived where Dodger Stadium was built.

Jesus told me that he initially wanted to write about how the Dodgers had managed to cultivate such a huge Latino fan base — the crowds at Dodger Stadium are notably more diverse than at most ballparks — and how that love for the team extended far beyond the Southland. (Jesus said some of his relatives living in Mexico were die-hard Dodgers fans.)

But as he began to report, he learned more about the displacement. The building of Dodger Stadium, now home to one of the richest baseball teams in the world, represents a painful chapter in history for many Los Angeles Latino families.

“That prompted a new line of reporting: How does a team with one of the largest Latino fan bases in M.L.B. wrestle with the history of the land they play on? And can those displaced ever get their land back?” Jesus told me.

The story of the displacement is not new, but the call for reparations has recently been bolstered by land-back movements that have gained momentum across California.

Last year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors transferred ownership of Bruce’s Beach, a property in Manhattan Beach that had been taken by eminent domain, back to the descendants of the Black couple who formerly owned it. California is currently considering reparations for Black residents statewide. And San Francisco is considering $5 million cash payments to close the city’s racial wealth gap.

“We know we’re going uphill,” said Vincent Montalvo, whose grandparents were born and raised in Palo Verde, one of the lost Chavez Ravine communities. Montalvo helped start Buried Under the Blue, a nonprofit organization that seeks to raise awareness about the residents of Palo Verde and the other two lost neighborhoods, La Loma and Bishop.

Montalvo added, “But we also know this: There’s a time right now in politics, both up and down the state, about reparations.”

Read Jesus’s full article.

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Vivian Cruise, who recommends a visit to Mono Lake in eastern California:

“One of my favorite places is Mono Lake, which is a saline soda lake in Mono County formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake, which make its water alkaline. The desert lake has an unusually productive ecosystem based on brine shrimp, which thrive in its waters, and provides critical habitat for two million annual migratory birds that feed on the shrimp and alkali flies. Towers of minerals rise from the lake as if they are stalagmites.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

My colleague Jill Cowan reported on the enduring fame of P-22, a mountain lion that became a superstar to Angelenos.

While there have been plenty of famous domesticated animals, we want to hear about any wild animals that became celebrities to you. Did you have a bird, a bear or a deer in your community that you got attached to? Tell us about it and why you became a fan. Email us at CAtoday@nytimes.com with your suggestions.

And before you go, some good news

Friendship came naturally to Ande Flower and Veronica Savage, though romance was more difficult to foresee. Still, they persisted.

“There will be dozens of people who will take your breath away,” Savage said at the couple’s wedding in Fair Oaks last month. “But the one who reminds you to breathe is the one you should keep.”

Read their love story.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Soumya

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword.

Briana Scalia and Isabella Grullón Paz contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com.

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