Mexican California

On the Mexican heritage of California:

"In the late 1940s, a young Mexican diplomat with literary instincts, Octavio Paz, found himself posted to the consular office in Los Angeles. "At first sight," Paz later recalled in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1961), "the traveler is surprised by -- besides the pureness of the sky and the ugliness of the dispersed and ostentatious constructions -- the vaguely Mexican atmosphere of the city, impossible to capture in words or concepts. This Mexicanness--a taste for adornments, carelessness and splendor, negligence, passion or reserve -- floats in the air. And I say floats because it does not mix nor is it joined with the other world, the North American world, made of precision and efficiency." Paz was talking about what could be considered the second largest Mexican city on the planet. The Mexican connection of California was a matter of people and money, food and music, ambiance and culture. It was a matter of social and political value. It was, in all its dimensions --trade, immigration, politics, and social policy -- the overriding California connection, and the big California story of the late twentieth century. "

Coast of Dreams, K. Starr

Prezenta fizica si spirituala a mexicanilor si latinilor in Los Angeles da orasului o langoare, o relaxare, o pasiune scaldata in caldura, o intensitate a momentului, nascute din nostalgia subtila pentru vremurile bune cand nu erau straini in propriul lor taram.