Wise Latina: Expressions of her barrio known as Wilmington

It is great how in the past few years the younger generation of Wilmington residents have been bringing the city to light from its usual forgotten past. This new generation cares about the community and wants to see it thrive. Organizations like Slanguage art studio, WECAN, The Wilmington Wire, have gave a voice to young  artists and those concerned with community issues. 

Anabell Romero is no exception this "Wise Latina" has been expressing her ideas and concerns as part of the Wilmington City Council and journalist.

Read her first blog post as community correspondent of San Francisco's NPR station, KQED. 

Mi Barrio: Growing up in Wilmington 

As always

I been really busy to blog even though I really want to! I got finals this week so my time is on that right now. Hopefully I can get something done because I only get a week break before summer school starts womp womp womp!

I should ask a question though...

What does everybody have planned for summer? anything interesting? post up and share.

What is your commute?

Photo via Google

The beginning of February I will be relocating, everything is fine but now I will have a longer commute on the freeway. I work in Torrance and right now my commute is about 27 min with traffic coming from San Pedro. Now San Pedro is only two towns away from Torrance but it takes a little longer because there is so much school traffic in the morning and I am taking the streets. According to Google directions my commute to Torrance should only be about 17 min and it is 6 miles away. I take short cuts everyday to work and it is still about 27 or so minutes. The only time it is about 17 min is when there is holidays and school is out or people have the day off. Now I soon will be traveling to Torrance from downtown LA on the 110 S. According to Google it is 22.3 miles and it will be about 33 min. Now I know that really means about 45 min's with traffic. The 110 south is not as bad in the morning then the 110 north but still. It is going to be a real commute compared to what I do now. I have a buddy who works with me that lives in Highland Park who says he makes it to work in about 30 min. The sucky part will be going home at 5 p.m there is a lot of traffic still on the 110 north, not as bad in this case then the 110 south. I might have to just hang out in San Pedro until it gets later lol. I don't look forward to miles on my car but oh well lucky the gas is cheap for now. It really sucks that there are no trains that even go near Torrance in that case I would be able to at least park and ride. Now until I find a job in LA (won't happen anytime soon) I will have to travel. I really am going against traffic both ways but with the mass amount of cars nowadays that don't even matter sometimes.

So now I am curious since I will soon be driving 44 miles (round trip) and be on the road about 30 to 45 min(one way) , I was wondering what kind of commutes do you all have? How many miles do you travel to work? how long does it take? weather it's short or long let me know. I look forward to feedback =)

Hello Everybody

Forgive me for my absence even though I might not have any readers lol. I been super busy with school so that is taking up so much of my time. For those of you that do not know I also contribute to another blog www.laeastside.com I got a more recent post on that side-of-town, so you can go over there and check it out. School will be over soon sometime next week so I will try to get some more posts over here.

See ya soon

Dona Junta

Eating alone

My friend told me I should blog about this topic when I was telling him about how weird this restaurant made me feel because I was eating by myself.

Saturday afternoon I was lounging out at home relaxing and working on some homework, I had got a craving for some shrimp cocktail Mexican style, you know cocktel de camaron! just to make it clear I am not the talking about the plate of shrimp you dip in cocktail sauce.

I decided to go by my self since nobody was around to go with me and since it was just a few blocks down I decided to walk.

I love walking, but I have been lazy with walking to places around town like I did as a youngster, I would ride my bike but I got two flats, not good and I been wanting to by a new used bike or a not so expensive new bike hopefully soon, anyhow having a car makes one lazy and I am guilty of that sometimes.

I grab my camera and head out the door, I walk down the street exactly 2 1/2 city blocks.
I see the place and start taking pictures of the front of the place it really has this cool ocean theme mural on the outside. I proceed to walk in but I noticed a sign that said CASH ONLY being that I always use my darn ATM card I had to walk another block tot the liquor store on the next corner to pull out money.

I head back and go inside, there was a few people when I walked in and a couple of groups eating at the booths against the wall.

At the bar in front of the kitchen was three men drinking some Modelo's and talking with the waitresses.

I walk to back towards the wall and sat in this HUGE booth made for 5 to 10 people! I though it was funny since there where smaller tables, but that one had the best view lol.
This waitress comes up to me with her mini dress and scrunchy curly hair, she had these long ass nails with diamonds on them pretty fancy I say.
She had TWO menus in her hand even though she only seen ME go in the place, right away she assumed I was probably going to meet up with someone. I told her it was just me and I only needed one menu, she say's "estas sola" I go "si" she just gave me a kind of confused look and said "ok."

She goes back towards the kitchen bar area and since I got the best view of everything I see I am getting stared at by the men at the bar, I mean being a girl I guess it's nothing new but they where killing my dining experience by staring so obvious!
I was sitting towards the way of the bathroom so they all kept going to the bathroom at least two times each while I was there it was starting to get annoying.
I ordered my shrimp cocktail it came fine,but miss long nails was not very nice she just was bland and not to friendly.
I got to admit I was taking pictures of the food and that might of caught some attention but I was doing it as low pro as I could.
The cocktail was okay but it was better the last time I had one there, that did not help at all with the eating experience,I did not even eat it all the way just because I started to get annoyed with the gawking.

I payed, and before I left I gave a dirty look at the men for ruining my food, the waitress didn't get tipped either since she simply was not friendly sorry lady!
I eaten solo many times but it is usually during lunch time at work, so I guess it's suppose to be different other times?

My friend said eating alone is a sign of a strong person, I am strong but I think eating alone being a women is way different then eating alone being a man.

I did not want to blog the place after all so I erased all my pictures, I just felt it was not worth going there again, but fuck it if I want to eat alone I can they can assume what they want. I just will take a book or something next time and ignore the burning on the side of my face! lol

So I was wondering:

How do you feel eating alone? is is a good experience or do people assume your lonely or weird?

Do you think it makes a difference being a man or a women eating alone?

Have you had any interesting experiences?

The tumbleweeds are rolling in

I been lagging on the blogging, it just seems like there is so little time to get things done after work, weather it is doing chores or meeting up with someone,by the time I get home it gets late and this is suppose to be summer time I am not even in school yet! lol anyhow I got so many ideas and a short amount of time but I know I can't make excuses so I shall try to make more room for my inner thoughts.

My eyes are tired

So I am back in LA after the long, long 6 hour drive from up north; traffic was light since we left late around 7:30pm, I ended getting home at 2am.
I was barley drooling in my sleep when the alarm went off at 6am to get up for work, (you know the feeling) that tired feeling is the most horrible feeling in the world! plus to top it off it is Monday not my favorite day of the week I know the the millions of people working Monday thru Friday agree with me on that womp womp womp!
So I am debating if I should still go to the gym after work since I ate like a mad man the whole weekend or go take a nap?
I figure if I take a nap I will do nothing productive since I probably won't wake up till like 9pm then have to go back to sleep. If I go to the gym I will feel a bit better but dread the tiredness we'll see.
I got alot to work on this week new posts on here and LA Eastside, lucky for me no summer school this semester! yesssss