Join us this Friday 10:30 for LA History Group, at new San Gabriel Valley Humanities Center! Presenter is Oscar Gutierrez, LMU, "The Debt of Guilt: National Lead Industries and Exide 1970-2015." RSVP here, email us to get Oscar's paper - [email protected]. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Join us at the Autry on Sept 7 for a community archiving event -- we'll be discussing grassroots approaches to building local archives, memory, historical resources. Hope to see you there! theautry.org/events/conve...

A belated shout-out to a piece by Andrew VanDam of WaPo, on the nuances of cities, small towns, suburbs - I chimed in for this piece, and a nice mention of The New Suburbia! www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... @oupacademic.bsky.social

In midst of one of LA's most intense, challenging summers, we're busy planning for UHA2025LA in Oct. I'm esp excited to announce this panel on Literary LA. It's open to public and all conference attendees. LA's writer community is warmly invited to attend! www.urbanhistory.org/Literary-LA

Happy to announce the publication of Metropolitan Latinidad, hot off the presses at Chicago! I wrote a piece for this on ethnic suburbia. It's an excellent volume, timely as ever. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Join us at the Huntington this Friday 10:30 for LA History & Metro Studies Group - Eileen Luhr will be discussing her new book Golden States: How California Religion Went from Cautionary Tale to Global Brand. RSVP here docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Just had a sample of the Eaton Fire ash that is in my driveway run on the department XRF. Is there titanium (new house paint)? Yup. Lead (old house paint)? You betcha. Heavy metals? Check. Treat that ash like it's toxic folks (because it is)

We have been gradually getting on our feet, securing shelter, and calming down. My beloved Altadena is an exemplar of diverse suburbia, it was my perfect home community. Trying to figure out what the future holds for us.

Our beautiful 1950 Altadena home has burned, I've been in a state of despair and zen awareness today. Grateful to be alive, with my family, an airbnb sheltering us. This is the home where Brie Larson directed a movie. We lost a lot, fam photos, recipes, my car, pretty much all our earthly stuff.

Looking forward to my book talk on The New Suburbia at Claremont Heritage on Sun. 1/12 - I'll be focusing on housing and community-building in LA's diverse suburbs. Thank u Denise Spooner for orchestrating!

New years morning from Colorado Blvd, Pasadena... Rose Parade. Loved this amazing band from Japan, helped spread good vibes for us all.

I loved seeing this on my walk this morning, gifts for the trash collectors.

Hooray - our "LA County Demographic Data Project 1950-2010" is now UP AND LIVE on USC Digital Library. It's all free to use, no paywall. Contains tons of historical data on LA, start with User Guide in 1st folder. Contact me with questions. The dataset is at: digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-manage...

Among my husband's many outstanding qualities-he's a member of SAG, which got us into today's screening of Emilia Perez, Q&A with Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez. Incredible talents!

Ellen-Dunham Jones & June Williamson are receiving well-deserved honors by Seaside Institute for their work on suburban retrofitting. It's happening Feb 7-8, I'm thrilled to be a speaker at this 2-day shindig. Come join us! @seasideinstitute.bsky.social seasideinstitute.org/news/seaside...

I gotta get off my computer, and start meal prepping -- we've got 15 people coming, and I'm doing most of the cooking and baking. Of course, this is my chance to go crazy with the baking -- pumpkin pie, mile-high apple pie, pecan bars, and on and on...

Our LA History & Metro Studies Group is excited to host 2 wonderful scholars on Fri Jan 24@10:30amPST, via zoom: Phil Ethington (USC) and Rubén Pallol Trigueros (Univ Complutense de Madrid) on “Disorder at the Border: ... Race-Ethnic Segregation & Diversity in LA County, 1930.” More details to come.

Been reading Al Pacino's memoir, and binge re-watching Godfather I & II, two truly epic films (even tho I usually hate violence in films -- these get a pass). It's all a bit nostalgic, and reading Pacino's backstory on all of it has been fascinating.

We are getting SO CLOSE to releasing the final version of my historical dataset on all LA County municipalities 1950-2010... on the USC Digital Library. It's happening very soon. I'll keep posting on this. It's all open access, more soon!!

Thrilled to see my book The New Suburbia and my friend Naomi Hirahara's book Terminal Island on NPR's Larry Mantle's list of favorite LA books of 2024 - his holiday shopping guide. Larry Mantle is a true champion of everything LA. Very grateful for this shout-out. laist.com/news/los-ang...

Contemplating some kind of piece on 1980s efforts to establish "sanctuary" suburbs in LA, during the anti-immigrant backlash of that era. Feels like we've been taking one step forward, five steps back these days.

Finally, getting up and running on BlueSky, very happy and relieved to be here. Shoulda done this awhile ago!