Canto CDXX: Lisa Alvarez, Profe to the OC Revolution

Gentle cabrones:

Lisa Alvarez, to paraphrase Peter Murrieta’s slogan about himself, is the most important Chicana in Orange County You Don’t About.

Longtime English professor at Irvine Valley College — this is her 33rd year. Co-adviser to the school’s Puente Program, helping young Latinos navigate the bruises of being Latino in South O.C. With her husband Andrew Tonkovich, editor of Orange County: A Literary Field Guide, the first full anthology of OC’s writing scene (with a forward by me).

Co-director of the writer’s workshop for the long-running Community of Writers summer retreat up in northern California. A constant at Orange County protests dating back to the time when she and Andrew were arrested outside the Westin South Coast Plaza decrying the long-running Winter Conference on Aerospace and Electronic Systems (aka merchants of war) back in the 1980s. One of the co-authors of the late, great DISSENT the Blog, which covered the Machiavellian machinations of past administrators of the South Orange County Community College District going back to the days it was a newsletter.

Former profe to my honey and LibroMobile founder Sarah Rafael Garcia. Mother of L, my former student at Orange Coast College who’s now writing for The Catholic Agitator, the newspaper for the L.A. Catholic Worker (the family that agitates together, stays together). Author of the brilliant, recently released short story collection. Some Final Beauty and Other Stories, which is this month’s selection for Guti’s Fookin’ Ingrate Book Club, which you still don’t belong to for reasons known only to you.

Publicly, one of my most prominent champions in ways too long to list. Privately, even more of a champion. The direct inspiration for La Comédie Oranger, my ongoing short-story series where I used the third person to talk about incidents in the life of…someone.

Don’t know Lisa? Now’s your time. She’s retiring.

We met recently where we see each other the most: my honey’s Alta Baja Market. My honey and I would love to go see her, Andrew and L more, but they’re up in the canyons and the last time we went, we stepped on a hornet’s nest and ran. Dressed in a rose-decorated skirt and flowery pink blouse (“a cowboy thing I bought like 20 years ago), her black top blending into grey-black frames and gunmetal gray hair, Lisa looked every bit the intellect who cut her teeth in the Reagan era and thus knows how to throw down and inspire.

Around her neck was a World War II Good Conduct medal rewarded by the Army to her dad, son of undocumented immigrants from Puebla. Perfect complement to the red “No Empire” button laced onto her right boot that complemented the blue “DISSENT” button laced onto her left. She had just returned from IVC’s retiree party.

“I was forced to look at my past,” Lisa said. Her voice is soft, measured — put it in a slightly higher pitch, and she’d sound like Veronica Lake. “They brunched me, so I’m good. So otherwise, I would’ve ordered here the roasted cor…what is that? Esquites salad.”

One of my honey’s regulars asked what she was going to do in retirement.

“Well, that is the question. I think the secret is to keep busy. I don’t have to be away from the world to write, I have to be in the world and feel the pressure. I think I have to find how I’m going to be in the world when I was in the classroom. There’s certainly a lot to do.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Best of times, worst of times, Gustavo. Lots of work to do.”

First time reading this newsletter? Subscribe here for more merriment! Feedback, thoughts, commentary, rants? Send them to [email protected]

Lisa has now spent more time in Orange County — “of all places” — than her native Los Angeles, as she recently wrote in an essay for Citric Acid, an online literary journal Andrew edits (the family that writes together stays together). So is she more OC than LA now?

“We talk about borders — bigger borders and also the borders that are drawn around within us. I understand the complicated history that defined both, but I’m of both places. Does that make sense? I’ve met — some of my students have never been to LA, just like some of my people in LA continue to make fun of Orange County. ‘Poor, poor Orange County.’ That’s of no use, especially right now.”

 How was Delilah while she attended IVC?

“Delilah was fearless. And I liked that. I believed that students should lead. Too often they look to teachers, but students should be leaders. I met her at a time of crisis. I loved and respected the fact that she cared so much about the college that she did something. She was fearless. I think she didn’t worry about what would happen to her, I think she was more worried about what would happen if she didn’t do anything.”

(Delilah and other students sued the South Orange County Community College District because loser bureaucrats were trying to suppress their right to protest. Delilah and other students won. The family that’s righteous together stays together)

I remarked how it must smart to leave IVC at a time when it’s blooming, when the work she and others put in for decades to improve what seemed like futile situation were now paying off.

“Now it’s a great time for the little college in the orange groves. I’m so glad I didn’t retire during the pandemic full of regret…It makes me feel it was all worth it. Even the folks who didn’t make it until the very end, or didn’t enjoy the results like they might’ve, like our dear friend, [IVC philosophy professor and fellow Dissenter] Roy Bauer. You can’t give up on the future. What would the future say if you gave up right now?”

Although Lisa’s essays, short stories and poems have appeared in literary journals for decades, Some Final Beauty is her first full publication. She’s 64.

“I don’t feel like I’ve delayed as much as I’ve been satisfied through the years with a fully engaged life. I know people say literary people have to be away from the world, but this book has been a result of being in the world and being engaged. I don’t feel delayed even though my joke is I was probably the most unambitious person to come out of the famous UCI writing program. But I was able to live the life that allowed me the time to be able to write the stories I wrote.”

 How do you feel about Orange County right now?

“When I go into my classrooms on Monday morning, I want to say Orange County shows up. Fourteen different high schools. Those students give me a lot of hope. At the same time, we talk about their fears and the challenges they’re facing and what it means at this time to continue to pursue your education.”

La migra recently detained the father of one of her students. Ghouls. Lisa regularly attended the trial of Samuel Woodward, the neo-Nazi who murdered Blaze Bernstein in OC some years back. Angel.

 What advice do you have for OC?

For the first time during our lunch, Lisa scoffed.

“Who am I to give advice?”

I reminded her about her resume. Did I mention that she and Andrew were at my honey and I’s wedding, and that at our wedding, she recognized my cousin who happened to help her through her pregnancy? (the family that helps together stays together)

“Do what you can, and then do more. That’s the advice more than ever. I told my students – I reminded them – we’re living through history and they sort of groaned. Some of them remarked they are tired of living through so much history. But these are the moments when people in the future will look back and wonder what we did and what we didn’t. You want to be a part of what secures the future.”

We hugged and I went off to WERK. So did Lisa.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: Terrible photo of a great meal at The Vox Kitchen in South Coast Plaza, chifa-inspired delights. Was seated with OC food media legends Anne Marie Panoringan, Andy Harris, Gretchen Kurz and Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly faithful reader Cathy Thomas, who said she especially likes the songs I recommend. Now THAT is a real G!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We must never lose a focal point in our lives, regardless of the fame or fortune or adulation that comes forth from our talents and recognition. I think that these young people that came from total poverty, when they got into the big world and began to receive plaudits, they lost sight possibly of some of the basic values that are so necessary for us all to have. I think also that people have to take the time to think, 'Who am I, what am I, and I'm still just me'. It's sad that fame and fortune carries with it the potential for a heavy toll. It should be the other way around.” — Sam Phillips

LISTENING: “Da’ Butt,” E.U. Because we’re not in the East Coast, not nearly enough people out in SoCal know about go-go, a genre from D.C. that sounds like a house party set on a cymbal. This isn’t the best go-go song, but definitely one of the most prominent because of its inclusion in Spike Lee’s School Daze soundtrack — and yeah, da’ butt! Hence included in Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly Radiola of Randomness YouTube songlist, where I’ve included every song I’ve ever featured in a canto — give it a spin!

READING: “Jack London, Jack Johnson, and the Fight of the Century”: I loved Call of the Wild growing up, and I appreciated that London was a socialist once I became older. But I didn’t know about his racialist writings until years later, and this article (by the ever-great Public Domain Review) sizes it all up.

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo Events  

Oct. 5, 4 p.m.: I’m going to be in conversation with the director of The Little King of Norwalk, which has a shoutout to me! Staged by the Latino Theater Company at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. Tickets ain’t cheap, but support local theater by buying them here.

Oct. 11, 1 p.m.: I’m going to be on a panel for the occasion of OC Weekly’s 30th anniversary timed with a major announcement about its archives, which I disclosed last week! Going to happen at Alta Baja Market, 201 E. Fourth St., SanTana, and it’ll be FREE!!!

Oct. 17, 7 p.m.: It’s my honey’s annual Rancho Heirloom Bean Encuentro weekend festival of all things legumes. I’m in charge of “The Bean Monologues,” which is exactly what it sounds like — I and some brilliant people are going to give stories about…beans. WAY cooler than it sounds, like every goddamn thing I do, and it comes with food! At Grand Central Art Center Black Box Theater, 125 N. Broadway, SanTana, $20 — buy tickets HERE.

Oct. 18, 3 p.m.: The other event I’m doing for Encuentro is “How to Taste a Tortilla,” where I teach people exactly that. At Alta Baja Market, 201 E. Fourth St., Ste. 101, SanTana. $15, and people who go will get some tortillas to take home — buy tickets HERE.

Oct. 25, 1 p.m.: Join me in conversation with the legendary L.A. scribe D.J. Waldie as we talk about his new book! At my honey’s Alta Baja, where he’s regularly gone for years, 201 E. Fourth St., Ste. 101, SanTana. Convo FREE; books, BARATO.

Nov. 8, 9 a.m.: Join me and my People’s Guide to Orange County co-authors as we do a walking tour of Anacrime and its hidden history. $20 — buy tickets HERE.

Gustavo in the News

“Immigration Reform News October 1, 2025”: A columna of mine gets a plug.

“The Best Places to Get Green Chile in Denver, 2025 Edition”: Wesetword plugs my eternal love of Den-Mex food.

“Touched a Nerve”: AltaPolicyWonk shouts me out because he’s cool like that!

“‘The Trump Olympics’: president vows to host the ‘greatest games’ in LA, a city that’s felt his wrath“: The Grauniad (IYKYK) shouts out a columna of mine.

“From Taco María to Door County, Wisconsin: Carlos Salgado’s Midwest reinvention": The comadre Serena Maria Daniels (Canto CCCLX) shouts out my work on Mexican food.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

"Corn, water, and lime are the only ingredients needed to make tortillas — tell that to GRUMA”: I need to get to #tortillatournament but here’s a reminder of what a brilliant idea it is.

“There’s no nice way to deport someone. But Trump’s ICE is hosting a cruelty Olympics”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks about the heartlessness of Trump’s goons. KEY QUOTE: “You might have been forgiven for not realizing from such a statement that the three people punctured by a gunman’s bullets were immigrants.”

“L.A.’s federal public defender says Trump has inundated his office with immigration cases”: My next latest L.A. Times columna talks about Cuauhtémoc Ortega, a fellow zacatecano who’s the federal public defender for Southern California. KEY QUOTE: “But in a year when the Trump administration has tried to bend the law at every level and opportunity to its whims, Ortega has emerged as an important bulwark against federal overreach.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!