Canto CDXLIII: MacArthur Genius Profe Natalia Molina Hangs Out!

Gentle cabrones:

I distinctly remember the first time I met USC Profe Natalia Molina in person.

November, 2017. I had just left the Infernal Rag. A conference room at Troy off Jefferson, one of those old Victorians or Craftsmans or whatever transformed into meeting rooms.

A couple of us who were inspired by the Southern Foodways Alliance decided to see if we could maybe do something like for Southern California. Really, it was an excuse for people who knew each other to hang out for a couple of hours and introduce people they knew to other people they knew. The ones I recall: Profe Josh Kun was one of the main organizers, the MacArthur genius who, when I see his name, I instinctively remember him as a friendly rival when we both covered rock en español in the early 2000s because news never sleeps. Profe Oliver Wang of Long Beach State. Carlos Salgado from Taco Maria who brought some of his extraordinary aguachile. My honey — not sure if she brought blue cornbread, but she was there and so was Profe Natalia.

I knew the name, of course. Author of an important book about a tuberculosis outbreak in Los Angeles among the Mexican population back in the day and another about the power of “racial scripts.”

What was she doing among a bunch of food people?

Folks gave lectures on food history projects they were working on. Profe Natalia talked about how a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles allowed LGBTQ people to create their own space at a time when it was hard to do so in the 1960s. Fascinating subject, and Profe Natalia she said she was working on a bigger project with it.

You know how people talk about certain projects or gatherings where nothing long-lasting seems to come out of it but everyone involved turned out to be incredible ala Freaks and Geeks and Blind Faith? The Southern California Foodways never really took off — but Carlos Salgado got a Michelin star, Profe Oliver just came out with an incredible book about Japanese American car culture in L.A., Profe Josh is a USC bigwig, my honey’s Alta Baja is more vital than ever — and Profe Natalia?

She started at USC in 2018. She won a MacArthur genius grant in 2020. Her presentation turned into the wonderful A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community, which told the story of her family’s pioneering spot in Echo Park and was the first entry of Guti’s Fookin’ Ingrate Book Club, which you STILL don’t belong to but to which Profe Natalia does — so what’s YOUR excuse?

Profe Natalia is now one of the most beloved public intellectuals in Southern California, someone you’re as likely to find leading tours of LA for her students or catching a game at Dodger Stadium as you are in the pages of the Los Angeles Times and Zócalo Public Square with her personal-yet-profound essays. Vice president of the Organization of American Historians and slated to be the jefa de jefas of the august group next year.

After that 2017 meeting, the next time we talked was in 2019 for a story I did about how the Times has done so well covering Mexican food. And then somehow we just hit it off. We are faithful readers of each other’s work and text more often than not. I’ve been in conversation with her before audiences about three times already, although I’ve never had to answer her questions because I don’t draw crowds like Profe Natalia. I’m lucky enough to be invited to family gatherings, partly because her mom is such a huge fan of mine, and I was lucky enough to meet her older brother David at Phillipe’s before his untimely passing a few years ago — every bit the larger-than-life figure Profe Natalia makes him out to be in her essays.

She was the star of a previous canto whose number I can’t find right now and moonlighted in my columna written a week after the Altadena fires last year because she just happened to be there as I was ready to interview L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger because that’s the type of person Profe Natalia is — ready to help, ready to bear witness. Ready.

“Oh God, was that the last time we saw each other?” she remarked shortly after we sat down at Magnolia House in Pasadena this past week as I pregamed for a Vroman’s event that you didn’t go to.

I said most likely, but it sure didn’t seem like it.

“I read one of your recent cantos, and I can’t believe you didn’t know REO Speedwagon.”

“My music education was bifurcated! I knew all the KRLA and KRTH stuff growing up but I didn’t really listen to ‘70s rock until much later — my mami wouldn’t let me listen to that music.”

“Really?”

“She thought it was the devil’s music.”

There are lines you remember that you've written and the one that I wrote about her for Alta Journal — “She’s like that prima who made it who nevertheless shows up to more family carne asadas than not” — is as perfect of a summation of a person as I’ll ever type. Average height, stylish glasses, coiffed hair out of a 1960s girl group. She enjoyed her medium rare burger with fries while only leaving a small drop of Pinot Noir on the table is how bien portada she is.

Me? I left enough streaks of mustard, Tapatío and fry sauce while eating zucchini fritters to constitute Van Gogh’s palette.

Profe Natalia is working on a book about the Huntington Library’s Latino workers and other projects, but we really didn't talk about our professional life besides the niceties:

We just hung out.

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We talked about books we had read. We had read articles. We talked about how Latino politicians are “extra human” and how “prestidigitation” and “defenestrate” are such great words. She demanded my honey and I take a Pasadena weekend and volunteered to take care of Cosmo since she and her husband have their own old pup. Count us in!

There was another excuse to hang out besides me just being in the area: We both celebrate February birthdays.

I’m now 47. I offer no deep reflections at 47 the way I did at 45 (Canto CCCVII) which I can't believe is two years passed already, but one thing I am doing differently for my 47th is bringing back Birthday Month.

I tell everyone I really don't celebrate my birthday, which is absolutely true for personal reasons (hint: never try to throw a party for me again or I will walk out of it). But. In my early 20s, I never cared for gifts, but I did care for hanging out. I'd go from friend to friend and demand that they take me out to dinner on occasion of me living another year.

This is before I became a reporter in earnest and even then I was busy. I knew even then I had to make time for folks, especially as I was I knew my life was changing and a lot of the people that I hung out with then I probably wouldn't hang out with again.

The great thing is I still hang out with most of those people – or rather I still keep in contact and see them more often than that not for various reasons. But once I became a reporter, I might as well have become a member of a cloistered order.

I exaggerate, of course…and yet I don’t. Nor does Profe Natalia. She said she sometimes goes through a full year without seeing one of her USC faculty peers, so busy she is. She mentioned how she was at a recent conference and had to ask her comadre, UCLA history professor and fellow MacArthur genius chingona Kelly Lytle Hernández, if they had both gone to it and didn’t even see each other.

We both agreed that must stop now.

This year, I told my honey we need to hang out with someone at least once a month. Like hang out hang out. Enjoy each other’s company. Don’t be rushed. As I always tell my honey, just do that stuff.

Quick lunch isn’t enough, or drinks. Hang out. Now, more than ever, enjoy the good to charge you up to confront the bad.

I thought I was only going to spend an hour with Profe Natalia. Nah, we hung out for an hour and a half and would’ve done more if not for me having to do my Vroman’s thing. Happy birthday to us!

When the bill came, I of course was going to pay for it, partly because our server handed it to me. Profe Natalia — who, ever mindful of workers asked the server how many steps she usually takes on a shift; the answer was 10,000 — seemed like she was gonna fight me for a second and then thought of something better.

“OK, you can pay,” Profe Natalia said, “but that means we have to celebrate our birthdays every year and I get to pay next time.”

Happy birthdays to us.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: My parking pass at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute –— better known as OLLI — at Cal State Fullerton, where I spoke at for my birthday morning — or rather, I answered questions about WHATEVER. Went fast!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “If you have an opportunity to accomplish something that will make things better for someone coming behind you, and you don’t do that, you are wasting your time on this earth — Roberto Clemente

LISTENING: “More Today Than Yesterday,” The Spiral Starecase. One of those songs that you hear forever and don’t really hate but don’t really care for — but when you listen, you realize how singular and even brilliant it is. The horns, the slow-burn vocals, a slight goofiness — but it works AND it’s a Hook and Cosmo song! 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: “Chicago’s Essential Dive Bars: The History And Legacy Of 14 Iconic Watering Holes”: Block Club Chicago is a great Chicagoland nonprofit news agency that did essential work during it’s long migra summer and continues to do so. But it also doesn’t allow government ghouls to derail its mission of telling local stories and people in all their beauty. They just did a great explainer on Chicago’s black drinking lounges, but I’m sharing an earlier effort that started in 2024 and continued through 2025 about the city’s deep booze history. Would love to get borracho at some of these one of these years…HA!

Gustavo Events  

Feb. 28:, 4 p.m.: I’m going to be doing…something…for Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble’s annual fundraiser. Last year, I got folks to donate money AND got two cantos out of the experience, so you KNOW it’s going to be good. Tickets start at $80, but don’t be a cheapskate — now, more than ever, we need art so RSVP TODAY. Will start at 4 p.m. and will be at my honey’s Alta Baja Market, 201 E. Fourth St., Ste. 101, Santa Ana.

March 29, 7 p.m.: So remember in the winter of 2024 when I said I was going to be a part of an incredible recital of medieval Nahuatl Christmas songs and urged ustedes to go — and only Guti Gang co-enforcer Diane went? You’re lucky, because Jouyssance, the Southern California choral group that focuses on songs from before the Renaissance, is staging Spirit Child again — and this time, it’s FOR FREE. At Drinkward Recital Hall at Harvey Mudd College, 320 E. Foothill Blvd, Claremont — more info here.

Gustavo in the News

Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation: Mexican American Grassroots Politics and Civil Rights in Orange County, California: My work is cited in an important new book by BYU profe David-James Gonzales, whom I hope to host at Alta Baja soon!

American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate: My work is cited in an important new book by New York Times writer Eric Lichtbau about the subject at hand.

“Letters to the Editor: Is Stephen Miller truly the worst of the Trump administration?”: Los Angeles Times readers take issue with a columna of mine.

“Spoken Word Champion David A. Romero Launches Debut Novel at Vroman’s”: Another plug for another event of mine that you missed.

“In Defense of Getting Over Your Skis”: Peter Murrieta, The Most Important Chicano in Hollywood You Don’t Know®, plugs me after I plugged him.

Gustavo Stories 

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

“O.C. students in red districts protest ICE”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about walkouts in…Mission Viejo?!

"ICE-Out Protests in LA w/ LA Times’ Gustavo Arellano, plus Capital B’s Adam Mahoney on Impact of Freezing Temps”: I appear on KPFA’s Law & Disorder (also airs on KPFK) to talk migra in LA.

“I got a colonoscopy for my 47th birthday. And the results...”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks about something all people my age need to check ASAP. KEY QUOTE: “In November, my doctor gently reprimanded me for ignoring my 2024 colonoscopy date. Fine. Two days at home and a columna out of it? It’s a living.”

“I got a colonoscopy for my 47th birthday. And the results...”: The video version of my columna. IMPORTANT NOTE: The colon seen in this video is NOT my colon. Even I must keep some things private!

“Petty Trump spikes football over nearly 200-year-old Mexican-American War”: My next latest L.A. Times columna talks about one of the president’s latest tantrum. KEY QUOTE: “Like the pharaohs and emperors of antiquity, the president weaponizes the past to justify his present actions and future plans, omitting and embellishing events of yesteryear to fit a bellicose agenda.”

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