Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, covering Southern California everything and a bunch of the West and beyond. He was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary and the Mike Royko Award for Commentary and Column Writing and was part of the team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News for reporting on a leaked audio recording that upended Los Angeles politics. Arellano previously worked at OC Weekly, where he was an investigative reporter for 15 years and editor for six, wrote a column called ?Ask a Mexican! and is the author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.” He’s the child of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.
Latest From This Author
Your morning catch-up: Echoes of Eisenhower’s immigration dragnet, SoCal’s atmospheric river storm and more big stories.
Your morning catch-up: The deportation machine learned in L.A., then went to Chicago; Democrats face flak for ending the shutdown and more big stories.
- Voices
Arellano: In Chicago, residents mount a community-wide defense against Trump’s deportation machine
Over the past two months, ICE has swept throughout Chicago but has swung its hammer with gusto on Little Village, considered the Mexican heart of the city.
- Voices
Arellano: From the ballot box to the streets, Latinos are blowing the whistle on Trump’s reign
Election Night was a humiliating rebuke of Trumpism. And the tip of the Democratic spear? Latinos.
- Voices
Arellano: From far away, an L.A. couple grapples with all-too-familiar debate after Dodgers win
In Madison, she long wore a Dodgers sweatshirt emblazoned with the Mexican flag that Sims bought for her because “it was a way to represent home. But not anymore.”
One shudders to think what Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino thinks is excessive for la migra. With his powers now radically expanded, we’re about to find out.
A lifelong baseball fan, 75-year-old Conrado Contreras lost his memory last year after a heart attack and mild stroke. Now his love of the sport is back, just in time.