KCRW’s Oral History Project Sonic Trace Presents Sonic Profiles

10 Short Interviews Tell the Stories of Los Angeles

Tune into KCRW’s Morning Edition this holiday season for a series of short stories produced by the Sonic Trace team. Sonic Trace, the oral history project that begins in the heart of Los Angeles and crosses into Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras will air short features gathered from immigrants all over Los Angeles in La Burbuja or “The Bubble,” Sonic Trace’s portable sound booth.

The series begins on Monday, Dec. 24 and runs through Friday, Jan. 4. Each piece will air at 7:00am PST and can also be heard on the Sonic Trace Blog and the Sonic Trace SoundCloud page.

Sonic Profiles begins with 42-year-old Aldo Velasco who was born in Mexico. Aldo talks about having a ‘gringa’ mother and a Mexican father and he tells the tale of their impromptu departure of his home country.

Mercedes Moreno who emigrated from El Salvador to Los Angeles 36 years ago. She came working as a babysitter, and in the process became a mother. Mercedes is one of the hundred of thousands of Salvadoreans who fled a brutal civil war that killed 75,000 and displaced more than one million people. She shares her story of arrival.

These are just a few examples of stories audiences will hear over the next two weeks. See the full schedule below:

Dec. 26
Guest: Octavio Oilvas
Description: Octavio Olivas is from Mexico City. His wife is American, and they live in LA. Before getting married, he got a taste of Texas hospitality on a trip into the US from Mexico.

Dec. 27
Guest: Norma Medina
Description: Silverlake resident Norma Medina talks about her picturesque childhood in Mexico, and the culture shock she experienced when she was taken to live with her Aunt and Uncle in their ‘Brady Bunch’ house in California.

Dec. 28
Guest: Eric Garcetti
Description: Fourth-generation Angeleno and City Councilman Eric Garcetti talks about growing up in Los Angeles, the ultimate mestizo culture.

Dec. 31
Guest: Gustavo Arellano
Description: OC Weekly editor and KCRW contributor Gustavo Arellano talks about the romanticism vs. the realism of the rancho.

Jan. 1
Guest: Paulina Lopez
Description: Being a teenager is hard enough, but for Paulina Lopez, it was especially hard. Her family moved from Oaxaca, Mexico to Los Angeles when she was 12, forcing her to learn a new language, new culture, and make new friends.

Jan. 2
Guest: Janet Lopez
Description: 35 -year-old Janet Lopez tells the unlikely story of how her parents met. “They were Match.com before Match.com existed.”

Jan. 3
Guest: Teresa de Jesus Rivera
Description: Teresa de Jesus Rivera was born in the small town in California. Her parents came to the US from Sinaloa, Mexico in the 1950’s. Their job? Picking produce in the fields of Delano, CA. Her family went on to make history in the early days of the United Farm Workers movement of the 1960s.

Jan. 4
Guest: Raul Campos
Description: KCRW DJ Raul Campos talks about his parents’ home in the Maravilla projects in East LA, and how many of his high school peers were phonetically challenged when it came to pronouncing his name.

Be sure to hear these stories and more from Sonic Trace. Sonic Trace is also part of Localore, a nationwide initiative of AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio, and funded by CPB. Interactive design is produced by Zeega.

For more information on Sonic Trace you can visit the Sonic Trace Blog. For more information on KCRW please visit www.kcrw.com.

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