Elson Trinidad
Website:
About Me:
Elson Trinidad is the Filipino kid who grew up listening to black music in an Armenian neighborhood where people spoke Spanish and ate Thai food. A native Angeleno with a penchant for creativity and community, his weapons of choice include a microphone, a piano, a laptop, and a shovel.
Writes the "Transpacific Routes" column on the waves and currents of So Cal's Asian/Pacific Islander communities, and the "Concrete and Chaparral" column on our local urban and native ecosystems.
Favorite KCET Show:
Huell, Globe Trekker, NHK Newsline's weather forecast when they play that soothing song.
Twitter:
Google Plus:
Facebook:
Subscribe To:
My KCET.org Activities
-
The ethnic restaurants that dot SoCal are perhaps the most prominent ways that people can either introduce themselves to a certain culture, or for others to maintain their own cultural ties. But just as visible on the streets are the presence of ethnic supermarkets.
-
Posted Fighting the Food Desert, in the Desert: Sustainable Agriculture Comes to the Owens Valley
in The Back FortyFood deserts are not exclusive to the urban setting of the congested, polluted concrete jungle. -
Perhaps one of the solutions to Los Angeles' illegal street vending problem lies in an example set over four decades ago in a city some 9,000 miles away.
-
Los Angeles, a city known for its Hollywood stars, and a region home to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and an aerospace industry, is, ironically, a place where actual stars can hardly be seen.
-
For most travelers, airports are merely utilitarian structures, facilities for processing and more. But for those who send-off or greet travelers, airports are places of tearful farewells, cheerful reunions, and every other kind of emotion in between.
-
In this urban, seemingly over-paved environment, hummingbirds are an indicator species.
-
Though Asian Americans aren't totally above making up phonetic pun jokes of our own, actual names of Asian origin, particularly family names, are much more than just random monosyllabic noises -- they have actual meanings.
-
What we city dwellers consider the urban environment is a paved layer that we exist upon: A man-made surface of concrete, cement, masonry, and asphalt, intended to cover and conceal the natural surface at every opportunity.
-
In a city that prides itself on its cultural diversity, its legislative body is currently comprised of eight whites, three Latinos, and three African Americans. And zero of Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry.
-
Imagine setting aside several months of your life, free from the rat race, free from the daily commute, free from paying the bills, free from the oppressive bonds of daily commitments, and trading it all for discovery and adventure.
-
For the uninitiated, "wetlands" might seem like a mere eco-buzzword, but up until nearly a century and a half ago, coastal and inland wetlands were common features in the Southern California landscape.
-
Whenever I mentioned to friends and family that I was going to Hong Kong, I would often hear, "Don't forget to visit the Night Market.
-
I love noise. Or at least, I thought I did. Here, buffered by mountains and distance, the great urban lion has been hushed.
-
The multi-city Greater Little Saigon area in Orange County now boasts some 2,000 businesses and a population of some 125,000 residents of Vietnamese descent.
-
For it has been 110 years after the state legislature made official its status as The Golden State's flower that I had finally been successful at growing them en masse.
-
Dear Long Beach Transit: Hope you read this article. So how about a direct shuttle bus service from the Blue Line Wardlow station to LGB?...
-
I improvised my presentation by engaging in a discussion about current social media practices here. But somewhere in the discussion, I went off on a not-too-irrelevant tangent and unexpectedly landed on the topic of Asian American identity.
-
Having grown up just a few miles away, the park has been part of my life since I was an infant. I thought I knew Griffith Park, yet there was much more left to discover.
-
What is certain will be our demographics: Los Angeles County's population will be predominately Latino and Asian.
-
A place that many deride as "The Hood" or "The Ghetto" can still yield the most pleasant surprises.
-
The purpose of the video at UC Irvine was innocent enough -- that is, until one of the members performed in blackface.
-
Libraries are learning institutions. Albeit indirectly, I learned about California native plants through my local library, and the learning continues today.
-
The team only stopped wearing the names on the backs of their jerseys for two seasons (the minimum required time for a uniform change). I hope you're aware that Davey Lopes is back with the team, this time as their...
-
Long Beach resident and community organizer Marin Yann has decided, after an entire decade of writing about it, to tell his story.
-
Do yourself a favor, and go to the Owens River Valley to see where your water actually originates.
-
Only in America could people whose heritage hails from within and around the world's largest continent be considered a single demographic group.
-
It was 425 years ago on this day that the first Filipinos arrived in what is now the United States on a Spanish galleon near Morro Bay, CA -- some 33 years before Pilgrims from England arrived at Plymouth Rock.
-
Ryan Suda, owner of Torrance-based Asian American t-shirt company Blacklava. | Photo: Elson Trinidad "I SPEAK ENGLISH." "GOOD ASIAN DRIVER." "I SUCK AT MATH." "I WILL NOT LOVE YOU LONG TIME." These are all satirical phrases boldly emblazoned on t-shirts...
-
Singapore had the exact problem we had back in the 1950s-1960s; illegal food vending was rampant, ubiquitous, yet still in demand by the public. They solved the problem by establishing outdoor food courts known as "hawker centres" which contain sanitation...
-
Tucked away in northern Hawthorne, a small but active Tongan community flourishes like nowhere else in the Southland.
Recent Actions from Elson Trinidad
-
Dear Long Beach Transit: Hope you read this article. So how about a direct shuttle bus service from the Blue Line Wardlow station to LGB?...
-
The team only stopped wearing the names on the backs of their jerseys for two seasons (the minimum required time for a uniform change). I hope you're aware that Davey Lopes is back with the team, this time as their...
-
Singapore had the exact problem we had back in the 1950s-1960s; illegal food vending was rampant, ubiquitous, yet still in demand by the public. They solved the problem by establishing outdoor food courts known as "hawker centres" which contain sanitation...
-
Ethnic communities are actually named so more due to nationality and linguistics than solely ethnicity per se -- it's only because for the most part, nationality and ethnicity are interchangeable terms when it comes to immigrant groups. Case in point:...
-
What's also interesting about the Balikbayan Box is that other immigrant cultures have adopted their own version of it; at LAX, I see passengers bound for Guatemala or El Salvador check in large cardboard cubes -- packed in packing tape...
-
Commented on Filipinos are the Minority in Historic Filipinotown and L.A.'s Japanese Population in Steady Decline
in Land of SunshineTrue, but this situation is hardly unique to Historic Filipinotown. Koreatown's population is only 33% Asian (and that statistic also includes Filipinos, Chinese, Bangladeshis and Mongolians *in addition to* Koreans). Thai Town's population is majority Latino and Armenian. So statistically... -
In theory, I think every Angeleno would support a larger city council that represents more districts in the city with a smaller individual populace. In practice, though, the assumed cost of additional field offices, staff, expenses and councilmember salaries (even...
-
CicLAvia is many things to many people, but the biggest thing that makes me smile are the sight of parents walking or biking in the middle of the street alongside their smiling young children in small bikes with training wheels....
Responses to Comments from Elson Trinidad
No recommendations yet.
-
The ethnic restaurants that dot SoCal are perhaps the most prominent ways that people can either introduce themselves to a certain culture, or for others to maintain their own cultural ties. But just as visible on the streets are the presence of ethnic supermarkets.
-
Posted Fighting the Food Desert, in the Desert: Sustainable Agriculture Comes to the Owens Valley
in The Back FortyFood deserts are not exclusive to the urban setting of the congested, polluted concrete jungle. -
Perhaps one of the solutions to Los Angeles' illegal street vending problem lies in an example set over four decades ago in a city some 9,000 miles away.
-
Los Angeles, a city known for its Hollywood stars, and a region home to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and an aerospace industry, is, ironically, a place where actual stars can hardly be seen.
-
For most travelers, airports are merely utilitarian structures, facilities for processing and more. But for those who send-off or greet travelers, airports are places of tearful farewells, cheerful reunions, and every other kind of emotion in between.
-
In this urban, seemingly over-paved environment, hummingbirds are an indicator species.
-
Though Asian Americans aren't totally above making up phonetic pun jokes of our own, actual names of Asian origin, particularly family names, are much more than just random monosyllabic noises -- they have actual meanings.
-
What we city dwellers consider the urban environment is a paved layer that we exist upon: A man-made surface of concrete, cement, masonry, and asphalt, intended to cover and conceal the natural surface at every opportunity.
-
In a city that prides itself on its cultural diversity, its legislative body is currently comprised of eight whites, three Latinos, and three African Americans. And zero of Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry.
-
Imagine setting aside several months of your life, free from the rat race, free from the daily commute, free from paying the bills, free from the oppressive bonds of daily commitments, and trading it all for discovery and adventure.
