MacArthur Park Media tells stories set in and around the immigrant portal that is the MacArthur Park neighborhood in Los Angeles. This is the first America many new immigrants see, the place where they begin to assimilate or not. The way that the immigrants shape America is in many ways determined by how neighborhoods like this one first shape them.
The news stories we report explore the institutions, economies, cultures, and subcultures that define this particular point of welcome: fake IDs and the men who make them, mobile dental clinics, storefront churches, slumlords, tamaleros on the run and the future of bilingual education in California.
We live in the neighborhood we report on with a family from Mexico, in their entryway. We pay rent and they help us with our Spanish; we also eat tostadas together, watch telenovelas, go on sundays to Pentecostal church under a tarp with fluorescent lighting and a full band. We live life together. Our own personal narrative about this experience is posted at The Entryway. They are separate from our news stories which will publish on Spot.Us in coming months or for our editorial partners. We do not receive grants or foundation support. All contributions are much appreciated!
Devin Browne grew up 12 miles from MacArthur Park in a small suburb known nationally for its natural disasters. (Fires, mudslides, and earthquakes, mainly). She moved to the Westlake/MacArthur Park neighborhood in early 2008 and started reporting on how and where the American experience now starts shortly thereafter with the launch of MacArthur Park Media in 2009. Her stories from this area and elsewhere have aired on Marketplace, The Environment Report, and KPCC, Southern California Public Radio. She also has written for LA Weekly. Years ago, she lived with families in bomas in Africa, Brahman villages in India and squatter settlements in Mexico, but this is the first time she’s ever studied abroad at home and/or lived in an entryway.
Kara Mears was born in a blizzard in 1984. She grew up the ninth generation of her family to reside in the small seaside, shipbuilding town of Essex, Massachusetts. Since then, she studied photojournalism at Emerson College and at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, and photographed renegade urban gardeners, mothers of a dozen, professional hula-hoopers, and ex-cons with dreams of convenience stores in mid-coast Maine.
All of our pieces will include photography and text. We also plan to produce some stories on film, some with designers/animators (for purposes of anonymity), and some with audio and soundscapes. Our goal is to partner with high-quality/high-caliber news outlets who will distribute our stories to the most amount of people possible.
