California Today: In Persian Square, Anxious Over the Travel Ban
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Version 0 of 1. Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.) Adeel Hassan, a reporter based in New York, provides today’s introduction. The uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration’s executive order on immigration can be felt across California, especially in the cluster of kebab houses and Iranian-American businesses known as Little Tehran or Persian Square in Los Angeles, home to the world’s largest Iranian diaspora. The latest order, which was blocked on Wednesday, would have imposed a 90-day ban on citizens from Iran and five other predominantly Muslim countries from traveling to the U.S. The original ban, issued in January, was ultimately blocked by a federal appeals court. The chaos over the ban’s rollout has put into flux travel plans ahead of the most important Iranian cultural holiday, Nowruz. The 13-day secular celebration of the Persian New Year begins on the first day of spring, which is Monday. Nowruz (pronounced NO-rooz) dates back thousands of years to the old Iranian solar calendar. It’s a part of the cycle of planting and harvesting and renewal. “There is lots of anxiety in the community,” said Peyman Malaz, program manager in the Los Angeles office of Pars Equality Center, an Iranian-American advocacy group. “Everyone is terrified actually. Everything is uncertain.” Southern California has the nation’s biggest concentration of Iranian-Americans, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. They arrived here nearly 40 years ago, after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, in search of social, political and religious freedom. Many of them have family members back in their homeland, and fears of traveling are preventing some of them from reuniting, dampening a holiday centered on family, gifts and joy. If you, your family or friends are members of the Iranian community and are affected by the havoc caused by the travel bans, we’d like to hear from you. Please email us at catoday@nytimes.com. (Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.) • Russian agents were behind a criminal conspiracy that stole data on 500 million Yahoo accounts, officials said. [The New York Times] • How Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Huntington Beach Republican, became a leading defender of Russia. [Los Angeles Times] • Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was found guilty of obstructing a federal investigation. [The New York Times] • Immigration agents have been lurking at courthouses to arrest people in the country illegally. [Los Angeles Times] • Fremont declared itself a “sanctuary city.” [East Bay Times] • Adam B. Schiff, a Democratic congressman from Los Angeles, has emerged as an unexpected face of resistance to the Trump administration. [New Yorker] • “We are not backing down.” California is poised to pursue tougher car pollution rules. [Reuters] • “I think this is justice,” said a Los Angeles County judge as she threw out the murder conviction of a man who spent 32 years behind bars. [Los Angeles Times] • A mob tore through a carnival in Oakland, stealing $30,000 worth of stuffed animals and other prizes. [KRON] • At Indian Wells, the underdog Nick Kyrgios stunned Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer conquered Rafael Nadal. [The New York Times] • Royal Robbins died at his home in Modesto. The rock climbing pioneer was a powerful advocate for clean climbing. He was 82. [The New York Times] • San Francisco was well represented among the nominees for the 2017 James Beard awards, the culinary honors. [San Francisco Chronicle] • ... So was Los Angeles. [Los Angeles Times] • After decades of false starts, Orson Welles’s final opus is closer to being completed. [The New York Times] • Slide Show: After 10 years in New York, a photographer moved back to her Los Angeles hometown — with a critical eye. [The New York Times] • The Museum of Tolerance, in Los Angeles, draws on Holocaust narratives to inspire hard discussions about present-day prejudice. [The New York Times] As lookouts go, Peñon Peak is hard to beat. The perch in the Santa Lucia Mountains offers 360-degree views — Santa Cruz to the north, Carmel Valley to the east, Big Sur to the south, and Carmel Bay to the west. That’s why it was chosen to host a fire lookout station for many years. William Guion, a reader, shared an image he captured of Peñon Peak at sunrise in late 2015. The small structure atop the crest, on the left side of the photo, is the Sid Ormsbee Fire Lookout, built in 1948. Named after a ranger from Santa Cruz who died in World War II, it was used as a live-in fire station overlooking the Monterey Peninsula until the mid-1980s. Access, sadly, is limited. Peñon Peak, along with 20,000 surrounding acres, is part of Santa Lucia Preserve, a gated community that doubles as a natural preserve. Mr. Guion, 66, said you can sometimes get permission to enter, as he did, from the Santa Lucia Conservancy, which cares for the natural lands. Or, you could just buy a home there — prices are upward of $4 million. Want to submit a photo for possible publication? You can do it here. California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a third-generation Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley. |