Latest news with #MexicanAmerican
Boston Globe
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Stop tone policing protesters
Which brings me to all the protester policing happening in America these days. Advertisement I'm not talking about the literal policing — including thousands of National Guard members and hundreds of Marines deployed to American streets by President Trump — of protesters. I'm referring to this weird tone policing of people for what they're wearing or carrying at protests against Trump's unconstitutional mass deportations and his other odious policies. Not long after people took to the streets earlier this month in opposition to workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in and around Los Angeles, there were complaints about some protesters carrying Mexican flags. 'I think the visuals of carrying [Mexican flags] are terrible, honestly,' Advertisement Kinzinger, who was one of only two Republicans on the Democratic House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, is certainly no Trump fanboy. But he, and others with similar beliefs, are the ones playing into Trump's narrative that there's only one way to be an American. They seem to believe that the optics of another nation's flag at a protest against the Trump administration is as harmful as families and communities upended by swarms of people with covered faces who look and act more like kidnappers than government agents. It's a handy distraction that Republicans are only too happy to amplify as a means to shift focus away from the monstrous anti-immigration policies crafted by When Republicans call protesters 'insurrectionists,' as 'I hold the Mexican flag with pride because I'm Mexican American and I'm proud of my culture and my people,' protester Advertisement Trump is recklessly trying to detain and deport as many immigrants as he can as fast as he can. He's threatening to expand a travel ban to an But there's also this — people fighting for their rights and challenging a fascistic government do not have time for someone else's idea of respectability. As Kepner said in 'Before Stonewall,' asserting one's whole self is the only path forward. If someone holding the flag of another nation at an anti-ICE protest is all it takes to convince someone that that person or those they represent are less deserving of fair treatment, then those offended never cared about the rights of others in the first place. Equality isn't won by conformity or putting someone else's fragility and comfort ahead of your own rights. Freedom isn't pretending to be someone other than who you are to gain acceptance. Regardless of what flag they wave, protesters are only demanding that this nation live up to the red, white, and blue values of its own. This is an excerpt from , a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham. . Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
Daily Tribune
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Tribune
Eva Longoria explores ‘family heritage' on Searching for Spain
Bang Showbiz | Los Angeles Eva Longoria learned more about her 'Spanish heritage' while shooting her new documentary. The 50-year-old actress previously explored the culture and food of Mexico on 'Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico', her 2023 documentary series - but Eva admits that she learned much more about her own family heritage while filming the follow-up series, 'Eva Longoria: Searching for Spain'. The Hollywood star - who has Mexican and Spanish ancestry - told Byrdie: 'I'm Mexican American and I always felt at home in Mexico. I knew [the country] and learned even more while doing 'Searching for Mexico'. 'But my dad had always said we were also from Spain. I used to say, 'No, we're not.' Then I took a DNA test, and it was confirmed.' Eva jumped at the chance to film a follow-up series in Spain, and it proved to be hugely informative for the actress. She said: 'When CNN wanted to do the next season, I said, 'We should do Spain because my ancestors are from Spain.' Shooting 'Searching for Spain' was different, though, because I didn't know [the country] as well. 'In this series, you'll see that my questions are genuine and my curiosity is heightened. I was excited to learn more about my Spanish heritage.' Eva loves that she has such a personal connection to the new documentary series.
Eater
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Eater
Thomas Bille of Belly and the Beast Takes Home James Beard Award for Best Chef: Texas
On June 16, the winners of the 'Oscars of food,' as the James Beard Awards have been called, were announced. From Houston, the sole winner is Thomas Bille at Belly of the Beast in the Best Chef: Texas category. Bille tells deeply personal stories through his cooking, unraveling his family history and formative years living in Los Angeles. The restaurant began as a pop-up in 2018 and later opened as a counter-service restaurant in Old Town Spring in February 2020. COVID impacted the nation the following month, and in 2021 Bille was forced to close Belly of the Beast after a dispute over increased rent with the landlord. It reopened at its current location in 2023. The menu at Belly of the Beast combines his Mexican American heritage, French culinary training, and family memories into dishes that are personal, playful, and genre-defying. Previously, Belly of the Beast earned a Bib Gourmond at the first-ever Texas Michelin Awards ceremony. The 2025 nominees for Houston included Ema for Best New Restaurant; March for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program; and Emmanuel Chavez at Tatemó in the Best Chef: Texas category. Each year, the James Beard Foundation recognizes restaurants, bars, and hospitality professionals in categories such as Outstanding Restaurant, Best Chef, and Best New Chef. The first James Beard Awards ceremony was held in 1991, when chefs such as Rick Bayless, Nancy Silverton, and Wolfgang Puck emerged as winners. In recent years, the awards have been under increased scrutiny following the cancellation of its programming in 2020 and 2021 due to allegations of misbehavior and abuse against nominated chefs, as well as a lack of nominated and winning Black chefs in the categories. In response, the James Beard Foundation conducted an internal audit to make its voting processes more inclusive and equitable, with plans to return in 2022. In recent years, the awards have shifted the Best Chef category to a regional model to better recognize the diversity and depth of talent. Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Foundation Awards. See More:
Eater
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Eater
How a James Beard Award-winning Texas Chef Is Reshaping New American Cuisine in the Houston Suburbs
Chef Thomas Bille doesn't just serve food — he tells stories. At Belly of the Beast, the intimate restaurant he runs in Spring, Texas, with his wife Elizabeth, Bille combines his Mexican American heritage, French culinary training, and family memories into dishes that are personal, playful, and genre-defying. From caviar-topped empanadas to birria tacos with crisp, cheese-laced edges, the menu is a heartfelt mash-up of fine dining and home cooking — and it's earned him both a Bib Gourmand nod from the Michelin Guide and a James Beard Foundation Award, which he won on June 16 at the Beards awards ceremony in Chicago. Bille's passion for food and fusion started early, inspired by his parents, who cooked often. His father, once chef of a French bistro who worked his way up from dishwasher, rarely took the family out to eat — 'unless it was for Chinese food or Pizza Hut,' he says. Instead, Bille tagged along at work, with cooks slipping him filet mignon and lobster Thermidor from the line. By age 10, he was cooking for himself, making French toast, eggs, and pepperoni grilled cheeses. Years later, as a single dad, he enrolled in culinary school, graduating at the top of his class before landing jobs catering and serving as the chef for top Los Angeles restaurants, Qantas Airways, and hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott. After serving as executive chef at Los Angeles's storied restaurant Otium and staging at Michelin-starred spots, Bille, Elizabeth, and their three kids relocated to Texas in search of a neighborhood with better schools, a lower cost of living, and the possibility of opening their own restaurant. The Billes first launched Belly of the Beast as a pop-up in 2018. The name was inspired by Bille's hectic experiences in hotel kitchens where the kitchen team easily cooked for more than 500 people a night. 'We'd say, 'Man, we're in the belly of the beast now,' Bille says. 'I thought, 'This would be a really cool name for a restaurant,' and I ran with it.' In February 2020, the Bille's opened a 24-seat counter-service spot in a converted house in Old Town Spring. Weeks later, though, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The Billes quickly pivoted, serving family meals to-go and offering outdoor seating. Still, a landlord dispute over the space's increasing rent resulted in the Billes closing Belly of the Beast in mid-2021. After a stint at the now-closed Chivos, where Bille launched a nixtamalized masa program, the couple reopened Belly of the Beast in November 2023 inside a humble strip mall — this time, on their own terms. Now, Bille is free to write what he calls a love letter to diners and his past. The menu includes odes to his Mexican American upbringing, Baja cuisine, and his eldest daughter's Persian-Armenian heritage. There's summery street corn agnolotti that combines the comfort of homemade pasta and elote flavors; birria tacos with cheesy, crisped edges and salsa rojo; a yam dish with tortillas that tastes like Mexican Thanksgiving on a plate; and potato empanadas with a silky mashed potato-Comte cheese filling. 'Everything's personal and coming from my heart and soul. What I serve here, you can't get it anywhere else but here,' he says. Defining the Belly of the Beast's cuisine can be difficult. The Billes call it New American but through the lens of a first-generation Mexican American who spoke Spanish at home, honored family customs, and immersed himself in diverse cuisines while growing up in Los Angeles. Simply put, it's his upbringing on a plate, he says. 'It's Mexican ingredients and Mexican techniques,' he says. 'But it's my own version of things.' As with many of his other dishes, Bille reached back into his past to conceive the potato empanadas, which draw inspiration from papas con queso and his mother's taco gorditos, hard-shelled crispy tacos filled with meat, cheese, crema, and lettuce. 'It's a delicacy that I and other children of immigrants eat,' he says. 'How can I elevate this humble dish?' Bille says he channeled his experience working for French chefs by making a nouveau version of pommes aligot, folding Comte cheese into mashed potatoes for a silky filling that is piled onto masa. His mother then molds those potato-packed masa pockets into empanadas and fries them. Similar to caviar service, Bille serves the empanadas with a side of crème fraiche, caviar, and chives. The street corn agnolotti, a Belly of the Beast fan favorite, nods to the esquites of Bille's youth — corn on the cob or sweet kernels in a cup served warm with mayo, cheese, lime, and chili powder. He transforms that memory into delicate agnolotti filled with sweet corn, glazed in a corn broth-butter emulsion, and topped with cotija, roasted kernels, and a homemade Tajin-influenced seasoning that uses his secret combination of dried chiles, lime zest, and powder. 'It's an elevated version of what I grew up eating — corn in a cup but pasta,' he says. The dish is only on the menu during summer, when corn is sweet and in season, making it a fleeting pleasure that's earned a cult-following. When Bille moved to the Houston area around six years ago, he says the city was a bit behind on the birria taco. The quesabirra wave had already hit Los Angeles starting in 2015, with places like Teddy's Red Tacos taking inspiration from Baja California. But for Bille, it was more than a trend. 'I grew up with birria being made with goat,' he says. 'I've been making birria all my life. We'd have a big giant pot every two months.' Bille says he started making the birria in a crockpot, stuffing it with Oaxaca and Chihuahua cheeses that would melt over the sides, creating crispy, laced edges. He debuted the dish at pop-ups and it quickly became a local favorite. From his original opening in February 2020 to the closing in June 2021, Bille estimates he sold 16,000 birria tacos. 'I made 98 percent of those personally,' says Bille, a tiring feat that made him want to take them off the menu entirely. Elizabeth encouraged him not to, and today, birria tacos are still a Belly of the Beast staple. Bille creates a paste from adobo, charred tomato, guajillo, Mexican chiles, cumin, allspice, clove, bay leaves, and other warm spices that he rubs onto a combination of beef cuts, including chuck roll and beef shank. The beef is marinated overnight and then pre-roasted in broth from the previous batch and cooked low and slow for at least four hours until the meat grows tender falls apart. Bille assembles the taco, stuffing homemade tortillas with the beef and cheese and frying them to create the signature cheese crust before it gets served with onions, cilantro, a salsa rojo, and a side of broth for dipping. Evolved from a highly guarded recipe, Bille compares this seasonal dish to Mexican Thanksgiving on a plate. 'In L.A., everybody had a yam taco, but they weren't great,' says Bille, so he created his own. Similar to preparation for a candied yam, Bille peels and purees yams before combining them with butter, maple syrup, piloncillo Mexican brown sugar, lime, and sea salt. He then packs the yam mixture into a tortilla and garnishes the taco with an earthy almond salsa macha, queso fresco, and chicken cracklings for textural contrast. The dish sold out at an event, with 700 tacos consumed that night alone. That same recipe lives on at Belly of the Beast, with the special That's My Yam plated and served with a side of tortillas during the fall. Though Bille considers himself more of a savory chef, he's given his take on one of the most iconic Latin desserts — the tres leches. The cake itself, made from a sponge cake batter, is soaked in milk, heavy cream, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and a splash of vanilla. The cake then gets topped with meringue, made from egg whites and passion fruit juice for a bright tartness, and torched for an added layer of flavor that Bille compares to burnt marshmallow. 'The char creates a nuance that cuts through the sweet and creates this bite,' he says. 'It's a pretty damn good tres leches.' See More:
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Letters to the Editor: Dodgers fans voice their disappointment over team's silence on ICE raids
To the editor: I would like to thank columnist Dylan Hernandez for his piece on the Dodgers' silence as Los Angeles remains under occupation ('Cowardly Dodgers remain silent as ICE raids terrorize their fans,' June 14). This is an abomination. I say this as a native Angeleno and lifelong Dodgers fan. Like Dodger Stadium itself, I was born in 1962. I attended games before Fernando Valenzuela's arrival and can say unequivocally that he changed the Dodgers for the better, making it a team for the whole city and making the fan experience far more vibrant and entertaining. For 45 years, the Dodgers have benefited from the spirit and the income stream that the Mexican American and immigrant communities have given them. During last fall's victory parade, we heard a lot about how the Los Angeles fans, without exception, contributed to the World Series win. Hernandez is exactly right. The Dodgers' silence is a terrible betrayal of their fans' dedication and support. My heart broke a little Saturday to see so many Dodgers caps and apparel at the Whittier 'No Kings' rally. In a better world, the Dodgers would encourage the use of their caps as a sign of solidarity among Angelenos and against the forces trying to destroy our city. Lori Davies, Brea .. To the editor: I want to sincerely thank Hernandez for this recent column. His words cut through the noise, calling out the hypocrisy that many have chosen to ignore for far too long. But I also write to ask that we remember this violence didn't begin with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Before federal agents targeted our neighborhoods with raids — and before the Dodgers organization chose to visit President Trump at the White House — this same corporation played a direct role in the forcible removal and destruction of three thriving Mexican American communities: Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop. My family, the Arechigas, was among those violently displaced to make way for the stadium. This wasn't just a corporate land grab — it was a coordinated act between the city of Los Angeles and the Dodgers organization. Together, they demolished our homes and erased our communities. The Dodgers continue to profit off the land through promotions and nostalgia, all while ignoring our calls for reparations and the return of generational wealth. The continued use of 'Chavez Ravine' only deepens that erasure — obscuring the truth that Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop were our homes. To this day, our families continue to demand justice, public acknowledgment and meaningful reparations for what was taken — our homes, our land and our history. The current silence around ICE raids is painful, but for us, it is not new. It's a continuation of the same disregard that began in the 1950s and has never truly ended. Melissa Arechiga, Los Angeles .. To the editor: The Dodgers could make an impact by marching up to an ICE facility in their team uniforms and demanding that ICE (and the Marines and National Guard) leave. Such a demonstration would be impossible for Trump to ignore and could help lead to a withdrawal of the forces now terrorizing our community. At the very least, it could help restore the tarnished image the Dodgers now have. Rob Jacobs, Los Angeles .. To the editor: As a lifelong Dodgers fan (I'm in my late 60s), I sadly have to agree that the shocking silence of the club's management in terms of support for its community of loyal fans, especially those of Latino heritage who have been unfairly demonized and terrorized over the last several weeks, is gutless and cowardly. The team of Jackie Robinson and many courageous others must do more. I, for one, will do my part by not attending any games this year. Rather, I will forgo spending the hundreds of dollars that I annually spend on tickets, parking and concessions and will donate those funds to local charities and community organizations that will better use the support. History is still watching. William W. Carter, Newbury Park .. To the editor: Michael Jordan, who was criticized for not being vocal on political or racial issues, once responded to backlash, 'Republicans buy sneakers too.' Roy Fassel, Los Angeles
