Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today, I'm going to talk about what is really going on in Los Angeles. If you live in the area, you know pretty much what's really going on, but I have a lot of listeners who are not in the Los Angeles or California areas. I have more and more listeners who are outside of California or even outside of the country, and so I wanted to take the time to explain to you what is really going on here in Los Angeles. I live in a town that is in Los Angeles County. I'm not in the city of Los Angeles proper, but I'm very close to the city of Los Angeles, very, very close. There are 88 cities in the county of Los Angeles. Now, the county of Los Angeles is a larger area than the actual city of Los Angeles, but, just to make things more complicated if you're not here. There are different towns or cities that are in Los Angeles proper. Los Angeles City, that is, so the town of North Hollywood, which is its own city, is in the city of Los Angeles. So I don't know if that clears it up for anyone, but there are 88 cities in Los Angeles's pretty large Los Angeles County is about 4,000 square miles, so it's a much larger area of the Southland. That's what some of us call Southern California, call Southern California the Southland, depending on where you are, who you are. Now, I know a lot of people all over the world have seen the protests and the rallies and the police officers, the National Guard and whatnot that have come here or have been here in Los Angeles, and you've heard our president say that if he hadn't sent the National Guard, that Los Angeles would be burning. I take offense at that for several reasons. I don't think that that's true and I'm going to explain why. They locked down really the whole area and I'm saying the whole area, I mean the whole city. At least it might have been more of the county, but everyone was under a curfew and it was also scary because there was a lot of violence throughout our neighborhoods and there was also a shortage of food. It was just a bad, bad time and that was predicated on Rodney King beatings and other things that had happened. So that was in 92.

Now I also worked in downtown Los Angeles for 23 years, give or take. I mean COVID hit towards the end there. So maybe not every day of those 23 years, give or take, I mean COVID hit towards the end there. So maybe not every day of those 23 years. But I did work in downtown LA for the better part of at least 20 years and I worked pretty much in the heart of downtown LA. I worked in what is called the financial district, which is not exactly near the city hall area where a lot of the protests and the peaceful rallies have been, but it's pretty close. I'd say, as the crow flies, maybe it's half a mile, it's definitely within a mile, it's definitely within a mile.

What I can tell you about being in downtown LA on really any given day is that there were often marches or protests or gatherings of people to highlight a cause or an effort or something that happened, and a lot of the times the streets would be closed for these rallies or walks or marches or whatever. This is not an uncommon occurrence, so I got used to it. It was just part of living in well, it was just part of working in the area. I saw on occasion the Los Angeles Police Department on horseback. They came down for different reasons to do crowd control. There were also some other times when they felt that they had to have an increased police presence and that was fine, that was okay. So this is something that I've experienced being a resident here, not living in the area, but definitely spending a lot of time in the area.

Now the protests, the marches I guess the violence, if you will, that we've seen on TV has really been confined to a very small area. I've heard it said that it's about one square mile of downtown and that's around City Hall, because where City Hall is, it's very close to the police department, it's very close to other city offices and city buildings and municipal buildings. There's some park space there, there's the courts and it's just the heart of the city and it's also where the federal detention space is. That I guess a lot of the detainees have gone, initially at least, and one of the federal buildings is there. So again, it makes sense that this would be an area that is kind of attracting a lot of protesters, and these areas are close to a freeway. So if you saw some of the activity where the protesters had gone onto the freeway, it makes sense. I personally would not want to go on the freeway to stop cars. I wouldn't want to be in that first group.

A lot of us that live here have continued to live our lives. We are not under a curfew because, again, that curfew is in a very small area. We go to the market, we take our kids to school, we do our errands. We don't have any trouble going anywhere because the freeways are clear. There's not a police presence where I live. So I think that, at least from my perspective I'm just talking about my perspective that the media, a lot of the reporters that I've seen, have concentrated their efforts in the worst of the worst areas, where the most activity is, the most violence is, and I think that people have gotten the impression that it's that way everywhere, but it's not not.

So what has been happening, also that is frustrating to a lot of people that I've talked to here, are the ICE raids. We live in an area where a lot of the people that we work with, that we deal with, that do a lot of very important jobs in this economy are immigrants. They're scared, understandably, and as a humanitarian and as an empath and as just a caring person, I'm horrified to see not only the raids but the effect that these raids have had on people, innocent people that don't have really anything to worry about. That aren't criminals. Believe me, I don't like criminals either. I'm not a crazy person. If somebody's committed murder or other heinous crimes, I'm not supporting them being out on the street. But people who are trying to live and work, who need healthcare, who don't visit their medical provider because they're afraid of being taken by an ICE officer and so they're not taking care of their medical needs or they're not going to work and therefore they're not being able to support their families. This is a bad situation and it's going to have repercussions past the people that are being detained.

I've tried to just take it in as it comes, but there was a man on the news on Friday was detained at an auto repair shop and he is a US citizen. His family says that he has no criminal record, he's a father of two and he's taken his kids to Disneyland. And, yes, he's Latino, latino and he's also diabetic. And they took him in and his family can't find out anything about where he is and they said he doesn't have his insulin with him. And to me, that's what broke me. That was the story that broke me. I started crying and I just I can't even really talk about it that much now because it hits home for us, my husband being diabetic. But it's just, it's cruel.

The understanding was that they were going to detain people who were horrible criminals and who were here illegally, and it doesn't seem like that's really the case. So this is a very difficult time for myself, my family and people who are friends, who feel the same way. And if you don't feel the same way that I do, I understand that. I mean, I don't understand that, but I accept that people have different mindsets and different opinions. But I'll tell you that this is probably not the podcast for you Because, again, I am a liberal and I do believe in supporting others and loving others and not hating others. And that means that even if people are different from you or different from what you know that they're, they're still good people. They're still people. They're just people like you and me. They're just people and they deserve the rights and the respect and they deserve to live their life, and that's not what I'm seeing. That's not what any of us are seeing right now.

So my husband and I did go to the no Kings rally this past weekend here in our town and I can tell you that, growing up here, I always thought that our town was conservative, and I think it is more on the conservative side even for California. But I was happy to see that there were a lot of people there supporting the rally. It was peaceful. It was very peaceful. There were no problems. The police were there watching, that was okay. Will it do anything? Will all the rallies that we had this past weekend do anything? I don't know. I don't know what the answer is, but I just don't understand how we got here, because a lot of the people, most of the people that I know, feel the same way that I do know, feel the same way that I do.

So I hope that everyone who's listening is safe and taking care of yourself and your loved ones. There's so much going on in the world right now on any particular day. I met a man today and I didn't know him. We started talking and he said I just want some time to go by where nothing bad happens. And I agree with that. Everything that's going on in the Middle East is another terribly worrisome situation. And, yeah, I'd like some time to go by where I don't have to turn on the news and get really upset and have my blood pressure go through the roof, but I don't know if that's going to happen anytime soon.

So, again, I hope that you and your family are safe and that you are taking care of yourselves and doing what you need to do, and next week, hopefully, I'll come up with a more joyful topic, but it had to be said. That's the situation in Los Angeles, and next week I hope that you will join me again. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries, thank you.