Rancho LPG Reveals Safety Plans Ahead of Public Meeting, Critics Find Mistakes p. 3 Long Beach Time Exchange Provides Opportunities to Give and Receive p. 4 San Pedro Labor Fest Celebrates Workers through Film and Art p. 11
Rediscovering This Harbor-Town From the Outside In By James Preston Allen, Publisher
Spanish. In any case, our being discovered by the rest of Los Angeles, if not the world, feels a bit like the Native Americans watching Juan Cabrillo land at the Bay of Smokes. The foreigners have arrived to give us civilization and religion, only this time bringing hard cash—not beads—for the struggling businesses in the downtown waterfront arts district. The funny thing is much of this redefining of Pedro is being driven from outside perspectives. Most of the Grand Performances, which will pay tribute to the cultures of the San Pedro Harbor Area, are performed by artists not born or living here, as if we don’t have artists of our own. The prime case in point is the Accordion Festival, which we discovered “celebrates the culture” but not one of the performers
June 29 - July 12, 2012
From the Outside In/ to p. 2
The Local Publication You Actually Read
From Joseph Wambaugh’s new police thriller, Harbor Nocturne, about a recovering Croatian longshoreman who falls in love with an illegal Mexican stripper, to the San Pedro Squeeze Accordion Festival at the Grand Performances this summer in downtown Los Angeles—everyone seems to be “rediscovering San Pedro.” Of course, the flagship of this rediscovery expedition seems to be the lauded arrival of the USS Iowa. Thanks to both Wambaugh and the public relations arm at the Port of Los Angeles that would prefer that everyone knows that the battleship is not owned by POLA. However, the big-town media has learned how to say “Pee-dro” not “Pay-dro,” as some non-Spanish speakers often attempt to pronounce it in
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