University of Southern California professor Laura Pulido discusses her new book A People’s Guide to Los Angeles in which she maps 115 sites in Los Angeles where critical struggles for justice took place over the past two hundred years.

Professor Pulido researches race, political activism, ethnic studies, and Los Angeles. She studies how various groups experience racial and class oppression, how these experiences differ among particular communities of color, and how they experience racial and class oppression, how these experiences differ among particular communities of color, and how they mobilize to create a more socially-just world. Asking such questions, Professor Pulido has done extensive work in the field of environmental justice, landscape studies, and uncovering the history of the third world left. Currently, she is working on two related projects. First, she is exploring Latino (especially ethnic Mexicans) racial identity. In particular, she is examining how the racial identity and position of Latinos has varied over space and time. Second, she has been researching the relationships between African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles. The two studies are intimately related because it is impossible to understand the racial position of Latinos outside of their relationship to African Americans.

Aired April 10th, 2012
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Hosted by Eric Mann on KPFK 90.7 FM