Mercedes Cruz will never forget the afternoon when the bullets started flying. She was sitting on a bench in Ruben F. Salazar Park in East Los Angeles on a Friday while her three young children took turns going up and down the two slides that made up the nearly barren...
"Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see." — John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States Delivering a message on behalf of Los Angeles County’s youngest constituents – some who have yet to develop words of their own – First 5 LA...
Amberlyn Garrubba was consumed. At mealtime with her husband and three children under 5 years old, the Palmdale mother sometimes served their dinner cold. She spent half the night awake and five hours a day posting thoughts and ideas on social media. She scheduled her...
Desiree Puentes could only pray for help. The young mother was struggling to raise four children in Monterey Park in 2013 while caring for her bed-ridden great grandmother. She had also suffered from domestic violence at the hands of her husband and was currently...
Ver en español» As a young child growing up, Maria Contreras bore witness to years of domestic abuse suffered by her mother. After she married and had children of her own, Contreras felt history cruelly repeat itself in her South Los Angeles home. For 10 years, her...
