Lifestyle
'By Natives, for Natives': This new L.A. hub is drawing in the young, artsy and Indigenous
On a sweltering July afternoon in Echo Park, Miranda Due approached a table topped with a trio of flavored syrups and a spread of toppings: diced pickles, Kool-aid powder and gummy bears. Behind it, Dria Yellowhair pulled a pre-filled cup of crushed ice from a cooler, and asked Due what flavor she wanted. Upon requesting blueberry, Yellowhair doused the ice with fluorescent blue syrup and loaded the treat with a generous serving of each fixing.
Piccadilly — an icy, sweet treat that includes pickles, gummy bears and topping of Kool-Aid powder — served at a recent Chapter House event in Echo Park.
(Katie Janss)
This was Due’s first piccadilly, a delicacy whose origins are debated, but can be traced to either the Navajo, the Tohono O’odham Reservation, or the Hopi village Moenkopi. Wherever they came from, they exploded in popularity on the Navajo reservation around 2018. Yellowhair, who is Diné — the word Navajo people use to identify themselves — grew up in Downey, but has family on the reservation and visits frequently. She was introducing the sweet treat to visitors at a new Indigenous community center and exhibition space called the Chapter House.
After taking a bite, Due contemplated the flavor.
“It’s sweet, and a little bit sour, and salty from the pickles,” she said. “It’s a nice combination of all the flavors. It’s fantastic.”
Due, 31, is Cherokee and a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. The nonprofit worker, who lived in Los Angeles for five years before moving to Tulsa, couldn’t miss an opportunity to check out the Chapter House on her latest visit to California.
The teal building is located on a noisy stretch of Glendale Boulevard just off the 2 Freeway. In its front room you can find the center’s summer art exhibition, “Diary of a Native Femme(nist)” by artist Kimberly Robertson. But it’s the building’s tranquil, shaded outdoor space out back where most community gatherings take place. The day I visited, about a dozen Indigenous Angelenos compared the colors of their tongues, newly dyed blue and red from their piccadilly syrup, as music from native bands like Redbone and The Halluci Nation drowned out the cityscape. A gaggle of small children waved bubble wands and ran circles around a kid-sized, Barbie-pink Cybertruck.
A May 6 exhibition opening at the Chapter House. The building’s tranquil, shaded back outdoor space is where most community gatherings take place.
(Anthony Chase In Winter)
A group photo from the opening of the Chapter House’s most recent art exhibition, “Diary of a Native Femme(nist),” including artist Kimberly Robertson, center, and Chapter House founder Emma Robbins (Diné), right.
(Anthony Chase In Winter)
“I went to school out here for a while, and I was always hoping for more community,” Due said. “I think it really came to life once I left town.”
Nearly 400,000 people in Los Angeles County identify as partly American Indian or Alaskan Native, according to the 2020 census. That makes it one of the largest urban Indigenous populations in the nation.
“We’re all unique, and we’re all from different tribes, different nations, but we all were craving the space to come together, recharge and heal.”
— Emma Robbins, Chapter House founder
Despite this, Chapter House founder Emma Robbins (Diné) says there are very few places for the Indigenous to gather socially in the city. The Gabrielino/Tongva people, the original people of Los Angeles, are not yet a federally recognized tribe, and therefore do not have a reservation nearby that could function as a centralized hub.
Before the Chapter House opened, Indigenous Angelenos would see each other at a handful of annual events at the Autry Museum of the American West, like the powwow hosted by the nonprofit United American Indian Involvement. UAII also provides social services for the urban native population, and community members would sometimes bump into acquaintances while waiting for a doctor’s appointment at the clinic. But the events at the Autry were too infrequent to nurture a sense of belonging. And other Indigenous L.A. residents interviewed for this story said that they found it too awkward to connect in the UAII’s waiting room..
For the record:
11:49 a.m. Sept. 9, 2024The sentiment that it was awkward to connect in the USII’s waiting room was incorrectly attributed to Emma Robbins. Other Indigenous L.A. residents, including Joey Clift, shared this view.
Though UAII also offers community programming for families, youth and elders, there aren’t as many events geared towards young, creative natives. To fill this gap, Robbins sought to create a casual, artistic community space with year-round programming.
The Chapter House was founded virtually in 2020 by Robbins, who grew up on the Navajo Reservation, which sprawls across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. There, the center of social life takes place at so-called chapter houses, community centers unique to the Navajo nation. They are where people distribute food and water, facilitate town halls, see art, experience cultural celebrations, throw parties and hold funerals. 110 chapter houses are distributed across the reservation, and Robbins jokes that the Los Angeles Chapter House, which opened its physical space in the fall of 2023, is the 111th.
“Navajo rez is what I know,” Robbins said. “But I think working with California natives — specifically Tongva and Chumash folks from the area — is really important because, although we are Navajo or Diné-led, it’s important to be inclusive of all Natives.”
Emma Robbins points to a town on the Navajo Nation map during community “Refresh Day” to help touch up the space.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
“We’re all unique, and we’re all from different tribes, different nations, but we all were craving the space to come together, recharge and heal,” Robbins said. “We also bring things to our community that we might not historically have had access to, like art shows, or yoga classes or even just good Wi-Fi,” Robbins said.
Robbins founded the Chapter House on four pillars: wellness, community, art and nature. In addition to the frequent piccadilly socials, they’ve held events like a Métis (Michif) finger weaving lesson, plant medicine workshops, screenings of the new seasons of Netflix’s Indigenous-forward animated children’s show “Spirit Rangers” and drag story hour with Landa Lakes (Chickasaw) and Lady Shug (Diné.)
Joey Clift, a Cowlitz comedian and television writer, first discovered the Chapter House in July 2023 through a bolo tie-making workshop, which helped him transform a hand-beaded Garfield medallion, made by Cree beadworker Sweet Grass by Heather, into something he could wear.
I feel like I don’t have to try to be something that I’m not. We all uplift each other, and inspire each other, and help each other.
— Burgandi Trejo Phoenix, Yaqui actress and Chapter House visitor
He said the Chapter House reminded him of a bygone era of 1930s Hollywood that he had read about, in which the Indian American Art Shop, located across the street from the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, was the unofficial hang out spot for Native American actors like Jim Thorpe, member of the Sac and Fox Nation, and a gold medalist Olympian turned Western star. Until Clift found the Chapter House, he could only dream of these spaces from the past. Clift would go on to join the community center’s board, with hopes to reignite the young Indigenous creative scene.
“I think that there are a lot of really great spaces for elders in Los Angeles to participate in and practice culture,” Clift, 40, said. “But I don’t feel like there are a lot of spaces for Native millennials and zoomers. That’s something that really excited me about the Chapter House. It’s for all ages, but it really does feel like it’s on the pulse of the really great artistic gains that Native folks are doing now.”
Alyssa Musket, right, looks through directions to build a cabinet as she receives help from Piñon “Pinny” Robbins, left, during community “Refresh Day.”
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
A visitor views “Diary of a Native Femme(nist),” an art exhibition by Kimberly Robertson that opened at the Chapter House on May 4th.
(Anthony Chase In Winter)
The space also is helping young Indigenous people connect to their culture for the first time. Burgandi Trejo Phoenix, an Yaqui actress who voices a character named Squash in “Spirit Rangers,” first connected with the Chapter House when it screened the Season 4 finale of the kids show in April. She immediately felt embraced by the community, even though she wasn’t brought up with her Yaqui traditions.
“I feel like I don’t have to try to be something that I’m not,” Phoenix said. “We all uplift each other, and inspire each other, and help each other.”
Through promoting events at UAII, on Instagram and through word of mouth, Chapter House is building a loyal following. Their events, which are always free and open to the public, regularly attract around 20 to 25 people — but 200 packed the house for the La La Land Back Tour drag show they co-hosted last November. While most people who come identify as Indigenous, Robbins emphasizes that the Chapter House is welcoming of allies, too.
“This is definitely a Native space by Natives for Natives,” Robbins said, “We want people to come, learn, and experience what it’s like when we come together and build this beautiful Indigenous future.”
Lifestyle
Cheddar bay biscuits, cheap margs and memories: Readers share their nostalgia for chain restaurants
Affordable, familiar and reassuring are the features that make American chain restaurants a near-ubiquitous presence throughout the country; it is almost as if they are baked into our roadside culture.
Despite well-documented financial struggles, a tough economy and shifting diet trends, these restaurants withstand time.
This series explores why these places have such strong staying power and how they stay afloat at a time of rapid change.
Read our first three pieces in this series, including how these restaurants leverage nostalgia to attract diners, how they attempt to keep costs affordable, and how social media has changed the advertising game – and become a vital key to restaurants’ success.
America’s chain restaurants are not the most glamorous places to eat. And yet, as we’ve reported, they hold a special place in many Americans’ hearts.
We asked readers what comes to mind when they think of restaurants like Olive Garden, Applebee’s or Texas Roadhouse — and you shared plenty of stories.
Not all of the respondees waxed poetic about the merit of these restaurants. David Horton, 62, from New York, for example, said: “The food is mostly frozen and only has flavor from the incredible amounts of sodium they use.”
But overwhelmingly, responses described vivid childhood memories shared in booths looking excitedly over laminated menus and the type of adolescent rites of passage that seem right at home in the parking lot of a suburban chain restaurant.
There’s a science behind why these sorts of memories have such a hold on us.
The feeling of nostalgia is linked closely to food and smell, and these restaurant chains are often where core memories – like graduation celebrations or first dates – are made.
Chelsea Reid is an associate professor at the College of Charleston who studies nostalgia. And she’s no more immune to nostalgic feelings than anyone else even though she has a better understanding of the chemistry behind the feeling.
“Even just saying Red Lobster, I can kind of picture the table and the things that we would do and the things we’d order, and my mom getting extra biscuits to take home,” she said.
A Red Lobster restaurant is seen in Fairview Heights, Ill., in 2005.
James A. Finley/AP
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James A. Finley/AP
Her nearest Red Lobster closed down, but a local farmers’ market sells a scone reminiscent of Red Lobster’s famed Cheddar Bay Biscuits – a scent she says immediately transports her back to those childhood family outings to the seafood chain.
“I can see my mom wrapping these up in a napkin and putting them in her purse for when we would be like, ‘hey, we’re hungry,’ and she pulls out a purse biscuit.”
Full disclosure: Your intrepid reporters are not without sentimentality. Before launching this project, when it was just a kernel of an idea, we talked frequently about the role these restaurants played in our own lives.
Jaclyn: I distinctly remember cramming into a booth at my local Chili’s in my hometown, Cromwell, Ct., for most birthday dinners until the age of 13 or so.
I’d be surrounded by my mom, dad and brother, and I got to pick whatever I wanted. Except I always chose the same thing: Chicken crispers with a side of fries, topping the night off with the molten lava chocolate cake we’d share as a family.
I can picture it so clearly, down to the booth we’d sit in. Now, my family is spread out. But my love for Chili’s runs deep, and I still get warm and fuzzy when I think about it.
These days, I’m in my 30s, and I need to worry about my health and getting in 10,000 steps a day. So, no, I don’t regularly go to Chili’s now.
But when I do? Those chicken crispers I had as a kid are still on the menu, and yes, I’m likely to order them today (even if on my adult tastebuds, the salt content quickly turns my mouth into the Sahara Desert).
And it’s not to celebrate my birthday. It’s because one of my best friends is telling me she’s getting a divorce over cheap, and sugary, margaritas.
Alana: When the pandemic struck in 2020 and much of the country went into lockdown, there I was mostly alone in my one bedroom apartment, staring at the walls.
After what seemed like a lifetime, I was finally able to expand my tiny COVID bubble.
One of my first “dining out” experiences during that time was in the parking lot of the Hyattsville, Md., Olive Garden where my friend and I sat in absolute glee to be reunited – not just with one another, but also the chain’s staple soup (zuppa toscana for me, please), salad and breadsticks (you can have all the breadsticks if I can have your share of the salad tomatoes).
Since then, that friend and many others have moved away – too far to meet up for a sit-down over a (mostly) hot meal at a reasonably priced restaurant in a city not famed for being cheap.
I recently revisited the Hyattsville Olive Garden for this story. And even though my life is now different, my friends have moved away, and the world has shifted, there it was, exactly the same.
And I liked it.
Many readers said that these restaurants were the type of place a family who could rarely afford to eat outside a home could treat themselves on rare occasions.
Like Julie Philip, 51, from Dunlap, Ill., who wrote: “Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, Red Lobster was an Easter tradition. We would dress up, go to church, then drive close to an hour to Red Lobster.”
She continued, “It was one of only a few days a year that we could afford to eat at a ‘fancy restaurant.’ I remember my parents remarking that they had to spend $35 for our family of four. I no longer consider Red Lobster a ‘fancy restaurant,’ but as an adult, my family and I often still eat there at Easter. I remind my kids that we are keeping up a family tradition and I tell them stories of my childhood while eating.”
The original Applebee’s restaurant was called T.J. Applebee’s Rx for Edibles & Elixirs and it opened in Decatur, Ga., in 1980.
Applebee’s
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Applebee’s
For Sarah Duggan, an Applebee’s parking lot evokes a key memory from young adulthood.
Duggan, 32, from North Tonawanda, N.Y., wrote that every time she sees an Applebee’s, she remembers the time her friend, in an act of teenage rebellion, got her belly button pierced in the parking lot of a Long Island Applebee’s — inside the trunk of the piercer’s “salvage-title PT Cruiser.”
Duggan held the flashlight.
She wrote, “I can’t picture those sorts of college kid shenanigans happening in the parking lot of a regular Long Island diner or other independent restaurant, but it seems right that it was at Applebee’s.”
She continued, “It makes me think about how nobody, from riotous camp counselors to your spouse’s grandparents, looks or feels out of place at a chain restaurant.”
NASCAR’s Gregg Biffle
Jet Turns Into Ball Of Flames …
Shocking Video Shows
Published
Brevin Renwick
Horrifying new video shows the precise moment a plane carrying NASCAR driver Greg Biffle and his family crashed and exploded in flames Thursday, killing everyone on board.
Security footage captured the corporate jet turning into a ball of fire as it crash-landed near a runway at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina. The aircraft was scheduled to fly to Florida, but not long after takeoff, it turned back to the airport before crashing.
As you can see from the clip, the plane was reduced to what looks like a burning oil slick with black smoke rising into the sky. All seven people on the plane died, including Biffle, his wife, Cristina and two children — Emma, 14, and Ryder, 5.
PEOPLE reported minutes before impact, Cristina sent her mom a chilling text, stating, “We’re in trouble.”
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of the crash.
President Donald Trump stands in the presidential box as he visits the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C, on March 17, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
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Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will now have a new name — the “Trump-Kennedy Center.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the news on social media Thursday, saying that the board of the center voted unanimously for the change, “Because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.”
Shortly after the announcement, Ohio Democrat Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the board, refuted the claim that it was a unanimous vote. “Each time I tried to speak, I was muted,” she said in a video posted to social media. “Participants were not allowed to voice their concern.”
When asked about the call, Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations at the Kennedy Center, sent a statement reiterating the vote was unanimous: “The new Trump Kennedy Center reflects the unequivocal bipartisan support for America’s cultural center for generations to come.”
Other Democrats in Congress who are ex-officio members of the Kennedy Center Board, including Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement stating that the president is renaming the institution “without legal authority.”
“Federal law established the Center as a memorial to President Kennedy and prohibits changing its name without Congressional action,” the statement reads.
Earlier this year, Trump installed himself as the chairman of the center, firing former president Deborah Rutter and ousting the previous board chair David Rubenstein, along with board members appointed by President Biden. He then appointed a new board, including second lady Usha Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Fox News host Laura Ingraham and more.
Trump hinted at the name change earlier this month, when he took questions before becoming the first president to host the Kennedy Center Honors. He deferred to the board when asked directly about changing the name but said “we are saving the Kennedy Center.”
The president was mostly hands off with the Kennedy Center during his first term, as most presidents have been. But he’s taking a special interest in it in his second term, touring the center and promising to weed out programming he doesn’t approve of. His “One Big Beautiful Bill” included $257 million for the building’s repairs and maintenance.
Originally, it was called The National Cultural Center. In 1964, two months after President Kennedy was assassinated, President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation authorizing funds to build what would become the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
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