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.

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)

Advertisement

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.

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..

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.

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.”

Comic Taylor Tomlinson was just 16 when she caught the stand-up bug. That’s when she started performing at open mics in church basements in Orange County, Calif., where she grew up.

“It’s not a cool story,” Tomlinson says. “But … church audiences are very supportive — as long as you don’t say anything dark, edgy or blue.”

Over the years, Tomlinson’s material has shifted, with topics ranging from the perils of dating on apps to finding out she has bipolar II disorder. Though she was initially unsure about talking about her own mental health on stage, she says it’s helped her connect with the audience.

“I got such amazing feedback from people who had been struggling with their mental health, … how it made them feel seen and less alone and made them feel better about their own journey,” Tomlinson says.

Tomlinson describes her on-stage presence as “the sharpest, quickest, wittiest, most confident version” of herself: “When I started doing stand-up in high school, it felt like more of a persona, … like the version of myself that I knew I could be and wanted to become, but wasn’t yet,” she says. “And I think over the years, who I am off stage and who I am on stage have come together where I do feel that I am the same person everywhere.”

Earlier in the year, Tomlinson became the youngest ever late-night host. Her CBS show, After Midnight, has been described as a game show that centers on internet culture. Tomlinson also has three stand-up specials on Netflix: Quarter-Life Crisis, Look at You and Have It All. She’ll soon be traveling the country with her Save Me tour.

Interview highlights

On losing her mother to cancer when she was a child and how that affected her path to comedy

I’m not saying that everybody in comedy or any creative person has to come from this dark place and the only way you’re funny is if you have a darkness about you. I don’t think that’s true. But for me, that changed who I was and who I was going to become. And it changed my sense of humor. And it made me try really hard to prove myself in a way that I don’t think I would have if she were still alive. Because after you lose a parent, you’re still trying to impress them, and you’re still trying to be somebody that they would have liked and respected and loved and been proud of. And you’re hoping other people who knew them tell you that. …

I do rely on other people’s accounts of her, because there’s only so much you remember when you lose somebody at 8 years old. … Like my aunt has said to me, “Oh, your expressions on stage will remind me of her.” … And that means so much to me. And growing up, I wanted to be a writer before I wanted to be a comedian. And they would say, “Your mom was such a great writer.” And there’s so many ways I’m not like her. Like she was an extrovert. She was very bubbly. She was very charismatic. She was gorgeous. … I don’t think I shine brightly as she does and I, in a weird way, feel like my becoming a comedian and a professionally creative person and a writer is like my way of honoring the potential that was wasted by the universe taking her.

On why she left the church after her mom died

I had been told if you believe and pray and stay faithful, God will answer your prayers. And we had so many people praying for [my mom] and she believed she was going to get better. And so to watch your mom die of cancer, even while everybody gathers around her and lays hands on her and supports her and prays for her and then for them to turn around and go, “Well, God did heal her. He just healed her in a different way. She’s healed in heaven.” And I was like, whoa, OK. Like, the rewrite on that is crazy. It made me question everything. And slowly over the next 10 years, I felt like I was struggling to stay in it the whole time I was growing up, and I just felt like I was a bad Christian because I didn’t, in my heart, agree with everything.

On being diagnosed with bipolar II disorder

I tried so many antidepressants and they weren’t working for me, and I was having terrible side effects. … It was certainly a years-long process trying to find what worked for me.

Then when I finally did find what worked for me, I sort of worked backwards from that and was like, oh, this makes sense. … I had so much shame around that diagnosis when I first got it, and I was embarrassed that I felt ashamed because I’ve never judge anybody else who had it. But when it’s you, it’s somehow different, which is why I started writing jokes about it.

On deciding to joke about having bipolar

I remember my therapist said to me, “Maybe we don’t talk about this on stage.” And I was like, “I’ve already done it.” … Once you write one joke and it hits and you really like the joke, you’re like, well, it’s got to go in the act. … But when I filmed [Have It All], I felt great about those jokes and then in the months waiting for it to come out, I started panicking and was like, Oh no, I can’t un-share any of this.

Over the years, I’ve gotten better about editing myself and deciding what is going to go in the act and what I’m just going to keep private. But it’s a lot of trial and error. … The guiding light for me has been even if something kills on stage, do I feel good telling it every night, or do I dread that bit coming up? I have done jokes about very personal things that I took out of the act because I was dreading getting to that part of the hour every night, and I was like, ooh, that’s probably a sign that I’m not ready to talk about this yet. … I also run jokes by family members and friends before I do them, because a joke is not worth destroying a relationship, in my opinion.

Heidi Saman and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.