Los Angeles Times journalist, Gustavo Arellano spoke to students about being a food critic, working with Anthony Bourdain on a TV show and exposing hate groups in Orange County for Latino Heritage Month at Long Beach City College.
LBCC Vice President Mike Munoz coordinated the event and spoke highly of Arellano.
“We chose him to speak because he can talk about a wide range of topics: historical, sociopolitical in a humorous way and has connections to the region,” Munoz said.
After experiencing racism multiple times throughout his life, Arellano decided to devote his career to fighting “idiocy” and wanted to better the community around him.
He extensively covered hate groups while working at OC Weekly and managed to infiltrate a white supremacist group by learning how to speak their language by regularly reading pro right-wing articles.
Arellano fought racism through humor and is most famously known for starting the column, “Ask a Mexican” at OC Weekly.
In Ask a Mexican, Arellano responds with satire to racial cliches and topics that pertain to Latinos.
The LA Times writer addressed the people who found the article as “insensitive” during his speech.
“Humor is one of the most powerful weapons because it’s an innate human emotion. It’s an innately human thing and you can take away all these things from people,” Arellano told the audience.
Former LBCC student Danny Rivera attended the event.
“It’s great to have someone who passionately encourages civility by the way he approaches people with different views and mindsets rather than resorting to conflict,” said Rivera.
As a food critic, Arellano was able to co-star on Anthony Bourdain’s Netflix show, Parts Unknown.
Arellano addressed the late Anthony Bourdain and said, “I look up to him, he was amazing, humble, accommodating, he even made his uber driver wait for forty five minutes while he spoke to his fans and gave them foot-notes on episodes they claimed to have enjoyed.”
At the OC Weekly, Arellano pushed to cover more diverse communities and found that one of the ways he could do that was through food.
He has a passion to discover the stories behind food and claimed that food is incredibly historical and political.
The food critic spoke of Asian inspired taco restaurant Chinitos Tacos in Lakewood.
The owner, Chef Beeline Krouch is of Cambodian descent.
Krouch found an appreciation for Mexican Cuisine while working at Ortega 120, a Mexican restaurant in Redondo Beach.
Arellano expressed his appreciation for those who incorporate Mexican dishes into their own cultures and said how food is a melting pot of different ethnicities.
Gustavo Arellano currently writes for L.A. Times and has a book called Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.