I Love LA

Los Angeles is...
Written by Elisa Parhad & Illustrated by Alexander Vidal
Age Level: 0-4 Years
Published May 1, 2018

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Home sweet home.

Life can be pretty stressful, I need all the SoCal vibes. ☀️

“days of fun in sand and sun.”

My family chooses to live in Los Angeles. We live in West Hollywood, which is a proud LGBTQ neighborhood. Yesterday, we took our weekly trip to our Sunday Farmers Market on Melrose Place (yes, it’s an actual street, not just a show from the 90s) and saw many of the stores being boarded up in preparation for potential destruction in the wake of the election.

Back in June during the first wave of BLM protests, there was massive looting and vandalism in our neighborhood. The National Guard was stationed less than a quarter of a mile from our house with tanks and guns and they stayed for nearly a week. My mother, back in Ohio, begged me to rent an RV and drive out for the summer. I understood her protective maternal instinct, but I was appalled. My own instinct wasn’t to hide or to flee. It was to stand with the protestors and throw our support behind the BLM movement. I hung up the phone and hours later attended a protest up the street with my husband, two children, and thousands of other people.

This book gave me so much comfort on this morning before Election Day, celebrating and affirming what “Los Angeles is...” LA is diverse, creative, clever, industrious, and beautiful. America is all of those things, too. Even more so when we are united, open hearted, and inclusive.

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