RLn 5-27-21

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As Gang-Related Shootings Rise, Parents of Murdered Youth March for Peace By Arturo Garcia-Ayala, Reporter

[See Peace, p. 4]

SPHS to get an updated look p. 3 Documentary recalls FDR’s “New Deal for Artists” as advancing American society p. 9

Myths of the Lost War The burden and costs of American amnesia: New book investigates ‘Dissenting POWs’

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

Hoa Lo Prison to America Today. It’s co-authored by Tom Wilber, the son of one of the POWs interviewed on national TV, and Jerry Lembcke, a Vietnam veteran whose 1998 book The Spitting Image debunked and explored the origins of the widely believed myth of anti-war protesters spitting on returning veterans, and who’s written several other books debunking Vietnam War myths. Random Lengths News interviewed Lembcke about his new book, starting with a question about how the new book compares with his first foray. In The Spitting Image, Lembcke examines the widely believed myth of anti-war protesters spitting on

returning veterans. In that book, he said their memory was repressed in two ways. First, by the pathologizing of returning veterans and then by rewriting history to represent them as being spat upon by those whom antiwar veterans actually joined with. In Dissenting POWs, the co-authors seem to argue that the existence of anti-war POWs were repressed in more complex ways — first, via the promotion of the prisoner-at-war myth, which was grounded in early American captivity narratives; second, via the narrative of brainwashing that emerge from the Korean War; third, via the pathologizing narrative in Lembcke’s

May 27 - June 9, 2021

Two days after Christmas, 1970, CBS and NBC aired clips of an interview with two prisoners of war — senior naval pilots, one who’d flown in Korea and both of whom opposed the ongoing Vietnam War. Historians estimate that 30 to 50% of POWs felt the same. Yet, while POWs loom large in American public memory of Vietnam, the very existence of these dissenting POWs has been virtually banished. What’s been forgotten, what’s been remembered — or invented — in its place, how that happened and why it still matters as we struggle to withdraw from Afghanistan half a century later are explored in a new book, Dissenting POWs: From Vietnam’s

Restaurants crawl out of the pandemic p. 10

Above: Parents who lost children to gang violence gathered at Wilmington and Pacific Coast Highway on May 13 for march and prayer vigil. Photo by Arturo Garcia-Ayala

Real People, Real News, Really Effective

WILMINGTON — On May 13, more than a hundred people called for an end to the ongoing violence by marching down Pacific Coast Highway in Wilmington. The Peace March was organized by the Victory Outreach Church of Carson along with such other community groups as the Los Angeles chapter of the Parents of Murdered Children, United Wilmington Youth Foundation, I Heart Wilmington; all walked the one mile to Banning Museum park, chanting, “We want peace!” and “No more shootings!” Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, church clergy and community leaders held signs showing the names and faces of the murder victims. Donna Arviso Narez walked in remembrance of her son, Daniel Arviso, 19, who was murdered by gang members in 2007 while walking home in Wilmington. “Two guys and a girl murdered him in Ghost Town [East Wilmington] as a part of a gang initiation,” Donna lamented as she held her sign showing her son’s face. Likewise, the families of victims, such as Mark Gonzalez, James Dominguez or Anthony Iniguez, are pressing for justice and an end to the violence.

[See Dissent, p. 8]

50% of L.A. County residents 16 and over are fully vaccinated as of May 25, 2021 Free roundtrip rides to vaccination sites are available from Uber and Lyft, call 833-540-0473 or use the apps Four new deaths and 139 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County

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