SIGNAL TRIBUNE Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Signal Hill
VOL. XLII NO. 50
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
www.signaltribune.com
INSIDE: Update on CSULB dumping on sacred Puvugna land
see page 3
COMMUNITY
December 4, 2020
CHRISTMAS
Dreaming of a notonly-white Christmas SH City Clerk Carmen Brooks dons Santa costume, giving Black children someone who looks like them.
Staff Photo | City of Signal Hill
Anita W. Harris Senior Writer
When Signal Hill City Clerk Carmen Brooks was growing up, everyone looked African-American like her, she recently told the Signal Tribune. The City of Detroit back then, where Brooks was raised, was segregated between Black and white neighborhoods, she said. “All around me were representations of Black people in all areas of life,” she said. “In order to see people who didn’t look like me, I had to go to the see BLACK SANTA page 5
COMMUNITY Lissette Mendoza | Signal Tribune
Alva Regalado, 101, stands in front of a mural of herself painted by local artists Ciana Lee and Alva McNeal. The mural, located at Pan American Park, was commissioned by local nonprofit SCAN and the Arts Council of Long Beach to celebrate centenarians.
PAN AMERICAN PARK WELCOMES NEW MURAL Lakewood Village mural honors 101-year-old centenerian folklorico dancer Lissette Mendoza
T
Managing Editor
he mural unveiled on Tuesday, Dec. 1 was a complete surprise to 101-year-old Alta Regalado, the subject, whose passion for the traditional Mexican dance style known as folklorico, was permanently captured through a partnership with SCAN Health Plan and the Arts Council of Long Beach. In an interview with the Signal Tribune, Regalado mentioned how her husband Phillip’s death 33 years ago gave her a newfound freedom that she didn’t have as a married woman. “After my husband passed away I got to do whatever I wanted,” Regalado said. “When I was married, you always did what your husband wanted.” What she wanted to do was learn folklorico dancing, a traditional Mexican
dance that is performed with long colorful dresses with full circle skirts usually adorned with ribbons and embroidered flowers. The full skirts are a major part of the choreography as they are usually held throughout the performance with exaggerated arm movements to make the skirts dance as well. “When you govern yourself, you go wherever you want to, and I did,” said Regalado. She recalled the hour and a half trip that consisted of catching three buses to make sure she arrived at her folklorico classes at a senior center in East Los Angeles. “I went for 10 years, everyday, five days a week,” she said. She gushed as she recalled herself and her classmates going to various places throughout Southern California to perform, some of their trips extending as far see LAKEWOOD MURAL page 2
Kristen Farrah Naeem | Signal Tribune
The House Plantt and Xochiquetzal Arrangements gathered numerous donated supplies for unhoused community members, which were distributed by volunteers on Saturday, Nov. 28.
Small business owners of Auranary Love Co. distribute essentials to unhoused neighbors Kristen Farrah Naeem Staff Writer
Lissette Mendoza | Signal Tribune
Local artist Alva McNeal paints finishing touches on a mural dedicated to centenarian Alta Regalado on Saturday, Nov. 28.
With temperatures dropping and coronavirus infections rising, local small business owners Elizabeth Muñoz and Nellie Alcaraz did what they could to bring some comfort to their unhoused neighbors. Their family and friends helped the pair load donated supplies from their new Wrigley storefront, Auranary Love Co., into three different vehicles, completely filling the flatbed of a truck and taking up most of the trunk and backseat of the other two cars. First heading to the debris strewn and graffitted area known as The Canals wedged between the
see UNHOUSED page 5