The Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) invites you to participate in this food appreciation project that chronicles our City’s history, by using the Story Map Tour app. The book’s themes of memory, home, cultural identity, and displacement are the inspiration for this food mapping project. Help us map what and where Angelenos eat. Nominate your favorite eateries, whether it’s a market that has stood for generations, a hundred-year-old bakery, or a particular street where people emigrated from other lands gather…

The Los Angeles Public Library provides free and easy access to information, ideas, books and technology that enrich, educate and empower every individual in our city’s diverse communities. Book Club Discussion Saturday, March 23, 2019, 4:00 pm Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library 6145 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042 Ethiopian Heritage program – food and dance- Open Mic Readings and Book Discussions Tuesday, April 23, 2019, 4:00 pm Ascot Branch Library 120 West Florence Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90003 Book…

Participants are invited to actively engage in creative writing, storytelling, visual explorations, and meaningful discussions related to their own cultures as well as those from the immigrant experience. Students will receive a personal journal for recording their perspectives, revelations and recollections. No experience is necessary Sepha, the main character in the Big Read title, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, has constant challenges around his identity, and struggles to arrive at sense of who he is in the midst of…

Angelenos are invited to stop by Libros Schmibros, a membership lending library, for a free copy of this year’s NEA Big Read title, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, by Dinaw Megestu. Libros Schmibros Lending Library seeks to foster the literary and cultural life of Boyle Heights, a once majority-Jewish, now majority-Latino, neighborhood of Los Angeles. Founded in 2010, Libros Schmibros offers low- or no-cost literature and literary events to everybody east of the ocean. Working with local residents, artists,…

Join the Los Angeles City Council at an official ceremony to kick-off and recognize the 2018-2019 Big Read Program in Los Angeles. This year’s book selection of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, by Dinaw Mengestu, tells the story of an Ethiopian immigrant who arrives in America after the Ethiopian Revolution to discover social tensions in a historically African American neighborhood undergoing rapid gentrification. It is a story with themes that will resonate with the Los Angeles populace. The event…

A screening of movie trailers that showcase the themes of the immigrant experience and displacement. An author, a filmmaker, and a critic will guide the audience through the context of the big screen stories and how they relate to Los Angeles as the city continues to reshape itself.   Contact Mary McCoy or Eileen King at the Central Library mmccoy@lapl.org, eking@lapl.org for more information.   To RSVP, email you name and number of guests to Dale.Madison@lacity.org by March 13th.  …

Lamb is the story of Ephraim who is a young Ethiopian boy. His father leaves him and his sheep, from which he is inseparable, to be looked after by distant relatives, far from his drought-ridden homeland. Ephraim isn’t very good at farming, but he has a hidden talent: he is an excellent cook. One day, his uncle tells him that they have to sacrifice his sheep for the next religious feast. The young boy, however, is ready to do anything…