To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. It was June when I arrived in Northeast Los Angeles, right in the middle of Pride Month, though there wasn’t much evidence of it.
In the Bay Area, where I arrived from, rainbow flags, storefront decorations and clumsy attempts at inclusive marketing were ubiquitous.
But here, in Southern California’s stupefying sunlight, there were, thankfully, no billboards equating the freedom to date whom you want to the freedom to order weed via an app.
Driving along Colorado Boulevard, I encountered only the confusing jumble of gentrification: mom-and-pop doughnut shops next to high-concept pet day cares.