own these books, normally would have a chance to connect with the opportunity at a table or bookstore but these are wonderful ways to pass what remains of this miserable pandemic. please add them to your stack and again, congratulations to everyone, thank you abby and lisa and team for putting this together in difficult circumstances and everyone you well, take care and will see the old-fashioned way next year i trust. >> at night everybody. >> with tv continues on c-span2, television for serious readers. >> good evening, everyone, my name is gilbert martinez, i

would just like to thank everyone for joining us tonight for a virtual event with eric in conversation with janice preventing his book stealing home, los angeles, the dodgers and the life cutting between, were very excited and grateful that her book is continuing to bring authors in their works to our community giving this uncertain time, we will be hosting more rituals in the future and you can learn about them on our website as well as our social media our next event this this tuesday april 28 at 5:00 p.m. with leanne dolan in conversation with susan briggs who we haven't seen her book the sweeney sisters. also updates on it fence feel free to subscribe for a newsletter, you can do that by going to the bookstore.com. this evening's virtual event will end with the q&a so if you would like to submit a question go to the ask a question button

at the bottom of the screen right over there, if you see a question on the list that you would like or interest you to asking our authors to answer, you can click the light button on that question will try to answer as many questions that were allowed. if you're interested in supporting or bookstore by purchasing a copy of the books, you can click on the purchase button and directly below the viewer screen, the link will direct you to our website and you can continue and we have selling digital audiobooks for those of you who are interested. let me introduce you to write interviewer and author janice is an award-winning journalist and producer at mpr latino usa, she began her career and over the past five years, she had shifted her focus to audio sharing about communities of color, during her

time as radio producer she has history, language access and culture and histories with voices, her work has been featured in the new york times mpr's curbs which, and more. our author tonight is eric ms. palm, he is a former suppors editor and he has appeared in esp met unto magazine, sports illustrated, also the daily review and the best american writing anthology. eric was born and raised in l.a., he has spent many hours attending games at the stadium and sitting in traffic for most of those games as many of us have. they are here tonight to present eric's book stealing home, i would like to now turn over to them and before we get to the q&a session later, we will let

you know and please enjoy this. janice, eric, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> hey janice how is it going? >> your muted. >> i just want to say congratulations on the book i can't imagine what it feels li like. >> is a really good feeling i remember when the first knock came to the door and opening up and see the actual book in hardcover, it was surreal. >> i cannot imagine.

>> there are some quick intros that i want to say little bit more about life and how they came together for you to write the book. >> sure, this book was in my head before i even had a career, i was a high school student and a man named frank who is one of the central figures in the book in my u.s. history class in clover hi and he told the story of his life and he was a housing official who was dramatically blacklisted in 1962 for his membership in the communist party, the reason he was ousts as a communist, he was trying to develop a public housing project were dodger stadium now sits. his story began with the phrase dodger stadium did not exist and i was a kid who love baseball and that was shocking to me and

empowered the story and as a group and became a journalist and a writer, i never really let it go and i think on some level i wanted to add my contribution to the story of dodger stadium in the communities that perceive it the whole time. >> when you heard the phrase that it should not exist, that is one thing to know about women who realize that -- >> i'll give you a brief rundown, if you read the book you will see he was a true believer in public, his belief that dodger stadium should not exist because dodger stadium should be the leader park heights which is a grand public housing project. , he did not get into the

community too much and as i learned more about them, and as bishop i had a much deeper understanding of the real tragedy in the story which is that families lost their homes and ultimately saw their land sold by the government to a private businessman and there's a lot of drama and how that happens but that'll happen. >> we had the conversation earlier and we talked about this pocket and when you -- the decision to not just make it into an article for what the book was like, what was the decision like that for you?

>> part of it, i don't think i could've fit everything into an article, i really wanted to tell the story as complete the other could, within the reason and within single volume, i wanted for as long as they could be, when you're ready to write an article, even a long article, a feature of covered story articles, they have a certain length in a certain focus, it's one or two subjects and if you go beyond that, it's confusing and it doesn't to the subject justice, i knew the subject of this book really needed a longer telling on the page but they needed more time and more research to be told right and as a journalist, you only have so much time to get to your neck story and hit your deadline and

i cannot have done enough work as a reporter in researcher to turn this into a magazine story. >> just going to where the characters are, in the book there is a lot of history whether history about baseball, mexico, the u.s. general and historical pension between mexico and the u.s., you also write about people in different chapters and it was different people involved in the bigger story but you specifically focus on two characters and i would imagine and frank, how did that decision come about for you and focus on their stories? >> when i first started i did not have the specific about focus, i had a broader set of idea envisions of the book

probably. but on one level of the storyteller, yup the best way to tell a story is to people's lives, two individuals, something about those lives in particular stuck out to me and she was a really remarkable person who lived a life that in many ways was pretty normal, she was her mother and her grandmother and she worked hard and took care of her family, shoes and immigrant but she also ends up rubbing up against the big historical forces that bring her life around and there's something about her that caused her to resist those forces in a way that other people did not, not because they couldn't or did not want to or whatever, there's something different about her personality that drew me in and

you see the dodger stadium in the images of families getting evicted from the house, i was curious what it was about this family in their journey that led them to be violently evicted by sheriff's deputies, that did not happen to most of the neighbors and with frank. frank was the inspiration and the person who took a story in my head, he was also just a fascinating character, he lives a life like at the end of the movie, he was bit by a coyote as a child, he traveled europe in the 30s, he went from being a conservative methodist to a radical communist, he had multiple second acts in his career, he ended up and he goes to jail to protest with the american activities committee,

he was a handful and also and he was somebody whose ambition and career were similar in forces beyond his control, i was curious about that. >> going to the book and denying it -- moving from arizona to california, still part, but also in the book we have one person one year end another person in another year and you clash into that moment where is intersection, what did you see come together during your

research? >> i knew early on the book was going to center around the inflection point where that was good to be 1949, 50 when the housing authority is evicting people which is where they live. i knew that would be the place where they met and then you that their lives are going to go into different directions after that, a lot of the work of the book was first of all getting their timelines down, seeing where they were and what they were doing and put the focus on and then balancing how to tell the stories in a way that you cared enough for the both of them with the understanding they will have a tragic meeting i guess. >> throughout history -- chapter

after chapter in the book, i also seen the story brought to life the way you do, additional research which i'm sure you look reached out to a lot of family members to build the portrait of them, was not something he found different and the people reaching out to them. >> some members wanted to speak about her in people in the community wanted to speak about her and i don't think i reached out to everything a person, i did not because there's too many and it's a testament to her that she was a memorable person who left an impression on those who knew her, and putting her grandchildren -- my background

is a reporter then is a historian, doing that stuff is more natural than going to an archive that i'm an outsider but her and her family were mistreated in the 50s when this was all happening, i think if there was distressed it was pretty justified. >> when you are speaking to the family members and people of the other communities, do you sense that pain came back with their stories or even more specifically in the era? and throughout the generation? >> i think so, i think even for people who have a more forgive him forget attitude, if you lose your home and your family loses its home, that is painful, for some people it's very visceral

and seconds later they are still really hurt over it. there was not a lot of almonds made by anybody for what happened to these communities. in the experience of being mistreated by government and by business and having to get on with your life, without the community that you build and you love is a heavy experience and i never experienced it myself so i cannot speak to their pain but the people, when you go through something like that it does not go away. >> also, you talk about the grandchildren and all the great-grandchildren. >> were not going to be told from generation to generation.

>> there's great-grandchildren who were outdoing activism in a group called buried under the blue who has surrendered in displacement and activism in the file, they inherited trauma is the phrase that i heard. whether it's dodger stadium or project or anything else, they have lingering effects on communities. >> is there something that you thought you knew and you like i have annoyed you. >> i was struck repeatedly, i feel like this is going to be bad because they criticize the media earlier and i'm a member of the media, i was struck by

how transparently one-sided and how propaganda was in the 50s, the taylor family is notorious and was notorious for using the paper as a political -- but reading the actual article and seeing how sensationalist and plainly untrue a lot of the stuff that they published was to advance the potable agenda of the owners was something that left an impression for sure. >> it's definitely -- >> i love the paper, i think the other times right now it's amazing but reading about the los angeles times in the 50s in reading those articles was mind blowing. >> was an interesting experience while making this book? >> the interesting experience,

one thing about this book that i love is getting the chance to speak with people about their lives in getting the trust of the other stories, i think that's a secret thing and it's hard to overstate, the responsibility that i feel 176 down with me and my favorite memories from writing the book are probably sitting in somebody's dining room or kitchen and hear them tell their stories, a few of the people i interviewed, i started writing the book and that's heavy as well, a guy in the book and they did not get to see the product but i'm also grateful that i got there time and i got the chance to tell their stories. >> in the historical book, usually there are images that

have places in the book and i realize they have illustrations, do you want to talk a little bit about that. >> illustrations are by adam, he's a friend of mine and their incredible, i feel like i should take the book down to put something over to show you. >> i thought about doing photos in the book but one thing about getting photos in a book is that you have to get the rights to put them, some of those voters were trickier than others and have to pay for those as an author out-of-pocket and i thought of and going to be pain for these in the book, i really wanted something that was going to be special and different and given impression and maybe create more for the reader and i asked adam if he would draw the book for me a little bit and he

did and he came out great. he's really excited about that, seeing the pictures and also my kids like the pictures in the book and it makes me so acceptable to them. >> and i think reading this we talk about from the beginning about how everything came together to write this book, i'm just going to read it really quick, i never would dodger stadium of so many people. dodgers fan, angeleno, and the experience from beginning to end with reading the book has accomplished such struggle, has it changed anything for you? >> i think it becomes -- that struggle is like the question of the book and i came to believe

that is good to struggle with that kind of question, i love the dodgers and not as much as a care about what traits to make all the way do that as an institution part of my life, i love the city of l.a. but i wanted to explore that a little bit, if you love something it's okay to be critical and it's not even okay, it's good to do them good to say i love this but it is not right, you can do that with your religion or family or with the city that you live in, i love l.a. but l.a. has a lot of problems and i don't thing anybody would tell you otherwise. if you're a fan of the theme for an institution like the dodgers, it's okay to say this is wrong and this was not right in with this book it's much more about the city of l.a. in the county in the region in the u.s. history then is about a baseball team but i think that question

of whether you can love a place and have problems with it at the same time expanded from being dodger stadium to being los angeles. >> holding accountable something we have to do and i feel like you're right about los angeles and he guarantees away that happens in the government that were in impacted by the. >> kind of explain everything from the presidents, in your opinion of a journalist, what is happened. >> the dodgers are not like the guilty party in this book, this is not a book criticizing the dodgers, it's critical of the dodgers but it is about a failure of government more than

anything else and i think the dodgers and the city of l.a. in the county government and state government and federal government, i think there should be an acknowledgment of what happens and that is wrong, that would be a very basic first step, i'm not a member of the community and evicted with the animate domain to build a housing project only to see my house become a baseball stadium. it's not for me too say what they should do but i think saying something would be a really good start. >> even 20 years ago when the dodgers were owned by fox, they had a very small ceremony at a church in the canyon and the

extended branch to some community members but it was very much a one-time deal and now the doctors don't talk about this, it's not on the agenda for the team for whatever reason. >> in the making of this book there were places that you wrote about that are no longer there. >> it is interesting because you go up to elysian park or the hills around dodger stadium and some of the roads are still there in the streets are still there but they're not really the same, the construction of dodger stadium changed the landscape geographically of what the area would look like, and went a few times to the picnic where people who live in the community will go every july and have a picnic at elysian park in utah with the elders and say where was

so-and-so and the truth is, they can give you generally where things were but the hills are not the same, the dodgers moved hundreds and thousands of tons of dirt to rebuild the stadium, there's new access roads and freeways, it's a different looking place and feeling place than it was then. >> and the family members as you interview them, did you notice that the state around the area in los angeles or how they completely moved. >> most of them stayed in l.a., a lot of people moved to lincoln heights or boyle heights or nearby areas, i think some people even went to the canyon, and other parts of l.a., long beach, it was not like they were banished from the country but they got absorbed back into the

city where everybody else was, was not the same would say we went back to whatever neighborhood and we did not know her neighbors and we did not have the same sense of community we had before and losing the sense of community in the sense of pride was a big loss in addition to the physical loss of the homes. >> the loss of community and the children signing over and the parents and elders is something that was lost in the history and be able to go back home is not available anymore. >> the community was mostly evicted and then in 53 the housing crisis crashed, it was almost empty in and sat empty for long time except for a few families, people like kids, high schoolers would come back on

friday night to hang out in the empty old neighborhoods, can you imagine doing that, it's such a strange feeling but that's what it was like. >> i want to know -- >> i hope the entertained and enjoy the book and they come away with deeper understanding of this during ellie's history and a sense of how people and institutions around us interact and how power works in cities and that was a revelation for me when i was writing it for sure to see how things can really become deeply intimate very quickly. >> and then we talked about this how this book in the story

specifically has changed more than 50 years ago. >> absolutely comments going on in l.a. and it's different, if you look at your list for example, there still communities being affected there still displacement and gender vacation. it's not an old story. >> hello. >> i was here the whole time, don't worry. so were going to transition to a q&a section which i will ask some of the questions and then janice will ask any follow-up that you see might be interesting, you were just

talking about the continued affects of things like this with inglewood and heirlooms that are affected by these constructions, actually one of the top questions that we have, do you see similarities, this is from rolando cruz inducing similarities with gentrification in los angeles now and the displacement and the chavez regime then? >> i don't think it's the same, that was a specific set of circumstances that led to that. but if you look at the underlying dynamic where you have people deciding what should happen to the land of less powerful people and wealthy people deciding what should happen to the land of poor people, that's very much happening, that's was happening in inglewood right now, it just depends how you look at it, my answer is yes.

>> patrick commented on that particular question, and you know if they did anything about his fbi files. >> so frank, i did not say this, he was killed by the fbi for decades and is not 100% -- i approve this for sure, my understanding is that the fbi leak the communist party membership to the leave real estate to get ruined and he found this out much later, he sued the fbi in the 80s and that's when he found out that he had been tailed for decades, he actually did not know until he was an older man that he had an fbi agent on him for his entire life. >> about that's pretty tough to find out.

the next highest vote question is from cheryl franco, she asked since the book is been released, have you heard from the dodger organization about this? >> no, there is no baseball, who knows the doctors might be too distracted to comment on the book but i have not heard anything from the dodgers. >> should we get one of the owners to pop on. [laughter] >> there's definitely a couple here that i think you've answered during the course of talking about the emotions of the people that you have interviewed and you talk about that indefinitely still feeling the echoes of what is happened as a family and the generations

but andrew ate asked, when the dodgers came to los angeles, almost immediately he became the spanish voice of the dodgers, was is seen as a representation for the community during the early years ordered the battle overshadow the present -- >> that cut off and it picked up again with joining the team. >> there was just that overshadow houses present. >> the one thing about the dodgers, i don't think they came to town with the intention of every mexican-american and every person in l.a. at the time, that

was not their goal, their goal was to be a franchise in one of the ideals that they talk about in the stadium they wanted to be a stadium for everybody and to be affordable, it was, they wanted it to be a place where woman felt comfortable to come to again because i was not always the case at every major league park. and he wanted to reach the audience into broadcast in spanish and i think people listen, i don't know how and they haven't been employed since from the dodgers. and for the financial question, i think there's always a series that everybody and easily hated the dodgers until fernando came

but i'm not sure if that is totally true. i cannot imagine that there were no dodger fans before 1981, i think fernando increased the dodgers visibility and latin america a lot and in the communities in l.a. and also amongst everybody, he was a phenomenon who truly was universal in his appeal went beyond any one group. >> you also write in your book -- i don't know much about the history of baseball or how it was growing still but that was interesting and he moved to mexico and then moved to los angeles and he could still be a baseball fan and find your team

in los angeles. >> yeah, especially like northern mexico, baseball is extremely popular in its popular throughout mexico two. even though we saved the american sport of the national pastime, baseball has a long history and other countries in cuba and japan and mexico and dominican republic, baseball is the only professional baseball is being played in taiwan and korea. >> i'm covering some other things that you already talked about, but did you interview anyone from the family for comment or information on this book? >> i was really fortunate that the family allowed me access to his papers and his files from when he is moving to l.a. and

planing the stadium, peter granted me that and it was a huge help in writing the book, and think with him for writing that, i was not really aware of what a visionary he was in terms of how he conceived baseball as a spectator sport, we think now about baseball stadium to have all these different entertainment things in dodger stadium might seem old in the context but he was the first person to see baseball as a family-friendly experience, he consulted with walt disney how to build an ideal fan expanse of the dodger stadium, that was a level he thought on. in getting to diving to his notes and index cards for his ideas and it was great. it was really helpful in assembling the last part of the book and as a baseball fan and

as a person who loves dodger stadium it was a thrill to see where it came from. >> that's pretty amazing. i only have time for a few more questions. d.c. any linkages between the destruction of chavez regime in bunker hill? >> sure, there is historical ones, i'm going to get nerdy, there is project and people say they're part of the same in the general project with ellie which is creating a centralized downtown that was more corporate family and less worried about people, bunker hill was a neighborhood in downtown that had to make way for the

civilians i guess it's an ellie audience, i don't have to say that. >> even if you think about public housing, one of the reasons that him and his allies wanted public housing in those communities was because they were going to need to find somebody who lived in bunker hill, that was part of the conversation. the housing and corporate development and where per people get to live in l.a. at this time were really up in the air and whether or not you were a progressive or you are conservative business leader who wanted the limit, you are probably talking about displacing people and rebuilding the city physically for your own

vision of what it should be in a dodger stadium that's what happened in bunker hill that'll happen, had it been there instead of dodger stadium that's what would've happened. . . . i don't know if it hat actual philosophical roots. you have to ask james what he was reading when he came up with this stuff. i will say that plenty of ancient mystical groups found meaning in numbers, and they thought they were doing that in their own way, too.

numerology in a different way. >> two more questions. amy warner said: as a culver city teacher i'm proud you're a graduate of cchs. >> all>> what elementary schoold you attend and did you standard learning spanish at elma reno. >> started in el ran copp and then i moved to el marino. >> cool. that is cool. let's see. one last question. this is a pretty hard hitting one. a good one to end on. after the dodger dog what is your favorite all-time concession item at dodger

stadium? >> my favorite -- not like a good answer. i have two. one is the chocolate malt. the malts are the best thing at dodge are stadium. when they had them. they'd come in and out of style, and i'm a sucker carl's junior. and one year they had king tacos and that was great, too. >> i hope that answered your questions. i think that's all the time we have for the q & a part. janice, back over to you if you have any final questions or final questions. i. >> yeah. actually i do have one last question. i know you talk about -- can you talk about how you came to, i

guess, focus on the community but acknowledging there were more than one. >> there were three communities we now collectively call chavez ravine. i chose this one because that's where -- she was -- her family would have been part of the book and the biggest community of the three. it was kind of the most developed. looked the most like a normal l.a. neighborhood probably. but they were all three unique places, and vibrant places. there's a famous quote-unquote book called chavez ravine 1949 and the book is called have venezuela ravine but the pictures are almost like la loma. the cover photo on my book, that was also from la loma. so, there were three

communities. i hope somebody else writes ala loma book or bishop back, maybe i will. they all deserve to hair their stories told. [inaudible question] >> you can see video of the family getting evicted unfortunately. >> well, that's fantastic. janice and eric, thank you so, so very much for doing this and for being part of our event. it was fantastic. >> thank you for have us. it's been great. >> thank you for the story. they're very important. >> thanks, janice. >> take care. >> i appreciate that. thank you for reading and for chatting. thanks to everybody who came to watch, too. >> yes. >> definitely. thank you for everyone that is

attended. we did have a -- there was a couple of questions about you reading excerpts from it but i thought it was a little late in the game to do that. four hours. in. >> next time. >> that's a wrapup on the presentation for "stealing home" by eric nussbaum. thank you to everybody. we appreciate your support during this time and just if you are interested in purchasing the book, make sure you click on the purchase "stealing home" button right there it will take you to the website and you can purchase it and get it sent over. of a butch of different ways to order things on the webs, accepting donations. and so the regular updates on our events. you can make sure follow us at crowdcast here and you'll know all the other future virtual

events happening. it will be available to watch afterward. you can find thus and if you have any parts you want to relive. so, again, thank you guys so much, and on behalf of vromans book store. >> now once booktv, more television for serious readers. good morning, glenn hutchins here. welcome to this i hope to prove to be a fascinating and insightful situation with benazir benber unanimous key. when the financial crisis hit in 2008, and ben bernanke was fed chair there was no playbook so he had to create one from scratch. a few of us expected his successors would need to refer to it so soon, but farm for all of us