Last week MobileWest pulled into sunny southern California and parked at the East Los Angeles Public Library. The trailer sits in an idyllic spot next to a pond where Angelenos fish, toddlers waddle after ducks, high school students turn up the radio, and one can always find a cart selling elote (corn-on-the-cob) or shaved ice.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, along with the great folks from our partner station KPCC, welcomed the booth to this historically diverse neighborhood. East L.A. is home to the largest Chicano and Latino communities in the United States.

We look forward to hearing mas historias del barrio and sampling some of the best tamales and tacos in California or dare I say, the United States.

Rueben Martinez, longtime owner of a Latino literature bookstore, and his granddaughters Samantha and Sabrina had a lively conversation about their love of literature.

Rueben became a barber shortly after moving to Los Angeles from a small mining town in Arizona. At the barber shop Rueben gave reading lessons to parents so they could go home and read aloud to their children. Many years later, a man visited Rueben’s bookstore to thank him for teaching his parents to read, a tradition he had kept up with his own children. Rueben works to keep his philosophy alive.  “Books are el mejor regalo en el mundo (the best gift in the world),” he says.