Zócalo's Connecting California
Coming of age in the Valley
Two new biographies shed light on what it was like growing up in multicultural Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s.
By Joe Mathews • • 5m ListenPatrice Khan Cullors and Tiffany Hadish aren’t exactly alike. Khan Cullors is a Black Lives Activist who speaks with deadly seriousness about race and equality. Haddish is a comedian who is prone to talk, graphically, about why she left her boyfriend. But both women are African Americans who spent their formative years in the San Fernando Valley during a time of great change in Los Angeles. And that experience, for better or worse, shaped their outlook as they rose to national prominence. Now both are out with memoirs. And Zocalo Public Square columnist Joe Mathews says the two books are essential reading for those who want to better understand L.A. during a critical time in its history.