For Día de Muertos, we ask listeners to offer their own audio ofrendas telling us about their loved ones.
On Día de los Muertos, people across Mexico and the United States set up altars to remember loved ones who have died. But new traditions arise every year to commemorate the holiday: online tributes, public festivals and more.
In that spirit, we have decided to turn this episode into an audio ofrenda — a place to let listeners remember their loved ones. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times Latino affairs editor Fidel Martinez, and our listeners
More reading:
Latinx Files: Why we built a Día de los Muertos digital altar
Día de los Muertos: How we remember our dearly departed
For this Oaxacan merchant, marigolds mean more than ever this Día de los Muertos
Audio Altar Message: My name is Carlos Castellanos, and I live…
Audio Altar Message: Hello, my name is, um, Manny Guzman…
Audio Altar Message: Hey, this is Tilo Lopez. I'm from Hawthorne. I wanna leave an ofrenda…
Gustavo Arellano: Hey, what's up? It's Gustavo Arellano. And today, we're doing something a little bit different.
Audio Altar Message: Hi, I'm calling to leave a message for the digital ofrenda that The Times is doing for Dia de los Muertos…
Gustavo: We're celebrating Dia de los Muertos by remembering people who have passed.
Audio Altar Message: My audio ofrenda is in honor of my father, John Gradia, who recently passed away.
Audio Altar Message: I wanted to leave a message in honor of my mom, Alicia.
Audio Altar Message: For my father, Manuel Guzman.
Gustavo: Day of the Dead is celebrated across Mexico but, more and more, it's becoming part of the landscape of the United States. And even though death is at the forefront, those who observe Dia de los Muertos know that it’s really more of a celebration of life.
Audio Altar Message: Yo, Greg, hope you're doing well, bud. It sucks that we had to lose you during the pandemic, but it was just yesterday when I saw you at the – at the show, at the last show we played together and, you know, you're a legend in the L.A. metal scene and everybody know that all the metalheads miss you, dog. Take care. Hope to see you soon, in the afterlife.
Gustavo: The traditional way to mark the holiday is with an ofrenda — an altar filled with photos of your dead loved ones, candles, food, and other stuff that they liked, like candy bars or personal mementos. And most people decorate their ofrendas with marigold flowers, called cempasúchil in Spanish, and things like papel picado and maybe even sugar skulls.
But there are newer and nontraditional ways to celebrate the Day of the Dead as well… just like this episode.
Audio Altar Message: My father, Robert Grubbs, loved the Dodgers and the Lakers and whiskey and good food and family. I miss him a lot. Thank you.
Gustavo: I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to The Times: Essential News from the L.A. Times. It's Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022.
Today we observe Dia de los Muertos with a collection of audio ofrendas, or memories of lost loved ones from you, our L.A. Times readers and listeners.
Gustavo: I have to admit I didn't grow up with the Dia de los Muertos, so I still have a hard time getting into it, but it seems like I'm in the minority nowadays — and that's a good thing. To see and hear people talk about their dearly departed is powerful, it's beautiful and it allows people a way to both mourn and share their lives with others.
The idea for this episode was inspired by my colleagues who created a digital altar on the LATimes.com website last year and this year. Throughout this episode, I'll be talking to one of the originators, my colleague Fidel Martinez. Fidel, welcome to The Times.
Fidel Martinez: Thank you for having me, Gustavo.
Gustavo: So last year, you and our colleagues Martina Ibáñez-Baldor and Vanessa Martinez, all of you asked readers to create a different kind of ofrenda, a digital one, on the L.A. Times website. Why did you want to do it like that, and how did it turn out?
Fidel: Yeah, so the idea for the digital ofrenda really came from the public events held across Southern California, like the ones at Self-Help Graphics and Arts and Grand Park. And so during the height of the pandemic, these events were unfortunately canceled. So we wanted to recreate a digital public sphere where people could mourn communally. When we launched the project, our best-case scenario was we would get maybe 40 to 50 submissions, but we ended up getting over 1,000 submissions from across the country and in four different languages. It was truly, truly amazing. And that's how it came to be.
Fidel: We got a lot of positive comments from readers and people who submitted, thanking us because, like I said, COVID really took away that level of public interaction. And this was a way for people to sort of share that memory with others.
And something that really struck me last year from some of the ofrendas, they included references that only that person would know about. And in the weird way, it allowed their memory to be public, but also that part of them to be private between the two individuals.
Audio Altar Message: And it's, it's been tough. And it like hit me because there are just like stupid work things that we'd share that only bus drivers would understand. And I wanted to talk to him and I realized he wasn't there.
Fidel: It was truly humbling, the fact that so many people were willing to share a piece of themselves with us.
Audio Altar Message: Hello, my name is Alessandra Moctezuma.. I'm a professor at San Diego Mesa College, a curator and an artist. And I was married to Mike Davis.
There've been so many wonderful tributes to Mike, so eloquent about his work. But it'd be special to have something from us, that is so much part of what an ofrenda is, you know, it's just really personal.
And so, my audio ofrenda is for my beloved husband, Mike Davis.
So Mike was the kind of person who was reading the news even the last day, you know, he was reading through the news the last day He was a person who always wrote because he had this belief that you could make the world better, but not by ignoring what – the problems in it, but by pointing them out.
He was not just a scholar, he was not just an academic. He was somebody who was part in the real world. You know, our postman just came by and, and, you know, asked about him and, and he was so sad. Mike knew everything about his life. You know, he knew that his wife was sick. So Mike was the kind of person who came and he just wanted to connect with everybody. And I think that's very different than the academics that are more set in that kind of ivory tower. And, and I think that's, that's what I learned from him. You know, what I learned from him, what our kids learned from him is that everybody is important. And that, we have to listen and that we have to take care of each other. So what I learned from Mike and that's what carries me through. And yeah, I think that's it.
Audio Altar Message: My name is Carlos Castellanos and I live in Los Angeles, California. I remember my grandmother, Alejandrina de la Cruz, who passed away a little over a year ago, would always love this time of year. She would create her altar in her living room. A very elaborate altar with the marigolds and the calaveras and the catrinas. And pictures of all of her muertos who she loved dearly.
She would decorate the altar with all the things that they loved. She'd include pan de muerto, their favorite cervezas, favorite fruits and foods and candies. And every year on Dia de los Muertos, she would invite her friends and family to have dinner. She would make them traditional mole with caldo de gallina and we'd have pan de muerto. And, um, it's a little bittersweet this year that she's not around. Because she loved Dia de los Muertos and she's not around to celebrate it with us. However, now it's our turn to keep her tradition going and to honor one of the greatest women that I've ever known. Thank you.
Audio Altar Message: Hi. Hello, my name is Dahlia Hernandez and I am from Anaheim and Huntington Beach, California. I am calling in regards to the Dia de los Muertos audio ofrenda. My Tia Lupe was a wonderful tia. She loved Juan Gabriel. She really liked “El Noa Noa.” We planned on going to see Juan Gabriel, who unfortunately is also not with us anymore. And I am so sad that we were not able to go see him live. My tia lived in the San Fernando Valley and she died in 2014. I really miss you, tia. Que descanse en paz.
Audio Altar Message: My name is Victor Narro. I am an immigrant rights and labor activist here in Los Angeles. I want to honor my mother, Amparo Villa. My mother lived a life filled with grief and sadness. If she had married the right person, she would've been able to live out her dreams. She was a prolific writer and she would've been a great novelist or poet. I do the work for justice and immigrant rights today, so that others, especially women, are able to fully live their life dreams and aspirations. My mother will be in my presence this year for El Dia de Los Muertos. Que vive Amparo Villa.
Audio Altar Message: I wanted to talk about my father, Salvador Ramirez. He was born in 1936 in Chihuahua, Mexico, and he immigrated to the United States in the late forties and into Texas following his dad, who was working on the railroad. And his father passed away when he was really young and he had to basically raise his two younger brothers. And anyway, I just wanted to remember him on this day. And he was a special man. He really embodied the American dream, went to law school after having dropped out of high school because his English was not great, and he dedicated his life to helping fellow immigrants until the day he died, actually. He was still seeing clients even though he was in failing health, and he was just a good man, and we miss him very much. Thanks.
Gustavo: After the break, how collectively sharing memories of our loved ones can help us.
Gustavo: Fidel, when I see an altar or an ofrenda, you never get sad. I don't see people crying at them much. It's more like people are looking at the life of the person remembered and also the love that the person who made the altar showed to the person that they're honoring, cause even the simplest ones take time to think out, and then make. Even just on the digital one, like you have to upload the photo, you have to write a little bit of everything. And for me, seeing this, you just feel these connections that somehow lift you up.
Fidel: Yeah I mean, it’s, it’s uh, I think it really resonates with people, right? Because it's them saying, like, Hey, this person lived and they mattered, and these are the things that I choose to remember about them. I mean, for me, I made an ofrenda for my grandfather and, you know, the little altar that I built for him included a little can of Coke because he loved Coca-Cola and a little, alebrije, a little, you know, wooden statue of a bull because, growing up, before he left Mexico, he was really into bullfighting, was even training to be a bullfighter.
Gustavo: And in that way, at least when you have the big ones and now you know, on the digital sphere, it's like we all collectively expose ourselves. We collectively have this moment so that the grief is no longer so much grieving, so much as it's a celebration.
Fidel: Oh, absolutely. I don't mean to generalize, but I, I do feel that for Latinos and Mexican American families specifically, or Mexican families specifically: you go to a funeral and then afterwards you have family gatherings and eventually like that sadness turns into joy because people start telling jokes about this person and just funny memories, right? So I think for me, the way in which happiness and sadness intermingle is really indicative of how life truly is, right? We obviously have our moments of sadness and moments of mourning, but those are also intertwined with some of our happiest memories, right? And to me, I think this holiday kind of brings that out.
Audio Altar Message: My name's Arselli Cruz. I'm originally from Montebello, California, and I currently live in St. Louis, Missouri. So I wanted to do a message for my tio Juan, who died in June. He's part of a very large family and loved to be at parties and he was always a big joy. So we're all very sad and still missing him very much because when we have our gatherings or when we're all together, he's definitely a big void that's missing. And I actually have an altar that I keep year-round and I've been doing that for several years. So I think for this year for my tio, I think I'll maybe like put something cute, like a small bottle of… I think of Corona or, or a beer that he really liked. He was just a really funny man, and always the life of the party. So I think what I take from his life is to live life to the fullest and to always be kind and generous to my family. So I think I'm gonna take that from him to try to loosen up a bit for sure. Thank you so much for listening and I hope we all have a wonderful celebration of Day of the Dead.
Audio Altar Message: So my mom, Elaine Beaumont, was born in 1938 in Wath upon Dearne in south Yorkshire. And she was a lovely, quiet young lady who grew into being a lovely, quiet elder lady and passed away. Iris flowers were her thing. She loves the color blue, so I'm gonna make sure things are blue on an altar. But also, my mom was from Yorkshire. And there's a sense of Yorkshire thrift from anybody that's lived there and so, she was not a hoarder by any stretch, but she did have bags and bags of zip ties that she would collect and hold on to, and hotel soaps and things like that. So, as a little joke, I think I'm definitely gonna put some things like that on there.
She, I think, instilled in me a sense of the need to look after others. To make sure that we're OK. But if we are OK, we're making sure that the people around us are OK, even if we don't know them. And so I think that's something that is a wonderful legacy of hers.
Audio Altar Message: My name is Martin Duran and I am currently visiting San Miguel de Allende, in Guanajuato, Mexico. I am a native Angeleno and I really appreciate the opportunity to share about my father who passed about 15 years ago. His name was Martin Duran Sr., coincidentally. For me, this trip has a lot to do with my father because about a year prior to him passing away, I asked him if he could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go? And he said, Mexico City. And I was surprised because I thought he would say something like Egypt or Tokyo, but he said Mexico City. And so I’m having these very, very, um, sort of mystic experiences. I was at a local sports bar yesterday and I had a, there was a song that he liked by a band called 10 Years Gone, I believe. And the song is, “I’d Like To Change The World, But I Don't Know What To Do.” Not a very popular song. So being in this bar and hearing the song was very odd and, and surreal. Those experiences are very unique and pleasantly a good surprise.
Audio Altar Message: I'm Kelly Davis and I'm a freelance journalist based in San Diego, California. Um, my sister Betsy was an artist. She was a graphic designer, and in 2013 she was diagnosed with ALS, which is a terminal and debilitating illness. Just a horrible illness where a person slowly loses the ability to move their body and they eventually die. She was one of the first people to use California's End of Life Options Act, which is basically an aid-in-dying law. It took effect about six weeks before she died. And the law gave her the ability to die on her own terms, and that included throwing a party for family and friends. It gave a lot of her friends a chance to reconnect and to say goodbye to her in a joyful way. Cause the ground rule for her end of life party, or she called it her rebirth party actually, it was no crying. So if you had to cry, go someplace else. Otherwise, if you were around her, she wanted people to just be joyful and upbeat.
I have little conversations with Betsy and I have these, what-would-Betsy-do moments. So I think about things that I might not immediately do, but Betsy would just for the adventure and the experience of it. So I think I've definitely become, yeah, more, more adventurous. She's kind of pushing me to make meaning in life and to live every day best I can live it.
Gustavo: After the break, Fidel and I offer up our own ofrendas.
Gustavo: Before we close out this episode with more of your ofrendas, I just wanna thank everyone who called in, for trusting us with your stories. And I think it's only fair then that if ustedes open up your hearts to the world, so should Fidel and I. So Fidel, you mentioned earlier your grandpa, but as you do your audio altar right now, what else should we know about him?
Fidel: I think for me, my abuelito Luis, he was my paternal grandfather, like for me, he was always known as the calladito one, you know? But, but he-
Gustavo: The quiet guy
Fidel: -but he was always like, he was also known for his integrity.
I remember a story that my dad used to tell me, you know, when, when my grandfather was working for my uncle at a restaurant. And I remember my dad told me that his uncle yelled at my grandfather for not skimming from the cash register. And so my grandfather responded like, well, that's not my money. And so, his cuñado, his brother-in-law responded, Luis, if I let my employees take money from the cash register, what makes you think that I wouldn't want you, who's my family member, to take that? You know? So to me that story always stood out. That I, I think that the way that he lived his life is something that I try to emulate, right? With honor and dignity.
Gustavo: Yeah, dignidad, that's the way to live life. That's the only way to live life.
Gustavo: Me, like if I'm gonna do an ofrenda, I have to do it to my mom, mi mamí, Maria de la Louisa de amo Miranda. I'll always think about her of course, because, you know, she only passed away a couple of years ago. But especially as long as I'm with The Times, I'm always gonna remember her because she died from ovarian cancer just a couple of months into my job. And so like she never saw everything that I've done here at the paper, but like she was, I mean she was amazing. And to me, the memory I'll always have of her was I did a column about her about, uh, capirotada, the Mexican bread pudding that we do for Lent and just how it was my all-time favorite dish. And I remember the last time we were cooking it. By then, my mom was already bedridden. So like my cousins, uh, las de mi Tia Maria, they were in our kitchen trying to like, teach me how to cook it according to her recipe. And we couldn't find the cloves, like we could not find the cloves. And my mom somehow got the strength. She's like, You know what? Screw you guys. Que estes saben? So she got up in her walker. She hadn't walked in weeks and she was mad. She was in a lot of pain but more than anything she was mad. She's like, Look, I'm gonna die soon. So if I'm gonna die, and you're gonna try to make my capirotada, at least do it right. So she literally just got it, gave it to us, said no word, and then just went back and to her bed and just went to sleep after that. Like that to me was my mom. She was tough. Our nickname for her was “La Ley” – the Law. Cause every, you know, you don't wanna cross her. But she never, you know, she was never cruel. It was always out of love. It was always just wanting to, you know, have the people that she loved be in the most comforting places. So. Mommy, esto es para usted, porque. I hope que, huh here I am a pocho, I hope que usted tenga orgullo de lo que nosotros hemos hechos. I love you, Mom. So there you go. I cried. Hasta los machos lloran. So, Fidel – oh, how do you get back from that? Right. Thank you so much for sharing, uh, your story. And thank you for everything that ustedes have done with the digital ofrenda.
Fidel: No, and thank you for sharing that memory with us. I, I think that. It really, I think it's very indicative, right, of like why it's important to take time, to reflect and remember those that we loved. And it's always those memories that really stand out, right? And it's what makes us the most connected to them.
Audio Altar Message: My name is Betsy Lopez Wagner. Uh, since the summer of 2020, I now reside in Michigan, I think when I think about Dia de los Muertos, I think I would wanna share that I talk to my loved ones often, whether they hear me, um, only the stars and my ancestors know. If I listen closely, I'll hear the occasional, “Oh, mija” or “hey chimaca,” which is like, “hey brat.” Um, this upcoming holiday, my grandmother, Avelia, grandma Villa as she was more affectionately called, is really on my heart and mind. If I were to have time with her, perhaps I would say something along the lines of, I think of you often. I think of you when I look at my hands and I have the urge to create, I think of you when I'm searching for that aguja and hilo so that I can go ahead and crochet. I think of you when the faint smell of canela, that’s cinnamon, crosses my nose on a cold day, or when I pick up a pink tamale de azucar with pasas, even though folks will still argue that there's no place for raisins in tamales.
Audio Altar Message: Hi, I'm Melissa McCoy. I live in Southern California and I am a former journalist. Worked at the Los Angeles Times for two decades. My altar is for Henry Fuhrmann, who passed away in September 2022. Henry was such a calming force in the L.A. Times newsroom, amid so much upheaval in the industry. And in that newsroom in particular, he was always calm and it meant so much to the people who were left behind after just a spate of layoffs and management changes. He was the quintessential mentor. He cared about helping younger editors and reporters, and he was a huge champion of underrepresented groups. Henry loved organizations he was involved with through journalism: the Asian American Journalists Assn. and the American Copy Editors Society and, you know, I just think he relished those roles that he had as an elder statesman in the craft.
Audio Altar Message: Hi, my name is Opie Moreno. I live in Fort Worth, Texas. I'm originally from Fresno, California.
My audio altar is for my son, Sebastian Moreno, who passed away from fentanyl poisoning. He passed away on February 3, 2022, of this year. Sebastian was very bold. He never sugarcoated anything. Either Sebastian loved you or he didn't love you at all. One of the great things that Sebastian loved to do is play football. A lot of his teammates said he was the smallest one on the team, but hit the hardest.
So the year that the pandemic hit, my Sebastian pulled out his 401(k), which I was very upset with him, and I'm like, why are you doing that, Sebastian? And he's all, I'm not gonna live long enough to enjoy it, Mom. And I was like, Sebastian, you know? I said, OK, well go pay your car off, you know, do something good with it. So what he did with his 401(k), and he got $18,000 out, he went and bought food for the homeless and I came home one day and it was a lot of food in my home and I was like, Oh my God, my son bought groceries for us. Well, the next day it was all gone. And I'm like, what happened to all the food? He’s all like it wasn't for us, Mom, it was for the homeless. So with his entire check, he went and helped out homeless. And he helped out some friends that were going through cancer and they were out of work for a bit, and he helped them out.
And it just… I tell that story, because that's the kind of heart my son had.
Audio Altar Message: I'm Robin Johnson. I live in Burlington, N.C. There's not really much to say about me. I'm just a, a grieving mama trying to bring awareness to this fentanyl that's killing our children. Kenneth Paul King: He was born Dec. 14, 1986. He was, all his life he's been such a sweet, loving person. He'd do anything for anybody. He loved music; Eminem, Lil Wayne, and Duke basketball, gosh, he was a Duke fanatic. It's all about Duke. He knew everything about every player.
So when he turned 21, he started doing drugs. And I believe it was to escape his reality. He started out with the pain pills and then he went to the heroin and then a drug dealer sold him pure fentanyl. My son died, but my son was not alone. These people let him die. He was a good person. He loved his daughter, God so much. All he wanted to do was be a better father.
Audio Altar Message: My name is Margarita Avila. I live in Newport Coast, Calif. I am the youngest of the Avila family and the ofrenda is for my father, Salvador Avila, who passed away at the age of 99 years old.
I think an extraordinary story that shows the man that he is, the perseverance of the person he is, is that when he was 50 years old, he started running. He started to learn how to run and he just kept on learning how to run, to running 5Ks, 10Ks. He did his first L.A. Marathon when he was 75 and then did his last marathon when he was 81 years old. And so I think that's pretty extraordinary,
Audio Altar Message: My name is Alexandro Gradilla. I'm an associate professor at Cal State Fullerton, and I teach in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. My audio ofrenda is in honor of my father, John Gradilla.
My father was an immigrant who came to this country as a young child, losing his father in 1942, and he really was the epitome of somebody who understood the challenges of life and rose to his better angels to always make a difference, to make a change. He had a lot of traumas and tragedies in his life and he never internalized that trauma. Instead, he always flipped it. Life was handing him a lot of lemons. And my father kept on making lemonade as fast as he could. And this year I'm thinking in terms of, for my dad, definitely his altar is going to have some of his favorites, any beer that's on sale we’ll have a beer can there, whatever's on sale at Smart and Final. We will have something sweet, a dessert. He was diabetic and he definitely, you know, loved his sweets.
Audio Altar Message: My name is Bill Carpenter and I'm in Washington, D.C., and I'm a friend of Mabel John for, since 1991. And she was basically a blues singer. Even though Motown went on to become known for pop-soul music, Mabel was their blues artist in those early days.
Mabel John was the life of the party. She was a ball of energy. She was never a shy person. Later in life, she became known for her work with the homeless in L.A.. She had an annual Christmas event where she would get celebrities to donate food and toiletries and clothes for the homeless or the needy in L.A. and just watching her supervise all of those volunteers was just, it is, is a thing of magic because she was so tiny, but so big in personality, and people were following her. And she wasn't afraid to get her own hands dirty. She wasn't just telling people what to do. She was doing it herself.
I think that something I learned from Mabel is one, to be nice to everybody because she was always nice to everybody. And, she made helping people look fun and made me jealous to want to help people, which is odd, you know? Cause I live in a city where people don't really seem to help people.
Audio Altar Message: Hi, my name is Amy Beaman. I'm currently located in Chandler, Ariz.
My audio altar is for Mattie Nass. Mattie was, very, really kind of contagious person. I mean, his laughter was contagious and his enthusiasm was infectious. If I were able to speak to him, I'd say, you know, let us know. He didn't tell anybody that he was suffering, unfortunately. So it was a real shock. He was supposed to be picked up for the end of his school year, in college, and there was a letter saying that he was gone, and there was no other indication prior to that. And if we just would've had some, some forewarning, we could've done something. Well, I have suffered through my own suicidal ideation, and I know that for a while it can go undetected. And so I guess what I have learned is just because somebody appears that they're doing OK, doesn't necessarily mean they are doing OK. And that you have to pay very close attention to people. Let's take care of each other.
Audio Altar Message: Hi, my name is Jose Covarubias. I am currently in my apartment in New York City. I grew up in San Diego, Chula Vista, border town. I want to leave a digital ofrenda for my baby sister, Monica Covarubias.
She passed away last year from COVID. And so I just remember getting to play dress-up with her and getting to do her makeup for Halloween. And she was always my willing Barbie. My sister was the sweetest, kindest person. She was the baby of the family, so she was a little bit spoiled. But we, you know, we loved her but she was always worried about the family as a whole, and was always checking in on everybody. And I want to leave a digital ofrenda from my father, Juan Jose Covarubias, who passed away last year, also from COVID, a few days before my sister. My dad was very much all about life and loving life and laughing and, um, he was very positive and – he was first generation, he was from Mexico, he came over. And I remember at 7 years old going to tell him, I asked him if I could be in ballet. I wanted to be in ballet class and the next thing I knew, I was in baseball, for the next seven years. So I got, you know, because your dad says you're gonna play baseball and I'm spending money on baseball, you don't argue with your dad. You know, so you try and be the best you can. And turns out I ended up learning a lot of lessons from baseball. I learned about teamwork. I learned a very impressive skill as far as like, you know, being athletic. And I did end up being a dancer, later on in life. I got to, you know, I performed, I toured, I toured the world singing and dancing. But one of my parlor tricks was always like the fact that I could hit a ball and I could throw and catch. And now I belong to a gay softball league and you know, this past season we just won second place. So, yeah, for me it's the fact that whenever I came home, you know, we didn't really talk about the sexuality thing too much cause you know, he's a very, machismo man. And so when all else failed and we couldn't talk about the family anymore, we couldn't talk about weather, we could always talk about the Padres. Uh, thank you so much for listening. Happy Dia de los Muertos. I hope you enjoyed these memories as much as they bring me joy every day.
Gustavo: A big, huge thanks to everyone who called in and left an audio ofrenda for us. And please go to LATimes.com and see the digital ofrenda that so many of you have helped to create.
Gustavo: And that’s it for this episode of The Times: Essential News from the L.A. Times.
This episode was produced by Kinsee Morlan and David Toledo, edited by Heba Elorbany, and mixed and mastered by Mark Nieto.
Our show is produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistants are Carlos De Loera and Roberto Reyes. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back Friday, with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.