Host Walter Thompson-Hernández returns home to L.A. and reflects on how much the city has changed since he was a child.

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Walter was just eleven years old when he was admitted to L.A.'s infamous Scared Straight program for graffiti related crimes. In this episode, Walter, through a chance encounter, checks-in with his friend who went through the program with him, their anti-tagging arch-nemesis, and how they have turned out after all these years.

California Love sponsors include:

Stream We Are Freestyle Love Supreme beginning July 17, only on Hulu

This LAist Studios podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and our listeners get 10% off their first month of online therapy at BetterHelp.com/LAist

A story about a wild party line that many Los Angeles’ teenagers used to create a fantasy world.

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Stream We Are Freestyle Love Supreme beginning July 17, only on Hulu

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Walter dives deep on what Kobe meant to him in his life and how the icon’s death spurred a collective mourning throughout the city.

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California Love is a limited series with 8 episodes. Show support by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts.

A first-parrot perspective into legends and myths of how L.A. became home to the world’s largest population of green parrots.

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California Love is a limited series with 8 episodes. Show support by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts.

There’s a horse ranch in the heart of Compton that may hold the answers for salvation and redemption for the city’s black cowboys.

Read the original NYTimes article, "For the Compton Cowboys, Horseback Riding Is a Legacy, and Protection."

Read Walter Thompson-Hernández's book The Compton CowboysThe New Generation of Cowboys in America's Urban Heartland

This LAist Studios podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and our listeners get 10% off their first month of online therapy at BetterHelp.com/LAist

California Love is a limited series with 8 episodes. Show support by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts.

Eleuteria “Ellie” Hernández moved to Los Angeles from a small town in Mexico when she was 14 and fell in love with the city. In this episode, Walter sits down with Ellie, his mother, to understand her relationship to L.A. and how it shaped his own.

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This LAist Studios podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and our listeners get 10% off their first month of online therapy at BetterHelp.com/LAist

We close the series with a meditation on how 28 years after the 1992 Riots, for many in L.A., things feel exactly the same.