Where I Go: L.A.’s Oldest Standing Black-Owned Bar

I Didn’t Know How to Make a Cadillac Margarita. The Living Room Still Offered Me a Job—And a Community

The Living Room is the oldest standing Black-owned bar in Los Angeles. Located in the heart of the West Adams district and previously known as Barry’s Cocktail Lounge, the bar has silently woven itself into the fabric of South L.A. since its founding in the 1940s.

Though I’ve lived in the same neighborhood as the Living Room my whole life, I didn’t learn of its existence until I was 30.

It began with a simple Yelp search.

That year, I decided to leave behind the inertia of my corporate career in hospitality to …

More In: Where I Go

Where I Go: Redondo Beach Brings Me Back to Myself

I’m the Keeper of My Family’s Memories. My Hometown Is Where I Uncover the Layers of Our Past

Late one afternoon last year, during a troubled time in my life, I took a long walk on the beach.

A day of rain was ending. Watery sunlight shone on glossy …

Where I Go: A Lifetime Spent Journaling

As a Teen, It Saved My Sanity. Today, It Reminds Me to Pay Attention as Life Flows By

For years, I’ve told people that I started keeping a journal at 13. But when I go back and look, what do I find? I was an elderly 15, already …

Where I Go: Seeing Panama City Through the Eyes of Elders

Experiencing the History of Black Life in the Country Where I Was Born

In 2001, I made my first visit as an adult to Panama City, Panama. The city was both familiar and alien to me. My family migrated to the United States …

Where I (Don’t) Go: Three Years in Northern Colorado

I Haven’t Left Larimer County Since Early 2020. It’s Taught Me How to Hear, Smell, and Feel at Home

In late September in northern Colorado, where the Rocky Mountains meet the plains in the traditional and ancestral lands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Ute Nations and peoples, the waist-high …

Where I Go: Becoming a Pokémon Champion | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Becoming a Pokémon Champion

For the Last 15 Years, These Cute Digital Creatures Have Helped Remind Me That I Can Overcome Any Challenge That May Come My Way

Most kids are obsessed with things—fantasies, foods, films—that they eventually outgrow.

It’s only natural. Our taste ages as we do.

But for me, it’s been 15 years since my parents got me …