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Latinx Files: It’s finally time for Doyer baseball

A view from the top deck of Dodger Stadium shows a sparse crowd
Socially distanced fans attend the Dodgers’ season home opener on Friday, April 9, 2021.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
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Audrey Dow knew she was home the moment she and her family walked into Dodger Stadium and the crowd was singing along to Vicente Fernandez’s “El Rey” playing over the P.A. system.

The 46-year-old Hacienda Heights resident bought tickets to Sunday’s limited capacity game as a gift for her daughter, who wanted to celebrate her birthday and getting the COVID-19 vaccine by being among the first lucky people to watch a game in person in more than 18 months.

That game also happened to be Fernando Valenzuela Day; the Dodgers were celebrating the 40th anniversary of Fernandomania, a phenomenon that not only resulted in a World Series win for the Dodgers but also helped secure the devotion of Latinx fans in Los Angeles for generations to come. It was because of Valenzuela that Dow’s entire family roots for los Doyers.

Dow and her vaccinated family walked into the ballpark right as the celebration was underway.

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“I got chills, and my dad instantly started crying,” she told me. “There was such pride in our community. This is our stadium, this is our player.

“Hearing our music, I thought, ‘In what other baseball stadium in the country will you hear this song play with everyone singing along?’”

Four people in team shirts and colors pose for a selfie at Dodger Stadium
Audrey Dow of Hacienda Heights takes a selfie at Dodger Stadium with her daughter, sister and father.
(Audrey Dow)

For the better part of last year, Dodger Stadium was a place where Latinxs waited with worry in their cars for a coronavirus test. At the start of 2021, that anxiety turned to relief as the testing site became a vaccination center. Since last Friday, it has once again become a symbol and hub for Latinx joy in Los Angeles.

Gabriel Tenorio didn’t think twice about going to a Dodgers game when his friend offered him a ticket. The 47-year-old musical string-maker from Boyle Heights had already gotten his second dose of the vaccine, and after a year he wanted to go back to a place he considers hallowed ground.

“That space is our space,” he said. “It’s sacred because a big part of its history is what happened to Chavez Ravine. That park is ours.”

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For him, being back felt like recalling a lost memory. “You’re hearing the bat crack for the first time, and it’s so crystal clear. You look at the dirt and you’re like, ‘Wow! That’s really brown’ — or you can’t help to notice how beautiful those blue-and-white uniforms look against the green of the field,” he said. “It’s like experiencing all those things again for the first time.”

On Tuesday evening, I headed to Dodger Stadium for the team’s game against the Colorado Rockies, my first time in a crowd since the world shut down. After months of writing about how the pandemic had disproportionately affected the Latinx community, I wanted to witness something other than our people’s pain and suffering.

Before my ticket was scanned, I felt that sensory overload that Tenorio described wash over me. Everything felt so vivid — the lingering Dodger dogs aroma; Dieter Ruehle’s organ music, reminding me that we were in a place of worship — and the reality that we were headed toward something like normalcy felt so palpable.

And yet everywhere there were reminders that we were still in a pandemic, the biggest of which was the fact that fans were spaced out because of COVID-19 safety protocols, robbing all of us in attendance of the underrated pleasure of high-fiving a complete stranger after a great play.

We still managed moments of communal joy. Though limited-capacity seating all but killed the crowd from doing the wave, there was still the seventh-inning stretch tradition of singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Fans who had made the trek from the South Bay to the Valley, from the Westside to the Eastside, had the pleasure of once again belting out Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” as their boys in blue got in victory formation.

It wasn’t your typical Dodger game, but it felt very close to one.

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Chicken that tastes like home

I’m happy to report that Operation Chicken Airlift is back in full effect!

My colleague Brittny Mejia’s latest Column One story is an ode to the love that the Guatemalan and Salvadoran diasporas have for the fried chicken of Pollo Campero. Before the pandemic forced it to close its locations at the La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala and San Salvador International Airport in El Salvador, the fast-food chain estimated that they were selling nearly 400,000 to-go orders a year.

Founded in Guatemala in 1971, Pollo Campero has since expanded into the United States. The company is slated to open up 30 more stores in California over the next five years.

There’s debate over whether the fried chicken sold in Guatemala and El Salvador tastes different from its American counterpart — Mejia even did a taste test, alongside Times reporters Cindy Carcamo and Ruben Vives.

And how good is the chicken?

“I don’t think that the chicken is amazing, but what gets me every time is just that feeling of home,” said Cesar Valencia, a San Fernando Valley resident who emigrated from El Salvador when he was 5. “When you miss home, you miss everything about it.”

Univision is merging with Televisa

Univision and Mexico’s Televisa plan to merge. The two television giants are joining forces to go after streamers such as Netflix, believing that they have an advantage when it comes to Spanish-language content.

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“While the streaming marketplace is becoming more cluttered and competitive, we believe that the Spanish-language streaming market is underserved, and the last significant lane of streaming opportunity,” Univision CEO Wade Davis recently told Wall Street analysts.

Full disclosure: I used to work for Univision (I was part of the failed Fusion experiment, which was initially supposed to be an English-language channel for Latinx millennials), so take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt.

I think this is Univision retreating from trying to capture the younger generation of U.S. Latinxs.

The network will always have a stronghold in the U.S. for as long as there are Spanish speakers in this country. But rather than addressing the reality that Latinxs are becoming English-dominant, Univision-Televisa, as the new company will be called pending approval of the deal, will instead go after the roughly 580 million people in the world who speak Spanish.

Things we read this week we think you should read

— Speaking of mergers, the Athletic has this interesting profile of Mikel Arriola, the new president of Liga MX, in which the prospect of the popular Mexican soccer league combining with Major League Soccer is discussed.

— For The Times, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde wrote about the economic anxiety felt by business owners along East Los Angeles’ famed Whittier Boulevard, who worry that their customers might not come back as the county reopens. “I thought people might want to go out and spend their money,” said Miguel Dominguez, a panadero, of his lack of clientele. “But no. Nothing has changed. It’s a sad situation.”

— My colleague Daniel Hernandez wrote this firsthand account of the burgeoning salsa dancing scene on Venice Beach that began earlier this year.

The Fresno Bee is reporting that immigrant deaths in the San Joaquin Valley’s Kings County nearly doubled in 2020 from the previous year, and COVID-19 is a huge reason why.

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The best thing on the Latinternet: Bad Bunny at Wrestlemania

On Saturday, Bad Bunny took over everyone’s Twitter timeline thanks to his appearance on the first night of WWE’s Wrestlemania. El Conejo Malo not only had the greatest entrance of all time by pulling up to Raymond James Stadium while riding on top of an 18-wheeler, he also showed more of his wrestling chops by teaming up with Damian Priest to fight The Miz and John Morrison. According to a wrestling expert who spoke to Vice, Bad Bunny did better than expected.

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