Life in L.A. - Beach Culture

Dicen que todas las ciudades tienen su propio espíritu. Para muchos el espíritu de los ángeles es tener una vida relajada y llena de aventuras en la playa y para "shaka to far eye" solo hay una playa con el verdadero espíritu relajado y aventurero de los ángeles. Cuando a veces piensan las cosas de la playa, piensan las cosas de Hollywood, un lugar que es famosa por movies y celebraciones, pero yo creo que es la playa de la inventeda y creo que es la playa real. Es una creativa y un lugar muy grande. Es clásico de los ángeles. La playa de Venice Beach es el segundo punto más turístico de California con un promedio de 10 millones de visitantes al año. Tiene 5 kilómetros de largo y sumarle con también conocido como el famoso Venice Beach Poor Walk, tiene dos cenas de palmeras o "Humtrees". A parte del lado turístico, Venice es también una comunidad donde mucha gente pasa su tiempo libre. En el Poor Walk, miles de artistas callejeros, vendedores y deportistas disfrutan del sol todos los días. Allí, entre las famosas pistas de skateboard, las canchas de basketball y el gimnasio al aire libre, "shaka" definió su forma de ser para siempre. Yo lo amo mucho sobre Venice Beach, pero mi favorito es la gente. Es mi comunidad. Yo sólo he estado allí hasta que era 12, pero Venice es donde me aprendí a hacer amigos y cómo ser tan divertido. En el día de hoy, me meté este guay named Domingo, estando en el Poor Walk. Era muy grande para mí, pero nos ha hecho mucho muy bien. Y me introdué a los amigos. Como un niño, no me lo entiendo en los niños y los municipios de Venice Beach, vamos a ver mi vida. Welcome! Les damos la bienvenida a Relatos en inglés. Un podcast de búlingo. Soy Diana Cameros. En cada episodio podrás practicar inglés a tu propio ritmo, escuchando historias, reales y fascinantes contadas por las personas que las vivieron. Los protagonistas hablan en un inglés sencillo y fácil de entender para quienes están aprendiendo el idioma. En cada capítulo, yo te acompañaré para asegurarme de que entiendas todo. También ofrecemos transcripciones completas en potcast.duolingo.com. En esta temporada especial del podcast, vamos a Los Ángeles, también conocido como LA. La ciudad de California, famosa por sus celebridades, su clima sueleado, su diversidad cultural y sus playas. Por el camino, conoceremos algunas de las 10 millones de personas que han hecho su hogar en Los Ángeles. Y nos contarán por qué es tan especial para ellos. Hoy vamos a contar historias sobre las playas de Los Ángeles y qué significan para dos personas que crecieron en ellas. En los años 90, con solo un año de edad, Shaka llegó a vivir a Venice Beach con su mamá y sus hermanos. En esa época, los jóvenes del barrio se vestían de repoblgada y relajada y se divertían en la playa con radios a todo volumen, tocando los nuevos hits de Snoop Dogg, el artista más querido en Los Ángeles durante esa época. Y Venice Beach era la playa con más sonde. Venice Beach has changed so much over the years. Back in the 90s, there was a big black, Caribbean, and Afro Latino community. There was colorful art on all of the buildings and people selling things outside. But there was always a lot of music and art in the streets. Because it was an area where artists and creative people could afford to live. Today, there are lots of tourists and fewer black people live there. Instead of cheap pizza shops, there are expensive restaurants now. Instead of small, local shops, there are stores owned by big companies. So when I say I'm from Venice Beach, I mean that I'm from Venice in the 90s. My mom came from Jamaica and back then, Venice felt very much like home to us, especially to my mom. And she worked hard to pay for our life there. My mom used to go on the boardwalk and carry a big basket on her head. Inside, there were things like oils and music, which she sold to people. If someone wanted to buy something from her, she did the whole transaction with her basket on her head. She knew exactly where everything was in that basket. So she could grab items without even looking. I love that about mom. The mother of the girl couldn't be able to stay in a garden. So she took her two children to the mall and left them to play freely while she was working. All the days after school, she and her younger sister went to the boardwalk to play near the canches and the gymnasium to the free air called "playa muscular". Oh, Maso Beach. There were many friends in the banks. Oh, benches. They came to play basketball after work and they taught me how to play the game. But the most important person I met was a guy who used to hang out on a boardwalk bench. His name was Domingo. Domingo was a young man of dark hair and long hair, or locks. He was 30 years old and during this period of his life he slept in a bench of Benz Beach and lived in selling musical instruments at home. The bench was a public space but Domingo had made his camp. I used to have locks too. Domingo looked like me, but older. So I trusted him. He was a big part of the Benz Beach community. There were always people dancing and playing music in front of his bench. It was like an outdoor party and Domingo was always at the center of it. It was 1993. He was 6 years old. Despite the difference in age, he and Domingo were a big friends. I really wanted to be like Domingo. He built a beautiful community and he had a lot of friends. He was the first person to teach me how to introduce myself to people. He always said, "Look into a person's eyes, shake their hand and say, 'You're a shaka. Tell them your name and be proud of who you are.' When the mother of Shaka wanted to take a rest, she knew that in that bench she would always find her children. They spent the whole day having fun with Domingo and her friends. One day, the neighbors asked why Shaka and her brother played in front of the houses and they were very happy. We were very loud and we ran around the neighborhood a lot. So one day, the neighbors came to the bench and complained to Domingo. He told them he was going to talk to us but he never got angry at us or told us to be quiet. He just let us enjoy being kids. From his bench, Domingo saw how Shaka began to develop his personality. When Shaka was eight years old, ¿Qué pasa? - Sometimes, tourists asked to take a photo with me. I told them, "It's $1 for a photo of me, and it's $5 if you don't have change." I learned to be charming, watching Domingo, and I remember feeling like I could do anything on the boardwalk. It was the kind of place where you didn't have to dress up to look cool. If you look like you didn't care about your clothes, people in Venice thought you were really cool. So, I wore big shirts and pants, and I had long locks, and I knew how to skate, dance, and talk to people. After a few years, I felt like I was just as cool as Domingo. One day, Domingo came to our house. I was surprised because he almost never left the bench. He was talking to my mom, and he told her that he was dating a German woman, and that she was pregnant. I wasn't really paying attention until he said he wanted to take care of his kid. So, he was going to move to Germany. I was really sad because Domingo was really important to me. How could he leave? We did everything together, and he was a big part of the Venice Beach community. All of my best memories of Venice were with him. So, I felt like the world was ending. He left one day, and I felt like the heart of Venice left with him. The beach just felt different after that. His bench was empty, so me and my brother didn't go and hang out there anymore. One day, my mom told me and my brother that she was dating someone, and she wanted to move us to a place called Ventura with him. It was almost 100 kilometers north of Venice, but my mom thought it was safer there. I couldn't believe it. It felt like we were going to a whole new world. I knew there wasn't a boardwalk in Ventura like the one in Venice, and I was sure that I wasn't going to meet anyone like Domingo or my other friends. (gentle music) But the decision was definitive. At the 12 years, starting to make a teenager, Shaka had to say to God, to his friends in the beach and in the school. I remember the day we left. We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway, and I was crying the whole time. I didn't want to go somewhere else. I didn't want to introduce myself again or find another community. It was just the sea, the sand, and a narrow path for walking. There were no shops, no performers, no color, and no people selling things on the street like in Venice. The beach was very plain, and all of the other kids were white. It didn't feel like home to me, and I really missed Venice. But I knew I couldn't go back, so I made a decision. I was going to make Ventura as special as Venice. Soon, I realized that I was a cool kid in Ventura. It was because I dressed and talked like a kid from Venice Beach. I could play basketball, skate, and I knew all the cool music. I could also show kids how to dance. After a while, I learned to love Ventura too. When I go to Venice, and I go to the boardwalk and muscle beach, I still see people that I knew when I was a kid. Like they say, you can take the boy out of Venice Beach, but you can never take Venice Beach out of the board. It will always be my home. Friend, bring in. Cheer up. My mother was born in the US to immigrants from Hungary. And my father was born in Brazil to an African indigenous and Portuguese family. I'm really tall and I have brown skin. And when I was a kid, I felt very different from all the other kids at school. I didn't really enjoy being there. The ocean was the only place that felt like home. The water at Los Angeles Beach is so cold. I didn't have enough money to buy a wetsuit. So I just swam in that water with a normal swimsuit. I taught myself how to swim. I just jumped in and started practicing. The other kids on the beach taught me the basic things I needed to do to surf. And I just did it. It was so fun to ride on the waves like that. And that's when I fell in love with the ocean. I learned that people have been surfing for a long time in places like Ghana, Sanegal, and Tahiti. I've always felt like a citizen of the planet and the ocean is the thing that connects the entire world. When I came back, I noticed that the places I surfed in the past were suddenly a lot more popular. The beaches were really crowded and there were so many people in the water. That's okay for people who are learning to surf, but not for surfers with experience. There was no space. So, I decided to start surfing El Porto instead. It was less crowded and the waves were almost always great. It was the perfect beach for me. The beach of the other beaches in California is small. It is extended by seven blocks ahead of a stationery and residential area. It is a quiet place to be alone and the sea offers different rooms depending on the time of the year. When I visited El Porto one time in November, I noticed that the water was so clear. I could even see fish while I was swimming. And there were waves of all different sizes, so it was the perfect place to surf. April began to visit the port every morning. Even the name of the beach was in the box with it. It is the mixture of "o" porto, "en portugués" and "el puerto" in Spanish. Multicultural as it is. With time, April became one of the regular visitors of the beach. I usually surf early in the morning. I like to arrive at the beach before sunrise, when it's still dark. The water is so calm and the beach is silent. I love watching the sunrise while I'm in the ocean. I also love looking at all of the sea life, like dolphins, sharks and all kinds of fish. For April, the beach of El Porto became one more place where a good wave was born. I found the great diversity of the sea to offer. And also part of the surf community that the same as her, came from all parts of the world. It was a true mixture of cultures or melting pot. The islands at El Porto are Filipino, Costa Rican, African, Japanese, Mexican and from many other places. I've surfed there for close to 20 years and it's always been like that. It's a melting pot like the rest of Los Angeles. El Porto really feels like home to me. April started to be increasingly involved with the ecosystem of the beach of El Porto. In 2013, there were local press articles where some neighbors were asked to see the beach. And it's not usually dangerous. So I knew I had to say something. A couple of youtubers started uploading videos with the titles like "La Playa del Porto está infestada de tiburones". April decided to react to this. I felt connected to the sharks and I thought someone needed to support them. People just didn't understand them. Like the way I felt people didn't understand me when I was younger. I believed that the beach was a place for everyone, including sharks. So I started to speak about it at local events. After a while, some friends helped me make a website. And eventually we created an organization. I was very excited to see what we could do. April called his new project "El Porto Shark". An organization dedicated to the conservation of ocean and tiburones. The ocean is incredible and diverse. And it's an honor to show it to kids who are just like me. It took me a while to get here. But now I know El Porto is my home. These are my people and this is my community. So first, I want to show these kids with an Afro-Latina Marine scientist and surfer looks like. And then hopefully, they will be inspired to find their places in the world too. April Boyle has published several articles on the tiburones defense, as part of the ecosystem of California beaches. Every day he will surf very early in the morning at the beach of El Porto. Our first protagonist, Shaka Tafari, is a story story story dedicated to the angels. It is still a story of Venice Beach, followed by a special one to visit his friends, with which he maintains a strong relationship. It still has contact with a friend by video called. This episode was produced by Laura Uwate from Adon de Miria. Thanks for listening to Relatos in English. I would love to know what this episode looked like. You can send us an electronic email at [email protected] or you can also send us a message from WhatsApp to +1703-953-9369. Relatos in English is a duo production of Duelingo and Adon de Miria. You can find the audio and a description of each episode in podcast.dualingo.com. You can also follow us on Spotify 8th Preferida platform. This is the last episode of this season, but we will see soon with more real stories. The producers have been Maya Kroth, Gabriel Azaldivia, Samia Buzid, Laura Marina Boria, Laura Uwate and Karol Rolando, who is also our production assistant. The designer Sonoro and the audio edition had Daniel Murcia, Ivan Cabrera and Mauricio Mendoza. The designer of the United States, Mezcla and Masterization of David Deluca. Our editors have been Grant Fuller and Laura Icensi. Our producer is Roman Frontini and the producer is Nicola Sosa. The editorial is David Alandete and the executive director is Martina Castro. I am Diana Gameros. Thank you for listening.