East of the River
A Memoir of Los Angeles Girlhood
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East of the River
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About this listen
“A vibrant and wild time capsule of a ’90s girlhood in East L.A., assembled by a chronicler who lived it, breathed it, danced it . . . Her evocative pics and tenderly witnessed stories are a treasure trove.”—Quiara Alegría Hudes, author and playwright
Guadalupe Rosales chronicles her Boyle Heights childhood and adolescence in East LA, finding joy and danger from Commerce Center to Whittier Boulevard. Her frank, intimate prose captures the freedom and fear pulsing through that time and how sisterhood helped her survive it.
After losing loved ones to violence and struggling with drugs and depression, Rosales moved across the country to New York City. A stack of starshots from her youth became a lifeline and eventually inspired her to create two Instagram archives while she was away from home: Veteranas and Rucas celebrates ’90s LA women, while Map Pointz focuses on the party crew scene. Thanks to her, they’re thriving online communities.
Now this beloved artist—whose work hangs in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and elsewhere—extends her project of collective memory by sharing her own story of adolescence in a treacherous time, finding herself as an artist far from home, coming to terms with her own queerness, and returning to her beloved Los Angeles transformed. Elegantly designed, the text is interspersed with photography, flyers, Rosales’s own artwork, and social media conversations.
An altar to a past era and a map to the future, this book is a reminder that memory, celebration, and community make us whole.
Critic reviews
“A vibrant and wild time capsule of a ’90s girlhood in East L.A., assembled by a chronicler who lived it, breathed it, danced it . . . Guadalupe Rosales has turned the American archive on its head. Her evocative pics and tenderly witnessed stories are a treasure trove.”—Quiara Alegría Hudes, author and playwright
“Before language, before love, there is memory. Reading this book, I gasped. I laughed. I cried. This book will make you wonder: How is memory at once so private and such a communal experience?”—Daisy Hernández, author of Citizenship
“Guadalupe Rosales captures Los Angeles’s wondrous Eastside like no other: the air, the flavors, the relationships. The way creation cuts through the illusions and gets you into the collective truth that we all belong, we all matter.”—Luis J. Rodriguez, author of The Republic of East Los Angeles
“These pages are full of 1990s Brown Los Angeles—parties, style, music, heartbreak, joy. Guadalupe Rosales takes us through the yearbooks of her life, honoring a generation that made something beautiful out of what we were given.”—Yosimar Reyes, poet
“In East of the River, Guadalupe Rosales comes of age as a groundbreaking artist and returns home to preserve a city and its intimate stories before it’s too late. . . . A vital account enlivened by the handmade flyers and dusty photo albums that she has lovingly rescued from the trash can of history.”—Matt Wolf, filmmaker of Teenage
“Through a gallery of memories Guadalupe Rosales demonstrates how our lives are worthy of being archived. Here, tragedies and triumphs live side by side, intentionally curated to highlight every moment that makes a life worth living.”—Elisabet Velasquez, author of When We Make It
“Before language, before love, there is memory. Reading this book, I gasped. I laughed. I cried. This book will make you wonder: How is memory at once so private and such a communal experience?”—Daisy Hernández, author of Citizenship
“Guadalupe Rosales captures Los Angeles’s wondrous Eastside like no other: the air, the flavors, the relationships. The way creation cuts through the illusions and gets you into the collective truth that we all belong, we all matter.”—Luis J. Rodriguez, author of The Republic of East Los Angeles
“These pages are full of 1990s Brown Los Angeles—parties, style, music, heartbreak, joy. Guadalupe Rosales takes us through the yearbooks of her life, honoring a generation that made something beautiful out of what we were given.”—Yosimar Reyes, poet
“In East of the River, Guadalupe Rosales comes of age as a groundbreaking artist and returns home to preserve a city and its intimate stories before it’s too late. . . . A vital account enlivened by the handmade flyers and dusty photo albums that she has lovingly rescued from the trash can of history.”—Matt Wolf, filmmaker of Teenage
“Through a gallery of memories Guadalupe Rosales demonstrates how our lives are worthy of being archived. Here, tragedies and triumphs live side by side, intentionally curated to highlight every moment that makes a life worth living.”—Elisabet Velasquez, author of When We Make It
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