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Kiosk Magazine - UCIrvine Welcome

In This Issue

A Narrative Topography of Southern California

In this issue, our contributors traverse the region to bring back stories about food, place, and memory; amusements and joys both past and present; amibitious feats of athleticism; and quiet lives lived either by choice or chance on the margins of society.

Our writers have covered the the coast with their own map of lives as they are (or were) lived in Southern California. From Sarah Gray Isenberg's profile of the Twelve Tribes religious commune of Vista in North San Diego county, to Irene Marie Cruz's report of an Irvine resident who has competed in the Iditarod, and on to Anaheim, where Shadi Jafari reports on the dark side of life near Disneyland, we learn about our neighbors' extraordinary diversityof experiences and points of view. Also in Anaheim, Dominique Zamora revisits a favorite haunt of her childhood, and in Huntington Harbor, Jennifer Jopson takes us paddleboarding with a sports legend. Nearby, Cleo Tobbi shadows professional bakers as they deep-fry doughnuts at 6 AM in Glendora. In Little Armenia, Michael Karakash shows us the many meanings of falafel for an immigrant community. And from the archives of the region, Jenny Lyons reconstructs a lost pleasure palace that once graced the Santa Monica Pier.

Reading these stories is a great way to explore Southern California, where we have heard it all before, with fresh eyes and without a map. A narrative topography, this issue of Kiosk allows us to feel our way through the region, one story at a time.

-- Patricia Pierson

Jasreen Gupta