Los Angeles Times – 03 March 2026 – Los Angeles Times

When wildfires devastated Los Angeles County early last year, the store transformed into a do- nation center. And since the ICE crack- down began last summer, it has become a haven for the city’s immigrant population and the go-to headquarters for the resistance. “It’s times like these that make you realize, this is community,” said Sergio Amalfitano, who owns the store with his wife, Alyssa Castro Amalfitano. “You know, this is having each other’s back when we are all struggling.” He reflected on the paral- lels of today and 1943, when thousands of white serv- icemen and civilians as- saulted pachucos and other young people of color in what came to be known as the Zoot Suit Riots.

“Every decade or so, it pops up again and they start kind of questioning our be- longing,” Amalfitano said. “It’s more important than ever to express yourself … that you’re not assimilating, you’re not going to give up on your culture or your people’s history.” Amalfitano invites grass- roots groups to use the store to organize, make posters and safety kits, hold “know your rights” workshops and run community watchdog groups for nearby Home De- pot stores. The storefront doubles as a concert venue, often for hardcore and pop punk shows.

Other days, it’s an art gallery or a pop-up market. When the city is in crisis, the building becomes an activist headquarters. Its business model can be unconven- tional. The couple doesn’t charge small vendors to sell at the store during events and doesn’t take a cut of the merchandise that bands sell while playing at the venue. “Everything’s political and everything’s con- nected,” Amalfitano said. “We live out of the motto of community over commod- ity.

We want our community to thrive, and the only way that the community can thrive is if we all come up, right?” But the community sta- ple might not be able to keep its doors open past January, when the lease is up. The mom-and-pop store, like many across the country, battles rising inflation and an economy further destabilized by the surge in immigration enforcement. :: The Midnight Hour Re- cords existed as a traveling store long before establish- ing a physical location.

Amalfitano, who spent his career in entertainment booking and DJing, had long booked music shows in ven- ues across the Los Angeles area under the Midnight Hour Social Club.

dent Trump on Monday re- fused to box himself in on how long U.S. military oper- ations will last in Iran, saying the conflict in the Middle East could stretch a month or potentially “far longer” as he frames the mission as one that is necessary to elimi- nate a “colossal threat” to American interests. “Whatever the time is, it’s OK.

Whatever it takes,” Trump said at a White House event. “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it.” Hours earlier, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the duration of the mili- tary operation remains flu- id, and that Trump has “all the latitude in the world” to determine how long the war in Iran will go on.

“Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back,” Heg- seth told reporters at a Pen- tagon news conference. The Trump administra- tion’s shifting time frames and open-ended objectives in Iran have deepened un- certainty around an expand- ing conflict in the Middle East, particularly as the death toll of American troops killed in action rose to six and officials warned of more U.S.

casualties, as the “hardest hits are yet to come.” Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that additional U.S. military forces are already moving into the region, and warned that the conflict will not be a “single, overnight opera- tion” and that he expects “additional losses.” IRANIAN volunteers sift through rubble in Tehran on Sunday. The U.S. death toll climbed to six troops. Morteza Nikoubazl NurPhoto No limits on length of war against Iran Trump won’t commit to time frame despite rising concerns over the mission’s goals.

By Ana Ceballos and Kevin Rector The soft hum of Chicano soul music bled onto the darkened street as a steady stream of people made their way into a record store in San Fernando, passing a sign in the window: “ ‘ICE, BIGOTS, MAGA’ are not welcome.” Vendor booths replaced vinyl racks, some selling miniature lowrider replicas and Chicano-inspired artwork. Attend- ees crowded the center of the shop, danc- ing to live soul music.

One vendor cut and styled hair into slicked-back pom- padours and high bouffants. It was a night inspired by pachucos, the 1930s-40s Mexican American subcul- ture of zoot suitsand ducktails, caló slang and jazz, that rebelled against discrimi- nation as a form of self-empowerment and felt especially relevant since immi- gration agents began mass roundups of Latinos in Los Angeles. On its surface, the Midnight Hour is a record store, its rows lined with hundreds of vinyls collected from around the world.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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• Title: –
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• Language: English (en)

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