Vera Castaneda is a writer who has worked at the Los Angeles Times since 2016. She got her start as an editorial assistant delivering mail and newspapers. Since then her writing has appeared in Calendar, Lifestyle, Metro and Sports sections of the paper. She served brief stints as a city reporter for the Daily Pilot and an education reporter for the Burbank Leader and Glendale News-Press. She’s currently a features reporter for TimesOC where she covers art, books, entertainment, trends and cultural issues related to Orange County. She grew up in Boyle Heights and graduated from Cal State Northridge with a bachelor’s in literature and a minor in journalism.
Latest from this Author
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Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County & Inland Empire are looking for volunteers to match with kids. Here’s what it takes to be a volunteer.
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A virtual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. took place on Monday. Here are some takeaways.
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As part of its virtual exhibit “From I-Ching to Manga: UCI’s East Asian Collection Celebrating 30 Years,” the university library is offering online events throughout 2021 open to students and the community.
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Santa Ana’s LibroMobile will host its third Literary Arts Festival on Jan. 23 through Instagram.
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Taylor Duncan’s Alternative Baseball Organization, a nonprofit that sets up baseball teams targeted towards teens and adults with autism and other disabilities, is expanding a club in Orange County.
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Sherman Library & Gardens in Newport Beach set up its annual Wishing Tree, which will be available to the public until Feb. 26.
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Lana Nguyen, 12, designed the visuals for 360 Clinic’s COVID-19 testing sites and volunteered to assemble testing kits.
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UCI-led study published in December 2020 profiles undocumented students’ experiences across UC and Cal State school systems.
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Tin Nguyen, a 48-year-old Vietnamese refugee whose prison sentence had been commuted in 2018, was released from ICE detention in September 2020. Nguyen, his attorneys and an O.C.-based social justice organization talked about his detention and release.
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Daughter’s effort leads to an exhibit that shows Shaw’s life as the first Black drill instructor to train an integrated platoon of Marines and as a key business owner in Santa Ana’s Little Texas.