LAURENCE M. LAMADRID

For virtually all the >30 years he worked as a public school teacher in Southern CA, he taught 8th grade Earth Sciences at Lennox Middle School. Lennox is an unincorporated part of LA County.

     Lennox is a 1.09 square mile community of over 20,000 inhabitants that is bound by Century Blvd. and L.A. & Inglewood on the north; Hawthorne Blvd. and Prairie Ave, and Inglewood on the eastern border; the south side is the I-105 Century Fwy., and ritaHawthorne; and to the west, the I-405 San Diego Fwy. and the LAX mo of its population comprised of depressed, lower socio-economic groups.

     There is a large concentration of Spanish-speaking Mexican agricultural workers displaced by the of NAFTA trade agreements that opened the doors to destroy the economies of traditional smalltime rural Mexican farmers. Mexican corn couldn’t compete with the prices of cheaper mass produced American corn  treated with pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. This chaos  in the Mexican agricultural sector & markets drove 1,000s of desperate campesinos to emigrate to the US, as their fathers and grandfathers had during darker times in the 19th and 20th centuries. When the school opened in August of 1987, we had many of these NAFTA Mexican economic refugees.

     Central America, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s was the focus point of civil wars and struggles between socialists/Marxist-Leninists and reactionary right-wing presidents or dictators, with US military and monetary support. This was during the Cold War, so Washington, D.C., would ignore war crimes and atrocities committed by any or all of the Latin American governments so long as they were successful in suppressing any left-wing insurrections.

     There are 1,000s of families whose loved ones were victims of murder, torture, rape, starvation, disease, and human trafficking. This was the case of 100s of our students who were themselves political refugees, asylum.

     Both Larry and I took science 

positions at the newly repurposed old Lennox High School site. It was to become the Lennox Middle School. Since it had been a high school on a large piece of land, it already had rooms that served a dual purpose: as a classroom, and a science lab. There was a large football field with a running track around it; etc.

1) Presbyterian

2) Most memorable event in his life that made all of us proud of him:

     He won the CA Teacher’s Association’s award for “best community service, or labor outreach to school community” to help the the parents of his school community of Lennox, CA. He rode in a convertible in the Lennox Parade. One year, he invited his niece, Yazmín Lamadrid Abbott, to ride with him in the car.

     Century Blvd. is the northern boundary of Lennox. There is a row of large hotels that goes west to the airport, LAX. Many of the parents of Larry’s & his brother, Mark’s students’s parents worked at these hotels in service jobs like housekeeping, maintenance, and cleaning. Others, at LAX similar service jobs.

     All of the workers at these hotels went on strike for a pay raise,  improved fringe benefits, and better working conditions. All hotels settled on a new agreement with the Hyrworkers’s union—except for the Chinese owner of the Airport Hilton. This owner refused to negotiate with the union.

     As the president of his District’s union, Lennox Teachers’s Association, Larry led his union to support the hotel workers’s strike at the Hilton. Eventually, the union won its demands for an hourly pay increase, eiver expanded fringe benefits, and improved work conditions. For his union work to benefit a major school stakeholder—the parents of Lennox students—he received an honorary award and plaque.

3) Passtimes:

     A) When in high school and university, he was an avid mountain skier.

     B) He also obtained national certification as a scuba diver. A highlight of this passtime was a diving trip to Glover’s Reef, a small island of Belize in the 2nd largest coral reef in the world, on the Caribbean Sea of the Gulf of Mexico, along the east coast of Central America.

     C) The US Virgin Islands was another popular diving spot that he visited to visit a fiend, Joe Heaphy, who lived there and taught scuba diving for several years.

      He made a trip out to CA to dive in La Jolla, San Diego.

     D) As an adult, he loved to ride motorcycles. He did the usual routes around the Metro LA area, but especially loved riding north, up the PCH along the coast of Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and beyond. We did two magnificent motorcycle roadtrips that were circuits of the US National Parks and Monuments. The route was LA to Las Vegas. From there, we went over Hoover Dam, and followed the highways east through the southern borders of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado into northwestern New Mexico. Albuquerque was the last destination, to visit his brother Dr. Enrique R. Lamadrid and his wife, Carlota. We rented an RV, and took 2 bikes on the first trip; 1 bike, the second.

     E) A favorite activity was just spending time at home after work to spend the evening with Seung and Yuki. Over about 30 years, they had 2 different Maltese terriers: both named, Yuki. Larry enjoyed rambunctious, loving relationships with both of his little white fur babies.

     F) Larry loved to drive. His top, # 1  most favorite passtime was to hop in the car; Seung brought Yuki, and they took cruises all over LA: Up the PCH for breakfast, to Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and Los Angeles. Going south, the destinations were also along the coast: Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hollywood Riviera (Torrance), Palos Verdes, and beyond. They would stop for coffee, lunch, or brunch. In Hollywood, they often sighted Hollywood movie stars at the outdoor cafes—especially those on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. Also, at a supermarket in Malibu.

     G) An avid hobby he shared with students at school was keeping saltwater, tropical fish in aquaria. It’s a lot of daily work and maintenance. Cleaning the outside glass, mixing the salt with fresh water to make sea water, refilling the tank with water, checking the salinity and temperature, feeding the fish, knowing the nutritional needs of different species, procuring the foodstuffs, and feeding them.

     He kept a few large aquaria in his classroom which was set up like a science lab to maintain saltwater tropical fish. We also set up a fresh c

     Small groups of his students watched him do this work; naturally, their inclination was to help Mr. Lamadrid with the labor-intensive tasks. Thus, they learned the skills set necessary to set up and maintain aquaria.

     Soon it was a group of the same kids who would appear in his classroom to eat lunch, and to stay after school. He got the idea of starting a student club: the Aquarius Club. We had weekly meetings. Discussed recent topics and issues such as pollution in ocean and fresh bodies of water; specific cases of organisms in danger of extinction, especially the whales. We invited a speaker from Sea Shepard, an environmental group that does direct action intrusions into situations where ecologically illegal fisherman, fishing factory ships, or oil tankers are contributing to ocean degradation and the Great Exinction.

     We raised funds. With that $ we took trips to SOCAL beaches; took whale-watching boat trips. Everywhere we went, we traveled via public transport (bus, metro train, Metro Rail).

     Our most important trip was to Sea World in San Diego. We arranged ahead to haveThe Cub paid for the round trip Metro Rail ticket from Union Station in DTLA to Downtown San Diego. The Club paid for breakfast, lunch, and gave a meal or snack voucher to each member, for the return home that evening.

4) Favorite Foods: [Being a Native New Mexican, he loved the foods of New Mexican Mexican cuisine: the “Anaheim” chile is really the most favorite chile in NM.

     The Mexican food in NM reflects the influences of Native American Indigenous tribes. For example, the Navajos make a delicious fried bread—the sopaipilla—that is deep-fried. Yeast makes the ball of bread dough rise up, inflate in the middle, develop a fluffy texture, and form hollow pillows. Can be eaten with honey, or stuffed with savory fillings: beans, rice, potatoes, peppers (hot, medium or mild), cheddar cheese, chopped lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and avocados. Can be eaten with added chile sauce, roasted green or red.

     Another one of Larry’s favorites was a main dish consisting of carne adobada (pork launches simmered in a hot red chile sauce).

NM Chile:

Fresh, it’s green and roasted, peeled, and de-seeded. After being air dried for several months, the dry pods are red. They are rehydrated with boiling water; covered, and soaked for several hours. Then, they’re blended with onion, garlic, and roasted vegetables: onions, tomatoes, and garlic. The sauce is cooked for 5 minutes in a small amount of oil in a pot or skillet; then, reduced to a semi-thick sauce.

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