Los Angeles Times

For black immigrants here illegally, a battle against both fear and historic discrimination

LOS ANGELES - The young Ethiopian dreamed of owning his own business. It's what he had worked toward since moving more than a decade ago from Addis Ababa to Los Angeles.

Things seemed to be looking up for the 28-year-old. He taught himself investment banking and day trading and got a job as a project manager for a mortgage company.

But he is also in the country illegally - a situation further complicated by the color of his skin.

When he accepted his job, he hoped his legal status wouldn't come up.

"I didn't know if my direct manager knew about my status when he gave me that offer," he said, asking to be identified as

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times3 min readCrime & Violence
Editorial: The Supreme Court Cannot Allow Homelessness To Be A Crime
If you are homeless and have nowhere to go — neither a temporary shelter bed nor a permanent home — can you be fined or, worse, jailed for sleeping on a sidewalk? Or is that cruel and unusual punishment? That’s the question that the Supreme Court wre
Los Angeles Times5 min read
Gaza Protests Roil Universities From California To New York; Tensions Grow At Humboldt, Berkeley
LOS ANGELES — Officials shut down the campus of Cal Poly Humboldt on Monday night after masked pro-Palestinian protesters occupied an administrative building and barricaded the entrance as Gaza-related demonstrations roiled campuses across the nation
Los Angeles Times8 min read
Bit By A Billionaire's Dog? Or A Case Of Extortion? A Legal Saga From An LA Dog Park
LOS ANGELES -- A dog-bites-woman story usually isn't much of a story at all. But an incident in one of L.A.'s wealthiest enclaves has become something else entirely. What began in a Brentwood park on a summer day in 2022, when a dog owned by billiona

Related Books & Audiobooks