By Alan Diamante Diamante Law Group APLC There is a small storefront in Tijuana near the Otay Mesa port of entry known as “The Bunker.” It is the Deported Veteran Support House, a shelter for deported veterans managed by a deported soldier, Hector Barajas, who has not forgotten about his military brothers, unlike the U.S. government. The vets at “The Bunker” are indistinguishable from any one born in Los Angeles. They are more likely to be listening to Tom Petty’s “Forgotten Man” rather than Los Tigres del Norte’s “El Mojado Acaudalado.” Hundreds and possibly thousands of deported veterans reside south of the border, separated from family and the country for which they were willing to risk their lives. Most of these veterans have been honorably discharged and decorated. The biggest mistake made by these veterans is that they did not apply for naturalization when they had the chance. A naturalized citizen generally cannot be deported but a permanent resident who commits an “aggra...

by Abel M. Salas It is not unbelievable or surprising that Isaac Pelayo, still in his early 20s, is opening his first solo exhibition as a fine artist this week at Paul Stewart’s Over the Edge art gallery in South Central LA. He has been drawing since he was in diapers. His father, an event producer, a curator, a self-taught illustrator and an accomplished, internationally recognized graphite artist with a day job at Disney, keeps the earliest evidence of his son’s artistic promise in his collection. The drawing, says the University of Nevada-Las Vegas art student, is proof enough that he came to art on his own. As toddler, Pelayo observes in retrospect, he couldn't know his father was pursuing a career as an artist. The impulse to create, he honestly believes, came from within. As a result, he does not count the biological father he saw only when occasion allowed during his childhood, as a primary influence. “My dad (artist Antonio Pelayo) has a drawing of a big smiley f...