All LA County Library locations will be closed on Wednesday, December 25, 2024 and January 1, 2025 in observance of Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Our digital library is open 24/7.
Join us in person for a book signing, meet and greet, and special Heart & Hand Book Talk with David Ambroz, poverty & child welfare expert and advocate and author of "A Place Called Home - A Memoir."
Join us for a book signing, meet and greet, and special edition of our Heart & Hand Book Talk series with David Ambroz, sponsored by LA County Library Foundation and BIG Outdoor.
David Ambroz is a poverty & child welfare expert and advocate and author of A Place Called Home - A Memoir. In a chat with Library Director Skye Patrick, he will share his journey from growing up homeless and navigating the foster care system to overcoming life's obstacles and becoming an award-winning child welfare advocate. David's experiences and insight on homelessness, child poverty, foster care, and mental health are sure to inspire you to turn your empathy into action!
This author talk will be held in person at East Los Angeles Library with a book signing and meet and greet to follow at 7 pm.
About A Place Called Home - A Memoir
There are millions of homeless children in America today and in A Place Called Home - A Memoir award-winning child welfare advocate David Ambroz writes about growing up homeless in New York for eleven years and his subsequent years in foster care, offering a window into what so many kids living in poverty experience every day. When David and his siblings should be in elementary school, they are instead walking the streets seeking shelter while their mother is battling mental illness. They rest in train stations, 24-hour diners, anywhere that’s warm and dry; they bathe in public restrooms and steal food to quell their hunger. When David is placed in foster care, at first it feels like salvation but soon proves to be just as unsafe. He’s moved from home to home and, in all but one placement, he’s abused. His burgeoning homosexuality makes him an easy target for other’s cruelty.
David finds hope and opportunities in libraries, schools, and the occasional kind-hearted adult; he harnesses an inner grit to escape the all-too-familiar outcome for a kid like him. Through hard work and unwavering resolve, he is able to get a scholarship to Vassar College, his first significant step out of poverty. He later graduates from UCLA Law with a vision of using his degree to change the laws that affect children in poverty. Told with lyricism and sparkling with warmth, A Place Called Home depicts childhood poverty and homelessness as it is experienced by so many young people who have been systematically overlooked and unprotected. It’s at once a gripping personal account of deprivation—how one boy survived it, and ultimately thrived—and a resounding call for readers to move from empathy to action.
“It's impossible to read A Place Called Home and not want to redouble your efforts to fight the systems of poverty that have plagued America for far too long. In this book, David shares his deeply personal story and issues a rousing call to make this a more humane and compassionate nation.” —HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
“A Place Called Home will take your breath away. It’s a must read for anyone who’s looked at a raggedy street family and asked, ‘Who are those people?’ It’s also for everyone who cares about “Those People.” You will fall in love with David Ambroz, his beautifully told, gut wrenching story, and his great big heart.”
—Jeannette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle
About David Ambroz
David Ambroz is a national poverty and child welfare expert and advocate. He was recognized by President Obama as an American Champion of Change. He currently serves as the Head of Community Engagement (West) for Amazon. Previously he led Corporate Social Responsibility for Walt Disney Television, and served as the President of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, and as a California Child Welfare Councilmember. After growing up homeless and then in foster care, he graduated from Vassar and later from UCLA School of Law (J.D.). He is a foster dad and lives in Los Angeles.
About LA County Library Foundation
LA County Library Foundation, founded in 1982, raises funds and creates partnerships to support LA County Library and the millions of children, teens, and adults whose lives it enriches with free programs, services, and resources. The Library is a dynamic and unifying force for Los Angeles County, with the Library Foundation a vital partner. Learn more.
About BIG Outdoor
BIG Outdoor is a privately held premier Out-Of-Home media company focused on the development, marketing and sales of unique high-profile media assets in key media markets across the country, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas. BIG Outdoor has established itself as a major force in the outdoor advertising industry at the same time, our philosophy is to maintain the integrity of operating as a boutique firm with an emphasis on providing world-class services to both our clients and real estate partners.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Lectures & Conversations | History, Society, & Culture | Education & Literacy | Books, Poetry, & Writing |
East Los Angeles Library was established on May 1, 1923, with a small collection of books in the corner of a local store. Three months later, a small building was constructed to house the collection.
In 1924, another building was constructed at Kern Avenue near Whittier Boulevard to become the new site of the public library. Then in 1932, the library moved to 679 Fetterly Avenue, where it was located for 35 years before being moved to a new building, on the corner of Third and Fetterly in 1967.
Thanks to funding from Gloria Molina, Supervisor of the First District, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the library moved into its new location in September 2004.
This brand new library building is over 26,000 square feet, nearly double the size of the old building. The library is located within the East Los Angeles Civic Center, which also includes the East Los Angeles County Hall, Courthouse, Probation Department, Sheriff's station, Edward R. Roybal Comprehensive Health Center, and Belvedere Park Lake. The library now offers expanded services and collections and an expanded Chicano Resource Center in a separate room.
Community residents requested that the new library reflect Mayan design and themes. Since many Mayan structures in southern Mexico and Central America were astronomical observatories, the designers incorporated references to the sun and the moon, both themes in Mayan art, in the pavement at the entrances and in the lobby.
The interior foyer features artist Jose Antonio Aguirre's monumental mosaic mural cycle "OUR LEGACY: Forever Presente..." which is a visual tribute to East Los Angeles' proud cultural heritage and socio-political struggle.
