In 1989, Lourdes Mata left Durango, Mexico, and moved into an apartment complex on Mohawk Street in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. There, she said, her neighbors formed another family that helped her grieve over the one she left behind. They were Thai, Filipino, Mexican, Honduran, Guatemalan and Salvadoran. The children grew up together, interpreting for their parents at backyard barbecues and on their morning walks to Mayberry Elementary. When alone, the kids liked to teach each other curse words in their parents’ languages.
That community was still mostly intact in 2022, when Ariel Isaacson and Brandon Eshaghzadeh, both in their 20s, purchased the Mohawk Street property for just under $2.5 million. The new landlords soon filed evictions against the residents in the building’s seven occupied units. Under California’s 2019 Tenant Protection Act, landlords are prohibited from evicting tenants when tenants have done nothing wrong — with certain exceptions, called “no-fault just causes.”
