Mexican American sisters of 'Vida' back amid gentrification

The Starz drama "Vida" returns for its second season on Sunday with an even deeper exploration of an issue facing many U.S. Latino communities: gentrification.

The show follows Emma and Lyn, played Mishel Prada and Melissa Barrera respectively, who have inherited from their late mother an East Los Angeles apartment building and a lesbian bar. Each must come to terms with their lives in the old neighborhood and unresolved issues around love.

The first season ended with the sisters at odds on whether to continue their lives away from East Los Angeles or come back and save a bar that helped shape them.

This image released by Starz shows Melissa Barrera, left, and Mishel Prada from the series "Vida," a drama that follows two Mexican American sisters battling gentrification and the aftermath of their mother’s death. (Kat MarcinowskiStarz via AP)

It remains one of the only television shows featuring a majority U.S. Latina cast.

With its themes around queer love and sex, the show has gained a small but loyal following and drew critical praise for centering its focus on Latina characters and pressures related to gentrification and gente-fication — the phenomenon that middle-class Latinos are working to change a working-class community. (Gente means people in Spanish).

Executive Producer Tanya Saracho said the second season will continue to explore those themes as a backdrop of the overall family drama. "This show is based on what is happening right now" in Latino neighborhoods around the U.S., she said. "All the tactics of protests involving gentrification try to remain authentic."

This image released by Starz shows Melissa Barrera, left, and Mishel Prada from the series "Vida," a drama that follows two Mexican American sisters battling gentrification and the aftermath of their mother’s death. (Kat MarcinowskiStarz via AP)

Currently, tensions are high in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, where anti-gentrification activists have participated in aggressive protests targeting art galleries by spray painting storefronts and reported death threats. Hispanic activists in Albuquerque's South Valley and Houston's Northside also are speaking out against gentrification efforts they say displaces poor Latinos.

Saracho said she wanted the show to reflect those realities. But Saracho said the second season also wanted to explore gente-fication. The sisters, if they decide to keep the bar, will be in the center of the gente-fication movement and must deal with any backlash, Saracho said.

Prada, starring in her first lead television role, said she's honored to play a strong young Latina who isn't a stereotypical sexy maid or self-entitled millennial. Emma is a lesbian with a high-powered corporate job in Chicago but is working to come to terms with her family's history — a rare character on television.

"You can see her trying to go back and face her demons," Prada said. "It's a scary place for a lot of people but also a brave place."

Lyn, played by the Mexican-born former telenovela actress Barrera, is straight and always searching for the next party and her next sexual conquest. But Barrera said she, too, must mature in the second season amid pressures on the family to sell the bar to an aggressive developer. She said Lyn is in the middle of experiencing an "awakening" that will transfer her character.

"She's coming to terms with the horrible person she was," Barrera said. "I think in season two we get to explore her and see how she became who she is and how she wants to make her sister proud."

Barrera said she finds it empowering how both sisters control their sexuality and that the show refuses to shy away from lesbian love. "It's powerful to see queer bodies like this," Barrera said.

Prada said she's been blown away by how the production has hired female directors, writers and crew. She hopes this leads to a transformative movement in television.

"You start looking around and see that it's possible," Prada said. "And why not?"

Russell Contreras is a member of The Associated Press' race and ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras .

JERUSALEM (AP) — Yemen's Houthi rebels on Saturday claimed shooting down another of the U.S. military's MQ-9 Reaper drones, airing footage of parts that corresponded to known pieces of the unmanned aircraft.

The Houthis said they shot down the Predator with a surface-to-air missile, part of a renewed series of assaults this week by the rebels after a relative lull in their pressure campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Bryon J. McGarry, a Defense Department spokesperson, acknowledged to The Associated Press on Saturday that “a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 drone crashed in Yemen.” He said an investigation was underway, without elaborating.

The Houthis described the downing as happening Thursday over their stronghold in the country's Saada province.

Footage released by the Houthis included what they described as the missile launch targeting the drone, with a man off-camera reciting the Houthi's slogan after it was hit: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.”

The footage included several close-ups on parts of the drone that included the logo of General Atomics, which manufactures the drone, and serial numbers corresponding with known parts made by the company.

Since the Houthis seized the country’s north and its capital of Sanaa in 2014, the U.S. military has lost at least five drones to the rebels counting Thursday's shootdown — in 2017, 2019, 2023 and this year.

Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes up to 50,000 feet and have an endurance of up to 24 hours before needing to land.

The drone shootdown comes as the Houthis launch attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, demanding Israel ends the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians there. The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage.

The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, seized one vessel and sank another since November, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration.

Houthi attacks have dropped in recent weeks as the rebels have been targeted by a U.S.-led airstrike campaign in Yemen. Shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has declined because of the threat. American officials have speculated that the rebels may be running out of weapons as a result of the U.S.-led campaign against them and after firing drones and missiles steadily in the last months. However, the rebels have renewed their attacks in the last week.

A Houthi supporter raises a mock rocket during a rally against the U.S. and Israel and to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen, Friday, April. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)