On June 20, 1947, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, the East Coast mobster who had relocated to and prospered in Los Angeles and was now intent on building up Las Vegas, sat in his girlfriend’s living room in Beverly Hills.

The Fourth of July is a time when Americans remember their history, look toward the future, and celebrate the present.

I am a refugee, an immigrant, an American. I came to the United States as a young girl and grew up in Los Angeles. My maternal grandparents were born in Cuba and were descendants of immigrants from Spain, who moved to Cuba to make a better life for themselves.

I have been a fan of classic movies ever since I began checking out VHS tapes from my local library (Santa Maria Public Library) in my tween years at the dawn of the 1990’s. Cable was a luxury my working-class family did not always have.