Los Angeles is a city of 10 million people. We come from all over the U.S. and the rest of the world, bringing our polyglot ideas, languages, cultures, beliefs. When you stop to think about it, there's something miraculous about it.

How is it possible for such an enormous and diverse array of people to come to the same conclusion about where they should be, here in this city at this moment. Particularly when so many outside her borders, and some within, hold her in such loud contempt. A living paradox of unity, division and diversity that somehow works - except when it doesn't. How do we meet, love, work, fight, play, and live next door to each other?

This issue of the book is our small foray into these complex and unanswerable questions.

We at the book hope that you and your family are safe and well, and celebrate the great and living dream that is Los Angeles, that is America.

Patrick Kahn