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As West Coast correspondent for the Cairo daily Al-Ahram, Soraya Abdoul Seoud seldom ventured across the river to Los Angeles' Eastside.
"I was afraid to come to this area," Abdoul said Wednesday as she rode in a bus down bustling Cesar E. Chavez Avenue, one of the neighborhood's main drags. "All you hear about in the media is the negative side."
Abdoul and other foreign journalists were among three dozen participants in a novel bus tour of the district that has long stood as the heart of Los Angeles' Mexican and Mexican American communities. The visit is the first in a series of "Insight Tours," designed to coincide with World Cup festivities, that will focus on several Los Angeles neighborhoods often viewed from the outside as simmering caldrons of gang violence and ethnic tension.
"L.A.'s neighborhoods have really been maligned, but that's where you find some of the richest areas of the city," said Madeline Janis-Aparicio, executive director of the Tourism Industry Development Council, the nonprofit group sponsoring the tours. "You can experience the cultures of 80 countries in a half-hour drive through L.A.-and we want to show that off."
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The idea, organizers said, is to showcase the city's multiethnic vitality and give journalists and visitors a touch of Los Angeles distinct from the glitzy image prevalent in glossy tourist brochures and promotional videos. Hollywood chic and beach cool this was not. Disneyland wasn't mentioned.
Participants on Wednesday viewed the Eastside's acclaimed murals, learned...