As Fernando Lopez Sr. watched live footage of the wildfires raging across Southern California last week, he immediately thought of horses.
The 47-year-old is general manager of the Pico Rivera Sports Arena, the rodeo ring next to the San Gabriel River that has been a shrine to Mexican horse culture for decades. Lopez’s extended family, who run nightclubs and restaurants and promote concerts across Southern California, owe their American dream to the generations of Latinos who have flocked to the open-air, 6,000-seat facility to see charro shows and singers on horseback while dressed in Stetsons, jeans and boots.
“We’re horse people,” he told me recently. “And horse people help each other.”…