Los Angeles welcomed leaders to the Summit of the Americas this week, the first time the U.S. has hosted this event since 1994.
President Bident took the stage at Microsoft Theater to open the summit Wednesday saying, “As we meet again today, in a moment when democracy is under assault around the world, let us unite again and renew our conviction that democracy is not only the defining feature of American histories, but the essential ingredient to Americas’ futures.”
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced earlier in the week that he would skip the summit because the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were not invited, and instead sent his foreign minister.
The leaders of Bolivia, Guatemala and Honduras are also not attending — dealing a blow to Biden’s efforts to reassert U.S. leadership in the region on economic cooperation, migration and climate change.
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President Biden speaks at the Summit of the Americas in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Delegates greet one another before listening to speeches Wednesday at the Summit of the Americas at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
President Biden welcomes attendees to the Summit of the Americas at Microsoft Theater.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Vice President Kamala Harris waves to a child during a side trip from the Summit of the Americas to tour the Dream Big Children’s Center in Monrovia.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Residents and staff of a nursing facility huddle around a window to catch a glimpse of Vice President Kamala Harris as she enters the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor to host a roundtable with faith leaders on reproductive healthcare rights.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the CEO summit at the the Summit of the Americas at the InterContinental Hotel.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
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Police and protesters on the street outside Microsoft Theater as the Summit of the Americas gets underway.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, walk the red carpet at Microsoft Theater on the opening day of the Summit of the Americas.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
A truck driver honks his horn in support of a Migration and Human Rights for the Americas rally targeting world leaders meeting in Los Angeles as part of Summit of the Americas in downtown Los Angeles.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Summit of the Americas opening session at Microsoft Theater.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was joined onstage at Microsoft Theater by children carrying flags of Western Hemisphere nations to welcome attendees to the Summit of the Americas.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a roundtable with faith leaders on reproductive healthcare rights at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor headquarters prior to the start of the Summit of the Americas.
Los Angeles Times staff photographer Allen J. Schaben is an award-winning journalist capturing a wide range of images over the past 34 years. Before joining The Times, he honed his craft at the Detroit Free Press, Dallas Morning News, Wichita Eagle and Connecticut Post. Schaben earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1993.
Jason Armond is a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times. A native of North Carolina, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a bachelor’s in media and journalism. His work as a photographer and videographer has been recognized by the Hearst Journalism Awards, the White House News Photographers Assn. and the North Carolina College Media Assn. As a freelance visual journalist, his work has been featured in several publications before joining The Times.
Christina House is a staff photojournalist with the Los Angeles Times. She officially joined the visual journalism team in 2017 after 10 years as a freelance photographer. House grew up in Long Beach and is a graduate of Cal State Fullerton. Her love for photography started when she visited the Philippines, her mother’s native country, at age 7. That unforgettable experience inspired her to pick up a camera. House won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and the 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Domestic Photography for “Hollywood’s Finest,” an intimate look into the life of a pregnant 22-year-old woman living on the street. She received the 2021 Cliff Edom New America Award and was honored in the portrait series category for her work on “Game Changers: A Celebration of Women in Sports” from the 2021 National Press Photographers Assn.’s Best of Photojournalism awards.
