by Laura Garber
A small fishing town 850 miles away from Hermosa Beach is closer to our 1.4-mile suburban beach city than most residents realize.
For 59 years, Loreto, a pueblo sitting on the Sea of Cortez on the east cape of the Baja peninsula in Mexico, has been the adopted sister city of Hermosa Beach. And since 1974, the Hermosa Beach Sister City Association has led a student exchange program, inviting students from Loreto to stay with South Bay host families and sending South Bay students to the small coastal town.
But after more than five decades, a lack of South Bay host family volunteers may end the program’s long streak. The association is looking for South Bay families with middle school or high school students to host students from Loreto July 31 to August 7, 2026. Applications are due April 27.
“We need host families because otherwise we’re not going to have a program this year,” said George Barks, HBSCA vice president and director of the student exchange program. “I think today families are really concerned about sending kids to another country, especially at that age with everything that’s going on. This is another reason why we’re struggling here.”
But he adds that the past president of HBSCA, Liz Ramirez, owns a boutique hotel in Loreto where she lives part of the year. Barks says they are in constant communication about the safety of the city.
“It’s not like going to a tourist destination on the mainland of Mexico or even going down to the capital of La Paz,” Barks said. “But the main thing is Loreto is a fishing village, it’s quaint. Their culture, their way of life is different and you can read about it. But it’s not like experiencing it firsthand.”
Loreto made BBC News’ list of top 20 places to travel in 2026, citing the town’s “wildlife-rich waters, desert islands and conservation-led adventure.”
The Hermosa Beach Sister City Association chose Loreto from a number of cities to partner with during President Dwight Eisenhower’s push for peaceful international relations when he began the international sister city program in 1956. The historic city, the first Capital of the Californias and home to the first Mission, became Hermosa Beach’s sister city in 1967. Former Councilman Jack Wise, who helped spearhead the Loreto connection, often surfed and fished in Loreto, a city known to avid fishermen.
Today that small beach town has grown from a population of 5,000 in 1974 to nearly 20,000, the same population as Hermosa Beach.
The exchange program has its roots in a grandfather’s affection. In 1974, Hermosa Beach Kiwanis member Joe Diaz, who had emigrated from Guanajuato to the South Bay and worked as a prototype machinist on the Apollo space mission, started the exchange after watching his granddaughter, Monica Frey, play on the beach with Loreto children during a family vacation to Mexico.
“For me, that program was started because of the love of a grandfather for his granddaughter,” Frey said. “I always remember that place and I didn’t speak Spanish at the time, but language wasn’t a barrier when I played with the kids.”
Barks, who joined the association in 1973 and later served as Hermosa Beach mayor and councilmember, said Diaz also wanted to push back against how the media portrayed Mexico.
“He thought that the student exchange would be one way to break the ice and so we would learn that Mexico is a great country,” Barks said.
The association’s program includes sending students to Loreto for a week during spring break, living in a host family’s home with supervised and planned activities. Trips to Coronado island, a volcanic island within the Loreto Bay National Marine Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and a working ranch are often a highlight, Barks says. He encourages South Bay students, especially those in Spanish language classes, to participate.
The Los Angeles itinerary for visiting Loreto students includes a day at Disneyland, a favorite among Loreto students, a walk on Hollywood Boulevard, a Kiwanis Club hosted picnic and, of course, an in-depth tour of Hermosa Beach.
Along with the student exchange program, the association started a paramedic training program in 1999, ensuring intensive paramedic education and donating four ambulances and five EKG defibrillators.
HBSCA members from Hermosa travel to Loreto, a 328-year-old city, in October to celebrate the city’s anniversary.
“Those relationships that you build come from this experience. That’s a family you didn’t know you needed,” Frey said. “Those relationships are important, not only from the cultural standpoint of understanding, but from the humanity of it.”
“I would say, to the parents today and the kids today, that you should open yourself up to the experience of meeting new people, understanding different cultures and exchanging those ideas, family, experiences, lifelong friendships and love that you would have missed out on otherwise,” Frey said.
For more information on the student exchange program and association visit hb-sistercity.org. ER
