East Los Angeles

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January 31, 2012 | 4:39 PM | By

‘Something you see in East L.A.’: Signage war highlights an undercurrent of L.A. life

Photo by waltarrrrr/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A bus bound for East L.A. College, October 2009

Have Latino residents in East Los Angeles become offended by a comment made by an Armenian American city council member in Glendale? From the looks of it, yes.

Earlier this week, while discussing a proposed plan to downsize the L.A. suburb’s large business signs, Glendale city council member Ara Najarian was quoted as saying:

“It’s a matter of aesthetics…These signs are something you see in East L.A.”

And before you can say “whoops, I didn’t mean it that way,” a group of East L.A. residents has made plans to descend on Glendale’s city council meeting tonight.

Angie Castro, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina’s office, said people were calling the supervisor’s office to complain. ”The residents who are calling feel that this is an insult to the East L.A. community,” said Castro, who helped put out a press release about the planned protest. “They are asking for an apology.”

Najarian was talking about signs, of course, not the mostly Latino residents of East L.A. But the flap subtly highlights an undercurrent of Southern California life, tensions that exist between the region’s diverse ethnic groups that are sometimes spoken of, but most often not.

Had a non-minority council member from a Westside or Valley suburb said the same thing, there would be equal if not greater outrage from East Angelenos and Latinos in general. But how does such a comment sit when it comes from a member of another immigrant diaspora? Thoughts?

FILED UNDER: Ara Najarian, East L.A., East Los Angeles, Glendale
February 24, 2011 | 5:50 PM | By

East L.A.’s Self Help Graphics is moving

Photo by Memo Pisa El Lodo/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Self Help Graphics’ building on Cesar Chavez Boulevard, June 2006

The familiar tile-studded building at the corner of Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Gage Avenue that since the late 1970s has housed Self Help Graphics & Art will no longer be home to the revered art center, an Eastside fixture whose recent years have been rough ones.

On Thursday the center announced its impending move to 1300 E. 1st Street, the site of a former fish packing plant near the L.A. River in Boyle Heights, which it will share with a business that works on large-scale art installations. The move comes three years after the building, which had been owned by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was sold to a private investment firm that since put it up for sale.

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FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Economy, East Los Angeles, Self Help Graphics
February 10, 2011 | 8:23 AM | By

1970 documentary captured Chicano Moratorium protest

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times reported that the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department could soon release records pertaining to the death of former Times columnist and KMEX-TV news director Ruben Salazar, killed by a deputy forty years ago last August during a protest in East Los Angeles. Salazar, who was covering the protest, died after being struck on the head by a tear gas projectile fired into a building.

The violent protest during which he was killed, often referred to as the Chicano Moratorium protest to end the Vietnam War, was one of a series of demonstrations organized by the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, activists that between 1969 and 1971 pursued a combined goal of stopping the war and rallying for social justice at home.

The August 29, 1970 protest began peacefully enough, as captured by a then-film student named Tom Myrdahl, now a working cameraman in Los Angeles. His short documentary, above, follows how the march and rally took an ugly turn after authorities responded a report of looting nearby, clashing with protesters. Three people are known to have died as a result of the violence, including Salazar, who had ducked into a bar into which the tear gas canister was fired.

It would not be the only Chicano Moratorium protest to end tragically. After the deputy investigated in Salazar’s death was exonerated, another protest led to the death of a young Hungarian immigrant. Several days ago, a group called the Chicano Roundtable held a 40th-anniversary remembrance. Eastern Group Publications had this story:

Protesters took the street again on Jan. 31, 1971 following the clearing of the officer who fired the fatal shot that took Salazar’s life. They were sprayed with bullets, dozens where injured, and one protester—Gustav Montag—was killed…

Montag was an immigrant who fled the Russian police oppression in Hungry, and was a student at East LA College, according to the Chicano Round Table synopsis.

Records on the investigation of Salazar’s death could be released this week, the Times reported.

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Chicano Moratorium, East Los Angeles, Ruben Salazar