L.A. identity

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July 1, 2011 | 10:29 AM | By

Hand-drawn map illustrates a starkly divided L.A.

Screen shot from www.kcet.org

A city that’s perceived by some as multi-culti heaven is a starkly segregated place for many Angelenos, and this map serves as a reminder of that.

The map was submitted recently to KCET as part of an ongoing “Map Your L.A.” contest, in which the station is seeking hand-drawn maps from residents. Contestants are asked to map the city as it applies to them and their experience of it. One contest entry portrays the city as a simple path from downtown to the beach; another focuses on the region’s waterways.

This blunt, not-necessarily-PC entry from “A Concerned Citizen” makes no bones about the city’s racial and ethnic boundaries. From the KCET Departures contest entry page:

This map illustrates an L.A. that is segregated by race, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation all under an editorial title that calls for concern. The map itself is simple, with a larger message written between, under, across, and on top of the lines.

The deadline for contest entries is August 1. KCET Departures will include the first 25 submissions in a mapping compilation book to be released next fall.

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, KCET, KCET Departures, L.A. identity, Map Your L.A.
April 20, 2011 | 3:16 PM | By

‘Ecuadorean by birth, Mexican American by accident…and Angeleno by geographic location’

The skyline as seen from the east, November 2009

A post yesterday on the unexpected questions scattered around the new LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes museum in downtown Los Angeles – some of them printed on the floor – prompted a response from reader Diego Cardoso that resonated with me, as it might with other readers.

The questions at the museum, which highlights local Mexican American history, included these: Do you identify yourself by your nationality? What would you bring if you had to move to a new place?

Cardoso, who was born in Ecuador, wrote:

I migrated to the U.S. when I was 17 years old. My hopes at that time were very modest. I wanted to learn English and hope for the best. Since I was granted a student visa and attended Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, my first impression of Los Angeles was through an Eastside perspective.

As my life evolved, I became more Mexican/Latino and never thought about a nationality. I do not know when I realized that that my home had become Los Angeles. At times in my life I hated L.A. (the urban infrastructure) but loved the magical synergy of different communities and people. I got lost in L.A. and succumbed to its magical power of allowing me to reinvent myself. Nowhere to return; home is L.A.

The day I became a U.S. citizen was an ordinary day in my life. The extraordinary day was when I first went to the polls to cast my vote. That day I realized I had became a citizen of the Americas. Ecuadorean by birth, Mexican-American by accident and culture, Minnesotan by marriage, and Angeleno by geographic location.

If I had to move to a new place, I would take the photos I have taken of Los Angeles, the memories of an ugly, always evolving and magical cultural place I call home.

The tourism industry would never use “ugly, always evolving and magical” to describe Los Angeles, but for people who truly get this city, these words describe it beautifully.

I’ll admit that one of the reasons Cardoso’s comment resonated so is that I’m also a product of the Eastside, a Latina who isn’t Mexican but who grew up embracing what at its cultural core is a Mexican town. Like Cardoso, I assimilated into a mongrel: Cuban by birth, American by naturalization, and in many ways, culturally Mexican American by osmosis.

When I identify as an Angeleno, it all makes perfect sense.

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, L.A. identity
April 19, 2011 | 5:02 PM | By

At LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, the questions are on the floor

Last weekend I paid a visit to LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, the new museum chronicling Mexican American history and life in Los Angeles that opened Saturday.

The museum’s downtown location is itself noteworthy: It sits across from Olvera Street near the city’s birthplace – so close, in fact, that construction turned up the bones of more than a hundred early residents from a cemetery believed to have been exhumed in the mid-1800s.

The museum pays worthy tribute to early Angeleños, and the Californios and Mexicanos whose history has at times felt close to lost as waves of newcomers arrived and reinvented Southern California. Its interactive displays also highlight the more recent and familiar history of Mexican Americans in the West, from the Chicano civil rights movement to the farm workers’ labor struggle in the Central Valley.

But while walking around, I was taken by the questions on the floor. Discreetly printed on the floorboards here and there are questions intended to coincide with the exhibits, but which can apply broadly to immigrants, their descendants, and just about anybody who cares to answer them. There was this direct one:

Do you identify yourself by your nationality?

And this one, which could apply to refugees from anywhere:

You’ve worked hard and built a new life, but now it’s safe to return home. Will you go?

And this one, which relates to the early Californians whose land went from being part of Mexico to part of the Unites States:

You have the same land and the same neighbors, but now you’re part of another country. Will you change your citizenship?

There was also this question posed not on the floor, but on a vintage suitcase, part of an exhibit on early northward migration from Mexico:

What would you bring if you had to move to a new place?

Visitors were encouraged to write their answers on paper luggage tags and deposit them in the suitcase. The tag at the top of the pile read “my family” with a heart drawn next to it.

The questions lingered long after I left the museum. How would you answer them?

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, L.A. identity, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Olvera Street
March 30, 2011 | 1:25 PM | By

Angelenos and Angeleños in the age of the Korean taco

Our lovely, smoggy, sprawling town, looking west toward Wilshire Boulevard, December 2008

The title of a panel I moderated last night at KPCC, on the evolving identity of Los Angeles, posed a rather tough-to-answer question: “Angelino, Angeleno, Angeleño: Who are we?”

And while those of us there didn’t come away with any clear answer, we did come away with some great ideas and insightful observations from both the audience and the panelists.

The idea for the panel came out of a piece written a couple of months ago by Southern California author D.J. Waldie on the disappearance of the Spanish consonant ñ, pronounced “enye,” from “Angeleños” in the late 19th century as eastern and midwestern migrants came west, diluting and eventually burying the city’s Spanish-speaking identity.

But with all of the demographic changes that have occurred in Los Angeles since, a discussion of the city’s evolving identity today seemed in order. Waldie joined me on the panel, as did Eric Avila, an associate professor of Chicano studies, history and urban planning at UCLA.

So as Angelenos, who are we?

In a city that is still deeply segregated by race, ethnicity and income, it’s hard to find much of a common thread among its residents. It goes without saying that the experience of being an Angeleno in Boyle Heights is very different from the experience of being an Angeleno in Brentwood, Reseda, South L.A. In a city made up of geographically and economically disparate communities, it’s often easier to define ourselves in other ways.

Still, there is a sense of pride and a sense of connectedness to something bigger, if just to the very concept of Los Angeles as a large, living, breathing thing. A couple of audience members described feeling an even greater sense of connectedness after moving away.

“I’ve always considered myself an Angeleno,” more than one person said.

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FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, L.A. identity, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County
March 23, 2011 | 10:04 AM | By

Angelenos/Angeleños speak out on who they are

Photo by Ron Reiring/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Our lovely, smoggy, sprawling town, looking west toward Wilshire Boulevard, December 2008

In a brief post yesterday, I mentioned that I’ll be moderating a panel next week at KPCC titled “Angelino, Angeleno, Angeleño: Who are we?”

It’s going to be a discussion on the evolving identity of Los Angeles, based on a popular post on the KCET website a couple of months ago by author D.J. Waldie about the disappearance of the Spanish consonant ñ (pronounced “enye”) from “Angeleños,” the original Spanish term for city residents.

I threw out a few questions yesterday: What is an Angeleno today? How does the culture we were raised in, and the part of the L.A. area we call home, shape how we define ourselves? In great polyglot Los Angeles of the 21st Century, do we still define ourselves geography, by area code, by ethnicity?

On KPCC’s Facebook page, several readers shared their thoughts. A particular line from one of the readers below resonated: “Angelenos are all a little Mexican, a little Korean, a little Jewish no matter where they’re actually from.”

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, D.J. Waldie, Eric Avila, KPCC, L.A. identity, Los Angeles, UCLA
March 22, 2011 | 9:59 AM | By

Angelino, Angeleno, Angeleño: Who are we?

Photo by jwilly/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The skyline from the top of Runyon Canyon Park in Hollywood, January 2008

A couple of months ago, I featured an excerpt from a popular post on the KCET website by author D.J. Waldie on the disappearance of the Spanish consonant ñ, pronounced “enye,” from the word that we in Los Angeles use to describe ourselves.

Angeleños became Angelenos toward the end of the 19th century, as eastern and midwestern migrants came west, changing the region’s Spanish-speaking identity. But over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st, that identity has continued to evolve as the cultural landscape is continuously reshaped by newcomers from Latin America and elsewhere around the globe.

What is an Angeleno today? How does the culture we were raised in, and the part of the L.A. area we call home, shape how we define ourselves?

I’ll be taking up these and other questions next Tuesday night during a panel event at KPCC. My guests will include Waldie, who is one of my favorite local authors, and Eric Avila, an associate professor of Chicano studies, history and urban planning at UCLA.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, KCET, KPCC, L.A. identity, Los Angeles