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When I Think of Home: Images from L.A. Archives

Migration to Los Angeles in Pursuit of Health and Happiness

What do we all want most in life? To be happy, right? According to Merriam Webster dictionary happiness is a state of well-being and contentment. Some of the things that can bring such a state are good health, better economic and job opportunity, safety and security, religious and political liberty, and better standard of living. Most of these things also happen to be the motives for migration.

Migration is supposedly voluntary. However, there is a history of involuntary migration. The original 44 multiracial settlers of Los Angeles were most probably forced to migrate to the newly found El Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles in 1781. In 20th century, Japanese American were evacuated and incarcerated during the WWII. Soon after as they were returning home to Los Angeles, in the early 1950s hundreds of Mexican American families were evicted from Chavez Ravine to build affordable housing for the poor that never actually happened.

However, for the most part people migrated here because Los Angeles was a very desirable city. After the independence of Mexico from Spain in 1821, Los Angeles attracted people from parts of Mexico, America, and Europe. Los Angeles started gaining importance. By 1841 the population in this pueblo had almost tripled to 1680. With the arrival of the Santa Fe railroad in 1885, migration was at a full gallop as real estate developers, railroad companies, and other commercial interests advertised Los Angeles as a land of sunshine and temperate climate. Wealthy chilled Easterners and Midwesterners coming to spend winters here found themselves in love with Los Angeles, started building residences, and made the city their home. People also believed that this climate could cure chronic diseases like consumption and flocked to the sanitariums that cropped up in Southern California in the late 19th and early 20th century.

People continued to migrate throughout the 20th century for sunshine, temperate climate, and job opportunities in film, oil, automobile, and airplane industry, and a piece of California dream.

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Los Angeles in 1949 meant a lot of ex-military personnel were finding a new life for their families. Many of my Romero uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins had migrated to LA from Albuquerque by this time. The Romeros had been in NM since 1751. They chose the neighborhoods close to Downtown and each other. My father's first house was 160 W. 76 St., South Los Angeles. Genealogy helped me tell this story. —Cathy Romero
Los Angeles in 1949 meant a lot of ex-military personnel were finding a new life for their families. Many of my Romero uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins had migrated to LA from Albuquerque by this time. The Romeros had been in NM since 1751. They chose the neighborhoods close to Downtown and each other. My father's first house was 160 W. 76 St., South Los Angeles. Genealogy helped me tell this story. —Cathy Romero
Los Angeles is home to millions of migrants and immigrants, many of whom are undocumented. A photograph of the March 25, 2006 demonstration for immigrant rights—the largest demonstration in California history with more than one million participants—promoted the May 1, 2006 immigrant rights march, attended by approximately 500,000. It opposed HR 4437, The Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (passed in the House, defeated in the Senate).
Henry and Heong Wong are pictured here with their children, Violet, Rose, Howard, and Edward in front of their family home on 10th Street in Los Angeles (not pictured is their son Morland). The family were the owners of Henry’s Market, a small grocery store in LA. New economic opportunities provided generations of Chinese American families to build a life in Los Angeles and a long-term future in America.
In the 1830s, Mexican California was embroiled in power struggles between north and south. This decree documents competition for the provincial capital. It not only elevated the pueblo of Los Angeles to the dignity of a city, the first in Alta California, but also designated Los Angeles as the capital. This measure passed the National congress due to the efforts of Carlos Antonio CarriIlo, provincial deputy from California to the Mexican congress and the author of the Exposition of 1831.
Garry Marshall (1934-2016) was a prolific and successful film and television writer, director and producer. He is known for creating the TV series Happy Days and its spins-offs and directing such classic films as Pretty Woman, Beaches and The Princess Diaries. Originally from New York, Marshall describes in this excerpt his early career writing jokes and the writing job that brought him to Los Angeles.