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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 of all in life? Good health and happiness, right? What is happiness? According to Merriam Webster dictionary happiness is a state of well-being and contentment. Some of the things that can bring this contentment needed for happiness are good health, better economic & job opportunity, safety and security, religious and political liberty, and better standard of living. Most of these things also happen to be the pull factors for migration.

The very first migrants, the 44 original multiracial settlers of El Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles (The Pueblo of the Queen of the Angels) in 1781 probably did not migrate out of their free will. However, after the independence of Mexico from Spain in 1821, Los Angeles attracted not only Native Americans from elsewhere in California but also people from other parts of Mexico, America, and Europe. It started gaining importance. In this exhibit, you will find the original Decree from 1835, housed in collections of Los Angles Public Library, that documents how Pueblo of Los Angeles got not only the status of a city but was also became a capital of then Alta California. By 1841 the population in this pueblo had almost tripled to 1680. Although few years later in 1848 with Treaty of Guadalupe, Los Angeles and rest of the California became part of United States, migration to Los Angeles really picked up from 1870. The population went up from 5000 to 100,000 from 1870 to 1900. When Santa Fe railroad came to Los Angeles in 1885 the migration to LA was galloping fast as real estate developers, railroad companies, and commerce of associations were advertising L.A. as land of sunshine and temperate climate. Chilled Easterners and mid-westerners coming to spend winters here found themselves in love with Los Angeles and started building houses and moving to L.A. People also believed that this climate could cure upper respiratory diseases and improve quality of life for patients of consumption. So cities like Pasadena, Altadena, Sierra Madre, Monrovia, and of course L.A. saw sanitariums cropping up in late 19^th and early 20^th century.

People continued to migrate in through out the 20^th century for sunshine, temperate climate, and job opportunities in film, oil, automobile, and airplane industry, and a piece of California dream. Abundance of talent here gave a way to many firsts such as the world’s first theme park (Disney Land), first cycleway in the world, and first Freeway in the entire west was in L. A. that we will see in the next section of the exhibit.

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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.
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.
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).
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.
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