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

The Community and Cultural Enclaves of L.A.

Los Angeles County is home to 10 million people and hundreds of cities, communities, and neighborhoods. Los Angeles is also known as one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States, which is reflected in its many cultural enclaves and communities.

The earliest of Los Angeles enclaves include Chinatown, Frenchtown, Greek Town, Little Italy, Little Tokyo, and Sonoratown. Only Chinatown and Little Tokyo exist today. The second wave of ethnic enclaves in Los Angeles began following the 1968 enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It ended an immigration-admissions policy based on race and ethnicity, and gave rise to large-scale immigration, both legal and unauthorized. The enclaves are products of both historical racial discrimination and self-segregation driven by mutual, ethnically specific interests. Ethnic enclaves provide protection from hostile elements in society, aid in the retention of cultural norms (including language), and offer immigrants economic opportunities such as employment and business ownership.

One of the communities featured in the exhibit include the city of Watts and its famous Watts Towers. The artist Simon Rodia titled the structural art piece, “Nuestro Pueblo,” meaning “Our Town.” Los Angeles has myriad communities including LGBTQ, activist groups, campus communities, and women’s groups. These diverse communities and cultural enclaves that make up Los Angeles have a long history striving for acceptance, equality, and empowerment. Explore the items on display to catch a glimpse of the significant events and communities of Los Angeles.

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The Spanish Colonial Revival style house was built in 1927 by Los Angeles Times as a demonstration home. In 1943, after escaping the Nazis, German novelist Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta purchased it and transformed the dilapidated house into a cultural hub for German-speaking emigres in Los Angeles. The Feuchtwangers regularly hosted readings and concerts, with guests like Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Charlie Chaplin, and many others.
May 2, 1992, Ardmore Park, Los Angeles Koreatown: At a large community wake in commemoration of teenager Eddie Lee (a Koreatown youth slain in a "friendly fire" incident while helping to safeguard a Korean-owned business on Day Two of the Los Angeles Rebellion), a group of Korean American residents join with others to decry the destruction and rioting that followed the April 29, 1992 "not-guilty" verdicts in the beating trial of motorist Rodney King. This rally and march, which numbered over 20,000 Angelenos and made its way through the streets of Koreatown, proved to be a watershed moment in the Korean-American community's struggle to be accepted as a vibrant part of the larger fabric of Los Angeles and American society.
Flyer for talk by Los-Angeles-based labor organizer L. Gutierrez de Lara. According to historian David Struthers, de Lara was a major contributor to the Mexican branch of Los Angeles’ Socialist Party, whose 1907 founding marked “the first time a non-white group created an institutional home in a white-led leftist organization” there. He often spoke and taught socialist night school for Mexicans in the city; this flyer shows he was also active in San Francisco.
In 1924, Caltech students gained a home away from home with the dedication of a long-needed student center designed by noted architect Henry Greene. Student donations funded the massive fireplace: bricks were sold for $1 and engraved with the names of purchasers. Seniors offered the bronze motto, juniors the large bronze T, sophomores the mantel, and freshmen the andirons. For many years students gathered around the beloved fireplace for recreation, relaxation, and scientific discussions.
The Sun Wing Wo Company opened in 1891 in the Garnier Building. The decorations suggest that this photo was likely captured during Lunar New Year festivities. The store sold merchandise to the Chinese community and provided community services such as letter writing, postal, and banking. The State of California forced the store to close in 1948 to construct the 101 Freeway. The store was re-created by the Chinese American Museum in 2003.
In Public Domain -The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information.
A door is every home's special gateway. For the Ebell Club's Wilshire Boulevard grand entrance, it is our portal! The 1927 wrought iron masterpiece by John William Chard is revered as one of the finest in the West, rivaling the grandest European ironwork. Using 2000 individual pieces, he turns this unyielding medium into a delicacy, incorporating symbolic elements of a radiating sun, letters E (Ebell) and C (Club), tragedy/comedy masks, a palette and a scroll into the design.
In Public Domain -The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information.
First Street North, Los Angeles Little Tokyo, May 1, 1972: "We all have the right to healthy communities. The growing resistance to corporate/government expropriation of communities — disguised as redevelopment — is symbolic of Asian America in movement. Chinatown in Honolulu and New York City, the International District in Seattle, Nihonmachi and Chinatown in San Francisco, Little Tokyo in Los Angeles: all bear witness to the determination of Asian Americans to create communities which help us move from a vital heritage to a vision of a better society." — Franklin Odo
Wyvernwood Garden Apartments, built in 1939, was the first garden apartment complex in Los Angeles backed by the Federal Housing Administration. Intended for whites only, it continued housing segregation policies. Decades later, residents were primarily working-class people of color. The complex is a successful example of affordable housing designed to build community. Activists used this poster to challenge redevelopment plans. As of 2019, Wyvernwood’s 6,000 residents have successfully resisted efforts to demolish their homes.
This photograph of Nisei Week in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles shows the mid-1960s appearance of this ethnic enclave that has been home to the largest Japanese-American population in the United States. Founded around the beginning of the twentieth century and developed in part because of discriminatory laws that limited where Japanese Americans could live and work, the neighborhood became a dynamic economic and cultural hub.
This image shows a young man working on a hot rod car in a driveway in Long Beach in 1954. Hot rods (generally older cars modified for speed and acceleration) and the culture around them started to appear in Southern California in the 1930s, with races in dry lake beds northeast of Los Angeles, and remains popular today. This photograph was taken by Joseph Risinger, a photographer for the Long Beach Press Telegram.
"Los Caminos de la Vida" by Trenely "Clover" Garcia provides a glimpse of South Central’s reality and a community filled with green spaces, the artist’s idealized vision of her neighborhood. Her work highlights one of many liquor stores in the area, that make alcohol and drugs easily accessible. Downtown’s skyscrapers, nightlife, art scene, all presenting gentrification, encroach upon neighborhood residents. However, images of Olmec heads and people evolving from nopales, symbolize pride and strength despite attempts of displacement.
These boxes are artifacts from the City Market in Los Angeles. Most peddlers selling produce to Los Angeles residents in the late 1880’s were Chinese. A space was created to regulate the produce market as the demand increased. City Market opened in 1909 just south of Historic Chinatown. Led by Louie Quan, ownership was diverse including many identified as Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Russian. The marketplace helped formed East Adams into a small Chinese community.
To make any place home, fill it with music! Gracing a Tearoom of The Ebell Club of LA is the very grand Steinway and Sons grand piano dated 1884. Gifted to the Ebell in 1960, it appears to have original parts. Soundboards are made from Sitka spruce from Alaska, and other wooden components, such as rims, are sourced from Canadian maple. Since its inception, Steinway has numbered every piano, making their instruments’ genealogy traceable.
The photograph shows the original home of the Gay Community Services Center (GCSC) at 1614 Wilshire Blvd. The mansion, built in the 1870s, served as the GCSC's headquarters when it incorporated in 1971, and provided housing for LGBTQ homeless youth. The organization, now known as the Los Angeles LGBT Center, has continuously provided some form of transitional housing for the LGBTQ community for the last 50 years.
Milton and Dorothy Anderson are pictured here in their 1929 Malibu Lakeside cottage, known as "Sleepy Hollow." Malibu Lakeside was a community founded in 1924 in the Santa Monica foothills. Many early residents were middle class Angelenos, using their cabins as a weekend escape from the city. Every homeowner held a stake in the Lakeside Mutual Water Company, which helped fund the community center. The community boasted a large redwood clubhouse, swimming pool, softball and tennis courts, and a playground.
The Ebell club “closet” is a fantasy room for clothing lovers, with more than 1000 dresses, hats, shoes and other accessories along with theatrical costumes. Donated by members and community women since the club’s 1894 founding, the collection reflects what was worn by women of means who shopped local stores like Bullocks and Robinson’s, with some dressmaker and home sewn 1890s through 1900s tea dresses, 1920s evening and daywear and many 1930s-1970s styles.
Founded in 1921 by Donald W. Douglas Sr., Douglas Aircraft Company was headquartered in Santa Monica until 1975, with satellite plants in other cities. The war effort in the 1940s led to an astonishing expansion at Douglas, where peak wartime employment was recorded at 160,000 workers. Many families counted multiple members as Douglas workers. The growth resulted in new trailer homes sprouting up in Santa Monica, meeting an unprecedented demand for housing.
Jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer, and bandleader, Don Ellis at Ellis Island (club) on the Sunset Strip, Hollywood, California, 1967. The Don Ellis Band plays "In a Turkish Bath" in celebration of the release of "Electric Bath." Ray Neapolitan is on sitar for "In a Turkish Bath." Opening sequence shows the Sunset Strip and includes the following famous clubs: Dino's Lounge, Sneeky Pete's, The Galaxy, The Whisky, Shelly's Manne Hole, and Ellis Island.
Westchester is part of the city of Los Angeles. At the start of the twentieth century, Westchester was primarily an agricultural area, but in 1928, was selected as the site of Los Angeles International Airport. In 1929, Harry Culver offered 100 acres of land to build a new campus for Loyola University. As late as 1930, Manchester Blvd. was only a muddy road leading to Loyola University, now known as Loyola Marymount University.