The Sites

1) Partido Liberal Mexicano Headquarters
519 1/2 E. Fourth Street
Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magon were Mexican brothers and anarchists who played an instrumental role in fomenting the Mexican revolution through the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM). The house on Fourth Street served as the headquarters, and it is here that they produced the bilingual newspaper, Regeneracion, dedicated to revolutionary and anarchist thought. In addition, the PLM operated a house just north of downtown on Yale that offered lodging and cultural activities for workers known as La Casa del Obrero Internacional (The International Workers’ Home). Because of their radical politics, the Magons were persecuted by authorities and imprisoned in Texas.

2) Black Panther Headquarters
4115 S. Central Avenue.
The leading revolutionary nationalist organization in the late 1960s, the Black Panther Party focused on self-defense and meeting the basic needs of its constituents – low-income urban Blacks. The rise of the BPP signaled a break with the civil rights movement and influenced the American Indian, Asian American, and Chicano Movements. Its existence in L.A. was especially intense for two reasons: the FBI had declared the BPP the “number one threat to national security,” and the zealous nature of the LAPD under Chief Parker. In December 1969 the LAPD launched a pre-dawn raid on the headquarters of the Southern California Chapter where a four-hour gun battle, which inaugurated the Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT), resulted in the injury of three Panthers, three police officers, the arrest of eleven Panthers and the destruction of the building itself.

3) Mural, “Tropical America”
El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument (above Olvera Street)
"Tropical America" was painted by the great Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros and is one of the first outdoor public paintings in Los Angeles. Siqueiros painted the mural while in exile in 1932 and described his hope to produce a, “great uncovered mural painting in the free air, facing the sun, for the masses.” Reflecting Siqueirio’s communist affiliation, the mural condemns of US imperialism while highlighting the resistance of Mexico’s indigenous population. Los Angeles’ leaders found it so offensive that within a week of its unveiling the mural was whitewashed. Although the mural cannot be restored due deterioration, efforts are underway to install a viewing standing and interpretation center so that the public can appreciate both the mural and its past.

4) Self-Help Graphics
3802 Cesar Chavez Avenue
A community-based visual arts center serving the Chicano/Latino community in East Los Angeles, Self-Help Graphics was both an outcome of the Chicano Movement and actively contributed to it. Self-Help Graphics was created in the early 1970s by local artists seeking to produce art that reflected the reality of the community. Under the leadership of Sister Karen Boccalero, Self-Help helped to popularize the celebration of Dia de los Muertos. It is known for its Barrio Mobil Arts Studio, its Printmaking Atelier (Serigraph Workshop), and its Youth Program. Self-Help has produced the largest collection of Chicano art prints in history and has advocated on behalf of cultural tourism in Los Angeles. (www.selfhelpgraphics.com/index.html)

5) Century City
Olympic and Century Park East
Century City has been the site of two important public protests and instances of police abuse. In June 1967 a massive anti-war demonstration in which ten to fifteen thousand people gathered to protest President Johnson’s Vietnam policy. Protesters were met with batons, clubs, and tear gas. Similarly, on June 15, 1990 when approximately 500 members and supporters of Justice for Janitors (JfJ), Service Employees International Union, staged a peaceful protest in an effort to seek union recognition. The LAPD responded violently, producing many injuries, arrests and one miscarriage. JfJ organizers worried that this beating would prompt workers to drop their bid for unionization, but according to organizer Rocio Saenz, “They got upset and angry, many are people that never had political experience in the past. [They said], ‘That’s it. They cannot treat us like this when we didn’t do anything!” In 1993 L.A. city agreed to pay $2.35 million in damages.

6) Biddy Mason Park
333 S. Spring Street
Born a slave in 1818 Georgia, Biddy Mason ultimately became a free woman and prominent Angeleno when her owner traveled to California where slavery was prohibited. Her owner falsely tried to convince her that an ensuing move to Texas would not imperil her freedom, but Mason took her case to court, and the judge affirmed that Mason and all other Blacks were free persons. The ruling was timely; the very next year, in 1857, the Dred Scott decision would have affirmed her status as property. A skilled midwife, Mason invested her savings in real estate, beginning with the house on Spring Street—the eventual site of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, which she helped found, as well as Los Angeles’ first childcare center. The Park was developed as part of “The Power of Place,” a project that documented and preserved forgotten and important sites in Los Angeles.

7) Santa Anita Race Track
(Arcadia) & Pomona Fairgrounds (Pomona)
On February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 calling for the mass incarceration of West coast Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. On March 30 almost 100,000 Japanese Americans in California were sent to Temporary Detention or Assembly Centers, such as the Santa Anita Race Track and Pomona Fairgrounds. Riots and protests occurred at both sites. Detainees were held here until more permanent camps were completed, such as Manzanar and Tule Lake. The Internment of Japanese Americans was the single largest violation of any groups’ civil rights in the history of the US. Internment lasted from 1942 to 1944. Most Nikkei lost their property, homes, and businesses, as they had days in which to pack-up and move. After years of organizing by Japanese American activists, a Congressional Committee determined that Internment was due to “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” President Ronald Reagan issued a formal apology to Japanese Americans & authorized monetary reparations. These sites represent examples of how everyday places can be turned into sites of terror by the state.

8) Holiday Bowl
3730 Crenshaw Boulevard
A bowling alley founded in 1958 by five Japanese Americans, the Holiday Bowl was part of the process of rebuilding the Nikkei community after Internment; the owners sold shares throughout the community in order to finance its construction. Given the Bowl’s location on Crenshaw, it was important in the desegregation of Los Angeles, as it served an Anglo American, African American, and Japanese American clientele. The coffee shop, for example, featured grits, udon, chow mein, and hamburgers. Due to poor management, however, the Bowl closed in 2000 and was targeted for demolition. Bowl supporters mobilized, persuading the City of Los Angeles’s Cultural Heritage Commission to designate the structure an historical-cultural monument. It is valued for its 1950s style, “Googie” architecture, but also for its importance in creating an integrated Los Angeles. Its fate remains in question.

9) Mission San Gabriel
537 W. Mission Drive, San Gabriel
Built in 1771 under the Spanish crown, San Gabriel was the first mission in the Los Angeles area. Though highly romanticized as an idyllic period when Franciscans brought civilization and Christianity to Native Americans, the actual experience of the mission system was often starkly more about conquest, dispossession, widespread death, and forced labor, as was the case at Mission San Gabriel. Indians were forced to work the 1.5 million acres of mission land, turning it into a highly productive and lucrative institution. San Gabriel Mission was the site of at least two known Indian revolts, the most notable led by a woman, Toypurina in the early 1800s. Toypurina mobilized the Indians to unsuccessfully attack the mission and the priests. She was considered a bruja (witch), as, at the time, there was no other way to explain Toypurina’s anger. At her trial, Toypurina was banished to the Monterey mission where she lived out her days.

10) Haramoknga American Indian Cultural Center
Angeles Crest Highway & Mt. Wilson Road, Angeles National Forest (just north of La Canada Flintridge)
Haramokngna is the Tongva word for, “The Place Where People Gather,” which is a cultural and educational center for the urban Indian population, following the original function of the site which was a seasonal trading place for the Tongva tribe. Although Los Angeles has the largest urban indigenous population in the US and the Gabrielino-Tongva tribe is one of LA County’s largest tribes, they have no tribal lands. In addition to serving as a site for local American Indians to preserve their culture, it also offers an indigenous perspective on native history, culture, and contemporary issues. The Cultural Center is open on Saturdays.

11) Downey Block
Intersection of Main, Spring, and Temple Streets
Immediately after the US takeover in the mid 19th century, the decline of the indigenous population accelerated. This was evident in a decrease in population numbers, greater political, economic and social marginalization, and in the practice of Indian slavery. On most Mondays in the 1850s and 1860s the Administrator of Rancho Los Amigos auctioned off Indians who had been imprisoned during the previous week for one week of servitude. Most Indians were sold to local ranchers who used them to perform agricultural labor. Typically incarcerated for loitering, drunkenness, and begging, Indians were sold anywhere from one to three dollars, one-third of which was to be given to the worker at the end of the week, if he had performed satisfactorily. This “wage” was usually paid in the form of liquor, often leading to a repeated cycle of arrest and forced servitude.

12) The Great Wall
Tujunga Wash (along Coldwater Canyon between Oxnard & Burbank)
“The Great Wall,” is both a magnificent mural and a model for producing participatory public art. “The Great Wall,” considered by many to be the world’s longest mural, was painted over many summers from 1976 – 1983 under the direction of Chicana artist, Judy Baca. The mural, which is approximately half a mile long, consists of forty panels depicting the history of California, from the beginning of time to the 1950s, with special attention to the roles of ethnic groups and their many contributions and experiences. Over 700 people were involved in painting the mural, including 400 youth. Baca created the first mural program in Los Angeles, which is responsible for producing hundreds of murals, one of the city’s key mediums for public and socially relevant art in the city. The Los Angeles City Council has agreed to preserve The Great Mural. http://www.sparcmurals.org/.

13) GM Van Nuys
Van Nuys Boulevard, Panorama City
The General Motors plant in the eastern San Fernando Valley was the last auto plant to leave as part of the region’s painful process of deindustrialization. During the 1980s it was the site of major struggle, led by a multiracial group of workers, to keep the plant open. GM wanted to close the plant to shift production to Canada where they could save on health costs. By waging an extensive campaign, activists managed to get GM to stay ten years longer than anticipated. Although GM eventually left, the organizing work that occurred formed the basis for the Labor/Community Strategy Center, which has developed such organizing projects as the Bus Riders’ Union.

14) Parker Center
150 N. Los Angeles Street
The headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department, Parker Center was named after the Chief William H. Parker who led the LAPD in the 1950s. Under Parker, a rabid-anti communist, the LAPD became heavily professionalized, militaristic, and abusive. On why Mexicans warranted extra surveillance, Parker explained, “Some of those people [are] not too far removed from the wild tribes of the district of the inner mountains of Mexico. I don’t think you can throw the genes out of the question when you discuss behavior patterns of people.” Since the 1920s the LAPD sought to undermine progressive activism through its Red Squad, and later the Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID). The LAPD also pioneered SWAT teams, which it used for the first time against the Black Panthers in December 1969. This historic pattern of renegade behavior, especially against communities of color, continues into the recent past; in 2001 the LAPD was forced to comply in 2001 with a Federal Consent Decree.

15) California Club
538 S. Flower
The California Club, located in downtown, was one of the foremost exclusionary clubs in the region. Founded in 1887, the Club has historically offered dining, recreational and meeting facilities to its members. Originally open to all men, it became increasingly discriminatory in the 1920s so that it excluded all women, people of color, and Jews. In 1987 the Los Angeles City Council made it illegal for such clubs to discriminate. Amazingly, the California Club opposed the new ordinance, and a segment of the membership waged a campaign to circumvent it, in order to keep women and Blacks out of the Club. After a tense battle, the Club eventually decided to adhere to the new ordinance. Interestingly, in 2002 when asked about this history, Club representatives denied that it had ever been exclusionary. In fact, when asked about the exclusion of women, a representative responded that it was not really exclusionary, as “women would want to be in their spaces.”

16) Mural, “A Glorious History, A Glorious Legacy”
1660 Beverly Boulevard
Painted by Eliseo Silva along the wall of a postal annex, this mural documents major events in the history of Filipinos in the US as well as the homeland, stressing the deep connection between the two countries. Until recently, Filipinos were the largest Asian American group in California (currently the Chinese are) and have a long history in the region. Although Filipinos began coming to the US in the late 1800s, they did not come in large numbers until the early 20th century when they came as agricultural workers who formed “Bachelor Societies.” Asian women were largely excluded from immigrating. Filipinos were also subject to anti-miscegenation laws and other forms of discrimination. By the 1920s and 1930 the Los Angeles Filipino community was concentrated in the downtown area around Bunker Hill, where they created such institutions as the Filipino Christian Church, the Pilipino American Reading Room and Library, as well as restaurants and dance halls, and more recently, the Filipino American Community of Los Angeles (FACLA) building.

17) Metrolink Lang Station
Soledad Road, Santa Clarita
The site of the connection of the railroad line between San Francisco and Los Angeles, this place memorializes an important moment in Western history. In 1876 the first railroad line was completed linking northern and southern California and forever changing the state’s history. As it neared completion, a contest was held to see whether the northern or southern workers would complete the last 500 yards first. The Los Angeles team won. Upon completion of the track, Charles Crocker drove a gold spike into the track, with scarce acknowledgement of the laborers who had actually completed the work or the thousands who had died in the process. Although many ethnic groups worked on the railroads, in the Western US the Chinese were a crucial part of the workforce and endured inhumane and discriminatory conditions as they laid tracks and dynamited mountains in an effort to link the various parts of the US. In 2001 Metrolink officials drove a spike into the track commemorating the thousands of Chinese who built the railroad.

18) Chinatown Massacre
Calle de los Negros (now Los Angeles Street)
On October 24, 1871 one of Los Angeles’ most violent racial conflicts erupted when two rival tongs, Nin Yung Company and Hong Chow Company disagreed over possession of a young woman, Ya Hit. An Anglo police officer, Robert Thompson, intervened in the conflict and was accidentally shot. Soon after, an Anglo saloonkeeper began firing randomly at Chinese homes on “Nigger Alley,” formally known as Calle de los Negros (now Los Angeles Street). As news spread, Anglo and, to a lesser extent, Mexican vigilantes, poured into the area, attacked Chinese residents, and burned and looted Chinese property. One of the mob leaders was city councilman, George Fall. Los Angeles tax-collector, Marshal Francis Baker was also present and told participants to, “shoot any Chinese who try to escape.” At the end of the night, 17 Chinese were lynched, and two more died subsequently from complications. Over 500 Angelenos participated in the attack. Eventually, 37 rioters were indicted, but fewer than 10 were convicted. The California Supreme Court overturned their convictions a year later, however, on a legal technicality.

19) Val Verde Park
San Martinez Road and California 126, Los Angeles County
Also known as Eureka Villa, in the 1920s Val Verde became one of the few parks open to African Americans during the period of Jim Crow. Los Angeles initially attracted African Americans because of the opportunities that it afforded Black people - partly because there were other nonwhite groups who incurred the brunt of white racism. However, as time went on, discrimination against African Americans increased and they were barred from most public beaches, resorts and parks. When in 1922 Anglo American philanthropist Laura Senior donated the land be used as an outdoor area for African Americans, Val Verde developed into a prominent resort, featuring such guests as Della Reese, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. The park fell out of favor after the Civil Rights Movement when most discriminatory barriers were dropped against African Americans, allowing them to go to other recreational areas.

20) The Silver Dollar Café
4945 E. Whittier Boulevard
This was the site of the assassination of Ruben Salazar. Born in Ciudad Juarez in March 1928, Salazar was a journalist who became an important voice for social change. Salazar worked for the Los Angeles Times and the Spanish-language television station KMEX, and over time became increasingly critical of the Vietnam War and social injustice. At the time of his death, Salazar was being investigated by both the LAPD and the FBI who opposed his increasingly critical coverage. Salazar was killed on August 29, 1970 while observing the Chicano Moratorium, a protest against the War, drawing approximately 30,000 for a march from Belvedere Park to Laguna Park. As it approached Laguna Park, over 500 police attacked the crowd, resulting in over 200 arrests, hundreds of injuries, and three deaths. The Chicano Moratorium was the largest anti-war action on the part of any ethnic community in the US. Salazar covered the event and afterwards went to the Silver Dollar Café where he was shot by an L.A. County Deputy. The tear gas projectile shot from outside the café, hit Salazar in the head. A Coroner's Panel ruled the killing a homicide, but the deputy was never brought to trial.

21) Staples Center
1111 S. Figueroa Street
A major sports and entertainment center that agreed to an unprecedented set of community concessions in 2001 in response to the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice (FCEEJ), led by Strategic Alternatives for a Just Economy (SAJE) was formed to advocate on behalf of local residents. The original plans for the Staples Center paid little attention to the social and environmental costs of new project on the local neighborhood. Because the Staples Center is located in a heavily populated low-income area, housing primarily Latino immigrants, of particular concern was the displacement of local residents. Not only were many residents displaced, a major issue given Los Angeles's perpetual housing crisis, but the remaining residents were adversely affected by increased traffic, parking and crime. Over 300 residents and 30 labor, community and environmental justice organizations joined the Coalition, which won an historic set of concessions in exchange for support of the project, including a preferential parking district for low-income tenants; guarantees that 20% of housing units will be reserved for low-income people; $1 million will be set aside for parks; and half of the 5,500 permanent jobs must go to local residents.

22) ChoSun Galbi Restaurant
1040 S. Western Avenue (off Olympic) in Koreatown, Los Angeles
In late 1997, ChoSun Galbi, became the site of a landmark dispute between immigrant workers and one of Koreatown’s largest restaurants. ChoSun Galbi fired Mr. Park, the head cook, when he refused to sign documents that illegally sought to make him responsible for paying the restaurant’s payroll taxes. Such abuses are common among the thousands of mostly Korean and Latino immigrant workers in Koreatown, who typically work 10-14 hours a day for wages as low as $2.50 an hour. Mr. Park turned for assistance to Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA), an independent worker center which combines worker and community organizing and legal advocacy to end these conditions. KIWA organized daily community pickets in front of the restaurant, including a 10-day holiday hunger strike, until ChoSun Galbi agreed to pay back wages, comply with by basic labor laws, and to reinstate Mr. Park. Today, according to KIWA, ChoSun Galbi remains one of the few restaurants in Koreatown where basic labor laws are followed. The Restaurant Workers Association of Koreatown, an outgrowth of the struggle at ChoSun Galbi and campaigns at several other restaurants, continues to train workers around employment rights and to monitor standards in the industry.

23) Bixby Park
130 Cherry Avenue, Long Beach
In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan’s Southern California membership grew dramatically. A 1926 march at Long Beach’s Bixby Park drew thousands of Klansmen and women through the city’s sleepy streets. The Klan was one of the most powerful public organizations of the day in Long Beach, allegedly claiming prominent members of the city’s police and fire departments. Dubbed “Iowa by the Sea” for its large population of Midwest émigrés, Long Beach, like many southland cities, remained strictly segregated through the 1960s. Today, by some statistical measures, Long Beach is the most racially and ethnically diverse city in the country; Bixby Park’s frequent concerts, community classes and other public events reflects this vibrant cultural mélange.