July 22, 2006

Chavez Ravine: Poor Man's Shangri La Chavez Ravine—the lost Mexican American community near downtown Los Angeles where Dodger Stadium is now located. It was a main location for the Zoot Suit Riots. Residents were evicted when plans were made for a large public housing complex. The housing was never built when the man in charge was made to testify before HUAC for his socialist notions of public housing.

“Located in a valley a few miles from downtown Los Angeles, Chavez Ravine was home to generations of Mexican Americans…Chavez Ravine was a self-sufficient and tight-knit community, a rare example of small town life within a large urban metropolis. For decades, its residents ran their own schools and churches and grew their own food on the land.” Also the name of an album of songs recorded by Ry Cooder and featuring a few performers from the era when Chavez Ravine thrived. You can stream the album in that nonesuch link. This link brought to you by the LA public library's music section where I checked this cd out today for no particular reason and got curious about the history.

posted by mandyman 18 years ago
  • interesting... very interesting.
  • *arrives on scene zoot suite*
  • cool fpp. i used to live near chavez ravine. the 5 nearby is one of my favorite places to get stuck in traffic.
  • Ooo very interesting post mandyman.
  • Wow. Around my neck of the woods, this might have been called a Kampung. The connotations of that word include a sense of community, self-sufficiency, mutual reliance between neighbours and a certain relaxed attitude towards life. As the world barrels along, dragging everyone kicking and screaming into the new millenium, these places are uprooted and the people displaced. *sigh* [Insert mind blowing comment here] Is that ok, mandyman?
  • Most edumacational, thanks mandy
  • It always amazes me just how pathological the American fear of 'socialism' or 'communism' is and how much business interests have manipulated it.
  • Great post, thanks. I think I'll try to find a copy of the book.
  • What? LA? People are still talking about that sphacelated sump?
  • Immenent domain to clear out areas where poor people live! Red scare! Baseball! Racial discrimination! It has a little bit of everything, really.
  • Everything I know about Los Anegles I learned from reading James Ellroy's LA Quartet*. This post is a great appendix to the series, thanks, mandyman! *The Zoot Riots figure heavily in the second novel, The Big Nowhere, and the Chavez Ravine evictions are a subplot in White Jazz, the last book in the series.
  • Oops, "Los Anegles"?!? I always get LA mixed up with its ugly step-sister city.
  • Damn it, I can't spell eminent.
  • Dammit, now I have this song stuck in my head! (Good post, mandyman!)
  • Dammit, now I have this song stuck in my head! (Good post, mandyman!)
  • (ooops)
  • Is this what a space kitty looks like? MEEOOOOOOOWWW!!!!!!!!!!
  • She looks way better than that silly thing.
  • Oh man, that robot is totally whipped.
  • How does a Japanese girl get afro-puffs?
  • James Ellroy is way overrated. Sorry to hear about his ma. We've been hearing the same story now for 25 years. It was a good story, but it's been told. Ellroy is the Boston of LA Crime Fic. Read Cain, Chandler, Didion, Mosley, MacDonald.
  • Exactly how is Blood on the Moon the same story as White Jazz?