Blogging Social Differences in LA- Week 10

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mexican-mafia-20121207,0,2097114.story

The article is about the Mexican Mafia and the activities conducted in the area surrounding USC.
I guess what drew my attention to the article the most was not only the closeness that it had to the neighborhood in which I grew up in but the comments in the comment section, for example:

•  "If USC was not geogrpahically located next to Harpy's territory the law enforcement response would have been less. "

I guess this was an interesting comment to read, regardless of whether its true or not. Is shocking to find that other readers do not believe that LAPD would have done anything to stop this particular organized crime group if there hadn't been a prestigious, private university (USC) in the vicinity. Shocking but again not unrealistic considering the neighborhood that this article talks about is low income and predominantly  Latino and Black based.

This is an advertisement for a nearby clinic, it encourages applications for Medicare and Medical.

There are a lot of empty space like this in these neighborhoods, this is one of 3 I saw during my trip

These are just some of the many small businesses in the in the area

Most of the houses down Jefferson-Normandie area are apartment complex type; All have some type of gate.

It's important to note that most of these pictures were taken on the main streets (Normandie, Washington, and Jefferson) or extremely near these main streets. The streets are very busy as well as noisy. Also very dangerous for young kids that live in these apartment complex. If I was a mother of young children living here, I would not feel safe letting my kids play outside for fear of them straying to far and being ran over. 

This is an ally in the residential part of the Normandie-Washington area

This cemetery is the most green I saw during my walk through the Normandie-Washington area

This believe it or not is a church

As seen in the pictures graffiti is a huge problem in this area (even on churches). This part of LA is very industrial with little to no nature or aesthetic  sceneries. Unlike the suburbs there's really not many safe places where kids can go to play. It reminds me of the article about gender and how the modern city does not take into account women and their kids. Its purpose is simple: creating and replicating surplus value.

The following is a map that covers the area in which the organization had dominion over:

This covers Normandie located on the west, Washington on the both, Figueroa on the east and Jefferson on the South, just above USC (in gray).

It was not at all that surprising that these activities go on in this neighborhood since this area is notorious for its crimes. However, having left the area for about 8 years now, one tends to forget the difference in crime rate that exists here when compared to other areas in LA such as Westwood, for example.

Therefore I decided to do a comparison on the crime rate that happens near the USC area versus the UCLA area. On a side note we benefit from both LAPD, UCPD and even Beverly Hills PD (not 10 minutes from UCLA) while USC only has LAPD for support where crime rate is concerned.

UCLA Map 

                             Both maps were adjusted for Total Crime Rate Index using a local Classification Method.

USC Map

Not at all surprising USC had a higher crime rate surrounding the area than UCLA did. What I did find shocking was the large pink area (Low crime rate) that seemed to follow as you moved east from USC.

I find the idea that the surroundings in a public institution such as UCLA are far safer than those for a private university like USC. My guess is that this was also due to the initial idea of centralization. Located in the downtown area USC would have benefited much from the institutions surrounding it while UCLA wouldn't have. Of course years later that would change as the city of LA would continue to develop and modernize itself into what it is today.

Blogging Social Differences in LA- Week 9

This week I decided to write my blog about Sawtelle, which is fairly close to UCLA. I took the Culver City bus line 6 to Sawtelle. I took this bus around 4:00pm so there was definitely a lot of people on board. However,  since the turnaround stop is the first stop for this bus I was able to find a seat.

As more people started to come in the more congested it got and since this bus is smaller than say the 720, it ran out of seats quite fast. But everyone was pretty chill, though there was a lot of UCLA students in the beginning, it definitely got more diverse as the trip continued. It got noisier and noisier as many people began talking on their cell phones and groups of people began having a conversion among themselves.

An interesting thing happened when a young man gave up his seat for an older lady (about mid-40s) who was carrying a couple of bags. The interesting thing being was the shock on her face as well as the conversation that followed, which was long and extensive to the point in which I seriously thought the young man regretted having given up his seat. Though the lady seemed engrossed the young man seemed annoyed, though the lad didn't seem to get this impression. Maybe it was just me?

I finally got off in my stop in Olympic and walked about 2 blocks down to the location where I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about this area mainly because I wanted to compare it to an earlier blog that I had done on Little Tokyo.

The first thing I notice was that though Japanese stores and restaurants make up the majority of Sawtelle, there is definitely more East Asian variety here than in Little Tokyo: Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants were also present.

Here we see a Japanese restaurant, and Chinese restaurant and a Korean restaurant (Not visible in the picture)

In the Picture above we see a little plaza, many of the businesses found here can also be found in Little Tokyo.

There is also a Japanese supermarket, though perhaps with less variety than the one found in Little Tokyo.

Interestingly enough, though the street of Sawtelle, which is where all these businesses are located, is extremely busy. The surrounding streets also include Santa Monica and Olympic which are always in use and the 405 freeway is about 2 blocks down in Santa Monica Blv. However, the houses and apartments surrounding Sawtelle are really quiet and peaceful looking. There are no signs of social disturbance.

They were not as fancy looking as the ones found in the suburbs of South Pasadena, but they were certainly not surrounded by chaos, like the ones found in say Inglewood. Some had gates others did not, and some had lawn while other did not care much for the aesthetics. There was a lot more diversity and less uniformity in the living quarters here than in the suburbs of South Pasadena, where all the houses look similar. Population was definitely more diverse.

I was interested in this particular place because it had been presented to me as a second Little Tokyo, and since I had done a blog on Little Tokyo before I wanted to compare. However, unlike Little Tokyo, this place seems to be a lot more corporate, in the sense that it is mostly business related and shows little to nothing about their history or culture. At first I thought it was because this area was more recent and thus was led in such as way while Little Tokyo was more historic. My reasoning for this was the the sort of people I saw in each location. Little Tokyo seemed to be more diverse in age groups while Sawtelle tends to be a lot more youth oriented. 

After doing some research of the area though, they both appear to have been shaped during similar times. I could not find much on why the places turned out so much different despite their connection with each other (as stated earlier, many businesses are found in both places). The only thing that could possibly explain this is the idea of centralization. Perhaps, due to Little Tokyo being located in the Downtown area of Los Angeles, it was easier to create historical institutions such as the Japanese Museum than in Sawtelle. However, Sawtelle does show other history Veteran's history, though to be fair the original place in mind for this history was Boyle Heights. Nonetheless the reason for the lack of Japanese history (at least when compared to the history and culture located in Little Tokyo) is still a mystery to me, thus we are back to square one.

Overall, however, it was a nice experience.

Blogging Social Differences in LA- Week 8

This is a response to http://socialdifferencela.blogspot.com/2012_11_01_archive.html


The blogger, Sara, visited Inglewood more specifically Morningside Park. She visited the neighborhoods and often contrasted them with more privileged places such as Rodeo Drive.

I enjoyed reading this post because it focused on the environmental racism that goes on in neighborhoods were the population is largely made up of minority groups. The post was well thought out and offered SimplyMap as evidence to her observations.

Probably the most impacting statement was her closing one:

" [N]oise pollution and a minority group? Looks to me that no wealthy white person would want to live near an airport (which is why you always find them in places like Beverly Hills and Malibu). And while it isn't as bad a toxic waste dumping in a poor community, this still sounds like an environmental (and social) injustice to me."

This is indeed true. Sometimes we don't stop to consider things like noise pollution. The disruption that these noises causes. When considering places such as Inglewood we consider income, ethnicity, race, environmental problem but noise pollution is never on the forefront of our minds.

It reminded me of areas such as the South Pasadena suburban area (Last week's post) and how eerily quite it is when compared to the city. Truth is amount noise can have a significant impact on their residents. I know that if I was studying for a final I would rather do it in South Pasadena than in Inglewood.

Blogging Social Differences in LA- Week 7

http://patricksoulagesla.blogspot.com/

This post actually caught my attention due to the location in which it took place. Though the blogger, Patrick- and perhaps geographically as well- referred to the this area as East LA I'm fairly certain that this is not the case with the Angelinos residing here.

I am familiar with this location due to my involvement with a particular program located here which allows me to serve as a mentor to underprivileged high school students. One of the first questions I asked them was if they referred to the area as East LA or was it simply Boyle Heights? Their response was that they didn't consider themselves to be from East LA but Boyle Heights. I just found it interesting but to an extent it is partly true if you consider the difference in ambiance and history that exists between the two locations. Though this answer might change depending how east you are of Boyle Heights, but since the blogger went to Guisados and ended in Little Tokyo, the location is actually not that far east.

East LA is largely known for the Latino population residing there. This population started in "East LA" and it wasn't until the original population living in Boyle Heights (Jewish, Armenians, Japanese) decided to leave it after World War II in exchange for the suburbs that it become heavily Latino. This makes the Boyle Heights' community fairly new when compared to the East LA community. This affects the difference in resources, services offered, etc. making both areas distinct.

Other than that I do agree with the poster, the Cesar Chaves street seems to be more important than downtown, but this is perhaps due to the difference in communities. Downtown seems to be more diverse in regards to people, restaurants, etc, you are able to find a little bit of everything, while the Cesar Chaves street is more community oriented (In this case the Latino community). 

And yes, Little Tokyo is less than a mile west of Boyle Heights and it is astronomically different to Boyle heights. Granted it only consists of about four blocks, but still. Actually, this makes Little Tokyo even more fascinating because if you continue west you will hit the fashion district which also has a very heavy Latino and Black Population. However, given the history of Boyle Heights and the area surrounding it, the location of Little Tokyo is not at all that surprising.

Blogging Social Differences in LA- Week 6

For this week's post I decided to write about the suburbs, since my friend invited me to her church which is located in the city of South Pasadena, I decided to write about it today.

This is a picture of the church. I thought that the structure was very interested because if you did not know any better the church would practically blend in, since it could easily pass as a house. This reminded me a lot about the Orange County article when it talks about how buildings are build with a purpose. I think the purpose of the church's structure is to not disrupt the setting that the suburbs provide us with. A lot of the members appeared to be from this community and as a result did not need to drive, they simply walked to church.

The picture above is just an example of the many houses that surround this suburban neighborhood. What was interesting is that despite having such beautiful and clean streets I rarely saw any humans just walking about. The few that did take a walk around the neighborhood were usually walking their dogs. All the houses have flawless lawns, and most have an abundance of trees and flowers in their yards.

This is one of the two parks I saw within a mile radius of the church. Though this one seemed more of a baseball field and the other park more of a family park where you can have a picnic and BBQ. It was not so full in the morning (11am) but by 3pm there was a large crowd in it. Mostly families watching their kids play what looked to be little league baseball. This suburb seems to be build in order to encourage family activities and safe places for the neighborhood kids to play in without the parents having to worry too much about them.

Trader Joe's was located on the main street before entering the heavily residential area. This seemed to be the closets Supermarket to this area. Inside the store was full with people shopping. Again, though the store was full there were not a lot of cars in the already small parking lot since a lot of the people simply walked to the market from their homes.

Further a long Mission Street there were some caffe shops  and businesses such as cleaners a donut shops. It was all build in a very community based fashion. Nothing seemed out of place. Everything to the last car found in this area felt and looked like it belonged. Overall it was an interesting experience since everything in this area's purpose was to serve, look and feel part of a small community.

UPDATE: [So I went back to South Pasadena, and decided to do an update to talk about things that I i dismissed last time I was here. As expected the neighborhood is extremely quiet. Even when driving on their main streets, where one would expect noise or even traffic, there was none of that. Everything here is calmed and serene. What I did notice was a lot of family oriented activities being promoted throughout Mission St. Things such as fundraisers and activities like marathons held in the city. Therefore not only are safe havens provided for such activities (the surrounding parks) but encouraged through signs and posters all through the main street of the area I reported on.]

Blogging Social Differences in LA- Week 5

This week I decided to visit Little Tokyo in Downtown LA.  I have been here lots of times before but I never before noticed how out of place Little Tokyo truly is. The transition is not slow like that of Korea Town (2nd week response), but fast and dramatic.

As you can see not so clearly in the picture (Do to me driving and taking pictures at the same time), the apartments on the left are white and without color. These are the buildings that you see coming in from Boyle Heights. They suddenly change to the apartments that you will see around Little Tokyo, colorful and lively. There is the warehouse district separating Boyle Heights from little Tokyo, though is not as predominant in 1st street (which is where the above picture was taking) as it is further South of Little Tokyo. Basically you will see buildings and street like these:

However, Little Tokyo itself is very vibrant and lively:

 Full of Japanese history and art all throughout the streets of Little Tokyo:

Speaking of which that is what caught my attention the most this time around. Their graffiti. It is very representative of things that one might think of when thinking of Japan, Hello Kitty and Animation.

If you look closely you can see the Hello Kitty in the Picture

Godzilla? The red circle symbolic to their flag? Most likely

I simply thought this was adorable.

The Following is a pretty large Bumble Bee (From Transformers) possibly getting ready to fight the giraffe!

Little Tokyo is full of Japanese restaurants, retail stores and even their own Markets (Where you will find candy and other goodies only sold in Japan!) But it also contains some Korean and Hawaiian restaurants (Which are not that surprising due to the history that the Japanese have with these two places). What was surprising was the fusion between two unlikely nations:

The sticker says: "Mexican Japanese Fusion".

Though a bit surprising I suppose it does make sense due to the large Mexican population in the region. I guess my biggest curiosity  is what do the tourists  (because there seemed to be a lot of Japanese tourist here) an Mexican population think about this addition to their cuisine. Is it accepted by either, or both? I think that this particular growth in cuisine is an obvious example of organic solidarity at play. Though there seems to be a huge number of homogenous businesses (those strictly Japanese), there appears to be some room for integration of other cultures and ideals. I found this to be both refreshing and a bit comical.I personally love both Mexican and Japanese food, however never in my wildest dream would I have ever thought of combining the two.

I did not taste the food here, but plan to do so next time I visit.

Blogging Social Differences in LA- Week 4

 This week I decided to explore the Fashion District in Downtown Los Angeles. I headed down Maple street and just sort of walked around.

As it was expected there was a lot of stores that sell clothes in this place. I went on a random day during the week so the streets were not as congested as they typically are. That is to say a lot since the streets were still pretty busy.

I actually entered some of the stores and was surprised at how cheap the prices are. I could not take any pictures of the inside because the store owners prohibit it, since they are scared that the competition might steal their designs.

The store above was actually pretty nice. It was well organized and the service was good. However, this was not the case with all the stores in the fashion district.

Some of the smaller shops were extremely tiny and really difficult to walk around in. I did notice that though the majority of the population around was Latino the store owners for the most part were Korean. Most of the places had several Latina women working as sale ladies in the store, I cannot emphasize enough how dominant female labor is in this particular market.

It seemed that Latinos did dominate the food market in this location. There was Mexican food restaurants and stands everywhere along with Chinese fast food restaurants as a close second, followed by a minor but still present presence of other Latin American and Asian cuisine.

Downtown is know for its factories etc.. These were not separate from the fashion district but also not in your face either. The factories were located on top of the restaurants or stores. However, unless you really paid attention you could not really tell what those buildings were. Most would just assume they were abandoned, they looked terribly old and I wondered whether they were even safe to occupy.

It  made me think of how the structure of the city is built in order to hide "the ugly" per say. Thinking back to the history of downtown LA as a nest of sweat shops it made me realize how easy it was to hide it from the public so no one would ever have to really know the horrors that the workers were in. One is so busy looking out for the best deals and shopping that it becomes easy to simply avoid looking or questioning were or how these clothes are made. Downtown LA facilitates this process of consuming without caring where all this comes from because its so easy to ignore, while it still makes the most space out of those few blocks that are the Fashion District.

Street vendors are also a huge market in this district. They sell everything from food, to clothes, to accessories and toys. Being here actually sort of reminded me of New York were everything is so integrated and crowded. There was a lot of trash due to the high density of people concentrated in this area, I assume.

Additionally, though the majority of the population seemed to be Latino there were also a good white, black, and Asian population walking around as well. Social class also varied I saw everything from business suits to homeless people.

Overall it was definitely a different side of LA, definitely not one people think of when thinking of LA which usually involves glamour and beaches.