Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 10

Education: A Landscape of Social Difference in Watts and a Floating Signifier

My blog post this week is a comment on my classmate Ellen's Week 8 post on Watts.
Read Ellen's original post and my comment on her blog here.

(My post this week fulfills requirements:
6. A post that uses simplymaps.com
7. A post that follows a "social difference" news story in the Los Angeles Times.  Read the news story "After generations of failure, a school and its students head for success" here.)

Hi Ellen,
I have also learned about the Watts Riots in a few of my classes and I wish that I had been able to finally go walk around Watts this quarter.  Reading your post though, gave me a feel for the area and a starting point for thinking about the people and life in Watts. 
I read a Los Angeles Times article online that directly addresses education at one high school in Watts.  The article I read, “After generations of failure, a school and its students head for success” is about Jordan High School in Watts.  L.A. Times writer Sandy Banks, skeptical when first hearing of the restructured and revived high school, sees a noticeable change in the students and their attitude towards education at Jordan High. 

The zip code 90002, which makes up part of Watts, is outlined by the dashed line.
Jordan High School is marked by the purple flag.

The high school received a physical makeover she has seen time and time again at schools trying to improve their appearances and overall experience: “We spent the morning visiting classrooms, talking with teachers, oohing and aahing over pristine hallways and perfectly manicured grounds.”  This reminded me of Majora Carter’s TED talk “Greening the Ghetto” in which she claims that “economic degradation begets environmental degradation begets social degradation”.  By improving the physical environment of the school, Jordan High hoped to improve its social aspects as well.  

After speaking with several students, however, Banks sees that there is a noticeable change in their attitudes and goals about high school and higher education.  The students are wearing college sweatshirts, talking about being the change and returning to their school as mentors later in life, explaining how their teachers spend extra time with them working on classwork and beyond.  Banks says she became a “teary-eyed believer” when one student: 

"I perceive that I can step into any university and succeed," he said. "Don't underestimate us." 

In the article, Banks included some of the issues and concepts that you mentioned in your post.  Banks said that she often sees the reputation of failure embedded in high schools in low-socioeconomic areas:  

“The school's problems, they'd say, are too deep and expensive to fix; too intertwined with a neighborhood that will always be warped by dysfunction and poverty.”

The L.A. Times articles you read discussed serious economic problems in the area as partially resulting from the poor education system.  You got from the Lopez article that:

“In the article, the interviewees made a point of the poor education system in South Los Angeles and the lack of community efforts to make up for this poor system. This is a blatant example of social difference in the city of Los Angeles. Watts is located in an economically downtrodden region with a less than standard education system that limits students' options after secondary schooling.”

I agree that education is a very important indicator of social difference, and I wish that we had elaborated on this more directly in our class. 

Education in general and a high school degree in particular is another floating signifier just as race, gender, and so many things other aspects of our lives change in significance and representation in different times, places, and communities.  Education serves as cultural capital, helping individuals navigate their surrounding environments and social networks.  Different levels of education mean different things to various social, economic, and racial groups across time and place though.  Different values and priorities are placed on having an education.  At least a high school degree is needed to get a job paying above minimum wage in most of the country, but the importance of education is not the same in all places and all communities.  Because the value placed on having an education and the necessity of having at least a high school degree (or higher degree) is not fixed, education is indeed a floating signifier.   

The changing attitude about education at Jordan High in Watts and the new seriousness with which the students and faculty are approaching obtaining this education show views and meanings of education the floating signifier changing. 

On my blog, I included some SimplyMap maps showing distributions of different education variables in the Watts region.  Perhaps as the significance of education, especially high school education, continues changing, SimplyMap maps in a few years will show higher percentages of the Watts population as having high school degrees.  And perhaps this will also change distributions of other axes of inequality and floating signifiers like income, class, family structure, and quality of life. 

Thank you for your blog post, Ellen! Good luck on finals :)
-Teresa Pilon

Maps of Education in Watts
Created on Simplymap.com

The yellow polygon outlines the zip code 90002, which makes up part of the neighborhood of Watts and contains Jordan High School.

Notice how proximity to the area's parks and green urban spaces relate to levels of education and consider Majora Carter's and David Harvey's arguments about environmental justice and the social benefits or environmental wellness and accessibility of spaces of urban nature.  These maps do not tell, however, if living near a park makes you more likely to pursue higher education and complete degrees, or if individuals and families with higher education choose to locate near green spaces.    

The following three maps show percentages of:

Enrolled youth who had completed at least kindergarten, but not high school and the school is supported by a local, county, State or the Federal Government.

Or youth or children who are not enrolled in kindergarten, nursery school, elementary or high school.

The next two maps show the percentage of the population that is currently enrolled in undergraduate college:

The following maps show the percentage of the population that has completed the degree represented by each variable as their highest level of education completed in terms of the highest degree or the highest level of schooling complete:

Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 9

North Hollywood Park: A Piece of Urban Nature

(This week's adventure fulfills requirements:
2.  A car trip
 4. A visit to a location in the LA metro region that is at least 15 miles from UCLA)

This week I went to North Hollywood to spend the afternoon with members of Mentorship Program at UCLA, a student run organization that pairs UCLA student volunteers with elementary, middle, and high school aged mentees from underserved areas in North Hollywood.  Mentorship is a program that is very dear to my heart; last year I mentored a seventh grade girl and this year I have a leadership role as a program coordinator for the elementary school age group.  BBQs in the park on Magnolia are one of our favorite ways to socialize with the program's members.  UCLA mentors call their mentees and invite the kids and their families to come out to the park.  We carpool to NoHo and meet up with the kids and their families who make it out.  Most of the mentees live fairly close, so they can easily get to the park.  Usually when mentees' families come they bring a dish they've made at home, like pupusas or ceviche, and we also grill meat on one of the park's public barbecues.  Spending an afternoon eating, talking, hanging out on the grass, and playing soccer and football with the kids, their families, and fellow volunteers has provided such refreshing, good old-fashioned fun afternoons for me since I have been a part of this program. 

  

Tujunga Blvd and North Hollywood Park

Images of the park from Yelp

 We gathered at our usual location for the BBQ: North Hollywood Park at Magnolia Blvd and Tujunga Avenue.  North Hollywood Park has always reminded me a little of the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.  It runs several blocks long but only a block or two across, is in a very urban area, and bordered by busy main streets.  At every place in the park the streets, cars, and urban buildings and infrastructure are visible and part of the experience in the park.  North Hollywood Park has sports fields, BBQs, benches, pathways, a community center, and a couple public restrooms.  Soft lawn makes up much of the park and there are some great old trees.

When we watched the video of Majora Carter's TED Talk "Greening the Ghetto", I immediately thought of the existence and use of this park.  The park is a green space, a strip of urban nature, for the residents of North Hollywood.  Organized and pick-up sports on the fields, open space, and the BBQ grills give locals a place to gather and be together in their community.  

The park is accessible to the residents of subsidized housing as well as the high rise lofts of gentrified NoHo.  The other groups I've seen gather for BBQs and potlucks are usually composed of Latino families and friends.  From a Google search of the park, I learned that it is a popular destination for runners.  Individuals who go on runs are often white adults from a more middle class backgrounds.  Individuals of various ethnic groups, income levels, and classes use North Hollywood Park for recreational, fitness, and gathering purposes.  David Harvey elaborates on the widespread inequality and environmental injustice usually seen in the placement of parks (and dumping) spaces in urban areas.  Instead of limited physical access or an unwelcoming feelings surround North Hollywood Park, here is a wonderful example of a green space that is accessible, inviting, and used by people of various backgrounds and situations, especially non-whites of low-income.  

Mentees and mentors at an earlier BBQ at North Hollywood Park

North Hollywood is an inviting and usable public space in North Hollywood.  Although it is frequented by many different people and people of many different backgrounds, it is not seen equally by everyone who uses (or chooses not to use) the park.  Reviews on Yelp show that while many value and love the park, some individuals see the park as a site of social degradation and unpleasantness in itself.  The 39 reviews average to 4/5 stars and most of the reviews are very positive, praising its large size, location within walking distance, space for sports and running, and high levels of recreation and activities.  A few reviewers, however, are very negative and critical of the park.  One complains of the trash littering the pathways despite the existence of several trash cans, and another blames the park looking "pretty beat up" on the "Carnies" from a carnival held in the park.  

One review especially exemplifies a troubling "us versus them" mentality of people from different race and class stratification:

This "park" is one of the worst I have come across thus far. First of all it is surrounded by a highway and three heavily traveled streets so you suck in massive amounts of car exaust as you are trying to exercise. It is nothing more than an uneven dirt trail that is full of gross fat man that stare and suck their teeth at you as you run/walk by. Also, lots of homeless people that urinate on the ground so you get to breathe in the smell of urine along with the pollution. I honestly cannot understand how this park could get 5 stars? I guess it is all a matter of what you are accustomed to.

North Hollywood Park is in this way a site of social inequality and difference in the city.  Majora Carter, David Harvey, and myself among many many others see urban parks as valuable and essential to quality of life, especially in environmental injustice communities.  It is important to remember though, that simply placing a park in such an area of urban social difference and urban inequality especially, by no means brings community harmony and social equality.

Shakey's from the outside, photo from City-Data.com

A photo of the inside of the NoHo Shakey's, found on Yelp

Because the day was rainy and the ground was muddy, we actually didn't stay very long at the park this time.  We moved our social to Shakey's Pizza Parlor on Laurel Canyon Blvd, just a few blocks over.  Shakey's is a favorite and well-known location for the Mentorship kids.  Originally established in Sacramento as "ye public house" for pizza & beer, "ye public house" remains in the official title of the restaurant and the sign at the Laurel Canyon Blvd location.  Although Shakey's is obviously a private corporation and the restaurants are privately owned spaces, the decision to keep "public house" in the name shows a desire to be connected to and used by the community, even if it is fundamentally for advertising and attracting business.  Following this thinking, the franchise's webpage states: "At Shakey's we are more than just a pizza restaurant, we are a part of the neighborhood."

The lunch buffet was pretty cheap, and the manager didn't mind that we filled up a long table in the center of the restaurant for a few hours on the rainy afternoon.  We ate, talked, and played arcade games with the kids for the rest of our time together.  Although Shakey's is not a green spot of urban nature, but a restaurant on a long boulevard of single rise fast food places, low cost grocery stores, and auto body shops, in my experience it most definitely serves North Hollywood residents as a safe and positive space to gather and socialize.  It isn't a public space and it does require spending some (but not very much) money, but the management at Shakey's does effectively patrol their private space to ensure that the establishment remains safe and accessible.  I agree with Majora Carter that sites of public spaces of urban greenery are invaluable, especially in underserved urban areas of inequality.  I think that it is also important to recognize private establishments, even if their fundamental purpose is to make a profit, as places that can encourage and foster positive community development.  

Some of the group at Shakey's! 

Find out more about Mentorship Program at UCLA at our website mentorshipla.com :)

Blogging Social DIfference in LA: Week 8

Guelaguetza Restaurante: A Piece of the City Mosaic

(This week's adventure fulfill's requirements:
2. A car trip
5. A visit to a location I have never visited before)

Last Friday evening, my roommates and I went to Guelaguetza Restaurant in Korea Town.  Guelaguetza serves traditional Oaxacan cuisine, but is much more an enclave of Oaxacan culture within West Los Angeles.  My roommate Verenice's parents are both from Oaxaca, and she visited the restaurant with them years before coming to UCLA.

We arrived at the restaurant around 9:00 pm on Friday evening.  A band playing traditional and popular Mexican music was playing on a slightly raised stage close to the entrance.  The hostess asked us if we wanted to sit near the band, to which my roommate responded with an enthusiastic yes.  As we walked to our table, the flute player gave us a friendly wink and my roommate told me that he always asks girls up to dance when they’ve finished eating. 

The large restaurant was definitely not full to capacity, but there were still a handful of table full.  All of the remaining patrons were sitting in the area at the front of the restaurant, close to the band.   A few tables had couples or groups of two or three friends, but most of the remaining dinner parties took occupied large tables.  These bigger groups of families or friends weren’t eating anymore and seemed to have been at their tables for a while, enjoying the company, the band, and the ambiance of the restaurant. 

Our waiter brought us chips covered in a sweet mole and sprinkled with queso fresco.  I’d only had mole a couple times before, and not for a long time, so I was a little skeptical of the dark, textured sauce with its plethora of ingredients, which includes chiles, nuts, seeds, spices, and Oaxacan chocolate, according to the menu (and to Verenice).  We ordered fresh guacamole and chicken enchiladas smothered in a different type of mole.  The food was one of the best meals I have had in Los Angeles and the atmosphere and company in the restaurant did make me feel satisfied and reenergized. 

Almost all of the people in the restaurant (patrons,
staff, and band) were Hispanic.  The menu described the restaurant’s dishes first in Spanish with smaller descriptions in English underneath.  Our waiter addressed us in English, but when we had a question about the check, Verenice spoke to him in Spanish.

Even though it was fairly late, there were still quite a few children in the restaurant with their families.  A baby sat at a table near us with her family and her elementary school aged sisters walked around the restaurant.  A long table next to us was taken up by the birthday celebration of a middle aged Mexican woman.  At one point, a group of the staff brought a cake to the table and
the band led the restaurant in a traditional Mexican birthday song while the waiters (and nearby tables) sang and clapped along. The band spoke and sang in Spanish, and took requests from the restaurant patrons.  From the restaurant’s website, I learned that the band is Latin Wood, “ a 6 piece band that rocks out with our customers every time they play in our stage. A lead singer, drummer, violinist, bass, and a percussionist. These guys play cumbias, rock en español and everything in between.”  Almost the whole time we were in the restaurant, a little girl was on stage with the band singing and clapping along while her parents watched her from their table.  As the night went on, a few couples got up to dance salsa in front of the stage.  The little girls from the table next to us danced around the stage area too.

 According to Guelaguetza’s website ilovemole.com, the restaurant is owned and run by the Lopez family.  The “About Us” section reads:

Our family was born in Oaxaca and migrated to the US in 1994. Ever since then, our goal has been to showcase not only our family recipes, but also the hard work and dedication that goes into each of them. Each year, we travel to Oaxaca, and hand pick our ingredients, and carefully select the people we partner with.
Guelaguetza is a restaurant, boutique market, and advocates for Oaxacan culture located in the heart of Korea-town in Los Angeles.
Our motivation behind our products is simple: uncompromising quality. The products found in our store have taken years of development, and we hope that when taking your first taste of our Mole, or your first sip of our Michelada, you are transported into what Oaxaca means to us...a true Guelaguetza.

While working on this post, I became curios about a seemingly obvious question: the meaning of the word “Guelaguetza”According to The Oaxaca Hotel Group's website, Guelaguetza is a uniquely Oaxacan festival—“Oaxaca’s very own festival”.  The site defines the festival as:

Guelaguetza! or “Lunes del Cerro”, (Monday on the Hill) traditionally held on the last 2 Mondays of July, after the deathday of Benito Juárez (July 18). Beginning in 1932, when Oaxaca celebrated its 400th anniversary, groups from many regions of the state have performed their wonderful native dances in all their varieties of costume. The original event, of pre-Hispanic origin, enacted reciprocal gift-giving and ceremonies in honor of the Corn Goddess. Reservations for the program must be made months in advance as it is one of the most well-attended events of the year. In 2009, the festival will be on July 19th and 26th.
*When Benito Juarez's deathday (July 18th) falls on a Monday, the Guelaguetza takes place on the following two Mondays.

Benito Juarez, served as Mexico’s president for five terms from 1858-1872.  Juarez was from Oaxaca and born of Zapotec origin.  The festival’s date being directly related to the death (and life) of this man who represents a blend of cultural traditions, and the blending of cultures in festival itself, makes Guelaguetza a festival of the hybridization of cultures.  Its decisive origin and relation to Oaxaca makes it more so a very local tradition.  The restaurant’s existence, and even its name, in the middle of the ethnic hotspot of Koreatown within Los Angeles, adds to the uniqueness of this local Oaxacan tradition made of a blending of cultures, and now brought to a new place and culture.

The Oaxaca Hotel Group also describes the mentality and less “definable” aspects of the festival:

The Guelaguetza is a commitment to sharing and the practice of contributing for the betterment of the community – though it is done between individuals. The mason may build a brick oven for the baker with the understanding that the baker will provide cakes for the weddings of the mason’s three daughters (though at the time of the building they may be ages 8, 10 and 14). The town upholsterer might re-do the undertaker's furniture, thereby guaranteeing that his funeral will be take[n] care of. The community might also come together to see that people in unfortunate circumstances are looked after.

This understanding as the Guelaguetza as a “commitment to sharing and the practice of contributing for the betterment of the community” holds true with my experience at the restaurant Guelaguetza.  In a small (but not insignificant way) I feel as though my meal and my time at the Koreatown restaurant let me take part in the sharing of Oaxacan culture and tradition.  I think the existence of the restaurant and its welcoming atmosphere and own community adds positively to the larger municipalities and communities of Koreatown and the greater Los Angeles area.  The scale of the restaurant and the choice to enter its establishment and spot of culture make this sharing and this community betterment on the level of the individual, even if not in the exact same way as the Guelaguetza festival brings improvement to the community on an individual scale.  I think this is what the restaurant’s owners intended when they say that at their restaurant “you are transported into what Oaxaca means to us...a true Guelaguetza”.

While I was at the restaurant and as I reflected on my time there over this past week, I thought again of Robert E. Park’s words which guide this blog:

“The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.”  

Guelaguetza Restaurant definitely represents one of these so-called worlds that make up the city mosaic.  Its orange exterior and neon sign illuminate the night street, but the walls still contain the vibrant haven of culture that is the restaurant’s staff, costumers, band, and cuisine.  From the hours of 9:00-11:00 pm on a Friday night at least, Guelaguetza is indeed a little world which touches but does not interpenetrate the worlds around it.  Instead of carrying on in content isolation though, Guelaguetza is inviting and welcoming to those who stumble into the restaurant and its world.

The Los Angeles Times website has a app called "Mapping LA" that gives geographic and demographic information (from the U.S. Census Bureau) for the city's several neighborhoods and municipalities.  I had always assumed that Koreatown had a dominant Korean population, so I was surprised at the prominence of Mexican culture in the neighborhood.  I used the Mapping LA app to find information about Koreatown.  I was initially surprised that Koreatown has Latino majority.  Even though Los Angeles has such a large Latino population, Koreatown's percentage of Latinos is high compared to the rest of the city, as is Koreatown's Asian population.  Not as surprising, the highest ancestries of these "Latinos" and "Asians" are more specifically Mexican and Korean.  Korean's do make up the highest percentage of immigrants in Koreatown, followed by Mexicans.

In addition to high populations of non-white individuals, especially groups which are typically seen as disadvantaged or undeserved ethnicities in urban areas, Koreatown has a high percentage of individuals with less than a high school education, a significant number of households headed by a single parent, and a high number of low-income households.  According to William Julius Wilson, these demographics is particular among the characteristics of who he refers to as "the underclass" and "the truly disadvantaged".  Visiting Koreatown by day when more people are around on the streets and especially spending more time outside of Guelaguetza would provide more insight as to if the residents of this "underclass" demographic embody and experience inner-city poverty.  The ambiance and clientele within the restaurant though, is a family-oriented, safe, vibrant spot of culture and cultural and individual sharing and learning.  This is not to say that there is not poverty, racism, crime, and inequality in Koreatown, but Guelaguetza Restaurante proves that ethnic minorities and differences in socioeconomic status and family structure can provide welcoming, safe, and valuable spaces and experiences of culture and learning.

Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 7

Los Angeles: A Truly Decentralized City

My post this week is in response to my classmate Laiza's bus trip where she questioned if Los Angeles is really as decentralized as we make it out to be.  Read her post and my comment here.


Hi Laiza! I really enjoyed reading your post. I admire how you devote so much time and effort to getting to campus. Your outlook as taking the bus as an opportunity to observe and interact with the city and your fun writing style makes your blog engaging and interesting to read. Your observations themselves are very thorough and I found your point of view intriguing and your blog has made me think about the city differently. 

I have not lived in Los Angeles for very long, so I definitely have a different experience with the city than you do. I think, however, that there is a very noticeable and real difference between the organization (or lack thereof) of Los Angeles and the structure of Chicago, Manchester, New York, and other cities of the Third Urban Revolution. While I agree that Los Angeles does have some traditional center of industry or business, I don’t see our city as being perfectly relatable to the centralized urban metropolis of the Third Urban Revolution. Instead of having one central business district like the Chicago School Model, I think Los Angeles might have a handful or multiple city “centers” that organize levels of periphery. 

When we went over the Fourth Urban Revolution, we learned that decentralization is the key feature of the post metropolis cities. We discussed in class how the private automobile is essential to this decentralized metropolis. With personal cars, the new city “centers” are each individual’s respective home, and their periphery are all the places of work, culture, consumption, and social life within a radius accessible by their cars. As you explain in your post, you rely on public transportation to get from home to school to work and back to home each day. Maybe because you do not use a car to access your post metropolis periphery, you experience Los Angeles more like a structured, centralized metropolis with main thoroughfares and radial public transportation. Because the private automobile is so essential to the post metropolis, it would makes sense that using a private automobile is essential to completely taking part in the city. 
In “The Growth of the City”, Ernest Burgess describes the Chicago School Model with the central business district “loop”, surrounded by the zone in transition, then the zone of workingmen’s homes, the residential zone, and the commuters’ zone in progressive concentric circles. In a way, you live in such a commuter zone because you travel many miles to school and then to work. Like Friedrich Engles observed in industrial Manchester and wrote about in “The Great Towns”, you too use public transportation that takes you on main streets into the more centralized areas for your school and work. These models don’t exactly correlate to being a student at a university rather than an employee in an industrial zone, but the comparison could be made that UCLA campus is a central zone itself. Thousands of individuals are organized around UCLA for education, teaching, work in several different sectors, and research. Most students live within a few miles of the campus, with other students, professors, staff, and faculty often living farther away. 
I think the fact that you spend so much time on buses each day, and especially because you have to walk between the bus stops and your destinations, public transportation in Los Angeles is not the same as in the urban metropolis of the Third Urban Revolution. If your school and work were close to each other and the bus went more directly from your home to UCLA and the place of your work, Los Angeles would be more comparable to the Chicago model. Because the places you must go are so spread out, I think Los Angeles is indeed decentralized and an example of a post metropolis. Your not using a car, which is supposedly essential to Los Angeles, does give you a different experience in the city and I found your post so insightful and it is helping me to think about modern cities and Los Angeles in particular in yet another way. Thank you so much for your point of view and your post and I look forward to reading your blog for the rest of the quarter :)

This image shows variations of social networking, but I think the same patterns and distributions apply to city form and function   I still think that Los Angeles belongs in the category of "Decentralized" cities.  My classmate's starting place (home) is far from and not directly connected to her different centers of importance (work, school, even the bus stops).  Also, the other people who use these centers and pieces of infrastructure start from different and spread out locations.

-Teresa Pilon 

Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 6

Gender in Commerce

My blog post this week is in response to my classmate Gurdeep's exploration of the City of Commerce, particularly the Citadel Outlets and public transportation in the area.  You can read Gurdeep's original post and my interpretation here.

Here are a few reference maps of the area Gurdeep discussed in her post.  The maps are screenshots taken from Google Maps.

My response to Gurdeep's post:


Hey Gurdeep! 

I enjoyed reading your posting about the City of Commerce! I especially likes how you included so much about the history of the area as an industrial zone and especially the history and reasoning behind the Citadel Outlets. 

I think it would be really interesting to look at Commerce and the outlets from the view of a feminist geographer (or a geographer considering how the city defines, limits, reinforces, and works with gender and gender roles. Many of the places and feelings you observed in your exploration of Commerce fit well with Sophie Watson's piece "City A/Genders". Watson explains how the earlier industrial cities were possibly set up, and definitely interpreted, as reflecting and reinforcing "traditional assumptions about gender" (237). 

Watson describes how in the radial, concentric circle city model transportation linked the suburbs to the central business district so that the commuting men could get into the city center for work and then home again each day. Public transportation and boulevards did not, however, link suburbs to one another or suburban homes to other suburban resources. Especially without cars during the day, women were excluded from daily life in the city and made to stay in the house taking care of the children and the home. 
In your post, you talk about how it was relatively easy to access the city and shopping without a car. Maybe this could be interpreted as the post modern city being more inviting and accessible to women. Or maybe it isn't even far to think of any city as consciously or unconsciously excluding and limiting the activities of women as a social class. Watson explains how more current geographers and spatial thinkers now usually take a post-modern approach to thinking about gender in the city as they consider the multiple truths and reasons in the complex and subjective factors which contribute to social difference and city life. 

I found it especially interesting and relevant that you warned against walking in the industrial area alone. Along with the early analyses of gender in the city, Watson states, "The lack of safety associated with the public spaces of the city, the lack of street lighting and te imagined and real dangers of public transport, particularly at night, curtain women's easy movement, particularly older and younger women and migrants for rural areas" (237). According to Watson, this lack of safety and even the feeling of being in danger is key to excluding women from city centers. I too have often felt unsafe or uncomfortable walking in certain areas of Los Angeles, even during the day. The fact that you mentioned this in your post even though it was not the main point of the post shows how safety and the awareness of safety in spaces is always on our minds. I think that this ever-present concern about safety, especially as a woman being alone in an unfamiliar area, is something that could indeed limit to some extent and continue to constrict the full participation of women and reinforce feelings (and truths) of inequality and exclusion in the urban centers. 

I think your post could have benefited from a map with your bus routes highlighted so your readers could see where the City of Commerce and the Citadel Outlets are located within Los Angeles. I don't know how to post a photo as a comment, so I'll post a map of the area on my blog http://findlostangeles.blogspot.com/. 

Thank you for your insightful and descriptive post about the City of Commerce. Your post along with the readings for this past week have made me start to think about the city in a different way and I will keep my eyes open for more examples of how gender may (or may not) play a role in defining the city or life in the city, or how it is defined by the city. 

Thanks again!

-Teresa Pilon

Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 5

Dia de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

(This week's adventure fulfills requirements:
1. A bus trip
3. A walking trip
5. A visit to a location I have never visited before)

On October 27 I went to the Dia de los Muertos celebration at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  The cemetery is on Santa Monica Boulevard a few blocks down from the Sunset Strip.  I took the Metro 2 bus from Westwood along Sunset, and then walked down to the cemetery entrance on Santa Monica.  I got on the bus around 5:00 pm.  The people on the bus varied in age and ethnicity.  There were students and student groups, families, adults, and elderly individuals on the bus together.  Although I didn’t know any of the people on the bus or very much about them besides what they look like and how they acted during our short journey together, the bus seemed to be a place where, going across Robert E. Park’s assumption, different worlds of the city do interpenetrate one another.  Before the quarter is over, I would like to do another blog post specifically about a bus line that runs through various neighborhoods. 

A corner in Beverly Hills seen from the Metro 2 

As the bus drove through Beverly Hills I noticed walls and in particular large hedges that separated the houses from Sunset Blvd.  At first this made me think of Frederich Engels’ observation about the boulevards in industrial Manchester.  In Engels’ Manchester, boulevards lined with walls or small shops hid the squalor and poverty form the view of the wealthy, middle-class commuters who used the boulevards to get from their outer ring suburban homes to work in the central business district.  This doesn't exactly make sense in Beverly Hills though.  Although the boulevard itself may not be the most upscale place, the homes and streets of Beverly Hills are nothing to keep hidden form the elite eye.  I realized though that the opposite of what Engels observed in Manchester is occurring in Beverly Hills.  Instead of guarding the squalor behind the street from the wealthy commuters, in Beverly Hills the walls guard any unsightly activity or people using Sunset Boulevard from the homes and residents of Beverly Hills. 

By the time I got off the bus at Sunset and Gordon, it was dark outside.  I was by myself and hadn’t thought about the fact that I might have to walk in an area that I didn’t feel safe in at night.  The blocks down to the cemetery were a little scary.  The streets were lined with apartments and small houses with small yards and driveways surrounded by chain-link fences or gated in.  Some houses had bars on the windows and there were empty parking garages in between the houses.  There were some Halloween parties going on but the street was mostly empty besides a few young men standing in groups on the sidewalk.  As I got closer to Santa Monica Blvd though, there were more people who were in groups and in costume, clearly walking to the cemetery.  Although the area in front of the cemetery was crowded with strangers and I still felt a little uncomfortable because I was alone, I felt much safer especially because there were many families and small children around. 

Gordon Street, in between Sunset Blvd and Santa Monica Blvd

Marigolds--the flower of the dead in many cultures, an Aztec steele, and a (Catholic) cross
welcome visitors to the cemetery. 
Dress at the festival ranged from jeans and sweatshirts to embroidered dresses with traditional skull face paiting to Aztec dancer costumes complete with feathered headdresses and modernized with rhinestones and glitter. 

I was a little surprised at how many little kids I saw outside the cemetery.  Many were dressed up with their families but it was getting late and there were a lot of people.  Because there were so many children though, I felt safe and welcome at the festival.

After meeting up with a friend who goes to high school in San Pedro and waiting in a long line to get tickets, I finally entered the cemetery.  Right inside the gates two different groups of dancers performing.  One group was of traditional Mexican folklorico dancers and the other dancers were dressed in Aztec costumes.  Lining the walkways were altars decorated with traditional day of the dead decorations: paper flags, papier-mâché skulls and figures, photos of the deceased and their favorite things in life, and candles and electric lights everywhere.  My favorite altar had a piece of canvas and markers to write the names of our own loved ones who are no longer with us.  This altar made me feel truly welcomed and included at the festival.   

Traditional and vibrant decorations adorning many graves include paper flags and flowers, electric lights, photos of the celebrated loved ones, and painted paper mache skulls and figurines of important cultural individuals and events.
This altar ended up winning third place in the annual altar contest.

The tradition of Day of the Dead is one of the most cultural events out there.  With roots in Aztec culture and celebrated in conjunction with the Catholic holy days All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, Day of the Dead is celebrated around the world.  In this way it is a truly hybrid tradition even though it is decisively Mexican in origin.  At the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, individuals, friends, and families of all ethnicities and ages gathered to remember their deceased loved ones, admire the crafts and altars, and take part in the music, food, and atmosphere of the festival.  I think the celebration of Dia de Los Muertos at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery goes against Robert E Park’s observation that “the city is a mosaic of little world which touch but do not interpenetrate.”  People of different backgrounds and different experiences come together to celebrate and remember and honor the dead here.  Maybe it is because respect for the dead, missing those we love who have died, and even death itself are something that we all as humans have in common, regardless of our differing ethnicities, races, class, gender, or sexuality. 

Walking through the cemetery to see the altars and graves, looking at the crafts for sale, buying pupusas and aguas frescas, and listening a band at a stage was one of the best experiences I have had so far in Los Angeles.  Everywhere in the cemetery was extremely crowded, but I never felt unsafe or overwhelmed.  My friends and I kept remarking on how it felt kind of like being at Disneyland.  I think that the commonality, whether it was the commonality of celebrating and remembering death or of enjoying life, of all of the people there made the cemetery a place of common ground where all were welcome and wanted. 

We watched the band Ozomatli performed on the main stage while we ate pupusas purchased from one of they many vendors:

The band and their music are a true representation of cultural blending and hybridization of cultures to create a unique and specific new type of music and significance.  Find out more about the band and their music at the Ozomatli's official webpage: http://www.ozomatli.com/

Everyone at the cemetery was glad to have others there to celebrate with them and share the memories and love for our departed loved ones.  I felt tied to the other people at the cemetery in culture and value.  I think that this feeling might be what the sociologists following the theories of structuralism were grasping at when the speculated that shared cultural, or moral, values and beliefs are what makes a differentiated, specialized society of individuals hold together.  Whether structuralist thinkers like Durkheim and Talcott Parsons were entirely correct in stating that we need “something” i.e., cultural values and traditions, or widespread societal values to keep us together as a society, I think that they were talking about real and significant feelings and phenomena.  At the Dia de los Muertos celebration at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery I felt included as a member of the festival and the larger Los Angeles society because of these common feelings about death, remembering and loving our deceased friends and family, and partaking in good food, dancing, and music with other people who felt the same, even though many of them were from different experiences, backgrounds, and classes than myself.    

In remembering and honoring the dead, Dia de los Muertos celebrates life

Me with two of my friends and former campers from UCLA UniCamp

The event webpage: http://www.ladayofthedead.com/
Get a taste the festival from this video complied from the 2010 festival, found on the event's webpage: