Beyond the Enclave: Echo Park and its Ethnic Mexican Place-Makers in Mid-Twentieth-Century Los Angeles
Monday, Apr 02, 2018 | 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
554 Barrows Hall
Location is ADA accessible
The Ethnic Studies Colloquium Series Presents
Natalia Molina
“Beyond the Enclave: Echo Park and Its Ethnic Mexican Place-Makers in Mid-Twentieth Century Los Angeles”
April 2, 12:00-1:30pm, 554 Barrows Hall
Natalia Molina is Professor of History at the University of California at San Diego and the author of the award winning books Fit To Be Citizens?: Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939 (UC Press, 2006) and How Race Is Made in America: Citizenship, Immigration and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts (UC Press, 2014).
This paper examines place-making in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park through a Mexican restaurant that became an “urban anchor” for its owner, employees, and customers. Unlike residents of other LA ethnic enclaves, Echo Park residents occupied a geographic and cultural crossroads. The community’s complex economic, racial, and ethnic history transcends the conventional narrative of white flight, disinvestment, and segregation.