Esquivel Felipe

Dr. Doris Namala

History 301
October 13, 2013
My Community (Watts) Essay
The city of Los Angeles has been through several racial segregation and racial boundaries
since the arrival of Juniper Serra to the native Californios. Juniper Serra took away natives
freedom to use them as slaves to build the mission of San Gabriel. California was then now part
of the United States and Caucasians came over to Los Angeles and took away lands from
Mexicans by letting them own land on the outskirts of the city. The early 20th century to the mid20th century the city of Los Angeles, Compton, and surrounding areas were White especially the
city of Compton. The only exception to Comptons white was they presume of a small Mexican
barrio on the northern tip of the city, immediately adjacent to the unincorporated areas of Watts
and Willowbrook (Sides 585). Racial boundaries made by white city officials brought Mexican
people to live in the community of Watts but made it became hard for them to adapt in the
community due to lack of support, unequal rights, limited resources, and not being able to move
anywhere else.
Comptons white successfully contained that small population of Mexicans by refusing
to sell those homes outside the barrio, or pricing Mexicans out by advocating civic
improvements near the barrio (Sides 585). This explains why there is a high number of Mexican
Americans still living in Watts. Mexicans had a hard time adapting themselves in a house when

they first got here to work because real estate agents denied selling them houses because they
were Mexican. The plan was not to sell to African Americans because they did not want them in
the city but Mexicans were also in that list. In order to live in the city they were only offer houses
between boundary lines were only Mexicans or African Americans were able to live due to being
the only place were houses were available.
Racial boundaries were made by the citys white owners, real estate brokers, civic
leaders, and law enforcements personnel (Sides 585). These boundaries successfully managed
to keep out there target African Americans but also minorities which included Mexicans. These
boundaries maintained Mexican Americans to live together and not with the whites. This created
many racial tensions among races. Mexicans were farm and industry workers in the city but view
as an alien that did not belong in the city. Mexicans were also denied rights to purchase property
outside the boundary lines for any reason.
Racial boundaries also affected the education students receive in the community. The
schools students attended in the community of Watts did not have had offered the same
opportunities white people had in Compton. The best teachers were not sent to the school in
Watts. The government support was also not the same because the minorities were sent to live in
these communities so they wont be in the picture and be ignored by city officials.
If racial boundaries were never made within the city, it would have had been a more
diverse and successful community. Minorities would have had the power to progress in life
rapidly with jobs, and education equally from whites. But this was what white people did not
want from Mexican Americans to progress in life. They just wanted them to work and leave
impoverish. But, when minorities migration increase into the community and its outskirts blue

collar jobs started leaving the same as the white people were doing. Between mid-1963 and
mid-1964, thirty-three industrial manufacturing firms left south central and parts of East Los
Angeles (Sides 593). So, when minorities were now able to buy houses outsides the boundary
lines it was impossible to afford buying a home with the lack of jobs now available. With the
departure of these big corporations that offer thousands jobs to the people of Watts, Los Angeles,
Compton, etc. the government did not do anything to avoid the departure of these corporations.

Now the area of Watts is dominated by Mexican Americans and African American.
Thanks to the racial boundaries made by the all-white city of Compton leaders and community
Watts had become a strong minority community that does not give up with any factors it is faced,
minorities had always readapt themselves in the past with the racial factors they faced by racist
leaders and laws. But what remains the same is the poverty level within the community and low
income families living in the terrible housing projects (Jordan Downs) that has not been touched
since they were constructed during the Second World War. Although there are no more racial
boundaries you could still see them to this date the way certain groups of minorities live together,
and also after many years people stay living Watts due to economic factors and poverty problems
they face daily.

Work Cited
1.

Straight into Compton: American Dreams, Urban Nightmares, and the Metamorphosis of a
Black Suburb
Josh Sides
American Quarterly
Vol. 56, No. 3, Los Angeles and the Future of Urban Cultures (Sep., 2004), pp. 583-605
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40068235