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Jaquelyn Salinas

Professor Batty

English 101

28 March 2018

Los Angeles: Cultural Salad Bowl

Los Angeles is a city is a historical place, in which diversity has been the major key. In

1781, 44 village settlers from the Mexican provinces of Sonora and Sinaloa made their home in

what is now Downtown Los Angeles. Two of the 44 settlers were Spaniards, while the others

were Indians, African Americans and Mestizos of mixed ancestry. The Spanish named the new

settlement El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles, or The Town of Our Lady the

Queen of the Angels. After the territory changed hands from Spain to Mexico, it was officially

declared a city in 1835. Los Angeles became part of the U.S. in January 1847.​ ​Los Angeles is

located in Southern California, on the Pacific Coast, with the Santa Monica Mountains to the

North and the San Gabriel Mountains to the East (Learning from Los Angeles). Although it​ has

long been known for its gentrification history, Los Angeles is mostly known for its cultural

diversity. ​People from more than 140 countries, speaking 224 different identified languages,

currently call Los Angeles home. Los Angeles has always had a large immigrant presence and

has seen it’s immigrant population dramatically rise since 1980; immigrants now make up one-

third of the county’s total population.

One of the things that makes Los Angeles so diverse are its immigration friendly laws.

According to Robin Abcarian, a columnist from​ Los Angeles Times​, “the City of Los Angeles,

the second largest in the nation, is a sanctuary city which is a symbol of the region’s acceptance
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of its immigrant population. Along with longtime gateway cities like New York and Chicago,

Los Angeles remains committed to immigrants and changing policy both locally and nationally

to enable integration”. What Abcarian argues is that Los Angeles as a sanctuary city, it offers

political support or practical protections to people who are in the country illegally. This also

means that the city has adopted far-reaching policies, such as taking steps to cut ties with federal

immigration officials refusing to fully cooperate with them. This is a clear demonstration of how

LA does not care much about the money, rather its people and history.

To sum up, Los Angeles is also known for many nicknames such as the City of Angels

because Los Angeles means “the angels” in English, “The Big Orange” because of the fruit that

grows in the city’s warm climate, and La-La Land, using the first letters of Los and Angeles.

This last nickname is also the name of a film that shows how people perceive that LA to be a city

of dreams and it is insinuated that their dreams come true the minute they get here. However,

they then find out that in real life things don’t always exactly work out that way. The film centers

on aspiring musician, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), looking to open his own jazz club, and

struggling actress Mia (Emma Stone). Both have big dreams but are struggling to make it in

Hollywood. This film is able to hold its own and touch everyone who has the opportunity to

watch it. However, it has caused many controversy, a main criticism the film has faced is its lack

of diversity. “the film is its supposed ‘white savior complex.’ Sebastian, a Caucasian jazz pianist,

feels like it is up to him to save the dying music genre. A genre created by Black people. While

no one has argued that a white person cannot listen to or play jazz music, it has been ardently

expressed that Sebastian should have been played by a Black actor (​Noah Gittell​)”. This means

people argue that it is a story about an art form created by African Americans, but neither of the
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protagonists are African Americans. In fact, the only major African American character, Keith

(John Legend) is against traditional jazz music and has developed a more authentic sound. The

film starts with this choreographed and stunningly complex dance number where it zooms down

onto an LA overpass and focuses on a young Indian woman who starts singing. From there, it

shows a cast of dancers of all ethnicities, ages, classes and occupations and it's clearly a

celebration of the true diversity of LA as a large part of what makes it such a unique city. After

all that, those characters are not heard or seen again, their perspectives aren't heard of either for

the rest of the movie. Overall, we see that this film doesn’t really show LA’s true meaning which

is diversity.

Los Angeles is full of culturally diverse places, one of them is the Santa Monica Pier.

During my observation, I found out that for a small city located in the Los Angeles County,

Santa Monica plays a highly influential role in the cultural life of Southern California. According

to an article from ​Los Angeles Times,​ “Santa Monica has a rich history of embracing diversity

and acting with compassion. These are two key community virtues that attract people to Santa

Monica.” What this means is that this place is embraced by diversity with colorful places, full of

entertainment and life. This place is really crowded and loud with hundreds of people, each of

them doing their own thing. People just walk around while enjoying the sunset, others are in

stores buy souvenirs that would remind them of their visit to this amazing place, others are just

eating in the different fast food restaurants or enjoying the rides. All these people have a

different perspective, they all look different. Some of them are brown skinned, others white and

others dark. At the pier, I also see a variety of talents; for example, people sing, paint, dance and

they also play instruments. Therefore, there’s a lot of different types of music going on. Hence,
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all these little things add up and are what makes LA so diverse. Places like this one full of

tourists, immigrants and artists make of Los Angeles a cultural salad bowl.

Though some Angelenos, people originally from LA will say that Los Angeles is best

known for its gentrification history I still argue that Los Angeles is a cultural diverse place where

everyone is welcome to call it home. “Gentrification is the process of renewal and rebuilding

accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often

displaces poor residents” (​Definition of Gentrification​). This concept has been seen in many

places in LA for example Santa Monica. Statistics show that Santa Monica has transformed into

an exclusive tourist destination and high-income community with less and less room for its

low-income residents. They also state that the fight over gentrification is what the fight over

income inequality in America looks like up close today. However, I still argue that Los Angeles

is a place where culture is embraced and kept. Los Angeles welcomes every culture no matter

where they come from or what their income is. In my visit to Santa Monica Pier I found that a lot

of wealthy people live there yet, I still saw the diversity of cultures that were found in each

person that was eating, singing or performing any kind of activity there by the language they

spoke or the way they looked.

In conclusion, Los Angeles is home to a tremendous amount of people with different

cultures. LA is La la land to all those who want to come work hard to succeed no just come and

spect that all your dreams come true out of nowhere without any effort. Unlike the setting shown

in the movie La la land, Los Angeles is a place where we see diversity in our everyday lives at

school, streets, stores, everywhere literally. In my observation about Santa Monica Pier’s

environment, I was able to see things about this place that I never noticed in the hundreds of
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times I visited it before. I noticed that there was not only a diversity of stores but also a diversity

of talents and foods which made me think I was in so many places at the same time surrounded

by different cultures. Now I understand why people come to Los Angeles, I believe they come

here because they feel safe and welcomed. They come from everywhere each with different

reasons for coming here, as time passes by they will have their own perspectives on why it is a

great place and why they call it home. Therefore, I believe we all should take of what LA is right

now. We all shouldn’t let gentrification to happen instead honor the roots of LA and embrace as

many cultures as possible.

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Works Cited

Arcarian, Robin. “They Discover, They Gentrify, They Ruin: How 'Progress' Is Wrecking Los

Angeles Neighborhoods.” ​Los Angeles Times​, Los Angeles Times, 19 July 2017,

www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-venice-density-20170719-story.html.

Chazelle, Damien, director. ​LA LA LAND​. Summit Entertainment, 2016.

“Definition of ‘Gentrification’ - English Dictionary.” ​Gentrification Definition in the Cambridge

English Dictionary​, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/gentrification.

Freeman, Kimberly. “Learning from Los Angeles.” ​Diversity Journal​, 31 July 2015,

www.diversityjournal.com/13996-learning-los-angeles/.

Gittell, Noah. “The La La Land Backlash: Why Have Critics Turned on the Oscar Favorite?” ​The

Guardian​, Guardian News and Media, 6 Feb. 2017,

www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/06/la-la-land-criticism-race-gender-jazz-awards.

Pitt, Leonard M. “Los Angeles.” ​Encyclopædia Britannica​, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 20

Feb. 2018, www.britannica.com/place/Los-Angeles-California.