Photo Taken By: Laylani D. and Steph S.
Photography By:
Paul Prejza/ Source: University of Southern California Libraries.
This photo is an aerial view of Chavez
Ravine, looking west, circa 1940.
Chavez Ravine (Present Site: Dodger
Stadium)
Address Location: 1000 Elysian Park Ave.
Los Angeles, California 90012
Chavez
Ravine was named in honor of city Councilman Juan Chavez during the 1850s. The
area first acted as a poor settler’s burial ground during the outbreaks of
smallpox in 1850 and 1880. However, as local farms began being established
within the region, with animals for the county being quarantined there, Mexican
immigrants and other immigrant laborers unable to afford property settled in
the region. By World War II, immigrants and other Americans established small
houses throughout the ravine, along the hillsides, and into the valley.
However, with the growing number of immigrants living within the area, many
Anglo whites deemed the area to be “blemish” for the modern Los Angeles. While
a majority of those who emigrated to Chavez Ravine were of Mexican descent,
some families also derived from Italy and other parts of central Europe. Nearly
40% of those living in Chavez Ravine owned their homes with 1,400 of the
residents being foreign born.
In
the late 1940s, after World War II, the residents of Palo Verde, Bishop Canyon,
and La Loma, the three communities collectively know as Chavez Ravine,
discovered that through a housing project they would be compelled to relocate.
Some of the families living in the ravine had lived there for generations with the
community being home to over 1,000 families. Prior to the housing project,
residents petitioned the city to improve their community, with the installment
of streetlights, pave streets, and public transportation. Such additions added
to the community’s success of becoming a multigenerational Mexican barrio.
Local children and juveniles attended schools at a higher rate and crime within
their youth decreased. All of the residents’ attempts to build their community
ended when the city declared Chavez Ravine to be “a blighted area.” The Los
Angles city administration took advantage of the 1949 Housing Act, in which it
applied for over 100 million dollars in federal funding to construct 10,000
units of “low rent public housing” located in 11 different sites throughout the
city. Chavez Ravine was one of the sites selected.
Photograph By:
Hugh Arnott/ Source: Los Angeles Times
May 8, 1959: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
physically remove Aurora Vargas. Her family refused to relocate from their home
located in Chavez Ravine.
Mexican
American residents of Chavez Ravine knew that while the city would build low
rent public housing, they would be excluded from such units. With residential
segregation, insufficient affordable housing, and the prohibiting of Mexican
Americans from housing developments, it would be nearly impossible for
residents to find new homes. Residents of Chavez Ravine thus protested the
housing project with the City Center District Improvement Association (CCDIA),
a community organization of Chavez Ravine, acting as the resident’s defenders
to keep their homes. However, in the end, residents left, either “voluntarily”
or forcibly (as seen in photo above). While some families remained to fight the
battle, local police physically removed the last family in May 1959. The
residents’ actions to protest against the violation of Mexican Americans’ civil
rights became known as the battle of Chavez Ravine, a symbol of Latino
activism. Los Angeles sold the land of what was Chavez Ravine to the Brooklyn
Dodgers, thus becoming the site of what is now Dodger stadium.
Photograph By:
Hugh Arnott/ Source: Los Angeles Times
May 13, 1959: Victoria Angustian stands
above her infant son Ira, as her oldest daughter, Ivy, sweeps the steps to
their trailer home. Her family, consisting of three generations, including her
husband Manuel Angustian and family matriarch Avrana Arechiga (seated), live in
the trailer home after bulldozers destroyed their Chavez Ravine home.
For additional photos of the Chavez
Ravine evictions, please visit Los
Angeles Times Photography Framework at http://framework.latimes.com/2012/04/04/chavez-ravine-evictions/#/0.
Submitted by: Steph S. and Laylani De La Vega
Sources:
Becerra,
Hector. “Decades later, bitter memories of Chavez Ravine.” Los Angeles Times.
López,
Ronald W. “Community resistance and conditional patriotism in cold war Los
Angeles; The
battle for Chavez Ravine.” Latino Studies
7.4, Winter 2009: 457-479.
Los
Angeles Times.
Obregón
Pagán, Eduardo. “Los Angeles Geopolitics and the Zoot Suit Riot, 1943.” Social
Science History 24.1, 2000: 223-256.
University of Southern California
Libraries.
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/view/chs-m2270.html?x=1335909008738.
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