1098 W. Kensington Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90011
In the turn of the 20th Century Echo Park would be the precursor of Hollywood, and it since has been the set location for various films and TV shows; however, Echo Park has always had a rich and controversial history that include white flight, gang violence, radicalism, and gentrification. The Kensington house serves as a symbolic metaphor of the community.
In Echo Park, where the Kensington House is located.
Echo Park’s history of radicalism can be traced to the early 1900s. When Ricardo Flores Magón and his brothers built the Edendale Commune on the border of Echo Park & Silver Lake. The Magón brothers led the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM). Until they were arrested in their commune and in prisoned. During the 50s the hills of Echo Park were called Red Hill, because many who were blacklisted lived there.
Two films that take place in Echo Park are “Mi Vida Loca”(1993), was about Chicano gangbangers and “La Quinceañera” (2006), was about young girl who wanted much more than what her family was capable of providing, for her quinceañera. She’s forced to grow up when she gets pregnant at the age of 14. These two issues, Gangbanging and teenage pregnancies, are stereotypes that are associated with inner city Mexican Americans.
Immigrants have made Echo Park their home creating ethnic enclave. The Lotus Festival, which celebrates Asian and Pacific Islander communities, and the Cuban Music Festival take place in Echo Park.
Spanish newspaper, La Opinion wrote an article titled “Un lugar para comenzar de nuevo: Echo Park; oportunidad para todos en una comunidad multicultural” which translates to “A place to start over: Echo Park; opportunity for everyone in a multicultural community.” In many ways that is what the house represented. Echo Park was 60% occupied by newly arrived immigrants, in 1997, mostly from Latin America as well as some overflow from poorer sections of Chinatown. (Klein) Now Echo Park has a 53.1% of foreign residents of those 41.3% are from Mexico and 15.2% are from El Salvador. (LATimes)
Gentrification is the phase that the community is currently on. It’s relevance stems from the economic power to erase the community that existed before. Historically, Americans have moved away from working-class and poor neighborhoods as soon as their economic situation allowed them to do so, and move into the suburbs. (Nevarez) Gentrification is the process of going back into the inner city’s displacing the members of the community that can no longer afford it, and forced to move into other neighborhoods that can be worse off.
Its upgrades are subtle, as the outside of the house doesn’t look like it has changed much, once a private home now a private gallery. (Kirkland) Another community displaced, and the process will be replicated somewhere else.
Work Cited
Klein, Norman M. The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory. London: Verso, 1997. Print.
De, la C. "Un Lugar Para Comenzar De Nuevo: Echo Park; Oportunidad Para Todos En Una Comunidad Multicultural." La Opinión: 1B. Ethnic NewsWatch; Latin American Newsstand. Jul 29 1996. Web. 22 Apr. 2012 .
"Echo Park." Mapping L.A. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/neighborhood/echo-park/>.
Kirkland, LeTania. "Make Way For Art: Historic Home Doubles as Modern Gallery - Echo Park-Silver-Lake, CA Patch." Echo Park-Silver Lake Patch. Http://echopark.patch.com/, 27 Jan. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <http://echopark.patch.com/articles/make-way-for-art-historic-home-doubles-as-modern-gallery>.
Magon, Ricardo F., Charles Bufe, and Mitchell Cowen. Verter. Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón Reader. Oakland, CA: AK, 2005. Print.
Nevarez, Leonard. "Gentrification." Encyclopedia of Community. Ed. . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2003. 544-48. SAGE Reference Online. Web. 22 Apr. 2012.
Phillips, Martin. "Gentrification." Encyclopedia of Geography. Ed. Barney Warf. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2010. 1203-09. SAGE Reference Online. Web. 22 Apr. 2012.
Submitted by Daniel Villa, Andrew Lee and Cami Devoney
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