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The Culture of LA Blog: Los Angeles as a Template
Los Angeles is a unique city that contains a mosaic of stories that provide a taste of American innovation, creativity, perseverance, and hope. Here you will find out more about the history and future of Los Angeles through articles and book reviews. Hopefully you will be encouraged to take an inventory of your own city and take action to improve the livelihood of your community.

 

November 17

What to make of the changing face of the United States?
Growing up as a Mexican-American in Los Angeles, I struggled to understand some of the issues that went on in the community. As I became more educated I was able to look to authors and scholars who could put the narrative of my family into a context that my parents and grandparents neither understood or could articulate. Below is a book which helped me along this path. Combined with my own experience and the research that I have conducted I can state that for many immigrant families there are three characteristics that hold true and should be recognized by those working with this demographic.
 
I. Risk Takers
A spirit that is willing to take risks, be that in leaving their country of origin to make a new start despite the fact that they may not know the language or what exactly they will face when they arrive.
 
II. Willing to Sacrifice for their Families 
I have witnessed incredible sacrifices made by newcomers to ensure that they do whatever it takes to ensure that their family members are in a better place whether that is financially or physically.
 
III. Dedicated to a Cause
There can be no mistaking that when it comes to a worthy cause,that this community is willing to put up some serious blood, sweat, and tears to make it a reality.

Unfortunately, it is easier to look towards the negative, than the positive in life. I would challenge individuals to look to the strengths of communities and seek to cultivate the positive traditions that have been long-standing.

 

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Oxford University Press offers this description...
Twentieth-century Los Angeles has been the locus of one of the most profound and complex interactions between variant cultures in American history. Yet this study is among the first to examine the relationship between ethnicity and identity among the largest immigrant group to that city. By focusing on Mexican immigrants to Los Angeles from 1900 to 1945, George J. Sánchez explores the process by which temporary sojourners altered their orientation to that of permanent residents, thereby laying the foundation for a new Mexican-American culture. Analyzing not only formal programs aimed at these newcomers by the United States and Mexico, but also the world created by these immigrants through family networks, religious practice, musical entertainment, and work and consumption patterns, Sánchez uncovers the creative ways Mexicans adapted their culture to life in the United States. When a formal repatriation campaign pushed thousands to return to Mexico, those remaining in Los Angeles launched new campaigns to gain civil rights as ethnic Americans through labor unions and New Deal politics. The immigrant generation, therefore, laid the groundwork for the emerging Mexican-American identity of their children.


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