Tide Clocks

Archive for August, 2006

Los Angeles, to say the least, is a patch-work quilt of enclaves, cultures, and ethnicities. Few other cities share the immense cultural diversity than this scramble of modern American society. However, Los Angeles has not always embodied such a  multicultural hodgepodge of Western America. Discovered by forty-four settlers on September 4, 1781, El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles initially provided fertile farmland for Mexican settlers to cultivate grain and other natural foods. Soon enough, the region’s population began to swell as more adventurous Americans from the East came to explore the country’s other coastline during the boom of the 1880s. In 1907, the beginning of the movie industry generated greater publicity for the city as a new land of opportunity and promise. With its dreamlike mystique, Los Angeles quickly adopted its own list of sobriquets: “City of Angels,” “Home of the Stars,” “City of Quartz,” and “La La Land.” But the conclusion of World War II ultimately brought new life to a dynamic city that had yet to be fully discovered. By the 1970s, a substantial influx of Mexicans, Koreans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans produced a wave of urban sprawl that saw ethnic and racial groups dividing into communities across the city and extending into the San Fernando Valley. From the largely Vietnamese-based city of Garden Grove up to Thai Town and over to the Latino community of Boyle Heights, Los Angeles remains home to almost four million people today. Only New York City ranks higher, providing homes to more than eight million inhabitants.