East Los Angeles

This is the story of the largest Mexican-American community in the United States, the city within a city known as "East Los Angeles." How did this barrio of over one million men and women—occupying an area greater than Manhattan or Washington D.C.—come to be? Although promoted early in this century as a workers' paradise, Los Angeles fared poorly in attracting European immigrants and American blue-collar workers. Wages were low, and these workers were understandably reluctant to come to a city which was also troubled by labor strife. Mexicans made up the difference, arriving in the city in massive numbers. Who these Mexicans were and the conditions that caused them to leave their own country are revealed in East Los Angeles. The author examines how they adjusted to life in one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, how they fared in this country's labor market, and the problems of segregation and prejudice they confronted. Ricardo Romo is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.

This is the story of the largest Mexican-American community in the United States, the city within a city known as "East Los Angeles." How did this barrio of over one million men and women—occupying an area greater than Manhattan or Washington D.C.—come to be? Although promoted early in this century as a workers' paradise, Los Angeles fared poorly in attracting European immigrants and American blue-collar workers. Wages were low, and these workers were understandably reluctant to come to a city which was also troubled by labor strife. Mexicans made up the difference, arriving in the city in massive numbers. Who these Mexicans were and the conditions that caused them to leave their own country are revealed in East Los Angeles. The author examines how they adjusted to life in one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, how they fared in this country's labor market, and the problems of segregation and prejudice they confronted. Ricardo Romo is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.

Haunted East Los Angeles invites you to take a tour of the most haunted locations in this incredible town. The book includes chapters on: Evergreen Cemetery, Stevenson Middle School, Casa Del Mexicano, Linda Vista Community Hospital and the "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez. Tales of devil worship, spirit children, ouija boards, poltergeists, graveyard apparitions, death and love fill the pages of Haunted East Los Angeles.

A breathtaking free fall into the long-buried (and fictional) history of a utopian era in American lighter-than-air travel, as told by its death-defying, aero-acrobatic heroes. "Foster and Romo's 'real fake dream' of the future-past history of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines is a superb and loving phantasmagoria that gobbles up real histories for breakfast and spits out the seeds."—Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn In the early years of the twentieth-century, the use of airships known as dirigibles—some as large as one thousand feet long—was being promulgated in Southern California by a semi-clandestine lighter-than-air movement. Groups like the East LA Balloon Club and the Bessie Coleman Aero Club were hard at work to revolutionize travel, with an aim to literally lift oppressed people out of racism and poverty. ELADATL tells the story of this little-known period of American air travel in a series of overlapping narratives told by key figures, accompanied by a number of historic photographs and recently discovered artifacts, with appendices provided to fill in the missing links. The story of the rise and fall of this ill-fated airship movement investigates its long-buried history, replete with heroes, villains, and moments of astonishing derring-do and terrifying disaster. Written and presented as an “actual history of a fictional company,” this surrealist, experimental novel is a tour de force of politicized fantastic fiction, a work of hybrid art-making distilled into a truly original literary form. Developed over a ten-year period of collaborations, community interventions, and staged performances, ELADATL is a furiously hilarious send-up of academic histories, mainstream narratives, and any traditional notions of the time-space continuum. "Poet Foster (Atomik Aztex) and artist Romo deliver a maddeningly accomplished inquiry into the secret history of East Los Angeles. . . . This is as much fun to read as it must have been to make."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "One of the wildest, most creative and deeply-cutting novels I’ve read in years, a genuine piece of newness in both content and form. To wade through this surreal narrative archeology is to experience, in the finest sense, literature as fever dream."—Omar El Akkad, author of American War: A Novel "Visionary, hilarious, anarchic, this assemblage of breakneck dialog, blisteringly brilliant film criticism, bureaucratic documents, revolutionary chatter, mass transit, and fake dreams of the secret police, is the counterfactual novel to beat all counterfactual novels."—Mark Doten, author of Trump Sky Alpha "Hilarious and prophetic and profound, truer than truth, and realer than all realities currently available for purchase, ELADATL is strong medicine against the erasures of history, a mega-vitamin for struggles yet to come. This book combats despair."—Ben Ehrenreich, author of Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time

Mexican American Baseball in East Los Angeles highlights the unforgettable teams, players, and coaches who graced the hallowed fields of East Los Angeles between 1917 and 2016 and brought immense joy and honor to their neighborhoods. Off the field, these players and their families helped create the multibillion-dollar wealth that depended on their backbreaking labor. More than a game, baseball and softball were political instruments designed to promote and empower civil, political, cultural, and gender rights, confronting head-on the reactionary forces of prejudice, intolerance, sexism, and xenophobia. A century later, baseball and softball are more popular than ever in East Los Angeles. Dedicated coaches still produce gifted players and future community leaders. These breathtaking photographs and heartfelt stories shed unparalleled light to the long and rich history of baseball and softball in the largest Mexican American community in the United States.

As the lead singer of the Grammy Award–winning rock band Quetzal and a scholar of Chicana/o and Latina/o studies, Martha Gonzalez is uniquely positioned to articulate the ways in which creative expression can serve the dual roles of political commentary and community building. Drawing on postcolonial, Chicana, black feminist, and performance theories, Chican@ Artivistas explores the visual, musical, and performance art produced in East Los Angeles since the inception of NAFTA and the subsequent anti-immigration rhetoric of the 1990s. Showcasing the social impact made by key artist-activists on their communities and on the mainstream art world and music industry, Gonzalez charts the evolution of a now-canonical body of work that took its inspiration from the Zapatista movement, particularly its masked indigenous participants, and that responded to efforts to impose systems of labor exploitation and social subjugation. Incorporating Gonzalez’s memories of the Mexican nationalist music of her childhood and her band’s journey to Chiapas, the book captures the mobilizing music, poetry, dance, and art that emerged in pre-gentrification corners of downtown Los Angeles and that went on to inspire flourishing networks of bold, innovative artivistas.

This second edition of Self Help Graphics & Art brings the original edition up to date, adding breadth and depth to the history of the historic East L. A. arts center. Self Help Graphics has been a national model for community-based art making and art-based community making since its founding in the early 1970s. Known for its groundbreaking printmaking and art education programs, Self Help Graphics has empowered local artists and taught the world about the vibrancy of Chicano/Latino art. A comprehensive guide to the Self Help Graphics & Art archives at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA), University of California, Santa Barbara, and an expanded bibliography complete the volume. Contributors include Michael Amescua, Yreina Cervantes, Karen Mary Davalos, Armando Durón, Evonne Gallardo, Colin Gunckel, Kristen Guzmán, Leo Limón, Chon A. Noriega, Peter Toval, Linda Vallejo, and Mari Cárdenas Yáñez.