East Los Angeles, a home of Mexican American culture, is not its own city nor part of the city of LA but rather an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County. Now, a group of community leaders hopes to create a special district and exert more local control.
A group of community leaders hopes to exert more local control by creating a special district.June 4, 2021, 2:55 PM UTCEast Los Angeles is home to Mexican American success stories from boxer Oscar De La Hoya to rock stars Los Lobos to the overachieving calculus students depicted in the 1988 film"Stand and Deliver."
"I think of East Los Angeles as the neglected stepchild of Los Angeles. And that's largely because of its unincorporated status. There's no local control, and there's no form of community self-determination," said Eric Avila, a professor of Chicano studies at UCLA who is unaffiliated with the special district campaign.
"A lot of people from outside of East L.A. are making decisions for us and that has to stop," said Tony DeMarco, president of the Whittier Boulevard Merchants Association and a leading advocate for a special district. For example, supporters of greater home rule want to curtail the havoc that ensues when"lowriders" - classic cars modified to hang close to the asphalt and also to rise to improbable heights and angles - cruise Whittier Boulevard, the main artery through East L.A.
The term Chicano, born out of the civil rights era and coinciding with Cesar Chavez's movement to organize Latino farm workers in the 1960s and '70s, has fallen out of favor. From food to fashion to music to language, Mexican American culture is proudly on display in an area that was part of Mexico until 1848.
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