Los Angeles, CA

(see also Cities, California Politics, Water Politics, African American History, Life & Values, Mexican American History, Life & Values, Asian American History, Life & Values, & Mike Davis

Basics

On the Web: Articles

The Rise & Fall of the Los Angeles Water Baron. Joe Wilkinson, McGraw Hill Construction (10/00).

On the Web: Specialized Sites

Bus Riders' Union.

Coalition for Humane Immigrants' Rights (CHIRLA) (Los Angeles).

Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

LA Weekly. Alternative paper.

Los Angeles Times. Daily.

In the Library: Articles

Brienes, Marvin. "Smog comes to LA," Southern CA Quarterly 58 (1978).

Castillo, Pedro. "The making of the Mexican working class in the US: Los Angeles, CA, 1880-1920," in E. Frost & others (eds.) El trabajo y los trabajadores (México, 1979), pp. 506-17.

Chávez, Miroslava. "'Pongo mi demanda': challenging patriarchy in LA," in V.J. Matsumoto & B. Allmendinger (eds.) Over the Edge: Remapping the American West (Berkeley, 1999).

Cooper, Marc. "One year later," Sacramento News & Review (4/15/93):15-20.

__________. "The two worlds of Los Angeles," Nation (8/21-28/00):15-22.

Didion, Joan. "Trouble in Lakewood," New Yorker (7/26/93):46-65.

Erie, Steven P. "LA: past imperfect," Urban Affairs Quarterly 29 (9/93).

George, Lynell. "Gray boys, funky Aztecs & honorary homegirls," LA Times Magazine (1/17/95). LA youth culture.

Hayden, Tom. “Gato & Alex – no safe place,” Nation (7/10/00):24-27. Los Angeles police scandal.

Judd, Dennis R. "Segregation forever?" Nation (12/9/91).

Kropp, Phoebe S. "Citizens of the past? Olivera St. & the construction of race & memory in 1930s Los Angeles," Radical History Review 81 (fall 2001):35-60.

Males, Mike & Faye Docuyanan. "The return of reefer madness," Progressive (5/96):26-29. Sharp critique of thinking behind war on drugs in Los Angeles.

Monkkonen, Eric H. "Towards an understanding of urbanization: drunk arrests in LA," Pacific Historical Review 50 (1981):234-44.

Olson, Matt. "Guilt by association," In These Times (7/7/03):20-22.

Winther, Oscar Osborn. "The use of climate as a means of promoting migration to Southern CA," Mississippi Valley Historical Quarterly 33 (12/46):411-24.

__________. "The rise of metropolitan LA, 1870-1900," Huntington Library Quarterly 10 (8/47):391-405.

In the Library: Non-Fiction Books

Abu-Lughod, Janet L. NY, Chicago, LA: America's Global Cities (Minneapolis, 1999).

Acuña, Rodolfo. A Community Under Siege: A Chronicle of Chicanos East of the LA River, 1945-1975 (LA, 1984).

__________. Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary LA (NY: Verso, 1996).

Adamic, Louis. Laughing in the Jungle: The Autobiography of an Immigrant in America (NY: Harpers, 1932). LA in 20s.

Allen, James P. & Eugene Turner. The Ethnic Quilt: Population Diversity in Southern CA (Northridge CA, 1997).

Balderrama, Francisco E. & Raymond Rodríguez. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico, 1995).

Bonacich, Edna & Richard Applebaum. Behind the Label: Inequality in the LA Apparel Induistry (LA, 2000).

Brown, James. The Los Angeles Diaries: A Memoir (NY: Harper, 2004).

Cannon, Lou. Official Negligence: How Rodney King & the Riots Changed LA & the LAPD (NY, 1997).

Case, Frederick E. Black Capitalism, Problems in Development: A Case Study of Los Angeles (NY: Praeger, 1972).

Chang, Edward T. & Russell C. Leong (eds.) LA: Struggles toward Multiethnic Community. Asian American, African American & Latino Perspectives (Seattle, 1994).

Cole, Carolyn Kozo & Kathy Kobayashi. Shades of LA: Pictures from Ethnic Family Albums (NY, 1996).

Comella, Rosemary; Andreas Kratky & Norman Klein. Bleeding Through: Layers of LA, 1920-1986 (?: Cantz, 2003). Book with CD Rom.

Collins, Keith E. Black LA: The Maturing of the Ghetto, 1940-1950 (Saratoga CA: Century 21, 1980).

Cooper, Stephen. Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante (NY: North Point, 2000).

Davis, Clark. Company Men: White Collar Life & Corporate Cultures in LA, 1892-1941 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2000).

Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in LA (NY: Verso, 1990).

__________. Beyond Blade Runner: Urban Control, the Ecology of Fear (Westfield NJ: Open Media, 1992).

__________. LA Was Just the Beginning: Urban Revolt in the US. A Thousand Points of Light (Westfield NJ: Open Media, 1992).

__________. Ecology of Fear: LA & the Imagination of Disaster (NY: Metropolitan, 1998).

__________. Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US City (NY: Verso, 2000).

__________. Dead Cities, & Other Tales (NY: New Press, 2002).

Dear, Michael J.; H. Eric Schockman & Greg Hise (eds.) Rethinking LA (Thousand Oaks CA, 1996).

__________ (ed.) Atlas of Southern CA (Los Angeles, 1996).

Engh, Michael E. SJ. Frontier Faiths: Church, Temple, & Synagogue in LA, 1846-1888 (Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico, 1992).

Escobar, Edward J. Race, Police, & the Making of a Political Identity: Mexican Americans & the LA Police Department, 1900-1945 (Berkeley: U. of CA, 1999).

Flamming, Douglas. Bound for Freedom: Black LA in Jim Crow America (Berkeley: U. of California, 2005).

Fogelson, Robert M. The Fragmented Metropolis: LA, 1950-1930 [1967] (Berkeley: U. of California, 1993).

Fulton, William. The Reluctant Metropolis: the Politics of Urban Growth in LA (Point Arena CA, 1997).

García, Matt. A World of Its Own:Race, Labor & Citrus in the Making of Greater LA, 1900-1970 (Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina, 2001).

George, Lynell. No Crystal Stair: African-Americans in the City of Angels (London, 1992). Deft portraits of individual life experience.

Ghorra-Gobin, Cynthia. LA: le mythe américain inachevé (Paris, 1997).

Gottlieb, Robert & Irene Wolt. Thinking Big: The Story of the LA Times, its Publishers, & their Influence on Southern California (NY: Putnam, 1977).

Gumprecht, Blake. The LA River: Its Life, Death & Possible Rebirth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1999).

Gutiérrez, David G. Walls & Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants & the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: U. of California, 1995).

Hart, Dianne Walta. Undocumented in LA: An Immigrant's Story (Wilmington DE: Scholarly Resources, 1995).

Hayashi, Brian Masaru. For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren: Assimilation, Nationalism, & Protestantism among the Japanese of LA, 1894-1942 (Stanford CA: Stanford, 1995).

Hayden, Dolores. The Power of Place: Urban Landscape as Public History (Cambridge MA, 1995).

Heins, Marjorie. Strictly Ghetto Property: The Story of Los Siete de la Raza (Berkeley: Ramparts, 1972).

Herbert, Steven Kelly. Policing Space: Territoriality & the LA Police Department (Minneapolis, 1997).

Hise, Greg. Magnetic LA: Planning the 20th-C. Metropolis (Baltimore, 1997).

Horne, Geerald S. Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising & the 1960s (Charlottesville: U. of Virginia, 1995).

Kimbrough, Jess. Defender of the Angels: A Black Policeman in Old LA (NY: Macmillan, 1969).

Klein, Norman. The History of Forgetting: LA & the Erasure of Memory (London: Verso, 1997).

Longstreth, Richard. City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, & Retailing in LA, 1920-1950 (Cambridge MA, 1997).

__________. The Drive-In, the Supermarket, & the Transformation of Commercial Space in LA, 1914-1941 (Cambridge MA, 1999).

Lopez, Ian Haney. Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice (Cambridge MA: Belknap/Harvard, 2003). Legal history of Mexican American fight for civil rights in LA.

LA County Children's Planning Council. Ethnic Community Profiles: Planning for a New LA (LA, 1996).

Lotchin, Roger W. Fortress CA, 1910-1961: From Warfare to Welfare (NY, 1992).

Marchand, Bernard. The Emergence of LA: Population & Housing in the City of Dreams, 1940-1970 (London, 1986).

Martínez, Rubén. The Other Side: Notes from the New LA, Mexico City & Beyond (London: Vereso, 1992).

McWilliams, Carey. Southern CA: An Island on the Land [1946] (reprint Salt Lake City: GM Smith, 1973).

Monroy, Douglas. Rebirth: Mexican LA from the Great Migration to the Great Depression (Berkeley: U. of CA, 1999).

Nicolaides, Becky M. My Blue Heaven: Life & Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of LA, 1920-1965 (Chicago: U. of Chicago, 2002).

Orr, John B. & Others. Politics of the Spirit: Religion & Multiethnicity in LA (LA, 1994).

Ovnick, Merry. LA: The End of the Rainbow (LA, 1994).

Pardo, Mary. Mexican American Women Activisits: Identity & Resistance in Two LA Communities (Philadelphia: Temple, 1998).

Pitt, Leonard & Dale Pitt. LA from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City & County (Berkeley, 1997).

Reid, David (ed.) Sex, Death & God in LA (Berkeley: U. of CA, 1992).

Rieff, David. LA: Capital of the Third World (2nd ed.; NY, 1995).

Ríos-Bustamante, Antonio & Pedro Castillo. An Illustrated History of Mexican LA, 1781-1985 (LA: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, 1986).

Robinson, W.W. LA: A Profile (Norman: U. of Oklahoma, 1968).

Rodriguez, Luis J. The Republic of East LA (NY: Rayo, 2002).

Rogers, Warren S. Mesa to Metropolis: The Crenshaw Area, LA (LA: L.L. Morrison, 1959).

Rolle, Andrew. LA: From Pueblo to City of the Future (2nd ed.; San Francisco, 1995).

Saito, Leland T. Race & Politics: Asian Americans, Latinos & Whites in a LA Suburb (Urbana: U. of Illinois, 1998).

Sánchez, George J. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture & Identity in Chicano LA, 1900-1945 (NY: Oxford, 1993).

Scott, Allen J. & Edward W. Soja (eds.) The City: LA & Urban Theory at the End of the 20th C. (Berkeley: U. of CA, 1996). Important collection of essays exploring unique, quintessentially "American" character of city.

Shakur, Sanyika. Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member (NY: Penguin, 1994).

Siegel, Fred. The Future Once Happened Here: NY, DC, LA & the Fate of America's Big Cities (NY, 1997).

Sonenshein, Raphael J. Politics in Black & White: Race & Power in LA (Princeton NJ: Princeton, 1993).

Starr, Kevin. Material Dreams: Southern CA through the 1920s (NY, 1990).

Tolbert, Emory J. The UNIA & Black LA: Ideology & Community in the American Garvey Movement (LA: UCLA Afro-American Studies Center, 1980).

Tygiel, Jules. The Great LA Swindle: Oil, Stocks & Scandal during the Roaring Twenties (Berkeley: U. of CA, 1996).

Valle, Victor M. & Rodolfo D. Torres. Latino Metropolis (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota, 2000).

Verge, Arthur C. Paradise Transformed: LA during the Second World War (Dubuque IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1993).

Vigil, James Diego. Barrio Gangs: Street Life & Identity in Southern California (Austin: U. of Texas, 1988).

__________. A Rainbow of Gangs: Street Cultures in the Mega-City (Austin: U. of Texas, 2002).

Villa, Raúl Homero & George J. Sánchez (eds.) LA & the Future of American Culture (special issue of American Quarterly 9/04).

Waldinger, Roger & Mehdi Bozorgmehr (eds.) Ethnic LA (NY, 1996).

Wyatt, David. Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, & the Shaping of California (NY: Oxford, 1998).

In the Library: Fiction

Boyle, T. Coraghessan. The Tortilla Curtain (NY, 1995).

Cooper, Stephen (ed.) The John Fante Reader (NY: W. Morrow, 2002).

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (NY: Doubleday, 1968).

Fante, John. Ask the Dust [1939] (Santa Barbara CA: Black Sparrow, 1980).

__________. The Road to Los Angeles (NY: Ecco, 2002).

__________. Dreams from Bunker Hill (Santa Rosa CA: Black Sparrow, 1988).

__________. The Big Hunger: Stories 1932-1959 (ed. Stephen Cooper; Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow, 2000).

Fox, Paula. The Western Coast [1972] (NY: W.W. Norton, 2001). LA on the eve of World War II.

Hamilton, Denise. The Jasmine Trade: A Novel of Suspense, introducing Eve Diamond (NY: Scribner, 2001). Mystery featuring resourceful LA Times reporter.

__________. Sugar Skull: An Eve Diamond Novel (NY: Scribner, 2003).

__________. Last Lullaby: An Eve Diamond Novel (NY: Scribner, 2004).

__________. Savage Garden: An Eve Diamond Novel (NY: Scribner, 2005).

Lemus, Felicia Luna. The Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties (NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003).

Martin, John (ed.) Run with the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader (NY: HarperCollins, 1993).

Mosley, Walter. A Red Death (NY: Pocket, 1992).

__________. White Butterfly (NY: Pocket, 1993).

__________. Black Betty: An Easy Rawlins Mystery (NY: Pocket, 1995).

__________. Devil in a Blue Dress (NY: Pocket, 1995). South Central in late 40s.

__________. A Little Yellow Dog (NY: Norton, 1996).

__________. Gone Fishin': An Easy Rawlins Novel (Baltimore: Black Classic, 1997).

__________. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (NY: W.W. Norton, 1998). Watts.

__________. Walkin' the Dog (Boston: Little, Brown, 1999).

__________. Fearless Jones: A Novel (Boston: Little, Brown, 2001).

__________. Bad Boy Brawly Brown (Boston: Little, Brown, 2002).

__________. Fear Itself: A Novel (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003).

__________. Six Easy Pieces: Easy Rawlins Stories (NY: Atria, 2003).

__________. The Man in My Basement: A Novel (Boston: Little, Brown, 2004).

__________. Little Scarlet (NY: Little, Brown, 2004). Watts during riots of 1965.

Revoyr, Nina. The Necessary Hunger: A Novel (NY: St. Martin's, 1998).

__________. Southland (NY: Akashic, 2003).

Tobar, Hector. The Tattooed Soldier (Harrison NY: Delphinium, 1998). Guatemalan immigrants & homeless life in LA.

Treviño, Jesús Salvador. The Fabulous Sinkhole & Other Stories (Houston, 1995).

Ulin, David L (ed). Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (San Francisco: City Lights, 2001).

Valdes-Rodríguez, Alisa. Playing with Boys (NY: St. Martin's, 2004).

West, Nathaniel. The Day of the Locust [1939] (

In the Library: For Young Readers

In the Library: Poetry

In the Library: Drama

In the Library: Photography

CD & Audio

Tom Russell, Hotwalker (2005).

Film & Video

"Adios East Los" [1999], dir. William Douglas Lansford, ?m. Three Chicano youths cross 4th St. Bridge to discover the land of the Gringos.

"Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned" [2001], dir. Michael Apted, 108m. In video stores.

"Ask the Dust" [2005], dir. Robert Towne, ?m.

"Blade Runner" [1982], dir. Ridley Scott, 117m. In video stores. LA in 2019, as envisioned in Philip Dick's, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

"Bless Their Little Hearts" [1984], dir. Billy Woodberry, 80m. In video stores. Tribulations of working-class Black family in Watts.

"Boyz 'n the Hood" [1991], dir. John Singleton, 107m. In video stores. Education vs. drugs & violence as roads ahead for young men in South Central.

"Bread & Roses" [2001], dir. Ken Loach, 110m. In video stores. Struggle for a Latino janitors' union in 1990s.

"The Bus Riders Union" [1999], dir. Haskell Wexler, 89m. Multiracial grassroots organization led mostly by women takes on LA Transit District in 4-year struggle & wins!

"Chávez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story" [2003], dir. Jordan Mechner, 30m. How Mexican neighborhood in downtown LA was razed in 50s & to make way for Dodger Statdium.

"Chinatown" [1974], dir. Roman Polanski, 131m. In video stores. Detective story set in drought-ridden LA during 1930s.

"Crossroads: Boyle Heights" [2002], by John Esaki, 28m. From Japanese American National Museum. Documentary on changing neighborhood of 40s & 50s.

"Colors" [1988], dir. Dennis Hopper, 120m. In video stores. LAPD confronts gang violence in East LA.

"Crash" [2004], dir. Paul Haggis, 113m. In video stores.

"Dark Blue" [2002], dir. Ron Shelton, 118m. In video stores. LAPD & Rodney King riots of 1992.

"The Day of the Locust" [1975], dir. John Schlesinger, 144m. In video stores. Decadent Hollywood in 1930s.

"Devil in a Blue Dress" [1995], dir. Carl Franklin, 101m. In video stores. Walter Mosley's LA in 1948.

"El Norte" [1983], dir. Gregory Nava, 133m. In video stores. Guatemalan refugees struggling to arrive & survive in LA.

"The Exiles" [1961], dir. Kent Mackenzie,72m. Documentary on Native American community in Bunker Hill.

"God's Army" [2000], dir. Richard Dutcher, 108m. Mormon missionaries in LA.

"Grand Canyon" [1991], dir. Lawrence Kasdan, 134m. In video stores. LA lives intertwine in rare interracial drama in which hero, both wise & good (Danny Glover), is a working-class Black man.

"L.A. Confidential" [1997], dir.Curtis Hanson, 138m. In video stores. Police corruption & Hollywood sleaze in 1950s.

"Lost Angeles" [1994], dir. Miguel Caballero, 19m. Day-to-day survival of working immigrants.

"My Family" [1995], dir. Gregory Nava, 128m. In video stores. Wide-ranging story of three generations in an LA family's life.

"Pulp Fiction" [1994], dir. Quentin Tarantino, 154m. In video stores. Small-time crooks & boxing match fixers on loose in big city.

"Real Women Have Curves" [2002], dir. Patricia Cardoso, 90m. In video stores. Real LA textile workers take chances, have flaws, embrace life.

"Red Hollywood" [1995], dir. Thom Anderson & Noël Burch, 118m. Documentary on Hollywood Ten.

"Stand & Deliver" [1988], dir.Ramón Menéndez, 107m. In video stores. How much difference can a devoted teacher make in the lives of ghetto high school students?

"To Live & Die in L.A." [1985], dir. William Friedkin, 116m. In video stores. Cops hunt master criminal on streets of LA.

"What's Cooking?" [2000], dir. Gurinder Chadha, 109m. In video stores. Thanksgiving in four ethnically distinct households of the Fairfax District.

"Zabriskie Point" [1970], dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 110m. Two rebellious young Angeleños of late sixties confront process of development.

"Zoot Suit" [1982], dir. Luis Valdez, ?m. In video stores.