HSOC-302: Los Angeles Histories/Myths 1

Los Angeles was a postmodern city by 1890, and then an industrial city during the forties; and finally a global crossroads city during the age of globalization. This is quite a journey, with traces in neighborhoods, in cinema, in ethnic histories, in the arts, architecture and design. Los Angeles has remained for generations "the most photographed and least remembered city in the world." Students in this class will trace the historical trends that have shaped these contradictions. From film fantasies to the actual neighborhoods that are hidden by myths of the city, we venture into a century of swindles, duplicity and simple survival, the mundane facts that are are essential to understanding the fantasies. What took place behind the civil disturbances, the biblical plagues, and the strange architectural simulation: how to locate the layers of the city. A survey of ethnic groups who emigrated here, of the in-migration as well as the immigrants from other countries; and of the inner basin and the metropolitan suburbs. And of course, the transitions into the twenty-first century-- vast changes as we speak-- and into decades to come.