City of Angels 2017-18

This morning, our Urban Lab encouraged us to explore the nature of Echo Mountain and record our observations on the surrounding scenery and people. The Mt. Lowe and Inspiration Point hiking trails are only two examples of what attracts countless families, hikers, bikers, and photographers to this region and what makes this spot so important. One of the most striking things my group noticed towards the beginning of our short hike was the proximity of Altadena houses to the mountainside—from the first lookout point on the trail, we could see many houses and their elaborate pools directly below us, coming dangerously close to encroaching on this natural territory. And as it stands, nothing other than a rusty, bent fence is stopping those homeowners from expanding their lot or real estate agents from building new houses. Did you notice any other visible human interferences with the nature of the canyon? As we know from our Land of Sunshine readings and past class discussions, realtors...

Los Angeles has been called a melting pot: a mix of different races, religions, and cultures. In our class we represent a great mix of races that reside in Poly’s population. We have a platform that is perfectly set up for varying perspectives on how race ties to different aspects of LA. As we explored different characters from Twilight and tried to find the truth in their character, I wonder if anyone heavily considered the race of the character. How did it shape your interaction with the character? For those who did not, how would it have changed your exploration and interaction with the character? How did you/could you have found context within the small monologues that clued to a characters race? Twilight illuminates a variety of racial tensions between different ethnic groups living within LA. Using specific text, is there a difference on paper between the way a black person and white person talks and how does that difference shape how we judge/classify the character?...

                                                              THIS IS JONO'S POST “The machine appeared In the distance, singing to itself Of money. It song was the web They were caught in, men and women Together. The villages were as flies To be sucked empty. God secreted A tear. Enough, enough, He commanded, but the machine Looked at him and went on singing.” - R.S. Thomas Los Angeles: the jewel in the desert, a bustling metropolitan city built in an area unable to sustain its population. As nature crumbled around us, our primary concern was maximizing water supply to satisfy our massive demand for water in turn transforming the L.A. river into a pitiful stream, a tear of God slowly trickling through the monstrosity of industrialization and development that is our beloved city of angels. Although the roulette whe...

One of the most central conversational topics in the early City of Angels discussion has been gentrification in and around Los Angeles. It is undeniable that gentrification has had a drastic impact on low income communities and how many of them have had their culture stolen by rich demographics. Our discussions have been centered around communities like Highland Park, Echo Park and Silver Lake, communities in which many of us live or have lived during our time in LA. We treat the topic of gentrification like none of us are associated with it, but whether we like it or not, each and every one of us in the is class has contributed to gentrification. This could be as simple as supporting certain clothing stores or restaurants or it could be as significant as purchasing a home in a gentrified community. Although Gentrification is a very significant topic, we have all treated it like it is the only important aspect of Los Angeles. As the city grows, we have failed to mention the positi...

In the introduction to our edition of Twilight: Los Angeles , Anna Deavere Smith talks about the inadequacies of thinking about the violence in 1992 as a "riot" or "uprising" or "rebellion." She argues that "beneath this surface explanation is a sea of associated causes," and points to larger trends of a declining economy, urban poverty, a deterioration of public services and education, and decades-long racial animosities in the national and local contexts. I'm curious about whether--and how--the play and our text, which incorporates characters that did not make the performance version, serve to illustrate this "sea of associated causes." To what extent does it allow us a more complete view of local and national pressures that led to the tragedy? If associations are made, how are they made? How is this associative picture that the work provides us different than the picture that we get from the labels "L.A. Riots" or ...