Boyle Heights was called Paredón Blanco ("White Bluff") during the Spanish, Mexican, and early American periods.[6] During Mexican rule, what would become Boyle Heights became home to a small settlement of relocated Tongva refugees from the village of Yaanga in 1845.[7] The villagers were relocated to this new site known as Pueblito after being forcibly evicted from their previous location on the corner Alameda and Commercial Street by German immigrant Juan Domingo (John Groningen), who paid Governor Pío Pico $200 for the land.[8]
On August 13, 1846, Los Angeles was seized by invading American forces during the Mexican–American War.[9] Under American occupation, Indigenous elimination became a core principle of governance and the Pueblito site was razed to the ground in 1847: "the Indians were required to live in dispersed settlements or with their employers in the city."[8] The destruction of Pueblito was reportedly approved by the Los Angeles City Council and largely displaced the final generation of the villagers, known as Yaangavit, into the Calle de los Negros ("street of the dark ones") district.[10]
The area became named after Andrew Boyle, an Irishman born in Ballinrobe, who purchased 22 acres (8.9 ha) on the bluffs overlooking the Los Angeles River after fighting in the Mexican–American War for $4,000.[11] Boyle established his home on the land in 1858. In the 1860s, he began growing grapes and sold the wine under the "Paredon Blanc" name.[12] His son-in-law William Workman served as early mayor and city councilman and also built early infrastructure for the area.[13]
To the north of Boyle Heights was Brooklyn Heights, a subdivision in the hills on the eastern bank of the Los Angeles River that centered on Prospect Park.[14]
From 1889 through 1909 the city was divided into nine wards. In 1899 a motion was introduced at the Ninth Ward Development Association to use the name Boyle Heights to apply to all the highlands of the Ninth Ward, including Brooklyn Heights and Euclid Heights.[15]XLNT Foods had a factory making tamales here early in their history. The company started in 1894, when tamales were the most popular ethnic food in Los Angeles. The company is the oldest continuously operating Mexican food brand in the United States, and one of the oldest companies in Southern California.[16]
In the early 1910s, Boyle Heights was one of the only communities that did not have restricted housing covenants that discriminated against Japanese and other people of color.[17] The Japanese community of Little Tokyo continued to grow and extended to the First Street Corridor into Boyle Heights in the early 1910s.[18] Boyle Heights became Los Angeles’s largest residential communities of Japanese immigrants and Americans, apart from Little Tokyo. In the 1920s and 1930s, Boyle Heights became the center of significant churches, temples, and schools for the Japanese community. These include the Tenrikyo Junior Church of America, the Konko Church, and the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple; all designed by Yos Hirose. The Japanese Baptist Church was built by the Los Angeles City Baptist Missionary Society.[19] A hospital, also designed by Hirose, opened in 1929 to serve the Japanese American community.[20]
By the 1920s through the 1960s,[21] Boyle Heights was racially and ethnically diverse as a center of Jewish, Mexican and Japanese immigrant life in the early 20th century, and also hosted significant Yugoslav, Armenian, African-American and Russian populations.[22][23][24] Bruce Phillips, a sociologist who tracked Jewish communities across the United States, said that Jewish families left Boyle Heights not because of racism, but instead because of banks redlining the neighborhood (denying home loans) and the construction of several freeways through the community.[25]
In 1961, the construction of the East LA Interchange began. At 135 acres in size, the interchange is three times larger than the average highway system, even expanding at some points to 27 lanes in width.[26] The interchange handles around 1.7 million vehicles daily and has produced one of the most traffic congested regions in the world as well as one of the most concentrated pockets of air pollution in America.[26] This resulted in the development of Boyle Heights, a multicultural, interethnic neighborhood in East Los Angeles whose celebration of cultural difference has made it a role model for democracy.[26]
In 2017, some residents were protesting gentrification of their neighborhood by the influx of new businesses,[27] a theme found in the TV series Vida and Gentefied, both set in the neighborhood.[28]
As of the 2000 census, there were 92,785 people in the neighborhood, which was considered "not especially diverse" ethnically,[29] with the racial composition of the neighborhood at 94.0% Latino, 2.3% Asian, 2.0% White (non-Hispanic), 0.9% African American, and 0.8% other races. The median household income was $33,235, low in comparison to the rest of the city. The neighborhood's population was also one of the youngest in the city, with a median age of just 25.[1]
As of 2011, 95% of the community was Hispanic and Latino. The community had Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants, and Central American ethnic residents. Hector Tobar of the Los Angeles Times said, "The diversity that exists in Boyle Heights today is exclusively Latino".[25]
Latino communities
These were the ten citiesorneighborhoods in Los Angeles County with the largest percentage of Latino residents, according to the 2000 census:[30]
The emergence of Latino politics in Boyle Heights influenced the diversity in the community. Boyle Heights was a predominantly Jewish community with "a vibrant, pre-World War II, Yiddish-speaking community, replete with small shops along Brooklyn Avenue, union halls, synagogues and hyperactive politics ... shaped by the enduring influence of the Socialist and Communist parties"[31] before Boyle Heights became predominantly associated with Mexicans/Mexican Americans. The rise of the socialist and communist parties increased the people's involvement in politics in the community because the "liberal-left exercised great influence in the immigrant community".[31]: 22-23 Even with an ever-growing diversity in Boyle Heights, "Jews remained culturally and politically dominant after World War II".[31]: 22
Nevertheless, as the Jewish community was moving westward into new homes, the largest growing group, Latinos, was moving into Boyle Heights because to them this neighborhood was represented as upward mobility. With Jews and Latinos both in Boyle Heights, these men, part of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) — Louis Levy, Ben Solnit, Pinkhas Karl, Harry Sheer, and Julius Levitt — helped to empower the Latinos who either lived among the Jewish people or who worked together in the factories.
The combination of Jewish people and Latinos in Boyle Heights symbolized a tight unity between the two communities. The two groups helped to elect Edward R. Roybal to the City Council over Councilman Christensen; with the help from the Community Service Organization (CSO). In order for Roybal to win a landslide victory over Christensen, "the JCRC, with representation from business and labor leaders, associated with both Jewish left traditions, had become the prime financial benefactor to CSO .. labor historically backed incumbents ... [and] the Cold War struggle for the hearts and minds of minority workers also influenced the larger political dynamic".[31]: 26
In the 1947 election, Edward Roybal lost, but Jewish community activist Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) garnered support from Mexican Americans to bring Roybal to victory two years later 1949.[32](Bernstein, 243) When Roybal took office as city councilman in 1949, he experienced racism when trying to buy a home for his family. The real-estate agent told him that he could not sell to Mexicans, and Roybal's first act as councilman was to protest racial discrimination and to create a community that represented inter-racial politics in Boyle Heights.[32](Bernstein, 224).
This Latino-Jewish relationship shaped politics in that when Antonio Villaraigosa became mayor of Los Angeles in 2005, "not only did he have ties to Boyle Heights, but he was elected by replicating the labor-based, multicultural coalition that Congressman Edward Roybal assembled in 1949 to become Los Angeles's first city council member of Latino heritage".[31]: 23 Further, the Vladeck Center (named after Borukh Charney Vladeck) contributed to the community of Boyle Heights in a big way because it was not just a building, it was "a venue for a wide range of activities that promoted Jewish culture and politics".[31]: 22
Just 5% of Boyle Heights residents aged 25 and older had earned a four-year degree by 2000, a low percentage for the city and the county. The percentage of residents in that age range who had not earned a high school diploma was high for the county.[36]
Oscar Macy, county sheriff and member of the Board of Supervisors[48]
Edward R. Roybal, Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives for the 30th District and later for the 25th District of California; member of the Los Angeles City Council[49]
^Sanchez, George J (2004). "'What's Good for Boyle Heights Is Good for the Jews': Creating Multiculturalism on the Eastside during the 1950s". American Quarterly. 56 (3): 633–661. doi:10.1353/aq.2004.0042. S2CID144365105. Project MUSE172851.
^Estrada, William David (2009). The Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and Contested Space. University of Texas Press. p. 56. ISBN9780292782099. In June 1845 this last remnant of Yaanga was relocated across the Los Angeles River to present-day Boyle Heights. Following the United States' takeover of Los Angeles, Indians continued to cluster along the edge of the pueblo.
^ abcEstrada, Gilbert (October 2005). "If You Build It, They Will Move: The Los Angeles Freeway System and the Displacement of Mexican East Los Angeles, 1944-1972". Southern California Quarterly. 87 (3): 287–315. doi:10.2307/41172272. JSTOR41172272.
^[1]Archived 2013-10-22 at the Wayback Machine Diversity "measures the probability that any two residents, chosen at random, would be of different ethnicities. If all residents are of the same ethnic group it's zero. If half are from one group and half from another it's .50." —Los Angeles Times
^Klein, Amy (May 9, 2003). "Aliyah Perspectives". Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Archived from the original on September 11, 2014. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy. George F. Sanchez. Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2021. ISBN9780520237070
