The Importance of Place and Place-makers in the Life of a Los Angeles Community: What Gentrification Erases from Echo Park, 1950s-Present

This talk examines a Los Angeles neighborhood, Echo Park, and discusses its history, shaped by its Leftist, Communist, and gay residents.  Beginning in the 1950s and 60s, this neighborhood’s history of progressive politics left a legacy for a wave of Mexican immigrants, allowing them to create a community that reached across social boundaries. The paper looks at Echo Park today to examine this gentrifying area and ask what the role of history is in the neighborhood’s evolving identity.