Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 4

[Update: 11/27/2012, Underline indicates additions.]

This Trip Includes:

2. Car Trip

3. Walking Trip

5. Visit to a Location I've Never Visited Before

Walking in Little Toyko, Los Angeles

The Little Tokyo Visitor Center/Police Station.

       This past weekend, I trekked to downtown L.A. to visit Little Tokyo with a few friends from a school organization that I am active in. It was very nice because we all carpooled together and they also told me a lot about the history of Little Tokyo. Not only could I walk around by myself, but I gained insight into their perspective on this historic ethnic community.



Here's the route I took when we carpooled from UCLA to Little Tokyo.

       I passed by the Los Angeles Convention Center, The Staples Center and various high-rise buildings. For the majority of my car trip, I noticed a lot of freeways and cars. It was hard to observe the people, so instead I just looked around at the urban landscape and I took pictures of whatever I could capture through the window. It was pretty gloomy out that last Saturday and the gray of the clouds matched the concrete freeways and the buildings. Watching all the cars driving and piling up, I thought about the incredible impact of automobility in Los Angeles that helped spur the 4th Urban Revolution and how different life would be if there were trains instead of cars. On one hand cars and the necessity of automobility gives the residents of the L.A. area freedom and independence, but because of traffic, the cost of gas and less human interaction that accompanies driving, I think it's also very limiting. It not only separates us from interacting with others if we were to use public transportation, but it can create social distinction just by owning cars, like the type of car you have (expensive and new vs. old and rundown) or if you can even afford to maintain one. 

       When I got there, there was low material density and the surroundings seemed very quiet. There wasn't a high amount of traffic once I got within the Little Tokyo community. Immediately, I could tell we were in a different part of L.A. There were names and words written in hiragana, katakana and kanji (the writing systems of the Japanese language- see above). Additionally, the lamp posts were distinctly different than other L.A. because they had little fans with cats at the top (see picture below). These physical markers on the urban landscape signified the cultural and social difference of this space. I walked through the Japanese Business Plaza and it mainly consisted of food stores, grocery stores and clothing stores and they almost all Japanese stores catering to a Japanese clientele. These obvious markers on stores, signs and on the streets illustrated the cultural differentiation of Little Tokyo and serves as an indicator to visitors and people who live here that this is an ethnic community.

       I noticed there were also quite a few homeless people. For instance, one homeless lady approached me and told me she had AIDs and needed money for food. She also asked my friends for money, offering to provide documentation of her illness. We gave her about fifteen dollars and she left. Additionally, another homeless man asked me to take his picture because I had a camera. He was a former veteran. I'm not exactly sure why he wanted me to take his photo but I told him that I was working on a class project and he asked me to include his photo. Below is his photo, but I have blurred out his face to protect his privacy. Witnessing this level of poverty in a business area which seems pretty successful and resilient was a little unexpected for me. I would assume that the businesses nearby would want to set up funds or set up centers to help these homeless people, but as far as I could see in Little Tokyo, there were none. I did a little research online and there is a transitional homeless center in Little Tokyo, but homelessness has been an issue in Little Tokyo for quite some time. 

       As I was walking and I saw more homeless people, I kept wondering why there were homeless people there. After lecture this week, it became more clear to me and I think I understand why homeless people stick around Little Tokyo. Professor Wilford showed us a map of the different districts and neighborhoods in L.A. and the proximity of the Wholesale district (which is where Skid Row) is located is very close. At first I thought this is a bit of the spill over of the extreme poverty observed in Skid Row. I think the homeless people in this area could be some of the spill over of the extreme poverty observed in Skid Row. However, after reading a few blogs and looking at pictures online of how skid row really is, I realized that this instead also exhibited the carceral archipelago (lack of benches, seating, public water fountains, etc.), known as using police tactics to control the demographic of a certain area, as there is a noticeably small amount of homeless people when comparing Little Tokyo to Skid Row. This drastic contrast between the volume of homeless people and the urban surroundings of the area really reveal how L.A. has an extreme amount of fragmented inequality. So while there is still a noticeable population of homeless people in Little Tokyo, perhaps from spillover from places like Skid Row, there is much less because of the carceral archipelago built into the urban landscape.

       After walking around the Japanese American National Museum, where I took the picture of the homeless man, I tried to look for all the historical sculptures and artwork throughout Little Tokyo. I walked down Central Ave. and saw a mural that was painted to celebrate the Little Tokyo community (mural is shown below). The mural is an artistic representation of how the community feels about it's sense of place within Los Angeles since it first became an ethnic community. It shows different generations throughout time, like traditional Japanese immigrants, second generation Japanese Americans and the modern generation of Japanese Americans. Emphasized within the mural is a sense of diversity, not only in the activities that the Japanese engage in, but also in the ethnicities of those depicted. The African American community is represented within the mural as well, I believe to show the connection the Japanese feel with the African American community, as they felt both experienced racial and ethnic discrimination that was treated as the naturalization of difference in America. Perhaps, this is a current attempt on behalf of Little Tokyo to bridge the gap between people in this area resulting from decentralization and fragmented inequality.

       The mural also emphasizes the  way in which being a Japanese American has changed, as now Japanese Americans engage in all sorts of modern activities, not just traditional Japanese activities (like dancing, etc.). This mural indicates how culture changes and is fluid over time. This connects to Stuart Hall from our lecture on race as a "floating signifier," because activities that Japanese people might have been stereotypically thought of engaging in (like traditional dancing, etc.) are not the only activities they might engage in (Wilford 2012). While people still might engage in these activities, the mural shows how Japanese Americans engage in very diverse and modern American activities, as well as traditionally Japanese activities. Additionally, the mural, which depicts generational and cultural changes shows how the meaning of being a Japanese American has changed over the course of time since Little Tokyo has been in Los Angeles. 

       In total, I spent about five hours walking around and I gained a greater appreciation for my own heritage (I'm half Japanese) and learned a lot about the sense of place that has evolved in Little Tokyo as a result of the influx of Japanese immigrants and their presence in Los Angeles. This ethnic neighborhood, along with other ethnic neighborhoods (China Town, Korea Town, Little India, etc.) in Los Angeles, are representative of how the economy and the culture of 4th urban revolution cities expresses greater globalization as a result of being so densely populated, attractive to immigrants and engaging in post-fordism (movement of capital and goods overseas). I think this globalization and post-fordism has created a lot of cultural syncretism, like the Japanese culture and the Los Angeles American culture fused together. Below is a neat brand I saw displayed in one of the booths in the Japanese Business Plaza. The company was called "Japangeles." 

       Social Difference in Little Tokyo presents itself simultaneously in the homeless people who are present around the businesses and area, the customers who shop here and the cultural differentiation that occurs because the area is an ethnic community. Historically, Little Tokyo recognizes (though their murals and other artwork, sculptures, etc.) that they were once excluded from mainstream American culture and now celebrate that they are not. Instead of forgetting, they choose to display this within the urban landscape. 

Unlinked References

Wilford, J. (Nov. 19, 2012). Geog. 151: Cities of Social Difference. Geography 151. Lecture conducted from

             University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.