City of Angels Welcomes 2,000 Historians

Roy Ritchie

Welcome to Los Angeles. Everyone knows L.A., even those who have never visited the city. While most great cities generate news, histories, novels, stories, and myths that attract attention worldwide, Los Angeles adds another dimension as the home of powerful media images. Collectively known as the "industry," movie and television companies use the city as backdrop and subject, making it familiar everywhere. Whether in Baywatch or Blade Runner, popular culture relentlessly utilizes L.A. Those of us who live here may cringe at times at the way the city is depicted, for we live our lives far removed from the studios and image makers. These less visible Angelenos only appear in the media when earthquakes, riots, and other cataclysms rock the city, calling attention to their Los Angeles. In and around the conference site, you will meet these Angelenos in all their diversity and everyday reality; and no, they are not all aspiring actors, although your waiter may be. They may not fit into your stereotypes, although they are prone to say "have a nice day," but they are the real Los Angeles.

Regardless of the city's popular image worldwide, tens of thousands of immigrants see it as a place of opportunity. From Mexico, Central America, South America, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Canada, Armenia, Iran, to mention just a few nations and regions, people stream into the city seeking to share in its prosperity. As a result, about 100 languages are spoken in Los Angeles schools, and ethnic diversity is among the greatest of any city. You will not have to wander far from downtown to come into contact with this Los Angeles. From downtown, it is easy to get to Chinatown, the Mexican community along Caesar Chavez Blvd., Little Tokyo, Koreatown, the Central American community around MacArthur Park, and the varied African American communities of the South Central area. You can also experience the flavor of some of these communities by wandering into the Latino market that envelops Broadway on Saturdays or by going early to the Los Angeles Wholesale Flower Market on Saturday morning. The Program Committee is devising various ways for us to reach out to this Los Angeles, and I urge you to do so.

One of the mythic aspects of Los Angeles is transportation. Downtown is ringed with freeways and some of the busiest arterial junctions in the nation. The rush hours are very long and always should be kept in mind. However, downtown is easy to navigate. There is a bus service called DASH (<http://www.mta.net>) that has six lines providing frequent service all over downtown, from the University of Southern California and the museum complex (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California African American Museum, and the California Science Center) in the south to Chinatown in the north. In between, you have access to many other sites, all for twenty-five cents. There is also the famous, or infamous, Los Angeles subway system (<http://www.mta.net>) that can whisk you to Hollywood or at least to MacArthur Park and the best deli in Los Angeles at Langers or over to Union Station. And while you may not believe this, it is also possible to walk, and walking tours of downtown have been arranged. So do that which is not supposed to happen in Los Angeles: go for a walk.

There are a number of guides to help you plan any pre- or post-conference touring. The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau (<http://www.lacvb.com>) publishes The Essential Los Angeles, available free of charge at all hotels. For a guide to events and sites, the Los Angeles Times publishes a calendar section that can be seen on the web at <http://www.calendarlive.com>. It is a complete list of all events in the city, including information on the Opera, Philharmonic, and the theaters that are a short distance away. More focused on downtown is a free tabloid, DowntownNews, which can be seen on the web at <http://www.ladowntownnews.com>. Finally, for museum information there is the new guide, Museum Los Angeles (<http://www.museumgoer.com>).

Tours have been arranged to one of L.A.'s most famous cultural institutions, the J. Paul Getty Center. While the Getty has received great attention, there are many other worthwhile institutions to visit. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery at The Huntington house some of the best American art collections. The best general collection is at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Located downtown are the Museum of Contemporary Art and the innovative Japanese American National Museum. Outside of the reach of DASH but not that far away is the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, the Southwest Museum, the Museum of Latin American Art, and the Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center for the Arts and Education. There is, in fact, a museum for nearly every taste, whether that includes movies, automobiles, surfing, or the popular, whimsical Museum of Jurassic Technology in Santa Monica. Finally, for the sports-minded, the Staples Center for basketball and hockey can be reached through DASH, and Dodger Stadium is not very far away either.

It is true that Los Angeles is always reinventing itself and this is especially true in architecture. There are some stunning buildings downtown, most of them used often in the movies, such as the Bradbury building. Across the street from the hotel is the Los Angeles Public Library, which has arisen from a terrible fire with the best of the old interior restored and a modern frame around it. If you want to see architecture in the making, you can take DASH uphill or walk to where the new Disney Hall, designed by Frank Ghery, is underway. A block further along is the new Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels, designed by Jose Rafael Moneo. The old and earthquake-damaged St. Vibianas Cathedral can still be visited downtown. If you are a railway buff, historic Union station is not far away, and across the street is the site of the original Los Angeles pueblo, which combines the historic and the kitsch.

You may want to take some time out and journey to the Los Angeles Times Book Festival that takes place on campus at UCLA during Saturday and Sunday of the convention. This has become one of the spring events in Los Angeles for anyone interested in books. It is an extravaganza of booksellers, publishers, authors, agents, and readers coming together to celebrate creativity in print. There are lectures, book signings, book sales, demonstrations, and other events that attract about 100,000 avid readers.

Finally, along with Bob Skotheim, the President of The Huntington, I look forward to welcoming you to The Huntington for a reception on Saturday. A unique combination of library, art collections, and botanical gardens, The Huntington is well known to many Americanists because of the depth of its library collections in our field, but please also come and enjoy the gardens, as they will be in bloom at the time of the meeting. Two exhibits that might surprise you will be up at this time: one on Darwin and another on astronomy, both drawn mostly from our collections. So join us for the reception and enjoy the meeting.