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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Memories and Bloody Marys: how the Mexican-themed bar La Cita became a cultural crossroads
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Memories and Bloody Marys: how the Mexican-themed bar La Cita became a cultural crossroads
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1
MERMORIES AND BLOODY MARYS:
HOW THE MEXICAN-THEMED BAR LA CITA BECAME A CULTURAL CROSSROADS
By
SAMANTA HELOU
________________________________________________________________________
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)
May 2017
Copyright 2017 Samanta Helou
2
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to the people that breathe life into La Cita and make it the unique and special place
that it is. Thank you for sharing your stories, time, and perspectives with me; without you, this
thesis wouldn’t have been possible. I would like to thank Josh Kun, my thesis chair, for his
continued support and guidance. His example of digging for meaning beyond surface
assumptions of cultural products, whether they be menus or songs, is a constant inspiration to me
and gave me a lens through which to examine La Cita. I am grateful for Sasha Anawalt, my
second reader, for her patience and energetic encouragement. Thank you to Peggy Bustamante,
my third reader, for inspiring me to think of new ways to tell stories. Special thanks to my best
friends Jarrod Finley and Sarah Bennett for spending hours talking through this project with me
and for your loving support. Eternally grateful for my mother, Leticia Hernandez, whose
example of strength, love, and, resilience inspires me daily. Thank you for your wisdom. This
thesis is dedicated to the place that started it all: La Cita. May you continue to wrap your arms
around an eclectic array of people and may you continue to host magical nights of music,
diversity, and cross-cultural sharing.
3
Abstract
La Cita—a bar and club that is at once a Latinx immigrant dive and hipster hangout— sits across
the street from the long ago demolished Bunker Hill and Angel’s Fight (the last remains of the
complex street car system that once traversed the bustling downtown).
In this thesis, I explore the history of La Cita, its evolution, and what its existence means to a city
that constantly attempts to erase its past. With over a 100 years of history, this space is both
cross-cultural and multigenerational, existing as a liminal space where many worlds in Los
Angeles collide.
Through interviews with bartenders, regulars, owners, and academics, the thesis tells the story of
the bar and venue and why it’s important for marginalized communities that make the space a
second home.
4
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 2
Abstract 3
Article 5
Bibliography 30
5
It’s Sunday afternoon in November at downtown L.A. bar and dance hall La Cita, and the
sound of wind exiting the bellows of an accordion spills out into the street, the melodies
engraved in the memories of the many immigrants who call this place a second home. The house
band Doble Poder goes into a rendition of the classic cumbia song “Cumbia Sampuesana” by
Ancieto Molina. Colombian in origin, the song—like the genre—has spread across Latin
American and U.S. borders. Partners quickly form and the crowd dances in sync to the age-old
three step sway.
Upon entering, your eyes take a minute to adjust to the darkness, which is punctuated by
sparkling Christmas lights and a deep red hue that envelops the whole bar. A wooden and brass
divider separates the indoor bar from the dance floor allowing curious bar patrons to peek
between the rails and observe the dance floor interactions.
6
The room is filled with after-church Latinxs in their Sunday best: sparkly dresses, cowboy hats,
leather boots, and big polished belt buckles. It’s an older crowd—the dancers and barflies are
mostly in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. They come to enjoy the live music that ranges from classic
rancheras and corridos to old cumbia and merengue favorites.
This is just one of La Cita’s worlds. Make your way across the dance floor, past tables and chairs
covered in formal linen and beer buckets, through the red-tiled hallway that turns your skin into a
devilish color, and you’re in another one. A bright neon sign tells you where you’ve come: “El
Patio.”
The cumbia sounds are a distant muffle. El Patio’s music is punk rock. A newcomer might
mistake it for a completely different bar. The age range drops, the crowd diversifies: white punks
and bikers, Chicanx hipsters, and a few of the old timers who prefer the sunlight. Above is the
skyline of financial district skyscrapers, monuments to where Bunker Hill once stood.
7
It’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, a make-your-own Bloody Mary extravaganza that attracts all types
of misfits. Calixto and Rommel, two patio bartenders, work the bar. Calixto, born in Guadalajara
but raised in San Diego, has been living in L.A. for 20 years. A born performer and front man for
local garage/punk band Barrio Tiger, he’s short with dark curly hair, a pencil-thin mustache and
a sassy, take-no-shit demeanor with a caring heart. He stands in stark contrast to his bartending
counterpart, Rommel, who is 6 foot 2, dons a long wavy beard, glasses, and kind eyes. He is soft-
spoken for an avowed Satanist.
The borders between La Cita’s worlds are regularly crossed. At the far end of the patio, a group
of tattooed Chicana punks slurp down their Bloody Mary’s and hurry inside to dance cumbia. At
the same time, a middle-aged Latino man from inside in a cowboy hat, satin dress shirt, and
8
studded boots walks outside and lights a cigarette. No one looks up. No one is surprised. It’s
business as usual.
La Cita is a place like no other in Los Angeles. For more than 60 years, it has wrapped its arms
around a diverse set of the city’s residents—from recent Central American immigrants to second
generation Chicanx feminists—making people feel at home amid its red tiles and sparkling
lights.
In a city that is increasingly razing the old to make way for the new (residents included), La Cita
is a place that has managed to maintain its core by staying inclusive to the immigrants that have
made the place a second home for decades, while at the same time adapting to new generations.
La Cita functions as a liminal space, forming a cultural crossroads of sorts. While downtown
continues to demolish and rebuild, La Cita remains a welcoming space that’s intergenerational,
multiethnic, and transnational, where seemingly disparate cultures can freely interact,
communicate, and collaborate.
“You might be sitting next to a full-on cholo, who might be sitting next to a guy from the
Midwest on business, who might be sitting next to a punk rocker, who might be sitting next to an
old vaquero. That’s America,” Calixto, the patio bartender, explains.
Sunday Bloody Sunday was one of the events that put the patio of La Cita on the map as a
cultural space and weekend hangout for younger generations. It was started by Calixto, who has
been at La Cita for 8 years.
9
Sundays are his favorite because of the mixture that’s created when the older Latinx crowd
inside collides with the eccentric crowd outside. “It’s an interesting intersection of two worlds
and I like it best when they mingle. In a perfect world I like to say I build bridges with booze,”
Calixto says.
10
Day time usually brings in first generation Latinxs who have been coming here for years to
drink beer, listen to Mexican music, and watch soccer games on TV, but as day turns to night the
music offerings can range from punk and reggae DJ sets, old school hip hop playlists, rockabilly
trios, up and coming Afro-Latin artists, and Latin alternative bands from both sides of the border.
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact type of person that comes here. “We wrap our arms around a lot of
people and that’s the way we like it. We force cultures together, and the results are fantastic,”
Carl Lofgren, one the owners, says.
“I’ve been to other Mexican bars but I feel comfortable here,” Tony, a regular since 1968, says.
A second generation Mexican, Tony grew up in the now-demolished Bunker Hill neighborhood
and he remembers passing by La Cita. After serving in the military and once he was old enough
11
to drink, he became a regular. He now lives in La Puente and his journey to La Cita includes
driving to El Monte, taking a bus to downtown, eating fried shrimp at the “Original Shrimp
Place” on 3
rd
and Broadway then going to “El Patio” for a few beers. Even though he frequents
other Mexican bars he especially enjoys La Cita because of the location amidst the downtown
skyscrapers and the connection he’s built with Calixto, who serves him in the patio. “I like to
talk to the bartender who’s from Guadalajara and enjoy the sunlight. I feel at home here,” he
says.
It’s that second home feeling that brings people back again and again. There’s a sense of a
community that’s built around the space, both inside and outside, in Spanish and in English.
Working class Latinxs, who are often alienated, have a place to speak their language, hear their
music, and connect with people having similar experiences.
Antonio, an indoor bartender from Sinaloa who has been working at the bar since 2002, sees
himself as providing a service beyond just serving drinks, “I feel like I’m not only a bartender
but a counselor, therapist, even a comedian,” he explains. “I think this place is a shelter for
Latinos. You can come here and talk, you can come and only watch TV, but you feel safe.”
Two other indoor bartenders, Eunice and Monica, have also been working at La Cita since the
early 2000s. They make an effort to throw birthday parties for their Sunday regulars. “For many
people, it’s the first time they celebrate their birthday in years,” Monica explains. “Many of us
are immigrants who don’t have family here.”
12
One of her regulars is a woman in her 50’s who once mentioned that she had never celebrated
her birthday. Monica took it upon herself to organize a celebration. The staff pooled together
money and she decorated the place with balloons, brought food, and the classic La Cita birthday
cake—baked in the shape of a naked man or woman, depending on your dessert pleasure. The
woman was so appreciative that on another staff member's birthday she brought them a huge pot
of homemade Oaxacan-style black mole.
Similar happenings occur in the patio as well. Recently, a potluck was held in order to raise
money for Planned Parenthood. Guests baked pies, cooked vegetarian dishes, and grilled meat.
Conversations were had around social issues and the future of our country. In the end, almost a
thousand dollars were raised.
Like the Latinx music programming on Sundays that provides space for immigrants to share a
common culture and experience, weekly events like Mustache Mondays have also sought to
create a community among other marginalized groups. Mustache Mondays is a queer dance party
staple that was hosted at La Cita for seven years. The event offered queer patrons—especially
those of color—a night of their own within the space. Attendees were encouraged to dress up and
express themselves freely through art, fashion, and dance while resident DJs spun everything
from hip-hop to house music.
13
On a Monday afternoon, Mel, a Chicana hairstylist and La Cita regular, walks in, passes the
long corridor and Christmas lights indoor to the daylight of “El Patio.” She walks to her usual
spot, a place dubbed “the Hen House,” where a group of female regulars drink, smoke cigarettes,
and catch up. She says there’s a joke: “Not more than one cock in the hen house at a time.” But
it’s also an informal rule. If two or more men are sitting in the area and the group of women
walks in, they know they have to get up. “They’re usually shamed if they don’t,” Mel explains.
She sits, bright red hair in 1940’s curls hanging on the side of her face, and takes a cigarette out
of her purse and lights it. There’s a tattoo on her forearm that reads “La Cita” in cursive.
Rommel already knows what she wants: Titos and soda. It’s her weekly after-work routine.
14
This place is her sanctuary. An unpretentious safe space that she describes as “an infrastructure
of weirdos.” She explains, “You can be sitting next to a millionaire and someone on food stamps
and you’ll never know because it’s not a place where you’re supposed to prove yourself.”
La Cita has also served as a refuge and source of protection for Mel. At one point in her 20’s she
found herself in an abusive relationship, and in the aftermath of the breakup, her ex-boyfriend
attempted to come to La Cita. When he began to speak about her, one of the bartenders told him,
“You can order a beer, but if you're gonna talk about her, you're gonna have to get the fuck out.
As far as I'm concerned, it's her bar.” That’s when Mel realized La Cita was far more than a
place she came to drink. “It was my community taking care of me,” she says.
As a Chicana she describes La Cita as a place where both first and second generation Latinxs
belong. Since all the bartenders speak Spanish, it’s a place where you don’t have to speak
English if you don’t want to. But you also don’t have to subscribe to a level or type of
“Latinoness.” You can just as easily sit inside and belt out Vicente Fernandez as you can listen to
punk and smoke cigarettes on the patio. “Someone doesn't have to be less Latino and someone
doesn't have to be Latino enough. And that connection doesn't happen many places,” Mel says.
A lineage has formed at La Cita, where different generations have a place to intersect and
explore what it means to be Latinx. “I think this is a beautiful place where I can still always feel
connected with my roots and still keep evolving without losing that sense of myself,” Mel
explains.
15
Feminist Chicanx theorist, Gloria Anzaldúa describes borderlands as “physically present where
two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory,
where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals
shrinks with intimacy (Anzaldúa 2012, preface).” In this same vein, La Cita is a borderland
where cultures, languages, and generations collide and flow through its space.
The inside and outside bar, the different programming at night, the day time, the night time, the
weekend, are all worlds that exist at La Cita and they often intermix in a unique way. “The space
sometimes highlighted those difference and sometimes let them play out in ways that they can’t
play out in other places. Like you didn’t have hipsters hanging out with day laborers outside of
that bar but inside the bar that interchange could happen,” says Revel Sims, a gentrification and
displacement expert and Urban Planning Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin, who
also worked as a bartender for almost six while receiving his PhD at UCLA.
Often times, La Cita is described as being two completely different bars, indoor vs. outdoor, but
in reality the boundaries are constantly blurred and in transition. You just have to spend enough
time here to see it.
“There’s a Zapatista saying, “we want a world where many worlds fit,” and I think that while not
political, La Cita celebrates that in a way that’s genuine,” explains Sims.
As a day progresses at La Cita, people create their own migration patterns, moving back and
forth between the patio and the inside. “If you are lucky to get past that point, sit inside at any
16
time or outside at any time, it will be just the same. The same love, the same strength around
you,” Mel says.
In an increasingly segregated and gentrified city, La Cita has become a place of belonging for
immigrants, minorities, and misfits all cohabiting in a cultural borderland. It’s the representation
of a fluid border that’s completely open: “Where we can all just live freely in each other's
worlds,” Mel describes.
La Cita’s reputation as a refuge is due in part to its history of inclusion that stretches back to
when the building first became a bar in the 1950’s. Despite waves of mass deportations and
discriminatory policies that sought to alienate the Latinx population in Los Angeles, La Cita has
been here welcoming Latinx immigrants as a space of safe leisure. Through its décor, music, and
drink selection, La Cita was created to serve an increasing Latinx population.
17
La Cita’s location has witnessed over a 100 years of Los Angeles history. It sits across the
street from the long ago demolished Bunker Hill and Angel’s Fight, the last remains of the
complex streetcar system that once traversed the bustling downtown.
Bunker Hill was seen as a fashionable place to live in the late 1800’s, but as more residential
buildings sprung up, wealthy inhabitants of Victorian mansions moved to nearby neighborhoods.
Bunker Hill began to decline, and by the 1960’s the area was torn down to make way for
skyscrapers and a new financial and arts district, displacing long-time and often low-income
residents.
Built in 1897 but first put to use in 1909, La Cita was originally part of a three-building, three-
18
story complex that existed as a hotel on upper floors and as storefronts on the ground floor. The
buildings then went through various iterations and owners; there was a hat shop, then a curios
shop. Then in the 1940’s, where La Cita stands today at 336 S. Hill Street it was the New Palace
Cafe. It later became the Brass Rail Bar when it was bought by Al Daswick in the early 1960’s.
When Daswick bought it, the Brass Rail was a working class bar that catered to the patrons and
workers of Grand Central Market, many of them Latinxs. Latinx immigrants had made the area a
center of commerce and entertainment, often shopping at Grand Central Market next door and
attending Spanish-language film screenings at the Million Dollar Theater.
The new owner, Al Daswick, was a second generation Russian-American from an Eastern
European immigrant neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A few years after WWII, he
moved west and settled in Bunker Hill. He took over a bar on 3
rd
street between Broadway and
Hill. At first, business was awful. But then, a group of Mexican men walked in to drink and he
welcomed them, happy to finally have some business. The next day, he went to Olvera Street and
bought sombreros and sarapes that he hung on the walls.
While by today’s standards this act of stereotyping might be seen as painfully politically
incorrect, it apparently worked: the bar became crowded with a mainly Mexican clientele
seeking a welcoming place to drink and hang out. That’s when Daswick realized there was a
market for bars that catered to Mexicans.
Daswick eventually bought the space and slowly turned it into a full-fledged Mexican-themed
19
bar. In the late 1960s, he changed the name to La Cita and decorated the entrance with tiled
arches and Mexican flag logos. His advisor was his Mexican right-hand man, Gilberto Gonzales,
who was not only a manager but was also in charge of booking Latin music acts for the bars and
dance salons Daswick eventually came to own.
By the 1980s, Daswick owned three other bars in the area: La Hacienda Real (where artists like
Los Tigres del Norte and Paquita la del Barrio used to perform before they were famous), Las
Catacumbas, and Salon Broadway. They all catered specifically to an immigrant population from
Mexico and Central America that was growing due to the economic crisis in Mexico and the
Central American civil wars propelled by Reagan-era Cold War interventions. By the 1990’s, the
U.S. had a Central American population of over a million people, many of whom settled in Los
Angeles, causing an increased demand for Latinx goods and entertainment.
Inspired by bars he saw in Tijuana and his own imagination, Daswick quickly tried to use La
Cita to engage this expanding market. He loaded the place with brass rails, filled the floors and
hallway to the patio with red tiles, and adorned the place with red light bulbs. “I remember my
dad used to come home with light bulbs and red paint and we would spend the afternoon dipping
them in paint,” recalls Al Daswick’s son, Michael Daswick. Al Daswick commissioned the
infamous mural on La Cita’s stage of a Spanish matador kneeling before a bull. At the old
Hacienda Real there were even life sized monuments of charros, “senoritas”, and bulls.
He then started booking norteño, cumbia, and ranchera bands to play at his bars. These
performances were emceed by DJs from local Latinx radio stations. Daswick also hired rotating
20
conjuntos to play at each bar after the main performers. “So if you were a customer at La Cita
you saw five different bands in a night,” Daswick says.
The logo of La Cita became a silhouette of a woman in a flowing dress and man in a cowboy hat
dancing. “That attracted all the Latinos that walked on Broadway. And people felt at home
because even the colors in here are like the Mexican flag,” Antonio, an indoor bartender,
explains.
By the 1990’s, most of Al Daswick’s bars had closed down, but La Cita remained. The old man
eventually passed away, and his son Gregory ran it until it 2006, when it was bought by Carl
Lofgren and his partners David Neupert, Pete Lenavitt and Jeff Semone.
21
Lofgren, who is also white, appreciated the Latinx culture that existed at La Cita and sought
to maintain it (although with modernizations). “It became quickly apparent that we had bought
something very special,” he says. We wanted to honor and cherish that. We took a little research
trip to Mexico City to get a sense of what was going on down there musically and culturally and
while we were down there, we made a commitment that we were going to take the history of this
bar, honor it, but move it into the future.”
They removed some of the brass rails, re-painted, dimmed the lights, hired new security, and
updated the liquor options but otherwise retained its original feel. He lengthened the hours of
operation during the week to 2am, and began programming DJ’s and bands that catered to a
more alternative audience, such as a guest DJ set by acclaimed street artist Shepard Fairey. These
changes quickly began to attract new clientele, and La Cita’s new era as a hipster hot-spot began.
“Dance Right” was a Thursday night staple at La Cita, partly hosted by Fairey—it was an event
that brought up-and-coming DJs and local music acts together. The bar could have easily been
turned into one of the many gentrifying mixology bars that were popping up all over downtown
at the time, but instead it created a new culture and also retained the old. “Gentrification
happened to La Cita already,” Rommel, a La Cita bartender says. “It just found a balance. It still
keeps the afternoon crowd, it still keeps its culture, the old school.”
El Patio also evolved into its own cultural space within La Cita that caters to a younger artistic
22
audience during the afternoon happy hour with punk, oldies, and hip hop songs on rotation
throughout the week.
Not all customers were happy with the change in ownership though; some of the old-timers
stopped coming when the banda stopped playing on weekend nights. But by keeping Sunday
intact, Lofgren ensured many of the old regulars still have a space to meet, catch up, and dance
as they have been doing for 20, 30, and even 40 years in the same location.
One of Lofgren’s favorite La Cita memories is of a group of white frat guys walking up to the
entrance. Lofgren warned them that it was a Mexican bar just as he had been warned when he
first set foot in La Cita. They came in anyways. Hours later, he found one of them on stage
23
belting a perfect rendition of a classic ranchera song. The mostly older Latinx crowd roared in
applause and carried the guy over to the bar and bought him shots. “That was one of the things
that I was really excited and proud about,” he says, “That we are building the cultures together.”
Despite changing many of its original Latinx dance nights, La Cita has managed to maintain a
sense of history while cultivating a new generation of Latinx audiences.
“We took it very seriously,” Lofgren says, “We started doing a lot of research, started going to a
lot of cultural events, and I started to see this undercurrent of young Latino artists like the sons
and grandsons and daughters of customers here who were starting to create their own versions of
cumbia, norteño, ranchero, all those sorts of styles.”
24
Grammy award-winning band La Santa Cecilia and the internationally touring Chicano Batman
both used La Cita to build their early followings. Jorge Avila, co-founder of Qvole Collective, a
music management company with a roster of music acts he calls “progressive Latino music” and
“black and brown Avant-garde,” was Chicano Batman’s first manager. He recalls La Cita as one
of the only venues allowing these types of bands to nurture a local scene. “I don’t think they [La
Santa Cecilia and Chicano Batman] would be where they are now if it weren’t for La Cita,”
Avila says. “I feel like it’s that important.” That tradition still continues: younger bands like
Quitapenas mixes sounds across the Afro-Latinx diaspora, and Buyepongo pairs cumbia, punta
and merengue with jazz and funk.
La Cita’s role as a cultural bridge for a Latinx past and present is necessary in a city that
has historically made erasing its Mexican past part of its mission. In a concept he likens to
the whitewashing of walls, historian William Deverell, author of Whitewashed Adobe, pieces
together moments in the city’s past to show how Los Angeles built its identity on the erasure and
distortion of a Mexican past. “Los Angeles, once part of Mexico itself, came of age through
appropriating, absorbing, and occasionally obliterating the region’s connections to Mexican
places and Mexican people,” he explains (Deverell 2005, 7).
25
A blatant example of this appropriation is Olvera street in downtown. It was built as a space for
white leisure where the city’s Anglo inhabitants could temporarily enjoy an ideal “Spanish” past
casually strolling the cobbled stones of the “pueblo,” interacting with workers made to dress up
in Mexican costumes, and gazing at stereotypical depictions of sleepy Mexicans next to cacti.
There were also attempts to marginalize the city’s Mexican presence through exclusionary
practices like restrictive covenants, preventing Mexicans and other people of color from living in
white neighborhoods. Mexican culture was accepted only if molded and sanitized by white civic
boosters and city entrepreneurs. They could accept Mexican culture as a form of entertainment
but could not accept Mexicans living in their communities.
26
The demolition of Chavez Ravine to make way for Dodger Stadium, the conversion of
Sonoratown to Chinatown, and the obliteration of multiethnic communities for freeway
construction are among other examples of this erasure and distortion of the Latinx past in the
collective Los Angeles memory. “Los Angeles matured, at least in part, by covering up places,
people and histories that those in power found unsettling,” analyzes Deverell (Deverell 2005, 8).
Six miles northeast of La Cita is a Los Angeles neighborhood fighting a contemporary
version of the whitewashed adobe: Highland Park. Once a predominantly Latinx working-class
neighborhood, it is now sprinkled with craft beer bars, third wave coffee shops, and vintage
boutiques.
On a sunny Friday at a neighborhood coffee shop, cultural historian and professor Norman Klein
is surrounded by minimalist metal chairs and sleek wood tables full of fashionable millennials
drinking $4 coffees.
“Now the idea is that cities are coming back and cities are trying to retrieve some sort of
memory,” explains the fast talking native New Yorker, who wrote the book on LA’s penchant
for erasing its past, The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory. “But is
it really coming back?” For Klein, the past is not returning, but is being replaced by a sanitized
version of what once existed. Communities are being displaced and forgotten.
It’s this very erasure, as neighborhoods gentrify, that La Cita has managed to avoid. Despite the
void left by a now forgotten Bunker Hill, completely demolished in the name of urban renewal,
27
the bar survived. “Erasure is always partial,” says Klein, “It is strange what they didn’t get
around to tear down because it wasn’t worth it, it was so useless, it was so irrelevant, no one
even thought it was worth the trouble.”
La Cita’s perseverance and preservation of a history kept alive, has created a link between Los
Angeles’s past, present, and future in a way that is rare for a city of amnesia. “Culture is dynamic
or else it’s just trivial. And La Cita for some reason has managed to not be trivial. These places
are really important, they become anchors,” explains Klein.
Having a place where Latinxs can take up space is just as relevant today as it was 60 years ago;
Los Angeles continues to be highly fragmented, currently ranking as the country’s tenth most
segregated city. Whether it be through the music, beer, or dance, La Cita is a place where
connections to a past left behind are forged, insuring that it’s never erased or whitewashed. It has
become that rare place where Latinxs can speak a common language and share in a culture that is
constantly being either removed, coopted, or molded for the benefit of the powers that be.
“I think it’s that valuation of La Cita’s previous existence and the maintenance of that previous
existence in its current form that has allowed it to be not just the typical gentrifying bar,”
explains Revel Sims. “They didn’t displace what was going on there already. They kept it, and
it’s become central and in fact has contributed to the new identity of La Cita in a big way as
well.”
28
Despite constant reassurance from everyone I spoke to that the place will remain intact,
gentrification is rearing its ugly head with the looming construction of a residential building next
door.
Antonio, one of the indoor bartenders, sits on the left side of the patio next to the entrance. He’s
surrounded by the ornate iron work that decorates the metal fence walls. He looks up at the
barbed wire circling the outdoor enclosure, as the downtown skyline glimmers above him. Al
Green is blasting from the speakers, but you can still hear Chalino Sanchez belting inside. The
sounds merge at the staircase separating both spaces. When asked what happens if we lose a
place like La Cita, he says, “We lose history, we lose the wire that connects both cultures…I
would die without La Cita.” He tears up. It’s a scary thought.
29
30
Bibliography
Ochoa, Enrique, and Gilda L. Ochoa. Latino Los Angeles: transformations, communities, and
activism. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005.
Klein, Norman M. The history of forgetting: Los Angeles and the erasure of memory. London:
Verso, 2008.
Deverell, William. Whitewashed adobe: the rise of Los Angeles and the remaking of its Mexican
past. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands: the new mestiza = La frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books,
2012.
Kun, Josh. Audiotopia: music, race, and America. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2005.
Rodriguez, Antonio. Interview by Samanta Helou. November 14, 2016.
Lofgren, Carl. Interview by Samanta Helou. November 18, 2016.
Hernandez, Calixto. Interview by Samanta Helou. November 19, 2016.
Muñoz, Monica. Interview by Samanta Helou. November 19, 2016.
Huerta, Tony. Interview by Samanta Helou. November 19, 2016.
Marquez, Melanie. Interview by Samanta Helou. November 21, 2016.
Avila, Jorge. Interview by Samanta Helou. November 23, 2016.
Carrillo, Rommel. Interview by Samanta Helou. November 28, 2016.
Sims, Revel. Interview by Samanta Helou. March 8, 2017.
Klein, Norman. Interview by Samanta Helou. March10, 2017.
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
La Cita—a bar and club that is at once a Latinx immigrant dive and hipster hangout—sits across the street from the long ago demolished Bunker Hill and Angel’s Flight (the last remains of the complex streetcar system that once traversed the bustling downtown). In this thesis, I explore the history of La Cita, its evolution, and what its existence means to a city that constantly attempts to erase its past. With over a 100 years of history, this space is both cross-cultural and multi-generational, existing as a liminal space where many worlds in Los Angeles collide. Through interviews with bartenders, regulars, owners, and academics, the thesis tells the story of the bar and venue and why it’s important for marginalized communities that make the space a second home.
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Helou, Samanta
(author)
Core Title
Memories and Bloody Marys: how the Mexican-themed bar La Cita became a cultural crossroads
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism (The Arts)
Publication Date
04/20/2017
Defense Date
03/24/2017
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
bar,bar culture,Bunker Hill,cantina,dive bar,downtown Los Angeles,gentrification,La Cita,Los Angeles,Mexican bar,OAI-PMH Harvest,third space
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Kun, Josh (
committee chair
), Anawalt, Sasha (
committee member
), Bustamante, Peggy (
committee member
)
Creator Email
samantahelou@gmail.com,shelou@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-363757
Unique identifier
UC11258279
Identifier
etd-HelouSaman-5258.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-363757 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-HelouSaman-5258.pdf
Dmrecord
363757
Document Type
Thesis
Rights
Helou, Samanta
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Tags
bar culture
cantina
dive bar
La Cita
Mexican bar
third space