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El Monte and South El Monte reimagined through arts, culture and activism

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El Monte and South El Monte reimagined through arts, culture and activism

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Content El Monte and South El Monte
Reimagined Through Arts, Culture and Activism
By
Sarah Wolfson
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL
FOR COMMUNICA TION AND JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM (THE ARTS))
May 2022
COPYRIGHT 2022 Sarah Wolfson
For my
Family, Community, El Monte
and Mariana Baserga, Our Angel of Monte
ii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................................ii
List of Figures ……………………………………………………………............................iv-vi i
Introduction: Multi-generational Leadership Calls for Change...................................................01
Chapter 1: A Place I Call Home.................................................................................................. 07
Chapter 2: Two Tales Tell Two Different Histories.....................................................................11
Chapter 3: Local History Resurrected in Ethnic Studies............................................................ 23
Chapter 4: A Lending Library Offers Healing............................................................................ 4 0
Chapter 5: A Love Song to the Community of El Monte........................................................... 45
Chapter 6: Murals Revived in the City of El Monte.................................................................. 55
Chapter 7: Cruising for History, a Bike Ride with SEMAP........................................................68
Epilogue: Drifting on a Memory….............................................................................................7 2
Bibliography............................................................................................................................... .75
iii
List of Figures
Figure 1: City of El Monte
Figure 2: Community members at Memories of El Monte
Figure 3: Vincent Montenegro before a football game, El Monte
Figure 4: Vintage football programs
Figure 5: Memories of El Monte literary material and live painting
Figure 6: Family home, El Monte
Figure 7: Hai Nam Association of Southern California Buddhist Temple, El Monte
Figure 8: Outside a liquor store, posted up in El Monte
Figure 9: Local businesses, El Monte
Figure 10: El Monte Historical Museum
Figure 11: Longtime residents of El Monte outside the El Monte Historical Museum
Figure 12: A wagon represents the pioneer settlers in front of El Monte Historical Museum
Figure 13: La Historia Historical Society Museum, El Monte
Figure 14: Former site of Hicks Camp, now Rio Vista Park, El Monte
Figure 15: Student at Arroyo High School, El Monte
Figure 16: Alfred Mendoza, ethnic studies teacher at Mountain View High School, El Monte
iv
Figure 17: Students in Alfred Mendoza’s ethnic studies class recite the poem “In Lak’ech”
Figure 18: Hicks Camp now the site of Rio Vista Park, El Monte
Figure 19: Hicks Camp map in the park
Figure 20: El Monte High School
Figure 21: Family friends, Whittier Narrows in the 1980s
Figure 22: The Gateway Exchange Apartments, El Monte
Figure 23: Wind sculpture at the Gateway Exchange Apartments, El Monte
Figure 24: Starlite Drive-in
Figure 25: El Monte zoning map
Figure 26: Arroyo High School students 1976
Figure 27: Matilija Lending Library
Figure 28: A glimpse in
Figure 29: Books line the shelves of the Matilija Lending Library, including SEMAP’s East of
East and Eat the Mouth That Feeds You by Carribean Fragoza
Figure 30: Andrew Yip and Amy J. Wong
Figure 31: Piano lessons at Memories of El Monte
Figure 32: Steven McGill teaches students every Saturday at Memories of El Monte
v
Figure 33: Arón Montenegro of Memories of El Monte
Figure 34: Carla Macal, co-founder of Memories of El Monte in front of her tiendita
Figure 35: Art Laboe, El Monte’s own personal DJ
Figure 36: The Red Pears, Jose Corona (L), Patrick Juarez, Luis Martinez and Henry Vargas (R)
Figure 37: She Brought Her People with Her, El Monte
Figure 38: Mural by SEMAP, El Monte
Figure 39: Community members in El Monte painting the mural
Figure 40: Elizabeth Jayme and her son learn about the city’s past
Figure 41: Onlookers read QR codes discovering the history of muralism in El Monte
Figure 42: Photo of film reel of South El Monte youth painting over graffiti
Figure 43: Young muralists
Figure 44: The Los Angeles Times covers mural ban in the ’70s
Figure 45: Artist Alonso Delgadillo in the process of painting She Brought Her People with Her
Figure 46: Caribbean Fragoza during a talk, El Monte
Figure 47: SEMAP bike ride down Tyler Avenue, El Monte
Figure 48: Bicyclists anticipate a poetry reading held at Matilija Lending Library, El Monte
Figure 49: The juxtaposition between homes, a house sits on Havenpark Avenue for years, as
housing developments spring up indicating promise or a further divide
vi
Figure 50: El Monte protesters march against hate and discrimination in the city
vii
Introduction
Multi-generational Leadership Calls for Change
Figure 1: The city of El Monte
Waking up to the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains, a backdrop to El Monte and
South El Monte, Vincent Montenegro, sixty-eight years old, remembers a time of explicit racism,
political protests, Friday night football games, and rock’n’roll dance halls. For most of his life,
he’s lived in El Monte, dedicated to bettering the community by mentoring youth and building
their self-esteem. His son, Arón Montenegro, thirty-four years of age, is a community organizer
1
and has done much the same. Arón Montenegro is harnessing youth activism and hope for
change, but the methods and outreach he exerts to raise political consciousness are different.
In July, he and his partner, Carla Macal, co-founded Memories of El Monte, an
autonomous space that gives breath to creative energy and freedom to residents searching for a
place to be themselves and give back. It serves as an umbrella for different groups organizing for
tenant rights and food equity. Operating independently from the confines and rules of the city, it
provides resources for the San Gabriel Valley communities: music classes, literary workshops,
and healing circles. They host events that honor localized traditions of “kickbacks” with food
and live performances grounded in recognition of femme and nonbinary expression.
Figure 2: Community members at Memories of El Monte
Along with Memories of El Monte, the art collective South El Monte Arts Posse (SEMAP)
preserves an accurate account of history in their book, East of East: The Making of Greater El
2
Monte. Engaging the community in an exchange of learning, they host cartography bike rides
that map different landmarks across the city, mural-making activities, and collaborate with
educators to utilize a hyperlocal history that encourages students to be future leaders.
As historians and truth-seekers, SEMAP has chronicled decades of Greater El Monte’s
history and played a significant role in piecing together, investigating, and challenging the
unwritten and neglected stories––a true revelation of voices and celebration of marginalized
groups. As noted in their book, SEMAP has digitized over 3,000 pieces of personal and city
archives and collaborated with Tropics of Meta and KCET in disseminating this material.
A lending library recently opened in the town square, close to a debunked
pioneer-themed park. The owners treasure auspicious moments manifested in storytelling.
Artists, building on the ethos of their ancestors and outside the constraints of elected
officials, are adding color to muted streets across the city. They are making music in the garage
of their parent’s homes and playing to sold-out audiences across the country. Neighbors
galvanized into a creative spirit participate in free piano lessons while strategizing around
housing issues.
The political underpinnings of the cities’ suburbanization––a population movement from
metropolitan areas to smaller towns––transformed the San Gabriel Valley that sharpened
institutional discrimination and heightened patterns of spatial isolation (Gónzalez 1978, 137).
Yet, as cultural shifts emerge, a grassroots democracy is uplifting and catalyzing
structural change in Greater El Monte. Growing out of a necessity of reclamation, we are
witnessing artists, organizers, and educators embodying grit and resilience and using the arts and
history as a vessel to awaken the cities of El Monte and South El Monte. This is the community,
and these are the stories collectively reimagined by arts, culture, and activism.
3
Some things change, and some stay the same
Each lesson is a teaching moment. As we come to terms with the past and move
forward, we recognize how culture and tradition are a part of the present. The everyday tools
serve as a vehicle for change. Topics of tension between city officials and constituents, a
history of displacement, modern-day gentrification, and painting over murals are some of the
strains marginalized groups have felt and fought. El Monte and South El Monte
communities have always been a part of this energy and action.
Figure 3: Vincent Montenegro before a football game, El Monte
| Courtesy of Vincent Montenegro
Vincent Montenegro was raised with four siblings on the west side of El Monte. This
four-point parameter stretches from Santa Anita Avenue, encompassing Hicks Camp and Arden
4
Village, to Baldwin Avenue. In high school, he recognized the mistreatment of Mexican American
students. Two high schools, Rosemead and Arroyo, just a few miles apart, were divided among
racial lines. “The long-haired Latino kids playing sports had to cut their hair,” he said.
He attended the Chicanx Moratorium in 1970, where Mexican American youth and
students demonstrated as part of an anti-war movement
against the U.S. Vietnam War and Mexican American
journalist Ruben Salazar was killed (Omi and Winant
1994, 95-160). This incident enlightened his perspective
on race and inequality. He found ways to trace the racial
segregation he saw in the mistreatment of people based
on race and ethnicity. Looking back at his life in El
Monte, he remembers the Valley Mall, when funds were
invested in the city before the white flight.
Figure 4: Vintage football programs
His connection to sports would evolve into adulthood, as he spent at least thirty-two years
volunteering as a coach, most recently the American Youth Soccer Organization. He became a
role model in the community. If it weren’t for the interruption from the Covid-19 pandemic, he
would still be making early weekend bike rides for practices, teaching young people about
camaraderie on and off the field. He supported and motivated youth. “I told them they’re worth
something, teaching them how to throw a baseball or kick a ball,” he said.
He turns to one of his five children, Arón Montenegro, reflecting on his achievements.
Thanks to his son, he has contextualized modern-day racism and socio-economic issues. “My son
has opened my eyes to a deeper awakening.”
5
While Arón Montenegro grew up with two sisters and two brothers, his involvement in
Honduras with land recuperations became the primary motivation for community organizing in
El Monte. In Honduras, he did a lot of soul searching, unpacking the generational trauma that his
family had experienced. He learned his role in resistance movements. “I don't need to go to
Honduras to fight the struggle. I need to do it in my community where I was raised,” he said.
“There’s a lot of police violence, human trafficking, state violence, mental health illness, and
food insecurity here in the city.”
Often, he will record and capture an injustice on his cell phone. He calls it out and shares
it widely. Arón Montenegro successfully stopped the development of a Walmart Supercenter in
2016 due to the environmental impact on the city. Most recently, he was asked by El Monte’s La
Madera Gardens to paint a mural over a tagged wall. These are common occurrences for Arón
Montenegro and a testament to his love for the community. Along with mutual-aid systems and
art collectives, he is writing a new chapter in history.
Figure 5: Memories of El Monte literary material and live mural painting
6
Chapter 1
A Place I Call Home
Figure 6: Family home, El Monte
The sound of police sirens and helicopters spin overhead, peaking at dusk, fusing with the
pulsating sound of bolero and banda music. Emotions of celebrations and conditioned trauma are
interwoven into the dualities rooted in suburban El Monte and South El Monte.
Early sunrises awakened by a fanfare of crowing, daily strolls accompanied with friendly
greetings, and if laboring was an art form, the mowing of lawns manufactured as
instrumentation. They are multicultural neighborhoods—family-style Vietnamese restaurants,
Buddhist temples, car dealerships, taquerias, barbershops, insurance companies, and industrial
7
warehouses. The towns are grounded in backyard gatherings, post-church pozole breakfasts,
familiar echoes of horns signaling the elote (corn) vendor, childhood jingles from the ice cream
truck, laughter and tears, racial profiling , and policing, the smoky scent of Tres Flores pomade,
crisp white T-shirts, Lowrider oldies , and ranchera music, slow and steady.
Figure 7: Hai Nam Association of Southern California Buddhist Temple, El Monte
The aesthetics of rasquachismo, a perspective developed by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto,
embraces the “hybridization” and “integration” of found objects and the visual arts. Discarded
material and figurines displayed on front porches, signage , and paintings on store windows evoke
sentiment and repurposed materials, celebrating commentary and culture (Shah 2019).
Art, then, is nurtured outside approval and delegation. This is home as I know it.
8
I grew up with the gang El Monte Flores across the street from my childhood home. Out
of respect, one of the veteranos, an older member of a subculture, would talk to my dad nearly
every morning––the 1990s: drive-by shootings and neighborhood fights. But also, tender
moments wrapped into chaos.
Figure 8: Outside a liquor store, posted up in El Monte
Further north, wealthier neighborhoods were picturesque, but our view obscured some
unpleasant realities. Generations before me have lived and pushed through these
hardships. “Why write a book about El Monte? Why does El Monte matter,” asked Alex Sayf
Cummings, associate professor at Georgia State University and co-editor of East of East: The
Making of Greater El Monte. “The so-called fringes or the so-called periphery matter a
lot––that’s where the crossroads of significant historical, political, economic, and cultural events
happen: the anarchist movement in Mexico in the early twentieth century; the transnational
migration,” she said.
9
We turn to a thriving art movement in El Monte and South El Monte. Two neighboring
cities share a similar upbringing as the laborers who built the city, the Mexican and Japanese
students who experienced first-hand segregation, and the pachucos, harassed in the 1940s by
law enforcement. There is a unified goal to create a better world for youth while ushering in the
sense of pride for those that paved the way forward.
Figure 9: Local businesses, El Monte
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Chapter 2
Two Tales Tell Two Different Histories
Figure 10: El Monte Historical Museum
When statues of confederate generals stand erect in the city, protests demand the removal
of such monuments. Objects that symbolize exclusion often address a more subtle grievance.
This is the case in El Monte and South El Monte, where a tale of two histories converge.
Memory and oral history are essential signifiers of present-day inequalities in a city
where stories of people of color are completely erased. When communities don’t see themselves
in an official narrative observed in the city, how does that speak to inclusion and diversity? This
concern was an entry point for historians and artists in El Monte and South El Monte.
11
El Monte was incorporated as a municipality in 1912 and South El Monte in 1958 but
was inhabited centuries before. History shows different ethnic groups fighting for equality for
years. There’s a practice of displacing people in the region the two cities remain today: the
Tongva tribe indigenous to Los Angeles, the Californios, Mexican revolutionary groups, and
multi-racial farmworkers––this a tribute to the roots of resistance (Fragoza et al. 2020).
El Monte is a multi-ethnic city with a population that is 65% Latinx and 33% Asian and
Asian American, according to Data USA, while South El Monte is 82.3% Latinx. The city of El
Monte, meaning the mountain in Spanish, lies between the San Gabriel and the Rio Hondo
Rivers, roughly twelve miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
The history of El Monte and South El Monte and the land it sits on tells the story of a
diverse and ever-evolving population that is also indelibly tied to racism and erasure. A false
narrative that American pioneers were the first settlers is preserved and woven into the U.S.
“western expansion following the Mexican American War of 1846-1848” (Fragoza et al. 2020,
1-14). This story is chronicled in the city’s official El Monte Historical Museum (EMHM) and
disputed by the arts collective, SEMAP.
12
Figure 11: Longtime residents of El Monte outside the El Monte Historical Museum
I met four men who frequent the El Monte museum courtyard, usually sitting in folding
lawn chairs shaded underneath a fern pine tree and giant cacti. A wooden wagon and its wheel
dominate the outside of the clay-colored, rancho-style multi-room building. There are sections
roped off showcasing bedroom decor and quilted blankets, a schoolhouse bearing worn desks
and students’ names inscribed on green chalkboards and black and white photos dusted with
age, featuring settlers from the mid-nineteenth century. It is also curated with artifacts from the
Great Depression era, including a grocery store with seeds that were once planted in the fertile
soil.
13
Figure 12: A wagon represents the pioneer settlers in front of El Monte Historical Museum
The crew who visits the garden aren’t represented inside the museum; they are Latino.
Under President Roosevelt’s New Deal, a 143-page book was written by The Works
Progress Administration in 1933, documenting an official history of the city. A manuscript
stated, “Unlike Los Angeles, San Gabriel and [many] other California cities, El Monte has no
Spanish, Mexican or even Indian background. It bears the outstanding distinction of being the
first purely and strictly American settlement in Southern California.”
The museum has not shifted its focus
The El Monte Historical Society who run the museum are descendants of these
American settlers. They formed the museum in 1958, inspired by a city-held pioneer parade that
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lasted from the 1930s well into the 1970s (Fragoza et al. 2020, 2). It chronicles an iteration of
history commemorating the frontiersmen and women who traveled the Santa Fe Trail and stopped
in Monte territory staking a claim. One was Ira Thompson, who they recognize as the first to
arrive in 1851. Ten months later, Captain Williams Johnson appeared, originating from
Lexington, Kentucky (King 1971, 317-332).
In the 1850s, a vigilante lynch mob known as the Monte boys openly targeted
Indigenous and Mexican people (Wilson and Lynch 2020, 49-55). They are a part of a long line
of white supremacist groups that continued with the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi
Party’s local headquarters once located on Peck Road in El Monte.
“There was no law or order here––it was the wild west,” said the historical society’s
vice-president Chuck Hoffman, who grew up in El Monte. Often used as a rest area, “there were
a number of banditos that would steal the wagons and the Monte boys, who were former Texas
Rangers, would go after them. They were a vicious group, but they were also trying to protect
the people here.” This idea of justice centers violence as an excuse to “protect” and has harmed
communities of color.
Hoffman described El Monte’s roots as an agricultural landscape ripe with tobacco
farms and corn, strawberries, and walnuts. “When you talk about California, this is one of those
areas that were easy to till and pull up the trees and weeds,” he said. “You could plant anything
in the ground, and it would grow.”
But who worked in these fields? Encased in the museum are a few images from the 1930s
highlighting Mexican and Japanese Americans, including a picture of a Japanese family shown in
the front yard of their home, an image of a dance in full swing, the Rio Grande Gas Station, and
El Tengo Pool Hall situated in the city’s barrios.
15
Aside from these relics, a white American patriotism is pronounced throughout. Hoffman
said that at one time, there was more visual representation of the Latinx community and photos
were displayed in a gallery room of the museum. “Right now, we’re trying to upgrade a little
more Latinx and Japanese history,” he said. “Part of the problem we have here with the museum
is the community has changed culturally from what it was. And so, when people come in asking,
where is that culture, I say, ‘I am sorry that wasn’t here in this period that we’re covering––not
all museums have everything, but we’re trying to update to get a little more modern.’”
In reality, Indigenous Tongva people inhabited this territory some 7,000 years ago
(Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe). The Spanish missionaries then colonized the area in the late 1700s,
and Mexicans were rooted here, owning land dispersed in the San Gabriel Valley (John 2021,
28). Many of the land grants were not honored when the Mexican-American War ended with the
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (History 2020). Some Californios became American citizens,
but The California Land Act of 1851 made it difficult for Mexican landholders, requiring proof
of holdings (Reft 2020, 43). The new American settlers that Hoffman is speaking about
essentially stole land.
The removal of historical accounts and lack of visibility in the museum have provoked
conflict. A few feet away on Tyler Avenue, an entirely different history is archived at La Historia
Historical Society Museum. The rectangular building is concealed from the outside, blending in
with the stucco wall lining the I-10 Freeway. Lesser-known stories, or ones not indoctrinated by
the city, acknowledge the Asian and Mexican communities and their contributions to the city.
The museum was founded in 1998 when former El Monte Mayor Ernie Gutiérrez and his wife
Olga Gutiérrez wanted a safe space to share experiences of racial bias growing up in the shanty
towns of the barrios (Peña, 2021). The museum was designed to preserve memories and objects
16
without any interference. La Historia’s current president, Rosa Peña, said its members would
often gather at nearby parks and host reunions with residents representing all the barrios, from
Medina Courts to Las Flores.
Figure 13: La Historia Historical Society Museum, El Monte
Like the El Monte museum, La Historia illustrates elementary schools, pool halls,
markets, and churches. The sepia-colored photos show families, congregations, celebrations,
and day-to-day life in the underrepresented and unincorporated areas of El Monte.
17
Figure 14: Former site of Hicks Camp, now Rio Vista Park, El Monte
Discriminatory practices: From barrios and labor strikes to immigration policies
From 1910 until 1972, Mexican and Asian migrants flowed in and labored on the farms
(Gonzales-Guerin 1996, 25-47). As the railroad industry emerged, an influx of people made long
journeys seeking seasonal jobs. Roughly nine migrant camps grew, with its most populated,
Hicks and Hays, named after the labor contractor Robert Hicks. Hicks Camp stretched over
twenty-two acres (González 1978, 23-32). These communities were not formally integrated and
became segregated colonias but formed a collective identity.
In his book titled, In Search of the Mexican Beverly Hills, Jerry González, an associate
professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio, examined how suburbanization
“exacerbated barrio poverty” and “deepened long-standing patterns of racial and class-based
18
segregation, which gave a new spatial sense.” Mexican colonias were swept up in urban
development’s much like today. The Asian diaspora, too, was integral to El Monte and South El
Monte’s cultural makeup.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Immigration Act of 1924 barred much migration
from China until 1943 (History 2019) . It also shaped future migration patterns. Harsh
immigration practices would dedicate what ethnic groups were afforded rights and determined
access and entrance to the U.S. “Both dispossessions of Indians and Mexicans, and the
restrictions imposed on Blacks, Chinese and Japanese immigrant workers contributed to the
realization of European-American class aspirations in the state,” wrote Tomás Almaguer in
Racial Fault Lines.
The discriminatory California Alien Land Law in 1913 and 1920 banned Japanese
farmers from acquiring land. By this time, however, white landowners leased land to Japanese
growers. Due to “macroeconomic” factors, the relationship between Japanese farm operators and
Mexican farm workers became strained (Deckrow 2021, 174-183). These economic shifts incited
the 1933 Berry Strike led by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers’ International Union
(CAWIU) and mainly Mexican farmworkers in the Hicks barrios that challenged exploitative
working conditions (López 1974).
In the chapter “The 1933 Los Angeles County Farm Workers Strike” of Latino Social
Movements, Gilbert Gonzalez described the incident as significant. Working-class communities
joined in solidarity across Los Angeles. “After Venice and El Monte, the strike spread to San
Gabriel, Belvedere and Santa Monica and soon encompassed several thousand workers in widely
separated areas of the county,” Gonzalez wrote.
19
The labor dispute was resolved, settling for a daily wage of $1.50. While it was
considered a victorious outcome, the relationship between Mexican and Japanese farm workers
was fractured. Their dynamic would soon change with the devastating effects of WWII and the
U.S. Japanese internment camps.
On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, resulting
in the relocation of Japanese Americans throughout the West Coast. In the neighboring city of
Arcadia, where the Santa Anita Park racetrack sits today, former barracks interned Japanese
Americans from the San Gabriel Valley. When the park became overpopulated, families were
sent to the Pomona Detention Center or transferred out-of-state to permanent relocation camps
(Linke 2020).
They would never return to their farmland and businesses in El Monte. In this sense,
Japanese Americans were never formally memorialized. La Historia, however, remembers how
pivotal Japanese Americans were to the city’s history in the early twentieth century.
Postwar days looked slightly different in the 1950s. The barrio camps were inflicted with
bitter prejudices, yet they were self-reliant. When the Mexican Americans who served in the
military returned, they challenged these inequalities with a sense of mobility (Reft 2020, 197). At
the same time, the Hicks family, who eventually sold some of their land, began to formally
integrate the camps. With the “decline of agricultural industries,” noted writer Jerry González,
colonias were “wiped from the collective consciousness.”
South El Monte was formed in 1958 by marginalized groups hoping to improve living
conditions and educational and employment opportunities––ones not fully actualized in the
barrios (Juravich 2014). Joseph Vargas, who assisted in incorporating South El Monte, became
the first Mexican American mayor. Though grounded in civic engagement, the city had to reckon
20
its relationship with Black communities and approach to the civil rights movement. This newly
established city was forced to contend with their own exclusionary practices to make the city
more equitable, fair, and inclusive (Juravich 2014).
Additional migration movements were happening simultaneously. The Immigration and
Nationality Act of 1965 signed by President Lyndon Johnson repealed national-origin quotas that
restricted the number of persons entering the U.S. outside of Western Europe. Following the Fall
of Saigon on April 30, 1975 and the genocide in Cambodia, the San Gabriel Valley, and El
Monte in particular, became a place of refuge for Southeast Asian populations (Cummings 2020,
137).
Preserving history
“If you were to go to the other museum, you would not see this part of the story––you
have a history there, but it is incomplete,” Peña said. “Sometimes you may not realize it at the
time, but it is enriching to learn what your parents went through––the good and the bad ––even
the joys and traditions. It helps to know that you’re part of something––a community.” It is
important to continue to tell that legacy, she added. The stories of the barrio speak about the past
but are also related to the present-day undocumented experiences of the Vietnamese,
Guatemalan, Salvadorian, and Mexican.
“Museum exhibitions and public art installations––including murals––are important
because they can help cultivate the empathy needed to fuel a healthy Democracy. Being exposed
to the art of our ancestors and those who are different from us allows us to put ourselves in the
shoes of others. We can understand their experiences across time and space through their papers,
art, and artifacts. This kind of imaginative, empathetic work is essential for a Democracy in
which people have to vote for causes that impact others’ lives,” said Margaret Salazar-Porzio,
21
curator in the Division of Home and Community Life, Smithsonian National Museum of
American History.
Maintaining the space is one priority, and the other is digitizing and archiving over 500
images, serving as an educational and social center. Peña recalls that before the Covid-19
pandemic, nearby schools would visit or members talked about the “old days and then,
somebody else would come by and bring their grandkids––it’s a special place,” she said.
As the Smithsonian’s curator of Latinx history, Salazar-Porzio said, “Ultimately, it is
important for communities to document their own histories. It allows future generations access to
the stories and legacies that mean the most to them. Representation in history is both a civil right
and a way to honor those who have not had a voice or who have historically been considered
worthy of documentation by archivists, historians, librarians, and museum professionals. This is
a significant intervention for communities of color to preserve and tell their own stories––we
often call this practice restorative history.”
This radical practice, anchored in learning, helps connect the history of infliction and
harm on people of color as an instrument to ameliorate the adverse effects in these communities.
Some El Monte and South El Monte educators are using this discipline with their students to
lead the city in a new direction.
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Chapter 3
Local History Resurrected in Ethnic Studies
Figure 15: Student at Arroyo High School, El Monte | Courtesy of El Monte Captured
Nineteen eighty-six was a big year. I was excited to enter first grade as it meant I had the
chance to attend the book fair with my older sister. I read thirty-six books that year. Storytelling
was an escape and transported me to a place of safety. The target of racial epithets, I sought
solace in reading and writing.
A student regularly pointed out my facial features, drew graphicly violent pictures and
physically assaulted me. I am Jewish and Latina and those experiences impacted my perception
23
of how American society interacts with different ethnicities. If only we learned to appreciate each
other’s cultures and discuss structural racism. Applying this knowledge would have opened a
space to recognize these parallels and its harm. Instead, it was neglected.
Thirty-two years had passed since the U.S. Supreme Court voted on Brown v. Board of
Education, a landmark ruling outlawing segregation in schools. Yet El Monte, like many larger
cities, was still characterized by its past and present-day inequities, labor conflict s, and strict
immigration policies. The city’s history aligned with broader political trends and the legacy of
this nation’s legal system.
Alfred Mendoza, an educator at Mountain View High School, believes change is possible.
He teaches history and ethnic studies to first-year students. His curriculum is framed around the
history of colonization, dehumanization, and racism. By reckoning with the past, he helps
students understand the present, serving as a cultural cornerstone of where we are today.
24
Figure 16: Alfred Mendoza, ethnic studies teacher at Mountain View High School, El Monte
Ethnic studies, an interdisciplinary study, was conceived out of the civil rights movement
in 1968. The Black Student Union and Third World Liberation Front at the former San Francisco
State College organized, protested , and went on a five-month strike demanding accurate
representation in the university’s curriculum (Ethnic Studies Berkeley).
25
This October, California became the first state to mandate ethnic studies starting with the
graduating class of 2030. Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 101 and made it
compulsory for all public high school students to enroll in an ethnic studies course by the 2025-
2026 school year.
“America is shaped by our shared history, much of it painful and etched with woeful
injustice,” Newsom wrote in a statement. This comes at the helm of controversy and assault on
conservatives’ critical race theory (CRT). The country has witnessed right-wing politicians like
the Republican governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin use CRT as a pawn for political debate
(Smith 2021).
Thirty-six states have proposed legislation to halt teaching CRT. Yet, pervading
misconceptions about the body of scholarship have been at the forefront of this battle. CRT is a
legal concept and academic approach conceived by law professors, including the late Derrick
Bell, who critiques how race and institutionalized racism are embedded in U.S. laws and policies
(Elnaiem 2021).
Mendoza has occupied the space with artifacts, art, and signage that celebrates culture,
but it’s also layered with intense discussions. To Mendoza, incorporating CRT allows his
students to think and act with agency. In an open-face Socratic setting, the students are
encouraged to bounce ideas off one other. One afternoon, the students strolled into class, greeted
by Mendoza, who is intentional in his approach and begins each class with a poem, “In Lak’
ech” (I am you/You are me). Students are selected to recite a passage of the piece. He reminds
them to center themselves within the land of El Monte.
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Figure 17: Students in Alfred Mendoza’s ethnic studies class recite the poem “In Lak’ech”
| Image by A. Mendoza
“My students and I look at the history of the conquest of Indigenous people, enslavement
of African descent, immigration policies and segregation and identify it from a hyperlocal lens,”
Mendoza said.
He is one of ten educators from El Monte Union High School District who meet every
two weeks to discuss the curriculum for the ethnic studies courses. Some of the material is pulled
from East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte, co-edited by Romeo Guzmán, assistant
professor of history at Claremont Graduate University and Fragoza, writer, artist and native of
South El Monte. Additional editors include Cummings and Ryan Reft. The book employs a
collection of thirty-one non-fiction essays that emerged from a public history project Guzmán
and Fragoza founded, SEMAP––a loose collective of creatives, historians, urban planners, and
educators.
27
In 2012, as the city celebrated its centennial, Guzmán and Fragoza looked at histories of
marginalized voices to counter the pioneer narrative observed in El Monte. They wanted to tell
stories that had never been told or lost, Guzmán said. Their work employs a sense of ownership,
including the voices of diverse communities as a part of Los Angeles’ historical narrative known
as historiography.
After befriending the grandson of the famed political leader Ricardo Flores Magón, they
began collecting archival material and oral histories in Greater El Monte. They recognized a
transnational connection between the U.S. and Mexico and sought to link art with its history. “It
was a really radical moment,” Guzmán said.
SEMAP has added context and narration to document decades of buried stories in this
region. Over the years, they unearthed, scanned, and preserved photos and built a digital site of
accounts. They regularly host a bike ride series focused on landmarks that have now been
converted into different sites. These public spaces encourage “empowerment through the arts
where young people assert their identities and independence through self-expression,
community-building , and rebellion,” they wrote (SEMAP East of East).
Fragoza, the co-director of SEMAP, hopes that by understanding this local history, the
students can recognize how economic factors have shaped racial discrimination in El Monte and
South El Monte. “It is important to me that we have a real sense of ownership of our place in the
community––a sense of belonging,” Fragoza said.
Making the connection with counter-narratives: From the classroom to the dining table
Mendoza and his students look at social structures such as settler colonialism and today’s
impact on communities of color. In East of East, readers are guided “to think of the LA Basin as
an indigenous space as well as to imagine how its heritage has interacted with other waves of
28
migration, politics , and modes of cultural and artistic expressions over the course of its
history” (Roy 2020). In 1769, Spanish settlers occupied this area, exploiting the Houtngna land
(named El Monte) and the Tongva population (Castãneda, 1997). When learning about the
Indigenous medicine woman Toypurina, who led a revolt against Spanish colonizers, the students
and their peers were able to make a connection and see themselves.
“Sometimes students will tell me, ‘Hey Mr. Mendoza, because of you, I’m proud of my
brownness. I’m proud of my nose because I used to be ashamed of it, or I’m proud that I could
speak an Indigenous language from my grandparents,’” he said.
Figure 18: Hicks Camp now the site of Rio Vista Park, El Monte
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During the Great Depression, the Mexican Repatriation Act (1929-1936) forced the
deportation of Mexicans to Mexico from the U.S. and affected the barrio population
(Immigration History).
“Mexicans were pretty much coerced and pushed
out of their home and sent to Mexico,” said Brian
Tabatabai, an educator at El Monte High School who
teaches five ethnic studies courses. His great-grandfather,
who worked the railroad in Waco, Texas and his
grandmother, were repatriated to Mexico in the 1930s.
She returned to the States in 1958.
Figure 19: Hicks Camp map in the park
When Tabatabai taught remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, parents or abuelitas
(grandmothers) sat in the class and commented afterward how much they loved it. Students, he
said, were also empowered to make the connection when they found out their grandfather was a
bracero. The Bracero Program, a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, permitted
Mexicans temporary farm and laborer work between 1941 to 1964, some of whom faced similar
immigration issues present today.
The elimination of the Bracero Program would further disrupt the agricultural and labor
market––and have devastating effects on documented and undocumented populations in this
area. “When I taught economics, we looked at the devaluation of housing dependency on race.
We always bring that lens to the classroom,” Tabatabai said. “During the 1940s, when Black and
30
Latino homebuyers were excluded from neighborhoods, what did it do to home prices? You had
a larger supply for white home buyers, and it excluded Black and brown families.”
Figure 20: El Monte High School
The 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision Shelley v Kraemer ruled racial housing covenants
unconstitutional, yet Southern California continued to uphold discriminatory housing practices,
including in El Monte. Both Mendoza and Tabatabai say displacement and ownership, much like
the conditions in the barrios, is a concern for their students and their families, hinting at
modern-day redlining. Other students talked about how her family got displaced at Dodger
Stadium at the Chavez Ravine. Topics of freeway infrastructure have now become a household
conversation.
The median income of households in the city is approximately $41,820, and 67% of
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households earn a low income, defined as less than 80% of the County median family income,
according to an El Monte housing assessment. “When we revisit the [reluctance] of banks to give
us access to the loans, we surveyed 75% of my kids’ parent’s rent. Thirty percent of your
take-home should go to housing. I think you have to make like $80,000 a year to fit that for a
family of four,” Tabatabai said.
An analysis on fair housing in El Monte stated: “Given the escalating housing prices, and
the lack of market-rate apartments, a significant concern is that these households may leave the
community to find suitable housing in inland cities.”
Four elementary schools closed in east El Monte in 2021. “Why is that happening? Why
did we lose so many schools in one year,” Mendoza asked. “I see it as a predatory and ongoing
assault against people of color––the working people. It’s a constant theme of [removal] when it
comes to the land and development.”
The educators are drawing on the experience of barrio-dwellers, who were uprooted from
their homes and faced racism. The youth, now armed with facts, knowledge, and sensitivity, can
contextualize and transform new perspectives moving forward. Within a framework of
resistance, Mendoza takes his students through a historical journey of former developments in
Whittier Narrows, and the current $30 million bike trail project, to help bridge some of these
modern symbols displacing communities and extracting natural habitat.
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Figure 21: Family friends, Whittier Narrows in the 1980s
Monica Loera (L), D’ana Loera (M), Theresa Wolfson, (M) and Sarah Wolfson (R)
Mendoza and his students studied how El Monte is going through a “facelift,” while
Tabatabai’s students reflected on the marketing material for the Billion Dollar Investment
Initiative and found that the blueprint did not depict a realistic image. Some of the newer
developments include the Exchange at Gateway, an ongoing project adjacent to the El Monte
Metro Station. The building towers over the Los Angeles Riverbed, next to the saucer-like dome
and a small garden and cacti rests among a pebbled dirt pathway.
It was designed to combine affordable and luxury apartments as a mixed living space.
The previous developer was caught misappropriating public funds, causing a shift in planning
33
(Himes 2011). The remaining property is planned for retail and commercial use yet sometimes,
as in this case, finances run out, so a partially constructed building is left unfinished.
Figure 22: The Gateway Exchange Apartments, El Monte
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Figure 23: Wind sculpture at the Gateway Exchange Apartments, El Monte
“When folks are interested in buying affordable housing, they start looking further and
further east,” El Monte City Councilmember Maria Morales said. “El Monte is kind of like the
last frontier of affordability––and that word can mean so many things–––for our community,
affordability in a fair market is not affordable. We can’t afford to buy a condo for $600,000.
This is when affordability guidelines by the state dictates how many units should be built
under “affordable pieces.” Developers such as Grapevine, will suggest building fifty modular
units, and 10% is designated as low income. Developers will usually negotiate configurations to
make up for any financial loss. The Cesar Chavez Foundation will soon provide moderate and
permanent supportive housing. According to a report to the California Tax Credit Allocation
Committee, two buildings will be reserved for unhoused veterans and low-income persons near
El Monte’s Metrolink Station.
The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors approved a $15 million budget for an affordable
housing complex, The Ramona Metro Point Apartments, located in a higher density area
35
connected to public transit (Japlot 2022). The full-service real estate firm Newport Partners and
Domus Development, which described this area as a “blighted eyesore,” has also built the
Garvey Court and Tyler Court––additional mixed-use housing projects.
Despite these precarious efforts, multi-family households are unable to keep up with the
high cost of new condominiums, townhouses and industrial sites.
Figure 24: Starlite Drive-in | Courtesy of Cinema Treasures
The Starlite Drive-in theater, with its signature pink signage, opened on June 15, 1950. At
sunset, movie-goers, fitting up to 860 cars, enjoyed the outdoor cinema but since its closing, it
served as a weekend swap meet. In 1997, the screen was taken down, but the swap meet
remained open. Today, a proposed redevelopment plan by KB Home aims to build 200 homes on
the 12.3 acre land, including 9,000 square feet of recreational space, a community building, and a
swimming pool.
36
They plan to leave the marquee, but residents, such as native El Monte resident Vincent
Montenegro, are weary. A once ephemeral, community-centered landmark will lose its appeal
and purpose. The construction is expected to begin in spring 2024.
With growing developments, “we wonder why our kids are experiencing higher levels of
low self-esteem anxiety, depression, and suicide––all these stressors. I think the cost of living is
contributing to a lot of that stress,” Mendoza said. “The struggle to live here, to stay here, to have
stability here … I think it’s becoming unstable for a lot of our families. And that’s why we’re
seeing a lot of this displacement manifested in our classrooms.”
Figure 25: El Monte zoning map
Environment of healing and action
Gigi De La Cruz, an El Monte native whose son just graduated from Arroyo High
School on the city’s north side, believes it is crucial to integrate ethnic studies into high schools.
“Our world is becoming increasingly diverse, and it allows students to learn about their cultures
and history and gives hope to those who may not have much at home,” she said.
37
Figure 26: Arroyo High School students 1976 | Photo courtesy of El Monte Captured
In Tabatabai’s lesson about race, his students examine the construct of white nationalism
and its distinction between white supremacy. He points to 2001 No Child Left Behind Act’s
effects and how the students’ scores on the exams were the lowest in history. He explained that
students were learning from a white, Eurocentric history.
“We want to tell the whole story, no matter how painful, if we want to heal as individuals,
and as a society, we need to be truth-tellers,” Mendoza said.
Along with themes of healing, trauma is another key discussion. Tabatabai recalled an
incident where he was racially profiled while attending his first year of college at the University
of California, Los Angeles. “I was walking to my car after a late-night shift working at the food
hall,” he said, “when the Los Angeles Police Department drove by me.” Within minutes, blaring
lights flashed in his face and he was sitting on the curb. “It happened so quickly. I just thought to
myself, ‘Wow, here I am doing well in school, but I am on the curb.’”
38
“It is the first introductory story I share with my students,” Tabatabai said. “It still holds a
lot of trauma.”
One of Mendoza’s intentions is to challenge students to apply their critical skills through
action. “Ethnic studies is beyond the classroom because it is going to require us to be more
proactive and connected with the community and next to our children in the struggle,” he said.
Mendoza shared his final thoughts before his students headed out for the weekend. “The
fact that you are here today demonstrates the strength in where you come from. That is the
narrative your ancestors left behind,” he said.
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Chapter 4
A Lending Library Offers Healing
Figure 27: Matilija Lending Library
Collecting stories can aid in ancestral healing. It also memorializes the people and
characters, keeping their efforts and customs alive. It offers a sense of pride and recognition. A
lending library in El Monte intends to provide this sense of belonging and remembrance for its
community members, while sharing stories that are often neglected. Amy J. Wong, a resident of
El Monte and appointed El Monte city planning commissioner, co-founded the San Gabriel
Valley Progressive Association, a grassroots organization advocating for racial justice.
40
Wong, who identifies as Asian American, grew up in a “multilingual household” ––her
father, a refugee from the Vietnam War, and her mother, Chinese from Malaysia (Wong 2022).
She recently opened the Matilija Lending Library with her partner Andrew Yip. The bookstore,
located on Lexington Avenue in El Monte, was a long-standing shoe repair store and before that,
a diner. Directly across the street was the first-standing post office. When the owner passed
away, Wong and Yip were intentional in providing a space that housed literature and stories by
and for people of color.
Before the transformation, the walls were
covered in grease, shoe polish, and shaving
scraps. The rugs, hiding scars from bygone days.
The name, Matilija, derives from a California
native poppy flower. The nickname, meaning
fried egg flower, “grows really big and
beautiful,” Yip said. They are also resilient,
known to survive natural disasters, then
germinate. The library honors that spirit of
renewal. The long, narrow pathways of the
library were painted yellow to represent the
Figure 28: A glimpse in
pollen, the ceilings, white, symbolizing the petals and the green carpeting and accents from the
stems. The plans are to bring a community garden, host movie nights, and reading circles.
41
“I think this space was needed here,” Wong said during their soft opening. “There’s a
necessity to celebrate stories by people of color that aren’t often told. We saw an opportunity to
transform this shop into a library that feels like a community living room where people can come
in, read books that reflect their stories, their lives and share space with one another.”
Wong affectionately recalled her childhood love for reading that has carried her through
life. “I trace back my roots of learning to read and loving the activity to that connection I have
with my family and the bonding experiences that reading has led me to,” she said. “I remember
snuggling up next to my sister and mom in bed together as she read aloud stories for us. I think
storytelling is such a powerful tool to empower our communities and to affirm our existence and
to affirm community power.”
Figure 29: Books line the shelves of the Matilija Lending Library,
including SEMAP’s East of East and Eat the Mouth That Feeds You by Carribean Fragoza
42
Some of the funding for the library came from selling the shoe repairs’ old machines.
Wong and Yip generously donated the rest. In some ways, the former store lends another piece to
history.
“When you find books by people of color, you hold on to it, you treasure it, you read it
and you keep it. We recognize that,” Yip said. “I think it is important to have stories that are
written by people that live here as well.”
On one of their shelves next to bright marigolds is a book, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You,
by SEMAP’s co-director Fragoza. The library contains other writers from El Monte and the San
Gabriel Valley, including biographies and memoirs.
“I am honored,” Fragoza said with excitement. “We have gotten a lot of support from the
community over the years, and to see our book on the shelf of this beautiful lending library has
been a kind of homecoming. We’re always looking for ways to come home and this is one way
that is particularly special.”
In addition to the library, Yip, an organizer, has made an effort to protect the community
from hate crimes and policing. “In light of violence against people of color, especially against
Black and brown bodies, we want to have greater discussions,” he said, pointing to systemic
violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) communities.
These books share many layers, rejecting the “minority model myth,” and creating
discourse around the impoverishment of specific cultural groups that were a part of El Monte’s
conception.
Wong admittedly wears many hats. As far as what she envisions for El Monte, “I have
that lens in terms of how we can make use of the land here so that it is more community-friendly
and we get our basic needs met: clean air and great parks for folks to play,” she said.
43
Figure 30: Andrew Yip and Amy J. Wong
44
Chapter 5
A Love Song to the Community of El Monte
Figure 31: Piano lessons at Memories of El Monte
A collective of organizers in the southern section of El Monte is addressing issues with a
revolutionary approach and adopting models from the Black Panther Party and Zapatista Army
of National Liberation.
On a recent balmy Saturday afternoon, a crew of sixteen teenagers and young adults,
mainly from the Latinx and Southeast Asian community, arrive at Memories of El Monte, a
multi-use, communal space located on Garvey Avenue in El Monte.
The attendees get situated for their free piano lessons, taught by conga player Steven
McGill who volunteers in between playing with his eight-member Afro Cuban jazz band based
out of South Los Angeles. A music theory pamphlet is distributed as they prepare to learn
45
chords, notes, and scales. The activity was designed not to monetize music but to share it with all
ages, ethnicities , and backgrounds.
McGill said that the piano classes are an entry point into music and can serve as a
gateway to any musical trajectory. It is comprehensive in terms of technical absorption. Having
access to piano lessons exposes students to a conventionally exclusive instrument and new forms
of artistic expression. Traditional genres of Mexican and Central American music blend sounds,
typically incorporating horns, trumpets, violins , and guitars, depending on the region (Kun
2017). The exploration of piano instrumentation is a catalyst for an opportunity in the arts.
“Programs like this add value,” McGill said. His role at the center is to encourage
students that it’s enough to have a desire and build self-esteem.
Xochitl Zamora, in her early thirties, is a student. She always wanted to learn an
instrument but never had a chance because of school or parenting. “There is not much offered to
adults as free or discounted so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to do something for myself
and my daughter,” she said.
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Figure 32: Steven McGill teaches students every Saturday at Memories of El Monte
A collective space meets the needs of El Monte
Memories of El Monte opened to bring resources to the community and continue the
work of generations before them. The program found inspiration in the words of resistance by
the Mexican anarchist and intellectual Magón, who in El Monte made a powerful 1917 speech
pointing to the Mexican Revolution (Albro 1992).
Arón Montenegro and his partner Macal are committed to cultivating a non-hierarchical
space that provides a safe environment based on mutual aid for Queer, Transgender, Black,
Indigenous, and People of Color. The center is collectively run, donation based, and welcomes
facilitators to host skill-sharing sessions, writing workshops, and sacred circles. The unified goal
is to address its neighbors’ basic needs, provide free food and clothing, and tap into the arts.
47
Arón Montenegro is the art director at Homies Unidos, a fiscal sponsor and partner to Memories
of El Monte , and is obtaining his PhD at UCLA’s Worlds Arts and Cultures/Dance Program.
Figure 33: Aaron Montenegro of Memories of El Monte
Macal spoke to generational trauma. “Historically, we are an oppressed
community, especially for migrants and come from displaced lands,” she said. In her
practice, she studies healing from a decolonized perspective. Healing comes in many
forms, and arts advocacy is one medium that tends to respond to the ramifications of
disparity. Macal makes natural body care products named Ixoq Arte. The word “ixoq”
means “women” in the Mayan language, K’iche.’ Macal carries herbs, ointments, and
sweet tea. “Many of our Indigenous people have the knowledge, and I want to share it
with our community,” she said.
Studies have shown that music is a spiritual release and “can evoke emotional responses
to relax or stimulate people or help them heal,” according to Harvard Health Publishing.
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Figure 34: Carla Macal, co-founder of Memories of El Monte in front of her tiendita
Carving access, once dominated by segregation and inequality
Socio-economic factors can contribute to fostering academic success. It was reported that
92.4% of El Monte’s elementary and middle-high school students are economically
disadvantaged. In marginalized communities, the question of resources traces back to
prioritization. The El Monte Union High School District consists of six high schools. Yet,
Rosemead High School, located in another area, is the only educational institution that provides
an advanced piano program and currently holds a pathway partnership with Pasadena City
College. The remaining have different performance art activities, such as choir and band.
The controversial No Child Left Behind Act signed by George W. Bush in 2002 required
public schools to administer rigorous standardized tests to measure the academic proficiency of
students. Holding schools accountable, the law failed to consider the conditions or circumstances
49
of students in underserved districts. It was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act under the
Barack Obama Administration in 2015, shifting federal responsibility to the state level. The El
Monte City School District has since expanded at the elementary level with an after-school
enrichment program offering mariachi classes at two schools and a music theater group
implemented in all fourteen schools as of 2017 (El Monte City School District). Students who
participate in theater programs are 20% more likely to be advanced readers by twelfth grade,
according to a Title 1 arts provision.
During the 1920s and 1940s, Mexican and Japanese children in El Monte attended a
segregated elementary school (Newman 2016). School districts often enforced segregation by
race in California (Dave 2020). In El Monte, the school system found ways to separate students
of color. Although Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were considered to have the
same rights as white Americans, they were often excluded and affected by racist policies that
included housing, job, and educational inequalities (Fox and Bloemraad 2015). The Japanese,
Mexican, and Mexican American students did not receive the same education or academic
funding the white school children received.
In April 1945, after Mexican families and white supporters mobilized for desegregation,
the school board voted in their favor. “This anti-Mexican prejudice had deep roots and would
continue to affect Mexican American children in the community,” wrote author Rachel Grace
Newman in Tropics of Meta. Some thirty years later, Newman noted, the California Board of
Education recorded that thirteen schools in El Monte “fail[ed] to meet state regulations
governing the racial composition of schools.”
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Figure 35: Art Laboe, El Monte’s own personal DJ
Music brings people together: supportive spaces offer inclusivity
Cultural celebrations contested discrimination. Art Laboe organized the first interracial
dancehall in 1955 at El Monte Legion Stadium. For the first time, white, Black and Latinx
teenagers throughout the region came together to dance and swoon to doo-wop, rhythm and
blues, and rock ‘n’ roll by Sam Cooke, Ritchie Valens, and Chuck Berry (Bermudez 2009).
Musician Frank Zappa would write a song entitled “Memories of El Monte” for The Penguins’
musical group. Laboe brought music to the east side for six years that pierced through social
and racial stratifications. The legendary deejay, now ninety-six, is still on the air hosting a
request show that serves as a portal between incarcerated people and their loved ones. His
legacy lives on within the Chicanx culture.
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Figure 36: The Red Pears, Jose Corona (L), Patrick Juarez, Luis Martinez and Henry Vargas (R)
Despite current barriers, there are musicians much like the past that are revitalizing the
music scene and making its mark. A motley crew of Monteros known as The Red Pears––Henry
Vargas (vocals), Jose Corona (drums) and Patrick Juarez (bass)––are channeling a new energy in
their indie band. The soft, evocative songs play around with storytelling but reference a
familiarity reminiscent of a backyard rock and punk scene that once existed in the city.
The band points to overcoming challenges: growing up in El Monte and being
first-generation Latinx musicians. “I think people are proud of us. Our parents are proud of us,
and we proudly say we are from here,” Corona shared. Vargas added the opportunity to go on a
52
national tour has allowed them to fully represent their city. Their humility and raw talent are part
of their ingenuity and spark. The band prefers to practice in Corona’s family garage with his
family home serving as a daycare center during the day.
“Something that I have always wanted for El Monte was to have its own venue. In some
ways, it feels restricting for anyone that wants to do music here or have a platform to do it,” he
continued. “There were occasions where we would throw shows and it would get raided within
minutes.”
The musicians often found hidden streets to perform. They recognize other artists and
local talent in the area but find it difficult to connect without a place to support each other.
Centers like Memories of El Monte provide that space, just as the legion stadium once did.
Memories of El Monte picks up pieces from the past Arón Montenegro has been able to
apply transnational solidarity efforts to Memories of El Monte from his experience in Honduras.
In 2009, he helped a non-profit document human rights violations stemming from the U.S.
backed military coup. “I decided to leave the organization and join a farm cooperative where I
was persecuted by the [Honduran] military and faced some traumatic experiences,” he said.
“Feeling a little disillusioned from the struggle of this resistance movement, I decided to leave
and bring that energy here.”
When imagining a dream world, Macal, a social science educator and PhD candidate at
the University of Oregon, said it would include the visibility of more youth spaces. “We always
see a bunch of youth leaving high school, but where do they go? They’re funneled into ROTC
military programs. I think with the empty spaces, we could have more music, art galleries, and
healthy activities,” she said.
53
The El Monte community still has a lot of needs to be met, particularly regarding
activities specific to young people. In 1970, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
Act (RICO) was passed under Republican President Richard Nixon to combat organized crime.
The federal racketing clampdown targeted the multigenerational gang known as El Monte Flores,
subsequently closing the Boys & Girls Club in 2012 for suspected gang activity (Kimitch 2014).
It was one of the only public operations for youth. City projects instead have focused on a new
dog park, while the parks and recreation receive 3% of the city’s $76,648,000 budget.
El Monte’s councilmember Morales confirmed roughly 60% or 65% of the local
municipalities budget goes to public safety. “It’s generally law enforcement: police and fire,” she
said.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Morales was organizing an after-school tutoring program
with the non-profit organization El Monte Promise and the El Monte Union High School
District. She is hoping to revamp some of the conversations and support again.
“Recreational time and space are something we don’t have. It comes down to money and
land,” said a Memories of El Monte member who goes by the nickname Tren. The public
resources are allocated elsewhere, but Aaron Montenegro is invested in community building
despite these challenges.“I am excited to have a positive place for youth to express themselves
through art,” he said. The collective envisions a position outside of an institution’s confinement
and political binary. “We want to create a world on our terms, even if it is a struggle.”
Arón Montenegro reflected on the importance of taking care of one another. The
neighborhood “is still on the periphery and forgotten, but we want to do our thing … we will
continue to look out for [each other’s] social and personal development and wellbeing,” he said.
“It’s not out of special interests—it’s out of love and commitment to the community. ”
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Chapter 6
Murals Revived in the City of El Monte
Figure 37: She Brought Her People with Her, El Monte
On the northern side of El Monte, the art collective SEMAP examines the city’s history
through a mural that harks back to a racist past.
Streaks of white paint zigzag over pops of yellow and blue color. Milk-bleached lines on
one end of an expansive mural partially cover an Adelita, a Mexican female soldier. The woman
is carrying a rose and wearing a heart-shaped graphic tee. The other side of the piece shows a
hand with the phrase “Say their name,” with brushes of red paint over the plastered wall. An
image of a sunflower is paired next to an anarchist sign, speaking to political sovereignty and
freedom. Stars are sprinkled against a wave of blue, the idea of an American dream unrealized.
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Figure 38: Mural by SEMAP, El Monte
Former Brown Beret member and Tongva elder Gloria Arellanes, seventy-six, gazes
defiantly. The central female character wears glasses and hoop earrings, representing youth and
the future of arts activism. She holds books with a cover of the anarchist Magón brothers and the
words PLM (Partido Liberal Mexicano), recognizing the revolutionary figures from the past.
Generations of Latinx women are the focus in this mural entitled She Brought Her People
with Her located in a strip mall of El Monte. The Adelita welcomes the community of El Monte
to distant periods and events. This piece poignantly resurrects and harnesses stories, ones lost in
decades past, and a city moratorium that participated in the erasure of murals that peaked in the
1970s in this same part of town. It also sharply points to whitewashing, literal hands
wiping art from existence.
It contains historical clues that can easily be missed. The crucifix on a T-shirt references a
restored mural in Los Angeles from Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. In the 1930s, he
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used this symbol to signify the persecution against people of color (Discover Los Angeles 2021).
A mini sketch of Godzilla refers to an art project that never materialized, symbolizing a figure
trying to bring the city officials and the community together during a catastrophe.
Figure 39: Community members in El Monte painting the mural
Over four days, roughly fifteen community members of different ages contributed to the
mural, sometimes painting on scaffolds until sunset into the evening. On a late Saturday
afternoon, people gathered to celebrate the mural unveiling. Brightly colored signage reflected
against amber sunlight as multigenerational families congregated on the newly renamed Main
Street in the Valley Mall of El Monte.
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Figure 40: Elizabeth Jayme and her son learn about the city’s past
Longtime resident Elizabeth Jayme, forty-three, was happy to bring her son to a live
mural painting. “Having grown up here, it means a lot to have my child witness this and be a part
of the city’s history,” she said. She took a moment to recognize the city hadn’t offered many
cultural opportunities when she was young. QR codes were conveniently placed along the mural
to guide people like Jayme to a documentary about El Monte’s forgotten art projects and digital
material collected by SEMAP.
Figure 41: Onlookers read QR codes discovering the history of muralism in El Monte
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Decades later, SEMAP is reimagining a future through the lens of the past
They are speaking to erasure, displacement, and representation. The mural, designed by
artists Fernando Mendez Corona and Alonso Delgadillo, is a community effort made possible by
SEMAP.
“We wanted to capture the breadth of activism in this city,” said Fragoza, founder and
co-director of SEMAP. From Toypurina, the Indigenous medicine woman who resisted Spanish
colonial rule, to the anarchist movement in the early twentieth century, to Arellanes and the
present day, the mural allowed them to introduce many stories. “Every time we approached the
mural, a different set of conversations could be had. So, there’s various entry points into the
mural and into its histories,” Fragoza said.
The story began years ago. While SEMAP historians were digging in the basement of
South El Monte City Hall, they came across film reels, one of which celebrated the city’s
achievement with an All-America City Award. The clips show youth running in yards, laughing
and optimistic, capturing what innocence looks and feels like. The narrator’s descriptors
conflicted with the Chicanx teenagers, characterizing them as “gang members,” though visually
quite the opposite. They covered up tagging on walls with paint rollers and replaced them with
murals.
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Figure 42: Photo of film reel of South El Monte youth painting over graffiti
SEMAP began one of many historical journeys, piecing together information, research
and interviews. “We were blown away,” Fragoza said to the weekend crowd. “I am from South
El Monte, and I never saw a mural growing up, so I wanted to know what that was and who they
were.”
There was an entire film that documented programs developed primarily for at-risk
youth. “The [city] was having a lot of trouble keeping young, mainly Latinos, busy and
productive at the time. And so, they had started job training, a gang prevention program, and
mural making,” Fragoza shared.
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Figure 43: Young muralists | Courtesy of SEMAP
The ’70s were a pivotal time in the Chicanx Movement, and art was a vehicle to voice
protest. “I think it was all part of the environment and the temperature of what was going on,”
Fragoza said. SEMAP learned that El Monte and South El Monte were a part of significant
political resistance. The excavation led to another project led by an artist Ron Reeder, now a
professor at Rio Hondo College. He worked with a group of youth initiated by a federal law, the
Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA), which funded art projects in El Monte.
President Reagan would discontinue this program in the 1980s.
Of the thirteen artists hired, famed Chicano artist of Asco Glugio “Gronk” Nicandro
painted an Adelita with a rifle and an upside red rose on the wall of a Red Wing shoe store in the
Valley Mall. Conflict ensued with the city, and they demanded the mural’s removal. They said
the armed woman was seen as violent, which led to the destruction of Señora with a Gun. The
tension between city officials and business owners with residents sparked an idea. Reeder
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proposed another mural––this one had the monstrous green figure of Godzilla trampling through
downtown El Monte (Fragoza 2020, 112-122).
The design depicted the inner strife in the community. The city disapproved of the plan
and took it a step further: They placed a mural moratorium on future art projects and painted
over existing murals.
Figure 44: The Los Angeles Times covers mural ban in the ’70s
“It created a long-term chilling effect,” Fragoza said. “I am not sure how the moratorium
worked [exactly] but it definitely squashed any energy that had been generated around art and
muralism in particular––it really killed the spirit of art and activism.” The ban lasted eight
months but unofficially remained in place. Few community art-centered projects have been
revived since––until now.
A moratorium’s rippling effect
Similar obstacles resurfaced during the planning process of this piece. Civic leaders
approved the permit a year before SEMAP could finally begin, but it was contingent on the
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mural’s design. They received pushback about the armed soldadera. “We tried to educate them
about what the Adelita image is, but they didn’t seem interested or willing to budge,” Fragoza
said. They conceded and painted a flower instead.
Councilmember Morales addressed this persisting conflict. “We are pretty progressive in
our thinking, for the most part, and tend to be center-left, but there are some folks that are not,”
she said.
The erasure of art hit home for Morales. “Here’s an opportunity that we have as elected
officials to make it right, but there’s still an element that we can’t forget––a power and a
political block in the city of El Monte that has control,” she said. “Maybe we wanted to run with
the idea and give Adelita everything that she’s deserved and more, but we had to think about the
political ramifications. There’s still a group of folks entrenched in El Monte who were part of
that movement back in the early ’70s and ’80s, where they cleaned up all of our art.” She hopes
the next generation will bring about more freedom and El Monte will see urban art return.
El Monte Mayor Jessica Ancona did not respond to a request for comment on the mural
project or how the original civic ban dissolved. She did state in an Instagram message, “The city
plans to create two murals in the Valley Mall, slated to begin in the next six months.” Unlike the
’70s, El Monte’s business owners have shown unwavering support this time around.
SEMAP has set a precedent and provided an opportunity for the city government to learn
from its history and reflect on what direction they want to take. Hopefully, Fragoza expressed, in
that reflection, they’ll decide to support arts and the voices of the community instead of using the
arts to promote their projects.
“I [hope] they approach it with a real commitment to supporting communities that have
been here all along, instead of advocating for development that will displace them and use art as
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a tool of art washing and gentrification––that is why we value our autonomy at SEMAP because
we want to make sure our voice is connected to the spirit of the community and not to a political
agenda,” Fragoza said.
For every “larger” development, the city allocates 1% towards an arts and public spaces
program. Currently, there is over $1 million acquired, Morales added. A most recent city art
project includes glossy printed wraparounds on cable boxes sprinkled throughout the city of El
Monte. There are images of Cesar Chavez, farmworkers and people from the Asian American
and Indigenous community.
The idea was to beautify the neighborhood, Morales said, and bring in cultural
awareness in an inclusive nature that is reflective of the people that live in the city.
The Gibson Mariposa Park is a city-run project that Morales felt moved the
needle in public art. Morales, who researched art and skateboarding design at the USC
Rossier School of Education, commissioned the Garage Board Shop in East Los
Angeles to paint several walls inside the park. “The vibrant colors speak to the Latino
and African American culture––all themed around the mariposa (butterfly),” she said.
Arts advocacy
Art is an integral part of the city fabric, and it is essential to support the arts in different
ways, Fragoza expressed. SEMAP recently received a grant from the Whiting Public
Engagement Fellowship, and with its funding, they have been able to produce art projects.
Beyond this, their workplaces El Monte and South El Monte within a precise geographic locality
that draws attention to cities on the border of Los Angeles. Their scholarship focuses on
community building, so each project is initiated as participatory, site-specific public artwork.
64
Despite the moratorium, art and cultural making have continued. “El Monte and South El
Monte have existed as a creative hub in different ways where people are making art and music
from a real grassroots level from their home,” Fragoza said. “It is more underground, where it’s
been able to develop and take shape. In this sense, it’s an arts and cultural desert, but it’s only at
the official city level.”
Yet a recent partnership between the city and SEMAP developed. SEMAP will open its
first physical space to organize community programming and art exhibitions at Zamora Park in
El Monte. SEMAP will dictate the operations at Casa Zamora art house and facilitate an art,
writing and scholar residency.
“At the end of the day, we knew [SEMAP’s] work was incredibly important,” Morales
said. “And if it’s advancing art and conversations around art in our city, we are open to that
idea.”
SEMAP’s efforts demonstrate how art has been used to overcome racism and disparity.
The imagery in the mural aims to portray the silencing of expression from the city. Public art
pushes for cultural representation and empowerment. “There is something about art that defies
control,” Fragoza added.
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Figure 45: Artist Alonso Delgadillo in the process of painting She Brought Her People with Her
Artist Delgadillo shared that it is crucial to convey the community’s story. The strokes of
white paint in the mural represent their work’s erasure––a statement that the political culture has
not fully evolved. To rescue their heritage, “it was important for the community to be a part of its
creation,” Delgadillo said. “They are painting their history which represents the obstacles they
face presently––it’s a very powerful message.”
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Figure 46: Caribbean Fragoza during a talk, El Monte
Arellanes, an Indigenous leader of El Monte who has continued with the same intensity
since the 1960s, shared her thoughts about visual storytelling. “Our ancient people carved into
rocks with stories. For years, that’s how people read stories. In contemporary times, this is how
we tell our stories without writing them in a book––it is an enrichment to the community to
know who these people are and what they mean.” As for the mural, “The colors are vibrant––I
see the sunflowers and roses,” she said. “When a community participates in it, there is so much
invested. If your hand touches it, you leave an imprint. Hopefully, the city will preserve it this
time around.”
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Chapter 7
Cruising for History, a Bike Ride with SEMAP
Figure 47: SEMAP bike ride down Tyler Avenue, El Monte
An extension of cultural and historical preservation comes in the form of a themed bike
ride.
A still heat permeates a February afternoon. SEMAP hosted its bike series, A New
Cartography of Greater El Monte, welcoming San Gabriel Valley residents. Children as young as
four years old and grandparents, city officials, community organizers, and teachers rode the
six-mile trail exploring a broad and micro-level history of Asian Americans. Each stop honored a
piece that El Monte has neglected.
SEMAP co-founder Guzmán asked a sea of cyclists, “Where are the stories of the
Japanese being observed in the city? Guzmán talked about broader Chinese immigration policies
68
and local histories, including the first Japanese American-owned seed store in the Valley Mall.
“Today, we’re on quotidian streets riding around and we’re pointing out what may seem
like normal things that actually have a lot of deep history. This bike ride fits within that idea of
not just creating history with the community but sharing it with them in ways that are accessible
and that are fun––and that aren’t inside the classroom,” Guzmán said.
SEMAP printed poster-size artwork illustrating profiles of Wong, co-founder of the
lending library, and writer Christine Tran. The dabs of circles and lines sharply pointing to
stories, places, and people removed over time. Dotted lines of a map lay underneath the images
and their poems printed on the backside.
Tran, a native from South El Monte and the executive director of the Los Angeles
Food Policy Council, recited her poem. She read out loud, “I am from the sweat of brows in
sweatshops and on construction sites,” describing one of the many hardships endured by kin.
Storytelling is fundamental, she shared. It questions how to empower while
understanding narrative boundaries. “For me, psychological safety is such an important role, not
only the act of storytelling, but where the story goes thereafter,” she said. “We have a lot of
heartbreak, a lot of tragedy within the history of people of color and our communities. But then,
we also have the joy of breaking bread and food, and all of these joyous things should be present
as well.”
As a Vietnamese American, she has recognized many Asian Americans don’t see
themselves in history books. Inclusion, rather than extraction, are critical to Tran. “As a
storyteller, I get to tell my story. I get to tell my community story and my family story. It is not
only for myself, but it’s for my lineage past, present, and future because I don’t want that story
to ever disappear,” Tran said.
69
SEMAP, a model for community journalism
There’s been a history of scholars, historians , and anthropologists going into
communities from a very top-down perspective. “To do real public history and engage in
scholarship means making connections with people on the ground,” said Cummings, an affiliate
to SEMAP.
Alma Puente, El Monte’s mayor pro tem, grew up in her childhood home for forty-two
years and raised her children there. As a long-time resident, she understands the value of being
aware of the rich cultural background in this community. “Frankly, I grew up not knowing a lot
of our history, other than what we’re taught in school, which is not necessarily accurate. Having
access to this type of programming, even to educate me and my children, is so valuable,” Puente
said.
As SEMAP prepares for an up-coming exhibit, Collective Shade, they plan to display a
poetry exchange at the Los Angeles Public Library. The 1930s’ Works Progress Administration
book about El Monte includes 117 biographies written by all white males and two females. In it,
there was a poem. “It is equally bad as it is encapsulating in its white-specific tales,” Guzmán
said. “We’re having folks today in full transparency write over it and speak back to the poem––
whichever way they want––whatever language they want and whatever tools they have. It is a
collective way to talk back to these narratives and say that we’re going to continue to push
against them.” SEMAP is ready for the battle, and they are rallying the Greater El Monte to join
the cause.
70
Figure 48: Bicyclists anticipate a poetry reading held at Matilija Lending Library, El Monte
71
Epilogue
Drifting on a memory
Figure 49: The juxtaposition between homes:
A house sits on Havenpark Avenue for years,
as housing developments spring up indicating promise or a further divide
“We all have the need to dream,” assemblage artist and community activist John
Outterbridge once said in an interview. Does this dream have to fit within the confines of the
72
American dream that was popularized by writer and historian James Truslow Adams, or can
communities and artists manifest their dreams on different terms?
Father and son Vincent Montenegro and Arón Montenegro visualized their dreams by
investing in the community and witnessed their efforts unfold as new members continue to pass
the torch. Groups like Keep El Monte Friendly advocate for LGBTQ rights and El Monte
Tenants Union campaigns for housing equity.
Artists such as El Monte writer Salvador Plascencia takes the city under his wings to
explore migration drifts in his “meta-fiction” book, The People of Paper. El Monte is a primary
character stringing intense battles, mystical storylines, and colorful and tragic fragments of
magical realism. Much like his imaginative writing, the cities of El Monte and South El Monte
expose hopes, beauty, and dreams laced with complexity.
Writer Michael Jaime-Becerra also pulls inspiration from his hometown of El Monte in
his narrative works Every Night is Ladies Night and This Time Tomorrow. Words penning spatial
recognition and emancipated cultural identities.
Fragoza’s most recent essay book, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You, explores moments of
melancholy and strength through symbolism and surreal imagery. In the collection of stories, she
interlaces ideas of struggle into fiction that feels familiar and planetary. The allegorical tales dive
into themes of spirituality, rebirth, and visceral pain. This book is just one representation of
Fragoza’s artistry and the energy she channels in SEMAP.
Another type of artist is a photographer and El Monte resident Jerry Trujillo, who
documents threads of history in an Instagram account, El Monte Captured. “It seems like there
has been a kind of punch of artistic energy in El Monte––and I think what I do, and some other
73
creators as well, are bolstering that. It’s important to give a voice to stories, whether it’s just
taking a picture of or providing a place of history to live, even if it’s on an Instagram page,” he
said.
Figure 50: El Monte protesters march against hate and discrimination in the city
| Courtesy of Jerry Trujillo
“I really love this shot,” Trujillo said in a text message. “I don’t usually take pictures with
people in them, but this was at a March Against Hate protest in El Monte and the water tower
was perfectly dead center in the clearing of protesters.”
At the crossroads of art, culture, and activism, a collective of Greater El Monte, imbued
with a call to action, carry messages of a new tomorrow. Anchored in community, creativity, and
shared stories, a progressive movement is present in everyday art and dream- making.
74
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84

Abstract (if available)

Abstract How history, including the arts and culture, is documented and passed down through generations. The story will be told through testimonies of El Monte/South El Monte as residents reimagine a future shaped by the past. As the art historian Kellie Jones explains, migration patterns and social space can help us understand “how people shape their worlds through creative force.” Much like El Monte/South El Monte, art collectives, musicians, educators, historians and activists are building a hopeful future grounded in representation and equality.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Wolfson, Sarah (author)

Core Title El Monte and South El Monte reimagined through arts, culture and activism

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Degree Conferral Date 2022-05

Publication Date 04/16/2022

Defense Date 03/18/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag activism,Art,Asian Americans,barrios,city,communities,culture,disparity,Education,El Monte,equality,equity,History,Housing,Latinx,Los Angeles,marginalized communities,migration,Murals,OAI-PMH Harvest,organizations,San Gabriel Valley,segregation,South El Monte,space

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Castaneda , Laura (committee chair)

Creator Email Sarah39@usc.edu,Swolfson80@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC110964852

Unique identifier UC110964852

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Wolfson, Sarah

Type texts

Source 20220417-usctheses-batch-927 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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