This weeks post is a response to Nicole Lambertson's Week 9 post.
Hi Nicole
I really like the way
you set up your blog post this week. The way you mentioned the article you are
going to use and followed up by your research on the Venice, after which you
connected the article with the lecture material, was a well thought out
strategy. I like the way you used Stuart Hall’s theory of the floating
signifier with the nature as a terrain of meaning: nature as aesthetic value
that symbolizes health and wellness and wealth/status. Not many people can
afford to live in a place like Archstone Venice that provides a "green
living" which will benefit their physical and emotional health. You also
used nature as a terrain of inequality by pointing out how Archstone Venice
does not focus on the scarcity of nature as a resource. I have to disagree with
that. The complex enforces the inequality, because when it "invites the
larger community to come enjoy its piece of happiness in green living" it
doesn't mean it invites everyone, only people who can afford it in that larger
community. In mega cities (global cities) like Los Angeles it is necessary to
have some "green living" spaces because of the many sites of
pollution and its increased vulnerability of environmental hazards. Archstone Venice sounds like a nice place to
live in and I agree that it will bring some piece of happiness in green living
to its tenants.
Overall I think you chose a great article and a place to
visit, and your analysis of the place was perfect.
I like the layout of your post as well as the
content of it. It is one of the few posts that make you think about the
location (Baldwin Hills). I have never been there but with the information you
provided with all the pictures makes me feel more comfortable talking about it.
I like the way you used multiple concepts from the lecture. Regarding the L.A
times article I think it is common to vote for representatives that are somehow
connected to your own culture. I guess it is part of the collective consciousness
that people have. If you vote for the same person it makes you feel like you
are doing something with all the people who share your culture (not individually).
Even if you don’t agree with the candidate’s political views African Americans
will vote for an African American representative, Armenians will vote for an
Armenian representative, Mexicans will vote for Mexican representatives and so
on. From my own experience it feels natural to do so, like a duty you own to
support the person that has the same culture or floating signifier as the one
you and your family have.
“I actually found myself wondering why there were
only black people living there.”
I think I found the partial answer to that in the
chapter 19 “The continuing causes of segregation” by Douglas S. Massey and Nancy
A. Denton. Even if the people who live there can find a better place that they
can afford, they won’t do so because they have found a place where they belong (they
are the dominant group if anything they could be the ones to discriminate
others). “Discrimination against blacks is widespread and continues at very
high levels in urban housing markets” (pg.180). Based on the pictures you have
provided it looks like a relatively nice neighborhood so it’s a perfect way to
avoid the prejudice if almost all of your neighbors are just like you. In a way
it might be a forces isolation of blacks but hopefully, like the article has
mentioned, the black president will solve that problem. I did some research and
it turned out that Baldwin Hills was given nicknames such as the "Golden
Ghetto" and the "Black Beverly Hills". Most of the segregation
problems are centered on ghettos but since Baldwin Hills is “golden” and
compared to Beverly Hills then maybe there is no problem to solve there.
Thank you for your lovely post. I enjoyed reading
and responding to it.
Since this last two weeks the lectures were focused on race and class differences i chose the variable form my simplymap to be the percentage of black population in Los Angeles Metropolitan region to try to find any noticeable segregation of black Americans.
The light pink are would be the most segregated aria and the darker the less segregated it is. In the "Continuing Causes of Segregation" by Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton , it was stressed that even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing act of 1968 prejudice and discrimination against blacks continued to this day. It is said that some "real estate agents continue to practice surreptitious but widespread discrimination." Based on this map you cant make any assumptions as to why there are less black people living in the light pink area. One of the reasons may be because they don't want to live there, not because of racial discrimination or the fact that they lack the financials means to live there. Burbank and Glendale are portrayed in red and I know that there is little or no discrimination at all toward blacks. I think that because L.A. is so diverse in cultures and races that the discrimination and prejudice towards black Americans is low only because there are other minorities to discriminate against. In the South region of America the discrimination level is still high because there aren't many newcomers/immigrants that will bring new cultures with them. Not much has changed since the early 1900's in terms of population in the South.
There is a strong link between levels of prejudice and discrimination and the degree of segregation and spatial isolation that blacks experience. Since L.A. is not a city that has a high discrimination level the segregation is also not high or that easily notable.
Van Nuys to Burbank Race is a floating signifier as Stuart Hall points out. If race is a story that people tell each other then there is bound to be some conflict. Sometimes the boundaries of one race's story is not distinguishable from the others. Since race is historical it is hard to determine to which race did the story belong to especially if it is a some symbol from the BC. Some races battle over those cultural symbols or get into arguments when the meaning behind them is not clear. In theL.A. times article"Program Seeks to Reduce Latino-Armenian Tensions at School" by HILARY E. MacGREGOR , the racial tension is being analyzed in Grant High school.
I did my second blog post on Los Angeles Valley College which is next to Grant High school. The article points out a couple of reasons which lead to a conflict that is still not solved( the article was published in 2000).
"One district official speculated that tension between the Latino and Armenian students may have originated from disputes over relief efforts in the mid-1980s after earthquakes in Mexico and Armenia. At the time, students from each ethnic group claimed that the other received more empathy and relief". I don't know how true that is but I know that now it is not one of the issues that leads to fights between the students.
I think the fights break out when one of the racial groups points out the other's painful historical floating signifier. In the article it points out the issues addressed to help bring peace which are also the weaknesses of each race in my opinion. "students talk about the early decades of this century, when 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which is now Turkey, were killed. The Turkish government denies that the Armenian genocide ever happened.Then students talk of the history of immigrants from Mexico and Central and South America." If the weakness is well known it is easy to start a fight by stating a particular historical fact in an offensive way.People will go to great extents to keep their cultural symbols, stories,identity. Sometimes the conflict is unavoidable but most of the time there is a way to sidestep it.
Most Armenian parents want to avoid the fights and send their kids to Burbank High School where the Armenian students "can stay with their own group" and not get into conflict with other ethnic groups. It is not only about the conflict but the need to protect the cultural values which is a rather hard to do in the " the melting pot" known as Los Angeles. Burbank is a really safe city. It is worth driving the kids every school day to Burbank because the parents don't have to worry about the kids accidentally getting in the middle of a fight. It is also possible to take a bus there. I took the 154 bus on Thursday at around 1:04pm from Van Nuys( Oxnard Strret). It took me about 50 minutes to get to the First Street bus stop next to the mall. The inside of the bus was cleaner and safer then I imagined it would be. The people were mostly middle aged , some seniors, some college kids( I saw them board from the Fulton stop next to LAVC), a young mother with a cute kid with a bow on her head. The Burbank High School is a walking distance away from theBurbank Town Center( mall) on Magnolia Boulevard. The weather was nice so it was a quite enjoyable walk from the mall to the BHS and along the N. 3rd street and the N San Fernando Boulevard. It is always clean, well lit and full of people, not only because of the mall and the restaurants, but also because of the three AMC theaters located a safe walking distance from each other.
One place I have never visited before is the Otis College of Art and Design. I have wanted to visit it since last year when my best friend transferred there. We could not match our schedules but since it is a part of my project I tagged along with her to her Saturday class.Otis is full of creativity.By looking at the shape of the buildings you can take a guess on what is going on inside of them. I did not see many students around because it was Saturday but from what I heard, all the students are different but friendly. You can’t find two people with the same clothes or the same hairdo/color. Some background information and the history of the Otis College can be found on their very artistic website. The main building is divided into seven floors according to all the different departments and majors the college offers. I did not go to all of them I mostly explored the graphic design floor with my friend because graphic design and animation is her major.The hallways are decorated with the works of the students, so even if you don’t go into any actual classroom you can see some magnificent pieces of artwork. I guess one way to see the difference in the society is to look at the works of the multicultural artists. I liked almost everything there with the exception of the artworks that were too abstract for me understand the meaning behind it. The outside of the buildings is also decorated with different graffiti designs. Here are some pictures of the inside and the outside of the main college building.
Los Angeles is one of the most researched 4 th urban revolution city. One of the characteristics of the 4th urban revolution: Post metropolis is the Post Fordism.” Post Fordism is essentially the rapid movement of capital, the increased mobility of the capital, short term contingent labor, outsourcing, increased socio-special specialization”(Wilford Lect.2 slide 31).To make more profit the work is shifted to places that offer cheaper labor and tax breaks. In the video it points out that creativity can’t be outsourced, that innovation stays onshore. The entertainment business is a big part of Los Angeles and the Otis College’s graduate’s creativity does not outsource to a cheaper place but mostly stays in the Los Angeles region.
Otis College of Art and Design Prepares Creative Professionals to Enrich our World
This week I have decided to explore the City of Sherman Oaks. One of the most visited places in Sherman Oaks is the Sherman Oaks Galleria. It is located on the corner of Sepulveda and Ventura Blvd. It is so a great place to spend your day because you can get everything on your agenda for the day done. You can start by having breakfast at one of the many restaurants they have , then make a deposit at a near by bank, work out at the gym, have some lunch , shop for a while then watch a movie at the Arclight cinema and afterwords have a cocktail or two at the bar inside the cinema complex. The galleria is always full of life especially during the weekends. I think one of the social facts that brings all these diverse people together in our society is the Friday night movie tradition. I agree with Emile Durkhiem we need some participation in collective culture. It is a way to tie us together because individuals do not exist in isolation and we need some way to connect with the society we live in.
Sherman Oaks Galleria has Arclight cinema on the fourth floor. So by the time you reach the fourth floor you have already visited the bank, ate, shopped and gone to the gym. It is really popular in so the tickets are almost always bought in advance online. The membership offers a lot of benefits like a cost reduction on the tickets or exclusive deals to see some movies like the Harry Potter(1-7), The Batman or The Twilight Saga(1-4). They have a full day showing of the movies one after the other each time the final movie is out. There are many reasons why Arclight is one of the best cinema houses in L.A.. Here are the reason they have listed on their website.
Here are some pictures I took to help get the feel of the typical Friday night at the Sherman Oaks Galleria.
The city of Burbank is one of my favorite cities in Southern California. It feels like home because of the large Armenian population there. It is sometimes joked that you don't need to know English to live in Burbank or Glendale, just knowing Armenian will do. Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, 12 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. The most up to date information is on the government run website of city of Burbank http://www.burbankca.gov/ .
Burbank is one of the cleanest cities in the San Fernando Valley. The crime rate is relatively low because of a strict law enforcement. I noticed that coming from Van Nuys or North Hollywood that the speed decreases as you enter the City of Burbank. My brother got most of his tickets in Burbank because there are police everywhere. Even my coworkers that commute there to work are complaining about the number of tickets they get and they don't necessarily speed like my brother. The street signs change color too. Van Nuys and North Hollywood street signs are blue but Burbank's street signs are green.
One of the places you have to visit in Burbank is Porto's bakery. It is one of the best, if not the best bakery in town. The downside of it is that everyone knows about it and the lines are so long. At the end it is worth it, but don't go there when you are supper hungry the chances are you might faint before you even get to order the food, never mind the wait time after the order has been made. The parking is horrible, especially during lunch hours. I had to park next to Roosevelt Elementary School that is 5 minute walk away from Porto's, which is not that bad but compared to other bakeries it is. The bakery has its own parking lot but it is always full, there is no point in trying to find a spot. Most Armenian birthday cakes come from Porto's not only because they taste good, but because of the prestige that comes with the name.
The theme park at Universal Studios has always been strongly linked to the movie studio, it is the entertainment capital of Los Angeles . The theme park has an interesting history but i don't want to spend much time on things people can find on the park's website. The organic analogy cant be applied to Los Angeles because it does not have a center that organizes the city. So the closes thing to a cultural center I could think of is Universal Studios City Walk and the theme park.
Universal Studios is a great place to go and hang out and to people watch. Even though there are limited number of things to do, the Studio Tour is the number one main attraction. The Tour is the signature attraction at the park, and goes into a working movie studio, with various film sets on the lot. In recent years, guests have sat in multi-car trams for the duration of the ride. The Studio Tour lasts about 45-50 minutes and is led by a live tour guide who can be seen throughout the tram on video screens. It travels through the Front Lot, Backlot and various attractions, passing sets and props from movies along the way.The tour has always been at the heart of Universal.
Universal Studios is a world of its own. It has its own city with its own zip code, hospital, fire department, bank, sheriff's department, and post office. The bank isn't a public one but a private one. It's only open to those who work for Universal Studios.
I took a car trip there last weekend and it is approximately 17 miles away from UCLA. People come from all over the world to be part of the "movie magic" of what is Universal Studios: China, India, Russia, South America and many other countless countries . Based on my experience, on an average day there are usually about 3 tour groups that I assume are tourists from Asia that consist of about 40 people. The last time that I was there, when ordering my food, I saw this one gentleman ordering about 40 orders of an entree for his Mandarin speaking tour group for their lunch.There are usually smaller groups about 5-10 people (usually families) from European counties. I mostly hear them speak in languages that belong to Slavic language family. The lines there are pretty decent in wait time and it gives people just enough time to assess their neighbors in the line and try to guess where they came from. Are they South California residents or tourists. The average wait time that I've noticed is about 30 minutes, but for the new Transformers: The Ride 3D the average wait time is about 80-120 minutes.
Not only is Universal Studios about the theme park but it's also about Universal CityWalk. Universal CityWalk is similar to a town square where there are many places to dine, shop, and watch a movie. You can think of CityWalk as a center of the valley in the middle of North Hollywood, Studio City, Universal City, Hollywood, Valley Village, Burbank, and Valley Glen. It's not only about the residents of those cities, but also about tourists who come to experience the American culture and diversity. It is so cute to watch little kids dance to the beat of the drums of American pop music in front of the brand new 5 Towers cineplex.
5 Towers at Universal CityWalk
There are 248,752 cities in the world. Each one of them is unique in their own way. They are like snowflakes, no two cities are alike. With differences also come similarities. Every city has social differences.The first day of lecture we talked about what are some social differences. The most evident ones were ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic class, political, gender, geographic, health differences and the list goes on. Why do we care about these differences? I think those differences is what makes the cities unique. Cities are agglomerations of people. If everyone was exactly the same, ate the same thing, dressed the same way, lived in similar conditions, life would not have been as beautiful as it is now. The world is a colorful, cheerful place to live in because of differences. Every culture contributed their share of "magic" to make earth home and give an incentive to people to travel around the world to experience "the magic" firsthand in different cities.
Los Angeles is one of those magical byproducts of different cultures coming together, to live in a irregularly shaped area that covers a total area of 502.7 square miles. Of course there is no way we can see and analyze the social differences of every location in LA. , but hopefully by scratching the surface we would have a basic understanding of the differences in this complex but breathtaking city.
The first place I thought I could analyze should be the one I am most familiar with. I live in Van Nuys/ Valley Glen, so naturally I decided to pick a location from that area first. I chose the Los Angeles Valley College as my location. I spent my freshman and sophomore year there and even after transferring to UCLA I still spend more time there because of my job. LAVC is a community college located in the Valley Glen district of Los Angeles, California in the east-central San Fernando Valley. The school is a part of the Los Angeles Community College District. It is a 105-acre site bounded by Fulton Avenue on the west, Ethel Avenue/Coldwater Canyon Boulevard on the east, Burbank Boulevard on the south, and Oxnard Street on the north. It has a medium sized campus, is clean and has lots of open space inhabited by sometimes not so friendly squirrels. For the last 5 years there is at least one site under construction. Some people complain that there are less classes every semester to take, but new classrooms are being build. The most up to date information about the campus life is available on the colleges newspaper Valley Star's website. The neighborhood is clean and relatively peaceful. I say relatively because of the Grant High School that is right next to LAVC. There are some territorial or cultural disputes going on inside the school, mainly between students of Armenian and Hispanic heritage. This is a great example of the social differences that lead to conflict. Although they have to coexist together in the same school sometimes the cultural differences lead to arguments that don't end well.
I know I just scratched the surface of this location in L.A. , but there are 8 more weeks of research to look forward to, where I can dig deeper and maybe find some differences that are unique to Los Angeles.
Robert E. Park famously stated: “The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.”
The objective of this course is to see how different cultures come together and if their worlds intertwine. I am personally interested in thesocio-economic differences our society has to offer. I took this class because it is a perfect mix of sociology, anthropology, economics, and geography. I wanted to enrich my knowledge in what difference differences make in everyday life in big cities like Los Angeles. I think this project gives a perfect opportunity for us students to go out of our comfort zones, explore, have a first hand experience of the city and its social differences. So far we learned about the "division of labor", which sparked my interest, because it is an economic term that Emile Durkheim connected to the cultural differences. Los Angeles is a cutural mosaic that consists of colaborating or clashing nations. People have immigrated here from all around the world to start new lives and provide a better future for their children. Not only are there people who have lived here for many generations, but there are people who are sometimes called "fresh off the boat" who haven't been assimilated to the host nation's cutlure, language, and behavior. The impact of globalization and the shift from folk culture to popular culture is evident by looking at some of the photos from the time frame between the 1880s to present day: http://valleyrelics.net/photos.htmlhttp://www.facebook.com/valleyrelics
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