Blogging Social Difference in L.A.:Week 4

     City of Burbank

         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.

                                         Porto's bakery counter of deliciousness

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 3

Universal Studios

      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

Blogging Social Difference in LA.: Week 2

         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. 

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 1

Hollywood Backlot Mosaic

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 the socio-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.html  http://www.facebook.com/valleyrelics
  

Downtown Los Angeles