S05E04 | Public Memory and Los Angeles’ Latinx C19

C19: America in the 19th Century

It is likely that you walk past a road or building sign every day without the slightest thought about how the names listed on these spaces have rich ties to an activity that is popular in your town or city, important to the history of a particular group of people in your community, or to a historical event that a particular narrative has overlooked. This episode centers on Los Angeles’ Latinx communities as integral sites of C19 cultural production through its retelling of the historical significance of the Pico and Sepulveda intersection in West Los Angeles and the famous horse race that occurred there between Pío Pico and José Antonio Andrés Sepúlveda, two prominent figures in Mexican California, on March 20, 1852. Scholars Efren Lopez (SDSU-Imperial Valley), Marissa López (UCLA), and Gabriela Valenzuela (CSU-LA), as well as young poets from 826LA, a non-profit writing center serving K-12 youth, and the British-Guyanese writer Fred D’Aguiar, invite listeners to consider how digital tools can be used to spark conversations about our surroundings, literature, and public memory. Lopez, López, and Valenzuela produced this episode and DeLisa D. Hawkes (UT-Knoxville) provided additional production support. Check out this complete list of URLs related to these scholars’ work on public memory and Los Angeles’ Latinx C19 studies at https://bit.ly/LatinxC19Links. Full transcript at bit.ly/3Hod90e.