The Studio for Southern California History was actually not what I expected at all. Our contact, Sharon, was very energetic (I had imagined a librarian), the studio was noisy and colorful (I pictured a sterile museum) and the venue was plopped in a storefront in the middle of Chinatown (for some reason, I had pictured it in a quieter area, like Pasadena). The Studio feels very neighborly despite being surrounded by buildings and stores on a busy street.
After spending a little time exploring the Studio (which boasted walls and boards covered in locals’ scribbled love notes and signatures), Sharon and her three interns led us on a walking tour of Chinatown. We were lucky to be visiting as the neighborhood rehearsed and prepared for Chinese New Years celebrations. I was really surprised that just a few minutes from campus, an entire community was setting off fireworks and putting on dragon costumes for a holiday I wasn’t even aware of. That’s rather embarrassing to admit; I suppose it makes me sound uncultured.
The community tour was intended to inspire us as we develop a project on the history of USC. More than anything, I left the tour and the studio inspired to explore. The Studio had so many anecdotes about the surrounding area and hearing them made me want to know about the hidden history of everything around me. I love exploring LA, but I rarely go off the beaten path (I go to tourist favorites and local hot spots).
This weekend, I decided to try to get lost in LA (safely, in a car and not by myself). I took back roads and avoided the freeway, winding around Hollywood and ending up in Burbank. I still can’t believe how much I don’t know about the city I live in and even the campus I’m a part of.
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Hi Blair: Thanks for the very inspirational post. I love the idea of getting lost in LA, and there's something comical too about ending up in Burbank.
Uncovering these hidden histories sounds like a fantastic project. Keep us posted!
I'm going to add-on to Blair's post for my own first response to the sight visit...keeping in mind, Los Angeles IS our sight!
It’s so big! My first impression of USC was that I felt dumb not realizing how huge it really is and how long it would take me to walk to all my classes. I needed a bike right away. I used to live across the street from the historic landmark home where Archie Bunker once lived. Walking from West Adams down University Way, a street which looks small on a map, until you hit Jefferson, the northern boarder street takes an excruciating twelve minute walk. University Way starts as West 27th Street as it rounds a bend coming from Figueroa St., dips south and crosses 28th, then 30th, passing by 31st St. Charter School and ends at the intersection of Hoover and Jefferson. This road, a footpath for some, a trail for others, was my highway for the first year I lived in Los Angeles.
The Studio for Southern California History was a small warehouse space in downtown Chinatown. (“Forget about it Jake, it’s just Chinatown”) The wide open space was filled floor to ceiling with documented history of Los Angeles. It would probably take a day to look at all the items on just the four walls alone. We met with Sharon Sekhon, Ph. D., the founder and director of the project. She wanted to share with us right away all the juicy stories about USC that she felt should be uncovered, purposefully hidden by USC. My expectations of the project were slightly changed when I realized that no one documentary could ever possibly include the entirety of a university (let alone a city’s) history. It’s exciting to think how my perspective and my history will have an affect on the input I have on the project. What Sharon spoke of was one’s own place in history and how the knowledge they have of their surroundings affects their experience. Pretty nifty stuff.
When Blair, Zack and I went on our site visit to The Studio for Southern California History, my entire perspective for this project was completely warped. At first, I imagined we would be doing a documentary about the studio, not for it. Though I’m sure a five minute documentary is very doable on this hodge-podge collection of “history” held in a warehouse in Chinatown, I quickly realized Sharon would not like that. Sharon was also a completely different person than what I expected. I’m not sure who exactly I imagined, but it was certainly not a very vocal, opinionated and such a strong personality. The energy she exudes is inspiring, as she motivated me to learn more about everything and anything she talked about.
Although delightful, I’m not really sure what the walking tour of Chinatown was supposed to contribute to our documentary. At bare minimum, I think it provided an idea for what the Studio is about, and the kind of information they’d like to present and receive. I feel that the Studio is very much focused on personalizing Southern California, rather than having a homogenized view of Los Angeles, as is available now. Sharon welcomes personal narratives and takes them as fact suitable for her studio. With all this, I’m not sure if I agree that the studio should be about history, but rather for culture. The term history to me implies that it was researched and proved as fact, but what it seems she likes to collect are very personalized stories.
More great comments, from Kristine's reminder about how LA is so seeped in its representations that it's sometimes hard to see the city stripped of the way it appears in film, to Lynda's comments about how personal histories relate to the more official versions we're used to hearing. If you're interested in how LA has been represented in film, check out Thom Anderson's film "Los Angeles Plays Itself"--a great and very opinionated documentary about the history of L.A. in films.
And yes, you'll want to find a corner of the story about LA that hasn't been told yet rather than attempting to tell the bigger history of the city (an impossible goal in any case). Lynda's question brings up issues of historiography, or how we know anything about the past. In the last decade or so there's been a shift in the discipline of History to pay more attention to the personal stories or the unofficial versions of events to complicate and problematize the official History with a capital H that was previously taught. There's a recognition of how whose story gets told has more to do with power than with truth, and a recognition that these unofficial accounts can shed light on how everyday folks both participate in historical events and how they shape or make sense of these events.
Anyway, great comments. Thanks for bringing up such big and important questions.
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