Legacy

Legacy COMMEMORATING LOS ANGELES’ HISTORY

Depictions of Los Angeles as it really is — and was — lie at the heart of Past Due, a report by the Mayor’s Office Civic Memory Working Group that examines how the city can more honestly examine its past and, moving forward, accurately and appropriately commemorate triumphant and tragic moments in its history.

Overseen by Christopher Hawthorne, professor of the practice of English at USC Dornsife and the city of L.A.’s chief design officer, the 166-page report was published in April 2021 and is available to view at civicmemory.la.

More than 40 eminent historians, architects, artists, city officials, scholars and cultural and Indigenous leaders spent 18 months coming up with 18 key recommendations for how L.A. can commemorate and memorialize formative moments that have gone unrecognized, reshape L.A.’s civic identity and view the past as a window into the future.

Members of the working group included USC Dornsife’s Natalia Molina, Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, and a 2020 MacArthur Fellow; David Ulin, associate professor of the practice of English; and William Deverell, professor of history, spatial sciences and environmental studies and director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, which produced the report. The report was underwritten by the Getty Foundation. Laura Dominguez, Deverell’s doctoral student and a heritage conservation specialist, also participated.

Past Due imagines new possibilities for commemoration, including less permanent and more dynamic ways of paying tribute, such as grassroots community events.

Hawthorne notes that the report isn’t an instruction manual.

“This report really is meant to be a guidebook to help frame decisions and equitable processes related to these important issues,” he says.

Still, the report contains some concrete recommendations, including developing a memorial to victims of COVID-19.

Describing the working group as “one of the most magnificent committees I’ve ever worked on,” Deverell notes that there is no finish line for the project.

“As we think about our past, that’s a quest to seek out community, to work at the levels of memorialization and acknowledgement,” he says. “And that’s endless, as it should be.” —G.H.

Ethnic Mexican residents of Southern California prepare to board trains to Mexico from downtown Los Angeles’ Central Station in 1932. The “Mexican Repatriation,” which aimed to remove Mexicans from social welfare during the Depression, deported up to two million Mexicans and Mexican Americans. As many as 60% are estimated to have been United States birthright citizens.