A Collage of a Community

It’s Southern California’s Ellis Island. It’s also one of Los Angeles’ oldest and most persistently diverse communities. People of all nationalities and ethnicities don’t just pass through Boyle Heights, they put down roots, go to school, make friends and establish businesses that pass from one generation to another. Those who move on, as many do, take images, keepsakes and memories of the historic neighborhood with them.

A 1928 black-and-white photograph of a dreamy summer day at Hollenbeck Park has survived, making Boyle Heights of yore look like a Seurat painting. More mundane views appear in vintage snapshots of multiethnic basketball teams and girls clubs, Russian immigrants, the original Canter’s delicatessen (now on Fairfax Avenue) and Zelman’s men’s clothing store, a longtime family business that closed in 1999.

Memories of Boyle Heights’ darker side also linger. Frank Romero, a Latino artist who grew up in Boyle Heights, has saved dishes given to his mother by a Japanese American neighbor who dispersed her possessions before being sent to an internment camp during World War II. Mollie Wilson Murphy, an African American resident of Boyle Heights, was 18 in the spring of 1942 when her Japanese American girlfriends were forced out of the neighborhood. But she kept up a lively correspondence with them throughout their incarceration and resettlement--and held onto the letters.

Long squirreled away in closets, file cabinets, suitcases and libraries, these images, artifacts and documents--along with many others--are going on view in “Boyle Heights: The Power of Place,” an exhibition that opens today at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. The show is billed as a “multiethnic collaborative approach to documenting a Los Angeles neighborhood,” and encompasses everything from handwritten letters and taped oral histories to a splashy, 22-foot-by-14-foot mural of Boyle Heights history, recently painted by Los Angeles artist Nuke.

A scrapbook of newspaper clippings from June 1943 recounts the zoot suit riots, a wartime uprising that pitted rebellious Mexican American young men in baggy suits against other Angelenos, who considered them unpatriotic. Another group of photographs documents the punk scene of the 1970s and ‘80s. A group of handmade guitars from the Candelas Store, displayed in a glass case, represents the wares of a longtime Boyle Heights business.

All these items contribute to a multimedia collage of a complex community. Rather than tracking its history chronologically, the show takes a geographic approach. A parade of photographs recently shot along Avenida Cesar E. Chavez (formerly Brooklyn Avenue) runs through the show, forming its conceptual spine. Along the way are “intersections” that focus on themes such as religion, business, community institutions and wartime unrest. In one corner, adjacent walls are densely hung with plastic envelopes of photographs and other documents--making the point that many more stories could be told.

The community undergoing all this creative investigation has a current population of 85,000 and covers 6.7 square miles, bounded by the Los Angeles River on the west, Indiana Street on the east, Marengo Street and the I-10 freeway on the north and 25th Street on the south.

Named for Andrew Boyle, who purchased land there in 1858, planted vineyards and built a house on what became Boyle Avenue, it was developed as an affluent suburb but evolved into a working-class neighborhood. Boyle’s son-in-law, William H. Workman, subdivided the area for residential development in 1875 and dubbed it Boyle Heights.

By the 1930s, a thriving Jewish community was part of an ethnic mix of Japanese, Mexican, Italian, Russian, Armenian and African descent. Since 1940, the Latino population has increased from 12% to 87% while the white population has decreased from 80% to 5%, but Boyle Heights is still home to a wide variety of people.

That persistent diversity is what made Boyle Heights an enticing subject for the Japanese American National Museum, said Audrey T. Lee-Sung, director of special projects. Although the museum may be best known for telling the stories of Japanese Americans, it is dedicated to illuminating a much broader picture of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity, she said.

“We’re interested in how the Japanese experience fits into the larger sphere, not just in isolation,” said museum associate curator Sojin Kim, who organized the show with Emily Anderson, a curatorial associate.

Fulfilling its mission through exhibitions and other public programs, the 10-year-old museum has spearheaded other collaborations that cross cultural and geographic boundaries. It has joined forces with regional groups in Oregon and Hawaii to explore aspects of Japanese American history. Another project, “Finding Family Stories,” focused on ties among ethnic groups in L.A.

The Boyle Heights show is an ambitious addition to the lineup, but it’s merely the centerpiece of a larger collaboration, the Boyle Heights Project, which has evolved during the past three years.

One of the first steps was to form a community advisory committee, Lee-Sung said. Then came a series of meetings with potential project partners, which led to the development of a proposal in the fall of 1999. Gathering force as the collaboration grew and a trickle of information and objects turned into a flood, the project ultimately garnered major support from the Nathan Cummings Foundation of New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Additional funders include the Bank of America Foundation in Los Angeles, the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington, D.C., and the Nissan Foundation in Gardena.

“We aren’t accustomed to having so many people say yes,” said Chris Komai, the museum’s public information manager.

Many people also said yes to appeals for objects and information, to be used in the exhibition. The curators staged collection days at the museum and at Roosevelt High School, one of the project partners, which brought in hundreds of photographs, postcards, posters, leaflets and other Boyle Heights memorabilia, Anderson said.

Students at Roosevelt--which has produced such graduates as the late U.S. Congressman Edward Roybal and Harold Williams, president emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Trust--conducted interviews with Boyle Heights residents past and present for the exhibition’s oral history component.

The Jewish Historical Society of Southern California, a largely volunteer organization founded in 1952, provided assistance with research and lent artifacts and photographs to the show, as did the International Institute of Los Angeles, a social service agency that was established in 1914 as a branch of the YWCA to promote multicultural understanding but now operates independently.

Another partner is Self-Help Graphics, an Eastside community-based visual arts center, which is presenting its own exhibition, “About, By, From: Boyle Heights.” Opening today and running through Oct. 13, the show explores the history and diversity of the neighborhood through the eyes of contemporary artists. While the other exhibition documents the past, this one offers artworks as “reflections of the present,” said Tomas Benitez, executive director of Self-Help.

Some of the project’s partners will present their own events in a mix of public programs, from a culinary festival to an outdoor concert to a tour of Evergreen Cemetery, yet another place where Boyle Heights’ diversity is evident.

Every native of Los Angeles whose family has been here for three generations probably has a connection to Boyle Heights, Kim said. “We wanted to document the community in a way that would show the complexity of its social history.”

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Documenting the Neighborhood

“Boyle Heights: The Power of Place,” Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. 1st St., Los Angeles. Through Feb. 23. Tuesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Prices: $6, adults; $5, seniors; $3, students and children 6-17; free, children younger than 6. Phone: (213) 625-0414.

“About, By, From: Boyle Heights,” Self-Help Graphics, 3802 Cesar E. Chavez Ave., L.A. Through Oct. 13. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sundays, noon-4 p.m. Free. Phone: (323) 881-6444.

“Story Gathering Workshops,” Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. 1st St., L.A. Oct. 3, 10, 17 and 24, 7-9 p.m. Free. Phone: (213) 625-0414.

“The Eastside Revue: 1932-2002,” a musical homage to Boyle Heights, Japanese American National Museum Plaza, 369 E. 1st St., L.A. Oct. 12, 1-5 p.m. Free. Phone: (213) 625-0414.

“Boyle Heights Tour: Evergreen Cemetery,” led by James Rojas of the Latino Urban Forum. Evergreen Cemetery, 204 N. Evergreen Ave., L.A. Nov. 2, 2:30-4 p.m. Free. Phone: (213) 625-0414.

“Eastside Flavors: From Mochi to Latkes,” a celebration of Boyle Heights’ cultural diversity focusing on food preparation and tasting. International Institute of Los Angeles, 435 S. Boyle Ave., L.A. Nov. 10, 1-4 p.m. Free. Phone: (323) 264-6210.

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Suzanne Muchnic is a Times staff writer.