Channeling LA: Diving Deeper into Los Angeles History

This week, Eva and Maite trace the layered history of Los Angeles through four places that reveal the city’s shifting identity: the Los Angeles River, Placita Olvera, Chinatown, and Boyle Heights. Long before freeways and concrete channels, the LA River sustained Indigenous communities and shaped the city’s earliest settlements. From there, they move into the heart of Los Angeles at Olvera Street, where questions of heritage and tourism collide. They explore the displacement and reinvention of Chinatown and end in Boyle Heights, one of the most culturally rich neighborhoods in the country, where Jewish, Japanese, Mexican, and Eastern European communities once lived side by side. Together, these places tell a larger story about migration, erasure, resilience, and the many communities that built Los Angeles.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.