Los Angeles beyond the glitz: A city of immigrants and inequality

 

Away from my home (Ahmedabad) in the United States, I have been staying in Los Angeles for quite some time. "Los Angeles" is Spanish for "The Angels." Founded in 1781, the city was originally named El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, which translates as The Town of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels—a reference to the Virgin Mary.

Yet, ironic though it may seem, although Los Angeles, which happens to be one one of the two big cities of California, is regarded as the entertainment capital of the world—best known for Hollywood and as the heart of the global film, television, and music industries—I noticed that most Spanish-speaking Americans live on the city's periphery rather than in its glamorous centre.

On the one hand, there is the glitter of celebrity culture, symbolised by the iconic Hollywood sign. The city is globally recognised for its sprawling, car-centric landscape, lined with palm trees, blessed with year-round Mediterranean sunshine, and home to famous beaches such as Santa Monica and Venice.

Many Angelenos regard Los Angeles and its surrounding neighbourhoods as a massive cultural trendsetter, celebrating deeply diverse immigrant communities that have shaped a world-class culinary scene, cutting-edge street fashion, and an influential contemporary art and music culture.

Yet segregation remains striking.

If you drive down Lankershim Boulevard, Laurel Canyon Boulevard, or Burbank Boulevard in North Hollywood (NoHo), the extraordinary concentration of auto body and mechanic shops is impossible to miss. This clustering is the result of a combination of historic zoning laws, economic forces, and local demographics.

The reason NoHo became an auto repair hub is not difficult to understand. Historically, large parts of North Hollywood—particularly the areas surrounding the railway tracks and major commercial corridors—were zoned for light industrial use.

Decades ago, when the San Fernando Valley was expanding rapidly, land here was relatively inexpensive compared with much of Los Angeles. Auto repair businesses require specific permits, large workshop bays, and industrial zoning to operate legally. Naturally, they clustered in those pockets of North Hollywood where the city permitted such businesses.

Curious about the ethnic composition of this industry, I began asking questions.

While there is a substantial Hispanic and Latino presence in the local automotive business, North Hollywood's repair shops are largely shared between two immigrant communities.

North Hollywood and its surrounding neighbourhoods are more than 50 per cent Hispanic or Latino. Naturally, many business owners and employees reflect the local population. Numerous multigenerational, family-owned workshops operate here, where Spanish is spoken fluently while serving both the neighbourhood and the wider Los Angeles area.

Alongside them is a significant Armenian-American community. Roughly 12 to 15 per cent of North Hollywood's residents identify as being of Armenian heritage. Since the U.S. Census classifies people of Middle Eastern and European origins as "White," Armenians constitute a substantial share of the area's non-Hispanic white population.

My curiosity about this community grew after I visited several neighbourhood shops where products bearing Russian labels were prominently displayed. As a foreign correspondent in the Soviet Union between 1986 and 1993, I had visited Armenia briefly as well.

Many of the shopkeepers spoke English with a heavy accent, while some struggled to communicate in the language. In one grocery store, I was searching for ginger powder—an essential ingredient for preparing masala for Gujarati tea. Although several other spices used in the blend were available, I could not find ginger powder. When I asked the shop assistant for help, he struggled to understand what I was looking for and eventually sought assistance from a colleague.

In fact, it is impossible to talk about the automobile repair industry around North Hollywood without mentioning the Armenian-American community. North Hollywood, neighbouring East Hollywood, and Glendale together have one of the largest concentrations of Armenians in the United States. A considerable number of independent repair shops, body shops, and vehicle dealerships are owned and operated by Armenian families.

One Armenian immigrant whom I met, an electrician, told me in broken English that he had arrived in the United States in 1990. He claimed that there were now more Armenians in the Los Angeles area than in Armenia itself.

"In Armenia," he said, "you have a mixed population... there are Indians there."

I told him that during my visit I had seen an ancient church where, I had been informed, the chief priest emerged only once a year.

"It's a mafia," he replied with a shrug.

Another striking feature of North Hollywood is the abundance of billboards advertising accident lawyers. I wondered why there were so many. Do accidents happen that frequently?

The answer, I discovered, has less to do with unusually high accident rates than with aggressive marketing and the economics of Los Angeles' car-dependent culture.

Personal injury lawyers do not advertise blindly. They target North Hollywood because it is a particularly lucrative market. Los Angeles has some of the highest automobile insurance premiums and one of the most litigation-prone driving cultures in the United States.

Under California law, someone injured through another person's negligence may claim compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Given the extraordinarily high cost of healthcare in the United States, even relatively minor injuries can result in settlements worth tens of thousands of dollars. Lawyers commonly receive between one-third and 40 per cent of any settlement. One successful truck accident or serious collision case can pay for a year's worth of billboard advertising.

The giant smiling faces of accident attorneys promising multi-million-dollar settlements are therefore no accident themselves. Personal injury law firms deliberately target working-class, immigrant, and commuter-heavy neighbourhoods. For people whose livelihoods depend upon driving, losing a vehicle or being unable to work because of injury can be financially devastating. The promise—"No fee unless we win"—offers immediate access to legal representation for those who otherwise could not afford it.

Another feature that caught my attention was Los Angeles' extensive network of bicycle lanes that often remain largely unused. In North Hollywood, the paradox is particularly striking. One reason attributed to it is, temperatures rise to 37 degrees during summer, as NoHo is mostly a concrete jungle, with few shadowy trees.

This stands in sharp contrast to places where I have previously spent extended periods in the United States, including Chapel Hill, Cary, Salt Lake City, and Boston.

The problem is that isolated bicycle lanes do not constitute a safe cycling network. People may wish to cycle, but North Hollywood's infrastructure often makes doing so feel risky. A cyclist may travel comfortably along a dedicated lane only to find it disappearing abruptly at a major intersection, forcing them into fast-moving traffic alongside buses and large trucks. Because these lanes rarely form a continuous network, most residents avoid using bicycles for their daily commute, except for some lower-income workers and gig-economy delivery riders.

Yet another striking contrast with several other American cities I have visited is the number of sidewalks blocked by chain-link fences, oversized planters, barricades, or temporary walls. These have become one of the most visible and controversial battlegrounds in Los Angeles' homelessness crisis.

I learned that, under city regulations, obstructing the public right-of-way is generally illegal. Property owners who install barriers on public sidewalks without specific municipal approval may violate city regulations and restrict wheelchair access protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The city's Bureau of Street Services frequently orders such obstructions to be removed and may impose fines. Nevertheless, many property owners appear willing to accept those penalties, viewing them as a small price to pay for what they consider protection of their homes or businesses.

Not without reason, Los Angeles is often described as a mosaic of distinct communities that mask deep, interconnected class and ethnic divisions. Rather than a simple black-and-white divide, the city presents a complex, multi-ethnic landscape where geography, race, immigration, and economic opportunity intersect.

The affluent western corridor—including Bel-Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, and Beverly Hills—is dominated by high-income neighbourhoods that remain predominantly white.

South Los Angeles, once the historic centre of the city's Black community, has gradually become a predominantly Latino, working-class area. It continues to experience disproportionately high poverty rates and decades of underinvestment. East and North Los Angeles area are the heart of Chicano and Latino culture. 

Looking beyond Hollywood's glamour, Los Angeles reveals itself as a city where history, immigration, economics, and urban planning have created a landscape of striking contrasts. It is these contradictions, perhaps more than its celebrated image, that appears to define the real Los Angeles.