The Original Los Angeles Riots

HISTORICAL MEMORY IS like a remote control whose batteries are on the blink: sometimes it works and sometimes it fails, and no particular pattern or reason can be discerned for its success or its failure. Ask any Angeleno about “the riots,” and they will likely mention Watts or Rodney King. The historically discerning may dig into their memory of grade-school California history (or their recollection of mediocre swing-revival songs of the 1990s) and mention the Zoot Suit riots of 1943, in which military servicemen commandeered a fleet of taxicabs and assaulted young Hispanic men on the streets of East L.A. There is no one left who remembers firsthand the events of October, 1871, and the only physical reminder that remains is a small plaque near the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument in downtown Los Angeles. The places where eighteen Chinese men were murdered by a violent mob are now gone, replaced by the Hollywood Freeway and the United States Court House.