The San Gabriels represent about 78% of the open space in Los Angeles County, the largest "urban" forest in the nation. Ten million people live within an hour's drive, with opportunities for recreation and physical activity, as well as education, spirituality, and respite from urban stresses. The San Gabriel Watershed is a critical source of clean air, habitat protection, and clean water, providing about a third of the drinking water for local communities.
While the San Gabriel Valley is ethnically and economically diverse, the visitors to the Angeles National Forest are overwhelmingly white. According to the United States Forest Service, Latinos are nearly 50% of the area's population, but account for only 11% of the visitors to the forest. Similarly, Asians are 25% of the area's population, but are less than 5% of the visitors. Only 1% of Angeles visitors are African American.
The San Gabriel Mountains Forever Coalition is organizing a regional and national push to diversify access to and support for the Angeles National Forest and San Gabriel Mountains through a national recreation area (NRA) to be managed by the National Park Service.
Rossman said NPS would spend $2 to $4 million to create the NRA. The United States Forest Service would also spend resources to manage its own lands and resources in the Angeles and adjoining San Bernardino National Forest. In the past the USFS has prioritized fire control rather than recreation, leading to rundown trails and facilities.
Where will the money come from? "Federal appropriations. Other NRA designations have been able to leverage private sources of funding. Such a designation would help support public and private funding in the region and better leverage resources among agencies," according to Rossman.
The need to improve public health helps build support for the NRA. According to Nelson Trujillo, a resident of East Los Angeles, "There is no safe place for outdoor recreation where I live. It's dangerous. I think physical activity will improve the health of my children, keep them safe, healthy and out of trouble." Throughout much of the San Gabriel Valley, 30% or more of all children are overweight or obese. Outdoor programs could also provide positive alternatives to gangs, crime, drugs and violence.
Why are visitation rates by people of color so low to the Angeles? That is a pattern often seen in national forest and park lands. According to a recent study of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area - one of the most visited national parks - traditionally absent groups expressed frustration with limited physical access, subtle racism, and general exclusion from the culture of parks as reasons they avoid these public spaces.
Professor Nina Roberts, one of the authors of the study, explains, "Research over a span of 50 years exploring precisely that question has shifted focus from marginalization due to cost and transportation, to a more cultural understanding of not feeling comfortable or welcome by other visitors or park staff." The San Francisco State academic adds, "Policies covering what is permissible or considered appropriate to do in these areas may not fit cultural preferences and patterns. In the last 10 to 15 years, for example, agencies have come to recognize the need for large group camp-outs and picnic sites to accommodate extended families. Picnics, outdoor sports, throwing a football around, playing soccer or other social activities may be limited, with people often told to get off the land." People of color disproportionately visit parks in large family groups and for active recreation. According to Roberts, "agencies are trying to do a better job with community engagement. We will see a better level of comfort as a result." But history is still real today, she points out.
In the 1920s and after, racially restrictive covenants prevented people of color from owning or using property at Lake Arrowhead, a mountain lake that lies in the San Bernardino Mountains just outside the proposed NRA study. The federal government traded away land on the lake for land in the woods. Today there is no public access to Lake Arrowhead, as private mansions and businesses ring the lake in what ironically is known as "the Beverly Hills of the Mountains." In the last decade, the Forest Service faced employment discrimination suits by women, Latinos and African Americans that led to programs to diversify staff and visitors.
Pedro Chavez, a resident of Glassell Park, favors signage and programs in English and Spanish in the NRA "because there are many people who don't speak English." A November 2010 poll by the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Times found that Latino and Asian voters throughout California are significantly more concerned about core environmental issues, including global warming and pollution, than non-Hispanic whites. This study allowed voters to answer questions in their native language. This suggests that culturally appropriate programs could engage more visitors.
Robert Bracamontes, a member of the Acjachemen Nation, Juaneno Tribe, urged cabinet level federal officials to include Native Americans in the planning process at a public hearing in the summer of 2010. "The most important message here is that we are on Tongva land. They are the people who should be making decisions about their land and the sacred sites on it." The Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center in the Angeles National Forest features a museum, gallery, and activity space. Other cultural and historical sites in the study area and in or near the proposed NRA include the Juan de Bautista National Historic Trail, the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, the grave of Owen Brown, who took part in the slave rebellion at Harper's Ferry, and the sites of WWII Japanese relocation assembly centers at the Santa Anita racetrack and the Pomona County fairgrounds.
The 1930 Olmsted plan, Parks, Playgrounds and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region, called for including Angeles National Forest and San Gabriel River as part of a comprehensive web of parks, playgrounds, mountains, beaches, rivers and transportation. A 2004 study by USC documented that there is no realistic way of reaching the Angeles Forest from Union Station via transit. A transit-to-trails program would help.
NPS released a draft study in November 2011, called the San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains Special Resources Study, and has extended the public comment period to February 13, 2012.
The Coalition supports an improved version of Alternative D from the study simply because "it does more to improve recreational opportunity for the region and is the environmentally preferred alternative," according to Juana Torres, a member of the Coalition and regional organizer with the Sierra Club.
There has been some opposition to the NRA based on a stated fear of large government and claimed federal land grab, but "our vision is to ensure that the land that we already own, as taxpayers, meets our local needs. The community overwhelmingly supports this vision," reports Torres.
The City Project and diverse allies who are in the Coalition are submitting recommendations in support of Alternative D which includes equal access to public resources under equal justice laws and principles, and adequate funding for all. The National Park Service has an opportunity to create a best practice example in the San Gabriel Mountains of a balanced urban national recreation area with passive recreation like hiking in the mountains and active recreation including sports fields in the flat lands that serves the diverse needs of people of color, environmental justice, and environmental quality for all.
People who would like to weigh in can write to the National Park Service in their own words, or respond to a questionnaire on the NPS web site.
- More on Green Justice:
- What is Green Justice?
As an avid rancher, one of his favorite subjects was the cowboy. He spent years as a ranch hand at Donahue Ranch, near what is now Solvang. His book "Trail Dust and Saddle Leather" is one of the most authentic and entertaining accounts of cowboy life. For some, his most well-known work may not be his own commissioned work - but on the album cover for Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the groundbreaking 1968 album by L.A.-based cosmic cowboys The Byrds. The artwork - a detail from another of Mora's maps, "The American Cowboy (Salinas Rodeo)" - has become as iconic as the music found within the grooves. 
Begin your day by arriving at the 
The Highland Park Gold Line Station was completed in 2003 after 
This tour will guide you through the many food establishments along Figueroa St. that offer one of Highland Park's most famous products - the taco. You can bring your vegetarian friends along to Cinnamon, or feast on the overwhelming variety of carnitas available at Metro Balderas. To recover from the food coma, you can head over to:
Originally scheduled for development as an apartment complex, this lot was abandoned for several years until 1992, when artist Tricia Ward 
Part wildlife refuge, part recreational facility, the park serves much of the Northeast Los Angeles community, providing hiking trails, basketball courts, and picnic areas. Visit the Audubon Center and learn about native flora, or hike to the top of Debs Park to be rewarded with beautiful vistas of Highland Park, Downtown Los Angeles, and East Los Angeles and enjoy the famous L.A. sunset from the charming lake at the top.
Born in 1942, Rolfe has lived mostly in L.A. with several stints in the Bay Area. "We moved to L.A. when I was about 10," he says. Rolfe attended L.A. City College in the '60s, where he tried filmmaking but ended up writing. He briefly shared an apartment with Ron Karenga, later the head of the US organization, adversaries to the Black Panthers. "I did like City College," he recalls, "[I] went to the Xanadu, the coffeehouse where blacks and whites first got together, fought civil rights wars. I heard a lot of jazz and rhythm and blues. It was exciting."
