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Arrival Stories
Each week Jeremy Rosenberg (@LosJeremy) asks, "What's your or your family's Los Angeles arrival story?"
These are the tales of how L.A. residents became an Angeleno. From the Philippines and Mongolia to Ukraine and Chile, the map above shows the melting pot of cultures that make up the diverse communities of L.A.
Click on each pinpoint, and a link will take to you their Arrival Story. (Note: The map may not display properly on Chrome browsers. Try Firefox instead.)
These are the tales of how L.A. residents became an Angeleno. From the Philippines and Mongolia to Ukraine and Chile, the map above shows the melting pot of cultures that make up the diverse communities of L.A.
Click on each pinpoint, and a link will take to you their Arrival Story. (Note: The map may not display properly on Chrome browsers. Try Firefox instead.)
Arrival Stories:
Great, great thanks to all of you who have read, shared, complimented, complained about, and of course, contributed to the column.
Arrival Stories:
"A young man at the Santa Monica Pier asked how I could go to the movies by myself. When I told him I was a researcher, he responded, 'Oh. That's why you're single.'"
Arrival Stories:
"What I love the most about Los Angeles is that to me it is a very welcoming place. No matter where you're from, what your nationality, background, or religion is, you're welcome here! You don't feel rejected. People are warm and friendly just like L.A.'s wonderful weather."
Arrival Stories:
"I find L.A. to be very similar in certain aspects to Milano. They both are cities that one needs to discover, where everything is hidden and where things are not really coming at you."
Arrival Stories:
"Putting the L.A. Metro symbol on me would really encompass the past two years. I feel like it will close a chapter of me traveling and starting a new life."
Arrival Stories:
When I said "open to anywhere," it didn't even occur to me that L.A. would ever be a possibility. I mean, San Francisco, maybe. Portland, maybe. But I certainly never thought, "Los Angeles."
Arrival Stories:
"People could actually hold a symbol of their affinity in their hands -- their love of being a deejay or collecting records or dancing -- and consume it as if were like Catholic communion."
Arrival Stories:
"I love this crazy city. It's an amazing piece of the planet. You get up on a hilltop and the vista you are presented with is this eternal, mythological dreamscape."
Arrival Stories:
The mild climate of Pasadena offered respite from the harsh winters of the Midwest.
Arrival Stories:
"With so little greenery and so much grey, I was prone to daydreaming, to wanting for something better. It was called America."
Arrival Stories:
The warm smell of jasmine flowers in the evening attracted her to Los Angeles, where she found community within a writers group she founded.
Arrival Stories:
"My family tried living near Griffith Park, just north of Los Feliz, but we didn't like it. It was haunted, among other things."
Arrival Stories:
Crossing continents, oceans and national borders isn't the only journey taken by the Los Angeles migrants and immigrants; many of our participants tell of the journey their hearts take, too.
Arrival Stories:
For the life-long educator, "the City of Angels definitely embraced me, nurtured me, taught me and I am proud that they made an angel out of me!"
Arrival Stories:
A third generation Angeleno describes his family's tight connection to Los Angeles, from working on the railroads as a Spanish interpreter to a marriage proposal at the Point Fermin Lighthouse.
Arrival Stories:
In England, it was a given that you are miserable, that's just how it is. In L.A., the goal was to be happy and cheerful and nice to people.
Arrival Stories:
Both sides of her family came from the same town in Italy -- but arrived in America under very different circumstances.
Arrival Stories:
Spanish speakers were hard to come by when she arrived to Los Angeles fifty years ago.
Arrival Stories:
We took the bus to Guatemala, where we got assaulted by our coyote. He took almost everything from us.
Arrival Stories:
Born right after the Soviet invasion of her family's home country, she grew up in two worlds: the '80s and '90s La Cañada and the world of Afghanistan.
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