Ryan Reft
Ryan Reft is a historian of 20th and 21st-century American history at the Library of Congress. His work has appeared in several journals, including Souls, The Sixties, California History, Planning Perspectives, Southern California Quarterly, and the Journal of Urban History, as well as in the anthology "Barack Obama and African American Empowerment: The Rise of Black America's New Leadership" and "Asian American Sporting Cultures." The opinions expressed by Reft are solely his and not those of the Library of Congress. He can be reached on twitter at @ryanreft.
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The anticipated Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail is just one project that creates job opportunities, despite California's long history of discrimination.
For all its moral ambiguities, the military industrial complex has also provided a space for resistance and the assertion of rights and community for gay men and women across the U.S. but especially in California.
"The man with the hoe is gone. Six hundred thousand of him left the fields of America last year," observed the Los Angeles Times in April of 1918.…
With the Republican primaries on the horizon and Donald Trump's comments about Mexican migrants ringing in Angeleno ears, looking back at this history provides a valuable tool for framing current and future immigration debates.
A decade and half into the 21st century, 2015 serves as useful moment to consider the history of Filipinos in America's boxing history and L.A.'s role in making it all happen.
With new discussions regarding the possible conversion of the Orange Line to rail, today serves as the perfect opportunity to examine the city's recent bus history, the attitudes that underlie bus transit, and its present and future.
The Blue Line is one of the most used light rail in the nation. With its 25th anniversary on the horizon this July, a look back at its creation proves a useful means to think about L.A.'s transit past, present, and future.
The city of Lakewood pioneered city contracting for public services, establishing a controversial model replicated by countless other suburbs in Los Angeles and beyond.
A look at the history of the Pacific Electric Red Cars and its ability to ferry working class and communities of color to their jobs and cheap amusements provides a useful primer for the future of Los Angeles transit.
In the years following WWII, California's athletes served as the transnational bridge between Asia and the United States.