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You've got the original Eastside--LA city neighborhoods east of the LA River including unincorporated East LA--and you've got the newish Eastside--Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park--battling it out for their title. Tomorrow in the LA Times a feature, which is already posted online, dives into the issue head on:
It's a threat to their community's identity, the [original] Eastsiders said. They argue that the term Eastside is synonymous, in California and beyond, with the Chicano movement; home to working-class immigrants and the city's first Latino mayor in more than a century. It's the Eastside of social justice battles in the 1960s, Spanglish and taco trucks. In pop culture, it's the Eastside of Los Lobos and Cheech Marin's parody song "Born in East L.A." It's Mariachi Plaza, Garfield High School and El Tepeyac Cafe.And the longtime, indisputable dividing line between east and west, the original Eastsiders said, remains the Los Angeles River.
About a decade or so ago, outsiders began arriving west of the river.
They settled beyond the skyscrapers and up the road, where Cesar E. Chavez Avenue yields to Sunset Boulevard. Boutiques and art galleries soon pushed out many discount stores and mini-marts.
The newly gentrified area started to collectively call itself the Eastside -- as in east of the riches of the Westside. Their east-west dividing line is La Cienega Boulevard or La Brea Boulevard, even Western Avenue.
As usual with any story about this subject, comment sections gets nasty, yet fun to read. A good number are already posted in the Times' comment section. As for LAist, how should we use the term in posts?
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Maybe it was just that Cheech & Chong movie that used to be on in heavy rotation on Saturday afternoons on KTLA 5 during my childhood, but to me "East L.A." connotes that Chicano history whereas "Eastside" signifies anyplace east of La Brea but specifically Silver Lake, Echo Park, Boyle Heights, Los Feliz, Atwater Village, Eagle Rock, &c.
Part of the problem with this kind of cardinal nomenclature in Los Angeles is that there is not a proper "center," a defined locus of triangulation as there is in, say, Manhattan. I wouldn't dispute that there are class issues embedded in whether or not one considers the LA River vs. some other N-S artery (405, La Cienega, La Brea, Western) the dividing line b/w east and west. The brouhaha over this term, though, baffles me to some degree. East and West are all relative in this town. Deal.
"Part of the problem with this kind of cardinal nomenclature in Los Angeles is that there is not a proper "center," "
Actually, I think that's why Central Avenue was named Central Avenue.
it's pretty funny silverlaker's call themselves the "eastside". Maybe someone should show them a map of LA. Whats wrong with "north central"? They are pretty much directly north of downtown & south LA. The real eastside is pretty well know historically as the eastside, so these hipsters sound pretty dumb saying it.
Brainylagirl's bafflement over the brouhaha and closing dismissive demand that I "deal" aside, in answer to your last question: no, don't.
Growing up westside I was one of the few of my friends and classmates to regularly come east of La Brea AND east of the LA River, for work and play (and Tommy's burgers). In high school I delivered newspapers in Echo Park and Silver Lake and Los Feliz in the early mornings and then would come back for school. I made regular trips out to a mechanic on Indiana and Olympic restoring my first car. I'd get midnight cravings for a double-cheese and sneak out for drives to Beverly and Rampart.
There is a big difference between the two regions, from perspectives social, cultural, geographical, political and historical.
Calling Silver Lake, Echo Park, et al the "eastside" is indicative of an insular ignorance and disrespect for our city as a whole, which is an unfortunate symptom afflicting many living west of La Brea who think they're the true center of the greater L.A. urbanverse and not only are they entitled to define the rest of the outlands as they see fit, but they will readily dismiss those who disagree and tell them they're the ones who should deal.
I think the Eastside/Westside debate is particularly upsetting for real LA natives who know this city and know where the genuine cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic dividing lines and diversity are. I grew up on the Westside (not West LA, but the Westside in Cheviot Hills) and went to a magnet school with friends in Koreatown, East LA (soto street area, etc), Siverlake and (yes) on the Westside and feel fortunate to know so much of each community from a young age. I've found that it's the transplants and more insular, artistic and "aspiring" communities who only understand themselves in relation to "westsiders" who would label Echo Park "eastside." In naming it Eastside each day, in rebellion against the bourgeois and boring Westside wealth, it's become shorthand for hip, boho "non-westside" and yes, the new Eastside for those who never learned about the joys of LA to begin with.
It's incredibly upsetting, not because people are getting the labels wrong (language is malleable and references certainly can change) but because the change comes from people who don't bother to ever engage in the city they're labeling.
Oh, and westsiders who can't make it past the 405 deserve equal scorn, but that's for a different anonymous online rant.
I didn't mean to sound dismissive, except that I think all this back-and-forth over "authenticity" is pretty pointless. Boundaries (and centers) shift and evolve over time, especially in this town; that's my main point.
As for "real LA natives," referred to by dreamingingreen, that's another fallacy. It suggests that there's something more valid or more "genuine" about the experience of someone who was born here (which I was) than another person who may have moved here from elsewhere and yet has become knowledgeable about the city part of a community. Rather than native, I prefer the term "local" -- someone who has familiar with his/her environs, both historically in the present, someone who cares about the future of a place.
"As for "real LA natives," referred to by dreamingingreen, that's another fallacy. It suggests that there's something more valid or more "genuine" about the experience of someone who was born here (which I was) than another person who may have moved here from elsewhere and yet has become knowledgeable about the city part of a community."
Actually, that's excactly what it means. "Native" and "local" are two completely different things.
But you're right about one thing: Boundaries do shift and change in L.A. In fact, if this was 1964 all you "Eastsiders" and your apologists would be tripping over your feet to disassociate yourselves from "those f*cking wetbacks" in East L.A.
This is about race and class. Period. Don't flail around about the difference between "native" and "local" as if that excuses ignorance and cultural imperalism.
If you say anything east of La Brea is the Eastside, you ain't no L.A. native.
Oh, jeez. It's not cultural imperialism. It's just acknowledging that there are multiple centers and points of reference in this town. Use the ones that work best for you and your audience. These are not defined terms, and I don't see why they should be. Maybe LA City Council could erect a little blue sign that says "Historic Eastside", would that make it better? Also, the eastside is/was home to many more than *just* Latinos. It used to be the heart of the Jewish community in Los Angeles (Breet Street Schul, etc.). That shifted westward, too.
usually when i find myself wanting to refer to things east of la brea as "the eastside" is when i'm talking to people whose locus is exclusively on the westside. i'm a grad student at ucla, but i live in silver lake, and you'd swear some of these kids think downtown is another planet for how little they venture beyond westwood.. o.O really, i wish silver lake/echo park could be included in NELA, but that still doesn't quite fit either.. i dunno. it's an awkward area. i just refer to it as silver lake, cause that's one thing anybody can agree that it is.
The average LA transplant typically doesnt even realize that the city extends east past downtown. Oh well, get over it. Neighborhood nicknames change every couple generations. My grandparents (I'm 5th gen. LA) still refuse to acknowledge that santa monica is "the westside", claiming its actually too far west to qualify. Things change.
I consider everything between La Cienega, Interstate 10, the Los Angeles River and Griffith Park/Hollywood Mountains to be Central LA. It's the heart of the city.
"East Los", the bastard child of Los Angeles has always been on the "other side" of the river.
Official maps of the City of Los Angeles show Indiana Street as the eastern frontier of Los Angeles which runs through the heart of East Los Angeles - ask any LAPD Hollenbeck officer. He or She will confirm it.
Although many colorful descriptors such as, menacing, treacherous, or unsafe have been used to describe this culturally rich neighborhood. Truth be told, crime is no worse here than in other celebrated areas of Los Angeles such as, Venice and Hollywood.
As a transplant, it's always seemed to me that East LA is everything east of the river, and even in the less than two years I've been here I can recognize that hipsters calling Los Feliz East LA are missing the point.
And for the record, I live ON La Brea and Venice, and I very proudly identify with my section of Los Angeles as being Mid City, which to me is 3rd Street to Washington, Western to La Cienega. But that's just me and rap star Murs, I guess.
Alright, isn't the "real" Eastside more also commonly known as East LA?? I am from LA, and that's what I always called it per the news, other residents, etc. It just goes with West LA.
Also, I just refer to Silver Lake et al by their individual names, but if someone lives in West LA and refers to the area as the Eastside I don't think that's illegitimate, seeing at how it IS east of where they are located, within the city...
@Hindinwood I concur w/ your description here. My experience of the usage (in various contexts) follows yours.