A Learning Link to the Japanese American Museum

The Power of Place

What is your neighborhood like? How are your neighbors different from you? What do you share in common?

Located just east of downtown and the L.A. River is Boyle Heights, a special Los Angeles neighborhood. Boyle Heights has been home to people from different places who have different beliefs and who speak different languages.

In the 1930s, people of Jewish, Japanese, Italian, Russian and Armenian backgrounds as well as many African-Americans lived in Boyle Heights. More than 70 years later, it is still home to people from many different cultures, cities, states and countries. Like many neighborhoods, it is always changing.

Most of us have places in our neighborhoods that we visit time and again. In the 1940s, Boyle Heights residents could be seen in Hollenbeck Park or at the buzzing corner of Brooklyn and Soto. Today, Avenida Cesar Chavez, a street that runs through the neighborhood, has many businesses, organizations and places of worship where people come together.

You can learn more about the special neighborhood of Boyle Heights in the exhibition "Boyle Heights: The Power of Place" at the Japanese American National Museum through Feb. 23. After seeing the photographs, objects, artwork and images that tell the history of Boyle Heights, go home and explore your own neighborhood. Find out about its history. Talk to your family and friends and record what they say. Take photographs of your favorite landmarks. Draw pictures of your community. Put it all together and make a scrapbook about your neighborhood. Be sure to share your discoveries with others! For more information about the museum and its exhibition, call (213) 625-0414 or visit www.janm.org.

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The Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. 1st St. downtown Los Angeles, provided this Learning Link.