Little India Artesia

Once a Portuguese-run dairy village, Artesia is now home to Southern California's largest Indian enclave. In the cultural and commercial district informally known as Little India, Hindi supplants English, saris are a wardrobe staple and fast food means samosas. Beginnings In the 1920s and 1930s, Portuguese and Dutch immigrants developed Artesia into one of the most vital dairy districts in Southern California.

Once a Portuguese-run dairy village, Artesia is now home to Southern California's largest Indian enclave. In the cultural and commercial district informally known as Little India, Hindi supplants English, saris are a wardrobe staple and fast food means samosas. Beginnings In the 1920s and 1930s, Portuguese and Dutch immigrants developed Artesia into one of the most vital dairy districts in Southern California.

Jane Martin came all the way from Texas to shop along this four-block avenue of restaurants and stores featuring Indian saris, spices and sweets on Pioneer Boulevard in downtown Artesia. By midday during a visit this week, Martin and her two cousins had already eaten an Indian lunch, purchased Indian fabric and were hunting for Indian soaps to give as Christmas presents. Even in Houston, Martin said, this area of southeast Los Angeles County is known as Little India.

Jane Martin came all the way from Texas to shop along this four-block avenue of restaurants and stores featuring Indian saris, spices and sweets on Pioneer Boulevard in downtown Artesia. By midday during a visit this week, Martin and her two cousins had already eaten an Indian lunch, purchased Indian fabric and were hunting for Indian soaps to give as Christmas presents. Even in Houston, Martin said, this area of southeast Los Angeles County is known as Little India.

A trip abroad can make or break a new relationship. He's an adventurous eater; she makes a beeline for the nearest McDonald's. He likes to plan every move; she likes to wander. Here in Southern California, we are fortunate to have a wealth of ethnic neighborhoods that simulate the experience of being in a foreign country.

Your editorial asks "Little India in Artesia--Why Not?" There are many reasons. I am a frequent shopper in Artesia. I am well acquainted with the area, as well as Chinatown, Little Saigon and the others you mention. The Indian shopping area is quite different from them because tiny Artesia is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the Southland. True, there are many sweet shops, sari shops and Indian grocery stores, but mixed in among them are Philippine markets, a Vietnamese restaurant, a Portuguese bakery and a Mexican restaurant that has been there for 17 years.

When members of the Asian Indian community approached California officials last year about placing a "Little India" sign on a freeway in Artesia, city officials objected to the idea. A community newsletter noted that Caltrans requires elected city officials to approve such signs. "In fact, this has never been placed before the City Council--nor will it be," it stated. The tone was harsh; the attitude narrow-minded.

Whenever the mood hits her, Hollywood film producer Ilene Staple gathers several friends and heads to Little India in Artesia, where she slips inside Ziba Beauty Salon to have her hands stained with henna in the ancient style of Indian adornment called mehndi. Staple, 36, says she prefers to dress simply but that "this is a way of marking myself for special occasions that is beautiful and meditative. We plan a whole day around it. We have lunch, buy music, go to the shops for spices and bangles.

A new sign hangs at the corner of 3rd Street and New Hampshire Avenue in Central Los Angeles: Little Bangladesh. Just behind it is a small shopping plaza with a Salvadoran restaurant, a pizza joint, a former Korean cigarette shop and a restaurant that serves teriyaki chicken, burritos and boba drinks. Across the street are more Korean- and Mexican-themed businesses. The nearest store with a clear connection to Bangladesh, Bengal Liquors, is a block away. All told, there are fewer than a dozen shops owned by or catering to Bangladeshis along this working-class commercial strip flanked by apartment buildings.

BY the 1920s, one of Hollywood's greatest cinematographers, James Wong Howe, was already a chief cameraman for the Lasky Studios. Shooting in those days with orthochromatic film, "blue went white," according to Howe. But he found a way to light scenes so the blue eyes of Hollywood's leading ladies showed up dark on screen. How did he do this? By making a box lined with black velvet and shooting close-ups with his lens.

A trip abroad can make or break a new relationship. He's an adventurous eater; she makes a beeline for the nearest McDonald's. He likes to plan every move; she likes to wander. Here in Southern California, we are fortunate to have a wealth of ethnic neighborhoods that simulate the experience of being in a foreign country.

Your editorial (Sept. 6) was generous in its comments and sagacious in its advice to the Artesia City Council. Asian Indians in this country constitute a large number of recent immigrants living largely in metropolises like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and other cities. They are a hard-working lot who are proud of their ancient culture and bound by age-old customs and traditions. It would have been only proper for the Artesia City Council to grant their wishes to have a sign saying "Little India."

When members of the Asian Indian community approached California officials last year about placing a "Little India" sign on a freeway in Artesia, city officials objected to the idea. A community newsletter noted that Caltrans requires elected city officials to approve such signs. "In fact, this has never been placed before the City Council--nor will it be," it stated. The tone was harsh; the attitude narrow-minded.

Enter Artesia along Pioneer Boulevard and the strip malls are crowned with the familiar logos of McDonald's and Starbucks. But a few blocks farther on, the English-language signs give way to delicate Indian script as the smells of mustard and cumin seeds waft in the air. The boulevard is lined with Indian restaurants, spice markets and stores specializing in South Asian jewelry and henna tattoos.