Hometown Heritage in Compton

Trudi Sandmeier [0:08]: Welcome to Save As, a podcast that glimpses the future of heritage conservation through the work of graduate students at the University of Southern California. I’m Trudi Sandmeier, director of the Heritage Conservation Program at USC.

Cindy Olnick [00:20]: And I’m Cindy Olnick, a communications pro with a passion for saving places that matter. 

So, Trudi, I’m so excited about today’s episode because I got to talk with Camille Ora-Nicole about Compton, which is her hometown and a place that is often misunderstood.  

Trudi Sandmeier [00:40]: Camille is delightful. And really, it was a pleasure to work with her. But also, you know, I’m a native Angeleno. And I have really gotten the opportunity to explore a lot of parts of Los Angeles. But I didn’t know very much about Compton when we started this, and I was excited to learn. And Camille was a great tour guide, when it came to learning something about this community.

Cindy Olnick [01:05]: You actually went and like, drove around with her, right? 

Trudi Sandmeier [01:08]: Yeah, we had this really amazing day, I went and met her in Compton. And we hopped in my car and spent the better part of a day driving around looking at all this amazing stuff, but especially through the lens of someone who grew up there, that idea of having a tour guide who really knows a place inside and out and can tell the personal stories that go along with the places that you’re seeing is really the best way to see place. 

Cindy Olnick [01:45]: Amazing, amazing. So, tell me, what did you see? What kind of stuff?

Trudi Sandmeier [01:50]: Well, we saw everything from one of the original houses, the farmhouses that made up Compton when it was first settled, to the tree that was part of the rancho marker boundaries. We saw this crazy Moorish mausoleum thing that was amazing. 

Cindy Olnick [02:11]: And there’s some really cool modern history too, right? 

Trudi Sandmeier [02:13]: Absolutely. So there’s a civic center in Compton that was designed by Harold Williams that includes a monument, a beautiful monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. There’s this great county library that has this fantastic 1973 public art piece that’s super groovy. And, you know, places like the tennis courts where Serena and Venus Williams learned to play tennis. And then there’s this other really amazing part of Compton, which is this section that’s zoned as agricultural land still, and it’s the home of the Compton Cowboys and where this really unique part of Compton’s history came about. And it’s such a cool neighborhood.

Cindy Olnick [03:06]: Amazing, amazing. When I was at the L.A. Conservancy, some work on the city hall won a preservation award, and we were so lucky to have the architect, Harold Williams, come to the luncheon. It was a real honor to meet him.

Trudi Sandmeier [03:22]: Absolutely. And you know, yet another African American architect who people know something about, he’s got a little bit of information out there about his career and things, but it’s really so much more than the one building, he’s had this incredible career that we don’t talk about enough.

Cindy Olnick [03:43]: Okay. So whoever’s out there listening, if you’ve got some time on your hands: Harold Williams. Go. 

Alright, so here I am talking with Camille about Compton’s very interesting history, and how its conservation, or lack thereof, also played a role in her thesis. 

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Cindy Olnick [04:09]: Alright, so welcome to Save As, Camille!

Camille Ora-Nicole [04:11]: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Cindy Olnick [04:13]: Well, we are so glad to have you here. So, I’m lucky enough to know you and your work. But for those who don’t, can you just introduce yourself real quick?

Camille Ora-Nicole [04:21]: Yeah, so I’m a designer and writer based in California, in Southern California. I work in affordable housing currently. And I also have a couple of side projects. And yeah, I also own–or not own, I am the founder of a nonprofit.

Cindy Olnick [04:38]: You are a busy woman. We will get to that in a little bit. But you have a really cool background in design and architecture. So I have to say, selfishly, I’m glad that you switched gears in grad school to join us in heritage conservation.

Camille Ora-Nicole [04:55]: Yeah, that was not expected but it turned out definitely for the better.

Cindy Olnick [05:00]: Excellent. Well, you know, this is a one-way street, right? Once you’re in conservation, we never let you go.

Camille Ora-Nicole [05:07]: Yeah, I see that.

Cindy Olnick [05:10]: All right, so you got your Master of Heritage Conservation degree a couple of years ago and wrote your thesis on the city of Compton. Why did you choose Compton?

Camille Ora-Nicole [05:18]: I chose Compton in part because of some encouragement from Trudi Sandmeier, who’s the director of the program. And also in part, you know, due to curiosity about the history of my city.

Cindy Olnick [05:32]: Because that’s your hometown. 

Camille Ora-Nicole [05:34]: Right, yeah.

Cindy Olnick [05:35]: It is a small city. For our listeners who don’t know about Compton, it’s smack dab in the middle of L.A. County. And in many ways, I think it exemplifies the evolution of cities across the country. But it does have a certain notoriety. So what do you think comes to mind for many people when they hear the word Compton?

Camille Ora-Nicole [05:56]: I’ve asked this question actually at talks and presentations I’ve given in the past. And I typically have an idea of what they’re going to say, and what they say is exactly what I expected, which is either gangs or violence or rap music. So that’s usually what comes to mind when people think of Compton. 

Cindy Olnick [06:18]: Oh, my gosh, it’s so much more. What was it like growing up there?

Camille Ora-Nicole [06:22]: Growing up there was pretty peaceful for me. I grew up in West Compton, both my parents are from Compton, and they live very close to each other actually. I spent a lot of my time during the days in other cities throughout the South Bay, because I went to school outside of Compton. But you know, weekends, holidays, early mornings, evenings, and so on and so forth, I was in Compton. And for the most part, it was a small community of folks that went about their way and did their work. Mostly middle- and low-middle-income folks who were really yeah, just trying to get by.

Cindy Olnick [07:05]: And I understand it’s primarily Latinx at this point, right? 

Camille Ora-Nicole [07:09]: Yes. 

Cindy Olnick [7:10]: But it hasn’t always been that way. So the area is the ancestral land of the Tongva People. And it was one of the first Spanish land grants back in the 18th century. It’s been around a while. And Compton is one of the oldest cities in the county, right?

Camille Ora-Nicole [07:27]: Yes, it is. I want to say the sixth incorporated city, very early. It was developed in the late 19th century. And, they had a really independent streak to them. Compton was originally settled by white settlers from up north, from Stockton, they were Methodist farmers, they bought the land. They didn’t like it very much, actually, at first, because it was very swampy, very wet, but they ended up sticking it out staying and it ended up being to their benefit, because all that water meant that crops grew well. And Compton became very well known for its sugar beets, its alfalfa, and its dairy products. It was never going to be an affluent town, but it was always going to be a town that could look after itself.  

From there, it grew very rapidly, because not only did you have agriculture, but they found oil in the Dominguez Hills. And so people flocked in to work for the Shell Company, as well as for other oil companies. They ended up building their own schools and had one of the only school systems in the area–that district’s actually still running. And it serviced kids from all over. It was Compton and then also from cities that surrounded Compton. So it really started to grow. It had its own telephone company, its own water company, still has its own water company, so on and so forth. It was really just like this town that could depend on itself. 

Cindy Olnick [09:06]: And a lot of it, I guess, was destroyed in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake.

Camille Ora-Nicole [09:11]: Yeah, it decimated most of Compton’s buildings. The earthquake was centered in Long Beach, but yeah, Compton got the brunt of it. And a lot of the buildings that you would see, the older buildings in Compton would be aged after the ’30s.

Cindy Olnick [09:30]: And it was, like most towns, primarily white at the beginning. 

Camille Ora-Nicole [09:36]: Yeah, which I don’t think people really fully realize if they don’t know much about Compton. And then in the 1940s, some court cases come around that make it possible for Black folks to buy houses wherever they want, which was not something that was possible before. Compton, like a lot of cities everywhere, had covenants on their houses that made it where people who were Chinese or Black could not buy houses. It was not tolerated. It wasn’t tolerated at all. So that was not something that was possible for Black folks. And that’s important to say, because around the same time, around the ’40s to the ’70s, you had the two Great Migrations happening from the South. 

So, you know, the first one, most people went north, but for the second one, Los Angeles became a hotspot for Black folks looking for better opportunities to do everything. You can’t really bring it down to like one thing or two things, it’s literally better opportunities to do anything. So the population grew very quickly. In Los Angeles, for the most part, Black folks lived in South L.A. and in Watts. But of course, those areas get crowded. And for the Black folks who were able to get into those opportunities that were available, of course, they would have wanted to move out of those situations and move into places that were lower-middle class, with better resources. Compton was one of those cities, it was a very stable city that was still very close to all of the industries that offered the jobs for Black folks. So as soon as those laws passed, things started changing. 

In Compton, people started, or Black folks started, trying to move into the city. Developers started building new houses for them to live in. And that was really the end of that–like, once it happened, it wasn’t gonna turn around. People tried, racists tried. They tried real hard. They did the typical things that you would think of: they threw bricks and stones through windows, they burned crosses, they tried to scare Black folks from being out at night, like all of the same behaviors that you would have seen anywhere else in the United States also happened in Compton. But again, the opportunity had opened itself up, and there was no turning back, no matter what. 

Cindy Olnick [12:15]: So yeah, so in your thesis, you say that by 1960 it was 40% Black–the population. Then came the Watts Uprising in ’65, the culmination of decades of disenfranchisement in the area, Watts is right next to Compton. So what effect did that have?

Camille Ora-Nicole [12:35]: As we know, Los Angeles burned for days, there were casualties, there were hospitalizations, all in response to issues of fear and police brutality in Watts. What Compton ended up doing, because Compton is on the border of Watts–it’s right under a freeway, really. So what ended up happening was Comptonites, both Black and White, they banded together to make sure that the riots didn’t pour into Compton. And they succeeded–the Watts riots never hit Compton.

But after the Watts riots, white flight really happened. Like it really happened, really hard. People, White folks, had already been moving out if they could from the city, but it didn’t really hit a crescendo until then. The thing about Compton was at that time, most of the businesses that were owned in Compton were owned by White folks. So the White people left, their businesses left, the tax base left, and all of a sudden, here you are. And then on top of that, the factories around the area started closing down. So employment that had made it possible for Black folks to start moving into Compton disappeared. And there you have it.

Cindy Olnick [13:52]: Along with education, which is funded by tax revenues, right? So that that certainly isn’t unique to Compton. So Compton continues to decline and like many underserved communities, the lack of education, jobs, and other opportunities makes it vulnerable to gangs and drugs, right?

Camille Ora-Nicole [14:11]: Yeah, well–

Cindy Olnick [14:11]: This certainly didn’t happen just in Compton, but Compton got a pretty high profile. So how did that come about?  

Camille Ora-Nicole [14:17]: To start, you have to look at the development of the Crips in South L.A. They came up soon after the dissolution of the Black Panthers by the FBI, they were filling a gap, again, it was disenfranchised youths who ended up creating this thing that they were too immature to turn into something like the Black Panthers and instead it turned into really a gang, and in order to protect themselves, because the Crips is an interesting gang where it is one affiliation but within that affiliation, they have several different affiliations throughout different areas. So it’s like a franchise sort of.

So they, the Crips started coming into Compton, and in response, the Pirus, who are now known as the Bloods, they came up to protect the area from the Crips. And so now, you add gangs to the mix in Compton. Especially when you go into the ’80s and and drugs start going into inner cities as well. And that becomes a way for gangs to make money in an area where jobs are scarce, where education is scarce, where police brutality and a lack of fairness in the justice system comes up. So you have a lot of broken homes based on things that shouldn’t break up families but end up doing that by putting people in jail, by putting fathers in jail, by putting mothers in jail, you have gangs that step up and take the place. 

Cindy Olnick [15:57]: So like many cities, Compton has the gang problem and the drug problem. But more people know about Compton than they do about other cities. And why is that?  

Camille Ora-Nicole [16:09]: It would be because of media. It needs to be said that Compton was not the worst example of these things happening–again, it was happening all over the country. And it was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as some other places. The big thing that made the difference was media, was the NWA coming out of Compton and making their debut.

Cindy Olnick [16:33]: And that’s the rap group with Dr. Dre and… 

Camille Ora-Nicole [16:37]: …and several others. Yeah.

Cindy Olnick [16:39]: So when did things start turning around?

Camille Ora-Nicole [16:41]: Things started turning around in the thousands. After, I would say, after Mayor Aja Brown was elected and just before she was elected, as well. It was around that period that you started seeing companies come back to Compton. They had left and people had started avoiding Compton and even changing the street names in their cities from Compton to other things because they didn’t want to be affiliated with the city.

So Compton didn’t have a Starbucks, you know, Compton didn’t have fancy grocery stores or whatever. We had a Food 4 Less and stuff, but not anything big. All of a sudden, in the late 2000s, we got a Starbucks, and all of a sudden, things started looking cleaner. In 20, I want to say 2015, 2016, around that time, they started doing street improvements and paving the streets. And that was part of a deal that Aja Brown had made, kind of a requirement for larger businesses coming into the city–they had to actually invest in the city and in improving the city. 

Cindy Olnick [17:08]: So there’s a thought. 

Camille Ora-Nicole [17:52]: Yeah, right. So new trees started getting planted, new medians got included, streets got paved. For a second there, when Fresh and Easy was still in business, we got a Fresh and Easy, that was cool.

Cindy Olnick [18:06]: Sounds like she’s done a lot of really great programming. Also with providing jobs at these businesses, right, from within the community and job training and things like that? 

Camille Ora-Nicole [18:16]: Right, yeah. A good percentage of the workforce at any of these new businesses have to be folks who live already in Compton.

Cindy Olnick [18:26]: So some people may not know that Compton has cowboys.

Camille Ora-Nicole [18:31]: Yes, Compton does have cowboys. I grew up seeing folks on horses, actually, which is something that I don’t think anyone expects for someone to say. So there’s one group in particular, like, specifically the Compton Cowboys, and their whole thing has been reinterpreting gangs in Compton and creating a different outlet, a new outlet for folks to be together in community and do something that’s uplifting and really awesome. And they’ve done quite a bit. They’ve been in a couple of ads. They have a new book out, actually, there was one person who wrote a book about them. I can’t remember the author’s name right now, but really exciting stuff. [The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America’s Urban Heartland, by Walter Thompson-Hernandez]

Cindy Olnick [19:18]: So Compton is in much better shape today. And another part, a big part of your thesis talks about preservation policy, and Compton actually doesn’t have one at the moment. Correct?

Camille Ora-Nicole [19:30]: Right. It does not have one at the moment. They did consider it at one point, but you know, budget issues, restrictions.

Cindy Olnick [19:39]: It seems to be the first thing, one of the first things that to drop off the priority list. But the City’s website does list five historic landmarks, including the beautiful City Hall, absolutely gorgeous, by Harold Williams. And so your thesis explores some great ideas for policy in cities like Compton, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Camille Ora-Nicole [20:00]: So essentially, when it came to figuring out what a preservation program would look like in Compton, it was an example that I think could be utilized in other small cities, because some of the issues that face Compton when it comes to preservation are the same issues that come up with many, if not most, small cities that surround Compton and are just all throughout Los Angeles. The budget is a big thing. It’s a big deal. And some of the things that a traditional preservation plan requires in order to say that you have a good preservation program are expensive. It costs money, it takes a lot of time and effort. And, you know, it’s not necessarily always something that small cities can do, unfortunately. But you know, that’s reality.

Cindy Olnick [20:56]: I want to read this great quote from your thesis, you say, “In places where culture trumps architectural integrity, conservation should embrace personal empowerment, and offer clear, practical advantages.” And I love that, and I love, well, I know they may not be completely new ideas, but I love how you bring together the ideas of like a grading system and a discount program for landmarks. 

Camille Ora-Nicole [21:25]: Yeah, so what I really dislike about most programs is how negative not following a program can be. It makes it where heritage, or you know, historic preservation as it’s called throughout Los Angeles, it makes it a chore, and it makes it something that instead of being something that helps uplift your city, and, you know, bring pride and showcase culture, instead, it becomes this hindrance on your personal property rights. And I think that there’s a much better way of going about that.

And I think doing a discount program, and making it a thing where you get positive reinforcement for admiring the building that you own and keeping it up and showcasing the really great craftsmanship that is there in some old buildings, I think that’s a much better way of going about it. And then for buildings that don’t necessarily have architectural integrity, whatever that means, I think the main thing is just making sure that it stays in use, making sure that people still know what it is. And as times move, shifting how that building is used, and not just letting it sit there or turning it into yet another museum. But keep it functioning, keep people visiting it for actual useful reasons. 

What I mentioned in my thesis was that you could do a survey around the city–obviously it doesn’t matter, you know, money or no money, the survey has to be done–but on that list, I feel like a better way of going about all of this is to make it where a owner could choose whether or not to be listed as a landmark house, a landmark building, so on and so forth. And then if they choose, and they decide to be a part of this program, they have to stay on it for a certain amount of time. But while they’re on it that’s when they’re eligible for not only discount programs around the city to help make sure or help them up, keep their house based on whatever rules would be in an ordinance, but also gives them an opportunity to be on the Mills Act. And if you decide that you don’t want your house to be landmarked or put on this list, then you don’t have to. You can look at your neighbor, and if you like what they’re doing, and you like what’s happening, if they chose to do it, then you can choose to do it yourself. But otherwise, don’t force people to do it–lead by example.

Cindy Olnick [24:09]: And just to clarify, the Mills Act is a property tax relief program in California that cities can enter into so if you maintain your historic home, then you get a good break on your taxes, which is great. Did anything surprise you in your research?

Camille Ora-Nicole [24:28]: Surprise would be the wrong word. Clarified, added extra understanding to why certain things are the way they are in Compton and throughout L.A. County actually. I’ll say that there are certain things that people of color who come from these neighborhoods and from these communities just know about the environment that they’re in. But there’s things that you see, there’s things that your parents and your family tells you, there’s experiences that you know about that happen in different areas. But you may not necessarily know why that’s happening, or why things are the way they are. And that’s the same for me–there’s a lot of things that I understood and that I was able to see. But I didn’t know what the underlying cause was, or why things were the way they were. And doing this thesis helped clarify a lot of that. And I was then able to share the same thing to my parents, and so on. So now they know. I think the more people know what those underlying causes are, well, for one, probably, the more angry people will be. And secondly, the more informed and the faster things can move forward. 

Cindy Olnick [25:43]: Can you cite any examples?

Camille Ora-Nicole [25:45]: Yeah, so I mean, even just the White flight aspects of Compton, I knew that White people had lived in Compton at some point. I knew that there was still a small population of White people that lived in Compton. My mom had told me stories from her growing up about the two or three White people that she knew in school, and so on. But I didn’t know why they left, how many of them there were at first, I didn’t know the history of Black folks moving from South L.A. into Compton. All I knew is that when Black people got enough money, they left and went to Carson or Baldwin Hills. That’s the part I knew. I didn’t know the whole process of that journey. And that change, that shift in demographic. 

Cindy Olnick [26:38]: Does it change how you feel about Compton at all, what you learned?

Camille Ora-Nicole [26:41]: Yeah, actually. So I like Compton, I like where I grew up. If I could tear down my mom’s house, because it’s pretty raggedy, so if I could tear it down and build a new one on the lot that we’re on and just live there for the rest of my life, I would be okay with that. Like, that would be pretty chill. I’m close enough to all the other cities that I love in the area. I have access to folks in my past, from people who understand my culture and my community. So I love Compton. 

Cindy Olnick [27:23]: That’s great. But you want to tear down that house. Okay. We need to talk about that. Not everything old is historic, I understand.

Camille Ora-Nicole [27:32]: It’s not historic. No, I promise you. It’s just broken. We’re like, literally over the past couple of years, we’ve been concerned that the next windstorm will blow it down. 

Cindy Olnick [27:47]: Oh my goodness!

Camille Ora-Nicole [27:48]: It’s a situation, one of those things where you have to question whether or not demolition or revamping is better, or will be more expensive or more useful. And in this situation, I have tried to play it in my head, like, how could we just redo this house? But the reality is that redoing the house would mean redoing it from literally the foundation up to the roof. So it’s like, you might as well just build a new one. 

Cindy Olnick [28:16]: Well, you’re the one with the master’s degree, my friend. All right, I cannot let you go without talking for a couple of minutes about your very exciting Vernacular Project. So how’d that come about? What’s that about? 

Camille Ora-Nicole [28:28]: That came about from being in grad school, realizing that I am not good at sitting through three-hour lectures. And that I’m also terrible at taking notes. I learned that very late in life, funnily enough. And what I ended up doing was drawing a lot in class, like straight-up rulers, triangles out, just like drawing in class. And when I first started doing that, I kind of drew based on what I learned in grad school.  

So another thing I learned in grad school was about the shotgun house, which, you know, tracing the history of the shotgun house going from Africa to Haiti and then from Haiti to the South, to like Louisiana and so on. Watching or seeing that travel and kind of deciding and determining that that’s probably the closest thing to an African American vernacular in terms of architecture that we have. The drawings that I did kind of explored different paths of circulation through a shotgun house. And for folks that don’t know what a shotgun house is, it’s essentially a long rectangle. Front door, back door are right in front of each other. So if you were to shoot a gun through the house, it would go through the front door straight through the back door. A traditional shotgun house does not have really separate rooms. So it’s just like three rooms with three doors. From the front door to the back door, right? There’s shotgun houses now that, you know, put in hallways so that there are separate rooms.  

But yeah, I started exploring circulation through this house and from there, I started thinking about what it would look like if Black folks had been able to, in a larger number, be able to really explore and expand on that initial structure of a shotgun house. Because that’s what happens with a lot of different styles, you have one that you start with and as the years go, and different architects play their thing, or you know, put their little twist on things, that style grows and changes and shifts and evolves and so on. Black folks didn’t get the chance to do that. Because even now, the present representation of Black architects in the United States, and you know, in the world in general is astoundingly small. It is a very hard field to get into. And it’s not a field that’s usually taught in school anyway. We’re given the places to live in, we don’t get a choice really all that much, or not even given, it’s just, you know, take what you can, basically. So it’s been going from one used building to another used building to another used building, as opposed to being able to really develop what works best based on what we need, and what we desire. 

So the Vernacular Project is a further exploration of that. But expanding out from just a house to what what would a city look like if it had been able to be planned and developed and built by Black people. We’ve had Black towns before in the United States, but they’ve been bulldozed, burned, destroyed, decimated in general. So, you know, how would that look, if we had a blank canvas and we could make it look like we want it to and develop things the way we wanted to develop? What would happen? And when you take the diaspora amongst the United States, what things stay the same, and what changes based on additional demographics. That’s the core of it, is what are those core things that seem to be pretty standard through everything, and what things change and why do they change? So that’s what  the project is. It’s going to be mostly graphics because I don’t want to write a book.  

Cindy Olnick [32:51]: Well, there’s plenty of books. And you know, people don’t read anyway, and it pains me to admit that as a writer, but so yeah, and you’re so creative. I mean, you’ve got an award-winning zine. So I mean, you’re expressing yourself in really, truly amazing ways. So if people want to learn more about the Vernacular Project, how can they find out more and get involved? 

Camille Ora-Nicole [33:15]: There is a website, it’s called vernacularproject.com. And right now I’m working on the methodology for the cities, I have the initial map, I’m just working out exactly how each town should go. So if people are interested in being involved, like once I start adding more people to the project, they can definitely send me the interest. I hope to be able to have my first group together to do a town together within the next couple of months. 

Cindy Olnick [33:47]: Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. And you also have another nonprofit, Q26. Anything you want to say about that? 

Camille Ora-Nicole [33:57]: Yeah, sure. So Q26 is a multimedia nonprofit that benefits the QTBIPOC community, specifically QTBIPOC creatives in their endeavors, working in the creative field. There is a study that came out recently that revealed that L.A. County is not majority White, however, over half of the people who work in the creative field in Los Angeles, which is huge, is, you know, those positions are held by White folks. And you can see that reflected in the media that’s played everywhere. So Q26 is a way for us to help support creatives on their path, in their journey, give them workshops and opportunities and also give them a place to tell their own stories and help us tell their stories through our productions and through our projects as well.

Cindy Olnick [34:54]: Fantastic. And you just got your board of directors together, you’re off and running, doing all that boring stuff that you have to do when you start a nonprofit. But oh, so exciting. So exciting. Well, I mean, clearly you have very little time to spare, and I can’t tell you how much we appreciate you sharing so much of it with us. You are the future, my friend, and I look forward to seeing where you go. 

Camille Ora-Nicole [35:19]: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Cindy Olnick [35:20]: Thanks, Camille. Thanks for being here.