Meet you at Lenchita’s
Trudi Sandmeier 00:08
This is 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 Graduate Programs in Heritage Conservation, and an associate professor of practice in architecture at USC.
Willa Seidenberg 00:23
And I’m Willa Seidenberg professor of professional practice in USC’s School of Journalism, and the producer of Save As. Today we’re talking about one of the oldest communities in the San Fernando Valley.
Trudi Sandmeier 00:37
Here’s a hint.
[Music from La Bamba]
Trudi Sandmeier 00:59
That was the amazing Ritchie Valens, who is a native of Pacoima the neighborhood that we’re going to talk about today with alumna Sara Delgadillo.
Willa Seidenberg 01:09
This is another example of one of these rich ethnic enclaves that we have here in Southern California. And what’s interesting about Sara is she grew up in Pacoima, and, Trudi, I think it’s so great that students pull from their backgrounds to find thesis topics that they want to write about. And it provides this rich tapestry of information that the program can offer to the world really, and particularly those of us who live in Los Angeles and really love the vibrancy of all the communities here. And it also means so much because your students are writing about the places that mean a lot to them and to their families.
Trudi Sandmeier 01:59
When you write your thesis, you live with it for a year or more. And so I always talk to the students about picking something that really means something to them, and that they genuinely are passionate about. And often, that is the places that they’re from, and the stories that have motivated them to get into heritage conservation in the first place. I also grew up in the San Fernando Valley, but at a different part of the valley. It’s actually a really big part of Los Angeles that’s a bit separate from the downtown section of the city. For those that might not be familiar with the geography of Los Angeles, it’s in the north. San Fernando Valley is an enormous place with, I don’t know 8 million people living there. And this little community of Pacoima is one of its little corners of the world. It’s a working class neighborhood, and an ethnic enclave that’s had a couple of different generations of folks move through it. And lots of interesting places to talk about that are more vernacular, maybe not the things that you would drive by and look at and say, oh, there’s a landmark with a capital L. But they are places of great significance to the community, and to the people who call Pacoima home.
So let’s take a moment and listen to my conversation with Sara Delgadillo about her hometown of Pacoima.
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Trudi Sandmeier 03:36
I’m delighted to welcome Sara to Save As to talk a little bit about her thesis. Maybe you can introduce yourself and tell me the title of your thesis.
Sara Delgadillo 03:49
I am Sara Delgadillo, and the title of my thesis is “Identifying and Conserving Pacoima, a Heritage Conservation Study of a Minority Enclave in the San Fernando Valley.”
Trudi Sandmeier 04:01
Why Pacoima? Tell us why you picked this thesis topic.
Sara Delgadillo 04:06
Pacoima is very near and dear to my heart, I was raised in Pacoima. And if you grew up in the northeast San Fernando Valley or the San Fernando Valley in general, you do grow up with a great sense of pride and Pacoima’s my hood. And to represent the cultural greatness of the San Fernando Valley and the uniqueness of it, it felt like a calling. I felt like I needed to do this work.
Trudi Sandmeier 04:32
And I think the San Fernando Valley for people who aren’t really familiar with LA is a part of the city that people don’t hear about all that often and has its own unique history. Tell me a little bit about Pacoima.
Sara Delgadillo 04:48
The history of this part of the San Fernando Valley is that it’s really a land that is susceptible to flooding. And it is said that the name Pacoima actually means rushing waters, which is why and how it got its name.
Trudi Sandmeier 05:06
What year was Pacoima founded?
Sara Delgadillo 05:08
The late 1800s right around the time where the the railroad came through Los Angeles and was actually cutting through the San Fernando Valley. During its development as one of Los Angeles suburbs, Pacoima was the center of diversity in the San Fernando Valley. It was surrounded by a large Anglo population, living in what is often referred to as America’s most beloved suburb.
Trudi Sandmeier 05:35
Why was Pacoima so diverse?
Sara Delgadillo 05:36
Pacoima became the place where settlers and laborers would set up camp and then their settlements were here also for farmers that were farming in the San Fernando Valley. And this, of course, included Mexicans as well as Japanese migrants and Chinese migrants.
Trudi Sandmeier 05:57
So Pacoima became a very diverse neighborhood, because it was full of laborers. Could people of color buy land in Pacoima?
Sara Delgadillo 06:06
People of color could buy land prior to redlining, but post-redlining it sort of became the the way that folks were encouraged to buy in Pacoima. So if you were a person of color, this is where you were shown properties, especially in the post-war period. You had a very large African American population in Pacoima primarily because of African American veterans that were coming back to Los Angeles and seeking a place to settle and purchase property, and many purchased in the Pacoima area.
Trudi Sandmeier 06:08
And what is Pacoima’s population like today? Is it still African American?
Sara Delgadillo 06:46
Pacoima’s population is primarily Latino. You do have some vestiges of an African American culture and heritage that is visible. But what ended up happening in Pacoima is, as the 70s drew to a close, many of the African American families that were now able to purchase elsewhere, benefiting from the civil rights movement of a decade prior, they were able to sell their properties and move to other suburbs of Los Angeles. And that also happened to be the time when there was a flow of immigrants coming to the United States and to Los Angeles. And that actually happens to be around the time that my family immigrated to Pacoima. My parents both immigrated from Mexico, and my family settled in Pacoima.
Sara Delgadillo 07:39
And my parents speak so fondly of that time, because they found so much opportunity in the San Fernando Valley in the late 70s, early 80s. Because the way I hear of my parents speaking of the San Fernando Valley, to me, it sounds like it was just a place that was ready and accepting of opportunities. And my parents were here to benefit from that
Trudi Sandmeier 08:02
Pacoima provided a community for this new immigrant population who were coming places and people that were familiar and comfortable and accessible — grocery stores that you know, had food that was familiar and things like that. So I think that these ethnic enclaves really provide a sense of home.
Sara Delgadillo 08:24
It was a network that was already there sort of waiting to accept newcomers.
Trudi Sandmeier 08:30
And did your parents have family already in Los Angeles?
Sara Delgadillo 08:33
One of my aunts already lived in Pacoima. And so my parents sort of came following them. And it happens to be that in Pacoima, there are many families that come from the same part or region of Mexico, as well.
Trudi Sandmeier 08:47
And what’s the region in Mexico?
Sara Delgadillo 08:48
Jalisco, the state of Jalisco.
Trudi Sandmeier 08:50
So that means that maybe they were neighbors who had family in Los Angeles as well. So that, again, brings community. Let’s talk about a few of the places you talked about in your thesis, different sites in Pacoima, that were not landmarks with a capital L. In fact, none of these sites have been designated as landmarks, right? But our community landmarks are places that are important to in particular that Latinx community that lives in Pacoima but also to the African American community there.
Sara Delgadillo 09:24
The Van Nuys commercial corridor of Pacoima is the hub of the community and where you had the mom and pop storefronts that would provide services and goods to the community. And over the years because Pacoima is sort of a low income community, what you have is a lot of turnover. And during times of recession or during downtimes in the economy in general, there would be even higher turnover. When minority owned businesses stay open for over a decade. It’s a big deal. So I wanted to highlight that through my thesis and through my work. In preparing for my thesis, I did have conversations with family members, including my parents and asking them, you know, what do you guys remember being like these prominent businesses along the Van Nuys Boulevard corridor, just from the places that we would go to. But before I came along, right, where did we all go? What did we do? What was the place?
Trudi Sandmeier 10:34You mean, there was a world before you came along? Tell me a little bit about Tresierras market.
Sara Delgadillo 10:36
Tresierra market is a Latino groceries store that ended up becoming a chain. Their story dates back to the 50s. And it was a family that put together this grocery store to serve the Latino population in Pacoima. Over the decades, they grew to have several stores in the San Fernando Valley. Doing my research and again, having that native or local perspective of Pacoima, I knew that this place was a landmark. And that it’s been there ever since I could remember. And I had heard of people talk about how Tresierras was sort of the hub of where you can ask for your meat in a specific cut, where you could go buy the pastries that you would have in Mexico if you weren’t here. So it came with community. But it was also the place where you would get your groceries at the end of the week.
Trudi Sandmeier 11:06
Was this the place where there was a bulletin board?
Sara Delgadillo 11:56
Yes. So the bulletin board, it was sort of the local newspaper, and it was like a classified bulletin board. If you had an employment, if you had a place that you needed to rent. If you needed help with something, you would put up your little advertisement in the bulletin board with little cutouts of telephone numbers, and you could just get up to the bulletin board and swipe the little phone number.
Trudi Sandmeier 12:27
It was a way for people to connect and provide services to one another.
Sara Delgadillo 12:31
And I have to, I have to underscore their bakery. Because back in the day, this was the bakery and there would be a line outside — five o’clock in the morning when the sun isn’t even out yet, there would be a line outside for the folks that wanted to get their bundles. And it was the bakery to go to.
Trudi Sandmeier 12:54
Awesome. Tell me the story of Romero’s.
Sara Delgadillo 12:58
Back in the day people would repair their appliances. You wouldn’t buy a TV and not get it repaired if something went wrong with it. You would buy a washing machine and get it repaired if something went awry. And so repairing your electronics in your appliances was a thing. And there were very few people with the knowledge to do such work. And Romero’s was the place in Pacoima to get your appliances worked on. And when I was doing research for my thesis, I went into Romero’s, and I remember my parents getting our TVs fixed there every now and then, one of our VCRs I actually put a Cheerio in.
Trudi Sandmeier 13:42
That’s not a good plan.
Sara Delgadillo 13:45
No.
Trudi Sandmeier 13:46
Not a good plan.
Sara Delgadillo 13:47
And we took our VCR to get repaired at Romero’s. And part of what I remember that Mr. Romero would do is he would allow his clients to pay for the repairs and installments, which, I mean it’s very much so local business and about care and about community. Not many families had resources and so even getting your appliance repaired, your TV repaired it was it must have been costly. When I went in to Mr. Romero’s shop in 2015, he was still there and he was still doing repairs. And he also was reminiscing of a time gone because he was saying the same thing to me. He said, You know people don’t get their appliances repaired anymore. He said, maybe I should turn this place into like a computer fixing joint where we could have a couple of geeks here so that people don’t have to take their computer to Best Buy, that they could get their repairs done here. But he he essentially said that his opportunity was was gone, that he wasn’t going to be repairing computers.
Trudi Sandmeier 14:53
You know, I think we’re such a throwaway society now in so many ways that when something breaks, we just get a new one because it’s easier to get a new thing than it is to find somebody who can do repairs.
Sara Delgadillo 15:07
That’s right.
Trudi Sandmeier 15:09
How about Lenchitas?
Sara Delgadillo 15:11
I would equate it to like soul food for Latinos, because this is the place that you could get your masa for your tamales over the holidays. And it still is, it’s very popular. This is also the place where on Sundays, you can go and have yourself comforting bowl of menudo. They also make all sorts of maize-based products, like what you would purchase to make your sopas or your tacos, your burritos. They sell all of those products, and they’re so authentic. And it’s the place, what you actually get is like a home cooked meal, but you’re not at home. And that’s always what restaurants are aiming for. And Lenchitas gets it right.
Trudi Sandmeier 16:02
Comfort food.
Sara Delgadillo 16:02
Absolutely.
Trudi Sandmeier 16:04
For people who are looking for a taste of home and home can mean a lot of things home in this case probably means a taste of Pacoima more than anything else. The other place that you talked about in your thesis was a little bit different. It was a hair place Styles Ville.
Sara Delgadillo 16:22
Yeah, I walked into Styles Ville and I interacted with the current owner, who happens to be the grandson of the original owners. It’s a family business. And they started originally across the street from where they are now. And when they had the opportunity to purchase the building across the way, they did. Back in the day, women couldn’t get their hair done in the same space as men. So they partitioned the shop. And on one side, it’s like a parlor for women, and on the other side, it’s a barber shop for men. And as many barber shops are in an African American community, this is the place to engage with your community, a place to communicate and a place to be real. And Styles Ville has been providing that to the Pacoima community for so long. Even when folks have moved out of Pacoima, they keep coming back to get their hair cut at Styles Ville. And I think that’s wonderful. And it’s heritage.
Trudi Sandmeier 17:27
Heritage, h-e-r and heritage h-a-i-r as well.
17:58
In Los Angeles, we’ve been talking a lot about legacy businesses now. This was something that started in San Francisco a while ago. And we’re trying to acknowledge these businesses that have been around for a long time that have really made Los Angeles the way it is, you know, given it a sense of place, and places that resonate with all of us. And sometimes it’s a restaurant, and sometimes it’s a market, and sometimes it’s a print shop, and sometimes it’s the lawnmower repair place. And it’s all of these different kinds of things. But what we call them is legacy businesses. In this case, one of your big points that you made in your thesis was about the fact that, particularly for minority-owned businesses, their ability to stay in business, and to continue over a long period is particularly significant.
Sara Delgadillo 18:53
Yes, I think so. When we go to communities like Pacoima that are minority enclaves that have been this for so long, if we can’t necessarily tie the built environment to the actual community, what can we tie to the community? I think that’s what we see in businesses, especially minority businesses that have been able to stand the test of time. Already, they had so many odds against them, and to be able to stay open and serve a community for so long, these are the institutions these are the places that we should be conserving and helping to sustain them over time. So the fact that Tresierras was there for so long for Lenchitas to still be in business and still have a line during the holidays for the masa and even Styles Ville to still be in business as a long standing barber shop in Pacoima. It’s a big deal.
Trudi Sandmeier 19:53
Certainly we talk a lot about that conservation is looking beyond just architectural significance. And these are places with deep community and cultural significance. All of these places have these unique characteristics that make them special. I think we are all working on figuring out how do we actually help these businesses in the long term to stay in business?
20:18
You know, one thing that I’m always struck by is that here in Los Angeles, when we talk about minority communities, we can’t really say that about Latinx communities, because it’s certainly the majority population here in Los Angeles.
Sara Delgadillo 20:32
Absolutely.
Trudi Sandmeier 20:33
And so it will be very interesting to see as the city continues to grow and evolve in our heritage conservation policy continues to grow and evolve, how we address that shift in demographics.
Sara Delgadillo 20:46
I think it’s a complicated issue to have. But I think it also points at the fact that what we know as conservation and preservation wasn’t necessarily built from the start as an inclusive practice or field, and helping address these gaps, and creating the tools, developing the tools that allows the telling of an inclusive narrative through what we choose to moving forward, help sustain and help keep, again, to inform future generations. What we choose to conserve, whether it be built or what we choose to commemorate moving forward in the field of preservation, it needs to tell the inclusive story. And if we just focus on the built environment, if we just focus on architecture, we won’t have an inclusive narrative.
21:47
Having my experience be so local, and so personal to me, I think what we lack is being able to localize our history. We need to be able to know which landmarks are in our backyard. And what landmarks are associated to our communities to our identity, not necessarily something that happened 200 years ago, or 400 years ago, that locals and young people can’t necessarily relate to. Much of my thesis and my graduate study path had something to do also with that, because I feel like I wanted to explore my identity more and this place that my family is a newcomer to how is it mine? And what can I understand from it that helps me as an individual, understanding the history at the most local level, I think is very important for for kids and students and everyone, everyone. Because when you understand the history, you are better able to understand yourself.
Trudi Sandmeier 22:56
Where do you work right now?
Sara Delgadillo 22:58
I currently work for the city of Los Angeles in its planning department within the Office of Historic Resources as manager of Historic Places LA. So Survey LA over about a decade is surveyed the entire city of Los Angeles to attempt and identify what the city’s historic resources are, the resources from architectural feats, all the way to commercial properties. And even businesses like those that I identified in my thesis, Historic Places LA essentially becomes an inventory of historic places that have been identified throughout the city. And it’s revolutionary in the sense that surveys in the past have been surveys. They go in binders and they sit on shelves. And Historic Places LA turns those surveys into an inventory where we can consistently keep up with our changing built environment, as well as our changing identification of new resources because even the framework that has been set up for conducting surveys in the city of Los Angeles that a setup for Survey LA continues and can continue to be expanded upon in order for us to continue identifying historic resources, many, many decades from now.
Sara Delgadillo 24:25
Historic Places LA was built on the Arches platform, which was originally developed by the Getty Conservation Institute to document heritage places and inventory them. And what’s really neat about Arches is that it’s custom built to serve heritage organizations and agencies. Through Historic Places LA what the public and planners can do is search by address. They could also search by a specific theme, even property type. So if you want to search for all the car washes that were identified through Survey LA you can easily search for the car washes. Or if you want to type in your address and see what resources were identified in your neighborhood, you can do that too.
25:11
We’ve received emails and messages over the pandemic in our office where folks have told us that they’ve used Historic Places LA while they were doing a walk in a neighborhood that they had never explored before, and that they were looking at the historic resources identified there. You can access it on a mobile device. And I think that’s also really neat, because you could be anywhere in LA and if you have the curiosity to see what’s near you, you can definitely just open up the website.
Trudi Sandmeier 25:38
How long have you been working for the city?
Sara Delgadillo 25:40
I’m nearing my five year anniversary. Every day is so different in the city of Los Angeles, and I feel like I still have so much more to learn. And it makes me excited about my job. And it makes me excited about serving the city that I love so much.
Trudi Sandmeier 25:57
You are also a board member for Latinos in Heritage Conservation. Tell us a little bit about the organization and some of the things that you’ve been involved in as a board member.
Sara Delgadillo 26:08
I sit on the board of Latinos in Heritage Conservation. We started off as a grassroots national group aiming to create a network of Latinos that are practicing in this field of heritage and historic preservation really. There’s very few of us nationally. Part of what we aim to address is advocate for the preservation of resources in Latino communities. But also, the greater understanding by the field of historic preservation, what our resources are, and how we can best adjust the toolbox available nationally at the state level as well as the local level to be able to safeguard our heritage. And it does cover the built environment. But it also covers food ways. It covers dance, it covers art. And a really neat place where this intersects is in muralism, there are many murals in Latino communities, and while there are some murals listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s sort of the one off it’s not a very common thing.
Trudi Sandmeier 27:25
So it’s practitioners, it’s academics, it’s all kinds of different folks who are involved in the field, it’s really a broad coalition.
Sara Delgadillo 27:37
Some of us have a background in public history. Some of us have a background in history, and some of us in historic preservation. And it feels like I’m with my tribe, every time we come together, because we even though we may come from different backgrounds, and different states, different communities, we all sort of speak the same language in what we want to achieve for our communities at the local level, state and national. We have convenings, where we invite others in the field of historic preservation to come and join us and help us strategize and celebrate our success stories, highlight our case studies and support each other in our work and try and identify ways that we can elevate each other’s work and support each other’s work. Primarily what we aim to celebrate this fall is the ten year anniversary since the publication of Latinos in the Making of the US, the Latino theme study that was published by the National Park Service. It was a big accomplishment and having that national document and volume helped pave the road to have other studies done as well. The more studies we have, the easier it becomes for us to identify and also safeguard our heritage. So had it not been for that national theme study I think we could question whether or not the Great Wall of Los Angeles would be listed on the National Register right now or Edward Roybal’s house in in Boyle Heights if that wouldn’t be listed in the National Register.
Trudi Sandmeier 29:19
We’ve had some really significant successes in California since that theme study has been published. Certainly Chicano Park in San Diego, and the Great Wall of Los Angeles here, which for many who may not be familiar is this enormous mural that talks about the history of LA and in in a really exciting and diverse context. And landmarks in all different parts of the state talking about a history that has been woefully underrepresented in the registration programs of local governments as well as the state of California and certainly nationally.
Sara Delgadillo 29:59
I recently made a pilgrimage out to Chicano Park. And it was it was moving. I told a friend the story, you know that recently and Chicano Park was designated a National Historic Landmark. And that’s equivalent to Lady Liberty, that’s equivalent to the Golden Gate Bridge. And it’s a big deal.
Trudi Sandmeier 30:22
In a very unexpected place, I think it’s underneath the freeway. And it was a place that was claimed by the Latino community to tell the story of their existence, and to claim that space as a place of belonging and meaning. And now, that has national recognition. And that is truly exciting. And I think, also in California, we’ve had some of the sights associated with the legacy of Cesar Chavez, the recognition of the sites associated with the Farmworkers Union and the efforts to provide safe working environments and some sort of protection for people who were not a part of the traditional workforce. In 2020, when George Floyd was murdered, and the Black Lives Matter movement really took off, it really provided some energy to all communities of color to speak up and speak out about their own stories. This is work that we have been doing at USC in our graduate program for a long time. But not everybody has. And I think that certainly historic preservation has a very white legacy, and in some ways has been used as a tool for racism in the past, and I think, now is a real moment of reckoning both for our field and for our communities. And certainly in a place like Los Angeles, where it’s one of the most diverse places in the United States period. And so it’s an opportunity for us to speak up and speak out on these issues.
Sara Delgadillo 32:15
I think it really brings attention to how we should be co-conspirators, we should be in the trenches together, not just how we can support each other’s work. It’s about how can we do this work together? And I’m really looking forward to that day. I think I’ve already started to see that. And it makes me really excited about being in this field and seeing it evolve from the inside as well.
Trudi Sandmeier 32:41
I think here in Los Angeles, we are having these conversations. Still again, we have more work to do. We’re just starting this work. And that’s exciting, too.
Sara Delgadillo 32:54
Absolutely. So, so exciting.
Trudi Sandmeier 32:57
Well, I want to say thank you so much, Sara, for coming to talk to us on Save As and for sharing your thoughts and your research.
Sara Delgadillo 33:04
Thank you so much for having me.
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Willa Seidenberg 33:10
Okay, Trudi, we’re on to meet at lunch Lenchitas for a date and have some great food because I am hungry after listening to that episode.
Trudi Sandmeier 33:19
Absolutely. I’ll meet you there.
Willa Seidenberg 33:22
All right. Well, thanks so much for joining us for this episode of Save As. Tune in next time, as we hear about a project looking at downtown LA’s Bunker Hill neighborhood before urban renewal.
Trudi Sandmeier 33:34
We’ll chat with some of the folks bringing one of the USC library archive collections from the 1930s to light, revealing the people who called Bunker Hill home.
Trudi Sandmeier 33:51
Willa, and I produced this episode. Hope you enjoyed those snippets of Ritchie Valens. Our original theme music is by Steven Conley and the Save As logo was designed by Fern Vargas. Special thanks to the communications team at the School of Architecture for their support.
Willa Seidenberg 34:06
To see photographs of some of the places that Trudi and Sara talked about in this episode, visit our website at SaveAs.place. Please subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already and tell a friend to do it too.
Trudi Sandmeier 34:21
Save As is a production of the Heritage Conservation program in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California.
