Writing South Los Angeles, Part One

I love reading about Los Angeles, almost as much as I love writing about it. The city is so sprawling and diverse; every block has its own personality, it’s own voice, it’s own story to tell. So when I found Writing Los Angeles: a Literary Anthology on Amazon.com, I was overjoyed. What could be better than a collection of stories about my favorite city by some of the best writers in America? Raymond Chandler evokes the spine-tingling creepiness of a Santa Ana wind, Jack Kerouac reveals the raw wound behind LA’s forever-young complexion, and John Fante musters the beautiful mayhem of a bustling downtown. From Hollywood to Olvera Street, from the Pasadena mountains to the San Fernando Valley, from sunrise to sunset and through the darkest of nights, these writers capture what is written on the inside of every Angeleno’s heart.

But where, I began to wonder among the crisp, white pages of my new book, is South Los Angeles? Where are the streets, the history and the people in this vibrant part of the city? Why are their voices missing from this attempt to capture LA? What I started to see was a shallow, one-sided adventure in the City of Angels, with huge pieces of the story unaccounted for. Without the sights and sounds of places like Inglewood, Crenshaw, Watts, Leimert Park, Pico-Union, Jefferson Park and Baldwin Hills, the atmosphere was incomplete. The tone was all wrong.

And so a new adventure begins: seeking creative writing about South LA. This is part one.

It was hard to find contenders - not because South LA literature doesn’t exist, but because it’s hidden. But what I eventually found, tucked away in the crevices of the Internet, was enough to convince me that the Writing Los Angeles anthology should be re-written. Take, for example, the poetic works of a group of 13-year-old writers from a summer workshop in 2005, aptly entitled: “Often Ignored/Never Silent.”

Here’s the first stanza from Julian’s poem, “Letter 2 Mr. President:”

Dear Mr. President
how it goin on in the white house
But let me tell you how its goin on in my house.
Cold water with the roof collapsing
I turn on my T.V.
and there’s terrorist attackin
Should I be scared I don’t think so
I have seen what you haven’t liven in the ghetto
How does it feel with maids and cooks
Not think about crooks
while reading your books.
Have you ever been drivin at night in the stars
And the police pulled you over and out of your car
I see crips I see bloods I see thugz
I have even seen my best friend selliun drugs
What do you see except money and whites
Have you seen a person get shot or beat up in a fight
Maybe one day you can see what I see
So I can help you and you can help me
When will you end the war when you do write back
So our friends and family can get out of Iraq
I have 2 go now but I’ll write you back everyday
From everybody living in South L.A.

Then there’s the creative non-fiction piece I stumbled upon in The Best American Non-Required Reading 2003 (which, ironically, was sitting right on my bookshelf). The story by Daniel Voll is titled “Riot Baby” and was originally published in Esquire. It’s centered around the character of Jelani, a 10-year-old boy who was born during the LA Riots of 1992. “Ten years later, the people are still poor, there’s not enough work, and the gang violence is bad and getting worse,” writes Voll in his introduction. “One other thing hasn’t changed in South Central: little boys are still growing up there.”

Unlike the “typical” South LA narrative - the one we’ve been encouraged to accept by violence-hungry news organizations, hip hop and dark patches in history - the story of Jelani and his family isn’t about tragedy. In fact, it might be perceived as a story about forgiveness: learning how to balance forgiveness with integrity, and fear with the courage to start all over again. In one scene, Jelani is at his church youth group, pondering the meaning of “forgiveness” in a world defined by the good and the bad, with no in between:

In karate class, the teacher says, your body is your house, your arms are your gates, don’t let anybody in your house. Protect your house! Nothing about forgiveness there. And there was that time last year when the bully was all over him. What was he supposed to do, forgive the kid, who was twice his size? Uh-uh. He got somebody twice the bully’s size. Bo went and had a serious talk with him, and poof, no more bully. Isn’t that the way the world works?

The narrative is compelling and the characters are deep. But what makes “Riot Baby” an important piece of South LA literature is the evocation of the area’s physical presence. For example:

There are palm trees on both sides of Jelani’s street. They are very tall and skinny palm trees. The sky is pale blue overhead, the air very still. Most front lawns are well kept. Most windows have burglar bars. There are no high-rises here, nothing more than a couple stories. Even in the neighborhood known as the Jungle, off Crenshaw Boulevard, they’ve got lawns.

South LA is, in itself, a character, and needs to be treated as such in order for that character to make an impact. In all the mainstream writing about Los Angeles, the experience of the city is tangible: the smell of hot concrete, the static hum of traffic, the color of the buildings at sunset - the way those deep pinks and oranges melt into the skyline like the end of the world is nigh. In order for South LA to take its place in the collective consciousness of the literary world, we have to be able to feel it. In that sense, Voll does a great job of bringing life to South LA.

Until next time… are you a writer or can suggest any creative writing about South LA? Submit your work and ideas to southla@usc.edu

Further reading:
“The Weakness of L.A. Literature” by Adam Kirsch, Slate Magazine
“The Literary History of Los Angeles” at discoverlosangeles.com.

Tags: Arts, Creative Writing, Fiction, Literature, Non-Fiction, South Los Angeles, Writing