#there were SO MANY PEOPLE at gardena's obon this year

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A fun thing about Southern California is that Obon has Elvises.

[writingwithcolor]

LA's Asian Locations

Hello! I’m Kore, I’m Korean, Thai, and Chinese, and live in LA. I’m going to be sending some other things in, in a seperate POC Profile, but this was getting long. But if anyone ever is writing about Asians in LA(since there are… you know… a lot of Asians in LA), or just LA in generally and want to have their character visit one of parts of the city where more Asian people live, here is a small guide to most of them. 

Westside

Asian-Americans in LA have a shit ton of places you can go. To begin with is the Westside. This is the area near the Ocean, but isn’t directly on it generally. It’s called the Westside, because it’s almost the western most part of LA. On the Westside there’s Little Persia, with a lot of Persian food, and UCLA. This is specifically called Westwood, but we also call it the Westside. So hah. But because of UCLA there ends up being more East Asians around here because of UCLA, because of this, there’s a super strong East Asian presence around here with a lot of restaurants and stuff. In Mar Vista around here, there’s also a Chinese School that’s super big and popular.

Little Osaka

Then there’s Little Osaka, technically still part of the Westside, also technically called Sawtelle because it’s like three, maybe four, blocks of Sawtelle Blvd. But Little Osaka deserves a special mention of it’s own. This is the first of two Japanese areas in LA, however, Little Osaka also has a lot of Korean things, with many Korean people running Japanese stores. Little Osaka, is super popular to just mostly get food. There’s nothing actually to do here? But hey, food.

Koreatown

Next is Koreatown. So this place is almost in the heart of LA, it’s about 30 min to an hour from the Westside in terms of driving. This is half residential and half not. It’s 100% lit at night. In the heart of Koreatown we’ve got a lot of night clubs, and places to drink. On the peripherals, it’s dead at night. But there’s good food, and a lot of supermarkets. Around 60k Koreans live here alone. There are a lot more than that in LA. Around here is also Little Bangledesh. I’ve never actually been, but that’s also mostly made up of Korean people. Recently Little Bangledesh tried to take over half of Koreatown and make it into little Bangledesh, but was defeated in a vote, as Korean people really didn’t appreciate that. 

Right outside of here is Wilshire Korean School, which is a bilingual private school that has Korean School on Saturdays. This is one of maybe… three? Proper Korean schools in LA, most people just home teach their kids Korean. There are two supermarkets here. Galleria and HMart, both of them in Plaza sort of places. Galleria’s has better food, and probably better shopping. But HMart is the OG Asian supermarket and is near two really awesome desert places. One of them you can get a sweet bread, shaped like a fish, filled with ice cream and either red bean, custard, or nutella, and the other one you can get patbingsoo at, or Korean shaved ice.

Little Tokyo

There’s also Little Tokyo. Which I don’t think I’ve ever been to, odd, since I’ve lived in LA my whole life. But I mostly keep to Koreatown and the Westside too.

Chinatown(s)

Okay now for the Chinatowns. So there’s technically one, and that’s in the middle of LA. But let me tell you, that’s not Chinatown. It was, once upon a time, however, a lot of Chinese people moved out of there and to either Alhambra, or Montery Park. So we’ve got Old Chinatown, New Chinatown, and Chinatown. Now I can’t remember whether Montery Park or Alhambra is Old or New, but these are both out a bit a ways from the Chinatown in the middle of LA. 

In that Chinatown, all the festivals are thrown. It’s also tiny. Alhambra is a lot more laid out than Montery, which is super laid out. But Montery Park, and Alhambra, have got great food. Also no social lives, but great great food. There’s a supermarket here, when you leave the heart of Chinatown, and walk for maybe 10 minutes, that’s probably the biggest Thai supermarket I’ve ever seen. I mean… You can buy so much coconut sugar here. It's insane.

Thaitown

There’s also Thaitown!! Which is closer to Koreatown than both Old and New Chinatown. This is where you can get a lot of Thai Food, and products. There’s not a lot to do here, and it’s mostly disappearing. But food. Really though, this place is super duper duper boring.

Little India

There’s Little India as well. It’s maybe three streets at most.

Little Saigon

Little Saigon is the heart and soul of the Vietnamese diaspora in LA. It’s beautiful, and actually really awesome. Unlike Thaitown though, you can get good Vietnamese food outside of it. They’ve got streetfood (illegal in LA technically), and a super duper ginourmous market that’s bigger than the biggest HMart that I’ve ever see. It’s so… big.

Everything else isn’t of much note, I’m not going to lie. I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide! I enjoyed writing it for sure.

More PoC Profiles here

Commentary

I’m assuming much of the above is confined to Los Angeles (City) proper. Because much of the Asian population in LA moves pretty fluidly between cities, here are my additions for LA County as a whole (including some key LA landmarks that were left out).

Torrance, Gardena and parts of Culver City: Home to the largest Nikkei and Japanese expat population in LA. This used to be the homebase for Toyota America until they moved their HQ close to their factories in Texas. However, many other Japanese companies still use this region for their American homebases, and as such the biggest Japanese grocery chains (Nijiya, Tokyo Central and Mitsuwa) all operate their largest Californian stores here. This region also has sizable Korean, SE Asian and S. Asian communities. One of LA’s more popular Indian grocers (Samosa House) is based in Culver City. Asahi Gakuen, a Japanese Saturday language school designed to help Japanese American kids keep up with the Japanese national curriculum, is also based here.

San Gabriel Valley aka 626: This includes not only Alhambra, Montebello and Monterey Park, but also Arcadia, Covina, West Covina, San Gabriel, Duarte, El Monte, Commerce, Asuza and Chino). It’s a pretty big, diverse place home to a large number of diaspora in various waves from Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and South Asia. The annual 626 Night Market (a street food fair) is held near the Santa Anita racetracks. When I was a kid, most of my lion dance jobs for the Lunar New Year were in Old Chinatown, but they have all since moved here. The diversity in cuisine is incredible. To get a sense of just how many different types of food there are out here, I recommend reading old reviews by the late, great Jonathan Gold from the LA Times.

Glendale and Pasadena: Large Armenian and Persian communities. Lots of very good bakeries, restaurants and also Armenian evangelical churches.

Artesia and Norwalk: Little India, basically, but there are also large Vietnamese and Filipino communities. Pioneer Blvd. in Artesia in particular has many Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi grocers, restaurants and clothing shops.

All of the cities I have mentioned have things like language schools, religion and culture centers, grocers, restaurants, etc. specific to the communities I’ve described above.

Religion (Major landmarks):

Hinduism: Venkateswara Temple - Malibu; Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Temple - Chino Hills;

Buddhism: Zen Center Los Angeles - Koreatown; Koyasan Betsuin - Little Tokyo; Nishi Honganji - Little Tokyo; Higashi Honganji - Little Tokyo; Zenshuji Soto Mission - Little Tokyo; Guan Di temple - Old Chinatown

Taoism: Thien Hau Temple - Old Chinatown

Shintoism: Konko Church - Boyle Heights, Gardena, Whittier

There are also many gurdwaras and mosques spread out throughout LA County (North Hollywood in particular for LA proper), but I’m not saying where they are because humanity is terrible.

Addendums for Little Tokyo:

Japanese American Museum: Covers the history of Japanese Americans in the US, internment during WWII and Little Tokyo. Also provides assistance to families looking to review historical, declassified records about interned relatives.

Nihonmura Plaza: main setting for festivals for Tanabata, Obon and New Years. Has a nifty looking traditional Japanese fire tower

Kinokuniya: LA branch of a major Japanese bookstore chain

Addendums for Koreatown:

Dawooljung/ Korean Pavilion: A gazebo and open space across the street from the Seoul International Park and the Koreatown Community Center

Schools for Eastern Medicine/ Acupuncture: There are at least 2 schools in Koreatown for Eastern/ Chinese/ Alternative medicine that quite a few Asian Americans who run their own clinics have trained at.

LA is so big and so diverse that there’s no one way to really capture how much of Asia is represented here. I know our county registrar and DMV offers information in Armenian, Chinese, Cambodian/Khmer, Farsi, Korean, Tagalog/Filipino, Vietnamese, Hindi/ Urdu, and Japanese because at least 5% of the voting population speaks each of those languages. I’d love to see further additions from other Asian Los Angelenos.

- Marika.