Sources of info for 50s Los Angeles

[Hypersmurf]

I'm looking for some setting info for a game to be set in LA in the early 50s. At the moment, about the only sources I have are LA Confidential and Grease

Primarily, I'm interested in the Hispanic community... places, persons, events, and issues of import. But general information is welcome as well - what's going on in America, what elements should be included in a game to make it 'feel' 50s, and so on.

Any thoughts?

-Hyp.

 

[Turanil]

Primarily, I'm interested in the Hispanic community... places, persons, events, and issues of import.

Racism was high during the 50s'. The Hispanic community would have to continually suffer from it.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

The Big Nowhere, also by Ellroy. The L.A. Hispanic community during the 50s plays a major role in the plot.

 

[bento]

Searching Edward James Olmos...

Here's two I can think of:

"My Family/Mi Familia" (1995) - Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930's. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A. police in the 50's. As the second generation become adults in the 60's, the focus shifts to Jimmy, his marriage to Isabel (a Salvadorian refugee), their son, and Jimmy's journey to becoming a responsible parent. (taken from imdb.com)

"American Me" (1992) - This epic depiction of thirty years of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles focuses on a teen named Santana who, with his friends Mundo and the Caucasian-but-acting-Hispanic J.D., form their own gang and are soon arrested for a break-in. Santana gets into trouble again and goes straight from reform school to prison, spending eighteen year there, and becoming leader of a powerful gang, both inside and outside the prison, while there. When he is finally released, he tries to make sense of the violence in his life, in a world much changed from when last he was in it. (also from imdb.com) Takes place in the 1940s to 1960s.

You can also do a "keyword" search on IMDB and they recognize both 1950s and Los Angeles. Here's the link to combine both terms together - http://www.imdb.com/keyword/1950s/los-angeles-california/

Otherwise, my best source for historical info for games is either the library or a used bookstore.

Good luck Hyp!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Searching Edward James Olmos...

Ha! Good thought

Thanks, guys

-Hyp.

 

[Celebrim]

You could hardly pick a more contriversial decade (except perhaps the 1980's) to portray American life. The 50's are one of those times when we as Americans don't yet agree on what was happening (although the end of the Cold War helped somewhat), and like the 60's the narrative of what was happening tends to be caught up more in the mythic narratives that arose after the period than what was actually happening on the whole.

My personal feeling is that both narratives about the 1950's - 'a time of great hope' and 'a time of great fear', 'Father Knows Best' vs. 'a hollow plastic society', etc. - are true from the perspective of the narrator. Everyone's impression probably has some element of truth to it, they just shouldn't assume that there own experience held true for everyone.

This is going to be especially true of a place like LA where myths get created on a daily basis. The main thing that was certainly true was that America was unprecedentedly wealthy in a way that no other society had ever been, and uniquely wealthy in a way that no nation had ever been before or since; at least, if you weren't a poor white or black farmer in the rural South still unrecovered from the civil war (and arguably still fighting it). But even in the midst of oppressive racism, America's urban ethnic communities were flourishing - developing thier own educated doctors, pharmacists, teachers, lawyers, and millionaires - all of which would be crucial to the challenge that was to come.

LA early in this period would be desegrating in name if not in practice. The 'Whites Only' signs would have just come down because of court cases (for example Mendez vs. Westminster) that would foreshadow the national battles just beginning.

I guess my point - other than I like to ramble on about history, especially US history - is that I wouldn't trust literature to give you an accurate picture. In literature, especially 'historical fiction', you generally have one person with one experience with one take trying to sell you on something. It might be a valid experience, or it might just be spin for the sake of the story. In my research, I've tended to rely on local libraries because period newspapers and the work of local historical societies tends to give a far more interesting snapshot of past life than even a good novelist. You don't want your setting colored by what one person was reading at the time, what one person's father was like, what one person's politics were, and whether one person took seriously those 'duck and cover' drills or whether they thought no more about them than earthquake drills and fire drills.

Unfortunately, California's not really my area of the US so I can't hop into the local public library.

 

[Celebrim]

Things that would be very nice to have, if you could manage.

Copies of 'La Opinion' and 'Los Angeles Times' from the period.

Seeing the documentary 'American Experience: Zoot Suit Riots'. (transcript here. )In fact, if you ever want to portray America accurately, seeing as many 'American Experience' documentaries as possible would be a good place to start.

 

[Hypersmurf]

This is going to be especially true of a place like LA where myths get created on a daily basis.

I don't think myths are necessarily a bad thing for what I'm looking for... the game isn't going to be a deep social commentary, it's going to be over-the-top comic-book action. But I don't want to just say "It's the 50s" and run a generic urban scenario; I want it to have elements to it that tie it to the time and place.

If people identify more strongly with the legends, true or false, than they do with the real history, then I'll try to match the legends

Seeing the documentary 'American Experience: Zoot Suit Riots'.

I've already read a few articles about the riots, because it seemed like exactly the sort of issue I'm looking for. Most of what I've read covers some of the leadup in the 30s and 40s, and the riots themselves, but doesn't really go into the long-term fallout... how the riots affected people ten years later, for example.

Does the documentary extend into the 50s, or does it concentrate on the 40s?

(Or, to put it another way - would people in 1953 still be angry about the Zoot Suit Riots? Bitter? Resigned? Fearful of a repeat? Or was the event already relegated to history by then?)

You could hardly pick a more contriversial decade (except perhaps the 1980's) to portray American life.

Oh, I can get all the information about the 80s I need from Pat Benatar music videos

-Hyp.

 

[Celebrim]

(Or, to put it another way - would people in 1953 still be angry about the Zoot Suit Riots? Bitter? Resigned? Fearful of a repeat? Or was the event already relegated to history by then?)

Like I said, it probably would depend largely on who you were. History is what it is, but our experience of the present is largely subjective.

In 1953, the Korean war was just coming to a close, and America had just learned that it never could again go back to being the world's great neutral, uninvolved, global power. Hollywood was communist, or at least heavily tilted that way, but busily trying to pretend publicly that it wasn't (and had never been) so that the 'Red Scare' would seem even more draconian than it already was. Reagan was in charge of the screen actors guild, and then seemed no more likely to be President one day than say Melissa Gilbert does today. Most of America was trying to forget that it had been racist in the 20's and 30's, so that it could go on to bashing the South with a clear conscious. Alot of people were making babies. Pretty much everyone was determined that thier children not have to go through what they went through in the 30's and 40's. Protecting the innocence of the children is huge, and people were rich - they had cars, tv's (small ones), and thier own houses (small ones), so naturally they were raising alot of spoiled brats who very much wondered what the grownups were trying to hide and who thought that thier parents just could never understand the sort of 'hardships' they were going through.

TV was big. Everyone loves Lucy - 70% of America gets in front of a TV to watch the latest episode - which kinda makes you wonder just how big the supposed big contriversy of the show was. Cars are if possible even bigger. Every American male tinkers with his. Gas is cheap. American sports were becoming industries. Movies were changing. In academic circles, the beginnings of the counter-culture movement are taking shape, and hipsters are wearing goatees, and writing the rebellious poetry. The drug culture is beginning to take shape. Organized crime is king. Street gangs are still basically just bored boys. In rural areas, the new prosperity and the new sense of world brought by returning soldiers killed the rural communism of the 30's. Most of American history for the next few decades will pass the rural areas by as they catch up to things like indoor plumbing, until the counter-counter-culture rebellion of the rural areas in Reagan revolution.

Almost everyone really believes that what science fiction authors are saying will happen by the year 2000 - flying cars, colonies on mars, domestic robots, etc. - will really happen, but no one can yet imagine a pocket calculator.

Everyone who isn't highly religious smokes cigerettes. Cigerettes are available for sale to minors - they often have baseball cards packaged with them. 'I Love Lucy' is sponcered by Phillip Morris.

The US is just getting involved in a obscure war in Veitnam. The decision to send troops is wildly popular in the United States.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

You should also read Ellroy's White Jazz, because it's excellent and follows directly on from L.A. Confidential - oh, and because the eviction of the remnants of the Chicano community from Chavez Ravine in order to make way for Dodger Stadium. Some of those residents were evicted forcibly, by bulldozers and armed sheriff's deputies.

There's a minor character in the novel, a Hispanic boxer, who's something of a stooge for the establishment trying to convince his fellow Chicanos to move out.