Alexis Roddy

Jennifer Rodrick

English 115

November 16, 2017

Project Text

Los Angeles is thought of to be one of the greatest places on earth, at least to the

people who do not actually live there. To the outside of Los Angeles, individuals think that this

place is so amazing to be, and if you live there you are probably best friends with a celebrity. In

the short story Native to the Place Lynell George exposes the fact of being native to the place,

you can see that Los Angeles is a city that is always changing. The constant reassessment of

the lives of the people who are native to Los Angeles coincide with the idea of Los Angeles

because Los Angeles is a place that is always changing and so are the lives of everyone in it.

Los Angeles has always been stereotyped by others that do not live there. Lynell George

does a great job at explaining how L.A. is interpreted by others in his short story, he states, L.A.

has long been too narrowly defined- Surf Guitar, beach bunnies, cool school, and Hockney's

blue pools. L.A. is a loud cacophony. It is unwieldy and inexplicable.(George,161 ) This is

showing how L.A. is defined by individuals who are not native to the place. With this constant

stereotype in mind the native to Los Angeles tend to just adjust to the stereotype, and take that

into account, and make it something better. Perhaps they laugh at the fact that outsiders really

think that the people who live there are really that way. On the show Jimmy Kimmel Live he

does a segment where people from New York do their best impression of someone who lives in

L.A., and vice versa. The people from New York basically do impressions of young dumb

teenage girls and say ummmmmm can I get a salad?. Is that what L.A. is to people not from

there? Just dumb people who only eat salad? This goes to show that the outsiders do not really

even know what L.A. is about. On a larger scale it is probably because Los Angeles is a place

that it always changing, like stated in the short story Native to the place. It is only fair that
others rationalize that L.A. is the stereotypical place because there is never a set idea of what

this place is. It is easy for others who are not native to the place to latch on to such an easy and

funny stereotype. This picture represents how the

different parts of L.A. are stereotyped by others. Taking all of that into account the people's lives

that are always being confined to this stereotype coincides with the thought of L.A., because

L.A. is always going to have a confined stereotype as well, even though it is always changing.

Lynell George also brings light to the idea that L.A. is a city of new beginnings. Living in

Los Angeles can bring many things to you and can be gone in the blink of an eye. Los Angeles

is a fast pace city where change is always happening. In an article from L.A.Times it talks about

how the city's demographics is changing. In this article it states The data show that vast

portions of south and east Los Angeles are slipping from mixed populations toward single race

populations.(Bader) This is a Major factor why L.A. is always changing, which brings me to the

point that everyone, no matter what race you are, has a chance for a new beginning in Los

Angeles. George states Los Angeles is both all that is real and all that is not. It builds it up then

tears it down. It raises expectations and then strikes them as efficiently as a set. And though

you want to protect what stands before you, fragile as it is, you also know it wasnt meant to

last.(George, 153) This is showing that things can change so fast and you never know how

long it is going to last, but that is ok because you can not really fail living in Los Angeles. In the

story Magic hour ,written by Erika Schickel, portrays a story of new beginnings. At the end of the

story the speaker states I fed it and kept it warm in its little pot; it lived for a long time, but never

once flowered. Here, it was a profusely blooming hedge in front of a dental office. Like

everything else, all it needed was the right location in order to root and bloom(Schickel, 74 ).
This is making a comparison with the plant and her life. Even though she failed she still has the

opportunity living in Los Angeles to start over and succeed. She just needed to find the right

place to be in order to bloom as a person. People who are not native to the place and people

who are, both understand that failing in LA is better than failing anywhere else because of the

notion that there is always going to be something new to do. This ties into the fact that the

constant reassessment of the lives of the people who are native to Los Angeles coincide with

the idea of Los Angeles because Los Angeles is a place that is always changing and so are the

lives of everyone in it.

The last point that Lynell George makes is that people from Los Angeles understand

what LA really is and see the beauty in that. Since he has been living there his whole life he

sees the true beauty of the place. He states For me, there is beauty in the confusion and

chaos, within the elusiveness and the nonsense. For the others who are willing to take a self-

guided journey, there is something as seductive and untamed as the old drives along the

canyon passes awaiting them. There is joy in having the space to create or journey towards

something new everyday(George,162 ). This is saying that the people who live there see the

chances that los Angeles has to offer them and that you can get light out of something crazy.

Another example of this is in a story written by Judith Lewis. In the short story Interesting

Times it talks about a woman who lives in Los Angeles. At the end of the story she says life

here is not simple, and many of this city's rewards have emerged from events that initially

seemed like doom. But after a decade, I have finally come to realise that Los Angeles has

treated me well - not by allowing me an undramatic, luxurious existence, but by giving me a

world to battle as much as I revel in it. It has given me interesting times.(Lewis,10 ) This is

saying that she is glad that she had the chance to live in a place like L.A. not because it was

beautified by outsiders, because she found it frankly ugly, but because she had the chance to

witness all of the chaos and opportunities of L.A., which made her life exciting. Both of these

stories take into account that the people that have been living in L.A. for a long time do not see
L.A. as that beautified city in the same way that people not from there see it. They take in

account all the ugly and beautify it that way. This goes to show that people living in Los Angeles

coincide with the idea of L.A. because they see can see the beauty of opportunities there just

like L.A. has the notion of opportunities.

To conclude the native to Los Angeles coincide to the idea of L.A. because everything

there is so fast paced and always changing including the people. Also the people there consider

the opportunities that the have living there because there is a sense that you can almost never

fail living in Los Angeles because, there is always going to be another opportunity when living

there. Many of the people there understand that L.A. is not the same as how they portray it on

the media in movies or on tv. With that being in mind they have the chance to see the real

beauty of los angeles instead of the made up beauty of L.A. Even though countless people

understand that L.A. is not as amazing as it seems on TV people will always want to live there.

Work Cited

Bader, Michael. L.A. Is Resegregating -- and Whites Are a Major Reason Why. Los Angeles Times,

Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2016, beta.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-bader-resegregation-los-

angeles-20160401-story.html.

George, Lynell. Another city. David L.Ulin, 2001

Kimmel, Jimmy. LA vs NY. YouTube, 5 June 2015, youtu.be/ekOPaKqPKsU.

Schickel, Erika. Another city. David L.Ulin, 2001

Lewis, Judith. Another city. David L.Ulin, 2001