Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story

In 1949 photographer Don Normark walked up into the hills of Los Angeles looking for a good view. Instead he found Chavez Ravine a ramshackle Mexican-American neighborhood tucked away in Elysian Park like a "poor mans Shangri-la." Enchanted he stayed for a year among the wild roses tin roofs and wandering goats of this uniquely intact rural community. Accepted by the residents Normark was able to photograph a life that though bowed down by poverty was lived fully openly and joyfully. That ended when in 1950 the residents of Chavez Ravine received letters from the government informing them that they had to leave. Some sold some were dragged out of their houses kicking and screaming. The emptied houses were razed to make way for the new Dodger Stadium. The past fifty years have not erased the memories of Los Desterrados the uprooted descendants of Chavez Ravine. After extensive research Don Normark has tracked them down in order to share his old photographs and to record their poignant reactions. He has captured the images the stories and the bittersweet memories of Los Desterrados in this book.