Welcome to Our "Island"

IF YOU'VE LISTENED closely to the stories, Los Angeles -- you might assume -- was constructed with as much brick, mortar and terracotta as it was booster fairy-dust and real estate barons' sheer will. Viewed and hyped both as an "Arcadia" -- a site of natural, perfect beauty and a "Utopia"- a place to create perfection, Los Angeles' core identity often finds itself over-written. It leaves one -- visitor, transplant or native -- begging the question: Did it ever have a chance to really be seen? So many people superimposed their own dreams, assumptions and elaborations, tailoring everything -- even the very natural elements and environment. Architects and contractors certainly left their mark on Los Angeles, but so too did its artists and writers. And because of it Los Angeles, lives vividly in our imaginations.

The challenge for writers attempting to tell Los Angeles' story is to break away from those cliches, myths and those easy similes. What is Los Angeles? This course's goal is to get behind that screen and find out what is happening on the ground: What grows out of a paradise like this, with all of its impasses nd imperfections? How is identity shaped? Language spoken? Ritual practiced? What is at the heart of the matter? We hope to be able to peel away at the layers and get closer to it somehow.

-- L.G

(illustration caption: map of early los angeles
illustration credit: from the site, documents for the study of american history)