3. Los Angeles’ Little Italy
Los Angeles’s Italian enclaves, like other Little Italies, functioned as extensions of the mother country and eased the immigrant’s transition to the new land. By the late 1800s, the Plaza area and “Sonoratown,” (the foothills of Elysian Park), the Sixth and Seventh Wards (present-day wholesale produce district) and present-day Chinatown comprised the heart of Los Angeles’ “little Italy.” In the years that followed, the most populous of the city’s Italian enclaves could be found northeast of downtown in Lincoln Heights and Dogtown, (once home to Frank Capra) where he melodic sound of Italian could be heard amidst bustling Italian grocery stores, bakeries, banks, pharmacies and cafes. Meanwhile, scores of Sicilian and Ischitani fisherman lived in San Pedro, the city’s historic waterfront, where more than 40,000 Italian Americans reside today.
By 1910, the Italian population of Los Angeles reached 3,800. Twenty years later, “La Colonia,” as the Italian community came to be known, numbered 12,700. Its size supported several Italian language newspapers, of which L’Italo Americano remains, and was home to numerous socio-cultural and benevolent organizations, such as the Garibaldina Mutual Benefit Society, founded in 1888. For over 100 years, the community’s ethnic churches, St. Peter’s Italian Church and Mary Star of the Sea, have tended to the spiritual needs of Italo Angelenos while preserving cultural-religious traditions. Their celebrations for the feasts of St. Joseph, Santa Lucia, San Trifone and St. Peter are amongst the West Coast’s largest.
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