A Municipal Tail

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (4) ◽  
pp. 398-436
Author(s):  
Sean McCaskill

This project examines municipal animal control in Los Angeles between 1880 and 1909. It traces the emergence of municipal animal control from the confluence of animal welfare reform and progressive state expansion. The animal welfare movement in the United States began in the Colonial Era, but soon reflected the influence of changing attitudes in Europe and the rise of anti-cruelty reform movements after the Civil War. As Americans sought to create a better world out of the ashes of that war, many looked towards animal welfare. This movement occurred first on the East Coast, beginning with Henry Bergh’s founding of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in 1866, and reached Los Angeles by the end of the century. Many in that growing city viewed the dawn of the twentieth century with optimism, hoping for L.A.’s ascendancy into the ranks of the nation’s great metropolises. As a result, they began to look at the city’s problems through an increasingly progressive lens. Newspapers had covered the animal impoundment system’s brutality since the 1880s, but by the end of the century, they carried dramatic exposés of cruelties and corruption at the pound that emphasized connections to larger social issues. Citizens, including an impressive number of women, became activists for animal welfare. The municipal government responded by passing an ordinance that put animal control in the hands of the Humane Animal League, a private animal welfare organization. When the League failed to handle the city’s burgeoning animal population humanely and efficiently, the city assumed responsibility for animal control and created a municipal system. The emergence of municipal animal control in Los Angeles demonstrates a city turning to the extension of state power at the local level to create a more humane and efficient world for both its human and animal inhabitants.

Music ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alaba Ilesanmi

An astute dissident activist, political force, and iconoclast, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (b. 1938–d. 1997), popularly called Fela, was a legendary and innovative composer, arranger, bandleader, Pan-Africanist, and the father of the genre known as Afrobeat. He used his music as a weapon against injustice and for derision and ridicule of politicians and politics. He was born Olúfelá Olúségun Olúdòtun Ransome-Kuti, on 15 October 1938, in Abeokuta, the present-day capital of Ogun State in Nigeria (then a British colony), into an upper-middle-class family. He later replaced Ransome-Kuti with Anikulapo-Kuti, Aníkúlápó meaning “the one who holds death in their pouch.” His father, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, was an Anglican clergyman and school principal, and his mother, Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (FRK) was a nationalist feminist. She was Fela’s primary ideological influence. Fela’s musical seeds were sown by his father, who was an accomplished composer. Fela furthered his artistic exploration with the Cool Cats, Victor Olaiya’s highlife band. He later studied music at the Trinity College of Music, London, in 1958, where his primary instrument was the trumpet. He formed a highlife and jazz fusion band, Highlife Rakers (later Koola Lobitos). Upon completing his studies, he moved to Nigeria in 1963, then a recently independent country, to work as a radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. Fela embarked on new musical explorations and experiments with Koola Lobitos and later named his music Afrobeat. In 1969, Fela traveled to the United States with his band, where they spent ten months in Los Angeles, and Fela was exposed to the works and philosophy of black leaders like Malcolm X. During this time, his mother’s influence blossomed, and his Pan-African ideology began to manifest. Upon returning to Nigeria, his emerging political consciousness drew inspiration from racial discrimination in the United States and colonial oppression in Africa. His lyrical themes shifted to addressing social issues. Name changes further marked his promising Pan-African consciousness. He rechristened his band Fela Ransome-Kuti and Nigeria 70, and later to Fela Ransome-Kuti and Afrika ’70, and Egypt ’80. Fela grew into a full-blown dissident and antagonist, confronting and lambasting the Nigerian military government and politicians. With over two hundred court appearances, he lived on the edge and suffered numerous incarcerations and physical assaults. His Pan-African messages were aimed at liberating Africans from colonial shackles. His music became a voice for the unheard and disenfranchised, and the defender of African society.


Author(s):  
Kelly Lytle Hernández

Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. This book explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world’s leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernández unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernández documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration. But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation’s carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.


Author(s):  
Christopher Maggio

Abstract Various research has demonstrated that rapid racial demographic change may aid in triggering various forms of backlash under certain conditions. This has led scholars to speak of Whites “defending” their local environment in the face of eroding racial dominance. However, little research has addressed how perceptions of racism among minorities may be triggered under conditions of demographic change. This study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between racial demographic change for Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians and perceptions of racial problems among these groups in the United States. Using standard OLS regressions, ordered logistic regressions, multinomial logistic regressions, and techniques accounting for selection into treatment, I find that Blacks and Hispanics living in counties undergoing rapid growth of Black and Hispanic populations, respectively, have higher perceptions of racial problems. Asians show no evidence of increased perceptions of racial problems in counties undergoing rapid Asian growth. For Blacks, this relationship is concentrated among those without at least a four-year degree and residents of counties with lower initial White populations (and higher initial Black populations). For Hispanics, it is similarly concentrated among those without at least a four-year degree, but also is likely stronger among residents of counties with higher initial White populations (and lower initial Hispanic populations), highlighting unique racial dynamics. This research adds to a growing body of work showing the importance of examining demographic change at the local level in order to understand some of today’s most pressing political and social issues.


2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zevi Gutfreund

This article explores citizenship's multiple meanings in Los Angeles by describing five different types of Americanization, or immigrant education, in the city of angels from 1910 to 1940. The federal racialization of access to citizenship influenced these alternative approaches to Americanization at a local level. In the context of Supreme Court rulings and federal laws that made it difficult for immigrants of color to naturalize in the United States during the Progressive Era, Anglo officials in the school district and settlement houses developed an English-only curriculum that benefited only European immigrants. In response to such restrictions, Mexican and Japanese educators in turn developed programs that showed how learning Spanish and Japanese made their children loyal Americans worthy of citizenship. In the decades before internment and the Zoot Suit Riots, language instruction was one of the few vehicles that allowed Mexican and Japanese Angelinos the opportunity to take control of their Americanization experiences despite the racialized constraints they faced.


2022 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Daniels ◽  
Alexa Delwiche

Adopted first by the City of Los Angeles in 2012, the Good Food Purchasing Program® creates a transparent supply chain and helps institutions to measure and then make shifts in their food purchases. It is the first procurement model to support five food system values—local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare and nutrition—in equal measure and thereby encourages myriad organizations to come together to engage for shared goals. Within just six years, the Good Food Purchasing Program has catalyzed a nationwide movement to establish similar policies in localities small and large across the United States, and inspired the creation of the Center for Good Food Purchasing. First adopted by the City of Los Angeles in 2012, it is a procurement standard that offers institutions a system in which current investments toward food are redirected toward more sustainable and fair suppliers. It uses a metric-based, flexible framework that produces a star rating. The Good Food Purchasing Program promotes the purchase of more sustainably produced food, from local economies, especially smaller and mid-sized farms and other food processing operations, which results in production returns at a more regional and local level, and ensures that suppliers' workers are offered safe and healthy working conditions and fair compensation, that livestock receives healthy and humane care, and that consumers—foremost school children, patients, the elderly—enjoy better health and well-being as a result of higher quality nutritious meals. This article will detail its implementation since 2012, provide current information on the impacts the Program has had on the agroecology of regions in the US food system, and recommendations for policy changes that could catalyze more accelerated impact.


1970 ◽  
Vol 09 (02) ◽  
pp. 75-80
Author(s):  
B. G. Lamson ◽  
W. S. Russell ◽  
J. Fullmore ◽  
W. E. Nix

Total information and communication systems within hospitals have been designed, but successful complete implementation, to date, has not been achieved. Limited applications with both patient medical data, notably in the clinical laboratories, and in the hospital accounting offices have been numerous. Although total programs are not yet a reality, it is apparent that the computer will serve ultimately many communication requirements, both medical and financial, within the hospital.Sound hospital management requires that costs of all component operations be known in order that value judgments concerning worth and efficiency may be made. Accrual accounting systems which match revenue and expense over the same time period are a prerequisite. Cash and modified cash hospital accounting cannot provide current reliable data for sound decision making.Costs of hospital operations cannot be evaluated unless related to the characteristics of the patient service load. Average per diem costs mean little except when large similar populations of patients are being compared. A modern hospital accrual accounting system should be able to provide information concerning the costs of caring for specific diseases in patients with known age and sex and disease severity characteristics. Without information of this type, it will not be possible to objectively evaluate alternative systems of financing and organizing patient care.Medical record management offers the promise of prospective use of patient disease information in the planning and scheduling of facilities. The prose content of medical record summaries, such as diagnostic statements in tissue pathology, radiology, and admission and discharge diagnoses, may be susceptible to non-coded, full prose input into computer controlled diagnostic files. Thesauri in the several medical specialties will be necessary for this achievement.There is little immediate prospect for complete hospital communication systems that can be made available as a package to any hospital without substantial local alteration. Pilot projects in teaching centers should be viewed for the time being as opportunities to define objectives, evaluate feasibility, and determine degree of risk and expense.A brief survey of applications in the United States which have been successfully implemented or which appear suitable for successful implementation is recorded.Eleven general principles which have been associated with successful implementation of computer applications within the UCLA Hospital are enumerated.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-51
Author(s):  
Kristine Brown ◽  
James Sturges

With the continued influx of Mexican immigrants to the United States, especially to Southern California, health concerns and needs have increased among this population over the last several years. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) obtained a federal grant that provided resources to establish the Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC). COPC consists of comprehensive efforts to improve the overall well-being of the Angela Chanslor area within the City of Pomona in East Los Angeles. Focus areas of the project include 1) Education and Integrated Services, 2) Community Planning and Capacity Building for Neighborhood Revitalization and Safety, and 3) Job Development and Training. The focus of this paper is health promotion activities within Education and Integrated Services. The primary objective of this portion of the program was to provide residents with physical examinations and health screenings, health education, and medical and social service referrals. Topics discussed are the target community, general overview of COPC, Family Services Information and Referral Program (i.e. health promotion program within Education and Integrated Services), program impact and results, and suggestions for continued implementation and future efforts. / Con la influencia continua de inmigrantes Mexicanos a los Estados Unidos, especialmente al sur de California, ciertas necesidades con respecto a la salud han incrementado en esta poblacion en los ultimos anos. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona). Obtuvo ayuda Federal para establecer El Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC). El centro COPC consiste de esfuerzos conprensivos para mejorar el bienestar del area Angela Chanslor que esta ubicado en la Ciudad de Pomona en la parte Este de Los Angeles. Las partes enfocadas del proyecto incluyen, 1) Educacion y servicios Integrados, 2) Plan para la Comunidad y un Edificio de Capacitacion para la comunidad que dara revitalizacion y seguridad, 3) Y habrira trabajos y entrenamientos. El enfoque de este proyecto es de actividades en Promocion de Salud aliadas con educacion y Servicios Integrados. El objetivo principal de esta porcion del programa era de proveer a los residentes con examinaciones fisicas, educacion para la salud, y eran referidas a servicios medicos y sociales. Los topicos que son tratados son: La comunidad que sera ayudada, El enfoque general de COPC, informacion del programa para referir a servicios familiares, el impacto del programa y resultados, y sugerencias para implementar futuros esfuerzos.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
Samuel H. Yamashita

In the 1970s, Japanese cooks began to appear in the kitchens of nouvelle cuisine chefs in France for further training, with scores more arriving in the next decades. Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Joël Robuchon, and other leading French chefs started visiting Japan to teach, cook, and sample Japanese cuisine, and ten of them eventually opened restaurants there. In the 1980s and 1990s, these chefs' frequent visits to Japan and the steady flow of Japanese stagiaires to French restaurants in Europe and the United States encouraged a series of changes that I am calling the “Japanese turn,” which found chefs at fine-dining establishments in Los Angeles, New York City, and later the San Francisco Bay Area using an ever-widening array of Japanese ingredients, employing Japanese culinary techniques, and adding Japanese dishes to their menus. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the wide acceptance of not only Japanese ingredients and techniques but also concepts like umami (savory tastiness) and shun (seasonality) suggest that Japanese cuisine is now well known to many American chefs.


Author(s):  
Timothy Matovina

Most histories of Catholicism in the United States focus on the experience of Euro-American Catholics, whose views on social issues have dominated public debates. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Latino Catholic experience in America from the sixteenth century to today, and offers the most in-depth examination to date of the important ways the U.S. Catholic Church, its evolving Latino majority, and American culture are mutually transforming one another. This book highlights the vital contributions of Latinos to American religious and social life, demonstrating in particular how their engagement with the U.S. cultural milieu is the most significant factor behind their ecclesial and societal impact.


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