Baldwin Park is a Metrolink

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing suc ...

Baldwin Park, California Baldwin Park is a city located in the central San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 72,176, down from 75,390 at the 2010 census. History Baldwin Park began as p ...

, United States, between Pacific Avenue and Ramona Boulevard next to Baldwin Park City Hall. The station is owned by the City of Baldwin Park.

Foothill Transit Foothill Transit is a public transit agency that is government funded by 22 member cities in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys. It operates a fixed-route bus public transit service in the San Gabriel Valley region of eastern Los Angeles Cou ...

and

Los Angeles Metro Bus Los Angeles Metro Bus is the transit bus service in Los Angeles County, California operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . , there are ...

routes serve the station, and Baldwin Park and

West Covina West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

provide municipal shuttles to the station.

Station artwork

''Danza Indigenas'' is outdoor

artwork A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...

at the station by

Chicana Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American iden ...

artist

Judy Baca Judith Francisca Baca (born September 20, 1946) is an American artist, activist, and professor of Chicano studies, world arts, and cultures based at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the co-founder and artistic director of the So ...

which includes a concrete footpath that represents ceremonial steps performed by early California inhabitants, the

Gabrielino The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous peoples of California, Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Channel Islands of California, Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people p ...

and

Chumash Chumash may refer to: *Chumash (Judaism), a Hebrew word for the Pentateuch, used in Judaism *Chumash people, a Native American people of southern California *Chumashan languages, indigenous languages of California See also * Chumash traditional ...

Indians. The monument bears several engraved statements whose origins are not attributed. In mid-2005, "

Save Our State Save Our State (SOS) is an activist organization opposed to illegal immigration in California. The organization's methodology revolves around the 'transference of pain' and it has been described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Cente ...

", an anti-

illegal immigration Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...

group based in

Ventura County Ventura County () is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, and the county seat is the city of Ventura. Ventura County comprises the Oxnar ...

, launched a series of protests over an inscription''It was better before they came'' that Save Our State claimed was directed against whites. According to Baca, that sentence was uttered by a white Baldwin Park politician in the 1950s; he was lamenting the influx of persons of

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

ancestry into the

San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley ( es, Valle de San Gabriel) is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, lying immediately to the east of the eastern city limits of the city of Los Angeles, and occupying the vast majority of the eastern part ...

following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The protests drew counter-protesters, and required city expenditure on crowd control and riot police, an admitted goal of Save Our State.

References

External links

*
''Danza Indigenas''
at the

Los Angeles Metro The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), commonly branded as Metro, LA Metro, and L.A. Metro, is the state agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the transportation system in Los Angele ...

website
''Danza Indigenas''
at the

artist website Metrolink stations in Los Angeles County, California Railway stations in the United States opened in 1993 {{California-railstation-stub