![Sidewalk_shrine_outside_Thailand_Plaza,_Los_Angeles,_2015](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Sidewalk_shrine_outside_Thailand_Plaza%2C_Los_Angeles%2C_2015.png)
![Thailand Plaza, Thai Town, Hollwood, CA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Thailand_Plaza%2C_Thai_Town%2C_Hollwood%2C_CA.jpg)
Thai Town (
Thai: ) is a neighborhood in
Central Los Angeles, California. It is the only officially recognized ''Thai Town'' in the United States.
[Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, "America's Only Thai Town Celebrates 15 Years in Los Angeles," NBCNews.com, October 30, 2014]
/ref> In 2008, it was designated a "Preserve America" neighborhood.
History
The Los Angeles City Council
The Los Angeles City Council is the legislative body of the City of Los Angeles in California.
The council is composed of 15 members elected from single-member districts for four-year terms. The president of the council and the president pro tem ...
voted unanimously on October 27, 1999, to designate the neighborhood as "Thai Town," the first place in the United States with that name. The designation was proposed by Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg
Jacqueline "Jackie" Goldberg (born November 18, 1944) is an American politician and teacher serving as a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education for the 5th district.
Early life and education
Goldberg was born in th ...
, who said the move would bring neighborhood pride, economic development and promotion of tourism to the area.["City Council Designates Area as 'Thai Town,'" ''Los Angeles Times,'' October 28, 1999]
/ref> At that time, the Department of Transportation was instructed to install signage
Signage is the design or use of signs and symbols to communicate a message. A signage also means signs ''collectively'' or being considered as a group. The term ''signage'' is documented to have been popularized in 1975 to 1980.
Signs are any ...
to identify Thai Town.
It was significant to Goldberg that the staff of the Thai Community Development Center includes other Asians, Latinos and whites, all intent on improving the East Hollywood business community in general. "They're already calling Thai Town the 77th province," said Thai Chamber of Commerce President Niphun Rojanasopondist, referring to the 76 provinces that made up Thailand at the time.[
The action followed a nine-year campaign by the Development Center. According to Ernest J. Vigoreaux, a half-Puerto Rican, half-Thai planner for the center, the idea was to bring tourism and business into a shabby section of town, helping not only Thais but everyone else there. The center won a $15,000 Department of Public Works matching grant to create a garden and to bring from Thailand four golden statues of kinnari (mythical creatures who are half angel, half bird) to mark Thai Town's borders.][Nita Lelyveld, "In Los Angeles, the Newest Ethnic Enclave: Thai Town," ''Los Angeles Times,'' ''Philadelphia Inquirer,'' September 20, 2000, page A-21]
/ref>
In 2008, the Thai Community Development Center expanded its partnership with the four Asian Pacific Islander communities in Los Angeles to pursue a national designation by the White House of all five API towns as a Preserve America
Preserve America is a United States government program, established under President George W. Bush, intended to encourage and support community efforts to preserve and enjoy the country's cultural and natural heritage.
As of 2017, more than 900 ...
Neighborhood. The other communities are Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Historic Filipinotown
Historic Filipinotown (alternately known as HiFi ) is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles. It is one of the six Asian Pacific Islander neighborhoods (Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Historic Filipinotown, Little Bangladesh, Koreatown, and Thai Town ...
and Koreatown
A Koreatown ( Korean: 코리아타운), also known as a Little Korea or Little Seoul, is a Korean-dominated ethnic enclave within a city or metropolitan area outside the Korean Peninsula.
History
Koreatowns as an East Asian ethnic enclave have ...
. They formed the API Preserve America Neighborhood Coalition. First Lady Laura Bush presented the "Preserve America" designation, signifying value as a cultural and historic asset. The designation made Thai Town eligible for up to $250,000 in Preserve America grants, along with $250,000 in other public and private matching funds.[Teresa Watanabe, "A Boost for Thai Town," ''Los Angeles Times,'' August 3, 2008]
/ref>
Geography
Thai Town is a six-block neighborhood flanking Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywoo ...
between Normandie Avenue
Normandie Avenue is one of Los Angeles County's longest north–south streets, with a stretch of about . It lies between Western Avenue to the west and Vermont Avenue to the east. The avenue begins in the south by branching off from Vermont Aven ...
and Western Avenue,[ its entrances being marked by two statues of '']apsonsi
Apsonsi ( th, อัปสรสีห์) is a half-woman half-lion mythical creature from Thai mythology. Apsonsi is one of the many hybrid creatures depicted in ancient South and Southeast Asian folklore. Also called Apsonsingh, Apsonsingha, ...
'' (a mythical half human, half lion angel in Thai folklore
Thai folklore is a diverse set of mythology and traditional beliefs held by the Thai people. Most Thai folklore has a regional background for it originated in rural Thailand. With the passing of time, and through the influence of the media, large ...
).
Thai Town is bordered by the neighborhoods of Los Feliz
LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to:
Science and technology
* Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation
* Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers
* Level of significance, a measure of statistical significanc ...
to the north and east, central Hollywood to the west, and Little Armenia to the south.
Neighborhood
The neighborhood has been the home to immigrant groups, including Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, '' hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diasp ...
and Latinos
Hispanic and Latino Americans ( es, Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; pt, Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spaniards, Spanish and/or Latin Americans, Latin American ancestry. More broadly, these demographics include a ...
, for a long time, and Thai Americans
Thai Americans ( th, ชาวอเมริกันเชื้อสายไทย; formerly referred to as Siamese Americans) are Americans of Thai ancestry.
History in the US
The 1930 Census recorded just 18 ‘Siamese’ Americans. Acc ...
began settling there in the 1960s.[ The area, which is home to many of the 80,000 Thais estimated to be living in Southern California,][ was said to be a working-class district that in 2007 was "one of the poorest sections of Los Angeles County, with many residents cramming into low-income apartments and working at minimum-wage jobs."][ Earlier, in 2000, it was described as "a rundown six-block stretch of Hollywood Boulevard crammed with Thai sweet shops, bookstores, restaurants, markets and newspaper offices."][
In 2000 a ''Los Angeles Times'' writer said Thai Town was a place where
]gourmands can stock up on bitter melon
''Momordica charantia'' (commonly called bitter melon; Goya; bitter apple; bitter gourd; bitter squash; balsam-pear; with many more names listed below) is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown in Asia, Afr ...
and round Thai eggplant
Thai eggplant ( th, มะเขือ, ') is the name for several varieties of eggplant used in Southeast Asian cuisines, most often of the eggplant species ''Solanum melongena''. They are also cultivated in India and Sri Lanka and feature i ...
. A Thai dessert shop offers preserved jackfruit
The jackfruit (''Artocarpus heterophyllus''), also known as jack tree, is a species of tree in the fig, mulberry, and breadfruit family ( Moraceae). Its origin is in the region between the Western Ghats of southern India, all of Bangladesh, ...
, Pandan cookies and Kring Krang, crisply sweetened rice. The large Silom supermarket occupies the middle of a block near Hobart Boulevard, its exterior the rose-hued color of dusk with ornate trimming and a spirit house
A spirit house is a shrine to the protective spirit of a place that is found in the Southeast Asian countries of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. The spirit house is normally in the form of sma ...
, draped with colorful garlands and a stone-faced Buddha image, guarding the entrance from destructive forces.
One result of the influx of Thai people into East Hollywood was that the neighborhood became a "point of entry" for other Thais, many of whom came to study at Southland Southland may refer to:
Places Canada
* Dunbar–Southlands, Vancouver, British Columbia
New Zealand
* Southland Region, a region of New Zealand
* Southland County, a former New Zealand county
* Southland District, part of the wider Southland Re ...
universities.[Carla Rivera, "L.A.'s Newest Place: Thai Town," ''Los Angeles Times,'' January 29, 2000]
/ref>
Armenian immigrants own much of the property and live in the surrounding apartment buildings. One newspaper writer commented in 2000 that the neighborhood's ethnic politics are "complex and layered."[
]
Population
Data for the area show that 27% of households live below the poverty line—a rate 12 percentage points higher than the county average. Fueling the persistent poverty has been the arrival of thousands of working-class Thai immigrants in the last two decades who have flooded sweatshops, restaurant kitchens and, most recently, massage parlors, said Chancee Martorell, executive director of the Thai Community Development Center
The Thai Community Development Center (Thai CDC) is a nonprofit NGO in Los Angeles, California that assists Thai and other immigrants.
History
Thai CDC was founded by Chanchanit Martorell on April 13, 1994, with the idea that all peoples have a ...
, which has conducted several studies on the plight of Thai Town.[David Pierson and Anna Gorman, "A New Take on Thai Town," ''Los Angeles Times,'' August 2, 2007]
/ref>
Public transport
The area is served by the Metro B Line subway at the Hollywood/Western station in addition to Metro Local
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 ar ...
bus lines 2, 180, 206, 207, & 217.
Holidays
On the first Sunday in April, Thai Town celebrates Songkran
Songkran is a term derived from the Sanskrit word, ' (or, more specifically, ') and used to refer to the traditional New Year celebrated in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, parts of northeast India, parts of Vietnam an ...
, the Thai New Year, by closing off Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywoo ...
within its boundaries, and setting up food stands and entertainment on the street along with a parade on the street from New Hampshire Avenue to Winona Boulevard.
Thai Community Development Center
See also
* List of Thai restaurants
This is a list of notable Thai restaurants, which specialize in Thai cuisine and dishes:
* Camile – an Irish restaurant chain that serves Thai cuisine
* Eem – Thai barbecue restaurant and cocktail bar in Portland, Oregon
* E-san Thai Cui ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
Google maps link
{{coord, 34.10000, N, 118.304522, W, display=title
Asian-American culture in Los Angeles
Ethnic enclaves in California
Neighborhoods in Los Angeles
Thai-American culture in California
East Hollywood, Los Angeles
Thai Towns