Finding home: the Los Angeles River

This story began as a personal exploration, an attempt to reconcile myself with a home I returned to after four years away and found utterly foreign. I was merely curious about the Los Angeles River and wanted to know more—where it came from, what it does, who cares about it, and what it feels like to stand next to it. Or inside it. ❧ As the weeks and conversations unfolded, endless stories presented themselves to me, some highly publicized, some unknown. I was drawn to the unknown, but curious about how the highly publicized was affecting the unknown. ❧ I am interested in the way an abandoned feature of the city is being reclaimed. I am interested in the way that something that is fundamental to our city’s history was so summarily dismissed seventy-five years ago and has only been re-acknowledged in the past thirty years. I am interested in what people are doing around the river and why. I am interested in the story that is not getting told. Nobody is talking about the people who live next to the river and just go for a walk now and then. Nobody is talking about what it is like to stand in the river. Nobody is talking about why we should care. ❧ I have taken the train over the river every day since moving back to Los Angeles. Sometimes it excites me, and sometimes I dread the mere thought of having to see it. It’s like a temperamental friend, but like one of my interviewees said, in many ways the river is a canvas for those who don’t have a voice (Hanson 2015). You can project your own psyche onto the river and make it your own. Nobody experiences the river the same way and nobody comes to have the river in their life in the same way. I know my story is unusual, how the river came to have such importance in my life. ❧ This is that story.