What’s the Most Underrated Moment?

Is it future Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren’s 1943 gubernatorial victory? Or the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn, or lowrider bicycle styling, or . . .

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Pamela Des Barres, author

The arrival of Indian guru Paramahansa Yogananda in the late 1930s has had an incalcuable impact on spiritual seekers. Yogananda was among the first Indian teachers to bring his message of meditation and yoga to the American masses, establishing the lovely Self-Realization Shrine in Pacific Palisades. He also founded Hollywood’s India Center. They both still thrive.

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Mike Woo, former city councilman

When low-income neighborhoods in the path of the proposed 2 Freeway extension decided to fight Caltrans in the early ‘80s, the odds favored state bureaucracy. But Echo Park, Silver Lake and East Hollywood beat the odds, stopped the freeway and confounded skeptics who assumed that L.A. would always unthinkingly choose commuter convenience over neighborhood preservation.

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Tomas J. Benitez, Self-Help Graphics

On Aug. 29, 1970, the East Los Angeles Chicano Moratorium march against the Vietnam War erupted into a riot. There was never enough truth disclosed by the mainstream press about the sheer brutality of the cops’ actions that day. Ruben Salazar, a reporter for The Times, was shot and killed. For a small but hardy band of young Chicanos, who have since become social activists, teachers, clergy, lawyers, artists and, indeed, police officers, Aug. 29 was a major turning point in their lives and their commitment to social justice.