Museum Seeking Family Snapshots and Histories From Boyle Heights

Long before the term “multicultural” became popular in Los Angeles, Boyle Heights was the city’s melting pot. Today, the Eastside area contains only fading remnants of the Jewish, Japanese, Italian and Russian communities that once shared the area with Mexican families, who are still there.

But the Japanese American National Museum is launching a two-year project to preserve the ethnic history of the 120-year-old community, and it is calling on former and current Boyle Heights residents to help.

Museum officials will be available to record people’s histories and make copies of their photographs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and from 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Sunday at the Roosevelt High School Gymnasium, located at 456 S. Mathews St. Two photographers will be available to make copies on the spot so families won’t have to part with their original family snapshots, said Sojin Kim, a museum curator.

The information and photos will be used as the basis for an exhibit about Boyle Heights at the Japanese American National Museum in late 2001 or early 2002, Kim said.

The photographs will be included in a massive database being compiled by the University of Southern California about Los Angeles history, as well as the archives of the Jewish Historical Society of Southern California, Kim and others said.

USC historian George Sanchez, who will also use the material in an upcoming study of Boyle Heights, said this weekend’s effort is the latest in a resurgence of scholarly and cultural projects focusing on the Eastside community.

The area is ideal for studies on disparate groups learning to live with one another, Sanchez said. “Over time, Boyle Heights has always been a first home for newcomers to the U.S. and Los Angeles,” he said. “It is Los Angeles’ Lower East Side.”