Looking for Guides to City’s History

Ricardo Valdez leaned against his office desk on the first floor of the 113-year old landmark house, pointing outside his window to a group of tourists closely inspecting the building.

“Look at these people,” he said. “They’re paying such close attention to the detail. Sometimes I think locals take for granted the history of this city.”

Valdez is president of Las Angelitas del Pueblo, a volunteer docent society that provides walking tours at El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park downtown. The 48-year-old Los Angeles native said the city has a rich multicultural history that deserves to be enjoyed and studied.

But the 32-year-old volunteer program now faces one of its largest obstacles ever: finding enough docents to give the free tours.

There are only 10 docents left, down from 27 four years ago. The service had to be shortened one day to four days a week, Wednesday through Saturday. Now the guides, most of whom are retirees, are taking on twice as many shifts.

Docents like John Pfeifer, 85, guide schoolchildren and tourists through the park, explaining who built the buildings, who lived in them and how they lived. Pfeifer has been a docent for 13 years and is typical of the guides who share an interest in history and public service.

Pfeifer worked six days in December, four days more than expected, because of the shortage.

“The docents are very tired,” said Pfeifer’s wife, Marlene Gordon Pfeifer, who has taken on a public relations role of sorts for the group. “My husband is no spring chicken.”

Valdez said the shortage is a shame.

“This is one of the oldest settlements in one of the largest cities in the world,” he said. “It would be a tremendous loss if there were no one to tell the stories behind it. It would be a complete waste.”

The 43-acre park is just north of the Hollywood Freeway and is bordered by Chinatown and Union Station. Over the last two centuries, it has been at various times under the rule of Spain, Mexico and the United States.

It features the city’s first adobe home, firehouse and firebrick building and the first hotel with built-in bathrooms.

Inside the park, a Mexican market bustles on Olvera Street, replete with food stands and trinket stores. In the 1930s, the area was a vermin-infested dirt road. A well-to-do Angeleno, Christine Sterling, encouraged former Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler--along with five other investors--to give $5,000 to clean up the site.

The site was named a state historic park in 1953 and received several renovations through the years, including the most recent face-lift in preparation for last year’s Democratic National Convention.

Louis Hilleary, a former college administrator, gives the docents what he considers a one-of-a-kind crash course in city history.

“It’s a real contribution to Los Angeles,” he said of the program. “There are tours in L.A., but they tend to focus on architecture. We really try to get down to what [the settlers] were trying to do.”

Inhabitants of the area influenced relations between the United States and Mexico and the formation of Los Angeles. Native Americans, African Americans, Chinese and Italians all have roots here.

The docent shortage has taken a toll on those still on the job. One guide was hurt while gardening, and Valdez said others suffer from fatigue. Some are trying to attract middle-aged professionals--including their own children--to volunteer.

Valdez said some docents have been deterred from staying and others are reluctant to volunteer because they worry that the neighborhood is dangerous. However, Lt. Paul Geggie of the Los Angeles Police Department described the crime activity in the park as “almost nonexistent.”

The group is seeking multilingual guides, especially those speaking German and Japanese.

“After the docents go through their training and after they give the tours for a while, it’s like they become mini-historians of Los Angeles,” Marlene Gordon Pfeifer said.

Those interested in volunteering should call Valdez at (213) 628-1274.