Southland’s ethnic tree

The Southland’s rich variety of cultures, races and ethnicities dates back to the founding of the Spanish pueblo of Los Angeles in the 18th century. As part of a periodic series leading up to the city’s 225th anniversary next month, here is the first of two parts on how Los Angeles County and the metropolitan area have developed with infusions of new groups up to the 21st century:

Comings and goings

1769-1823, Indian labor: Southland has 30,000 Native Americans; Spaniards use some to build coastal missions.

1830s, Native deaths: Mistreatment, change of diet, smallpox and scarlet fever kill thousands of Indians.

1841, white settlers: Workman-Rowland wagon train arrives; includes a German tailor who is L.A.’s first known Jewish resident.

1848, multiethnic Gold Rush: European, Latin American and Chinese immigrants join U.S. whites in catching California gold fever. Some settle here.

1863, disease strikes: Many people, particularly of Mexican and Native American descent, die in smallpox epidemic.

1870s, more whites, Chinese: Arriving from the Midwest and New England, citrus growers start towns in the foothills of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains; Chinese help build railways, hastening migrations from points east.

1880, switching languages: English speakers outnumber Spanish speakers.

1882, anti-Chinese law: U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act bars them from citizenship and halts laborers’ entry.

1890s to 1924, more immigrants: Many Japanese and Russian and Eastern European Jews arrive. With growth, established Jewish leaders start to be excluded from positions of power.

1900s, common language is fishing: Japanese build San Pedro canneries; fishermen come from Japan, Yugoslavia, Italy and Scandinavia.

1903, labor strife brings blacks: The number of blacks in L.A. doubles when the Southern Pacific Railroad recruits 2,000 blacks to break Mexican American strike.

1920s, Hollywood, U.S.A: Eastern Europeans, including many Jews, build the movie industry.

1924, not from Japan: U.S. halts entry of Japanese for 28 years.

1931-34, ‘repatriations’: Many U.S. citizens are among hundreds of thousands sent to Mexico.

1933-41, fleeing the Nazis: Despite policies supporting U.S. neutrality, some Jews are allowed entry, but many are denied.

1942-45, internment: 40,000 people of Japanese descent are confined to camps. After the war, about a third of internees resettle out of state.

1965, law changes: Immigration act abolishes national origin quotas and encourages family reunification. More Filipinos and Koreans begin arriving.

1970s, a ‘Little’ more: Immigrants create Little India in Cerritos- Artesia, Little Saigon in Garden Grove-Westminster and Little Cambodia in Long Beach. Koreatown emerges in L.A.

1970s to ‘80s, Armenians: Strife in Iran and Lebanon, relaxed Soviet emigration bring surge in Armenian population.

1988-91, mostly Latino amnesty: A million illegal immigrants, including 318,000 agricultural laborers, get legal status.