Building Downtown Los Angeles in Their Image!
Episode description
Join Dr. Leland Saito and I as we discuss his new book "Building Los Angeles; The Politics of Race and Place in Urban America. It is a tale of displacement, gentrification, race, place, and resistance.
Dr. Leland Saito grew up in Boyle Heights, and then Montebello. Montebello is right next to Monterey Park, and the changes in that city in the 1980s as it went from White to Latino and Asian American, sparked his interest and became his dissertation and first book.
He went to East Los Angeles Community College and UC Berkeley for his BA, in sociology
He then went to Cal State LA for a high school teaching credential, and an MA in sociology, before completing his PhD in Sociology at UCLA. Currently he is an associate professor in sociology at the university of southern California and is here to discuss his recently published book “Building Downtown Los Angeles: the Politics of race and place in Urban America.
His next project is looking at gentrification in the multiracial communities of Leimert Park and USC in South Los Angeles.