The evolution and construction of cultural identity and memory in unincorporated East Los Angeles, both in scholarship and the popular imagination, establishes a critical framework for understanding changing relationships between communities of color and the broader historic preservation movement. East Los Angeles embodies slowly shifting paradigms within the historic preservation movement that compel practitioners and advocates to contend with the meaning of seemingly ordinary places that have tremendous cultural importance within their communities.

The author, Executive Director of the California Historical Society, surveys the work of Stephen W. Jacobs.