Alternate meaning: East Los Angeles, California, an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County

East Los Angeles (or The Eastside) is a general term to define a region of Greater Los Angeles that lies east of Downtown Los Angeles. East L.A. communities include Boyle Heights, City of Commerce, City Terrace , El Sereno , Highland Park , Lincoln Heights, Montebello, Montebello Heights , South Gate and Pico Rivera. The Eastside, of course, also includes the unincorporated community of East Los Angeles.

Community

This area has a very high concentration of Latino residents, primarily of Mexican descent, and is considered to be, at least in the period since the early 20th century, the central and historical locus of the Latino population in Los Angeles County, having had a predominately Hispanic population for longer than nearly any other part of the county. While this entire area was not predominately Hispanic for the whole of the 20th century (Boyle Heights, for example, was heavily Jewish for the first few decades of the century), East L.A. formed the political and cultural heart of Latino life in Los Angeles County during a period when the overall population of the county was overwhelmingly white. Today East Los Angeles, also known as "East Los", is populated mostly by immigrants of Mexican descent, and second-generation Mexican-Americans, who are also often referred to as Chicanos.

Many second and third-generation Hispanic Americans have since moved from East L.A. to other parts of Southern California, such as relatively middle-class parts of the San Gabriel Valley, Orange County and beyond, while recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America have settled in the low-income parts of East L.A. where these US-born Hispanics, or their parents, once lived. At the same time, there are parts of "greater" East L.A., such as the city of Pico Rivera, where many US-born Latinos still live. Also, many Latino immigrants are moving into areas that were traditionally African-American communities, in such cities as Compton, Lynwood and in the Watts district of Los Angeles.

Calvary Cemetery, a Roman Catholic cemetery, is located in the area, and contains the remains of many notable Los Angeles residents and celebrities. Home of Peace Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery.

See also

• Zoot Suit Riots
• Born in East L.A.