Posadas on Olvera Street, 1949

A couple of days ago, I was going through my reader and found a post on KCET’s SoCal Focus blog about holiday celebrations of yore in Southern California. It’s a pretty neat compilation of photographs and postcards from various digital image archives.

Posadas on Olvera Street, 1949

There was one thing that bothered me. It didn’t look diverse. By that I mean, where were all the people of color? We’re in LA and Southern California too!

Pacoima junior high school students, 1963

I don’t think it’s cool to whitewash Southern California history, even if it’s unintentional. Still, it’s pretty easy to find some images that are more representative of the holiday season in LA.

Ella Fitzgerald sings to children in South Central, 1975

I did a simple search on UCLA’s photograph archive, Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990 for old school Christmas photos. All photos here come from that archive.

Olympic themed float at the East LA Christmas parade, 1984

Festive Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, 1988

Photo Credit:
Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library. Copyright Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.

Used under attribution, non-commercial, share alike Creative Commons license