MrLA

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

You Are An Angel...If You're An Angeleno



It's been more than a year since I felt motivated to add another article to Mr. LA.  Life does get in the way.  Those matters that stared me in the face last year were tugging at my shirt like a three year old wanting to know if "we're there yet" and had to be resolved.  That has given me renewed juice to add more to the Mr. LA canon of things that are...ANGELENO!

Two weeks ago, I was having a late lunch at one of my all-time favorite restaurants, Bottega Louie's, on 7th Street and Grand Avenue.  Although foodies have long since ignored it and are onto the newest food sensations, some of the best food in Los Angeles ever is prepared and eaten at Bottega Louie's.
I was sitting next to a gentleman who told me he was in Los Angeles on a business trip and that he was from Northern Virginia.  When he asked me if I was a native of Los Angeles, I replied, "I'm an Angeleno, born and raised."  He asked me what "angeleno" meant.  I told him that an Angeleno is a native of Los Angeles. It was then that I realized how many people, even Angelenos themselves, don't know what an Angeleno is. This encounter gave me the spark to not only write about who an Angeleno is but I also decided to do a travelogue of some of the daily activities that an Angeleno can do, only in Los Angeles
 
An Angeleno is the name of any inhabitant of the city of Los Angeles.  Although the early settlers of Los Angeles were Spanish-speaking and used the term "Angeleno" (On-heh-le'-nyo)  to denote "from Los Angeles", "Angeleno" did not enter into the English language until 1885 when books on tourism and newspapers used this Spanish term to define the inhabitants of Los Angeles. Its spelling has often been twisted into "Angelino", which is Spanish for "angelic".  I don't know how many Angelenos are angelic, especially around rush hour.  This  confusion in spelling led to the naming of one of Los Angeles' oldest and most visually exciting suburbs:  Angelino Heights, home to one of the largest concentration of Victorian-era homes in Los Angeles. Nestled in the Echo Park hills between Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, and the 101 Freeway, it's homes have become an iconic image of Los Angeles seen in films and television shows.
 
 
I thought that showing what an Angeleno can do ONLY in Los Angeles would inspire people to be proud of being Angelenos and to call themselves that with pride. We, Angelenos, who are born and raised here, often take for granted how unique and influential Los Angeles is in the world.  I will show you how I spent Wednesday, May 16, 2018, no holiday, no city-sponsored event, simply, Wednesday yet what I did that day was exciting, fun, rewarding, easy to do and easy to re-experience over and over.  If I sound like the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, that would be your imagination, not my reality nor the reality that being aware of what Los Angeles offers gastronomically, culturally, historically, and as a hometown goes beyond what any person or tourist organization could say. It has to be felt, revealed, and seen with a new set of eyes to truly understand the marvelous opportunity to live and be from a place that offers so much that makes life worth living.  Angelenos, take great pride in being an Angeleno.  If a New Yorker takes pride in being a native New Yorker (even when they spend much of his or her life living in Los Angeles) and a Bostonian will treasure Faneuil Hall and his/her broad "a", an Angeleno, from Granada Hills to San Pedro and from East Los Angeles to West Los Angeles can be a Native Angeleno!
 
Want to see what I did that made Wednesday, May 16 so memorable and so typically Angeleno, read my next article here in Mr. LA!
 
 
 

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