Anthropological Study of Los Angeles

Los Angeles, the second largest metropolitan area in the country after New York City, is described by many, as an "unassimilated" city. It has become a confluence point for racial and ethnic groups as well as the demands of nature and the environment. The results of this meeting have been likened to great tectonic plates grinding together with the potential being a great explosion (Taliaferro, 1991, p. 32). The purpose of this paper will be to review how anthropology and its study of man's culture and its relationship to nature would describe the significance of Los Angeles, particularly in light with what is happening today. In addition, two anthropologists, Ruth Fulton Benedict and Ralph Linton, will be introduced and their anthropological ideas discussed in relation to the City of the Angeles.

"Cultural anthropology studies the origins and history of man's cultures, their evolution and development, and the structure and functioning of human cultures in every place and time" (Beals, 1959, p. 9). Through this form of research bits and pieces of evidence eventually point to man's reactions in cultural form to the everpresent problems he/she confronts through the physical environment, through attempts to work and live with others and through the interaction this necessitates between human groups. As a result, each area of the world has its own distinctive culture. Los Angeles is no different. In fact, many may argue it is in a category all by itself.

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levated trains or underground subways, and instead, adopted the automobile with a passion unseen elsewhere "Automobiles became numerous in the region at a time when they were rare and impractical novelties elsewhere" (Nelson. 1983, p. 276). Part of this is due to the fact that Los Angeles grew to metropolitan size only after the automobile had arrived and part is due to the region's weather and its compatibility with early automobile transportation. And, as the interest in them increased, particularly after 1920 when they became much more dependable, governmental agencies turned to funding "motorways" through gasoline taxes while the streetcar declined and eventually was abandoned. The result was a highway system that cut through existing neighborhoods creating new ones and in many instances forming a "line of demarkation" that divided the "haves" from the "have nots," the whites from the blacks. Today, the Los Angeles metropolis is a fragmented area comprised of over a hundred cities, and suffering from a lack of heart or "town square." Instead of development evolving and spiraling out from the city's core, it is scattered around with nothing to tie it together but the automobile and its network of highways, a place where e

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