While monstrous things happened to bring about the end of the neighborhoods of Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop, “The Monsters of Chavez Ravine,” is a work of fiction.
The characters and creatures are the products of my imagination and while the backstory of the eminent domain evictions follows the general timeline and events that unfolded in real life, here is a list of resources to learn more about the area now known as Chavez Ravine, and the real people who lived there and the remarkable residents who fought to stay.
Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story by Don Normark
This wonderful book is filled with black and white photographs taken by the young photographer, forever capturing the old neighborhoods as they were when people still called the three neighborhoods home.
Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between by Eric Nusbaum, published March 2020.
Highly recommend.
Shameful Victory: The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Red Scare & the Hidden History of Chavez Ravine by John Laslett, published October 2015.
This is the first nonfiction account I read of CR and it still packs a punch.
ChavezRavine.org
A website dedicated to, “the real story buried beneath the stadium.” It includes a post explaining why the author of the site considers the name Chavez Ravine a misnomer.
Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story, ½ hour documentary by Bullfrog Films, 2005
Lost LA: Once Upon a Time in Chavez Ravine short video, aired 2/16
Buried Under the Blue dot org This group advocates that Latinos “caught up in the hype of blue” (the Dodgers) need to think “brown not blue.”
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