On this period of rancor and division and existential threats to our democracy and well mannered society — in a state that lately weathered a nasty gubernatorial recall try, in a Southland the place violence now appears to be potential wherever — I drove as much as Studio Metropolis on a cloudy Saturday a few weeks in the past to search for peace.
I went to Campo de Cahuenga, a small, lush, walled-off park throughout Lankershim Boulevard from Common Studios and subsequent to a Metro Pink Line station. It has a garden and timber and fountains and a reproduction adobe home crammed with memorabilia from California’s Mexican period.
Indicators in English and Spanish inform what occurred right here. On Jan. 13, 1847, invading Yankee forces and their Californio enemies signed the Treaty of Cahuenga. The cease-fire signified the tip of combating in Alta California throughout the Mexican-American Struggle and signaled the start of the tip of Mexican management over the American Southwest. It additionally promised Californios the identical rights as Americans and allowed them to maintain their property.
“There was no combating right here, so we name it a spot of peace, a spot the place folks got here collectively,” mentioned Phyllis Hansen. She’s a board member of the nonprofit Campo de Cahuenga Historic Memorial Assn., and has volunteered since 2006 throughout their open homes, that are imagined to occur each first and third Saturday of the month.
Right here at this spot in Studio Metropolis, peace lasted for little greater than a day. The Mexican-American Struggle was a Manifest Future-fueled land seize that American luminaries like Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant referred to as “pointless” and “some of the unjust ever waged.” As soon as California joined the Union, lots of the Californios misplaced their lands and energy.
However the promise of peace is one we should always all take to coronary heart as a result of it’s so fragile. So what occurred at Campo de Cahuenga took on an outsize function in how Southern California remembered its historical past.
In 1910, civic leaders positioned an El Camino Actual bell in entrance of the Campo. In 1923, the town of Los Angeles purchased the land — by then utilized by an animal hospital — to show it right into a park. The yr 1950 noticed the opening of the present faux-adobe constructing and a rededication of the Campo’s standing as a spot to recollect what this paper as soon as referred to as “a very powerful occasion within the historical past of the State.”
Because the years went on, the Campo de Cahuenga Historic Memorial Assn. started to stage a historic reenactment of the treaty’s signing close to the date of its anniversary.
“The aim of our website is so folks can know what occurred right here,” Hansen mentioned. “There are all these connections woven by means of — girls’s historical past, American historical past, Native American and Mexican historical past. It’s a reminder for a way we have been, and may be.”
The final Treaty of Cahuenga reenactment, in 2020, was one of many greatest shortly. About 300 folks confirmed as much as hear speeches in regards to the Mexican-American Struggle. Individuals wearing mid-19th-century finery to depict troopers, dons, and señoritas of the period. Duplicate instruments and firearms have been on show, together with a reproduction cannon loaded with loud blanks somebody finally fired in the one act of violence within the afternoon.
The spotlight, although, was when actors who portrayed U.S. Military Lt. Col. John C. Fremont and Mexican Gen. Andres Pico, the commanders of every facet, provided phrases of real respect to one another for his or her respective stands. They then shook arms and signed the cease-fire.
I noticed none of that profundity as I walked as much as the Campo on the third Saturday of this month, two days after the Treaty of Cahuenga anniversary date. As a substitute, I noticed a reminder of the instances we stay in.
The gates have been closed. Plywood coated up home windows within the entrance rooms of the adobe. A banner on the entrance that marketed free museum excursions was torn up and tagged with graffiti. A pale flier on the wall subsequent to the Metro station marketed the 2020 reenactment. Close by, non-public safety guards didn’t appear to note that a man had scaled the Campo’s partitions and unfold his belongings on a desk beneath the adobe’s veranda.
The Los Angeles Division of Recreation and Parks shut down the Campo in March of 2020, together with all parks throughout the town. Most finally reopened in some capability, however not the Campo. So not solely was there was no Treaty of Cahuenga reenactment final yr, however plans to commemorate its a hundred and seventy fifth anniversary this month — one thing that native historical past buffs have regarded ahead to lengthy earlier than the pandemic — went nowhere.
“It’s vastly disappointing,” mentioned Hansen. “I can’t discover any phrases different for it. It’s a part of our [association] mission to maintain this up.“
What notably pains Hansen and her fellow board members is that they have been working with the town to position a paid staffer on the Campo so it could possibly be open 5 days every week for the primary time in a long time.
“We have been on the sting of creating it occur,” mentioned Hansen. “Then coronavirus got here alongside and torpedoed these plans. Town has by no means allowed us in to even open for an open home.”
Los Angeles Division of Recreation and Parks spokesperson Rose Watson confirmed all of this.
“Because the division builds again workers capability,” she mentioned, “the prior staffing plan for the Campo de Cahuenga can be reassessed with the aim of supporting extra entry and extra programming on the website when adequate staffing is offered.”
Watson added that there isn't a set date for the Campo’s reopening however that “workers is assembly month-to-month to reassess the Division’s operations.”
Because the Division of Recreation and Parks dilly-dallies on the Campo’s reopening, different a hundred and seventy fifth anniversary commemorations for the Mexican-American Struggle have happenedacross Southern California because the fall, with COVID-19 security protocols — obligatory masking, social distancing, hand sanitizers — in place.
Fittingly, all these happenings concerned combating.
The Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum held festivities for the Battle of Dominguez Rancho, one of many few Mexican victories within the Mexican-American Struggle, in October. The identical occurred in November at San Pasqual Battlefield State Historic Park in San Diego County, the place Mexican forces led by Pico — who in a while turned a state Meeting member and senator — held the People to a stalemate. On the Juan Matias Sanchez Adobe in Montebello, the town’s historic society staged a reenactment of the Battle of Rio San Gabriel on Jan. 8, the second-to-last skirmish between Mexican and American troops in California.
The Treaty of Cahuenga staging “units the tempo for the entire yr of native reenactment occasions,” mentioned Kathleen Rabago, a Montebello Historic Society board member. She has participated in earlier Treaty of Cahuenga ceremonies as Bernarda Ruiz, the Santa Barbara matron credited with serving to to dealer the cease-fire. “It’s simply so unhappy to see it closed, particularly for this yr.”
“I don’t know if the Campo is in L.A.’s forefront or their agenda,” mentioned Dominguez Rancho Adobe director Luis Fernández. “I feel it ought to be on their agenda. It’s an essential place, particularly for its sense of unity. You turn out to be stronger that approach.”
Hansen says the Campo affiliation will maintain a reenactment later this yr, however she’s already “transferring ahead.” She has proposed that the group provide the reenactment of the Treaty of Cahuenga in digital actuality, an concept that she says different board members are “tremendous jazzed” about. However she additionally hopes the town of L.A. can get again to what was deliberate for the Campo’s future proper earlier than the pandemic.
“We don’t need folks to return simply every year,” she mentioned. “We would like them to return every single day. As a result of what occurred here's what made fashionable California.”
What occurred on the Campo of Cahuenga was peace. For a day.
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