Pacoima

but one of the northeast valley’s neighborhoods that’s undergone historic transformation that reveals the history of our city. once a place where orange groves and real and movie cowboys abounded, home to japanese american families after WW2, a place where african americans were allowed to find a piece of the sunny socal dream during racist zoning practices in other parts of the city, now primarily home to mexican and central american immigrants. known for being the home of Ritchie Valens who left too soon in an airplane crash. and for being a comedy word. though actually it’s a native – gabrielino – word for rushing water – the floods that come in the winter pouring out of the santa claritas to the north.

it’s sometimes troubled by gang violence, but mostly a place where families live.