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Published on Tuesday, September 30, 2008
By LA Daily News Staff Writer
East L.A. - birthplace of the lowrider, Los Lobos and Oscar de la Hoya - is to Mexican-Americans what Harlem is to the black community.
Now it wants to become its own city.
Commonly mistaken for a part of Los Angeles, East L.A. is actually an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, with more than 130,000 people - 96 percent of them Latino - packed into 7.4 square miles.
Cityhood proponents complain that East L.A. is treated as an afterthought by the county Board of Supervisors, and they want the community to take charge of its own destiny.
"We're a nationally branded area," said Diana Tarango, vice president of the East Los Angeles Residents Association, the prime backer of the effort. "We should be making our own decisions about planting trees on the street or putting up light poles."
While outsiders often see the area as gang-plagued and poverty-ridden, East L.A. possesses cultural and political symbolism for Mexican-Americans
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