Artesia, California, which is now known as “Little India” was quite a different place when I was younger. I moved to Artesia when I was 18 to kind of reconnect with my mom after a forced absence of two years. At 18, I was no longer a minor and as such was finally allowed that choice. I hadn’t lived in Artesia before then, but I had lived near by for quite a while, at least since I was 11 or 12. I had to move in with my Dad when I was 16 and he lived in Cerritos. My Mom moved to Artesia shortly after I had to move in with my Dad. I’m sure it was to be near my sister and I as well as her job at the mall. I was always in one of the two cities, Artesia and Cerritos. My junior high and high school friends lived in Artesia. I went to school in Cerritos at Juarez, Whitney and then Gahr (Go Gladiators!). I had covered every sidewalk and street in the area either on foot, on my skateboard, on my bike and later in my car. My Grandpa Jim also had a little retail shop there. My Great Uncle John lived there also in a residential facility.
Artesia is a little town in southeast L.A. County. It is surrounded on all side by the city of Cerritos, famous in my mind for the place my parent’s marriage finally dissolved, Samoan baby showers that require police intervention and the Cerritos Mall. Artesia is just another city in the suburban flatlands of the San Gabriel Valley. I detested the place as a kid, saw nothing special or interesting about it. I think I projected my personal unhappiness onto it and blamed the place. Much like the Orange County punks I knew who talked about Cypress, Buena Park and Anaheim as if the cities themselves were the source of their discontent, as if their families and personalities weren’t the reason they were miserable malcontents.
Artesia and Cerritos combined had been known as “Dairy Valley”, for very obvious reasons. Cows were everywhere I looked. And I smelled them before I saw them. Big stinking pastures full of cows, cow pies and the flies that loved them. You could get incredibly delicious milk there, but other than that, it was a little bit of country in L.A. County. L.A. County had a lot of pockets of country at one time, not so much anymore.
Artesia’s main north-south drag is Pioneer Boulevard and in particular the stretch from the 91 freeway to South Street is a city transformed from the city of my childhood. When I was younger, the Filipinos and Portuguese ruled the area closer to the freeway. By this I mean there was a Filipino restaurant, bakery and perhaps a tailor. There was also Portuguese Hall if you were in the mood for a tame bullfight, and the area I thought of as “The Portuguese Estates”; ostentatious homes plopped in the middle of a mediocre flat expanse was just off of Pioneer (as we called the Boulevard).
Further south on Pioneer, between 183rd and South streets, the Dutch presence took over. This area had yet a different kind of bakery, the Dutch bakery. It also had a feed store and furniture store. The bakery had the most delicious almond cakes I ever tasted. Thick little discs filled with almond paste and an almond half on top. My mom used to get them for my grandparents at Christmas. The feed store was the feed store, what can I say. I still have one near my home in Whittier (I think). There was also a great big feed store down the street from my Grandparent’s home in Lakewood with a giant, free-standing white rabbit on the façade of the building just beckoning passersby come and fulfill their feedy shopping needs.
Nice people that sold solid, no-nonsense stuff ran the furniture store. I remember a lot of colonial style fabrics and wood accents. You know this furniture. It lasts and lasts and your grandparents probably had some of it. You may have a green padded rocking chair inherited from one of them that is darned ugly but just too comfy to get rid of. Locals were granted credit the furniture store, even kids like me. Well not me but a high school mate. Ruben Cabrera, a boy remarkable for his decency, told the class after one of our Christmas breaks that he had bought his parents a bedroom set for Christmas. The teacher had asked us what we got for Christmas, and Ruben didn’t tell us what he got, which is all the rest of us cared about, but what he had done for his family. The teacher said, “did you get the furniture from Postma’s and when he said yes, our teacher just nodded knowingly. It was really a small community. I think Postma’s may be the last remaining Dutch business there.
Although the businesses were in pockets, the residential neighborhoods were more mixed. My mom’s neighborhood contained the cities Catholic Church. I loved to see the little Portuguese ladies waking to mass every morning, their heads covered in a lace shawls. The Dutch were most notable for their bumper stickers that said “If You Ain’t Dutch, You Ain’t Much”. Apparently they saw nothing wrong with this, much liked the “Real Men Love Jesus” stickers I was seeing a few years ago. They always made me think, so no Buddists are “real men”, no Hindus are “real men”, no Jews…, no Agnostics… you get it. The “If You Ain’t…” stickers struck me the same way. The Dutch kids went to Valley Christian; the Portuguese kids went to Artesia high school. The Dutch homes were clean and spartan. There were no nonsense affairs, no extraneous bushes or flowers, with the exception of a few bulbs. The Portuguese were much the same except that they usually had fava beans - great long things - growning in the front yard and grape arbors along the side or back of the house. For some reason, every Portuguese man I met was named Manuel. It was like the scene in Goodfellas where everyone at a wedding is introduced and there are three names used by 300 people. Oh you know what I mean.
The Artesia of my youth also housed my Grandpa Jim’s shop. We called it a shop because supposedly he was selling stuff. It was among the Dutch businesses and near by Red’s Barbershop. Grandpa bought damaged goods “off the docs”, whatever that means. He explained it to me that maybe the box was damaged, or had gotten wet in a corner, but most of the items in the lot were OK. He sold a weird assortment of things; china dolls, wall clocks and bicycles. He would take the clocks apart and try to put them back together. I really doubt that he sold anything. It may have all been a ruse to get away from my grandmother.
As I said, my Uncle John also lived there. John was the giant of my childhood. He was a huge man, retarded either since birth or from an early childhood disease. He was 6’8” and kind of scary looking. When I was a kid he lived with my Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jeanne in North Long Beach. He had a room in the garage and a visit there usually included John placing me on his shoulders and walking me around the yard. It was something, being lifted up to being 8 feet off the ground and paraded around like a float. When I think of John I mostly remember his voice, like the character in John Steinbeck’s novel made into a movie “Of Mice and Men”. John had a kind of dopey, but deep voice. And he would say,
Come on Jennifer, go for a ride
and I would say,
OK John, but don’t walk into the house, because you’ll knock my head on the door frame.
Then he would walk me into the house and knock me into the doorframe and leave me dazed, but happy.
The last time I saw Uncle John I hadn’t seen him for years. I knew he lived near by my Mom’s place, very near by, in the residential home. John took daily walks through the neighborhood that bordered his facility. I remember thinking he must have scared the neighborhood kids because he looked a little bit like Frankenstein. The last time I saw John, I was riding my skateboard through the neighborhood behind his home and he walked by me. I had probably last seen him face-to-face when I was 10 or 11; definitely when he lived with my Grandparents and at least a span of 5 years which is a long time in a kids life. And one day, I just skated by and he looked up and said, “Hi Jennifer”, and he kept walking. It was as if he saw me every day and not five years before.
I occasionally go to Artesia now, for Indian food or to get my eyebrows threaded. I have to honestly say I feel a fondness for it know that the town hardly seems to merit. It is a place I spent time. I place I spent time when I still had so many things I don’t have now – my childhood, my father, my grandparents, Uncle John, and so much time.
