The dark side of Los Angeles concealed from migrants

In the forty-year period at the beginning of the 20th century, the population of Los Angeles has increased 1535.7%, according to Southern California: an island on the land written by Carey McWilliams. This phenomenal growth in population was in a great measure contributed by immigrations from the Midwest as well as other countries all around the world. Since 1870s, spurred by the gold rush and the completion of the transcontinental line, Los Angeles has been continuously booming and thus attracted vast numbers of boosters to come to this wonderland with numerous job opportunities and desirable climate. One of William Faulkner's short stories, Golden Land, is about one man of those who left their hometowns in the middle of nowhere to this city in pursuit of fortune. The main character, Ira Ewing, fled from his home in Nebraska to Los Angeles and became successful in the real-estate industry, however, at the expense of morality and family ties. Unlike Ira Ewing who is a boomer himself, Ysela, the narrator in an episode titled Oiga of The Republic of East L.A. written by Luis J. Rodriguez, is one of the descendants of those Mexicans who arrived in this city hundreds of years ago. Although, her ancestors used to own horses and properties and were the ones who named lands in this area, Ysela has got nearly nothing to lose after the family got ripped off by Anglos during wartime and she now lives in a trailer, suffering from homelessness and poverty. It seems that, from these two stories, people moved to Los Angeles do not always end up with happy or wealthy lives that they dream of. Los Angeles, which has always been said to be the place where American Dreams come true, is actually a hell, instead of being a heaven, where people moved to there would be degraded mentally because of the lack of traditional values in this city.

In Golden Land, Ira Ewing felt trapped in Ewing, Nebraska, that small town which was "named for, permeated with his father's history and existence". American Dream was unattainable to him in that location, so he fled from his parents at the age fourteen, on the brake-beam of the westbound night freight. He succeeded in Los Angeles with a "foothold in real-estate". It seems that he has achieved his American Dream, but meanwhile he has lost his morality. He is capable of providing his children with luxuries that his father could not even think about but might have "condemned completely in theory", because his daughter becomes a bitch who slept with the director for a part in a movie and his son is a transvestism.There are girls "come here in droves on every train" and they would "do anything to get into the pictures". So will her daughter: she changed her name and maybe she will do "more things than even she seems to have thought of". Her daughter has been descended to be willing to do anything in order to gain fame in this place where is full of attractions, however, that are never attainable. He could do nothing about it, but the only solution he can think about is burning it down like what his own father did to those rats in the barn. His mother, fetched by his son after the death of her husband, seems to be the only character who has traditional values in this story and she came from a moral place, depicted by Faulkner, grounded by land. She tries to understand all of these evils and filth because of her morality, but Ira told her that nobody can fix all of these. "She has made her bed; all I can do is help her up: I can't wash the sheets", Ira said. Obviously, Ira has been disgusted by the lifestyle and consumerism in Los Angeles, when he saw young bathers with "bronzed, unselfconscious bodies" on the beach. He even feels or imagines that the elder Ira "looking down from somewhere" upon him and his prodigality and his daughter's shameful affair, yet he does not desire to return to Nebraska and has become a part of this false culture. He has become "besotted with drink", according to his wife, for years and he is an adulterer. He is an example of those who become products of this city, a place where morality is depreciated.

By Golden Land, Faulkner portrays Los Angeles as a place without traditional values and where morality is traded for wealth and fame. Los Angeles is represented by Faulkner as a place of detachment and rootlessness. In Golden Land, Faulkner even described Los Angeles to have the power to corrupt an individual even through its construction. For example, Ira's mother lives in a house that is "backed into a barren foothill combed and curried into a cypress-and-marble cemetery dramatic as a stage sat and topped by an electric sign in red bulbs which, in San Fernando Valley fog, glared in broad sourceless ruby as though just beyond the crest lay not heaven but hell", a place that is theatrical, creating the image of Los Angeles as a dramatic and fake production to satisfy its audience. By naming it "Golden Land", Faulkner implies a fact that Los Angeles is purely an idealized location that produces immoral beings. Because of the potential Los Angeles has to improve a person's life financially, it causes migrants who come here with American Dreams to do anything for wealth and fame.

In the other story, Ysela told all wrong beings she and her family have been going through in Los Angels. Her ancestors lost properties and rights because of Anglos' invasion and they again got ripped off when gold was found here. "They took land. The killed people." she said. While her family degraded, they mix with the Indians and so she looks black. When she grew up, she experienced significant urban shift. The construction of freeways, new streets and new houses destroyed the brickyard and the drive-in theater, and her family moved to East L.A.. Los Angeles lost its authenticity and turned rootless after expansion of the city and modernization. Later, she married a cowboy who is abusive and alcoholic and has two kids. She never saw the cowboy and she does not live with her kids, which is caused by the lack of the traditional values in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is always the place where crazy things and crazier thing happen. She became maybe a glutton and got really big and ugly. She had a relationship with a police officer, who is abusive and would pull a gun against her after he got drunk. She gets degraded and starts to make sex tapes for money. She felt guilty and she begged her God to forgive her. She thought her God will understand her because she did that for food. But she has already been bathed in sins. She has been losing morality and dignity without self-consciousness. She has been influenced negatively by the culture in Los Angeles, which is mostly contributed by fake people.

As the home base of Hollywood, Los Angeles has been commonly known as the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and along with its surrounding areas, Los Angeles is always called their home by numerous celebrities. Illustrated in tons of film and television works, as well as fulfilling some everyday entertaining news, Los Angeles has, in ordinary people's mind, become the place where notable and made-it people live, a city of stars and red carpet. And thus gradually grows a traditional image of Los Angeles as a city, with infinite opportunities and good luck, where American Dreams come true. This idea has been filtering in people's mind and attracted great numbers of immigrants to this place. However, these two lamentable stories might distort their beautiful imagination about Los Angeles. Los Angeles has always been idealized, by early tourists who do not actually know about this land, by developers who excessively modified Los Angeles to create false images in order to boost their real-estate industry, and by tons of movies makers and writers. Los Angeles is actually a place lack of morality and authenticity. Most people come here in pursuit of dreams would have to trade anything for money and fame, and maybe people who even give up their standards but end up with nothing. Los Angeles also affects a person with its consumerism and detachment. This place is never like what people think it to be, but a hell full of sins and wrongdoings.