commonly assail the long-term migrant. I am deeply affected by the setting, history, and customs of any place where I might decide to settle for an indeterminate length of time. Had you visited Santa Monica while you were here, you would have observed that the town occupies a central position in Los Angeles county, by which I mean that it is bordered by the most beautiful districts, such as Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Sawtelle, Mar Vista, and Venice. I feel a deep sense of spiritual connection to these places and to their various cultures, and Santa Monica Bay offers me freedom of movement and access to the famous Route 66, which used to connect East and West. But rest assured, my friend, I’m not going to give you a history lesson on this mythical stretch of road, since my plan here is to let you into my little secrets concerning Los Angeles and the surrounding area . . .
Where’s the center? Where’s the periphery?
I will always deeply regret that our paths didn’t cross.
We’d have visited the different parts of Mid-Wilshire, between Hollywood and “Downtown” Los Angeles, where you would have noted that it’s here, out of the whole county, that the population is most diverse, balanced in such a way that none of the communities concerned—Latinos, African Americans, Asians, and Caucasians—could claim to be dominant. There’d have been lots to do and see in Wilshire Vista, which, before it became “ethnically” diverse, was the African American district. Close by we’d have found the historic and very wealthy district of Windsor Square, where the mayor of Los Angeles resides. A third of the population of Windsor Square was born outside of the United States, and over half come from Asia—in fact, the Koreatown district, on the east side, is one of the most densely populated. Also in Mid-Wilshire is Miracle Mile, a sort of subdistrict within Koreatown, between Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax and La Brea Avenues, where I would have been thrilled to show you LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), visited by over a million people every year. This cultural center doesn’t just showcase the past: it shows films and regularly holds big concerts, creating monster road blockages, next to which the traffic on Highway 405 would seem like child’s play to you. Just beyond the museum, you come to the “Champs-Élysées of America,” where I sometimes do a bit of shopping to keep myself “up-to-date” in the clothes department, as the SAPEURS, the Congolese Society of Elegant Dressers, would say . . .
Why my insistence on visiting Mid-Wilshire? So you could see Los Angeles as a vast ensemble and realize that the center of town—or “Downtown,” as they say here—is in fact just a space captured in the broad net of a conglomerate of districts, and that it’s wrong to expect, as most tourists do, to find a clear divide between a main town on the one hand and a set of dependent—and therefore less important—suburbs on the other. This is the thing I like most about Los Angeles county: you can’t tell where the center is, you think you’re in and at the center wherever you happen to be. Anyone who lives in Santa Monica or Venice is likely to say “I live in Los Angeles,” not by way of abbreviation, but to indicate that the various different towns, the different districts of the county, are all guardians of the spirit of Los Angeles, so that it isn’t just a single fixed place, with precise geographical coordinates. The defining characteristic of this metropolis is its ability to exist in all its many different cultures, populations, activities, customs, and even obsessions . . .
Ethiopia in Los Angeles
No doubt you would have asked me where to find Africa in Los Angeles. And I’d have replied that Africa can be found even here in Mid-Wilshire, where I’d have invited you to lunch in Little Ethiopia. We’d have gone down Fairfax Avenue to get to the heart of the place, between Olympic and Pico Boulevards, streets all lined, like Miracle Mile, with shops and restaurants, but here heaped all in a great muddle redeemed only by the festive vibe, swarming with people, in an atmosphere that makes you feel you must be somewhere on the Black Continent. Little Ethiopia started expanding in the early 1990s, gradually replacing the Jewish shopkeepers and, in the 2000s, thanks to the Democratic mayor, James K. Hahn, and in recognition of the concentration of people from the Horn of Africa, the area was officially rebaptized Little Ethiopia.
You’d no doubt have objected that most of the restaurants in this district are Ethiopian or Eritrean and don’t represent the cuisine of my continent. You’d not be wrong there, but having said that, Ethiopia is one of the nations we Africans are most proud of. In each of the restaurants in Little Ethiopia—Messob, for example, an Ethiopian restaurant I eat at once a week—you of course encounter the portrait of Haile Selassie I, the last emperor of Ethiopia, considered by the Rastafarian movement to be the leader of the Earth. His heroism is celebrated in the black and white photos and paintings proudly displayed by the owner of Messob. As soon as he sets eyes on me, he’s brimming with kindness, patting his little belly before folding me in his arms and exclaiming for joy:
“My brother from Congo-Brazza! Welcome to your home!”
Then, as usual, he’d have told me how Haile Selassie refused to acknowledge Italian colonization, convinced that he alone, as noble representative of the dynasty of Kings David and Solomon, had dominion over his territory.
In this restaurant, Ethiopian music is constantly playing in the background, and sometimes you hear the voice of Bob Marley, global ambassador of rastas. I’d order my usual dish, kitfo, which I love for its spicy flavors of minced beef and homemade cheese, all served with a kind of very thin pancake, called injera. The boss would have stood there watching over my first mouthfuls, waiting for my verdict on his cooking. I’d have nodded my head and he’d have whispered, delightedly:
“You should thank King Haile Selassie and Bob Marley . . .”
And once again the owner of Messob Ethiopian restaurant would have gone into great detail, describing the mythical journey the king made to Jamaica, where the whole population was in a state of trance because at last, after so many centuries, the long-awaited Messiah had come!
A bridge for suicide?
After a copious lunch at Messob, we’d have crossed to Pasadena, on the east side of Los Angeles, not to contemplate the splendid San Gabriel Mountains but to admire the Colorado Street Bridge, known as Suicide Bridge. I’d have noticed concern on your face at the dark and daunting name of the structure. Especially as I’d have told you that Suicide Bridge is a fount of different beliefs, legends, and superstitions—as in my country of origin, where bridges are inhabited by wicked spirits who, believing the bridge will collapse and they will drown, are unable to cross the water to find peace in the world beyond. Which is why they cling to the pylons and suspension cables, waiting for the day when the Lord will have mercy on them and suggest an alternative means of transport for getting, at long last, to heaven.
No, I wouldn’t have spent too much time scaring you with my African beliefs about bridges. I would simply have informed you that Suicide Bridge, erected at the beginning of the twentieth century, cost the American taxpayer over four million dollars and today is one of the most highly prized of all historic monuments. I’d have gone on at once to tell you that the first time, it was pure chance that brought me face-to-face with this structure.
Chance? Let’s say coincidence, rather, as you will soon realize, if you will permit the following digression . . .
When I moved to Santa Monica in 2005, I often used to hang out on Montana Avenue, making my way down to Ocean Avenue, a stone’s throw from the sea, where the famous Santa Monica Pier Ferris wheel, constructed in 1909, dominates the view, towering over the crowd of tourists farther down, at the far end of the jetty. Montana Avenue is pretty much the chic center of the district, with its luxury boutiques, café terraces, and a profusion of convertible cars of varying degrees of fabulousness. It’s also the refuge of those movie stars who reject the bright lights of Beverly Hills or Hollywood in favor of the more laid-back feel of Santa Monica and its proximity to the sea.
It was during one of these meanderings, shortly after
