East Los Angeles is both a place and a mode of being, a physical homeland and the spiritual heart of the Mexican diaspora in the United States.

The cultural and political effects that this vibrant neighborhood have had, across the country and around the world, are hard to overstate. It’s impossible to imagine Los Angeles without East L.A., but although the two are often conflated in the popular imagination, the latter is actually an unincorporated part of L.A. County, lying just across the Indiana Avenue city limit from Boyle Heights.