The Sleepy Lagoon Memorial Project investigates the social, cultural and ecological history of a once popular swimming hole in a segregated and rapidly urbanizing area in Southeast Los Angeles. In 1942, an incident at the site involving the murder of a Mexican American youth would be used to fuel a police and media campaign that criminalized Pachucas/os and their zoot suits, an interracial youth subculture active during WWII and identified by their style of dress.

Resisting singular, simplistic, and stagnant approaches to the public monument, our memorial design proposal draws from an extensive research process led by Eastyard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ), with the participation of Dake/Luna, a team of Chicanx/Latinx scholars, indigenous Tongvan cultural bearers, and local community.  Working to unsettle the canonized history of Sleepy Lagoon, this project expands the temporal, historical and cultural parameters of official history by linking local native cultural and environmental knowledge and history of the area with contemporary urban Chicanx, indigenous diasporic experiences. Focusing on the possibilities of youth  and community subcultural expressions to not only subvert existing race and class boundaries, but to also disrupt sexuality and gender lines, our proposed memorial design contains multiple components including signage, a native landscape design, walking path, seated elements, and a memorial wall and bench to provide opportunities to both transfer the cultural and environmental knowledge and history of the area and to provide space for reflection and regeneration for present and future generations. 

Mapache City Projects explores social and environmental landscapes through research based processes to produce public artworks and socially engaged projects. Mapache City Projects is a partnership of Sandra de la Loza and Arturo Romo founded in 2011.