Celebrating LA’s History — Happy Birthday, LA!
Los Angeles celebrates its birthday each year (236th birthday on August 26, 2017) with a 9-mile walk between Mission San Gabriel and El Pueblo in downtown L.A. In the afternoon Archbishop Gomez (center photo with hat) leads a procession “in honor of Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Angels, for whom the city is named: El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles”.
With public statues and icons of the past under attack, will Californians choose to remove religious references and statues of controversial figures, much as California’s Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, pressed for the removal of Confederate statues from the Capitol this week?
California has not been without its rumblings over those who changed the landscape. When Fr. Junipero Serra (father of California missions) was canonized by Pope Francis in Washington, D.C., on September 23, 2015, this new saint was not without critics who felt his efforts of Spanish settlement amounted to nothing more than slavery of indigenous peoples. California has become a leading economy in the world and its cities move forward, while their histories and names remind us of different times.
California City Names
- Los Angeles (Virgin Mary, Queen of Angels)
- San Francisco (Saint Francis)
- San Diego (Saint Didacus)
- San Jose (Saint Joseph)
- San Clemente (Saint Clement)
- San Carlos (Saint Charles)
- San Bernardino (Saint Bernardino of Siena)
- San Rafael (Saint Raphael)
