San Gabriel, California

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City of San Gabriel Seal

San Gabriel is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 39,804 at the 2000 census. It is named after the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, one of the original Spanish missions in California.

1 History
2 Geography
3 Demographics
- 3.1 Asian American population
4 Education
5 Famous natives and notable residents
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel

Mission Street in 1880.

The history of the City of San Gabriel dates back to 1771 with the founding of the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, a California State historical landmark. The founding of the mission establishes San Gabriel as the birthplace of the modern Los Angeles region. The Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, "Pride of the California Missions," founded by Father Junipero Serra, is the fourth of twenty-one California Missions, and has long been a center for culture and art.

By 1852, after American occupation, San Gabriel became one of the first townships in the County of Los Angeles. When the 1860 census was taken, there were only 586 persons listed. The city was incorporated as a general law city on April 24, 1913 with a population of 1,500.

The Mission suffered from earthquake damage in the past, but it has undergone a major restoration process over the years. In the 1990s, plans to turn the area on Mission Road into a tourist attraction have largely failed.

[edit] Geography

Location of San Gabriel, California

San Gabriel City Hall

San Gabriel is located at 34°5′39″N, 118°5′54″W (34.094176, -118.098449)^GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.7 km² (4.1 mi²), all land.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census^GR2estimates of 2006, there were 46,804 people, 12,587 households, and 9,566 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,721.2/km² (9,639.3/mi²). There were 12,909 housing units at an average density of 1,206.8/km² (3,126.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 4.87% White, 1.06% African American, 0.23% Native American, 38.71% Asian (principally Chinese), 0.10% Pacific Islander, 12.36% from other races, and 3.34% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 55.21% of the population.

There were 12,587 households out of which 35.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.1% were married couples living together, 15.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 24.0% were non-families. 18.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.10 and the average family size was 3.52.

In the city the population was spread out with 23.5% under the age of 18, 8.6% from 18 to 24, 33.3% from 25 to 44, 21.1% from 45 to 64, and 13.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 92.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $41,791, and the median income for a family was $45,287. Males had a median income of $31,642 versus $29,302 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,807. About 12.5% of families and 15.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.4% of those under age 18 and 11.5% of those age 65 or over.

[edit] Asian American population

Asian Americans form a near-majority in the city's population. Those residents identifying as Chinese from various countries and regions make up the bulk of the Asian origin population in San Gabriel, with Vietnamese ranking second. Residents in the upper middle-class northern part of San Gabriel (near affluent San Marino and Arcadia) tends to identify Taiwan as their national origin, whereas the Vietnamese Chinese and Mainland Chinese live in the working-class sections toward the southern and eastern portions of the city (near lower-income Rosemead).

Reflecting the heritage of the neighborhood, San Gabriel has a massive, fairly diverse, and vibrant ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese American business district on Valley Boulevard, with three major Asian supermarkets, numerous mini-malls, and an endless row of small businesses. It has become the much more vibrant commercial center of Chinese diaspora than the original suburban Chinese retail corridor in neighboring Monterey Park, California, and thus traffic jams are not uncommon along the Valley Boulevard corridor. This is fairly indicative of immigrant investments going to the relatively new developments of San Gabriel, rather than to touristy Chinatown, Los Angeles in which the latter is popular with white and Mexican tourists. Considered the new "Chinatown" of Los Angeles, an eclectic mix of Taiwanese delis, boba tea cafes, and self-serve hot pot buffets, Hong Kong fusion cafes and Cantonese seafood restaurants, Mainland Chinese noodle and dumpling restaurants, Vietnamese pho restaurants and banh mi shops (mostly owned by ethnic Chinese from Vietnam) all lend to a unique and vibrant commercial business district. Hong Kong based chain Kee Wah Bakery operates there as well. There is also a Burmese Chinese steakhouse and a Chinese Cambodian restaurant. Some companies from Mainland China operate shops also operate on Valley Boulevard (east of San Gabriel, the barrio of El Monte, California has been designated as a free trade zone for Mainland China, one of three in the United States).

The major Chinese New Year is celebrated here, the major one outside of Chinatown Los Angeles. Since 1993 the San Gabriel Valley Chinese New Year parade and festival is held annually and jointly by the cities of San Gabriel and Alhambra on Valley Boulevard, where the road is closed off. The parade starts at Valley and Del Mar Ave in San Gabriel (near Norms Restaurant and Hawaii Supermarket) and ends in Alhambra. The first such parade was held in 1992 originally in conjunction of the cities of Chinese-dominant Monterey Park and Alhambra, but subsequent conflicts between the two cities prompted the city of Alhambra to hold the parade with San Gabriel the next year and due to the fact that by the early-1990s, San Gabriel was replacing Monterey Park as the newly emerging heart and cultural node of the Chinese communities in the region.

San Gabriel Square, constructed in the early 1990s in a Mediterranean style, is the largest Asian shopping center in the area and is especially popular with affluent immigrants from Taiwan, but now also catering to Mainland Chinese and overseas Chinese from Indonesia. A 99 Ranch Market is the anchor store, but it also includes an upscale multi-story department store called Focus (although comprised of separate, individual merchants), boutiques, jewelry shops, and a multitude of authentic Asian restaurants. It replaced a dying drive-in theater and the parking lot was built over a flood channel. The awe-inspiring shopping center — the center piece for new "Chinatown" of sorts — was part a result of the Proposition 13 from California, which lowered the property tax statewide and then had the effect on the losing of potential city revenue, and hence the development of this massive mall was approved.^[1] A lot of restaurants and shops have come and gone over the years since the plaza's opening in 1992, but the mainstays have been 99 Ranch Market, Sam Woo BBQ Restaurant, and Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant, all of which still remain popular with the pan-Chinees communities in the San Garbiel Volley.

Across the street, independently-owned Hawaii Supermarket (owned by a Cambodian Chinese refugee) caters to overseas Chinese and other Asian immigrants from Southeast Asia (such as Vietnam and Cambodia) and Mainland China. There are other large shopping centers nearby. Another active strip mall, containing San Gabriel Superstore (owned by a Chinese Vietnamese refugee), anchored by the Shun Fat Supermarket chain, is located to the east. The San Gabriel Superstore replaced Target in the early 1990s. The Hilton Hotel, built over what was then a Pizza Hut restaurant and a motel, is an anchor to another multi-story shopping center filled with trendy restaurants and shops.

Besides immigrants, the area also attracts Chinese-speaking tourists from Mainland China, the Sovereign Republic of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Canada. Tour buses coming in and out of San Gabriel are a common site.

San Gabriel is part of the cluster of cities — including white-dominated San Marino, Arcadia, and Temple City — with large community of relatively wealthy Mandarin-speaking immigrant population hailing from Taiwan; San Gabriel is also adjacent to graffiti-scarred and largely Spanish-speaking barrios of Rosemead and El Monte, which have collected more working-class ethnic Chinese residents from Vietnam and hence their influence in San Gabriel is prominent. Hong Kong Supermarket, along San Gabriel Boulevard toward the northern part of the city, anchors a predominantly Taiwanese commercial strip (many of these on Las Tunas Drive tend to be smaller strip malls than on Valley Boulevard). This area extends into Temple City, California.

In addition to English and Spanish, San Gabriel city hall also provide services available in Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese, which is reflective of the demographics of the city.

The Mexican and Asian influence is also felt in the city's Mission district. The Mission district contains an upscale dim sum restaurant in a historic adobe building, which was the site of the former city hall and turned into a Mexican watering hole. Various Beijing operas are also presented regularly in the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium.

In March 2003, Chi Mui (梅志堅), who was born in Guangdong, China, became the first Asian American elected to the San Gabriel city council. In accordance with San Gabriel's rotating mayorship, on March 21, 2006 he was appointed mayor, thus becoming the first Asian mayor of San Gabriel. He died of cancer the next month. [1].

For more information go to the Southern California Chinatowns.

[edit] Education

Civic Auditorium

San Gabriel has its own school district, San Gabriel Unified School District, which serves the majority of citizens in San Gabriel. However, the south portions of San Gabriel are served by Garvey School District. Alhambra Unified School District operates San Gabriel High School, which serves both Alhambra and San Gabriel residents who live adjacent to the school.

San Gabriel has two public high schools (Gabrielino High School and San Gabriel High School) run by SGUSD and AUSD respectively, one private high school San Gabriel Mission High School, one middle school operated by SGUSD (Jefferson Middle), and seven elementary schools (Coolidge Elementary, McKinley Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, Washington Elementary, Wilson Elementary, Dewey Elementary, and Marshall Elementary). The first 5 are operated by SGUSD, while the latter 2 are operated by Garvey School District.