Post-World War II, the Jefferson Park area was nicknamed “Little New Orleans” after a sudden influx of Creole peoples paraded to their new neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles. Nonetheless, the once thriving Creole culture is disappearing as Louisiana natives are finding soul elsewhere.
Around the time of the Great Depression, an abundance of Creole families relocated from the South to South Los Angeles from the 1930s to the 1960s. Many migrated West to escape the Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation in specific regions – most heavily in the South. Others left rural parts of Louisiana for better work opportunities in cities, and decided to leave plantations in the past.
“My family is from Cane River,” Trena Mitwya said. “They are the ‘original forgotten people,’ or that was what they were being called. I was raised by my grandmother who was from Cane River, and that’s what I’ve known all my life – I am Creole.”
Cane River is a rural neighborhood in Northwest Louisiana that is known as one of the first Creole settlements. According to Mitwya, tale has it that a slave cured her master’s disease using an herbal remedy. In return for the cure, she was awarded freedom. The freed slave, with the assistance of her former owners, bought land and started her own plantation. She earned respect from her fellow plantation-owners and was treated like she was white. The former slave married a French man and they had several children together. The inter-cultural marriage birthed the Creole community in Cane River, which is still prominent today. Nonetheless, the Creole community in Jefferson Park has lost its prominence.
Mitwya, a resident of Jefferson Park her whole life, said, “We’re kind of dying out. I don’t see it as much as when I was a child. They’re just moving out of the neighborhood.”
When the Creole peoples originally arrived to Jefferson Park, they brought New Orleans-inspired churches, music, fashion, and some home-style Southern soul food. In the 80s, Jefferson Park was home to a Creole seafood market, numerous restaurants, Creole-owned barbershops, and the famous Big Loaf Bakery, which specialized in French bread.
“As people move out of the area, Creole-influenced storefronts and restaurants move out too,” Mitwya said. “They just can’t survive.”
Mitwya, the Chef Marilyn’s Queen of Down Home Southern Goodies manager, operates one of two standing Creole restaurants on Crenshaw Boulevard in Jefferson Park. Chef Marilyn’s is a tiny buffet-style restaurant. Patrons wait in lines 10 people deep to get a taste of Marilyn’s homemade ox tail, smothered pork chop, grits, and her famous gumbo. Despite the cramped, sweltering space, customers rave about the traditional Creole cooking.
“Chef Marilyn’s – it’s the best barbeque in town,” Darrell Jones said while standing in line at a competing soul food restaurant called Philip’s Bar-B-Que.
Philips Bar-B-Que sits just across the street from Chef Marilyn’s. Philips, the least popular take-out barbeque joint in town, is significantly less busy than Chef Marilyn’s. Nonetheless, it still stands as one of the last three Creole eateries in what used to be a New Orleans cuisine-dominated section of Jefferson Park; Harold and Belle’s on Jefferson Boulevard is the third still in existence. Harold and Belle’s has survived for forty years as a full-service New Orleans-style restaurant. It seems these three establishments were the only ones able to gain the loyalty of the remaining Creole peoples.
Just one month ago, the Creole community suffered another restaurant casualty: Chef Kim’s Soul Food Kitchen. Chef Kim’s was a mere two blocks away from Chef Marilyn’s and Philips, but the recent lack of demand for Creole cooking could not support another soul food take-out joint.
“Her business was slow,” Evelin Santoyo said. “She had too much competition down the street.”
Santoyo works for Donut King, which shared a building with Chef Kim’s. Nothing has moved into the empty space since. All that remains of Chef Kim’s is a hand-written menu at the entrance of the building that is covered in graffiti. The building’s owner, Noppaeol Somerasont, said Chef Kim’s survived only for a few months.
“We don’t know what’s going to move in yet. Usually this is a Chinese food, lottery, and a donut shop,” Somerasont said. “We tried the soul food restaurant, but it didn’t work. So all I know is another soul food place won’t be allowed to move in.”
Somerasont will be selling lottery tickets at a booth at the Taste of Soul food festival on Saturday, Oct. 15. The festival, which annually attracts over 350,000 visitors, is held just south of Jefferson Park on Crenshaw Boulevard. All eateries were welcomed to participate, but neither Chef Marilyn’s, Philips, nor Harold and Belle’s will be in attendance. It seems the Creole spirit in Jefferson Park is beginning its descent into disappearance.