The Chinese Massacre: One of Los Angeles' Worst Atrocities

Los Angeles’ Chinatown was the site of one of the worst atrocities in the city’s history when, on October 24, 1871, a mob of Anglos and Latinos murdered nearly 20 Chinese immigrants. The so-called Chinese Massacre marked the first time Los Angeles made national headlines – a stain on the city’s public image that boosters would strive to erase. Much later, they eventually succeeded with the physical erasure of Old Chinatown and the erection of a new movie-set simulacrum: Christine Sterling’s China City.