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Photo credit: Courtesy of Ellen Sletten

Professor’s invention is a kid-friendly introduction to the chemistry of light

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Ellen Sletten’s Photonbooth gives L.A. students a picture-perfect lesson in fluorescence

Image of students in the Photonbooth

Students from El Marino Language School in Culver City, California, in the Photonbooth. The exhibit has inspired hundreds of budding scientists to recognize that there is more to the world than what their eyes typically see. Photo credit: Courtesy of Ellen Sletten

 

By Jonathan Riggs

If you know how to look, our world can be wildly colorful. Under an ultraviolet light, once-familiar objects can take on dreamlike brilliance: Think neon green scorpions, hot pink flying squirrels and electric blue diamond rings.

Known as fluorescence, this ability of certain molecules to absorb light in one colored wavelength and emit it in another is a phenomenon many scientists, including UCLA professor Ellen Sletten, are still exploring.

And a few years ago, Sletten devised a clever way to make her research into fluorescence more accessible to non-scientists: the Photonbooth. A clever twist on the traditional photo booth that’s a staple of carnivals, arcades and parties, Photonbooth — the pun in its name a reference to the fundamental particle of light — has inspired hundreds of budding scientists to recognize that there is more to the world than what our eyes typically see, and that key scientific principles underpin everyone’s daily existence.

“It’s very clear right now, with the pandemic, that misinformation about science is dangerous for us all,” says Sletten, a chemical biologist. “Younger generations especially need us to focus on accurate, responsible scientific communication. Besides, everyone loves a photo booth, right?”

Image of Ellen Sletten

Ellen Sletten. Photo credit: Penny Jennings/UCLA

The concept evolved out of an attraction from her 2015 wedding reception. To echo her engagement ring, which her fiancé chose for its fluorescence (caused by a defect in the diamond’s lattice structure), Sletten envisioned black lights installed in a standard photo booth with fluorescent props for guests to pose with. Her party-phobic father, an engineer, jumped at the chance to pay tribute to his daughter’s life work and to help turn her plans into a reality.The Photonbooth was born.

“It was such a huge hit, even with the non-scientists,” Sletten says. “I realized it was very synergistic with many of my lab’s research goals and could be a perfect avenue for science outreach.”

When Sletten discussed the booth with members of her UCLA research team, her then-graduate student Rachael Day — now a biochemistry professor at Drury University in Missouri — was so inspired that she took it upon herself to build a version of the booth, and they immediately began using it at local parties and educational events, including Exploring Your Universe, UCLA’s annual hands-on science fair.

A typical Photonbooth presentation begins with a quick science lesson demonstrating the fluorescent properties of common household items such as tonic water or detergent, followed by a discussion of the biomedical uses of fluorescence. Attendees next create their own glowsticks, enter the booth with whimsical props they choose and pose for photos, first under normal light and then, to best show off their fluorescent items, under a black light.

“A lot of science — especially chemistry, where everything is nanoscale or smaller — can be difficult to comprehend,” Sletten says. “I really like using fluorescence because it’s so easy for kids to see. I also love how we can take something kids are familiar with, like a highlighter, and then help them realize there is this whole other side to it if they are curious enough to look and question.”

Image of a family in the Photonbooth at Exploring Your Universe

An adult and two children in the Photonbooth at UCLA’s Exploring Your Universe science festival. Photo credit: Courtesy of Ellen Sletten

Science education outreach is especially important to Sletten because it highlights the human connection that she says is so crucial to scientific progress. As she looks back on her lab’s first five years, she cites her relationship with her students and their growth among her most important accomplishments.

“My students are amazing, and I try hard to be an effective mentor who gets to know each of them well,” Sletten says. “In many ways, starting a lab is like starting a small company. You go through all the challenges and problem-solving together, which makes for strong bonds. It has been incredibly rewarding to be a part of my students’ journeys to becoming excellent scientists and communicators.”

At the same time, Sletten has attracted attention for the lab’s impressive progress toward developing diagnostic and therapeutic technologies. In 2020, she earned the Young Chemical Biologist Award from the International Chemical Biology Society, and in 2021, she received a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for her work on deep tissue imaging.

Sletten says the experience of children delighting in the Photonbooth experience mirrors the optimism she and her team share for the future of their own research.

“When I think about the videos of molecules flowing within mice which our lab has been able to produce with previously unattainable speeds, colors and resolutions, I can relate to how those kids feel stepping in the Photonbooth,” Sletten says. “The opportunity to see something new, the feeling of discovery and fun — I hope it inspires those kids to become science-savvy citizens or even future scientists.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

From fiction to action on climate change: Author Kim Stanley Robinson delivers Possible Worlds lecture

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Dean Tracy Johnson honored for dedication to diversity in science

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Tracy Johnson, Dean of Life Sciences

Tracy Johnson, Dean of Life Sciences

Tracy Johnson, dean of the UCLA Division of Life Sciences, has received the 2022 Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. According to the organization’s website, the award is given annually “to honor an outstanding scientist who has shown a strong commitment to the encouragement of underrepresented minorities to enter the scientific enterprise and/or to the effective mentorship of those within it.”

Tracy Johnson was appointed dean of life sciences in September 2020. She holds the Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Presidential Endowed Chair and is a professor of molecular, cell, and developmental biology. Since joining the UCLA faculty in 2013, she has been recognized for her scientific leadership; contributions to educational innovation; and dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has served as associate dean for inclusive excellence in the Division of Life Sciences since January 2015.

Johnson is also a professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and created the UCLA–HHMI Pathways to Success Program, a four-year, intensive, honors-level program for undergraduate students majoring in the life sciences. The program is committed to the academic success and professional development of highly motivated students from diverse backgrounds who intend to pursue careers in the life sciences.

Read the full story at ASBMB Today, the member magazine of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. To learn more about Johnson’s work, visit her faculty page at the UCLA–HHMI Pathways to Success Program’s website.

Montage of diverse images of researchers in the sciences and social sciencesPhoto credit: UCLA

UCLA College scholars among most highly cited researchers for 2021

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Montage of diverse images of researchers in the sciences and social sciences

UCLA researchers on the Clarivate list study a wide array of subjects, ranging from chemistry and medicine to ecology and engineering. Photo credit: UCLA

 

Editor’s note: Congratulations to the UCLA College scholars included in this year’s Clarivate Analytics list of the most highly cited researchers in the sciences and social sciences!

By Stuart Wolpert

The world’s most influential researchers include 43 UCLA scholars.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

A picture of two people plant an ebony sapling

UCLA’s Congo Basin Institute receives $1 million from Bob and Cindy Taylor

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A picture of two people plant an ebony sapling

Two people plant an ebony sapling

By Jonathan Riggs

In line with his long-standing commitment to environmental sustainability, master guitar maker Bob Taylor and his wife, Cindy Taylor, have donated $1.05 million to support UCLA’s Congo Basin Institute and its ebony conservation research and restoration efforts in Cameroon.

“I can think of no better partner than UCLA’s Congo Basin Institute to help protect, enhance and better understand the population of ebony trees, a precious resource to both the Congo Basin and the world in general,” said Bob Taylor, a co-founder of Taylor Guitars. “The incredible work they have already accomplished and their vision for addressing critical environmental and development issues are deeply inspiring and directly align with my own values.”

Taylor has led efforts in Cameroon to lessen tree waste by encouraging makers of stringed instruments to use variegated rather than all-black ebony. He also purchased and revitalized Cameroon’s leading sawmill, where he has implemented efforts to better use natural resources, including by starting an onsite seedling nursery.

Through those and other efforts in Cameroon, Taylor crossed paths in the mid-2010s with UCLA professor Thomas Smith, the founder and co-director of the institute, who has conducted biodiversity and conservation research in the region for nearly four decades. Since then, Bob and Cindy Taylor have donated more than $1.3 million to support the institute’s progress on several fronts, including studies of the ecology of ebony, a massive community-driven replanting program, and a new strategy for community-based rainforest restoration in the Congo Basin.

“Bob and Cindy Taylor’s leadership and generosity have helped empower the Congo Basin Institute to fulfill the highest ideals of our mission,” said Smith, who is also founding director of the Center for Tropical Research at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “They appreciate the importance of furthering science and taking action that will benefit the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest rainforest.”

Bob Taylor also is respected for his work restoring koa trees in Hawaii and trees in urban areas of Southern California.

The Congo Basin Institute, founded in 2015, was UCLA’s first foreign affiliate; it is a joint initiative between UCLA and the nonprofit International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, which is headquartered in Nigeria.

The institute operates under the auspices of the UCLA Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activities, and is supported by the divisions of life sciences and physical sciences in the UCLA College.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

Photo of Urban oil drilling in Inglewood. Photo Credit: Ty Woodson/KLCS

UCLA environmental experts featured in PBS series about sustainability

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Faculty and others play a major role in shaping stories of accountability in ‘Sustaining US,’ whose second season debuts Oct. 6

By Madeline Adamo 
Photo of Urban oil drilling in Inglewood. Photo Credit: Ty Woodson/KLCS

Urban oil drilling in Inglewood. Photo Credit: Ty Woodson/KLCS

As climate change and other environmental threats continue to harm and threaten people’s daily lives, the United States remains politically and ideologically divided. KLCS PBS show “Sustaining US” has partnered with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability to foster earnest discussion — informed by top research and perspectives.

The weekly half-hour program highlights topics related to green buildings and cities, climate change, health care, homelessness and transportation. UCLA faculty, alumni and students represent many of the experts on the program.

Content producer David Colgan said that the focus of the show is to approach environmental issues with science and to present solutions, not fearmongering. Colgan, who is the director of communications at the institute, works with the PBS producers to help identify topics and experts.

“I get to talk to brilliant people at UCLA, and many of them are great at breaking down issues in a conversational way,” Colgan said. “I want viewers of ‘Sustaining US’ to have that same access.”

Colgan says UCLA’s collaboration in the project began when investigative journalist David Nazar contacted the university for a source on a story about wildfires. During the conversation, both recognized the need for more rigorous news reporting about climate change and sustainability, and realized a partnership between PBS and the nation’s top-ranked public university could help inform and educate viewers.

“What sets ‘Sustaining US’ apart from other news programs is that we don’t just focus on the doom and gloom of environmental issues,” said Nazar, host and reporter of the program. “We bring people from all walks of life together to explore each issue and find solutions.”

KLCS is a multiple Emmy Award–winning, noncommercial PBS affiliate station, broadcasting to more than 15 million viewers in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California. KLCS is licensed to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Board of Education, the second-largest school district in the nation, educating more than 673,000 students. Ty Woodson directs and co-produces the program for the station.

The Radio & Television News Association of Southern California awarded “Sustaining US” two Golden Mikes in 2020 for its first season, which went beyond traditional sustainability topics to talk about social issues such as homelessness and technology.

Topics and respective UCLA experts in season two include:

  • – The Los Angeles River: Stephanie Pincetl, founding director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA
  • – Ancient cities: Monica Smith, professor of anthropology
  • – Solar decathlon: UCLA student team
  • – Desalination: Zack Gold, alumnus
  • – Urban heat islands: Alan Barreca, associate professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and graduate student Edith De Guzman
  • – Los Angeles aquarium/high-level discussion of environmental issues: Peter Kareiva, UCLA adjunct professor
  • – Culver City oil drilling: David Colgan

Season two premiers Wednesday, Oct. 6, and will air weekly on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and the following Mondays at 5:30 p.m. Viewers can watch on the following channels in Southern California or livestream on KLCS PBS.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

The gut microbiota comprises trillions of bacteria and other microbes that live in the intestines and affect health in multiple ways. Photo Credit: Alpha Tauri 3D Graphics/Shutterstock

UCLA-led study could clarify how gut microbes can exacerbate cognitive decline

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By Stuart Wolpert 
The gut microbiota comprises trillions of bacteria and other microbes that live in the intestines and affect health in multiple ways.

The gut microbiota comprises trillions of bacteria and other microbes that live in the intestines and affect health in multiple ways. Photo Credit: Alpha Tauri 3D Graphics/Shutterstock

 

Recent research has found that changes in the gut microbiota — the trillions of bacteria and other microbes that live in the intestines — can alter the brain and behavior. Now, a study led by scientists at UCLA could elucidate how and why that phenomenon occurs.

In the experiment, which was conducted with mice, researchers found that gut microbes can exacerbate the effects of cognitive impairment because of how they affect the hippocampus, the region of the brain that is critical for memory and learning. They found that the concentration of one group of bacteria called Bilophila increased dramatically in the gut microbiota of mice that were fed a ketogenic diet — high in fat, and low in carbohydrates — and were intermittently deprived of oxygen, creating a condition called hypoxia.

The scientists also found that a ketogenic diet, hypoxia and treatment with a species of Bilophila called Bilophila wadsworthia impaired the hippocampus, leading to reduced cognitive ability in mice.

The research is published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Host & Microbe.

The researchers gave several mice a ketogenic diet and others a standard diet. Then, all of the mice received reduced levels of oxygen for five consecutive days and then were given four days to recover. Depriving the animals of some oxygen was a way for the scientists to cause cognitive impairment, in order to mimic the cognitive impairment in humans that can be caused by neurological diseases or aging.

Next, the scientists observed their ability to navigate a maze. When trying to find their way out of a maze, mice on the ketogenic diet made an average of 30% more errors than mice given the standard diet. (The range of difference between the two groups was 25% to 75%.)

The researchers also evaluated whether the different diets alone could cause any change in cognitive behavior in mice who had not been deprived of oxygen. In that experiment, there was no appreciable difference in the mice’s ability to find their way out of the maze based on whether they had a ketogenic diet or a standard diet — indicating that the negative impact on cognitive ability only occurred in combination with oxygen deprivation.

“These results highlight the ability of different environmental factors to interact together to impact cognitive behavior in mice,” said lead author Christine Olson, a UCLA graduate student.

Next, the researchers investigated what would happen if they depleted the mice’s microbiota before administering a ketogenic diet and exposing them to hypoxia. Interestingly, mice that had their microbiota depleted first made significantly fewer errors in the maze than mice that were exposed to hypoxia and given a ketogenic diet but had not had changes to their microbiota first.

“This suggests that the microbes associated with the ketogenic diet and hypoxia could contribute to the detrimental effects on cognitive impairment,” Olson said.

The authors determined that Bilophila wadsworthia changes which genes are turned on or off in the hippocampus, and that the bacterium reduces normal cellular signaling in the hippocampus.

“Bilophila wadsworthia disrupted hippocampal activity and cognitive behavior in ways similar to how hypoxia and the ketogenic diet together did,” Olson said. She added that given the hippocampus’s important role in learning and memory, the changes offer clues for how Bilophila influences cognitive behavior.

Scientists are just now uncovering microbial species that can affect behavioral changes in mice and other animals, Hsiao said. She added that it will be important to study more specifically how microbial species can affect the brain — for example, through cellular changes that occur in response to microbes.

Cognitive impairment afflicts millions of people over age 65 and is associated with a wide variety of chronic metabolic, immunological and neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Elaine Hsiao, UCLA’s De Logi Professor of Biological Sciences and an associate professor of digestive diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said the new study could be an important step toward learning which microbes affect or impair cognitive ability.

“Identifying early risk factors is critical to enabling early detection and interventions for cognitive impairment,” said Hsiao, the paper’s senior author.

Hsiao added that more research is needed to determine whether other gut microbes besides Bilophila might also affect cognitive ability and whether the microbiota could influence cognitive decline in humans.

The study’s co-authors are former UCLA graduate student Alonso Iñiguez, UCLA undergraduate student Grace Yang, UCLA postdoctoral scholar Ping Fang, UCLA doctoral students Geoff Pronovost and Kelly Jameson, UCLA research technicians Tomiko Rendon and Jorge Paramo, Caltech professor Rustem Ismagilov and Caltech graduate student Jacob Barlow.

The research was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, Army Research Office of the U.S. Department of Defense, New York Stem Cell Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

The Rev. James Lawson Jr. gives a speech after being presented with the UCLA Medal.

UCLA Labor Center building to be renamed for civil rights icon Rev. James Lawson Jr.

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The Rev. James Lawson Jr. gives a speech after being presented with the UCLA Medal.

The Rev. James Lawson Jr. gives a speech after being presented with the UCLA Medal.

New California budget also sets aside $15 million for renovations

It’s been big news for the UCLA Labor Center. The historic building that houses the UCLA Labor Center will be named in honor the Rev. James Lawson Jr., a a civil rights and workers’ rights leader who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr., and the 2021-22 California budget includes $15 million to renovate the building that overlooks MacArthur Park.

UCLA has leased this building since 2002 and purchased the building in November 2020. This one-time allocation will fund necessary renovations for the building and establish a permanent home for the center, which has provided a base for low-wage worker research, innovative labor projects, and community-engaged learning and leadership development for hundreds of UCLA students.

Lawson has taught a labor studies course on nonviolence at UCLA for the past twenty years. In 2018, Lawson received the UCLA Medal, the campus’s highest honor.

The UCLA Labor Center was established in 1964 as the Center for Labor Research and Education within the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations, now the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, through a statewide joint labor-university committee. Since its inception, the center has been dedicated to research, education, and service in the interest of California’s workers.

“We wanted to bridge the gap between the university and the labor movement, worker centers, and community-based social justice organizations,” said Kent Wong, director at the UCLA Labor Center. “We’re located in the most immigrant-dense zip code in the country and in direct proximity to the communities served by our research and programs.”

Read the full news release about the funding for the labor center on the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment website.

 

A photo of Patricia Greenfield.

Patricia Greenfield honored for child development research

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A photo of Patricia Greenfield.

Patricia Greenfield (Photo Credit: Anthony Elgort)

Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA distinguished professor of psychology, has been honored with the Society for Research in Child Development’s Distinguished Contributions to the Interdisciplinary Understanding of Child Development Award.

She was honored for “cutting-edge, integrative work across developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology, communication, ecology, economics, textiles, gender/ethnic/racial studies, education, linguistics, primate sciences, pediatrics and neuroscience,” as well as for “exemplary impactful efforts to organize conferences, volumes, training programs and research centers that foster interdisciplinary work.”

Greenfield has authored more than 250 research publications, and her research has been translated into 10 languages. Her primary theoretical and research interests focus on the relationship between culture and human development.

This February, she and her colleagues published a study on how American values, attitudes and activities have changed dramatically during COVID-19. It was the lead research article in a special issue of the journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies dedicated to the pandemic.

In addition to studying American culture, Greenfield has studied the Zinacantec Maya women of Chiapas, Mexico, and the woven and embroidered clothing that expresses their values. Among her other research subjects is the teenage brain on social media.

This article, written by Stuart Wolpert, originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

New digital exhibit explores Jewish history in Boyle Heights

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A photo of Baist’s Real Estate Surveys’ map of Los Angeles in 1921.

Baist’s Real Estate Surveys’ map of Los Angeles in 1921. (Photo Credit: Los Angeles Public Library)

In the 1930s, the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights had the highest concentration of Jewish people west of the Mississippi. There were approximately 10,000 Jewish households in the area, which was about a third of Los Angeles’ Jewish population. But Boyle Heights was also one of the most diverse neighborhoods — home to many Mexican, Japanese, Armenian/Turkish, Italian, Russian and African American families.

The Jewish Histories in Multiethnic Boyle Heights exhibit gathers archival materials, artifacts and personal stories to explore the rich history of the Jewish community in this neighborhood, while also observing how those experiences coincided with the other diasporic communities that lived there.

“The history of this neighborhood really lives on in people’s hearts and minds … and basements,” said Caroline Luce, chief curator and associate director of the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies.

The Boyle Heights exhibit is part of the Mapping Jewish L.A. project, a decadelong partnership between the Leve Center, UCLA Library and Special Collections, University of Southern California and other community archives. Through digital tools and multimedia technologies, the project enables a broader understanding of the complex histories of the Jewish community in Los Angeles.

“Like all of our projects at Mapping Jewish L.A., this exhibit aims to open a new public space for the discussion and discovery of L.A.’s kaleidoscopic history,” Luce said. “It serves as a new mode of remembrance, one that is collaborative and inclusive, that nurtures intergenerational and interethnic understanding, and that strengthens the ties between UCLA and the local community.”

Below is a preview of what you will find in the extensive digital exhibit, which covers many aspects of Jewish life in Boyle Heights, from education to cars and community centers.

This is a photo of Mollie Silverman (left) and friends in front of automobile on Malabar Street, ca. 1918.

Mollie Silverman (left) and friends in front of an automobile on Malabar Street in Boyle Heights, ca. 1918. (Photo Credit: Shades of L.A. Collection, Los Angeles Public Library)

The first automobile to ever drive through Los Angeles did so through the streets of Boyle Heights on May 30, 1897. J. Philip Erie, a New York civil engineer, spent $30,000 to design, invent and build the first gasoline-propelled automobile carriage west of the Mississippi River. The drive started in downtown Los Angeles and ended at Erie’s home near Hollenbeck Park.

By the 1930s and ’40s, cars were necessary to access jobs that were located beyond the downtown industrial zone. After World War II, as freeway construction in and around the neighborhood began, Mexican Americans, Japanese Americans and Jews formed social clubs revolving around the automobile. These clubs would sponsor food and toy drives, car washes and community events in their neighborhood.

Read more about the history of automobiles in Boyle Heights.

This is a photo of students of the Jewish People’s Fraternal Order Yiddish school performing their annual Purim play at the Cooperative Center in 1938.

Students of the Jewish People’s Fraternal Order Yiddish school perform their annual Purim play at the Cooperative Center in 1938. (Photo Credit: Shades of L.A. Collection, Los Angeles Public Library)

In the early 1920s, members of the Arbeter Ring (Workers Circle), a proletarian fraternal organization, and Jewish activists affiliated with the Cooperative Consumers League, a left-leaning cooperative buying club, created a place where Boyle Heights’ multiethnic residents could socialize, learn and organize. They called it the Cooperative Center, a large, three-story building near the corner of Brooklyn Avenue and Mott Street. There were several meeting rooms on the top floor; a large ballroom for lectures, rallies and social events in the middle; and a bakery and café on the ground floor. The building operated on a cooperative basis: Shareholder members voted democratically on administrative decisions, and union labor was employed throughout the building.

The Cooperative Center became a hub for neighborhood-based organizations and an important site of political organizing and social activities. The center hosted lectures by Upton Sinclair; organized meetings for the carpenters, furniture makers and bakers unions; and held social activities that blended consciousness raising, interethnic mingling and fundraising. Several unions and cultural organizations rented space there, as did the local branches of the International Workers Order, a left-leaning fraternal organization that offered low-cost insurance to its members regardless of race, religion or creed.

Read more about the history of the Cooperative Center.

This is a photo of a car in front of a house and appeared in “Who’s Who in sponsoring the Mount Sinai Hospital and Clinic, Annual Directory 1945.”

This photo appeared in “Who’s Who in sponsoring the Mount Sinai Hospital and Clinic, Annual Directory 1945.” (Photo Credit: Associated Organizations of Los Angeles)

The origins of Mt. Sinai Hospital — part of today’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center — can be traced to the 1918 pandemic, when a group of Jewish Angelenos provided kindness and comfort to the sick. The effort reflected the Jewish value of bikur cholim (“visiting the sick”) — a traditional halakhic (Jewish religious law) principle that deems alleviating the suffering of the ill and offering prayers on their behalf to be an important mitzvah (commandment or good deed). In 1920, the group established the Bikur Cholim Society and purchased a small home in Boyle Heights to provide round-the-clock care for the neighborhood’s “incurables.”

By the end of the decade, the Bikur Cholim Society moved into a large building on Bonnie Beach Place. Known as the Mt. Sinai Home for Chronic Invalids, the facility, which featured a kosher kitchen and small prayer room, provided a space for observant Jewish patients to receive care.

Read more about the history of Mt. Sinai Hospital.

A photo of the Japanese Hospital, located at First and Fickett streets in Boyle Heights, in 1929.

The Japanese Hospital, located at First and Fickett streets in Boyle Heights, in 1929. (Photo Credit: Japanese American National Museum)

Similar to the community spirit of Mt. Sinai Hospital, the former Japanese Hospital, located at First and Fickett streets in Boyle Heights, reflects how Japanese Americans took care of others in their community. In the early 1900s, public health officials often associated disease with recent immigrants and certain ethnic groups, and they used race to determine how to administer public health programs. As a result, Japanese immigrants, who were viewed as the least able to assimilate compared to other immigrant groups, didn’t have access to mainstream health care.

To meet the needs of their community, Japanese medical professionals established the Turner Street Hospital in Little Tokyo in 1913. But as the Japanese American community continued to grow, so did the need for more substantive medical care. Five immigrant Japanese doctors decided to build a larger hospital with state-of-the art surgical facilities, and the Japanese Hospital opened on Dec. 1, 1929.

“Both institutions are examples of how immigrant residents in Boyle Heights worked together to meet the basic needs of the most vulnerable, including health care, shelter and child care,” Luce said. “By highlighting these overlapping patterns of community organization, we hope the exhibit illuminates the intersecting histories of the many diasporas that converged in Boyle Heights.”

Read more about the history of the Japanese Hospital.

A photo of the original building at 420 N. Soto St., which housed the folkshul, ca. 1922.

The original building at 420 N. Soto St., which housed the folkshul, ca. 1922. (Photo Credit: Zunland, vol. 4 (1925))

In 1908, a group of Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe founded Los Angeles’ first Yiddish organization, the National-Radical Club. Among its primary goals was establishing a Yiddish school, so Jewish parents could supplement their children’s public school education. Advocates for the school included Dr. Leo Blass (née Lieb Isaac Shilmovich), whose devotion to Yiddish culture was legendary. Blass and members of the National-Radical Club began teaching classes at a private home near Michigan Avenue and Breed Street.

In 1920, Blass and the school board launched a fundraising drive to purchase a house at 420 N. Soto St., where the school would become a Yiddish cultural center and organizing space. The new center, known as the folkshul (“people’s school”), opened the following year with 120 students. In addition to being a Yiddish school, the folkshul quickly became a popular destination for organizations and events, hosting meetings of local Jewish unions, fundraisers and bazaars, and an annual Hasidism ball.

Read more about the history of the folkshul.

A photo of, from left: The Soto-Michigan JCC featured a playground where children could enjoy a jungle gym, swing sets and pingpong tables. Both photos were taken by Julius Shulman in 1938.

From left: The Soto-Michigan JCC featured a playground where children could enjoy a jungle gym, swing sets and pingpong tables. Both photos were taken by Julius Shulman in 1938. (Photo Credit: Julius Shulman Photography Archive, © J. Paul Getty Trust.)

About a half mile from the folkshul was the Soto-Michigan JCC, the Jewish Centers Association’s new community center in Boyle Heights. The center’s director, Rabbi J. M. Cohen, wanted to expand the center’s role in the neighborhood to “integrate the Jewish community with the general community and the individual with the Jewish community and society as a whole.” Cohen believed that by celebrating cultural pluralism, the center would strengthen the Jewish identities of American-born children, foster integration and serve all of the neighborhood’s residents, including children of Mexican, Asian, Russian and African American descent.

The Soto-Michigan JCC’s three-story facility featured a lounge, game room and clubroom on the first floor and locker rooms in the basement. But the facility’s most popular feature was the Stebbins playground, where there was a jungle gym, volleyball and basketball courts, swing sets and pingpong tables. As many as 1,000 people regularly visited the Soto-Michigan JCC just to use the playground, in addition to the 2,300 children and adults who used the meeting rooms and auditoriums every week.

Read more about the history of the Soto-Michigan JCC.

As a complement to the Jewish Histories in Multiethnic Boyle Heights digital exhibit, there’s also a physical exhibit currently on display at the Boyle Heights History Studios, featuring materials that can’t be viewed online.

In addition, Holocaust Museum L.A. will host a discussion about the digital exhibit with Luce on May 26 at 11 a.m. Register for the event.

Luce will also discuss the project with USC professor George Sanchez on June 9. Details to follow at levecenter.ucla.edu.

Read Washington Post’s article about the Jewish Histories in Multiethnic Boyle Heights digital exhibit.

This article, written by Cheryl Cheng, originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.