Los Angeles ou la violence indissociable d’un territoire nouveau

During its history and its construction, the city of Los Angeles has been an extraordinary paradox between heaven on earth, image that the boosters used extensively in the 1920s, and the dark side that this new Eden enclosed. Violence is the other face of this urban Janus which goes back way before the deadly riots of 1965 and 1992. Whether it is natural, social, political or criminal, Los Angeles is a stronghold of such a violence from which it ultimately became indivisible. This article offers a different approach regarding the phenomenon of urban violence, taking into account factors that are often put aside and yet come into play and underlie a violence which then, subdivides itself. The objective is first to analyze how the city of Los Angeles was built and how it integrated different endemic forms of violence that sometimes emerged against the city’s plans. I will then consider the memorable periods of a chronic explosive violence conveyed by the Angelenos themselves. I will finally take into account the singular vision of an L.A. native writer, Wanda Coleman, who all along her literary career and personal life apprehended the city as a w-hole and of which she grew to be one of its most special witness