What is "sonoratown"

Sonoratown was the name of a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States.

Located in what today is Chinatown, Sonoratown was home to many immigrants from the northern Mexican state of Sonora in the mid 1800s. Many settled there after having made their way to northern California during the gold rush. The neighborhood became a Mexican slum as more and more Americans settled in Los Angeles.

In the early 1900s the Mexican community began to disappear as that part of Downtown Los Angeles became a desirable industrial center with many rail yards. By the 1930s the neighborhood had almost completely lost its Mexican residents and began being replaced with the new Chinatown.

In addition to Mexicans, there were significant populations of French and especially Italian heritage which were almost entirely dispersed in the course of postwar suburbanization.