Los Angeles doesn’t have a municipal Corridor of Fame celebrating notable natives and residents. Nor does New York. Nor Chicago. Nor any of the biggest cities and counties in the USA …
besides Orange County!
Established final 12 months by the Board of Supervisors, the Orange County Corridor of Fame seeks to “honor the sensible minds, influential leaders, and memorable skills which have formed the cultural, financial, and social cloth” of O.C.
Every of the county’s 5 supervisors nominates 5 individuals and sends them to an advert hoc committee that makes the ultimate picks. There shall be a ceremony within the coming months for the latest batch of Corridor of Famers, and maybe a everlasting show in some county constructing or different.
Halls of Fame at their finest — whether or not the baseball one in Cooperstown, the California Museum in Sacramento devoted to Golden State luminaries or the Nationwide Cleveland-Fashion Polka Corridor of Fame (which is definitely in Euclid, Ohio) — select people who exemplify the occupation, place or period being honored. They don’t simply honor the plain pioneers and greats of yore: They uplift the missed, cope with the controversial and present a information of the world to current to, properly, the world.
The Orange County Corridor of Fame is none of that.
It comes off as goober posturing, undeserving of the sixth-most populous county within the nation. Then once more, I’m giving my beloved homeland an excessive amount of credit score. For many years, the powers that be have informed a really particular narrative about us: triumphalist and trite, self-congratulatory and sappy, whereas staying far-off from our troublesome components.
The Orange County Corridor of Fame continues this unhappy custom. It comes off, up to now, as nodding to political favorites, fanboy posturing and historical past completed through Google and Wikipedia searches.
Seven of the ten inaugural inductees have been entertainers or athletes, for chrissakes, whereas the three others have been builders.
The 2024 class is healthier than the primary, however most members aren’t that influential within the total Orange County story. Nick Berardino was the longtime head of the Orange County Workers Assn., the biggest public worker union within the county. Carl Karcher based Carl’s Jr., the once-good burger chain that knocked down its longtime Anaheim headquarters final 12 months after transferring all operations to Tennessee. Richard Nixon — who was born in Yorba Linda, attended Fullerton Excessive, had his first legislation workplace in La Habra and summered in San Clemente throughout his presidency — would possibly appear to be an apparent alternative. However that was the extent of his Orange County dwelling, and there are Republicans much more essential in creating O.C.’s peculiar model of conservatism.
Wing Lam? His Wahoo’s Fish Tacos chain isn’t unhealthy and his philanthropy is nice, however Glen Bell, the founding father of Irvine-based Taco Bell, had much more affect on Mexican meals in O.C. and past. Michelle Pfeiffer, who grew up in unincorporated Halfway Metropolis? Nice performer, however please — the selection ought to’ve been John Wayne, thought so important to who we’re by a earlier technology of Orange Countians that our airport bears his identify.
Gwen Stefani attends a ceremony honoring her with a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame in 2023. The Anaheim native was inducted into the Orange County Corridor of Fame final 12 months as properly.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision/AP)
The Orange County Corridor of Fame shouldn’t exist in any respect, actually. However because it’s in all probability not going anyplace, it ought to no less than attempt to do higher — and that’s not exhausting.
Take that inaugural class of 2023. Kobe Bryant lived most of his grownup life in Newport Coast, however his worldwide fame occurred representing Los Angeles as a Laker. The late William Lyon was a distinguished developer, sure, however much more elementary to Orange County is his modern, Don Bren, whose Irvine Co. spans the county’s eras, from rancho days to master-planned suburbs. His concept of what O.C. ought to appear like is mimicked worldwide, for higher or worse.
Or contemplate Greg Louganis, maybe the best Olympic diver ever, who realized his craft throughout the county. You understand who’d be a more sensible choice? His coach, Sammy Lee, a two-time gold medalist and Korean Warfare veteran. Lee made nationwide headlines in 1954 when he tried to purchase a house in Backyard Grove, solely to be refused on account of being Korean American. He settled in Santa Ana as a substitute and had a decades-long profession as a beloved neighborhood physician in addition to elite diving coach.
I don’t imply to return off as a hater. As a local who by no means plans to depart — in contrast to 2023 Corridor of Famers Gwen Stefani and Tiger Woods — I’ve made O.C. historical past a central a part of my grownup life. I’ve authored a guide on the topic, co-wrote one other, train a course on Latino O.C. at Chapman College and have lined it by my journalism profession. I’ve realized that understanding about your hometown’s previous, and the tales of the individuals who made it occur, permits communities to higher confront their current and future.
I’m not the one Orange County Corridor of Fame skeptic, both. Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento — who as mayor of Santa Ana prompted the town to formally apologize for its position in burning its Chinatown in 1906 — didn’t trouble to submit any names final 12 months.
“I assumed, ‘Is that this one thing that warrants our time and a focus?’” he informed me.
Sylvia Mendez visits college students in 2022 at Mendez Intermediate College, which is called after her dad and mom, Felicita and Gonzales Mendez, who have been a part of a landmark college desegregation case. Sylvia was introduced as an Orange County Corridor of Fame inductee this month.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Instances)
However the supervisor made nominations for the 2024 class as soon as he realized most of his colleagues have been sticking with it. He determined to select O.C. residents who supply “a distinct story from a distinct perspective.”
“If completed properly, this might present the evolution of the place we got here from,” he mentioned.
One in all his picks was Sylvia Mendez, who has spent many years publicizing the landmark Nineteen Forties college desegregation case that bears her household’s identify. The advert hoc committee — this 12 months composed of Supervisors Don Wagner and Doug Chaffee — accepted Mendez however rejected the 4 different Latino households who have been co-plaintiffs.
The committee additionally handed on Dorothy Mulkey, a Santa Ana resident who in 1967 received a Supreme Court docket case over a California proposition permitting landlords to discriminate towards renters.
“I’m going to resubmit subsequent 12 months, and yearly, till she’s in,” Sarmiento mentioned of Mulkey. “These are the varieties of individuals I’d wish to see celebrated and acknowledged.”
