Castelar School

Castelar School. . , Old School , Castelar School is the second oldest school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the first to hire a Chinese-American principal, and has taught the largest number of refugee children in the city. Castelar was founded in 1882 on the southwest corner of what is today College and Hill Streets. (The latter has gone through many name changes from the Calle del Toro, to Bull Street, to Castelar Street , named in honor of author Emilio Castelar y Ripoli, who, from September 1873 to January 1874, served as the president of the first Spanish Republic , and finally to Hill Street.) The staff consisted of four teachers, serving grades one through eight. One-third of the 300 students who attended the four-room schoolhouse had Spanish surnames. , After a fire destroyed the school, a new two-story wooden structure built in the Victorian style opened, replete with fireplaces, gables, and an ornate bell tower. The student body began to change to the sons and daughters of French and Italian immigrants, followed by Serbians, Yugoslavians and Croatians. In 1923, an additional five classrooms were added as Chinese enrollment increased. In 1973, after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, the wood-frame schoolhouse was razed. The current 33-room school opened on the corner of College and Yale Streets in 1977, with landscaping donated by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. Subsequently, the school's auditorium and library were converted to the Los Angeles Public Library , Chinatown Branch, the first and only time in the city that a library and public school have been attached. The library has now moved to a new facility at the corner of Ord and Hill Streets.) , All the while, Castelar's students continued to reflect the changing neighborhood. In the early 1960s, enrollment stood at 529 students (54% Asian and 41% Latino). The relaxation of the immigration laws in 1965 brought large numbers of immigrant children from Hong Kong, while Southeast-Asian refugee children began arriving in 1975. In 1980, enrollment reached 1,156 students. , Castelar School is decorated with three unique murals. On the exterior wall along College Street, The Party at Lan T'ing, composed by Chinese master painter Shiyan Zhang, showcases Chinese contributions in music, literature and art. Just inside the front entrance is a mural of children holding hands and dancing, painted by children's book author and illustrator Leo Politi. On the adjacent wall is "Light of Asia," which was created and painted by sixth graders from Castelar School under the guidance of artist Glenna Boltuch Avila. The mural , funded by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1984 , depicts important events in Buddha's life. , Little Time To Play , During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinese immigrant children led extremely busy lives. They attended city schools, then went to Chinese-language classes in the late afternoons. Evenings and weekends were spent helping their parents in laundries, restaurants, and curio shops. Girls had the added burden of learning how to cook, clean, embroider, and sew. There was little time to play. In 1927, Chinatown's children got their first recreational facility. The Apablasa Playground , where Union Station is today , had swings, a slide and a clubhouse. What began as a series of pick-up baseball games became formalized in the 1930s, when a group of boys formed the Chinese Baseball Team. In 1954, the Los Angeles Chinese Drum and Bugle Corps , for ages 10 to 21 , was founded with the motto "One for all and all for one."