A Letter from Wilma Merrill to Edward Roybal

Chavez Ravine, home to thousands of Mexican Americans, was under turmoil during the mid-1950s, when the Brooklyn Dodgers decided to acquire the area for the construction of their new stadium. The chaos led to the Battle of Chavez Ravine, a 10-year dispute between the residents of Chavez Ravine, the housing authority, and the proponents and opponents of the construction of the Dodger Stadium. During the struggle, many individuals expressed their concerns through letters that were addressed to government officials. Wilma Merrill, one of the most avid activists, consistently sent letters to City Council members, including Edward Roybal. In one of her letters, she elaborated on her disapproval of the transaction of Chavez Ravine in exchange for a Major League Baseball field, as well as the eviction of the local inhabitants. Although her efforts were later proved to be powerless and the Dodgers eventually won the dispute, the Battle of Chavez Ravine endured as a symbol of political and racial suppression in the history of Los Angeles.

In the mid-1950s, Brooklyn Dodgers president Walter O’Malley endeavored to build a stadium in New York City, but failed to reach an agreement on land acquisition with the city officials. Therefore, he turned to and reached a deal with the city of Los Angeles for a 352-acre land in Los Angeles’s Spanish-speaking neighborhood, Chavez Ravine. The land for the Dodger Stadium was originally purchased from local inhabitants for reconstruction by the city of Los Angeles under the Federal Housing Act in 1949; the city government initially destined the land to townhouses, schools, and other buildings for public purposes under the Elysian Park Heights Public Housing Project. Before the construction could begin, the local political climate changed drastically as Norris Poulson was elected mayor of Los Angeles. The Elysian Park Heights Housing Project became associated with socialist creeds and hence lost much of its public support. Therefore, the city purchased the Chavez Ravine property back from the Federal Housing Authority and, despite burgeoning public controversy, sold the land to the Dodgers with the voters’ approval in 1958. At the beginning, most Mexican homeowners in Chavez Ravine had been reluctant to sell until developers resorted to offering immediate cash payments that were distributed through Spanish-speaking agencies. After the first sales had been accomplished, the remaining residents were offered increasingly lesser amounts of money, creating a widespread panic of unfair compensation and further refusals from the local residents. Eventually, with both voluntary transactions and exercise of eminent domain, the entire population of Chavez Ravine was removed.

Even though all the Mexican homeowners were ultimately evicted, opposition to the construction of the Dodger Stadium was remarkable. Opponents of the Chavez Ravine eviction included a group of residents and non-residents that united together to resist the construction of the stadium. Community women, mostly Mexican American, overtly identified themselves as patriotic wives and daughters of veterans who were entitled to keep their homes and live in peace. They stated that their patriotism was conditional, and the repossession and destruction of their homes threatened the very basis of their patriotism. The majority of residents in Chavez Ravine were upset about being forced out of their homes, since they had worked hard to establish the communities and ties. They spoke out during public hearings, wrote letters, and made harsh statements to the media, objecting the displacement of them from their homes for the ballpark construction.

The writer of the letter, Wilma Merrill, was a passionate Democratic woman living in Southern California during the Battle of Chavez Ravine. She actively pursued the controversy about the construction of the Dodger Stadium and wrote to members of the City Council regularly. In her letter to Edward Roybal, she expressed her belief that Chavez Ravine should be solely owned by the city, as well as her fear that Los Angeles was surrendering its land for too low a price. Edward Ross Roybal, the receiver of the letter, had been the first Latino American from California to serve in the Congress since the 1879 election of Romualdo Pacheco. His goal was to advance civil rights, protect civil liberties, establish mental health programs, fund AIDS research, and improve support services for veterans and the elderly. Roybal opposed the construction of the Dodger Stadium, claiming that, “Chavez Ravine was the worst in the world for a baseball park.” He was an outspoken opponent of the city land swap that gave the Dodgers the prime real estate for a new ballpark in Chavez Ravine. In exchange, Roybal wanted Wrigley Field for the Dodgers, a minor league baseball stadium located at 42nd Place and Avalon Boulevard. He, along with Wilma Merrill, fought hard against the eviction of the Mexican inhabitants in Chavez Ravine in their respective ways.

Unfortunately, the opponents’ efforts to stop the Chavez Ravine eviction were defeated by the proponents who supported the construction of the new Dodger Stadium. At that time, lodging Major League Baseball teams was a standardized attraction of big cities. Therefore, the Los Angeles city officials, hoping to bring prosperity to the city, offered the Chavez Ravine land to the Brooklyn Dodgers. The idea of Los Angeles’s own baseball stadium grew popular and gained avid supporters, including celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Dean Martin, George Burns, Jerry Lewis, and Debbie Reynolds. Enthusiasts pushed the platform that those who opposed the Dodgers Stadium project were baseball haters. Despite such outspoken support, in 1958, the referendum Taxpayers Committee for Yes on Baseball only passed by 3% in a non-presidential election that had the highest turnout in the entire history of Los Angeles. This referendum allowed O’Malley to build a new stadium on the 352-acre acquired land in Chavez Ravine.

The Los Angeles Dodger Stadium was built for 23 million dollars, financed entirely by private investors. Its construction was held up due to legal challenges, as many attempts were made to appeal the referendum under the pretense that the land was not being used for a public purpose, which was part of a clause in the federal government’s sale to the city. In the end, both the California State Supreme Court and Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. O’Malley still struggled with the remaining residents who refused to move off the land and a city that looked the other way on the matter. Nevertheless, in the end, O’Malley was able to start the construction in late 1959 after the last residents were forcibly removed from the land. On April 10, 1962, the Dodger Stadium opened. Although the long, stressful efforts to preserve the Chavez Ravine community were unsuccessful, they had influenced local politics and media and became a lasting symbol of Chicano displacement and resistance.

For ten years, Chavez Ravine went from the early debate over its redevelopment, to the collapse of the Elysian Park Heights Housing Project, to the dispute of the city’s transaction with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and finally, to its transformation from a Spanish-speaking neighborhood into the now thriving and notorious Dodger Stadium. The Dodger Stadium may veil the destructed villages, but it cannot bury the endeavors of thousands of Mexican homeowners and historical figures like Edward Roybal and Wilma Merrill. The letter from Wilma Merrill to Edward Roybal is preserved as evidence of this cruel incident. The Battle of Chavez Ravine was ultimately unsuccessful, but it endures as an everlasting symbol of political suppression and racism. It remains as a blemish in the history of Los Angeles and warns the future generations of the brutal consequences of government oppression.

Works cited

1. , Edward R. Roybal Papers, 1947, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los
2. Angeles.

Cite this article

Weiru Fang, Anonymous. "A Letter from Wilma Merrill to Edward Roybal." Los Angeles: The City and the Library. Colleen Jauretche, Editor. Winter 2014. /article/2014-01-01-w14-03