Eleven families—44 people in total—arrived at the site of what would become Los Angeles as the pueblo's first settlers, recruited from the existing Spanish colonial settlements of Sonora and Sinaloa. Spanish colonial census records from 1781 categorized the settlers by racial caste in the manner typical of the era: mulato, negro, indio, mestizo, español. Between 10 and 26 of the 44 settlers were identified as Black or of African descent, depending on how the colonial categories are interpreted.

The founding families were not wealthy or prominent. They were soldiers, farmers, and their families, recruited to populate a distant outpost. The Spanish colonial government compensated them with land grants, livestock, and tools. Most had traveled for months through desert to reach the site.

El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument encompasses 44 acres of the original pueblo site, designated a California State Historical Monument in 1953 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Within those 44 acres, a remarkable concentration of early Los Angeles history has survived the city's relentless development.

The Avila Adobe, built in 1818, is the oldest surviving residence in the city. Olvera Street—a pedestrian market that was created in 1930 by preservationist Christine Sterling—runs through the heart of the monument, lined with shops and restaurants that have operated for decades. La Placita Church, completed in 1822, still holds masses. The Old Plaza Firehouse of 1884 survives at the north end of the plaza.

Olvera Street is one of those historical preservation projects that preserves a version of the past filtered through the assumptions of the person doing the preserving. Christine Sterling, a white civic activist, created the street in 1930 as a romanticized 'Mexican marketplace'—part museum, part tourist attraction—drawing on Californio imagery that was partly authentic and partly invented.

The result has always been contested. Critics have argued that Olvera Street presents a sanitized, commodified version of Mexican and Californio culture for tourist consumption. Defenders note that it preserved buildings and a physical connection to the city's origins that would otherwise have been demolished. Both things can be true simultaneously.

The monument sits immediately adjacent to Union Station, the spectacular Spanish Colonial Revival rail terminal completed in 1939. The juxtaposition is striking: a 44-acre fragment of the city's 1781 origin point next to the grand civic gesture of 1939, separated by the Alameda Street traffic that replaced what was once the original Chinatown.

The plaza at the heart of the monument remains an active gathering place—used for festivals, concerts, protests, and ordinary daily life. On September 4 each year, celebrations mark the anniversary of the city's founding. The founding families have descendants throughout Southern California, though tracing those lineages through the colonial record requires patience and specialized knowledge. The plaque on the plaza identifies 1781 as the year Los Angeles began. The full story of who was there requires more than a plaque.