Los Angeles doesn’t have a municipal Hall of Fame celebrating notable natives and residents. Nor does New York. Nor Chicago. Nor any of the largest cities and counties in the United States …
except Orange County!
Established last year by the Board of Supervisors, the Orange County Hall of Fame seeks to “honor the brilliant minds, influential leaders, and remarkable talents that have shaped the cultural, economic, and social fabric” of O.C.
Each of the county’s five supervisors nominates five people and sends them to an ad hoc committee that makes the final picks. There will be a ceremony in the coming months for the newest batch of Hall of Famers, and perhaps a permanent display in some county building or other.
Halls of Fame at their best — whether the baseball one in Cooperstown, the California Museum in Sacramento dedicated to Golden State luminaries or the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame (which is actually in Euclid, Ohio) — choose people that exemplify the profession, place or era being honored. They don’t just honor the obvious pioneers and greats of yore: They uplift the overlooked, deal with the controversial and show a knowledge of the world to present to, well, the world.
The Orange County Hall of Fame is none of that.
It comes off as goober posturing, not worthy of the sixth-most populous county in the nation. Then again, I’m giving my beloved homeland too much credit. For decades, the powers that be have told a very specific narrative about us: triumphalist and trite, self-congratulatory and sappy, while staying far away from our difficult parts.
The Orange County Hall of Fame continues this sad tradition. It comes off, so far, as nodding to political favorites, fanboy posturing and history done via Google and Wikipedia searches.
Seven of the 10 inaugural inductees were entertainers or athletes, for chrissakes, while the three others were developers.
The 2024 class is better than the first, but most members aren’t that influential in the overall Orange County story. Nick Berardino was the longtime head of the Orange County Employees Assn., the largest public employee union in the county. Carl Karcher founded Carl’s Jr., the once-good burger chain that knocked down its longtime Anaheim headquarters last year after moving all operations to Tennessee. Richard Nixon — who was born in Yorba Linda, attended Fullerton High, had his first law office in La Habra and summered in San Clemente during his presidency — might seem like an obvious choice. But that was the extent of his Orange County living, and there are Republicans far more important in creating O.C.’s peculiar brand of conservatism.
Wing Lam? His Wahoo’s Fish Tacos chain isn’t bad and his philanthropy is great, but Glen Bell, the founder of Irvine-based Taco Bell, had far more influence on Mexican food in O.C. and beyond. Michelle Pfeiffer, who grew up in unincorporated Midway City? Great performer, but please — the choice should’ve been John Wayne, thought so essential to who we are by a previous generation of Orange Countians that our airport bears his name.
The Orange County Hall of Fame shouldn’t exist at all, honestly. But since it’s probably not going anywhere, it should at least try to do better — and that’s not hard.
Take that inaugural class of 2023. Kobe Bryant lived most of his adult life in Newport Coast, but his worldwide fame happened representing Los Angeles as a Laker. The late William Lyon was a prominent developer, yes, but far more fundamental to Orange County is his contemporary, Don Bren, whose Irvine Co. spans the county’s eras, from rancho days to master-planned suburbs. His idea of what O.C. should look like is mimicked worldwide, for better or worse.
Or consider Greg Louganis, perhaps the greatest Olympic diver ever, who learned his craft across the county. You know who’d be a better choice? His coach, Sammy Lee, a two-time gold medalist and Korean War veteran. Lee made national headlines in 1954 when he tried to buy a home in Garden Grove, only to be refused on account of being Korean American. He settled in Santa Ana instead and had a decades-long career as a beloved community doctor as well as elite diving coach.
I don’t mean to come off as a hater. As a native who never plans to leave — unlike 2023 Hall of Famers Gwen Stefani and Tiger Woods — I have made O.C. history a central part of my adult life. I’ve authored a book on the subject, co-wrote another, teach a course on Latino O.C. at Chapman University and have covered it through my journalism career. I’ve learned that knowing about your hometown’s past, and the stories of the people who made it happen, allows communities to better confront their present and future.
I’m not the only Orange County Hall of Fame skeptic, either. Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento — who as mayor of Santa Ana prompted the city to formally apologize for its role in burning its Chinatown in 1906 — didn’t bother to submit any names last year.
“I thought, ‘Is this something that warrants our time and attention?’” he told me.
But the supervisor made nominations for the 2024 class once he realized most of his colleagues were sticking with it. He decided to pick O.C. residents who offer “a different story from a different perspective.”
“If done well, this could show the evolution of where we came from,” he said.
One of his picks was Sylvia Mendez, who has spent decades publicizing the landmark 1940s school desegregation case that bears her family’s name. The ad hoc committee — this year composed of Supervisors Don Wagner and Doug Chaffee — accepted Mendez but rejected the four other Latino families who were co-plaintiffs.
The committee also passed on Dorothy Mulkey, a Santa Ana resident who in 1967 won a Supreme Court case over a California proposition allowing landlords to discriminate against renters.
“I’m going to resubmit next year, and every year, until she’s in,” Sarmiento said of Mulkey. “Those are the types of people I’d like to see celebrated and recognized.”
