The City Council Friday approved a $2.4 million contract to build a memorial honoring the victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument.
Council members voted 12-0 to support a contract with Further Projects to design and bring to life the vision of artist Tsung Nicolás Leong and writer Judy Chui-Hua Chung for the memorial.
The two women were selected from six finalist teams that presented ideas for the memorial to a panel of city officials and the public in 2023.
Council members Heather Hutt, Nithya Raman, and Monica Rodriguez were absent during the vote.
The contract runs through Dec. 31, 2026, though there is no set timeline for when the memorial will be completed.
Funding for the project was secured by the Department of Cultural Affairs through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Monument Project Grant Initiative. It’s expected to cover all costs of the memorial.
Last year, the city announced Leong and Chung as winners of a contest for the creation of a memorial. The goal is to raise awareness about the tragic day in 1871 when at least 18 Chinese Americans were killed.
“While we are memorializing a massacre that reveals the long history of anti-Asian violence, we are also acknowledging that Asian Americans have been deeply rooted here since the beginnings of this city, state and country,” Leong and Chung said in a joint statement after their win.
Overall, the Cultural Affairs Department received some 176 proposals for a physical memorial at one of two primary sites along the 400 block of North Los Angeles Street, near the Chinese American Museum — close to the historical site of the massacre.