On November 2, 2025 the cities of South El Monte and El Monte will host Corazon Del Valle – five miles of open streets from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's an Active Streets event, similar to CicLAvia, but put on by the same folks who brought you Arroyo Fest on the 110 Freeway in 2023. The event is produced by ActiveSGV, the cities, the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, and Metro.
The route mapped out for the event passes along many of the Monte area’s mainstays: Famous Ed’s Liquor, Nativity Church, the Valley Mall, Arceo Park, Tito’s Market, Potrero School, the South El Monte Civic Center, and a plethora of mom and pop shops.
To get a deeper perspective on life along these corridors, SBLA spoke again with El Monte-based poet, educator, and avid cyclist Steve Valenzuela. Starting with Tyler Avenue.
“There's definitely a class difference from the north to the south,” Valenzuela says of the community.
“You're right there [near the top of the route], you're solid, you're doing all right, unless you're in the apartments.”
“I would say probably it’s a little bit more Latino in that area,” though he notes that Nativity Church holds masses in Vietnamese too.
The route will then carry us across Valley Boulevard to the Valley Mall.
The vaquero wear, party store, and birria restaurant show a “heavy Latino presence,” though Valenzuela says, “a lot of those shops are also owned by Asians, which in some ways is kind of reflective of the city right now, El Monte at least, with a lot of Asian businesses existing alongside Latino businesses,”
He goes on, “I mean, I go into stores that are owned by Asians, and they'll speak to me in Spanish before they speak to me in English, which is not surprising.”
Valenzuela lamented that, from his view, the coexistence for Asians and Latinos in this part of the Valley only goes so far; mostly just in business transactions.
“I feel like food gets brought up a lot by people. We talk about diversity. It's like, cool, that's rare. But what else are we sharing with each other in terms of the culture? And I don't know that we are,” Valenzuela posits. It’s deeper political alliances that he wants to see, but says he still sees xenophobia and distrust.
“When I was younger, I used to have way more Asian friends. And as I get older, it's just not as many [...] And I'm just like, damn, how is it that some of us became more segregated as we got older?”
That’s not the only divide Valenzuela observes though.
“Once you go under the 10 Freeway, I would say that there's a little bit more poverty that's visible,” he says.
Besides the beauty of Arceo Park and the string of faux-Spanish architecture across the street, things get rougher once you get down to Garvey Avenue.
“I don't know what kids say now, but it was always a joke like, ‘Your mom works on Garvey,’ because that's where there would be a lot of street walkers when I was younger,” Valenzuela recalls. “I don't see them anymore. Maybe they've just been replaced by massage parlors now? It was kind of an ugly street in a way, but still with a lot of businesses that people very much care about.”
From Garvey, the event route will jaunt down Potrero Avenue where Valenzuela notices a lot of cars angling for parking, much like any other working class neighborhood in Los Angeles. “El Monte has one of the highest poverty levels of the SGV, and you could sense it there.”
But he tells SBLA, this is also where he feels at home.
“When I walk the dog, you can hear a party over here, a party over there – I probably heard like three different parties, with banda and corridos and s**t like that, which I really appreciate,” Valenzuela says. “We were gonna move to Boyle Heights, and I remember the woman telling us, ‘Oh yeah, there's no parties over here,’ and I'm like, ‘What's wrong with that?’ You think that's a selling point, but to me, it's not.”
After Potrero, the path takes a brief turn on the industrial side of Klingerman Avenue (the borderline with South El Monte), before coming down the home stretch of Central Avenue. Here, attendees will ride past Mary Van Dyke Park and end up at the South El Monte Civic Center where BMX riders can enjoy the skate park.
For those just visiting, Valenzuela hopes their takeaway is to see the locals for more than just laborers, and their home for more than a “ghetto.”
“Maybe some people will discover Tito's and want to stay in that long a** line. Maybe they'll discover Cyber Yogurt, which is f***ing bomb dude,” he says. “I hope they can support some of the businesses, and not just as a one time thing, though. I hope that whatever they support, that they will come back.”
For locals, Valenzuela wants people who’ve never felt safe riding a bike on their streets to get out and experience it. “Hey, you want to cut costs? You can live this bike life,” he says. “Now, I don’t know that they're going to get it from this event, necessarily, but even if they're just like, ‘I'm down to go for a stroll on the bike,’ that would be cool.”
“If you get a chance to ride down Garvey, why not?”
Streetsblog’s San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the A Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”
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