Pacoima is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California.

It is bordered by the Los Angeles districts of Mission Hills on the west, Arleta on the south, Sun Valley on the southeast, Lake View Terrace on the northeast, and by the city of San Fernando on the north. Major thoroughfares include San Fernando Road, Van Nuys Boulevard, and Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The Golden State and Ronald Reagan freeways run through the district.

Pacoima's first inhabitants were varying cultures of indigenous peoples for thousands of years. For many centuries, the semi-nomadic Tongva and Tataviam Native American tribes lived in the area. Pacoima means "the entrance" in the Tataviam (or Fernandeño) language.

In 1797, Spanish colonists built the nearby Mission San Fernando Rey and worked to convert the Indians to Christianity.

In 1887 Charles Maclay, a former Republican California State Assemblyman and California State Senator purchased 56,000 acres (227 km²) in the area with a loan of $117,500 from a friend, the industrialist Leland Stanford. MacLay subdivided the tract into agricultural parcels, most of which were used for the production of Southern California staples such as citrus, nuts, beans, wheat, and vegetables. As was the case in most of the San Fernando Valley, the lure of plentiful, cheap water from the Los Angeles Aqueduct proved irresistible to Pacoima's farmers.^{[citation needed]} Los Angeles annexed the land, including Pacoima, as part of ordinance 32192 N.S. on May 22, 1915.

Ritchie Valens (born Richard Steven Valenzuela; May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959) was a Mexican-American singer, songwriter and guitarist.

A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens' recording career lasted only eight months. During this time, however, he scored several hits, most notably "La Bamba", which was originally a Mexican folk song that Valens transformed with a rock rhythm and beat that became a hit in 1958, making Valens a pioneer of the Spanish-speaking rock and roll movement.

On February 3, 1959, on what has become known as The Day the Music Died, Valens was killed in a small-plane crash in Iowa, a tragedy that also claimed the lives of fellow musicians Buddy Holly and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. Valens was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Ritchie Valens was born in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, on May 13, 1941. His parents were Joseph Steven Valenzuela and Concepcion Reyes. Brought up hearing traditional Mexican mariachi music, as well as flamenco guitar, R&B and jump blues, he expressed an interest in making music of his own by the age of 5. He was encouraged by his father to take up guitar and trumpet, and later taught himself the drums. One day, a neighbor came across Ritchie trying to play a guitar that had only two strings. He re-strung the instrument, and taught Ritchie the fingerings of some chords. While Ritchie was left-handed, he was so eager to learn the guitar that he mastered the traditionally right-handed version of the instrument.^{[citation needed]} Valens had attended Pacoima Junior High School (now Pacoima Middle School). By the time he was attending junior high school, his proficiency on the guitar was such that he brought the instrument to school and would sing and play songs to his friends on the bleachers.^{[citation needed]}