Antonio Miranda Rodriguez: The Filipino Who Helped Found Los Angeles On September 4, 1781, forty-four settlers walked nine miles down a dusty trail toward a river in Alta California and founded El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles — the city the world would come to know as Los Angeles. Among those chosen to make that walk was a Filipino man named Antonio Miranda Rodriguez. His name is not on the founding plaque. This is why — and why it matters.