I don't think a lot of Italians migrated there in the wave of Italian immigration in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. I don't think LA had Italian neighborhoods the way NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, or Boston had. That would be my guess.
By way of proximity, the nearest destination for Italian immigrants would have been San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood, which actually predated Ellis Island as a destination for Italian immigrants by some time. Anyway, San Francisco is still a beautiful and very livable city. Los Angeles is a Mexican suburb.
