A Companion to Los Angeles

A Companion to Los Angeles is a unique study of America’s second largest city and the first Companion devoted to a single metropolis. The volume consists of 25 essays, each an original contribution by a writer or scholar, which collectively assess the best and most important work to date on the complex history of Los Angeles. The structure of the Companion allows readers to view the emergence of long–term patterns within the history of Los Angeles. Instead of organizing the essays around discrete, time–specific events, the editors focus on critical themes and broad topics including demography, social unrest, politics, popular culture, architecture, and urban studies which span generations and disciplines. Three photographic portfolios, along with the “contemporary voice” essays that conclude each section, complement the historiographic chapters and provide a truly multidimensional view of the city. Together, the contributions constitute a lively and informed introduction to a history as fascinating as it is complex. The Companion will be an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and a general readership eager to situate the history of greater Los Angeles within a larger body of metropolitan studies and the history of the United States itself.

List of Plates vii Notes on Contributors x Introduction xv William Deverell and Greg Hise Part I The Long History of a Global City 1 1 The Border Crossed US 2 Matt Gainer 2 Born Global: From Pueblo to Statehood 20 Louise Pubols 3 Race, Place, and Ethnicity in the Progressive Era 40 Stephanie Lewthwaite 4 Between “White Spot” and “World City”: Racial Integration and the Roots of Multiculturalism 56 Scott Kurashige 5 Contemporary Voice: Where You From? 72 Susan Straight Part II Social Flashpoints 93 6 Social Flashpoints 95 Eric Avila 7 The Anti–Chinese Massacre of 1871 and Its Strange Career 110 Victor Jew 8 Disposable People, Expendable Neighborhoods 129 George J. Sanchez 9 Gridlock of Rage: The Watts and Rodney King Riots 147 Scott Saul 10 Contemporary Voice: Here, Now, I 168 Angela Oh Part III Politics and Economies 175 11 Ab Urbe Condita: Regional Regimes since 13,000 Before Present 177 Philip J. Ethington 12 Crown Jewels: Infrastructure and Growth 216 Steven P. Erie and Scott MacKenzie 13 Consolidation, Fragmentation, and New Fiscal Federalism 233 Tom Hogen–Esch 14 Contemporary Voice: Contradictions, Coalitions, and Common Ground 250 Manuel Pastor Part IV Cultures and Communities 267 15 Cultures and Communities 269 Leo Braudy 16 “A Most Advantageous Spot on the Map”: Promotion and Popular Culture 289 Anthea Hartig 17 Tijuana and the Borders of Race 313 Josh Kun 18 Counterculture 327 Dave McBride 19 Cinema and the Making of a Modern City 346 Edward Dimendberg 20 Contemporary Voice: Looking for God in the City of Angels 366 Matt Gainer Part V Landscapes and Place 391 21 Situating Stories: What Has Been Said About Landscape and the Built Environment 393 Greg Hise 22 America’s Playground: Recreation and Race 421 Lawrence Culver 23 Landscapes of Health and Rejuvenation 438 David Sloane 24 Excerpts from the San Gabriel River Series 461 Robbert Flick 25 Contemporary Voice: Thickets of Diversity, Swaths of Emptyness 479 Christopher Hawthorne Index 494

William Deverell is Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Director of the Huntington–USC Institute on California and the West. He is a historian of the nineteenth– and twentieth–century American West. His recent publications include A Companion to California History (co–editor, Wiley–Blackwell, 2008), Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past (2004), and A Companion to the American West (editor, Wiley–Blackwell, 2004). He has also co–edited Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles (2005), Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s (2001), and The West in the History of the Nation (2000). Greg Hise is Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He studies the economies, architecture, and planning of United States cities. He is the author of Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth–Century Metropolis (1997), co–author of Eden by Design: The 1930 Olmsted–Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles Region (2000), and co–editor of Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles (2005), and Rethinking Los Angeles (1996).

“Every Los Angeles–based history, political science, and ethnic or urban studies instructor has been waiting for this anthology. …The book’s overarching aims serve to revisit and reenvision L.A.’s early history and prehistory, uncover long–term patterns obscured by earlier episodic treatments, and influence the shaping of the city’s future.”  ( Western Historical Quarterly , 2012) "Overall, this is a fascinating fractured account of various time periods, events, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and urban sprawl in a city that has become synonymous with the American Dream." ( Philosophy & Religion , November 2010)