East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte (Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the United States)

East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte is an edited collection of thirty-one essays that trace the experience of a California community over three centuries, from eighteenth-century Spanish colonization to twenty-first century globalization. Employing traditional historical scholarship, oral history, creative nonfiction and original art, the book provides a radical new history of El Monte and South El Monte, showing how interdisciplinary and community-engaged scholarship can break new ground in public history. East of East tells stories that have been excluded from dominant historical narrativesstories that long survived only in the popular memory of residents, as well as narratives that have been almost completely buried and all but forgotten. Its cast of characters includes white vigilantes, Mexican anarchists, Japanese farmers, labor organizers, civil rights pioneers, and punk rockers, as well as the ordinary and unnamed youth who generated a vibrant local culture at dances and dive bars. Cover 1 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Introduction: Finding Silenced Histories, Lost Intersections, and Radical Possibilities in Greater El Monte/ Romeo Guzmán, Carribean Fragoza, Alex Sayf Cummings, and Ryan Reft 14 Part I. Origins and Departures 28 1. The Tongva People/ Aurelie Roy 30 2. Toypurina: A Legend Etched in the Landscape/ Maria John 38 3. From Alta California to American Statehood: Race, Change, and the Californio Pico Family/ Ryan Reft 50 4. Here Come the El Monte Boys: Vigilante Justice and Lynch Mobs in Nineteenth-Century El Monte/ Karen S. Wilson and Daniel Lynch 62 Part II. Social and Political Movements 70 5. Rise, Fall, Repeat: El Monte’s White Supremacy Movements/ Dan Cady 72 6. Ricardo Flores Magón and the Anarchist Movement in El Monte/ Yesenia Barragan and Mark Bray 81 7. Bitter Fruit: The El Monte Berry Strike of 1933/ Melquiades Fernandez 87 8. Schools for All: The Desegregation Campaign in El Monte/ Rachel Grace Newman 94 9. “City of Achievement”: The Making of the City of South El Monte, 1955–1976/ Nick Juravich 102 10. ¡La Lucha Continua!: Gloria Arellanes and the Women of the Chicano Movement/ Juan Herrera 115 11. Toward a Radical Arts Practice: Theater and Muralism during the Chicano Movement/ Carribean Fragoza 125 12. American Dreams and Immigrant Realities in a South El Monte Shoe Factory/ Adam Goodman 137 13. Dreams of Escape and Belonging: The Making of Asian El Monte since 1965/ Alex Sayf Cummings 148 Part III. Nature and the Built Environment 160 14. Hicks Camp: A Mexican Barrio/ Daniel Morales 162 15. Life at Marrano Beach: The Lost Barrio Beach of Los Angeles/ Daniel Medina 171 16. From Small Farming to Urban Agriculture: El Monte and Subsistence Homesteading/ Ryan Reft 176 17. A Community Erased: Japanese Americans in El Monte and the Greater San Gabriel Valley/ Andre Kobayashi Deckrow 187 18. Whittier Narrows Park: A Story of Water, Power, and Displacement/ David Reid 198 19. Transportational El Monte: From the Red Car to the Freeway/ Ryan Reft 207 20. The Starlite Swap Meet/ Jennifer Renteria 221 Part IV. Popular Culture 230 21. El Monte’s Wild Past: A History of Gay’s Lion Farm/ Michael S. Weller 232 22. Memories of El Monte: Art Laboe’s Charmed Life on the Air/ Jude P. Webre 239 23. El Monte’s Wildweed: Biraciality and the Punk Ethos of the Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce/ Troy Andreas Araiza Kokinis 247 24. Punk and the Seamstress/ Apolonio Morales 255 25. A Gay Bar, Some Familia, and Latina Butch-Femme: Rounding Out the Eastside Circle at El Monte’s Sugar Shack/ Stacy I. Macías 263 26. All the Zumba Ladies: Reclaiming Bodies and Space through Serious Booty Shaking/ Carribean Fragoza 274 Part V. Literary Cartographies 282 27. 1181 Durfee Avenue: 1983 to 1986/ Michael Jaime-Becerra 284 28. Train versus Pedestrian on Valley Boulevard/ Alex Espinoza 289 29 Epiphany Catholic Church/ Toni Margarita Plummer 293 30. Rush Street/ Carribean Fragoza 299 31. Durfee Avenue/ Salvador Plascencia 305 Epilogue: Suburban Cosmopolitanism in the San Gabriel Valley/ Wendy Cheng 310 Acknowledgments 322 Selected Bibliography 326 Notes on Contributors 336 Index 342 "East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte is an edited collection of thirty-one essays that trace the experience of a California community over three centuries. Employing traditional historical scholarship, oral history, and creative nonfiction, it provides a radical new history of El Monte and South El Monte." --Provided by publisher