1984 Ethics Paper
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I
Chapter Four
BETWEEN "WHITE SPOT" AND "WORLD
CITY": RACIAL INTEGRATION AND THE
Roots OF MULTICULTURALISM
Scott Kurashige
In the midst ofWorld War II, Nobel Prize-winning author and social c ritic Pearl Buck was invited to address a grouping of Los Angeles civic leaders on the subject of race relations in a changing world. She used the oppor- tunity to challenge what was almost certainly a predominantly white aud i- ence to address the problem of racism. While the nation 's white m ajority had established its authority over the Americas through conquest and oppression, whites were a small minority in a world populated mostl y by "~?lored peop!es." Hence, with technology advancing _and the world's cmzenry growmg more and more interconnected, white s were forced to choose betwee_n li:,ring as equals "~th people of color or impositng white planetary do?11~~t1on through "military preparation of the most barb aro us and savage kind that threatened "to destroy aU civilization" ( M cW illiams 1944: 272-3).
Global economic and geopolitical d 1 U
eve opments of the evolving American century compe ed the United State fi . relations. Buck argued th h d s to trans orm its conception of race most inlportant part of ou:t sue ~vbelopments rendered California "the
country ecause "the cente f . . country [was] moving westward." "The . r o gravity 111 our already looking toward )'Ou,, 1 . 1
people m our Eastern sta tes a re " th , s le imp ored the Lo An 1 . . as ese great questions arise of h . s ge es c1v1c leaders,
South America." By integratu· 1g diow to deal \VJth the people of Asia and . verse com · · stream society, they could demo muruties of color into main - d ru~ttroth ldth emocracy and human equality Thi e ,~or at America stood for ~hape the world's direction" th~t rs was ul?mately an "opportunity to "Because you in California face i e esen~ed itself but "once in an a::on.,,
b youban1?ng us have the crux in your ~ac1dfic yand Asia," concluded Buck, e a arner - or y an s. ou can b h · fi all ou can be a gateway to , Y w at you decide, or peoples" (ibid.). a new and better world, for u s and
BETWEEN "WH ITE SPO T" AND "WORLD CITY" 57
As exemplified b y Pearl Buck's Town Hall speech w ld w II k d · · I · · ·
1 , or ar mar e
a cntica turmng po111t 111 t 1e paradigm shift toward · I · · · Lo . . rac1a mtegration 111 s Angeles. Dur111g tl1e 1nterwar era the city's booster s cat d ti h"al . . . . , ere t o 1e paroc 1 PreJud1ces of wlute migr ants and residents by ope I d · h" . . n y a vocating w 1te suprema cy and res1den?al . segrega~on. By the 1970s, Los Angeles' elites could be ~0tmd chamr 1on111g multtculturaJism as emblematic of the city's cosmopolitan connection to a globalized economy Whil ak" . . . . e m mg no pre- tense _to capt urmg t11e_ full d 1:'~rs1ty of multi ethnic Los Angele s, this chapter exam111es dem_ogra ph1_c, poht1c al, and ideo logic al shifts tl1at were tied to struggles over mtegratton and precipitated the transformation of t he nation's "white spot" into a global city. Rife witl1 iron ies and contradictions the hi s- tory of integration in Lo s Angeles resists linear portrayals. Nevertheless, it must be kn~\-~11 by those who desire a foll appreciation of how a place that Carey McW1lham s ( 19 73 ) once acknowledged was "an island on tl1e lan d" could become w h at Los Angeles School theorists - viewing Los Angeles as a m o del of "post-Ford ist" urbanism - have called a "worl d city" (Scott and Soja 1996 ). In this regard, it occupies a period of rel ative scholarly neglect b etv,reen the post-1848 origins of the m etropo lis (Fo gelson 1993 ) and the "world city" in its more finished form. Buil ding from Buck's insight that the nation's "ce nter of grav ity" was " mo ving westward," tl1e chapter draws attention to Los Angeles as a key local site to study th e shaping of a regional identit y, reshaping of national identity, and emergence of a globa lized id en- tity. In particular, it foregrounds th e production of mu ltiethnic discourses and communities in Los Angeles that broke with dominant models of " race relat io ns" and thus emphasizes the need to transcend studies of Los Angeles that have ge ne ra lly followed the contours of black/ white narratives of US urban hi story (Sides 2003; Flamming 200 5 ).
Interwar Period: Revisiting the "White Spot" of the Nation
Historians have characteri zed tl1e pre-World War II period of racial segrega- tion as a time w he n Los Angeles defined itself as the nation's "white spot" (Avila 2004; Wild 2 005 ). Dming tl1e populatio n surge and building boom of the 1920 s, co mm ercial and residential developers spurred the decentralization of the city by creati ng 3,200 subd ivisions and 25 0,000 h omes. Emphasi zing the city's Westside as its bourgeois best side, boosters appealed to white mid- dle-class revulsion of the "big city" by trading in idyllic images ofhomogenous suburbs protected from " nuis anc es" like smokestack industries and residential "invasion s" by n o n -whites (Jackson 1985 ; Fogelson 1993 ; Kurashige 20~8) . ~ge-scale developers like Janss Investment Company, best known_ f?r buil?- 111g Westwood established new standards for race and class exclus1V1ty while implementing ~1easures to ensure neigh borh ood sta~ili~ - For inst31:ce, Janss covered its properties with court-validated deed restnct1ons prevent111g them
0 ... ~ ... 0 0.. ., -~ ..c r E £ >,
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in ~ Cl)
.s
~ C: 0 ·c <e z
0 ...
BETWEEN "WHITE SPOT" AN D "WOR L D CIT Y " 59
from being "used or occupied by any person ·who is not of the white or the Caucasian race" (Janss lni 7estmentCompanyv. Walden, 196 Cal. 753 [1925]). These n~o~boos~ers P~;ye_d ~he ,~oleo~ modern-day conquerors. Through their appropnatJon ot_ the mission architectural style, they anointed themselves heirs to the Spamsh past . At the same time, they viewed the hallowed creation of suburban tracts housing thousands of white migrants as the fulfillment of manifest destiny. "For centuries, the Anglo-Sa,xon race has been marching westward," ?cclared the official publication of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce m November 1924. "The apex of this movement is Los Angeles County" (Davis 2000 : 73-4) .
Notwith standing this overt connection to racism, the "white spot" - a pro- growth designation by the national Chamber of Commerce - originally sym- bolized the quest of Los Angeles' conservative civic leaders for an anti-union "open shop" business climate (McWilliams 1973 ). In this sense, it actually worked to spur diversity. Migrants of color from many points, including Mexico, Asia, and the Ame1ican South, were drawn to the city in part because capitalists welcomed them as accomplices in their drive to keep the ranks of labor divided. But tl1ere were strict limits to tl1e mobility provided by condi- tions of "industrial freedom" drning tl1e interwar period. Man y retailers and entertainment venues kept their workforces and accommodations segregated, as did some public facilities like S\\~mming pools. Furthermore , separate and unequal schools, if not by formal decree, were maintained through the ger- rymandering o f enrollment boundaries. And with emplo yers coveting immi- grants and people of color mainly because their low social status rendered them pliable labor , white skilled tradesmen continued to control the city's relatively high -paying jobs . Worse yet, white leaders from the capitalist and working class united in their opportunistic scapegoating of racial others. Spurred by depictions of Japanese immigrants as a "Yellow Peril," they called for exclusionar y measures at the local, state , and national levels with their efforts culminating in the near total ban on Asian immigration provisioned by the federal 1924 Immigration Act. As the economic woes of the Depression set in, white agitators demanded the repatriation of Mexican and Filipino immigrants and gladly sent their American-born children packing with them (de Graafl970· Model! 1977; Sanche z 1993 ).
Although no;1-white residents were clearly co1~fin~d t~ the ma~gins of tl1e city's labor and housing markets, to speak ofthe1r h1_stones onl y m_terms of segregation and "ghettoization" is to fail to recogmzc the d,ynam1c nature of community formation in Los Angeles. Robert Fogelson s cur~ charac - terizations of the city's people of color in The Fragmente1 Metropolis ( ~ 99 3 ) typifies such a neglect . Fogelson remark~d : " Explo1~~d economically, separated residentially isolated socially, and ignored polmcally, these peo- ple remained entirely 'outside the Los Angeles community between _1885 and 1930." Mike Davis (1990), by contrast, hi~hlighted th~ c~ntrahty of race in City of Quartz. Still, despite astute allus10ns to the s1gmficance of
SCOTT KURASHIGE
60 . . marily concerned in this , " I ,ethnic" culture, Davis was pn
Los Angeles po ) I ies of power. . work with demystif)~ng tech~o og d tl1e intersecting histones of black
Through my work revolvmg aroun . d our analysis of power and . I h ve sought to exten th and Japanese An1encans, a l1olarl)' push to trace e emer-
. . . . the more recent sc 1 . b hegemony wlule 101mng . . 'th' ti e interstices of the w ute our-
I . th . ommumoes w1 m 1 . As' gence of mu oe rue c I thousands of African Amen cans_, ians, geois city. Before World War I , . tl1e Plaza district, Chmatown, . 'd d ear Downtown m . . and Mexicans res1 e n. d the Central Avenue district. Transient m Little Tokyo, Little Manila, an b edevelopment these were some of
d d"splacement Yr ' character an pron: to I d (Romo 1983; Wild 2005; Espana-Mararn the city's ol~:st ~:irb~r~~~O~} research on racial ideology and public 2006). Nat ia o mad h I places were deployed as a dialectical health has demonstrate ow sue 1 . "h alth ," d
. hi h Los Angeles' overriding reputauon as e ) an other agamst w c · . · · I d "open" could be nurtured. Constructing a white normauve soc1~ an geo- graphical hierarchy, local authorities cast them as congested sites where disease festered and needed to be quarantined. Nevertheless, these urb~n communities, despite this disparagement, were beachh~ads of opportumty for newcomers. For instance, Central Avenue and Little Tokyo offered_ migrant workers low-rent accommodations in a city wi~ clearly mar~ed-oft limits, and they especially served as sites of small busmess formation f~r black and Japanese An1ericans. These enterprises in turn became the basis for accumulating the social and economic capital that would be used to cement the presence of communities of color in the city. Furthermore, Central Avenue and Little Tokyo were not discrete but overlapping com- munities (as were the Plaza district and Chinatown). Both were also home to multiethnic populations and exemplified the social, economic, and cul-- rural traffic that developed between ethnic groups (Kurashige 2008 ).
Although various minority populations had settled in outlying areas (like Pacoima, Sawtelle, and Watts), upwardly mobile homeowners of color now sought out homes in suburban neighborhoods settled by whites. In some cases, they moved into housing uncovered by restrictive covenants while in other cases, they fought to break down restrictions and resisted raci;t viole;1Ce '.111d intimidation. In nearly all instances, however, they formed conmmnities m c~ncert ra~er than isolation from other etlmicities. On tl1e Eastside Mexican Amencans establish d "d · . ' B 1
. e a new res1 enual concentration among Jews in oy e Heights. Many Japanese Am · d . _
I d . 0 th . encans an some African Americans fol-
owe swt. n e Westside black · (al fc d
, pioneers carved out a niche in West Jefferson so re erre to as the "West Side") d . .
as well as smaller clusters of Chine an were Jomed ~y Japa.nes~ immigrants, sought to transgress the dominants:, ~~rean, and Mexican Amencans. As they themselves positioned diffc ti j Ila! order, members of each group found socially accepted as "white~~~n 0, e';~ wer~ tl1e first minority group to be had to find cracks in the segr· e m
11 . ~tsi e neighborhoods like Fairfax. Otl1ers
ga orust armor Whil . . · e generally viewed as socially
BETWEEN "WHITE SPOT" AND " WORLD CITY" 61
non-white, Mexicans gained leverage in the housing k 6 d 1 1 all " . mar et ecause the courts t times deeme t 1em eg, y white" or "Ca • ,, M . a . ' ucas1an. eanwhile cast as
non-white soCially and legally, blacks developed a n1tilt.1"pl' •ry f ' . . . . , . 1c1 o strategies to attack housmg restnctlons. They employed legal camp,,;g b k d b .
k f- · il · I "-' ns ac e y a city-wide net\vor o c1v ng 1ts attorneys orgai1ized colleen· I ti I . . , . . , ' ve y 1roug 1 actJ.VJst homeowners assoc1at1ons, colluded wiili "blockbtisn·11g" al d . re tors, an even resorted to armed resistance on the rare occasion Deni·ed th · h f al . . . , . . , . e ng t o natur - ized Ciazenship b) federal law, Asians were in large measure the easiest to exclude. Nonetheless, some Ja~anese immigrants moved out of Little Tokyo into subur:bai1 areas where Mexicans and blacks had established a footl10ld or where their work as gardeners, servants, or shopkeepers had rendered them relatively amenable to neighboring whites (Bond 1936; Vorspan and Gartner 1970; Kurashige 2008).
The Wartime Roots of Integration
World War II gave rise to multiple forms of integration. First, the wartime mobilization against fascism provided leverage to opponents of racial dis- crimination. Liberal critiques of biological racism, most prominently repre- sented by Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma ( 1944), garnered newfound attention beyond academic circles and fostered a new discourse of integration among policymakers. Second, military service served as a site of integration for thou sands from Los Angeles' diverse ethnic communities. Though most fought within segregated units, they would return to assert bolder claims to the rights of US citizenship . Third, the Southern California home front was especially remade during the war. Because the region was considered a strategic site for defense production, Los Angeles was quickly integrated into the national economy. Billions of dollars in federal contracts poured into the region during tl1e war, transforming an "immature" econ - omy into a warhorse housin g over a half-million industrial jobs (Kidner and Neff 1945 ). Fourth, the resulting conditions of"overemployment" created tile prospects for non -white residents to be integrated into the primary labor market and thus emplo y industrial employment to achieve economic and social stability just as so man y European immigrant~ had done. ~he process of racial int egr ation , howe ver, would prove to be highly cont~ad1ctory ..
Deftly negotiating discourses of race, nation, and \~~, ~can Amencan organizers especially applied grassroots pressure for civil nghts. Un~er tl1e duress of A. Philip Randolph's call for a national Marc~ on Washington against American racism President Franklin D. Roosevelt 111 tl1e summer of 1941 issued Executive Order 8802 prohibiting discrimination by defe_nse contractors and prompting tl1e creation of the Fair Employment ~racnc~s Committee to monitor compliance. Black leaders in Los ~ngeles seized this h" · · th "N V t y" movement 1st0nc moment of opportunity by launchmg e egro ic or ·
scoTT i-uRASH!GE
62 .. A . ,0·cans insisted the state . · African me ' . • tle of high parnot1sI11, tl ea-ort b)r elimmatmg all • · roe man · erve 1e war Ill
Clamungod tl cir passionate desire to s t Placing demands on local, nun ate 1 1 d mploymen . a~co_ . barriers to war-re ate e d I all war workers must have
discnn1ll1arory . . tl . r asserte t 1at d . d federal inst1tut1ons, lC) . 1d public accommo attons state, an . rransportanon, ai d fi
ess to housing, educat1on, . 1 al ,, ,ar-related plants soare ·om ace ck 1 ,ment IJ1 oc k gardless of race. Bia · emp
0? 1
H b to •hifn., t11ousand wor ers by re . . t Pear ar or u 1 •; . . . next to oomin~ at th~ tJm_e o . n tl1at doubled tl1e city's African_ Amencan 1943, stimulatIJ1g an m-migrat1do 1976. Smiili 1978; Kurash1ge 2008). . d . me war (An erson , b d b 1 populat1on urmg . _ f I e emanating from a ove an e ow In roe end, me combined efkMcts Wo _cll:ang ( 1949. 3--4) while "race-baiting"
d A digto c 11ams · , was profoun • ccor n . ,, . r Los ".1geJes politicians could all be "d d d endemic m prewa ru , was "w1 esprea an . . •he 1·dea of fair treatment" after the war. fc d · t least "hp service to u1 oun paying a
I k d • of black struggle in Los Ai1geles also carry
These long-over oo e stones . . I . · · I our conception of African Ai11encan 11story
forward me pronuse to ennc 1 . . . , · · · ·t1 · n1wnra· cial and transpacific context. For example, by s1tuatIJ1g 1t w1 un a . .
critiquing a recently published black/white narrative of Los Ai1gcles h1st~ry, Gerald Horne (2005) has argued for more nuanced analyse~ demonsu:atmg how me "Race War" in tl1e Pacific impacted tl1e status of African Amencans. In my own work, I have stressed how the ability of black leaders to assert meir right to belong to America was bolstered by the nation's intense con- centration on winning a "total war" against a "Jap" enemy - one so racial- ized and dehumanized mat me call for Japanese Ainerican internment became an extension of me war itself. Mayor Fletcher Bowron argued that the "Japanese problem" was centered in Los Angeles, home to the largest con- centration of emnic Japanese in me continental US. Leading a chorus of local ~oliticians and ci,~c leaders, Bowron - a liberal Republican who had established a reputation as a civil libertarian -warned that Los Ai1geles would be me_ site "of a "second Pearl Harbor" facilitated by Japanese Americans harbonng a ~ecret lo~alty to me Japanese Emperor" (Kurashige 2008: 119-20). Yet 1f transnat1onal polit1"cs hard d 'al d ' • • . . , enc rac1 1v1s1ons m th1s way we can also see tile war as opening " ' . fr up a new cartography of possibilities" ema- ~~~lla~t; 'avc~fiat~drew ~d-Jhone~ ~~ Nikhil Pal Singh (2003) have dubbed
1 c. .1.0 avo1 umiliat1ng •he • , IJ. - · • • Japan's ra u, nation s n1>1an allies and fuelmg ce war propaganda C b policies as it sought to· t ' ;:.ngress cg~ to reorder domestic racial ence. In. turn, black l:d:~: ~:11 peoples _mto America's sphere of influ- American concerns into .L • d Angeles mcorporated Asian and Asian . u1err agen a by sup • c .
tlon ofilie Chinese ExcJus·io A d portmg, ,or example, the aboli- n ctan India' I c •
For Mexican Americans m . . s srrugg e ,or mdependence . mobilization proved to be ; d e bt 1~'mg effects of the anti-Japanese drive for national unity pro ·d dou e-edged sword. On the one hand the
. v1 e new grou d c , to gam employment and m 'al n s 10r some Mexican Americans m e soc1 acceptan f 1 .
e removal of me city's d · d ce O w 11tes. On the other hand esp1se Japanese c . ,
ommumty made pachucos the
IlETWEEN "WHITE S POT" AND "WO R LD C ITY " 63
prima~·y local target ~f racialized hostilit) 1• Two subsequent wartime events, exposmg tl_1e harsh cl_imate of racism and the second-degree citizenship sta- t~s of _Mexican Americans, would come to occup y a centra l place in Chicano h1sto~10grap!1y._ In Janua~y 1~43, seventeen Mexican American youths were convtCted of cnmes rangmg from assault to first-degree murder in the welJ- publi~ized Sleepy La?oo _n c~se. The jury was swayed by the prosecution's emouonal _ appeal h1ghhgh _t111g the defendants' supposed savage racial essence . Five months later, nots erupted in Los Angeles as white sailors went on a five-da y rampage attacking "zoot suiters, " most o f whom w ere Mexicans but some o f whom were African Amer icans and Filipinos . Th at the rioting sailors were joined by hundreds of civilians and spurred on by the tacit approval of local authorities highlights a third aspect of parochial white nationalism. While the state integrated non-whites into the military and the primary labor market to defend national security , the prospe ct of the war- time paradigm sh ift in race relations bringing about economic advancement, political empowerment, and cultural freedom for African Americans, Mexicans, and Asians made man y whites feel less secur e (Acuna 1983; Pagan 2003 ). Most whites would only accept the integration of mino rities who knew their proper place in a world governed by white hegemony.
Social Democracy and Multiracial Integration
The crises and struggles ofWorld War II gave rise to a battle over integration that continu ed into the postw ar era. In the wartime rise of industrial employ- ment , social democrat s saw an opportu nity for tens of thousands of non- white worker s to achieve pol itical empowerment and obtain econom ic security . Bolstered by the new proletarian base of workers of color and the inter vent ioni st policies introduced du ring the war, social dem o crats like California Eagle publ isher Charlotta A. Bass advanc ed a working-class agenda that linked the fight against discrimination to the fight for un.ioniza- tion, foll employment , and welfare state provisions . The y worked wiili whit e labor activists - some of whom were Communist Parr y members or allies - to recruit workers of color into the Congress oflndustrial Organizations ( CIO ), which the y deplo yed as a vehicle to give collective voice to the str uggles of diverse communities. Historians researching this aspect of the city' s social movement legacy have contributed to a broader effort by US historians to recover the breakthroughs and missed opportunities arising from the strug- gles revolving around Popular Front Americanism and civil righ~s unioni sm during the 1940s and 1950s (Sides 2003 ; Dowd Hall 2005 ; Sm1th 2006).
What distinguished such activism in Los Angeles from th_at gen~rally found outside of the West Coast, howe ver, was a const ant emphasi s that 1mple~1ent- ing a social democratic agenda necessitated new steps :ow:ird no: ~nerdy _m:er- racialism ("black and white unite and fight" ) but mulnraaal coalitJ.on-building
scoTT KURASH!GE
64 d fr n a slew of recent studies to chez 2004). Charlotta Bass_ has emerge 1~1 olitics in Los Angeles, ,~th
(San . fi · the history of race a1 P Flamnung become a pivotal gure _m . 'bl, documentary source ( see esp .. h
r:ft le serving as an mdispens1 e c. m· u'st and a radical was no er r,,tg I ck · eer a proto-1en , . .
2005). While her We as a b a. pion , b (alongside Carey McW1lliams) eakin Bass ma)' have also een . . F . doubt grmmdbr g, f ultiracial coalit10ns. or exam-. 'd rnn. r advocate o m . b I ·
the most persistent nu -cen.-, ti NAACP to expa11d its mem ers up pie, in the mid-1940~, she c~ed on . 1e and white members ( tl1ough appar-
scope by re~ruiting Asian, Je,;:, 1~~~~:~1e a staru1ch leftist, who praised the ently not with n~uch resul:). d her olitical commitment to the global fight Chinese revoluoon an~ exte
nd e pf ulo'racial ru1ity could be found among
. . 'ali Still proponents o m . . agamst 1mpen sm. '
1 k •ry i'ncluding t11e nationalist onented
I din trata of tl1e b ac · commuru , all the ea gs_ d civil ri hts lawyer Loren Miller, who revamped the Los Angeles T11bu!1e an . g 1munism Furthem1ore a new generation FA /e in 1951 while rcnouncmg con · ' . fu filli of tian and Mexican Americans emerged from the war comnu~ed to I . _ng
• · d 'bili'o'es as US citizens but transcending subm1ss1ve their nghts an respons1 . . . .
f · .:r · N" e· Hisa)'e Yamamoto was lured by the Ti ibune m a forms o assmwanon. 1s 1 . deliberate attempt to bridge ethnic boundaries. It was her s~ort ston~s o_f the earl , postwar era t11at not only conveyed the deep psychological scars mfhcted upjn t11e Japanese American community ~y internn~ent, but also dem~nst~a~ed empathy for the different forms of suffenng expenenced by other mmom~cs . And Mexican Americai1 political pioneer Edward Roybal, whose 1949 elect1on to the city council was catapulted by the Community Service Organization's grassroots mobilization of Eastside Mexican Americans, actively courted and was embraced by Afiican Americans, Japanese Americans, and whites . A rival campaign was moved in response to decry Roybal for running "on that unifica- tion of minorities claptrap" (Burt 1996; Kurashige 2008)
These new initiatives toward multiracial organizing that were centered on a working-class agenda strived to overcome divergent experiences rooted in ilie era of segregation. Mexican and Asian immigrants, marginalized from the American political process, had relied on their homeland consu- lates to address_ their conc~rns, and African American leaders had generally promoted survival strategies that emphasized self-help Moreover while Geor~e Sanchez. (1993) has demonstrated how Depre~sion-era Mexican Amencans established an oppositional culture through CIO · · 1 · criti al · f actJVIsm, t 11s ~ . negation ° the contradiction between assimilation and persistent
~I / 1 ty J0~~ not be generalized to other communities of color. Most
ac ~ d tan workers had fow1d themselves in sectors that were unorgaruze or controlled b , th . tory Am . F d . ) e conservative and flagrantly discrimina-
encan e eration of Labor. . T?e events of ilie war thus o en d . . . .
coalition-building. The windfall ! fa e up_ unprece~ented possibilities for of African American work 'th ctory Jobs provided the growing body
. . ers WI a deep stak . th C . . iliem within ilie ongoingorgaruz· f . e 1_n e IO, tlms suuaung
mg O white, Jewish, and Mexican American
BETWEEN "WHITE SPOT" AND "w 1 ORLD CITY" 65
progressives. All of thes~ ~orces joined to support the Sleepy Lagoon defendants.' and some Nisei even sent monetary contributions from the
Man zanar mternment center. The 1945 release ofJapan Am · · . , ese encan mtern- ees at first sternly resisted by many white civic leaders became a th b · , . . . . . , no er as1s for advan~~ 1g multiracial so~idanty. ~eeing opportunity in a potential crisis, man)' activist~, focused tl1eir attenti _on on Little Tokyo. During the war, .African American entrepreneurs anxious for opportunities rechristened the neighborhoo_d Bronzeville and were joined by black migrants desperate for housing. While the mayor warned that the return ofJapanese to black -occu- pied Little Toky? woul~ provoke race riots, Ebony magazine characterized the subsequent 111teract1on between the two groups as "a miracle in race relations ." From "the mixture of chitterlings and sukiyaki, or jive and Japanese," it declared, a "heartfelt kinship has grown between two minori- ties, both victims of race hate." As it did throughout tl1e city, however, tl1e reality of interethnic relations in Little Tokyo / Bronzeville fell somewhere between the dire warnings of violent clashes and the celebratory portrayals of solidarity. While working to minimize interethnic tensions, activists helped to create a nascent culture of multiracial coalition-building . But altl1ough general forms of sympathy could be found crossing color lines, the activists could not the foster the greater political awareness or organizing necessary to overcome the forces of opposition and division (Kurashige 2008) .
The Cold War Limits of Integration
Ultimately, the social democratic movement for integration fell apart during the postwar era, superseded by a watered down vision of integration stress- ing racial tolerance and formal equalit y without structural reform. To be sure, Cold War foreign policy concerns compelled American political leaders to address some of the nation's most glaring racial contradictions as the United States sought to portray itself as the leade~ of 0e "Free ":7orl~" (Dudziak 2000). Directly impacting patterns of res1dent1al segregation m Los Angeles, the Supreme Court struck down stat: enforcement of racially restrictive covenants in 1948 - six years before ruling on Brown v. B~ard of Education. But while the state abandoned formal endorsement of racist ~ol- icies, no level of government implemented aggressive ~easur_es _to bnng about racial equality . Furthermore, the pressure ~f o~eratmg Witllm a con- servative political climate reflecting anti-commumst dt~tat~s tore _apart coa- litions witllin and between labor and civil rights orgam zations (Sides 20?3; Sanchez 2004) . Overall, integration came ro_represent an accommodation rather than a challenge to tlle political and racial s~atus quo. Once they were resigned to the fact tllat old methods of segregation were outmo~ed, most
h . · · · d d oderate and conservative forms w tte busmess and civic leaders a vocate 111 • • . • • f . · t1 · ·1 ti' of mm on ties mto mamstream 0 tntegration that emphasized 1e ass1m1 a on
scoTT t..:URASHIGE
66 Although the rise of the . h gh gradual and voluntary stepks. vast postwar economic
sooety t rou ,, 1 lped spar a . « u·..,rv-industrial complex 1e k rs of color saw job ppportu m- m i.-} . b m many wor e M I · 1 . n and populaoon oo , . structuring. eanw u e, a
expans10 f rwar economic re b tics evaporate in the face o po~
1 1 ·eved upward mobility and ecame
f white profess1ona s ac u . . small class o non- . . 1 as accommodauomsm. . the poster child for mtegraooi . . 1 eholds could now aspire to the
I dful f m111onty 1ous d The fact that a 1an ° d c. 1 .t ·s however was oversha owed . al . 1 , reserve ior w 11 e , , - . suburban ide preVJous ) . d a "111ore insidious,, form of J nn
lifi · Eanle chasase as bv what the Ca i orma v . d ,,~thin subdjvisions, schools, and 1 'al flicts agam erupte . •
Crow. Sharp rac1 . con . fr d bout a new round of "111vas1ons" by workplaces as whi~e res~den;
0 t;: e:panding ghetto and barrio. S~eking
black and brown m~1ab~ ro onents of urban redevelopment pro~11sed to to quell such f~ars, hbe P. P" 1 ms" and building modern public hous -1 the city by removmg s u · . ~ can up_ th d · tegrationist discourse had promoted non-white mg While e mo erate m f " 1 . . al th d I sub1'ects of integration, boosters o sum profession s as e mo e . . • f
al,, · c. d the sti'gmatization of mner-c1ty populanons o color as remov rem1orce · . a social problem to state their case. The may?ral-appomted_ Los Angeles Committee for Home Front Unity warned middle-class wh1t~s that poor people of color entered t_heir "homes daily as servants, rep,~1rmen [ a~d] tradesmen," attended their "schools, clubs, [and] churches, and comm- gled \\~th them on "packed, overcrowded buses, streetcars and other means of public transportation." Framed by contrasting pictures of new suburban homes and dilapidated wooden shacks, its pamphlet boldly declared:
We Live Here You Live There BUT CONTAGIOUS AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE TRAVELS WITH US
The upshot of such fear-driven campaigns was to spur support in the name of u_rban renewal for the destruction of entire neighborhoods like Chavez RaVJne and Bunker Hill, which were home to heavy concentrations of peo- ple_ of color. But under~ined br conservative attacks, thousands of promised ~ts of modern publ_1c_ housmg never materialized, and urban renewal mstead s~rved _to subsidize the projects of the city's elites (Parson 2005 ). Meanwhile with the state b 'di . b . h . . ' ti . su si zmg oth the mfrastructure and the ousmg m ou ymg areas • . metr li al . ' ~egregaaon and mequality emerged on a wider
opo tan sc e. Enc Avila (2004) I d . . Califo · I d . las trace the pnnc1pal role southern
rrua Paye m the productio f I . suburbanization to a al f
11 ? a cu rural discourse linking posn var . renew o wlutenes Wh . .
flight" and" I s. ereas discourses of "w hite sum removal" had clear! k
as "problems," whites who fi d ~mar edblackandbrowncommunities central city did not need to earthe . e race and class tensions within the
get e1r hand di · renewal. They could instead h s rty 111 the battles over urban
op on th e new freeways, literally trampling
BETWEEN "WHITE sro ·1·" AND "\V ' OR LJ) CI TY" 67
Over !ow-income and non-white neighborhoods 011 ti • . . . 1
• , 1e1r way to pristine subdivisions where w 11te homogeneity could again be naturalized and the
l·nnocent allure of the suburban ideal could be reclai·med Th 1 . . e popu anons Of the San Fernando Valley and Orange Com 1ty ,.,h· h c. d . . - .. 1c 1oun respective fame as the birthplaces of Leave it to Beaver and Disne yland _ _
I .1 . . l'k L k grew expo nentially, w 11 e cmes 1 _e a ewood (in southeastern Los Angeles county ) sprung ~p almo st overmght . All owed almost the entirety of their existence co creation of new homes that were to be reserved for whites through overt means when possible and covert means when necessary.
From Integration to Multiculturalism
When US hlstorians look back at the post war era, the hardening of race and class divisions overshadows the fracture d pursuit of racial integration. In one sense, the failure of integration in Los Angeles conforms to national patterns outlined by scholars researching \.vhat Thomas Sugrue ( 1996 ) has called " tl1e origins of the urban crisis." Suburban whites repudiated even the modest steps toward integration represented by fair employment and housing laws. Trus became most strikingly evident when the predominantly whlte elector- ate passed Proposition 14 by a landslide in 1964, tlllls making an overt attempt to nullif) 1 California's recentl y instituted Rum ford Fair Hous ing Law. Correspondingly , black and brown po verty and frustration became concentrated in inner-city neighbo rhood s crippled by th e loss of factory work. While the condition of poverty was not novel for these communities , what heightened was the sense that tl1e race/ class inequality gap was widen- ing. Despite the blood, sweat, and tears that brought abo ut integratiorust policies during the ci~l rights movement, such refor ms stood seemingl y little chance of remed ying this problem. Witl1 the burden of maintaining physical and social djstance between the residents of the new white suburbs and the now expansi ve ghett oes falling on the shou lders of the Los Angeles Police Department, rampant police abuse added fuel to the fires th at would expl~de during the Watts Rebelli on in 1965 (Horne 1995 ). Because the rebellion exposed the inabilit y of wh ite politicians to govern the increasingl y non- white city, a new wave of minori ty politicians subsequentl y took offi_ce. Most struggled to find effective solutions to tl1e problems (poverty, cnme, low educational attainment) t11ey inherited , let alo~e th e ne:" on~s that emerged (tl1e war on drug s, heightened gang violence, mterethruc _ sm~e).
In another sens e however the stor y of racial inte graao n 111 Los Angeles defies the " urban crisis" narr;tive by complicating ou r understa?din? of the relationship between race, politics, and urbanism. Most urb an ~1s:oncal c~se studies have accepte d th e basic conclusion of the Kerner Co~n:11ss1on, which report ed in 1968 tllat "o ur nation is moving toward two soc 1e~es, ~ne b!ac~, one white _ separate and un eq ual." Thus_, tl_1ey have worke ? pnmanly Within a national and bipol ar framework whose hm1ts become readily appar ent when
scoTT KURASH!GE
68 . d rransnational dynamics that
k ens c of the multictluuc an . •s li"teraturc dwells on the
ks to ma e s tl urban cnsi . one see d Lo Angeles. Whereas ~e . al and black labor, tracmg the rransformle rras diction between white capdit tanding of how Asian capital · rractab e con • an un ers 1 . m. . f the world cicy also requir~ Lo Angeles. While Los Ange es did ongins o . ted mto s d f · and Mexican labor were i~tegra racial equality, it took a vantage o Its
·ercise a full commitment to Id" tllat Pearl Buck presented. not ex " , t a new wor
ortuniro to be a gate,va} 0 . . . "better" world.) What resulted opp · 1 d to wluch 1t is a th th (One can debate the egree . ul . cial diversity and a sense at e . If . essof1tsm nra I b was a ci"-' with a se -awaren th p "fie positioned Los Ange es to e a
•1 • • al I "ft t vard e ac1 . nation's gravitanon s 11 0 ' 1. am·sm This qualified embrace of f An ·can cosmopo tt . . definitive center o 1en . h na ranoing from extensive trade
. fleeted m p enome o· . . multicultural1sm was _re Afri American mayor and the routme hir- with Asia to the elecoon of(lan ) Mc~·can immigrant gardeners to maintain ing of (first) Japanese and ater exi th ·d lli h m of suburban tracts. e 1 Y c c ar ffi . 1973 Tom Bradley serves as the archetypal Taking the mayor's o cc m , . .
. · · fr ·ntegrationism to a multicultural paradigm that figure m the trans1non om 1 . . • 1 b • fused notions of affirmative action, etlmic ~nde, and . economic go ah-
. Al h h h as part of a string of African Amencan mayors elected zaoon. t oug e w . . . in the wake of the rebellions, Bradley was a product of mtegrauom~m rather than black nationalism. His own career as a Los Angeles PD lieutenant turned cicy councilman had been built upon alliances with whites . But his multicultural sensibility emerged from his experience living and working an1ong the city's diverse ethnic residents. Crenshaw, which served as his personal and political base, lay at the heart of the postwar struggle by minor- ity professionals to integrate the Westside. More than biracial, Crenshaw was a multiethnic district comprised of African Americans, Asians, whites, and Latinos. As mayor, Bradley would consciously strive to have his admin- istration reflect this multiethnic diversity. Moreover, Bradley and other civic leaders ~hifted a,~~y from the assimilationist tendencies of integrationism by celebranng ethruc,ty, partly in the belief that nurturing minority leadership and some form of community control oflocal institutions were necessary to mana~e race ~elations_post-W~tts (Payne 1986; Kurashige 2008). ~I~ mult:1culturahsm was m this regard a reaction to the failures of inte-
granorughsm, Bradley's version of multiculturalism as economic growth strat- egy sou t above all to build ili . dunn· th . . . upon e transnational connections established
g e mtegrat:1orust era As Christina Kl . had generated a new form ~f "Cold W
O e_m (2?03:, has _argued, the _ US
conceptions of empi~e p d th ar nentalism as liberal Amencan .. romote e breakin d f . . .
ences and prioritized the · t . g own o putative racial differ- . m egrat1on of Asians · th .
of influence. Reversing ilie . . mto eAmencan global sphere ili . narrow nanonalism d . J tili" f e war, political and business I d . an ant1-apanese hos ty o goodwill with Japan as that _ea ebrs m Los Angeles prioritized trade and alli In nat1on ecam f . es. ilie·eyes of some Am . . e one O Amenca's key Cold War
encan elites As· Am . 1 . . , tan encans became a "mode
llETWEEN "WHIT E SPOT" AND " WORLD C ITY" 69
minority," not only because exaggerated narratives of ti • If d d I
· 1 1e1r se -ma e success were deploye to 1eig 11:en t:he sen~e that Mexican and African Americans were a problem, but also because their perceived 1·nteg ti. d ti . . . , . . . ra on ma e 1em sym- bols of 1:1ans-Pac1fic hai mony. Bradley s vision of Los ,\. 1 " d . . . n.nge es as a crossroa s city" funct1onmg as a nexus for global commerce ptished I · ·t1 As" " . re anons w1 1 1a to a new level. It was sometl1mg tl1at was J·ust so clear to me th t I
• d · ,, ti . . a never quesnone it, le new ?1a~or recalled tlunking at tl1e outset of his first term, "the development o_f this city as a gateway to tl1e Pacific Rim" (Erie 2004: 91-2 !" At the same tln:e Bradley's Los A11geles welcomed foreign investment, the city also opened its arms to new waves of high-skilled and low-skilled immigrant labor spurred by both tl1e 1965 Immigration Act and a rise in undocumented immigration . The expansion of service industries t11e reemer- gence of tl1~ garment in~us~·y, and the rise of light manufacturin~ were pred- icated heaV1ly on tl1e availability oflow-wage workers through a transnational labor market that engulfed Mexico, Central America, and parts of Asia.
Conclusion
Although the movement for integration in Los Angeles failed to achieve any form of racial equality, it did establish new levels of racial tolerance and opportunitie s for non-white settlement that augured the demographic diversity of a once predominantly white city. In turn, the multicultural era gave license to the city's diverse residents and newcomers to flaunt their ethnic identit y and culture . For instance, it became easy to access authen- tic food repre senting diverse nationalities, and students in Los Angeles' public schools could be found speaking more than eighty different lan- guages. But the neo -liberal vision of multicultural boosterism failed to bring about equality and for the most part never intended to. Indeed, Los Angeles has become more polarized since the dawn of the Bradley era. Moreover, the revolutionary 1960s idealism of what Laura Pulido (2006) has called the "Third World Left" was overtaken by concerns about intcrethnic conflict. When the city erupted again in 1992, it was clear that multiethnic tensions were now part of the impetus for rebellion . And yet, new attempts to build multiracial solidarity through labor, community, and student organizing persist. . .
Good historical scholarship can help us to see beyond the essenuahzed accounts of "cultural clashes" that uninformed observers default to when attempting to analyze interetlrnic relations they do not u~1derstand. !t c~n also provide a sober reality check for those whose concepaon of mult1~a~1al solidarity exists primarily as a philosophical ideal rather than a poliacal movement . We need to understand that the problems and prospects we face today arc part of an ongoing quest for justice and harmony in the long history of a global city.
~
---------~~T~T~i,:~·U~R~A~S~H~l~G:_E ___________ _ sco 70
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