Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past
- ISBN-10
- 0520932536
- ISBN-13
- 9780520932531
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 349
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2004-06-03
- Publisher
- Univ of California Press
- Author
- William F. Deverell
Description
Chronicling the rise of Los Angeles through shifting ideas of race and ethnicity, William Deverell offers a unique perspective on how the city grew and changed. Whitewashed Adobe considers six different developments in the history of the city—including the cementing of the Los Angeles River, the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1924, and the evolution of America's largest brickyard in the 1920s. In an absorbing narrative supported by a number of previously unpublished period photographs, Deverell shows how a city that was once part of Mexico itself came of age through appropriating—and even obliterating—the region's connections to Mexican places and people. Deverell portrays Los Angeles during the 1850s as a city seething with racial enmity due to the recent war with Mexico. He explains how, within a generation, the city's business interests, looking for a commercially viable way to establish urban identity, borrowed Mexican cultural traditions and put on a carnival called La Fiesta de Los Angeles. He analyzes the subtle ways in which ethnicity came to bear on efforts to corral the unpredictable Los Angeles River and shows how the resident Mexican population was put to work fashioning the modern metropolis. He discusses how Los Angeles responded to the nation's last major outbreak of bubonic plague and concludes by considering the Mission Play, a famed drama tied to regional assumptions about history, progress, and ethnicity. Taking all of these elements into consideration, Whitewashed Adobe uncovers an urban identity—and the power structure that fostered it—with far-reaching implications for contemporary Los Angeles.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2005-08-03
- 352 pages
- Paperback
- Univ of California Press
-
- 2004-06-03
- 330 pages
- Paperback
- Univ of California Press
Similar books
-
Fluid Borders: Latino Power, Identity, and Politics in Los Angeles
By Lisa García BedollaJackson, James S., Patricia Gurin, and Shirley J. Hatchett. The 1984 Black Election Study. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1989. Jennings, James, and Monte Rivera. Puerto Rican Politics in ...
-
Before L.A.: Race, Space, and Municipal Power in Los Angeles, 1781-1894
By David Samuel Torres-RouffJohn Rowland and William Workman, who would become prominent landowners and merchants in the city, led the party. Another member, Tennessee-born Benjamin Davis Wilson, had established a trading house on his home state's Indian fiontier ...
-
The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris
By Mark HonigsbaumIn The Pandemic Century, a lively account of scares both infamous and less known, medical historian Mark Honigsbaum combines reportage with the history of science and medical sociology to artfully reconstruct epidemiological mysteries and ...
-
Making a Modern U.S. West
By Sarah DeutschJohnston, “The Myth of the Harmonious City,” 254–56; Wefald, A Voice of Protest, 59; Smith, Rocky Mountain Heartland, 26, 32, 37, 49. See also Keyssar, The Right to Vote; and Jameson, All That Glitters, 187–96. 35.
-
Bohemian Los Angeles: and the Making of Modern Politics
By Daniel HurewitzNote that this emphasis on elites echoes Deverell's approach in Whitewashed Adobe . 5. Wild , Street Meeting , 38 ; Avila , Popular Culture , 20–21 ; Deverell , Whitewashed Adobe , 4 . 6. Laslett , “ Historical Perspectives , ” 55 ...
-
Inventing the Fiesta City: Heritage and Carnival in San Antonio
By Laura Hernández-Ehrisman“Festivals and the Creation of Public Culture: Whose Voice(s)?” In Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture, edited by Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D. Levine, 76– 104. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian ...
-
Frontier Cities: Encounters at the Crossroads of Empire
By Jay Gitlin, Barbara Berglund, Adam ArensonDeverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 188–206. First quotation is from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, October 17, 1958; second is from Samuel Holmes, “An Argument against Mexican Immigration,” Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of ...
-
The Imperial Church: Catholic Founding Fathers and United States Empire
By Katherine D. MoranVroman, A. C., and T. F. Barnes. The Genesis of the Story of Ramona. Los Angeles: Kingley-Barnes & Neuner, 1899. “A Wanderer and His Book, 'The World's Rough Hand': True Stories of a Boy Who Would Not Become a Pastor.
-
Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles
By Sarah Schrank"Art and the City" explores the contentious relationship between civic politics and visual culture in Los Angeles.
-
Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860
By Anne Farrar Hyde12, 1853; McWilliams, Southern California Country, 60; Cleland, Cattle on a Thousand Hills, 90–96; Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 13–18. 46. J. A. Stout, Liberators, 27–31; Faulk, “Colonization Plan for Northern Sonora,” 296–300. 47.