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Liberalizing belonging: race, service, and the making of the postindustrial San Fernando Valley

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Liberalizing belonging: race, service, and the making of the postindustrial San Fernando Valley

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Content LIBERALIZING BELONGING: RACE, SERVICE, AND THE MAKING OF THE
POSTINDUSTRIAL SAN FERNANDO VALLEY
By
Julia Brown-Bernstein
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)
May 2024
Copyright 2024 Julia Brown-Bernstein

ii
To my moms, Alison Bernstein and Prue Brown, who fought for our family to belong, and
dedicated their lives to fostering belonging for all.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’ve often thought that the first assignment for graduate students in any Ph.D. program
should be to write their “Acknowledgements” section. That way, they could start to imagine and
account for the immense amount of gratitude they would soon accumulate. They would project
years into the future the day when they would finish their dissertation and feel, as I do now, a
profound appreciation for every individual who helped them along the way.
There are countless people to whom I extend my heartfelt thanks. But there can be only one
way to begin, which is with my co-chairs, Bill Deverell and George Sánchez. My beloved “scholar
fathers.” From the outset, Bill and George offered all the encouragement and support I could have
ever hoped to receive in graduate mentorship.
Walking alongside Bill over the past six years, whether exploring the Murie Ranch in the
Tetons National Park, strolling through the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, or attending
conferences at the Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, has been a masterclass in the art
of relationship-building and historical thinking. Thanks to Bill and the exceptional team at the
Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW), Elizabeth Logan and Jessica Kim, this
New Yorker has become a scholar of the U.S. West. Bill, your boundless enthusiasm and incisive
scholarly perspectives have been a guiding light for us all, whether here in Los Angeles or over there,
where the moose roam. Your contributions have enriched our community immeasurably and I am
deeply grateful for your kindness, encouragement, and keen observations over the years.
A vivid memory from the past six years remains etched in my mind: George and I are sitting
in his car, parked outside the school where I taught for six years. It was near the end of the school
day, and students were leaving the building in their uniforms and face masks, a reminder of the
ongoing pandemic. I was deep in qualifying exam preparation, but George insisted on bearing

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witness to the place that had sparked my dissertation project. So there we sat, on Kagel Canyon
Street in Lakeview Terrace, for a full hour, because this is how George mentors—not merely by
reading your work, but by immersing himself in your world. For this, I can only offer my most
sincere thanks. George, thank you for reminding me of the significance of it all, and for instilling in
me the confidence to pursue this profession. Your unwavering support and belief in me have revised
my own internal monologue and allowed me to envision possibilities beyond my imagination. This
dissertation stands as a testament to our countless conversations, but above all, to your unmatched
intellectual generosity.
This project first began in the summer of 2012 when Dr. Manuel Ponce Jr. hired me as 8th
grade U.S. History teacher at Lakeview Charter Academy in Lakeview Terrace. Little did I know
then the immense impact this experience would have on my life. Working alongside brilliant
colleagues and friends, including Michelle Hofmann-Amaya, Ninette Carlos, Amy Ramirez, Gladys
Nuñez, Dean Mucetti, Melissa Serio, Mkunde Mtenga, Sarah Seinfeld, and Claudio Estrada, I found
my own sense of belonging in Los Angeles. They generously shared their love for and experiences
growing up in the San Fernando Valley, nurturing my connection to the region. Their dedication to
our students, their families, and our community in the northeast San Fernando Valley serves as a
daily inspiration.
Above all, I want to thank every student whom I had the privilege of teaching at Lakeview
Charter Academy between 2012 and 2018. More than any archival source I have encountered, my
former students and their families provided invaluable insights into the history and culture of the
east San Fernando Valley, enriching my understanding of the region’s evolution over the past halfcentury. I am immensely thankful for the opportunity to have taught over 800 students who not
only possess unparalleled expertise about the region but who also served as my guides into its
intricacies and complexities.

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The idea that germinated during my years in the classroom would never have cohered into
this project had it not been for the mentorship I received while a graduate student in the Van
Hunnick Department of History at the University of Southern California. During my first semester
in the program, I had the great fortune of taking Peter Mancall’s course on Early America. From
there grew a mentorship and a friendship that has sustained me at every stage of this degree. I am
appreciative that Peter took me on as his research assistant, despite my insistence that I would
remain a 20th century historian. This experience not only helped me hone my methodological chops,
but most importantly, nurtured a broader understanding of U.S. history—the continuities and
ruptures, and especially the contingencies, of the past. I am grateful for the countless hours Peter
and I have shared over coffee at the Huntington. He brightened my days with his humor, levity, and
advice, and instilled in me the confidence that got me to this point.
Similarly, my journey wouldn't have been possible without Alice Echols. Since the beginning,
Alice has been a kindred spirit. Her remarkable intellect, scholarly intuition, and passion for
historical research has served as an inspiration these last six years. I am thankful for the myriad ways
Alice has mentored me, from entrusting me with her orchids and books during the pandemic to
collaborating with and supporting me as a TA at the height of the quarantine. Alice’s endlessly clever
wit and generosity have made even the hardest days of this program better.
Each member of my committee has graciously offered me a unique perspective into the
workings of history, and I am forever indebted to Sarah Gualtieri, Natalia Molina, and Alice
Baumgartner for nurturing my growth these last years. It was in Sarah’s 700-course that my inchoate
ideas for this project began to take shape into a coherent narrative. Yet, more than anything, I want
to thank Sarah for modeling integrity, courage, and conviction in this profession. During several
crucial junctures, Sarah encouraged me to reaffirm my personal and academic commitments, and for
that I am eternally grateful. In addition to being an intellectual inspiration, Natalia Molina played a

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pivotal role in cultivating a supportive community of women scholars at USC. This community
provided me with the inspiration to undertake this work. I am thankful for Natalia's invaluable
feedback, encouragement, and innovative ideas that she shared through our conversations and her
participation in the Levan Institute “Documenting the Undocumented” Reading Group. I am
grateful for Alice Baumgartner, whose brilliance is matched only by her kindness and humility.
Throughout the years, Alice has consistently gone above and beyond sharing resources, ideas, and
historical perspectives. She exemplifies the qualities of attentive listening, thoughtful reflection, and
inquiry.
My research has been generously supported by the History Department in the Dana and
David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, as well as by the Haynes Foundation. A
Haynes Lindley Doctoral Fellowship provided me with the time and resources necessary to conduct
ethnographic research with retirees from the UAW Local 645, relationships that form the
foundation of the arguments and evidence presented in this project. I am grateful for the
comprehensive training, institutional support, and financial assistance I received as a Ph.D. Fellow in
the USC-Mellon Humanities in a Digital World program. In particular, I would like to express my
gratitude to Peter Mancall, Amy Braden, Will Cowan, Sean Fraga, Andy Rutkowski, Will Young, and
Grace Franklin for cultivating a supportive community and for enlightening me on the power of
digital analysis. I am thankful to this team for providing me with one of the most memorable
experiences of my graduate studies—an unforgettable three-day workshop at the USC Wrigley
Marine Science Center on Santa Catalina Island. This trip not only brought me closer to my personal
and professional aspirations but also introduced me to Laura Nelson, who has since become a close
friend and confidante in all matters related to academia.
When I embarked on this program in the fall of 2018, I could never have imagined the
connections I would forge with my fellow graduate students. However, fate intervened when I met

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Laura Dominguez before the first day of classes on a coffee date that blossomed into countless
others and a friendship that has been a source of comfort and inspiration over the past six years.
Laura possesses the rare combination of brilliance, warmth, and humility, for which I am grateful. I
am also indebted to John Miller for his laughter and for modeling joy beyond the confines of
academia. Tahi Hicks deserves special recognition for navigating this program with poise, empathy,
and kindness. Additionally, I extend thanks to Andrew Hernández, Lauren Kelley, and Abby Gibson
for their enduring enthusiasm and collegiality. Gary Stein, as a fellow New Yorker, has been my
friend through it all—always just a text away when I needed him most. I am thankful that in Gary I
could openly disclose all my fears, frustrations, and triumphs, knowing that they would always be
met with empathy, and perhaps a margarita. Rachel Klein has proved to be a fiercely loyal friend.
Her steadfast commitment to advancing her activist work while navigating the intricacies of the
Ph.D. program is unparalleled. Above all, I am grateful for Rachel’s compassionate heart.
Cathleen Calderón, Kathy Pulupa, and Daisy Herrera have created a nurturing intellectual
community. Their insights into the San Fernando Valley have been an invaluable asset, one for
which I am very grateful. I appreciate our collaborative efforts in showcasing the SFV's intricate
history at scholarly conferences, reaching audiences from Los Angeles to Baltimore. Cathy and
Kathy have been dear friends since the fall of 2019 and I simply cannot imagine reaching this
milestone without their support.
A heartfelt thanks goes to Joan Flores Villalobos, Nayan Shah, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo,
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Becky Nicolaides, and Steve Ross, each of whom has left an indelible mark
on my graduate journey. Their unique contributions, from guiding me through the publication of my
first article, to teaching undergraduates, to imparting invaluable skills for archival research and the
academic job market, have been instrumental in shaping my doctoral experience. I am grateful for
Karen Halttunen, an exemplary scholar and educator. In the spring of 2020 and 2021, I had the

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privilege of witnessing Karen conclude her formal teaching career with grace, remarkable skill, and
empathy. Serving as her Teaching Assistant at the height of the pandemic, I observed firsthand how
she navigated the challenges of remote learning, showcasing the transformative power of
undergraduate education.
I reserve my final thanks for my friends and family, who have stood by me through all of
life’s transitions and triumphs. To Deborah Kahn, Judy Miller, Carol Stoel, and Terry McGovern,
thank you for grounding me in my roots. Linda and Barrie, you are not just my ‘West Coast’ family
but champions of social justice. To Leah Garza, Arianna Price, and Sarah Horne, thank you for
reminding me of our shared mission as educators. Alix Davidson, Hannah Ahern, and Julia Garro,
you have been there through thick and thin, and I am endlessly grateful for your enduring
friendship. Britini Frey, your daily presence and unconditional support have meant the world to me.
Thank you for your companionship and for being the keeper of all my secrets. Michelle HofmannAmaya, your teaching prowess is unmatched, your intellect awe-inspiring, and your friendship
unparalleled. Thank you to Dean Mucetti, who first showed me the Valley “in all its glory,” and who
inspired this project in ways no words can adequately express. I extend my deepest thanks to my
husband, Roberto Casanueva, who entered this project en media res, offering invaluable support
precisely when it was most needed. Roberto, you have been the steady presence shepherding me
through the challenges and joys of this endeavor. I am grateful for your encouragement during
moments of intense focus and your reassuring words during times of uncertainty. The best parts of
this dissertation reflect the security and strength of your love, and for that, I am so very thankful to
you.
Throughout my doctoral journey, my twin sister Emma has been by my side, offering
unwavering support, humor, and inspiration through her work as a public defender. In my last year,
she and her husband Brent brought joy into my life with the arrival of my beloved nephew, Jack. My

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step-father Paul's wisdom taught me to find light in every corner of the world. My mother, Prue
Brown, deserves infinite gratitude. She has been my rock, tirelessly reading and refining my work,
celebrating successes, and offering boundless support and understanding. She is the epitome of
thoughtfulness, generosity, and an exceptional listener, and I will be thankful for the rest of my days
that she is my mom. Lastly, to my late mother, Alison Bernstein, the finest historian I’ve ever
known. Mom, though you were not here when I embarked on this journey, your exuberant presence
has guided me every step of the way. Your spirit is woven into the fabric of this dissertation and
accompanies me in every stride I take. This is for you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………………ii
Acknowledgements……………………………. ……………………………………………….. iii
List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………...xi
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………..xiii
Prologue………………………………………………………………………………………….xiv
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1
Chapter One: Suburban Underdogs……………………………………………………………….37
Chapter Two: The Cost of Sanctuary……………………………………………………………...74
Chapter Three: Plazamaking……………………………………………………………………..120
Chapter Four: Building Depotland……………………………………………………………….163
Chapter Five: Price Pfister Workers Pfight Pfree Trade………………………………………….207
Conclusion: Belonging in the (818)………………………………………………………………268
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..277

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Map of Arleta…………………………………………………………………………….3
Figure 2: Photo of Arleta residents protesting
the removal of ZIP code 91332…………………………………………………………..4
Figure 3: Aerial View of Panorama City with
the General Motors Auto Plant…………………………………………………………16
Figure 4: Map of the San Fernando Valley Communities………………………………………….21
Figure 5: Vintage Postcard of Van Nuys Boulevard……………………………………………….45
Figure 6: Subdivision Map of Van Nuys, ca. 1956…………………………………………………46
Figure 7: Los Angeles Times clipping of the opening of
the pool in North Pacoima……………………………………………………………...52
Figure 8: Teenage folk-dancers at the Valley Cities
Jewish Community Center………………………………………………………………57
Figure 9: Cruising Van Nuys Boulevard…………………………………………………………...64
Figure 10: Teenage Cruisers at Gas Station………………………………………………………..65
Figure 11: Letter from Thomas Begley to Councilman
Marvin Braude…………………………………………………………………………97
Figure 12: Political Cartoon sent to Councilman Mike Woo……………………………………...100
Figure 13: Pro-Sanctuary Postcard……………………………………………………………….110
Figure 14: “Swap Meet” Movie poster…………………………………………………………...125
Figure 15: Newspaper Clipping of Neighbors fighting Swap
Meet plan……………………………………………………………………………..135
Figure 16: Shoppers at the San Fernando Swap Meet…………………………………………….145
Figure 17: Baby in Stroller at the San Fernando Swap Meet……………………………………...153
Figure 18- Protestors march down Maclay Avenue to
protest redevelopment plans…………………………………………………………160
Figure 19-Map of the damaged building sites after
1992 Uprising……………………………………………………………………………………182

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Figure 20: Map of the proposed Revitalization Zones after
1992 Uprising…………………………………………………………………………183
Figure 21: Photo of the GM Van Nuys Auto Plant
Memory Book………………………………………………………………………...189
Figure 22: Photo of workers lined up to see the last
Camaro roll off the Assembly line…………………………………………………….189
Figure 23: Memory book photo of the Soft Trim Department
at General Motors Van Nuys…………………………………………………………190
Figure 24: “The White Elephant”………………………………………………………………...194
Figure 25: The demolished GM Auto Plant……………………………………………………....199
Figure 26: “The Plant” ………………………………………………………………....................201
Figure 27: Councilman Everett Burkhalter opens
Paxton street extension……………………………………………………………….214
Figure 28: Willie Robinson at Price Pfister plant in Pacoima……………………………………..216
Figure 29: Ada and Willie Robinson upon arriving in Los

Angeles…………………………………………………………………………………………..217
Figure 30: Price Pfister employees sign petition………………………………………………….236
Figure 31: Google map depicting marching route
around Price Pfister…………………………………………………………………..244
Figure 32: Laid off Price Pfister worker, Vladimiro Garcia
protesting the closure of the plant……………………………………………………251
Figure 33: Conceptual Rendering of Plaza Pacoima……………………………………………...266
Figure 34: HOODsister member, Meztli Icue Papalotl
receives a hug from her daughter……………………………………………………..270
Figure 35: Mural of Toypurina in Pacoima……………………………………………………….270
Figure 36: Valley Village Community Identification Signs………………………………………..275
Figure 37: Plaza del Valle in Panorama City……………………………………………………...276

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ABSTRACT
“Liberalizing Belonging: Race, Service, and the Making of the Postindustrial San Fernando
Valley,” recounts how residents of California’s east San Fernando Valley redefined and asserted
belonging in the face of late twentieth-century economic restructuring. Between the early 1970s and
the 2010s, the east San Fernando Valley transitioned from being a hub of the postwar industrial
economy to an epicenter of the region’s low-wage service economy. The era’s neoliberal economic
reforms led long-standing manufacturing firms to relocate while non-unionized retail and service
businesses flourished in the urbanizing suburban landscape. This economic shift coincided with a
demographic transformation, wherein what was once a predominantly white, middle-class suburb
evolved into a multiracial, primarily Latinx immigrant, and working-class community. Amidst this
shifting political economy, residents grappled with the realities of a transformed community and the
waning influence of the state in facilitating a sense of inclusion and civic membership.
While highlighting the inequalities of late global capitalism—especially how they are
mediated through ideologies of race, class, gender—this dissertation demonstrates that a profound
shift occurred over the latter twentieth century, marked by an understanding of belonging that
transcended restrictive boundaries such as nationality or citizenship. “Liberalizing belonging”
implies a movement away from relying on the state to adjudicate civic membership and instead
emphasizes individual claims of inclusion. Much like the era’s oft-discussed “trade liberalization,”
this dissertation contends that the latter twentieth century oversaw the reduction and removal of
barriers to belonging, a phenomenon that generated a range of responses among residents living in a
rapidly diversifying nation.

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PROLOGUE
On September 1st, 2016, Amanda Miranda, an eighth-grade student at Lakeview Charter
Academy wrote a poem entitled, “I’m From.”1 Amanda was a student in my U.S. history class during
the 2016-2017 school year and her poem was part of a larger assignment that invited students to
critically engage with the multifaceted meanings of identity and community. It encouraged them to
ponder what shapes our sense of self and belonging—where are we “from”?2 By the fall of 2016,
these inquiries had taken on significant political implications for many of my students in California’s
San Fernando Valley. The 2016 Presidential election, marked by a highly contentious and polarizing
rivalry between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton,
once again witnessed political leaders weaponize these questions, particularly towards the nation’s
immigrant population. Where one was “from,” implicitly linked to their national or ethno-racial
identity, reemerged as a rhetorical tool to swiftly and prejudicially determine who “belonged” in the
United States, and conversely, who did not.
In the twelve months leading up to this moment, students like Amanda confronted racial
nativism in presidential campaigns and through hyper-partisan media channels. She and her
classmates arrived at our classroom that fall with considerable disdain for politicians who
categorically degraded people based on their skin color, language, or place of birth. They reserved
little tolerance for those who claimed the authority to determine who belonged and who didn’t. For
Amanda and her peers, belonging transcended national boundaries and border walls. It was not
1 From 2012 to 2018, I worked at Lakeview Charter Academy in Lakeview Terrace, California. One of fourteen schools
in the Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC) public charter school organization, Lakeview Charter Academy is a coed 6-8 school founded in 2004. For demographic data See https://www.puclca.org/apps/pages/student-demographics 2 This assignment was based on the Kentucky Poet Laureate, George Ella Lyon’s original poem, “Where I am From”
published in 1993.“Where I am From” poem has spawned a cottage industry among K-12 educators, and become a
cornerstone of community and culturally response pedagogy. See http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html for
Lyon’s website. See also how Dr. Roberto Gonzales of Harvard University has used the “Where I am From” in his
graduate courses to support undocumented students. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/06/features-robertogonzales

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bound by formalized notions of citizenship or state recognition, but was instead rooted in their
everyday experiences and contributions within their families and communities. Amanda evocatively
captured this sentiment in her poem: “I’m From sweat dripping down my forehead in a feeble
attempt to cool down from the harsh glare of the sun on the days I accompany my mom to the
maze of tents in the swap meet.”3 For Amanda, belonging was forged through her service to family
and within the vibrant community at the swap meet. It stemmed from the sweat of her brow as she
navigated the labyrinth of puestos at the San Fernando Swap Meet with her mom.
Amanda’s expression of belonging exemplifies a broader process that I explore in this
dissertation—a process I term “liberalizing belonging.” I propose that a significant shift occurred
over the latter twentieth century, defined by an understanding of belonging that transcends
restrictive boundaries such as nationality or citizenship. “Liberalizing belonging” implies a
movement away from relying on the state to adjudicate civic membership and instead emphasizes
individual claims of inclusion. In this dissertation, I argue that between the early 1970s and the
2010s, the concept of belonging liberalized from the nation-state, and especially from formal
citizenship. Much like the era’s oft-discussed “trade liberalization,” I contend that the latter
twentieth century oversaw the reduction and removal of barriers to belonging, a phenomenon that
generated a range of responses among residents living in a rapidly diversifying nation. In the pages
that follow, I seek to demonstrate how this process unfolded in one region of the U.S.-Mexican
Borderlands: the east San Fernando Valley. The shift that I chronicle in this dissertation, I believe, is
essential to understanding late twentieth U.S. history and its reverberations in the present day.
Above all, it enhances our ability to envision a more inclusive, adaptable, and democratic society
beyond the boundaries that currently define our divisions.
3 Amanda Miranda, “I’m From,” September 1, 2016, “Where I’m From Poetry Archive.” Julia Brown-Bernstein personal
collection.

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INTRODUCTION
“Once they took the ZIP code away, the community lost its identity.”4 Sam Arellano, a
resident of Arleta, a three-square-mile neighborhood nestled in the northeast corner of the San
Fernando Valley, uttered these words in November 1987. For thirty years, residents of Arleta, like
Sam Arellano, waged a determined struggle for independence from the neighboring community of
Pacoima—a battle famously fought over the retention of a ZIP code.5 The grassroots movement to
reclaim Arleta’s postal code began in the early 1960s when the construction of the Golden State
Freeway, Interstate-5, physically separated Arleta from Pacoima. Like dozens of other Los Angeles
neighborhoods bisected by newly constructed freeways in the postwar period, the northeast San
Fernando Valley also saw its neighborhoods sliced by layers of asphalt.6 Subsequently, Arleta
developed a distinct residential character, marked by single-family track homes, a very active
Neighborhood Watch program, and clearly delineated spatial boundaries.7 From 1962 to 1968,
Arleta residents displayed a “strong cohesive community spirit” by advocating for community
identification signs and urging local establishments, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, to
prominently identify their location as “Arleta.”8
4 Jerrianne Hayslett, “Looking Back-Arleta Paved Way For West Hills,” Daily News of Los Angeles, November 8, 1987. 5 For the first few years since its inception, the Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s Association dedicated
attention to community identification projects, including installing City of Arleta signs, encouraging local businesses to
promote their Arleta location, lobbying state officials to support their aims, and advocating that the Postal Service
preserve Arleta’s separate entity. See, The Guide to the Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s Association
Collection, Special Collections & Archives, California State University, Northridge, Northridge, CA.
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8736spg/entire_text/
6 Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2004).
7 Carmen Ramos, “Arleta to Dedicate Sign, Reaffirm Identity,” Daily News of Los Angeles, September 30, 1993. 8 Sallie K. Harris to D.C. Royer, letter, 3 August 1975, box 11, folder 22, Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s
Association Collection, Special Collections and Archives, California State University, Northridge; Sallie K. Harris to
Senator Alan Robbins, letter, 28 March 1977, box 11, folder 22, Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s
Association Collection, Special Collections and Archives, California State University, Northridge.

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The civil dispute erupted in 1968, however, when the postal service revoked Arleta’s 91332
ZIP code and merged it with Pacoima’s 91331.9 At the time, Nancy Avery, the first Black
postmistress to head a first-class post office in Pacoima, was tasked with implementing a federal
cost-saving measure that required districts below a certain population level to combine ZIP codes
with larger, neighboring communities.10 Thus, Arleta, with a population of only 30,000 people,
merged with the larger neighborhood to its north, Pacoima. From that day forward, Arleta residents
embarked on a thirty-year campaign to reinstate Arleta’s distinct postal code, a militant effort driven
by the desire to preserve the community’s “identity and pride.”11 “When they took away our ZIP
code they dumped on us. They stole it. They robbed from us. The ZIP code is part of a
community’s identity. Go tell the people in Beverly Hills that they’re not 90210,” decried Harley
Smith, a member of the Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Residents Association.12 Harley Smith’s
incensed remarks buried a critique of how suburban residents, like those from Arleta, were made to
feel inferior compared to the more urbane and affluent residents of Los Angeles.
9 Patrick Vincent to Senator Barbara Boxer, letter, 12 February 1994, box 11, folder 17, Arleta Chamber of Commerce
and Resident’s Association Collection, Special Collections and Archives, California State University, Northridge.
10 “Avery, was First Black Postmaster in Urban Area,” Daily News of Los Angeles, February 8, 1992; Hayslett, “Looking
Back”; David Rutherford, “First Black Postmaster Recalls the Obstacles,” Daily News of Los Angeles, 2 March 1988, box
10, folder 20, Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s Association Collection, California State University,
Northridge. 11 See Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s Association Collection “Subseries 7: ZIP code Reinstatement
Project, 1963, 1974-2000, Boxes 10-11, Special Collections and Archives, California State University, Northridge. 12 Rocky Jaramillo Rushing, “Years Zip By, Arleta Fights On,” Daily News of Los Angeles, May 23, 1994.

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Figure 1: Map of Arleta and Pacoima, n.d. box 10, folder 20, Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s
Association Collection, Special Collections and Archives, California State University, Northridge.
In addition to the belief that a unique ZIP code bolstered Arleta’s community identity and
civic pride, residents expressed concern that having Pacoima’s 91331 appended to their mail
diminished prospects for commerce and home sales, and led to higher insurance rates. By contrast
to Pacoima, which, as a predominantly non-white community, was stigmatized for crime, gang
violence, and drug dealing, Arleta, just a highway underpass away, maintained its postwar suburban
allure. Arleta epitomized the quintessential commuter suburb that helped establish the San Fernando
Valley as “America’s Suburb.”13 Describing Arleta’s serene atmosphere Jose Bonilla, President of the
Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Residents Association exclaimed, “It’s a place where you can buy
a house, raise a family and know who your neighbors are. You can walk at night and talk to your
neighbors. And it’s a place where mom-and-pop businesses can start up and survive.”14 With allies
13 Kevin Roderick, The San Fernando Valley: America’s Suburb (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times Books, 2001), ii. Writing of
the San Fernando Valley, Roderick states, “The San Fernando Valley serves, in fact, as the nation’s favorite symbol of
suburbia run rampant. It is the butt of jokes for its profligate sprawl, kooky architecture, unhip telephone area code and
home grown porno industry, as well as for a mythical tribe of nasal-toned, IQ-challenged teenage girls who like to shop.
And yet, the Valley only became a suburb fairly late in its history, and whether it qualifies for that label anymore is
arguable.” 14 Carmen Ramos Chandler, “Arleta to Dedicate Sign, Reaffirm Identity,” Daily News of Los Angeles, September 30, 1993.

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like Congresswoman Bobbi Fiedler, notorious for her vehement opposition to busing in Los
Angeles, the movement to reinstate the Arleta ZIP code was unmistakably marred by racial
undertones.15 Mrs. Avery faced racialized verbal attacks, and any formal association with Pacoima
was considered a serious liability.
Figure 2: Photo of Arleta residents protesting the removal of zip code 91332 and merging it
with Pacoima’s 91331. Photograph by David Sprague for the Los Angeles Daily News, June 6, 1994.
After several decades lobbying the Postal Service, the ZIP code conflict escalated to
unprecedented levels in the early 1990s.16 Mocking Arleta’s war for independence, Rocky Jaramillo
15 In a letter to Arleta residents and to members of the Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s Association, Bobbi
Fiedler wrote “please be assured that everything possible will be done to assist your community obtain its own
designation.” Bobbi Fiedler to Mrs. Lenore Harris, letter 14 April 1981, box 10, folder 15, Arleta Chamber of Commerce
and Resident’s Association Collection, Special Collections and Archives, California State University, Northridge. 16 The chronology of the ZIP Code reinstatement project went as follows: 1991, a petition dive involving over 500 hours
of volunteer time to collect over 5,000 signatures led to a 1993 meeting among representatives of the Arleta Chamber of
Commerce and Resident’s Association and Stacia Carne, the Post Office’s Consumer Affairs Department. As a result of
that meeting, in 1994, the Local Post Service Manager in Van Nuys recommended that Arleta get back its ZIP code.
However, despite efforts to lobby federal representatives including Senators Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and
Representative Howard Berman, the Association learned that the Postal Service Headquarters in Washington D.C.
turned down the local post office’s recommendation. The Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s Association

- 5 -
Rushing of the Daily News wrote that “since [the ZIP code conflict began], seven different presidents
have resided in the White House, 26 Super Bowls have been played, the Berlin Wall has tumbled and
the Cold War has thawed. But Arleta’s fight with the U.S. Postal Service is unresolved and hotter
than ever.”17 In 1991, Arleta residents gathered 5,400 signatures in protest of the U.S. Postal
Service’s continued refusal to reinstate Arleta’s 91332 ZIP code, their most ardent salvo to date.18 In
1993, they commenced a boycott by discarding all computer-generated “Pacoima 91331” mail. And
in 1994, after yet another rejection from the Postal Service, they held a demonstration at the Van
Nuys Postal Service headquarters and kicked-off a “return-to-sender” campaign to swell postal
boxes and overwhelm personnel.19 Despite these efforts, which persisted until the turn of the
twenty-first century, Arleta residents never succeeded in their campaign to reclaim the 91332 postal
code.20 Arleta remains officially linked to Pacoima, with the 91331 ZIP code appearing on all
addressed mail. For residents like John Maxon, the unofficial Mayor of Arleta, and Former Chamber
of Commerce and Residents Association President, who had devoted over 23 years to the cause, the
rejection was a crushing defeat but would not diminish his unwavering resolve: “How do [you]
explain passion? Why are you passionate over a woman? You just are. Why do you hang on to
something for 23 years? I’ll hang on to this for another 23 years.”21
then launched a protest, a “write your Senators and Congressman” program, and a return-to-sender campaign. Still, the
Postal Office in D.C. turned down the Associations’ appeal effort. See “Arleta’s ZIP Code Project Report,” n.d., box
11, folder 11, Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s Association Collection, Special Collections and Archives,
California State University, Northridge. 17 Rushing, “Years Zip By.”
18 Susan Byrnes, “Signatures Collected in ZIP Code Drive,” Los Angeles Times, November 23, 1993; Mike Comeaux,
“Petition for ZIP Code Gets 5,400,” Daily News of Los Angeles, November 23, 1993; 19 Geoffrey Mohan, “Boycott of ‘Pacoima’ Addressers Is Urged,” Los Angeles Times, December 30, 1993; Geoffrey
Mohan, “Residents May Get Old ZIP Code Back,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1994; Miguel Bustillo, “Residents to
Protest ZIP Code Rejection,” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1994 20 The campaign continued until 1999.
21 Rushing, “Years ZIP By”

- 6 -
*
Spanning the last three decades of the twentieth century, the Arleta ZIP code struggle
epitomizes the central inquiry and historical backdrop of this dissertation. How did residents of the
east San Fernando Valley establish a sense of belonging amidst late-twentieth century neoliberal
restructuring? At first glance, the Arleta ZIP code campaign resembles the suburban conservative
populism that flourished under Mayor Sam Yorty in Los Angeles and that propelled the political
realignment of the late-twentieth century—the collapse of the New Deal Order and the ascent of
the Neoliberal Order.22 Within the history of the San Fernando Valley, the event stands alongside
the suburb’s infamous opposition to school desegregation, its support of Proposition 13, its slowgrowth movement that famously catalyzed the passage of the 1986 Proposition U, and its decadeslong campaign to secede from the City of Los Angeles.23 Scholars like Mike Davis have cited these
actions as the wellspring of the late-twentieth century’s “homeowners’ revolt,” which not only
22 For more on San Fernando Valley or Homeowners’ Populism see: Bill Boyarsky, “The Voice of San Fernando Valley
Populism,” Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1990; Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles (Los Angeles:
Verso, 1990). On the Neoliberal Era, see Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the
Free Market Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022). In this dissertation, I draw heavily from Gerstle’s
conceptualization of the Neoliberal Order. Of political orders, he writes that “the phrase ‘political order’ is meant to
connote a constellation of ideologies, policies, and constituencies that shape American politics in ways that endure
beyond the two-, four-, and six-year election cycles.” Gerstle encapsulates the Neoliberal Order as one “grounded in the
belief that market forces had to be liberated from government regulatory controls that were stymieing growth,
innovation and freedom. The architects set out in the 1980s and 1990s to dismantle everything that the New Deal order
had built across its forty-year span.” For more on this era in Los Angeles history see, among other monographs, Mike
Davis and Jon Wiener, Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties (Los Angeles: Verso, 2020). 23 On desegregation in Los Angeles, specifically the role of Bustop Inc, see, Sara Smith, “For the Wrong Reasons: Los
Angeles Jews and Busing” in Jewish Identities in the American West: Relational Perspectives, ed. Ellen Eisenberg (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2022) 255-289; Clarence Y. H. Lo Small Property versus Big Government: Social Origins of the
Property Tax Revolt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Herbert S. Sosa, “Fragmented Diversity: School
Desegregation, Student Activism, and Busing in Los Angeles 1963-1982” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2013). On
the San Fernando Valley secession movement see, Jean-Paul R. de Guzman, “Resisting Camelot: Race and Resistance to
the San Fernando Valley Secession Movement,” California History 93, no. 3 (2016), 28-51; Michan Andrew Connor,
“These Communities Have the Most to Gain from Valley Cityhood: Color-Blind Rhetoric of Urban Secession in Los
Angeles, 1996-2002,” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 1 (2014 ) 48-63; Michan Andrew Connor, “Public Benefits from
Public Choice: Producing Decentralization in Metropolitan Los Angeles 1954-1973,” Journal of Urban History 39, no. 1
(2013) 79-100; Raphael J. Sonenshein and Tom Hogen-Esch “Bringing the State (Government) Back In: Home Rule and
the Politics of Secession in Los Angeles and New York City,” Urban Affairs Review 41, no. 4 (2006) 467-491; Tom
Hogen-Esch and Martín Saíz “An Anatomy of Failure: Why the San Fernando Valley failed to Secede.” California Policy
Issues Annual 4 no. 39-66 (2001) 39-66.

- 7 -
legitimized Governor, and later President, Reagan’s free-market fundamentalism, but also
contributed to a national tilt toward the right.24
Yet the struggle transcends a caricatured homeowners’ campaign or taxpayers’ insurgency
aimed at resisting Big government and preserving the racially white, suburban identity of a small
neighborhood in the Northeast San Fernando Valley.
25 Arleta was not just a monolithic white
community of sclerotic homeowners; it also had a pronounced Chicano presence, with long-term
Mexican American homeowners, and was home to many Eastern-European descended Jewish
families with leftist politics, some of whom engaged in the ZIP code reinstatement campaign.
Additionally, like the rest of the Northeast San Fernando Valley, Arleta was diversifying due to an
influx of Latin American migrants with varying citizenship statuses. By the early 1990s, amidst the
heightened fervor of the ZIP code reinstatement campaign, Arleta’s demographics closely mirrored
the rest of the northeast San Fernando Valley, which had seen the greatest jumps in ethnic diversity
during the 1980s than any other region of Los Angeles county.
26
24 See Mike Davis writes of this as the “Homegrown Revolution.” See Davis, City of Quartz, 153-219. For more on the
late-twentieth century political realignment see Kevin M. Kruse and Julian Zelizer, Faultlines : A History of the United States
since 1974 (New York: Norton, 2019); (Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth
Plan for America (New York: Penguin House, 2017); Meg Jacobs Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of
American Politics in the 1970s (New York: Macmillan, 2016) Robert O. Self, All in the Family: The Realignment of American
Democracy Since the 1960s (New York: Straus and Giroux, 2012); Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade
Against the New Deal (New York: Norton, 2009); Bruce J. Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture,
Society, and Politics (New York: New Press, 2001) 25 Davis, City of Quartz 26 The 1980s was marked by dramatic demographic change in the San Fernando Valley. Between 1980 and 1990, the
number of white residents dropped in 240 of the Valley’s approximately 315 census tracts, a net decrease of 4.5%. White
residents in 1990 represented 58%, down from 75% in 1980. Meanwhile, the percentage of Latinxs rose from 19% in
1980 to roughly 30% in 1990, while Asian and Pacific Islanders nearly tripled to represent 8% of the Valley’s population.
See Richard Lee Colvin, “Anglos Predominate but Majority Status Slipping,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1991. For
more on the Valley’s changing demographics see Joel Kotkin and Erika Ozuna, “The Changing Face of the San
Fernando Valley,” in Beyond Suburbia: The Changing Face of the San Fernando Valley, ed. Kathy Dixon (Los Angeles:
University of California, Los Angeles, 1993); Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, Comprehensive Report
Prepared by Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley in
cooperation with California State Northridge, San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center, Our Future Neighborhoods:
Housing and Urban Villages in the San Fernando Valley, July 2003, https://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/davenportinstitute/content/reports/neighborhoods.pdf

- 8 -
This postal code struggle was not a straightforward Black and white story, nor can it be
simplistically framed as a backlash to the advancements of the Civil Rights era, Black and Brown
power, and the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. I argue that the thirty-year campaign to
reinstate Arleta’s ZIP code reflected a broader series of social dislocations wrought by neoliberal
restructuring.27 One of several community-driven initiatives I examine in this dissertation, the Arleta
postal code struggle illustrates that the Neoliberal Order, beyond its economic policies,
fundamentally reshaped how individuals defined and enacted belonging. What fueled John Maxon
and sustained Arleta residents’ commitment to the struggle to reclaim the 91332 ZIP code cannot be
explained solely as an “possessive investment in whiteness,” as George Lipsitz has termed it, or
unfettered “political whiteness,” as Daniel Martínez Hosang has forcefully observed, although
racialization played an undeniable role in how residents responded to changes in the political
economy after 1973.28 Indeed, the enmity Arleta residents reserved for a neighboring community,
located just a slab of freeway concrete away, was infused not only with racialized animus toward the
“first Black suburb,” but also toward a multiracial community rapidly becoming home to the Valley’s
27 Historians have long debated how to refer to the post-1973 period, with particular division over terms like the
“neoliberal era,” “neoliberal order,” or “neoliberal restructuring.” An imperfect shorthand, I nevertheless employ these
terms to encompass a period spanning Nixon’s resignation in 1973 and Bill Clinton’s second term. Although historian
Nancy Maclean has recently argued that their ideological origins stretch back to the early Cold War when a cadre of
white segregationists—the capitalist radical right—devised a stealthy plan to “undo democratic governance.” For more
on neoliberalism see, among others, Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on
Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003); David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press, 2005);
Lisa Marie Cacho, Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected (New York: New York
University Press, 2012); Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2019); Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2017).
28 George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics Twentieth Anniversary ed.
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2018). In this dissertation, I draw heavily upon Daniel Martínez Hosang’s
conceptualization of “political whiteness,” which he defines as “the process by which some political claims come to be
defined as white… like whiteness in general, political whiteness is a subjectivity that constantly disavows its own
presence and insists on its own innocence. It operates instead as a kind of absent referent, hailing and interpolating
particular subjects through various affective appeals witnessed in claims to protect “our rights,” “our jobs,” “our
homes,” “our kids,” “our streets,” and even “our state” that never mention race but are addressed to racialized subjects
(20-21). See Daniel Martínez Hosang, “Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California,”
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).

- 9 -
largest population of undocumented residents.29 Rather, in a period of budget cuts, privatized social
spending, globalized free-trade, deindustrialization, and the general retreat of the state from civic life,
residents felt more than the need to reclaim a postal code from Pacoima; they sought to reclaim
what that retrieval symbolized: their sense of belonging.30
*
In recent years, historians have increasingly adopted belonging as an interpretive
framework.31 Belonging has become a particularly prevalent analytic within histories of the post1945 period, recounting social change movements to make U.S. citizenship a substantive reality for
all U.S. citizens.32 With the transnational turn in U.S. historiography, belonging has gained
prominence as scholars have explored the ways immigrants forge communities and membership
across national borders, as well as outside the boundaries of formal citizenship.33 Moreover,
29 For more on Pacoima as the “first Black suburb,” see Crystal Jackson, The Entrance: Pacoima’s Story (Los Angeles:
Baitcal Publishing, 2019) and Pacoima Stories: Land of Dreams (Los Angeles, CA, Crystal Jackson Productions in
Association with Bait-Cal Films, 2016). Crystal Jackson’s work at the Pacoima Historical Society has been a huge source
of inspiration and information. For more, see https://www.pacoimahistoricalsociety.org/; Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits:
African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 30 I use these characteristics as hallmarks of the neoliberal political economy. See Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism,
64-86. In this dissertation, I contend that a racial white identity has been at the core of belonging, especially national
belonging, for the long arc of U.S. history. However, neoliberal restructuring disrupted this racially white claim to
belonging, by exposing the waning influence of whiteness, and formal citizenship, as the primary sources of belonging in
U.S. urban society.
31 The notable increase in texts addressing “belonging” has coincided with increased attention to the importance of
belonging within spaces of education. See Adrienne Lu, “Everyone is Talking about ‘Belonging’: What Does it Really
Mean?” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 13, 2023 https://www.chronicle.com/article/everyone-is-talking-aboutbelonging; Beckie Supiano, “How Colleges Can Cultivate Students’ Sense of Belonging,” Chronicle of Higher Education,
April 14, 2018, https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-colleges-can-cultivate-students-sense-of-belonging/ 32 While historians of earlier periods have certainly used belonging as an analytical framework, I have found the
following monographs particularly instructive for conceptualizing belonging in relation to social change movements of
the postwar period: Johanna Fernández, The Young Lords: A Radical History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2020: Mark Brilliant, The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California,
1941-1978 (Oxford, University of Oxford Press, 2010); Roberto O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar
Oakland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 33 See George J. Sánchez, Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2022); Ana Raquel Minian, Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018); Adrián Félix, Specters of Belonging: The Political Life Cycle of Mexican Migrants
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Raymond A. Rocco, Transforming Citizenship: Democracy, Membership and Belonging
in Latino Communities (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2014).

- 10 -
belonging has become a critical lens for understanding how individuals experiencing “statelessness”
have constructed their lives suspended between multiple legal and political regimes.34
Despite, or perhaps because of, its rising popularity and expansive scope, belonging as an
analytical framework has also encountered skepticism within some academic circles. I recently heard
it referred to as “that fuzzy gerund.”35 By contrast to the predominant focus on citizenship, and its
multifaceted dimensions (social, cultural, economic, labor), “belonging” has often been dismissed as
“soft”—an abstract concept and affective register, perceived as immeasurable, intangible, and
elusive. In this dissertation, I aim to ground belonging and study it in a way that challenges this
skepticism, especially its gendered subtext, by demonstrating why belonging is instrumental to
understanding the broad impact of neoliberal policy and ideology on a diverse range of historical
actors. As a conceptual framework, I define belonging as three key things: attachment to place,
connections to others, and a sense of inclusion.36 I offer these three characteristics as signposts to
guide the reader over four decades of history within the East San Fernando Valley and its
transnational reaches. I also present them as a clue to my interdisciplinary method, which relies on
extensive archival research, ethnography, and oral history interviews.37 Finally, I offer this definition
34 Margaret Somers, Genealogies of Citizenship: Markets, Statelessness, and the Right to have Rights (Cambridge: University of
Cambridge Press, 2008); Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham: Duke University
Press, 1999). Several instructive primers on “statelessness” are Mira Spiegelberg, Statelessness: A Modern History
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020); Seyla Benhabib, Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History
from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018); Kelly Staples, Retheorising Statelessness: A
Background Theory of Membership in World Politics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012). 35 A professor at the 2024 Organization of American Historians Conference referred to belonging as “that fuzzy
gerund.”
36 My own understanding of belonging has been informed by a range of literatures, especially from the social sciences.
See Kelly-Ann Allen, Margaret L. Kern, Christopher S. Rozek, Dennis McInerney, George M. Slavich, “Belonging: a
review of conceptual issues, an integrative framework, and directions for future research, Australian Journal of Psychology
73, no. 1(2021) 87-102. In considering belonging as a conceptual framework, I have also found the work of Paolo
Boccagni, and his work on homemaking, especially useful. Writing on the definition of homemaking, Boccagni and
Hondagneu-Sotelo suggest, “Homemaking embraces all the practices whereby people try to make themselves at home in
a certain context, on a variety of scales, given the structure of opportunities accessible to them.” See, among other
works: Paolo Boccagni and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, “Integration and the Struggle to turn space into “our” place:
Homemaking as a way beyond the stalemate of assimilationism vs transnationalism, International Migration 61 (2023) 154-
167; Paolo Boccagni, Migration and the Search for Home (New York: Palgrave, 2017). 37 Please see “Note on Methods and Sources.”

- 11 -
in order to unsettle the primacy of citizenship as the hegemonic unit of analysis in discussions of
post-1965 U.S. society.
The rise of the U.S. nation-state, with its pledge of civil and political rights, enshrined in
formal citizenship, has long shaped conversations of historical inclusion and exclusion. However,
historical narratives reveal that there always existed a spectrum between inclusion and exclusion
within civil society. Historians across a range of subfields—such as Martha Jones, Ian Haney López,
Alejandro de la Fuente, Ariella Gross, Mae Ngai and numerous others, including those specializing
in indigenous history—have extensively documented this continuum throughout the long arc of U.S.
history.38 Their collective body of scholarship demonstrates that citizenship did not a priori equate
to membership nor did non-citizenship inherently signify non-membership in the body politic.39
Free men and women of color, American Indians, Black Americans, women, and immigrants,
among other racialized groups, both performed and fought for citizenship throughout U.S. history.40
They have also built meaningful lives without it and without full access to its guarantees. Moreover,
the expansion of citizenship over centuries did not stem from a benevolent state but rather arose
from the crucible of grassroots efforts led primarily by marginalized historical actors claiming their
rights to the full panoply of rights secured by the law. History shows that the state, despite its
professed ideals, has often retracted, withheld, and denied citizenship, and the rights granted therein.
It has done so based on categories of race, gender, class, sexuality, and physical ability (and their
38 Mae Ngai, The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes, Chinese Migration, and Global Politics (New York: Norton, 2021);
Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariella Gross, Becoming Free, Becoming Black (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020);
Maurice Crandall, These People Have Always Been a Republic: Indigenous Electorates in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1598-1912
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019); Martha Jones, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in
Antebellum America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: The Making of Modern
America, Updated Version (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014); Ian Haney López, White By Law: The Legal
Construction of Race, Tenth Anniversary ed. (New York, New York University Press, 2006); Erika Lee, At America’s Gates:
Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003) 39 See Michael Katz, The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001). 40 Jones, Birthright Citizens; Beth Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion and the Making of the Alien in America
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2021); Nayan Shah, Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality, and the Law in the
North American West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011);

- 12 -
intersections), as well as concerns related to public health and expenditure, immigration status, and
incarceration.41
These profound historical truths, crucial for understanding U.S. history, have centered
formal citizenship as the sun in a universe of belonging. For scholars studying the post-1965 United
States, however, formal citizenship—even varying degrees of non-citizenship—cannot fully account
for explaining how individuals have claimed an attachment to place, connections to others, and
inclusion within the United States and beyond its territorial boundaries. This is in part due to the
unprecedented growth of the undocumented population since 1965, including a number of residents
without a clear or foreseeable path to citizenship.
42
Yet the limitations of formal citizenship as the centerpiece of belonging are evident for two
other reasons. First, because the epochal shifts of the latter twentieth century—including the
privatization of social welfare programs and the rise of globalized free-trade—led formal citizens,
even those who never once doubted their inclusion within the electorate, to question the substantive
meaning of their citizenship. Hence, the outsized symbolism of a community ZIP code. Or, in the
words of Catherine Mulholland, the granddaughter of William Mulholland, “I don’t belong [in the
Valley] anymore. I am like the coyotes and the rattlesnakes and the other animal species that are
getting pushed out.”43 Second, the arrival of millions of immigrants from the Global South, many
arriving after 1965 with a critical view of U.S. empire, militarism, and economic imperialism,
introduced innovative strategies for claiming belonging that attenuated the centripetal force of
formal U.S. citizenship. Having endured the repercussions of neoliberal ideology and policy well
before embarking on their journeys to the United States, many residents who came to the U.S. after
41 Natalia Molina, Fit to be Citizens: Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2006); William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of the Mexican Past (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2004).
42 Minian, Undocumented Lives; Ngai, Impossible Subjects 43 Clifford, “The Valley”

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1965 developed an understanding of belonging that was not directly tied to the state or its
assurances.
Belonging is thus foundational to how individuals resist, accommodate, and reify structures
of power. It is integral to our understanding of a society that, from 1965 onward, became more
globally integrated and, yet, progressively wary of and resistant to those interdependencies, especially
when they arrived to the nation’s southern border. Belonging is vital for imagining human existence
within and outside the boundaries of formal citizenship. Far from being a “fuzzy gerund,” belonging
is a key category of analysis.
*
On February 12, 1994, Patrick Vincent, President of the Arleta Chamber of Commerce and
Resident’s Association harangued Senator Barbara Boxer for not taking stronger action to reinstate
Arleta’s ZIP code or to designate “Arleta” alongside Pacoima’s 91331. He exclaimed, “At least the
Postal Service should be required to tell everyone in the country that Zip code 91331 belongs to
Arleta/Pacoima. Today, the Postal Service says that 91331 belongs to Pacoima, which means to the
Postal World, we simply do not exist.”44 Without belonging to a ZIP code, or a ZIP code belonging to
Arleta, residents felt invisible. They had been stamped out of existence in much the same way that
their streets had paved over the citrus orchards, and the worksite camps of agricultural workers, that
once claimed Arleta home.
The “community identity” that Arleta residents’ extolled, and struggled to preserve with their
postal code, was, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively recent development. For much of the
twentieth century, since the annexation of the San Fernando Valley to the City of Los Angeles in
1915, Arleta and its surrounding neighborhoods still abounded with redolent orange groves, walnut
44 Patrick Vincent to Senator Barbara Boxer, letter, 12 February 1994, box 11, folder 17, Arleta Chamber of Commerce
and Resident’s Association Collection, Special Collections and Archives, California State University, Northridge, Urban
Archive Center.

- 14 -
and eucalyptus trees, and dirt roads.45 The San Fernando Valley, especially its northeast corner, was
widely recognized not as the industrial engine that it later became in the postwar period, but rather
as the nursery of Southern California’s agrarian economy. The arrival of the railroad in the 1910s,
the tracks painstakingly laid hand over foot by the area’s Mexican, Filipino, and Japanese laborers,
transformed the northeast San Fernando Valley into two contrasting images: an ethnically diverse,
working-class rural outpost and a glossy postcard representing a bucolic fantasy land—the “white
spot” that real estate prospectors claimed awaited the era’s droves of “Oakie’s and Arkie’s.”46
During the World War II and immediate postwar eras, migrants from across the United
States heeded Bing Crosby’s 1944 call and “made the San Fernando Valley [their] home.”47
Individuals from Shreveport, Louisiana to Cleveland, Ohio, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Brooklyn,
New York moved westward. Carl DeBlasio, reflecting on his family’s migration from Philadelphia to
Sylmar, remarked on the influence of popular culture in shaping their decision. “I was about two
years old, so it was about in ’44,” he mused. “That was back in the days when they had songs like
‘Go West Young Man,’ and ‘California Here I Come,’ and ‘Gonna Make the San Fernando Valley
My Home.’ It was a boom town at that time and everybody from across the nation seemed to be
coming here.”48
The allure of mass culture, paired with an enticing booster campaign, drew predominantly
white ethnic families to the San Fernando Valley. For many transplants, this migration represented
more than just a physical relocation—it was a transformative experience in which they saw
themselves shedding any lingering sense of ethnic “otherness.” The Valley became, in the words of
45 Roderick, America’s Suburb 46 Laura Barraclough, Making the San Fernando Valley: Rural Landscapes, Urban Development, and White Privilege (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2011). 47 Bing Crosby’s 1944 song, “San Fernando Valley,” inspired GI’s to leave their hometowns and build their postwar lives
in the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley. See Geoff Boucher, “ ‘San Fernando Valley’ Bing Crosby: 1994,” Los Angeles
Times, May 6, 2007. 48 Carl DeBlasio Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, April 4, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.

- 15 -
renowned labor organizer, Joel Ochoa, a place for “people that have the means to escape.”49 In the
San Fernando Valley, these residents embraced a curated form of rural whiteness, a concept Laura
Barraclough has referred to as “rural urbanism.” This racial project infused the Valley, especially its
geographic poles—Shadow Hills and Chatsworth—with a normative mythology of white, rugged
individualism. The mythos persisted well into the 1990s and served as a backdrop to the tensions
exacerbated by neoliberal restructuring and evident in movements like the Arleta ZIP code
reinstatement effort. Thus, that campaign reflects a deeper narrative of the Valley’s identity, its
evolving demographics, and the enduring legacy of its idealized white, rural heritage. The quest to
reclaim Arleta’s postal code underscores the intricate interplay between race, place, and belonging
that permeated the social fabric of the Valley, and that pervades the pages of this dissertation.
In the immediate postwar period, the east San Fernando Valley retained the appearance of
an expansive agricultural region, albeit with clear signs of industrial development. The arrival of the
General Motors Auto Plant in 1947, for instance, a sprawling factory amidst razed farmland, hinted
at the Valley’s imminent shift. Even so, the Valley’s boundless fields, orchards, and groves—
untouched by the white picket barriers that would soon define its suburban landscape—formed an
enchanting playground for the Valley’s youngest residents.
49 Joel Ochoa interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, April 24, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.

- 16 -
Figure 3: Aerial view of Panorama City, ca. 1949 with General Motors Auto Plant in the lower right. University
of Southern California Digital Archives.
Reflecting on her childhood in Pacoima, Randy Romero fondly recalled exploring the fields
behind her Birch street home, where she would put her cat in dresses and push him around in a
baby buggy, all beyond the watchful eye of her parents.50 Nearby, at the junction of Vaughn Street
and the Arroyo, which in those days was a “real Arroyo, not what we have right now,” Xenaro Ayala
forged deep connections with nature, recounting wistfully that “my friends were jackrabbits and
lizards.”51 Marlena Linton, whose family had relocated from Shreveport, Louisiana to Pacoima in the
1940s due to her grandfather’s contract with Lockheed-Martin, described her neighborhood as a
“shared system” where yards seamlessly blended into one another: “We didn’t have many fences,
our yards were wide open, and you could go and play in someone’s treehouse, climb their trees, and
50 Randy Romero Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 1, 2022, Los Angeles, CA. 51 Xenaro Ayala Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, January 16, 2024, Los Angeles, CA.

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eat their fruit.”52 While their parents filled the payrolls of the Valley’s expanding military-industrial
complex, children in the east San Fernando Valley relished the freedom and interconnectedness of
their neighborhoods.
In the 1950s, the Valley’s affordable housing and its burgeoning defense economy attracted
many young families who streamed into the Valley with federally subsidized military contracts and
federally backed low-interest mortgages.53 Indeed, Steve Baker’s family history, and arrival in Van
Nuys, is a tale fit for the silver screen.54 Steve Baker’s paternal grandfather, a machinist who fled the
Armenian genocide, endured a perilous journey before eventually settling in Van Nuys. After
traveling through Cuba and France, the only nations to formally recognize the genocide, he enlisted
in the French army during World War I. An agreement among allied countries enabled him to easily
immigrate to the United States as an allied solider, a notable exception on the eve of the 1924
National Origins Act.55 Military service granted Steve Baker’s grandfather a sense of belonging in the
United States, despite the nation’s refusal to acknowledge the genocide unfolding in his country of
birth. He settled in Detroit and started a family. On the other side, Steve Baker’s maternal
grandmother, also Armenian, narrowly escaped with her life, seeking refuge in Syria, France, and
Cuba before finally reaching Chicago. Both sets of grandparents eventually moved from Detroit and
Chicago to the San Fernando Valley. Steve’s mother’s family arrived after his grandmother’s
arranged marriage ended, leading her to seek refuge in the Valley where her sister already resided.
Meanwhile, Steve’s father’s family relocated when his grandfather received a job transfer to
McDonnell Douglas in the Valley’s growing aerospace sector. Eventually, Steve Baker’s parents met
at St. Peter’s Church on Sherman Way, an Armenian Church in Van Nuys. They married, had three
52 Marlena Martin Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 24, 2022, Los Angeles, CA. 53 Roderick, 114; 120-121 54 Steve Baker Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 4, 2022, Los Angeles, CA. 55 Ngai, Impossible Subjects

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kids, and lived in the same house in the east San Fernando Valley until his father passed away in
1998.56
Steve Baker’s family’s arrival in the San Fernando Valley in the postwar period exemplifies
how the San Fernando Valley underwent a rapid transformation as a result of both domestic and
transnational migrations. Moreover, the state’s investment in defense-related employment and
suburban development essentially drove what was clearly becoming the Valley’s uneven suburban
makeover. Pacoima and Panorama City illustrate the stark disparities of this state sponsored
suburban development. Unlike Pacoima, which was redlined by the Home Owner’s Loan
Corporation (HOLC) in 1939, Panorama City debuted as the Valley’s first planned community, the
Kaiser Community Homes. Federally subsidized and racially restrictive, the Kaiser Community
Homes attracted WWII veterans and their families seeking to capitalize on their VA benefits.
Meanwhile, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) directed rapid public
housing construction to Pacoima, including the iconic San Fernando Gardens and Joe Louis
Apartment Complex, which grew respectively into “one of the densest concentrations of workingclass Chicano/as and home to the Valley’s largest Black population, many of whom were veterans
extralegally excluded from living in other L.A. housing markets.”57
Unlike the Valley’s mythologized narrative of rugged individualism, the postwar generation
of Valley residents was generously supported by the state, though this support was selectively and
unequally applied. By the late 1960s, children of the postwar generation rode their bikes on broad
boulevards and formed “Cul-de-Sac Collectives,” amidst Van Nuys’ manicured front yards and two56 Baker interview.
57 The cultural geographer Stefano Bloch has been an incredible wealth of knowledge about the San Fernando Valley
during the era of economic restructuring. See Stefano Bloch, “An Autoethnographic Account of Urban Restructuring
and Neighborhood Change in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley,” Cultural Geographies 27, no. 3 (2020), 379-394, 384;
Going All City: Struggle and Survival in LA’s Graffiti Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. Dr. Bloch also
participated in an interview with me, offering incisive reflections on the northeast San Fernando Valley during the 1990s.
Stefano Bloch Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 8, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.

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car garages. Meanwhile, children living in the San Fernando Gardens in Pacoima navigated physical
barriers like the Pacoima Wash and the San Fernando Road Railroad tracks, which restricted their
free movement through the suburban environs.
58 The unequal suburban development of the east
San Fernando Valley presaged how belonging would undergo an even more drastic redefinition in
response to the growing economic disparities wrought by neoliberal restructuring in the late
twentieth century. It speaks to the shifting understanding of belonging between the first and second
generation of residents and across the socially uneven landscape of the east Valley.
*
Facing north from the heights of Mulholland Drive, the San Fernando Valley unspools in
“all its glory.”59 It is, indeed, a valley, flanked by three towering mountain ranges—the San Gabriel,
Santa Susana, and Santa Monica Mountains. However, within its expansive 240 square miles, and its
nearly 2 million inhabitants, most of the San Fernando Valley’s population resides in its central
flatlands. The sheer vastness and physical scope of these flatlands inspire words that adopt the
cadence of scripture. Alternatively, they draw comparisons to food. Depending on who is speaking,
the Valley is often likened to a buñuelo, or a donut.
For Joseph Bernardo, “the Valley can be considered like a donut, where the central areas,
along the [railroad] tracks, is where a lot of poor communities of color started moving into, while all
58 The northeast San Fernando Valley was widely known to be segregated de jure and de facto by race. Multiple
interlocutors have shared that it was universally understood, and reinforced by real estate practices, that south of the San
Fernando rail road tracks was the “Mexican” section, while north of the tracks was the “white” district. Meanwhile,
Pacoima, which was redlined, was where primarily Black homeowners settled. Describing the physical layout, Carmen
Amper recalled that, “On the other side of San Fernando Road was houses, but not that many. Like we weren’t allowed
to go into the other side, because there was a white community. And this side of Pacoima was a Mexican, and all-races
community… our library was on that side. We had to go there… but nobody was allowed to live there.” Carmen Amper,
“Oral History of Carmen Amper,” interview conducted by the Northeast Valley Oral History Project, June 20, 2002,
transcript, Northeast Valley Oral History Project Collection, Special Collections and Archives, California State
University, Northridge.
59 Born and raised in Van Nuys, Dean Mucetti always referred to the San Fernando flatlands this way.

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the foothills area was where white people continue to stay.”60 Perhaps oversimplified, Bernardo’s
description nevertheless provides an instructive spatial orientation. With the exception of the
northeast foothills (Sunland, Sun Valley, Pacoima, the City of San Fernando, and Sylmar), the
Valley’s peripheral hills, the outer ring of the donut, are home to some of Los Angeles’ most affluent
single-family neighborhoods, and their multi-story mansions. East-west boulevards like Ventura
Boulevard, running through Woodland Hills, Tarzana, Encino, Sherman Oaks, and Studio City,
operate like a travelator for the well-heeled and their premium-grade strollers. The northwest section
of the Valley, historically known for its political conservatism, encompasses areas like Granada Hills,
Porter Ranch, Chatsworth, and West Hills.61
While no neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley was left untouched in the latter
twentieth century, I focus this dissertation on the elliptical inner hole of the donut – or, the
buñuelo—and the northeast outer ring.62 For clarity’s sake, the neighborhoods explored include:
Sylmar, Pacoima, Lakeview Terrace, Sunland, Sun Valley, Arleta, Panorama City, Van Nuys, North
Hollywood, Valley Glen, Valley Village, Sherman Oaks, and Studio City. Additionally, I emphasize
the Valley’s incorporated, independent municipalities, such as the City of San Fernando, and to a
60 Joseph Bernardo Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, January 27, 2022, Los Angeles, CA. 61 One especially defamatory description of the sociocultural geography of the San Fernando Valley described the
flatlands as, “a vision of a Valley floor crowded with poor people who don’t speak English, don’t vote, and don’t own
property, surrounded by Anglo homeowners who control the wealth and the politics from hillside enclaves.” See Frank
Clifford, “The Valley: An Urban Evolution,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1990. 62 Throughout the 1980s and especially during the 1990s, the Valley’s changing demographics were a regularly featured
topic in both the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News. See, for instance, Steve Carney, “Suburban to Urban”
Daily News of Los Angeles, November 16, 1999; Joel Kotkin, “The Valley Unmasked,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1999;
Myron Levin, “ ‘90s a Rude Awakening from Suburban Dream,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1996; Aaron Curtiss, “Old
Ideas Limit Valley’s Future,” Los Angeles Times, October 13, 1993; Sam Enriquez, “Quintessential Suburb is No More,”
Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1992; Michael Connelly, “San Fernando Valley is No Longer Called ‘Safe Suburb’,” Los
Angeles Times, December 16, 1991; Max Jacobson, “The Global Valley,” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1991; Rick Orlov,
“Area’s Growth Rate Highest in L.A.,” Los Angeles Daily News, April 13, 1991; Richard Lee Colvin, “Anglos Predominate
but Majority Status Slipping,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1991; Frank Clifford, “The Valley: An Urban Evolution,” Los
Angeles Times, August 12, 1990; John Schwada, “The ’80s: Retrospective,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1989; Bill
Boyarsky, “San Fernando Valley: a Refuge No More,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1983

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lesser extent, Burbank. Although not featured prominently, the neighborhoods of Mission Hills,
North Hills, Northridge, Canoga Park, Reseda, and Winnetka play important roles in this work.
Figure 4: The San Fernando Valley Communities. Map designed by Regan M Maas, The Center for Geographical Studies
California State University, Northridge, prepared for the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, “San Fernando
Valley Community of Interest Analysis,” May 2011
I focus on the Valley’s eastside for three main reasons. The first relates to demographics.
While the entire San Fernando Valley diversified in the latter part of the twentieth century due to
immigration from countries like Iran, Israel, Armenia, Vietnam, Korea, India, and the Philippines,
the eastside stood out as the Valley’s most heterogeneous neighborhood, across all indicators.63
Moreover, it experienced the most rapid and dramatic demographic transformation between 1970
and 2010, marked by an influx of migrants from Latin America and South Asia.64 Mexico and
63 Kotkin and Ozuna, The Changing Face of the San Fernando Valley; “Our Future Neighborhoods,” and Regan Maas, “San
Fernando Valley: Community of Interest Analysis” May 2011. https://www.csun.edu/sites/default/files/vnr-maas.pdf.
See also Mark Padoongpatt, “ ‘A Landmark for Sun Valley’: Wat Thai of Los Angeles and Thai American Suburban
Culture in the 1980s San Fernando Valley,” Journal of American Ethnic History 34, no. 2 (2015): 83-114. 64 For instance, throughout the 1980s, the Latinx population of the main neighborhoods in the east side all grew
substantially. In Arleta/Pacoima, the number numbers from 52% in 1980 to 71% in 1990. In North Hollywood, that
jump was 20% to 40%, in Sherman Oaks/Van Nuys that number went from 18% to 35%. The Asian population
Mission Hills/Panorama city jumped from 7% in 1980 to 11% in 1990, in Sun Valley that number jumped from 33% to
53

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Central America, however, contributed considerably more residents than countries along the Pacific
Rim. The City of San Fernando has long had a substantial working-class Chicano population,
comparable to other Latinx communities like Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles.65 However,
between 1970 and 2010, immigrants, particularly from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico’s central
states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, Zacatecas, and Jalisco, settled in the northeast neighborhoods of
Pacoima, Panorama City, Sylmar, Van Nuys, North Hollywood Sun Valley, Sunland, and the City of
San Fernando, making the northeast both a multiethnic and mixed-status community.
66
This period marked a notable demographic shift not only in terms of ethno-racial diversity
but also in socioeconomic composition.67 Unlike the southern neighborhoods with ritzy residents
from Lana Turner to The Jackson 5, or the western areas boasting properties like the Lucille
Ball/Desi Arnaz ranch in Chatsworth, the eastside of the San Fernando Valley in the postwar era
was a solidly middle-class suburban enclave. Starting in the 1980s, however, neighborhoods such as
Van Nuys and North Hollywood, previously home to predominantly middle class Jewish families,
followed a contradictory socioeconomic trajectory.
On the one hand, there was a gradual decline in income levels, a change that aligned with
increased immigration rates, the departure of long-standing middle-class families, and economic
restructuring. Many families either moved out of the east Valley as it diversified or achieved upward
mobility, moving to more affluent areas like Encino or into the city of Los Angeles. In this sense,
the eastside experienced a pattern of white flight observed in other urban areas throughout the
65 See Jean-Paul R. de Guzman, “Race, Community, and Activism in Greater Los Angeles: Japanese Americans, African
Americans and the Contested Spaces of Southern California,” in The Nation and Its People: Citizens, Denizens, Migrants, ed.
Shannon Gleeson and John S.W. Park (New York: Routledge, 2014); Deborah Dash Moore, To the Golden Cities: Pursuing
the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). 66 Barraclough, Making the San Fernando Valley, 51-60. See also, Roger Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorgmehr ed., Ethnic Los
Angeles (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1996). 67 For instance, At the time of 1980 census, one in 11 residents lived below the federal poverty line, by 1990, that ratio
was 1 in 9, and by 1995, that number was 1 in 6. See “Upheaval in 1990s Leads to Surge in San Fernando Poverty
Rates,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1996.

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country.68 On the other hand, white middle-class eastside residents were priced out of their
neighborhoods. The rapid transformation of the area’s built environment, especially the proliferation
of dingbat apartment buildings in the 1970s, coupled with post-1973 recessionary periods, rendered
neighborhoods like Van Nuys, North Hollywood, and Panorama City increasingly unaffordable for
middle class families to purchase homes.69 Homeowner flight, however, was not limited to white
middle-class residents. Pacoima, historically a predominantly Black community, also experienced the
incremental departure of long-term Black homeowners, many of whom moved north to the
Antelope Valley, settling in the twin cities of Palmdale and Lancaster.70 The 1980s thus saw the
emergence of the “Valley Diaspora,” a narrative that reinforced residents’ growing sense of
displacement and unbelonging.71 Despite the higher departure rate among homeowners, the eastside
has maintained its ethno-racial pluralism, even surpassing other neighborhoods in Los Angeles for
the last half century. These demographic shifts, alongside the region’s longstanding tradition of
diversity, position the east San Fernando Valley as a compelling case study for understanding how
neoliberal economic restructuring reshaped belonging across social stratum.
To that end, in this dissertation I extend the framework of relational race formation to
consider how various ethno-racial groups cultivated a sense of belonging relationally—through their
interpersonal connections and quotidian interactions with one another.72 I focus on such events as
68 According to the 1990s census data, the percentage of Valley residents who identified as “white” dropped from 75%
in 1980 to 58% in 1990. See, Richard Lee Colvin, “Anglos Predominate but Majority Status Slipping.” Despite the
declining rates of white residents, there were also those who remained steadfast in the commitment to the Valley, and
who refused to leave. See Sherry Joe, “Some Area Families See Valley Grass as Greener,” Los Angeles Daily News, June
10, 1997.
69 John Schwada, “The ‘80s: Retrospective,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1980. 70 Crystal Jackson Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 18, 2024, Los Angeles, CA. 71 Schwada, “The ‘80s: Retrospective.” 72 On relational race theory, see Natalia Molina, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and Ramón A. Gutiérrez, ed., Relational
Formations of Race: Theory, Method, and Practice (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019); Natalia Molina, How Race Is
Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2013). See also two seminal studies on racial formation, Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United
States, Third edition (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2015); Daniel Martinez HoSang , Oneka
LaBennett, and Laura Pulido, eds., Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2012).

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the 1985 City Sanctuary Campaign and the Price Pfister mobilization against plant closure, even
touching on the 1996 conflicts between Armenian and Latinx students at Grant High School. These
moments serve as important windows into how individuals have asserted belonging—and on what
grounds they have claimed it—through the “microsocial” – “everyday practices and rituals, as well as
the spaces people claim for themselves.”73
Besides the demographic shifts evident between 1970 and 2010, I focus on the eastside of
the San Fernando Valley because it is in this area that the consequences of economic restructuring
are most visible, indeed, inescapable. And yet, it is also where they have been most obviously
obscured. The area’s Big Box shopping malls, collectively forming what I refer to as
“Depotland,”conceal most of the remaining traces of the industrial powerhouses that buttressed the
Valley’s postwar economy and residents’ middle-class lifestyle.
From the vantage of Mulholland Drive, the Valley’s north-south thoroughfares like
Coldwater Canyon, Van Nuys Boulevard, even the more unassuming Whitsett, come into focus.
They are commanding arteries that extend from one end of the flatlands to the other—once the
stage for Wednesday night cruisers and lowriders. Trace just one of them all the way to the San
Gabriel Foothills and the red and white smoke stacks of the Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power’s natural gas power plant in Sun Valley stick out like acupuncture needles on the landscape.
These smokestacks, akin to the Arleta community identification signs, serve as iconic landmarks of
the east San Fernando Valley. Generations of Pacoima and Sun Valley residents have drifted off to
sleep under the glow of the blue and green lights flickering through their window panes.74
73 Roiyah Saltus, “We Need to be Acknowledged: How Caribbean Elders Navigate Belonging in the UK,” The
Conversation, June 22, 2023 https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-be-acknowledged-how-caribbean-elders-navigatebelonging-in-the-uk-203080 74 Elizabeth Chou, “Pacoima, Sun-Valley Youth are a Part of a ‘Front-Line’ Community Affected by Climate Change,”
Los Angeles Daily News, September 20, 2019 . https://www.dailynews.com/2019/09/20/pacoima-sun-valley-youth-are-apart-of-a-front-line-community-affected-by-climate-change-say-local-group/

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Yet there is no denying that these smoke stacks belie the widespread deindustrialization that
defined the east San Fernando Valley’s recent past.75 To be clear, the entire San Fernando Valley
experienced a decline in industry throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The network of Cold War
aerospace firms practically disappeared during these decades, leaving areas like Canoga Park, Reseda,
Northridge, and Burbank without their largest employers. 76 But it was the firms less directly tied to
defense spending—the envelope and cosmetic manufacturers, the watch and clock factories, the
bathroom fixture foundry, the auto parts suppliers, and especially the General Motors Auto Plant—
that left perhaps the most profound impact on residents’ lives. Without the national visibility of the
larger firms like Lockheed or Rocketdyne, the departure of these relatively smaller plants manifested
most starkly on residents’ kitchen tables. In the wake of 1990s plant closures, a decade that features
prominently in the following pages, residents of the east San Fernando Valley struggled to rebuild
their livelihoods as well as their sense of belonging.77
*
Over the past two decades, historians have published prolifically on the impact of
deindustrialization in the United States.78 Much of this scholarship has centered on the Rust Belt, the
75 For more on deindustrialization in Los Angeles in general, and the San Fernando Valley in particular, see Edward W.
Soja, My Los Angeles: From Urban Restructuring to Regional Urbanization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014);
Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2002); Edward W. Soja, “Los Angeles, 1965-1992: From Crisis-Generated Restructuring to
Restructuring-Generated Crisis,” in The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century, Allen J. Scott
and Edward W. Soja ed., (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 426-462; Eric Mann, Taking on General Motors:
A Case Study of the Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open (Los Angeles; Center for Labor Research and Education, Institute
of Industrial Relations, University of California, Los Angeles, 1987).
76 See, “Cold War Relics: A San Fernando Valley Tour Reveals the Imprints of a Generation-old Defense Cutback,” Los
Angeles Times, December 6, 1993; Allen J. Scott, “High-Technology Industrial Development in the San Fernando Valley
and Ventura County: Observations on Economic Growth and the Evolution of Urban Form,” in The City: Los Angeles
and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century, Allen J. Scott and Edward W. Soja ed., (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1996), 276-310. 77 Joel Kotkin Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, August 10th, 2023, Los Angeles, CA. 78 See the foundational text on deindustrialization: Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of
America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982); For
more on deindustrialization see, Gabriel Winant, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt
America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2023); Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott ed., Beyond the Ruins: The
Meanings of Deindustrialization (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).

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Northeast, and the Southeast, with notable case studies in Detroit, Michigan, Camden, New Jersey,
East New York, New York, and Hamlet, North Carolina.79 Historians have illuminated the complex
dynamics of deindustrialization within these settings from the 1960s to the early 1990s. Their work
has uncovered powerful connections between deindustrialization and the rise of the carceral state,
shifts in U.S. foreign policy, post-war electoral realignments, racial formation, popular culture, and
immigration patterns. Moreover, studies have underscored the socio-cultural impacts of
deindustrialization on workers and the legacies of communities enmeshed in factory life—the iconic
“company town.”80
This body of literature has challenged the conventional narrative that positions the Rust Belt
as the sole locus of industrial decline, while casting the transborder Sunbelt, particularly the
industrialization of Northern Mexico through maquiladoras, as its zenith. However, this perspective
frequently overlooks the deindustrialization that occurred in the U.S. Southwest, and the
transnational histories of that economic transformation.81 It is now widely recognized that the
Sunbelt, far from being a monolithic open-shop haven, presents a much more pixelated image of
economic change. The decline of Los Angeles’ manufacturing sector, from the Firestone Tire
Factory in Southgate to Hughes Aircraft in Canoga Park, has put the city on par with Detroit in
terms of job losses and displacement.82
79 Bryant Simon, The Hamlet Fire: The Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 2017); Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014); Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves: RCA’s Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor
(New York: The New Press, 2001). 80 Monica Perales, Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2010). 81 See Michelle Nickerson and Darren Dochuk ed., Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place, and Region (Philadelphia,
University of Pennsylvania Press 2011); Ronald L. Mize, “Interrogating Race, Class, Gender and Capitalism Along the U.S.-
Mexico Border: Neoliberal Nativism and Maquila Modes of Production,” in Race, Gender & Class 15, no. 1/2 (2008) 134-155;
David Bacon, The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the US/Mexico Border (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2004).
82 Peter Olney Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 28, 2024, Los Angeles, CA.

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Historians are therefore dedicating more attention to how the economic shifts of the 1980s
and 1990s remade Los Angeles at the turn of the twenty-first century. The Alameda Corridor, from
Downtown Los Angeles to the San Pedro harbor, has been the stage for most of these studies, as it
was ground zero for plant closures and the hub of the city’s reindustrialization through garment
industry sweat shops. It also became a focal point for the new labor activism in the 1990s, earning
the city recognition for the “L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy.”83 Crucially, the Alameda
Corridor was the backdrop of Los Angeles’ most globally recognized event: the 1992 Uprising. The
’92 Uprising laid bare the deep social and economic consequences of deindustrialization, prompting
scholars to explore the multilayered relationship between deindustrialization, racialized antagonism,
and social inequities that culminated in the events of April 29th to May 6th, 1992.84 Yet the east San
Fernando Valley also featured prominently in the Uprising, as not only a site of civil rebellion, but
also as the location of Rodney King’s beating in March 1991.85 Despite receiving far less attention,
the neighborhoods surrounding the I-5 Corridor—Arleta just one of them—faced a similar set of
challenges as South Los Angeles in the 1990s. And residents of affluent neighborhoods in the
southwest Valley, often viewed as a cradle of suburban racism, took means to insulate their
neighborhoods in the wake of the trials.86 It is precisely these social dislocations that I draw attention
to in this dissertation.
Economic restructuring was not solely characterized by industrial flight. The prevailing
ideologies of privatization, austerity, and reduced social spending burned the residents of the east
San Fernando Valley as much as the disappearance of their welding torches. It is well established
83 Ruth Milkman, L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 2006). 84 Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again (Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992). 85 Bloch, Going all City, 121. 86 For instance, in the wake of the second trial of the police officers, a coalition of merchants and homeowners along
Ventura boulevard organized with police to surveil in case of rioting. Citizen groups stationed themselves on the roofs
of businesses as lookouts. Tracey Kaplan, “Citizen ‘Eyes, Ears’ Ready to Aid Police,” Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1993.

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that the deinstitutionalization movement and the reduction of social welfare provisions under
Reagan’s gubernatorial and presidential administrations severely undermined California’s mental
health system. The San Fernando Valley in general, and the east Valley, in particular, suffered
alongside the rest of Los Angeles as a result of these reforms. An influx of refugees in the east San
Fernando Valley from war-torn countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, and El Salvador magnified
the impact of those budget cuts and made individuals settling in the east Valley especially
vulnerable.87
The closure of the Southeast Asian Community Center in Van Nuys vividly illustrates this
decline. Founded in 1987 under the auspices of the San Fernando Valley Mental Health Center, the
Southeast Asian Community Center (SEACC) provided the area’s burgeoning Vietnamese refugee
population with a center in which to gather collectively and to receive mental and emotional support
services. As Trinh Dao, an 18-year old refugee from Vietnam articulated it, “Basically, if you had any
problems, that was the place to go. If you needed a plumber, or financial aid for school, social
security information, welfare, an interpreter, basically they could do everything for you that involved
a language barrier.”88 In a climate of 1990s budget cuts, the San Fernando Valley Mental Health
Center had to reallocate funds, such that facilities that classified as outreach, like the SEACC, lost
their financial backing. Vietnamese refugees felt the loss of the SEACC especially intensely. As Cris
Schneider of the Los Angeles Times explained it, “the loss of the center is felt acutely here because
unlike the large Vietnamese community in Orange County, the Vietnamese in the Valley are
dispersed and have no central neighborhood where people can meet and share news.”89 In this
sense, the SEACC had assisted the community of Vietnamese refugees in the east San Fernando
87 Judith Michaelson, “Refugees Hit Hard by Budget Cuts: L.A. County Paring Mental health Programs for
Indochinese,” Los Angeles Times, August 16, 1982. 88 Cris Schneider, “Vietnamese Are Set Adrift After Cutbacks Close Center,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1991. 89 Ibid.

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Valley to meet their everyday and mental health needs. It also provided residents with a unique sense
of belonging. Its closure in 1991 not only deprived residents of crucial assistance but also severed a
deeper sense of community that had helped them navigate the challenges of everyday life.90
A similar pattern affected the east Valley’s Central American refugees.91 Unlike
neighborhoods like Pico-Union, which, as the largest Central American refugee community in Los
Angeles, received more support and resources, social agencies in parts of the northeast San
Fernando Valley faced marked resource scarcity. With limited state support and relatively less
assistance from advocacy groups, Central American refugees in the east San Fernando Valley
cultivated belonging through community-based institutions like the San Fernando Swap Meet, or
apartment complexes like the Valerio Gardens in Van Nuys.
During the 1980s, Valerio Gardens, a two-story stucco apartment complex, transformed into
a “little piece of Phnom Penh.”92 Home to over 50% of the Cambodian refugee population in the
San Fernando Valley, it also provided refuge for a growing number of Latinx residents fleeing the
Salvadoran civil war. Although older residents tended to keep to themselves, the next generation
found connections in the complex courtyard: “At night Cambodian and Latino children sometimes
join for mass games of tag or hide-and-go-seek. A few months ago, a group of Cambodian teenagers
played a game of soccer against Latino residents of the complex.”93 The closure of the SEACC and
the Valerio Gardens Apartment illustrate, in two distinct ways, how economic restructuring—in this
case the reduction of mental health services—affected the area’s expanding refugee population. At
the same time, they highlight how residents developed innovative means to foster a sense of
belonging outside the purview of the state in the east San Fernando Valley.
90 Aaron Curtiss, “To Heal the Lingering Wounds of War,” Los Angeles Times, October 4, 1991. 91 Nora Hamilton and Norma Stolz Chinchilla, Seeking Community in a Global City: Guatemalans and Salvadorans in Los
Angeles (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), 41. 40-69. 92 John Nielson, “Cambodia Refugee Community Creates Hint of Home in Valley,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1985. 93 Ibid.

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Finally, I center this study on the east San Fernando Valley because its gradual
deindustrialization has given rise to a much swifter process of revitalization. Unlike the model seen
in Pittsburgh, in which the care economy rose from the ashes of the steel industry, the “next shift”
in the east Valley was defined by a more innocuous trajectory.94 Following the closure of the area’s
most prominent manufacturing firms like the General Motors Auto Plant and the Price Pfister
Faucet Foundry, elected officials at all levels of government responded by introducing Big Box
shopping malls and service-oriented enterprises. Soon emerged “Depotland,” sprawling outdoor
retail complexes replete with Costco, Home Depot, and OfficeMax, which signaled late twentieth
century urban renewal.
*
In 1983, Mayor Tom Bradley convened what his administration called a “futuristic” process
to “image, project, and, then, to plan for the San Fernando Valley,” known as “Consensus 2000.”95
“Consensus 2000” was co-sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and Valley Industries,
Commerce Association, California State University, Northridge, Pierce, Mission, and Valley colleges,
civic organizations and others. As part of this effort, Olivia E. Mitchell, the Director of the Office of
Youth Development, urged Valley stakeholders and social service organizations to participate in a
thorough questionnaire and attend several meetings to shape the Valley’s future.96
That same year, the congregation of Adat Ari El, a synagogue in Van Nuys (soon to be
Valley Village), hosted a panel titled “The Valley of the ‘80s—Together or Apart?” featuring
prominent city figures. Julie Gertner, an aide to Los Angeles city Councilwoman Joy Picus,
94 Rather than witness the advent of the care economy, which did become nevertheless become a popular occupation
niche among Filipino immigrants in the northwest Valley, the northeast Valley “revitalized” through the proliferation of
Big Box shopping centers. 95 Olivia E. Mitchell to ‘Dear Colleague,’” letter, n.d. Box 2389, Folder 1, Tom Bradley Administrative Papers Collection,
Archives and Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles. 96 Ibid.

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highlighted her family’s postwar migration to North Hollywood. Like the residents in the Arleta
postal code reinstatement campaign, Gertner hoped the “Valley of the 80s” would continue to be
the “refuge” of the middle class. By contrast, John Wesley Mack, a civil rights leader and the
executive director of the Los Angeles Urban League, offered a less rosy account of the San
Fernando Valley’s recent past as a “refuge.” He recounted a history of racial strife, exclusion, and
reactionary politics, advocating for inclusive politics in the coming decade.97
In the early 1980s, individuals were already contemplating how “the kaleidoscope of changes
in the human condition” would play out in the San Fernando Valley over the last two decades of the
twentieth century.98 They called this process “Imagineering” and hoped it would “build a blueprint
of the San Fernando Valley of the year 2000.”99 Yet they could not fully anticipate the extent to
which neoliberal restructuring would reshape their lives. While the “Consensus 2000” questionnaire
hinted at changes like commercial development and the privatization of social services, the two
ensuing decades would bring a cascade of changes to nearly every facet of life. Scholars have
extensively documented those changes, especially the deleterious impact of neoliberal economic
policies and its accompanying political ideology, on the working- and middle-classes across the
globe.100 Political economy theorists have highlighted the erosion of democratic practices and
institutions under neoliberalism. 101 Yet few historical studies have effectively illustrated the social
consequences of this political order as they unfolded on the ground.
97 Boyarksy, “San Fernando Valley: a Refuge No More” 98 Olivia E. Mitchell to ‘Dear Colleague,’” letter, n.d. Box 2389, Folder 1, Tom Bradley Administrative Papers Collection,
Archives and Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.
99 “Consensus 2000,” n.d., box 2389, folder 2 “Tom Bradley Administrative Papers Collection, Archives and Special
Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.
100 See, among other titles, Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2003); Lisa Marie Cacho, Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected
(New York: New York University Press, 2012); Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics
in the West (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019).
101 Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017).

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In this dissertation, I argue that a case study of the east San Fernando Valley reveals a
profound transformation in the meaning of belonging during the late twentieth century. Throughout
the period studied, belonging liberalized from the nation-state and the constraints of national
belonging. It evolved into a more localized, and also transnational, version of inclusion. This shift
began with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and accelerated through the 1970s and 1980s.
By the 1990s, the convergence of globalized free-trade, immigration reform, and the privatization of
social provisions led residents of the East San Fernando Valley—both citizens and non-citizens—to
establish belonging independent of legal status.
To be clear, the liberalization of belonging did not necessarily mean wider acceptance,
political rights, or a legalized status within the polity. Instead, this period saw increased
criminalization of immigrants, working-class communities of color, and especially the
undocumented population. Yet it is plausible that the era’s most virulent racial nativism stemmed, at
least in part, from the realization that belonging had detached from citizenship and was morphing
into something individuals defined and asserted for themselves. Over the five substantive chapters
of this dissertation, I illustrate that residents’ responses to the liberalizing of belonging varied widely
and was heavily influenced by race, class, gender, as well as citizenship status and their intersections.
In addition to mapping “cartographies of belonging,” as the historian Ana Raquel Minian
has observed, I propose that what developed within the east San Fernando Valley was a lexicon of
belonging.
102 Residents drew upon various scripts, including suburban nostalgia, self-responsibility,
and “ethnic parentalism” to reimagine and enact belonging in an era of economic restructuring.
Some embraced political agendas to re-suture belonging to formal citizenship, a racial project aimed
102 Minian’s discussion of “cartographies of belonging” implies how “migrants tried to make the best of this circular,
undocumented life and conceived ways to assert their own cartographies of belonging. The world they sought to create
defied their triple exclusion (from Mexico, from the United States, and their local communities) and instead established
migrants as welcomed and even indispensable actors in all three spaces (6).

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at retaining power at the local level among those who were becoming a minority in the east San
Fernando Valley. Indeed, residents, including proclaimed liberals and registered democrats,
constructed a lingua franca of unbelonging that not only concealed their racialized antipathy towards
the Valley’s non-white newcomers but that re-racialized citizenship in an era when racial restrictions
to citizenship had been abolished. The urban planner Joel Kotkin encapsulated this vernacular of
racialized unbelonging perfectly: “It’s not just racism, but cultural dislocation. You’re a person who
grew up in Iowa, coming to California was enough of a shock, and all of a sudden you live in
Tehran. It’s a lot to absorb in one lifetime.”103
Yet within this lexicon also emerged strategies for asserting belonging that had origins in
places far removed from the east San Fernando Valley. Residents, especially those arriving in the
1980s and 1990s from the Global South, brought adaptative approaches shaped by their experiences
with neoliberal economic transformation. Enduring at least a decade of structural adjustment
programs within their countries of origin, many migrants from Latin America and the southern
Pacific Rim envisioned and achieved belonging without state assistance or formal citizenship,
instantiated by spaces like the San Fernando Swap Meet. Through their entrepreneurship in the
informal economy, community-based environmental justice activism, and reproductive labor within
their mixed-status families, residents issued their own claims to belonging outside the boundaries of
formal citizenship.
In Chapter One, “Suburban Underdogs,” I explore how the east Valley’s second generation,
individuals raised in neighborhoods like Panorama City and Van Nuys, developed belonging in
response to their parents’ state-sponsored inclusion, giving birth to the archetype of the “Suburban
Underdog.” I then trace the divisions within these Suburban Underdogs as they navigated a
changing social landscape from the 1970s onward. I complicate the monolithic depictions of the San
103 Dana Batholomew, “Valley Includes All of U.S,” Daily News of Los Angeles, February 15, 2002.

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Fernando Valley Jewish population, demonstrating how it splintered politically in the 1990s. Some
residents, registered Democrats who supported economic liberalization and reduced state
intervention, resisted the liberalization of belonging, especially concerning the area’s growing
undocumented population. They adopted a political stance symbolized by the “Encino Man.” This
political subgroup remained open to the growing undocumented population provided it didn’t
jeopardize their own status as formal citizens and remained self-reliant within a service-based
economy. Others carried forth their own experience as Suburban Underdogs into a more
progressive political orientation that sought to extend belonging to the Valley’s growing
undocumented population.
Chapter Two, “The Cost of Sanctuary,” analyzes the 1985 campaign to designate Los
Angeles a sanctuary city. Amid civil conflict in El Salvador and Guatemala, democratic city officials,
backed by immigrant advocacy groups, struggled to pass a city resolution but faced staunch
opposition, including from voters in the San Fernando Valley. Valley politicians and constituents
leveraged racialized welfare arguments to block sanctuary, equating refugee support with welfare
dependency. The resistance mounted against the Sanctuary city designation underscored aspects of
the 1986 Immigration Reform Control Act, and served as a bellwether to Proposition 187 in 1994
and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act during the Clinton administration.
Despite the aims of the opposition, however, the Sanctuary campaign inadvertently advanced the
liberalization of belonging. Refugees found alternative pathways to belonging, flouting the myth of
state dependency as perpetuated by their opponents.
“Plazamaking,” the focus of Chapter Three, highlights the experiences of immigrant
entrepreneurs at the San Fernando Swap Meet. This chapter extends the framework of placemaking,
showcasing how the swap meet industry, and other semi-formal spaces of commerce, served as vital
sites of belonging for residents in a deindustrializing suburban environment. It illustrates, in

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particular, how migrants settling in the City of San Fernando from the 1970s to the 2010s employed
innovative means that they had developed prior to migration to participate in free-market enterprise.
They leveraged what I call “transgressive globalization” to counter the challenges of neoliberal
capitalism and to cultivate a sense of belonging outside the reach of the nation-state.
Chapter Four, “Building Depotland,” offers a granular view of the sectoral transformation of
the east San Fernando Valley from an industrial to a service-based economy. In particular, it traces
the conversion of the former General Motors auto plant into a sprawling shopping center, called the
Plant, which marked a critical turning point in the postindustrial San Fernando Valley. I argue that
this conversion demonstrates the entwining of neoliberal ideology with a reimagined notion of
community revitalization. It gave rise to what I term “neo-recovery partnerships,”—private-public
partnerships that emphasized retail consumption as a strategy for addressing poverty, and a solution
to state dependence. Neo-recovery partnerships introduced power-centers like “The Plant,”
promoting an ethos of individual responsibility and Big Box consumerism over collective welfare.
Starting in the mid-1990s, however, residents rallied behind collective efforts aimed at
shaping their community’s postindustrial transformation, particularly advocating for labor rights and
environmental justice. The central focus of Chapter Five, “Price Pfister Workers Pfight Pfree
Trade,” is the grassroots mobilization led by residents of the northeast San Fernando Valley to hold
Price Pfister accountable to the community that fueled its success for over three decades. In this
chapter, I show how labor organizers coming out of the 1990s Los Angeles labor movement built
upon a long-standing tradition of labor organizing in Pacoima, supporting workers to resist the
worst consequences of plant relocation and free-trade. Even as the Price Pfister Plant morphed into
“Plaza Pacoima,” another power-center, residents continued to assert their belonging through their
environmental activism in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

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Examining belonging relationally across diverse groups in the east San Fernando Valley
provides a portrait of the late twentieth century through the lived experiences of ordinary people
who challenged and accommodated to neoliberalism in its manifold manifestations. It traces the
everyday lives of middle- and working-class individuals, residing among freeways, abandoned
industrial plants, and shopping malls, as they forged communities and identities amidst a period of
historical rupture. As a whole, these chapters demonstrate that the Neoliberal Order did not just
liberalize trade, it liberalized belonging, forcing people to create new means of asserting their place
in a globalized society.
The Neoliberal Order is often characterized by a list of words all beginning with the prefix,
“de”: de-regulation, de-institutionalization, de-unionization, and de-centralization, among others. In
general, it is a period defined by de-cline and de-clension. This dissertation also takes the prefix “de”
as a point of departure. Yet it does so in a new way. In Spanish, “de’ is often used to indicate
connection, the part of a whole, possession, and belonging. Or, as many of the interlocutors whose
voices fill the following pages have told me, “Yo soy del Valle del Este.”
So, to the east Valley we go.

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CHAPTER ONE
Suburban Underdogs
In July 1988, Los Angeles Times columnist, Al Martínez, penned one of his trademark op-eds,
wryly recounting an recent experience at a party in Santa Monica. It was the kind of gathering where
the unspoken attire was “literary chic,” or “to look like a writer…even though you might be a
refrigerator repairman or a door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesman.”104 Martínez overhead a woman
declaring, “I would rather spend a week in hell than a night in the Valley.”105 Interrupting, he asked
“Why?” Noting that “Valley-bashing by quasi hip, semi-intellectual, full-blooded Westside snobs
almost always annoys me,” Martínez defended the northern suburb at this Westside party in honor
of his father who had implored him to defend his “beloved Valley at whatever the cost.”
“It’s so ordinary. Those yucky little homes” replied the woman.
“If anyone is going to bash the Valley, it is going to be me,” Martínez concluded before his
wife whisked him away.
Al Martínez’ column highlights a phenomenon I explore in this chapter—the “suburban
underdog.” I examine how the second generation of east Valley residents, whose parents purchased
their first homes in the postwar period, embraced a “suburban underdog” identity within the
broader sociocultural and racialized landscape of Los Angeles.106 Far removed from Lisa McGirr’s
“suburban warriors” of Orange County, and distinct from Mike Davis’ conservative Valley populists
behind the “homeowners’ revolt,” these “suburban underdogs” developed a unique sense of
104 Al Martinez, “Before My Father Died, I Promised Him I would Defend His Beloved Valley at Whatever Cost,” Los
Angeles Times, July 21, 1988. 105 Ibid. 106 Although they were not actually the “second generation,” of the San Fernando Valley, I use “second generation” for
expediency’ sake to describe the offspring of parents who purchased homes in the San Fernando Valley in the postwar
period.

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belonging in the east San Fernando Valley. Cushioned by their parents’ economic advantages, they
nevertheless internalized a lower status within the Los Angeles’ social geography. As adolescents,
some met their perceived inferiority with confidence and self-respect or, at least, with dispassionate
nonchalance. Others longed for a life that was “over the hill.” They differentiated themselves from
their counterparts in Los Angeles by presenting as open-minded, easygoing, and politically dissident
within the suburban status quo. Though occasionally sensitive to how unceremoniously people
spoke of the Valley, they nonetheless took pride in their “middling” status situated between the
city’s more affluent Westside and its multiracial, working-class Eastside. As adolescents, many
protested against the Vietnam War and supported the Civil Rights movement, the women’s
movement, and the Chicano movement. As I explore in this chapter, many “suburban underdogs”
forged community through participation in Jewish institutions and within predominantly Jewish
neighborhoods. Collectively, they built the “Shtetl in the Valley.”
The paradigm of the “Shtetl” in the Valley,” centered around the Valley Cities Jewish
Community Center, illustrates the emergence of the “suburban underdog” narrative as a
contrapuntal to the more conservative currents that were circulating throughout the San Fernando
Valley in the 1960s and 1970s.107 Historical studies have emphasized how first generation Jewish
107 Jewish families played a notable role in the nation’s postwar suburbanization and, in later decades, local efforts to
preserve the racially white and middle class character of those areas. This was especially true of American Jewry in the
San Fernando Valley, where a sizeable number of Jewish homeowners integrated into a middle class lifestyle by
supporting reactionary political campaigns. In 1964, a substantial swath of middle class Jewish homeowners in the San
Fernando Valley parted company with the broader Los Angeles Jewish community to back Proposition 14, the ballot
measure that repealed fair-housing legislation. In the early 1970s, Jewish leaders from the San Fernando Valley backed
the first campaign to advance the Valley’s secession from the city of Los Angeles (CIVICC). In 1978, many supported
Governor Reagan’s tax revolt, epitomized by the infamous Proposition 13, which froze property values and depleted the
tax base. In the late 1970s, a considerable number of Jewish homeowners championed Bobby Fiedler and the antibusing initiative BUSTOP to end court-mandated school integration. Although scholars have debated whether the
Black-Jewish political alliance started to fray or grow stronger in the 1970s, the scholarship on the San Fernando Valley
Jewish community suggests that involvement in civil rights had started to wane in favor of self and group interest. See
Marc Dollinger, Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s (Brandeis University Press, 2018); George J.
Sanchez and Bruce Zuckerman ed. Beyond Alliances: The Jewish Role in Reshaping the Racial Landscape of Southern California
(Purdue University Press: 2012); Mark Brilliant, The Color of America has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights
Reform in California 1941-1978 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Raphael Sonenshein, City at Stake: Secession,
Reform, and the Battle for Los Angeles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004); Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the

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residents asserted their place as middle class homeowners, often embracing what Daniel Martinez
Hosang has called “political whiteness.”108 Such portrayals, however, reinforce a rigid duality within
Jewish ethnic identity, especially in the Suburbs— “the separate world of working-class ethnicity and
the middle class ideal of assimilation,” whereby San Fernando Valley Jews cast off their liberal
sensibilities for the wages of suburban acceptance.109 Yet recent studies have revealed the nuances
within the Jewish suburban sect and thus attenuate the liberal-conservative binary.110 Indeed, many
Jews in the San Fernando Valley, especially in the east Valley, struggled to reconcile their Jewish
liberalism and historic affinity with racial minorities with the allures of a “safe,” “family-oriented”
community, removed from the working class, non-white neighborhoods of the city’s core.111 While
many Valley residents, most notably in the west Valley, crafted a narrative of the Valley as Los
Angeles’ neglected step-sister and fought to preserve its white racial identity, others claimed
belonging through a commitment to social justice, even from their comfortable suburban homes.
These were the “suburban underdogs,” and the focus of this chapter.
Future in Los Angeles (Verso, 1990). See Max David Baumgarten, “Searching for a Stake: The Scope of Jewish Politics in
Los Angeles from Watts to Rodney King, 1965-1992 Dissertations University of Los Angeles, California 2017; Lila
Corwin Berman, Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015);
Robert Fishman, "Los Angeles: Suburban Metropolis," in Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (New York: Basic
Books, 1987), 155-181; Bruce Phillips, Los Angeles Jewry: A Demographic Portrait, American Jewish Committee (AJC),
Jewish Publication Society (1986); Deborah Dash Moore, To the Golden Cities Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami
and L.A. (Free Press, 1994); Deborah Dash Moore, At Home in America: Second Generation New York Jews (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1981).
108 Daniel Martinez Hosang, Racial Propositions, 21. Martinez Hosang defines “political whiteness” as a political
subjectivity that operates as an absent referent, “hailing and interpolating particular subjects through various affective
appeals witnessed in claims to protect “our rights,” “our jobs,” our homes, “our kids,” “our streets,” and even “our
state” that never mention race but are addressed to racialized subjects .
109 George Sánchez, “‘What’s Good for Boyle Heights is Good for Jews’: Creating Multiculturalism on the Eastside
during the 1950s,” American Quarterly 56, no. 3 (2004): 36, doi:10.1353/aq.2004.0042 110 See Max David Baumgarten, “Searching for a Stake: The Scope of Jewish Politics in Los Angeles from Watts to
Rodney King, 1965-1992” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2017), eScholarship, University of
California. 111 For example, throughout the busing conflicts of the 1970s, Jewish homeowners attempted to reconcile their social
justice ideals and historic affinity with racial minorities with the temptations of educational flight from the city’s public
schools (if not literal flight to other districts). As Sara Smith has recently argued, many found a middle ground by
opening—and sending their children to—private, Jewish day schools. See Sara Smith, “For the “Wrong” Reasons: Los
Angeles Jews and Busing,” in Jewish Identities in the American West: Relational Perspectives, ed. Ellen Eisenberg (Brandeis
University Press, 2022), 255-289.

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Transcending the Cahuenga Pass: Entering Suburbia “From the Eastside”
One afternoon in the early 1960s, Ann Brown shouted to her older sister from across the
yard of her elementary school that there was “lokshen” for lunch. To her surprise, Ann’s sister
pretended not to know her. “Lokshen” meant noodles in Yiddish but Ann, a first grader at Victory
Boulevard Elementary, hadn’t the faintest notion that she was not speaking English. She only knew
noodles as “lokshen” and, in her family’s home in North Hollywood, California, “lokshen” was the
only word for noodle that she needed to know. Walking home from school that day, Ann’s sister,
Karen, a third grader, told her never to say that word at school again.112
Reflecting on this “funny story” sixty years later, Brown conjured up “very positive”
memories of her elementary school days in the east San Fernando Valley: “If my friends knew I was
Jewish, it just didn’t matter, we were really a melting pot at Victory Boulevard school.” In those early
days, Ann, Karen, and their “neighborhood gang” departed for school on foot, waved goodbye to
their bathrobe-clad mothers, and traversed over a mile of one-story track homes to arrive at their
“melting pot” of an elementary school. At Victory Boulevard School, Brown befriended blonde girls
with baloney sandwiches and Italian children who ate fish on Fridays. On Cinco de Mayo, Brown
recalled— “though I cringe at that shit now”— the elementary school kids danced the “cucaracha”
and performed the “Mexican Hat Dance.” Victory Boulevard School, she proclaimed, was “my first
introduction to a non-Jewish world.”113
Ann Brown’s upbringing in North Hollywood constitutes part of a well-documented history
of Eastern European-descended Jewish families that moved out of working-class communities in the
post-World War II period and settled in the smoggy east San Fernando Valley.114 Like the Browns,
112 Ann Brown Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, January 31, 2022, Los Angeles, CA 113 Ibid. 114 According to a 1953 report produced by the Jewish Community Council on the Los Angeles Jewry, 35,500 Jews lived
in the Valley in 1951. By 1958, that number was 81,000 Jews lived in the Valley. George Sanchez, Boyle Heights: How a Los
Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2021); Bruce A.

- 41 -
many financed their westward migrations with federal monies packaged in Veteran Affairs programs,
especially the GI Bill. They purchased homes with low-interest mortgages and gained greater access
to the halls of higher education. Former servicemen enjoyed preferential hiring and small loans for
opening businesses.115 But all, at least to a certain extent, benefitted from the privileges of a white
racial designation that insured an elevated social position for Jews not just in Los Angeles but across
the nation.116
Even so, many Jewish families moving into the east San Fernando Valley in the postwar era
claimed radical beginnings in heterogenous urban settings. Dan Forer’s family moved to Van Nuys,
California in 1963 when he was six. But, like many East Coast Jewish transplants, his life in Los
Angeles began in the city’s Eastside.
117 Forer’s mother and father settled first in a basement
apartment, “literally next to the Boiler room,” in the Boyle Heights neighborhood. After completing
their law and education degrees, Forer’s parents amassed enough savings to purchase a home in
Monterey Park, where they got their first exposure to a rapidly growing, ethnically-mixed West Coast
suburb. As sociologist Timothy Fong notes, Monterey Park in the early 1950s was expanding its
housing-tracts but, unlike other planned suburban communities, opened them to Latinx families
Phillips, “Not Quite White: The Emergence of Jewish ‘Ethnoburbs’ in Los Angeles 1920-2010,” American Jewish History
100, no. 1 (2016): 73-104; Deborah Dash Moore, To the Golden Cities Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A.
(Free Press, 1994). Many had migrated first to the Eastside from Midwest and Northeast.
115 Ira n, When Affirmative Action was White: A Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth Century America (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 2005).
116 Scholars of Jewish life in the United States have debated a periodization that posits the postwar period as the moment
in which Eastern European Jewish Americans were “conferred” or “granted” a racially white designation. Caroline Luce,
in particular, has argued that racial whiteness was a project that Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants themselves engaged
with even before World War I. She contends that these Eastern European immigrants deployed a “cultural memory to
construct a particular form of racial in-betweenness and to maintain it as they left Boyle Heights and ‘became white
folks.” See Caroline Luce, “Yiddish Writers in Los Angeles and the Jewish Fantasy Past.” American Jewish History 102 no.
4 (2018): 481-509, 485. For texts that present Jewish racialization in the postwar era, see Karen Bodkin, How Jews Became
White Folks and What that Says About Race in America (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press: 1998); Matthew Frye
Jacobson Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Harvard University Press, 1998). 117 Dan Forer Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 16, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.

- 42 -
from nearby East L.A., Japanese Americans returning from internment camps, and Chinese
Americans from the nearby Chinatown.118
As a kindergartner, Forer played outside on the street with a gang of 10 to 20 kids of varied
ethno-racial backgrounds whose parents had all recently bought their first homes in Monterey Park.
“It was very, very integrated,” Forer recalled of his street in Monterey Park: “We would go to
Christmas and have tamales and I didn’t think twice of the Navarro’s being any different.” Dan
Forer unwrapped corn husks with his Chicano neighbors but the community he built in Monterey
Park thrived in the public arena of the street, outside the dining room windows. The youth
community was established through pick-up games and head injuries.
Marci Pantilliat’s family also moved from Boyle Heights to Monterey Park when she was
four years old. Marci’s father, Hershey Eisenberg, grew up in Boyle Heights and was committed to
the collectivist spirit that permeated the neighborhood. Even when the Eisenbergs accrued a nest
egg to purchase their first home in Monterey Park, Hershey maintained his connections to his
friends in Boyle Heights as a participant and then leader of the Wabash Saxons-Spirit of Boyle
Heights, an ethnically mixed social club.119 Marci spent nine years or so in Monterey Park where, like
Dan, she interacted with children of different ethnic backgrounds, predominantly of East Asian
descent.
120
In Monterey Park, Dan and Marci’s family joined a cohort of Russian Jewish immigrants
who helped imbue the suburb with “populist liberal leanings.”121 Politically, Monterey Park
resembled much of Los Angeles’ Eastside during the Great Depression and World War II era, in
118 Timothy Fong, The First Suburban Chinatown: The Remaking of Monterey Park, California (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1994).
119 Michael Aushenker, “Born in East L.A.” in the online Jewish Journal, last modified August 1, 2002.
https://jewishjournal.com/community/6361/
120 Marci Pantilliat interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 15, 2022, Los Angeles, CA 121 Fong, The First Suburban Chinatown, 21.

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which Jewish and non-Jewish residents embraced socialist precepts, and did so with implicit support
from the Popular Front and New Deal politicians. It was not until the 1950s that agents from the
California Subcommittee on Un-American Activities began targeting left leaning institutions in
neighboring areas, especially Boyle Heights, as bastions for communists and socialists.122
Monterey Park and its Jewish inhabitants were not left unscathed by the era’s Red Scare.
One day, Forer recounts, his mother received a call saying “you need to come to the emergency
room… your husband’s been in an accident and it doesn’t look like he is going to make it.” When
she arrived to the hospital, however, “they had no record of my father ever being there.” In the
meantime, “the FBI ransacked our house… we came home to the house to find it totally turned
upside down.” Dan’s parents were blacklisted and today, he has three boxes of FBI files on his
Father. After the pillaging of their home, the Forers remained active in their leftist circles but “toned
it down a bit because they didn’t want anything to happen to [the kids].” It would not be long before
the Forers decided to leave their home in Monterey Park for Van Nuys.
Dan Forer’s parents’ decision to leave Monterey Park for the San Fernando Valley marks an
important moment in the emergence of the “suburban underdog,” suggesting how Jewish leftists
viewed the east San Fernando Valley in the late 1950s. In Monterey Park, a diverse, working-class
community, the Forers’ radical politics were more conspicuous, drawing unwelcome attention from
the authorities. Consequently, they made a calculated choice to “invest in themselves” by resettling
in a racially homogenous, increasingly Jewish suburb. Here, they envisioned maintaining their
activism with reduced scrutiny. This shift towards the suburbs was driven by the imperative of
providing a “stable” environment for their children. Yet beyond its immediate implications, this
decision reveals a deeper yearning for recognition and acceptance. Feeling marginalized and targeted
in their Eastside home, Dan’s parents sought refuge in a locale where they could secure the benefits
122 George J. Sanchez, Boyle Heights, 154.

- 44 -
of state-sponsored belonging, most obviously in the form of a federally-backed track home in a
predominantly Jewish environment. Thus, their move to the east San Fernando Valley transcended
mere geography and social mobility; it established a blueprint for their children, including Dan, on
how to negotiate the Valley’s shifting demographics. The idea of relocating “for the sake of the
children,” while preserving their leftist values became a defining motif within the family’s narrative,
and hinted at their response to change in later decades.
Aaron Paley’s family also found its way to Van Nuys initially to escape the perils of the Red
Scare.123 Aaron’s mother and father hailed from politically radical roots in the Midwest, Milwaukee
and Iowa respectively. His mother’s Uncle had been the city attorney of Milwaukee, elected in 1932
on the socialist ticket. As Paley recalled, “there was a very strong radical or progressive strain in [my
mother’s] family.” His parents met on a train to Los Angeles in 1947 and settled in the Echo Park
neighborhood where they joined the Communist Party and “met people who were definitely outside
of their world.” But with the McCarthy Era came fears of arrest and the removal of their children,
so the Paley’s left Echo Park for Israel. They returned to California in 1951 and settled in the
burgeoning suburb of Lakewood, a planned community south of downtown Los Angeles. In the
1950s, Lakewood was a “socially and occupationally diverse” suburb, designed to host both blue and
white collar workers.124 Although Lakewood’s housing uniformity and occupational heterogeneity
engendered “a levelling effect,” it did not offer the community in which the Paley’s hoped to raise
their kids. Aaron recounted, “[my parents] wanted to pick a place that had more of a Jewish
community.” They found that growing Jewish community in Van Nuys.
123 Aaron Paley Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 11, 2022, Los Angeles, CA 124 Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (University of
Chicago Press, 2002), 197.

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Figure 5: Vintage Postcard of Van Nuys Boulevard, Van Nuys, California. Van Nuys Neighborhood
City Council Word Press,
By the early 1960s, the district of Van Nuys had become one of the San Fernando Valley’s
fastest growing suburban neighborhoods. Although there were no planned communities (like the
Kaiser Community Homes in the adjacent Panorama City neighborhood), Van Nuys, located
squarely in the middle of the San Fernando Valley, was the beating heart of its civic and residential
expansion. One-story, two bedroom homes with abundant fruit trees lined the neighborhood’s wide
streets. Planted rows of palm trees, theater marquees, and grocery signs for chains like Piggly Wiggly
and Bullocks, dotted the neighborhood’s artery: Van Nuys Boulevard. Remnants of the area’s
historic citrus groves butted up against the area’s budding industrial landscape. In the 1960s, Van
Nuys was considered a “middle of the middle class” neighborhood and was predominantly white,

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although the rise in blue and white collar work drew growing numbers of Mexican American
residents in the northern areas of the district.
125
Figure 6: Subdivision map of Van Nuys, ca. 1956. San Fernando Valley Digital History Collection, California State
University, Northridge, adapted by author. The black circle encompasses the Van Nuys neighborhoods, adapted by Julia
Brown-Bernstein.
Throughout the 1960s, the Van Nuys district became the center of gravity for Jewish life in
the San Fernando Valley. Hershey Eisenberg and his wife found Van Nuys more affordable and
more amenable as a Jewish beachhead in an otherwise non-Jewish, white suburb. Like the Paley’s,
the Eisenbergs “wanted to be in a more Jewish neighborhood,” as Marci Pantilliat put it, because
“we grew up truthfully in Monterey park without any contact with Jewish people and then, when we
125 Kotkin and Ozuna, “The Changing Face of the San Fernando Valley,” 8-9.

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moved to the Valley, it was a lot different.”126 Indeed, by 1968, just a few years after Marci Pantilliat
and her family moved into Van Nuys, the San Fernando Valley boasted 26% of greater Los Angeles’
Jewish population.127
Within a few years of having children, the Forer and Eisenberg families had moved out of
the city’s Eastside to the rapidly developing east San Fernando Valley. The Paley’s traded their home
in a planned community in the south of Los Angeles for a track home on Ethel Avenue in Van
Nuys. All three families established roots in Los Angeles’ Eastside, a wellspring for mid-century
progressive politics. But they migrated to the San Fernando Valley not only when the FHA and local
realtors granted them entry but when their working-class communities placed a spotlight on their
leftist politics.
Yet as Bruce A. Phillips has argued about Jewish residential patterns, the Forer, Eisenberg,
and Paley families’ respective migration into the San Fernando Valley did not conform to the spatial
assimilation model by which migrants integrate into mainstream (i.e. white) spaces through
“dispersion.” Rather, as he and others have pointed out, “Jews, unlike other whites, withdrew
reluctantly from urban neighborhoods.”128 Jews in Los Angeles followed a model of settlement that
bolstered ethnic and cultural persistence through concentrated micro-communities. The Forers,
Eisenbergs, and Paleys’ migration into the San Fernando Valley was not ipso facto assimilation into
mainstream whiteness via suburbanization, though they certainly benefitted from racialized
structures that made suburban homeownership accessible to them. Instead, the three families
migrated to raise their children in an affordable Jewish suburban community that was removed from
126 Pantilliat, interview 127 Bruce A. Phillips, “Cultural Faultlines: The Seven Socio-Ecologies of Jewish Los Angeles,” in The Jewish Role in
American Life: An Annual Review, Bruce Zuckerman and Jeremy Schoenberg, eds., (Purdue University Press, 2007), 109-
137.
128 Bruce A. Phillips, “Not Quite White: The Emergence of Jewish ‘Ethnoburbs’ in Los Angeles 1920-2010,” See also
Hillel Levine and Lawrence Harmon, The Death of an American Jewish Community: A Tragedy of Good Intentions (Touchstone,
1993); Lila Corwin Berman, Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit, (University of Chicago Press,
2015).

- 48 -
the political radicalism—and perceived threats—associated with the Eastside in the postwar period.
Some demonstrably maintained their connections to the Eastside, others claimed ties through their
perceived closeness.
Scholars have often characterized Jewish migration out of Los Angeles’ Eastside as an
“exodus.” The numbers do not lie. By 1960, only 4% of the Jewish population of Los Angeles still
lived in Boyle Heights, once the epicenter of Jewish life in the city.129 What is generally less explored,
however, is the extent to which those same Jews who moved out of the Eastside repatriated
figuratively as they reconstructed their Jewishness in the postwar suburban landscape of the San
Fernando Valley. The Forers, Eisenbergs, and Paleys were three such families that inculcated their
children with collectivist and politically progressive values as they adapted to Van Nuys’ more
button-down veneer.
Finding a Pool in Suburbia
For Dan Forer, Van Nuys’ suffocating smog could hardly taint its “idyllic” nature as a
community in which to grow up. There were “middle class families everywhere and most were not
super large… with hard working parents, rather liberal in that time,” he noted. Everyone “went to
public school” because the education “was remarkable.” Although Dan Forer’s family attended the
Wilshire Boulevard Temple in downtown Los Angeles, Van Nuys was part of a city-wide
efflorescence of Jewish religious and cultural institutions that were ideologically more reformist and
led by more entrepreneurial rabbis than those on the East Coast.130 A downtown synagogue near the
Eastside provided a sense of continuity for Forer’s parents, but for Forer, like in Monterey Park, his
sense of belonging stemmed from the public spaces of his new suburban milieu.
129 Sánchez, Boyle Heights, 134. 130 Deborah Moore, To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the Jewish American Dream in Miami and L.A. (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1994), 95-96.

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As a child, Forer would dial into the Citizens’ Band radio, using the handle Blue Moon, to
gather his friends for games of flag football or softball. They would ride bikes in a large group to the
park, where they divided into teams, set boundaries, and officiated their own matches. If they
fancied basketball, they’d head to Valley College or Grant High School to play. Even after hours,
they’d find a way to sneak in through a locker room window, wait for the custodian to leave, and
resume playing for hours.131 The neighborhood children was already crafting an identity that defied
the boundaries of traditional suburban living by establishing autonomous youth collectives.
Although more Jewish families, like the Forers, flocked to Van Nuys in the early 1960s,
Forer’s community was not solely defined by religious affiliation. He recalled a moment during the
high holidays when Jewish kids from the neighborhood felt excluded from playing with their friends
inside the playground: “we were on the outside of the fence talking to our friends on the inside of
the fence and they were the ones who had the playground and the balls and we weren’t allowed to
play with them.” This experience underscored the public youth culture in Van Nuys, where Forer
found belonging through activities in parks, playgrounds, and, most importantly, among the
neighborhood collectives, that resisted the isolating nature of the picket fence. When he ended up in
the hospital after a bike injury, Forer fondly noted that 30 or 40 people paid him a visit in the
hospital, and the school community wrote cards wishing him well. Forer’s presence in public spaces
made him feel “like a celebrity” and reinforced his belonging tied to the “shared system” that
Marlena Lipton invoked to characterize the east Valley of the 1950s.
132
The middle class character of his Van Nuys neighborhood facilitated a vibrant public youth
culture. “Everybody had money, but they didn’t have money to waste,” Forer noted. “If you really
wanted something, you would get it, but you get it for your birthday, or for Hanukkah, or for
131 Forer, Interview 132 Ibid.

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Christmas. Everybody was used to getting hand-me downs.” Hand me downs, however, were passed
down not just from one sibling to another. The whole neighborhood participated in the ritual. When
Forer was ready to graduate from a three speed to a ten speed bike, he would “get the ten speed
from the neighbor and pass it on down to someone else.” Forer’s sphere of responsibility extended
beyond his nuclear family to his peer group. And vice versa.
Private goods, such as family homes, doubled as community resources in the neighborhood.
Forer remembered, “we got a huge pool table and put it in the garage and everybody would come
over and shoot pool in the garage at our place. Mark Johnson had the biggest pool, so we would all
go over to his house to go swimming…somebody else had a big backyard we would play capture the
flag there.” The Eisenberg Van Nuys’ home also functioned as a public amenity to be enjoyed by the
neighbors and their children. When Marci Pantilliat and her siblings moved into the family’s Van
Nuys home, they were “over the moon” about their new pool and the fact that there was an “awful
lot of kids close in age to [her] and her sisters.” Every summer, the family invited the “majority of
the neighborhood over to their backyard to watch fireworks and swim in the pool. It was not just
that there were less physical barriers to private properties, there was a prevailing social logic that
individual homes, and their many amenities, were accessible to the community.133
Yet even as families like the Forers and Pantilliats extended their private pools to their
neighborhood’s youth, these amenities highlighted the postwar racial disparities in the east Valley.
For nearly two years, the predominantly African American residents of Pacoima pressed the city to
fund a public pool in their community.134 With the city funding the construction of public pools in
more affluent communities like Granada Hills from a 1957 park bond, Pacoima residents lobbied
133 One example of this emerged in Northridge “Residents of Northridge Welcome Pacoima Visitors to Their Pools,”
Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1965. 134 Sid Bernstein, “City Gives Pacoima Priority for Pool,” Los Angeles Times, Mar 1, 1968; “Pacoima’s Poor Need a Pool
Too,” Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1968.

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for their fair share of postwar prosperity. In 1968 the argument centered on the opening of a pool in
North Pacoima on Filmore Street. In August 1968, the city had opened a “shallow” 60 by 30 feet
pool but promised to construct a regulation-sized pool by the next summer. Even the San Fernando
Valley Board of Realtors supported Pacoima’s campaign, stating, “the committee is dedicated to the
belief that all members of our total community must share the benefits of our affluent society, or
our entire society will suffer. We believe that a major step in this direction would be the construction
of needed recreation facilities at North Pacoima Park.”135
135 “Realtors Support Please for Pacoima Swim Pool,” Los Angeles Times, November 19th, 1968.

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Figure 7 : Los Angeles Times clipping of the opening of pool in North Pacoima, California, Box 4728, Folder 3,
“Valley Problems,” Tom Bradley Administrative Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University of
California, Los Angeles.
By the summer of 1969, with the promise of a larger pool not even close, Pacoima residents held
“Swim-Ins,” to pressure city government. In one instance, 70 Pacoima youth were bussed to a
Sylmar pool, sponsored by the Black and White and Brown Women’s Congress of California. As
Pacoima resident Coralie Washington proclaimed, “We want to see architectural drawings, dirt
turned, and the pool built. We’re tired of being told ‘there’s another day.’ We’re tired of being
pacified.”136 Despite ongoing efforts, a year later, Pacoima residents were still waiting for their
Olympic-sized pool.137 The discrepancy between the public consumption of private goods in Van
136 Kenneth Fanucchi, “Sylmar Splash: 70 Pacoimans Hold ‘Swim In,’” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1969. 137 Charles Donaldson, “Summer Without Swim Pool Looms in Pacoima,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1970.

- 53 -
Nuys with the struggle for access to public goods in Pacoima clearly illustrated the unequal
development of the east San Fernando Valley in the postwar era.
Just south of Pacoima, Arleta was another area in the east Valley in which Jewish families
bought their first homes with support from the GI Bill. Only, unlike in Van Nuys where there was a
pronounced Jewish presence, Lisa Garcia described Arleta as not only “very white,” but that she and
her family “were the only Jews on the block.” As she recalled, “there was a lot of antisemitism
because we didn’t put up a Christmas tree.” Lisa Garcia also described overt anti-Black racism and
violence in her community. When an African American family bought a home across the street, Lisa
recalled that neighbors pressured her father to sign a petition forbidding them from moving in. “My
dad said no, I’m not going to do that, and the next day we had a cross burned in our grass.”138 Lisa
Garcia’s family’s experience reflects a pattern where Jewish families, with federally-backed loans,
purchased homes across the east San Fernando Valley. They brought to the east Valley a
quintessential racial liberalism, helping set the Valley’s eastside apart from the more conservative
west Valley.139
The Shtetl in the Valley
Van Nuys was a “safe” neighborhood with a majority of “single-family, one story homes.”
No one locked their doors. Everyone maintained their lawns, which meant regular, if inadvertent,
adult supervision of the bike-riding youths who ambled through the streets until the street lamps
came on. When not swimming in their backyard, Marci Pantilliat and her sisters’ rode their bikes
around the neighborhood congregating in the afternoons and evenings in the cul-de-sac at the end
of their street. Volumes have been published on the physical design of postwar suburbs. Most of it
138 Lisa Garcia Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein February 11, 2022, Los Angeles, CA. 139 For more on racial liberalism, see Martinez Hosang, Racial Propositions, 13-23.

- 54 -
has denounced the cul-de-sac and curvilinear street layout, which has proven to promote car
dependence, reduce social connectivity, and discourage communal integration.140 True as these
critiques may be, it is also worth considering the cul-de-sac from the perspective of the youth who
utilized the space for their own social ends. Moreover, it compels us to question how youth who
spent formative years in multiracial, working class settings and who hailed from politically
progressive families, conceptualized the suburban layout. For them, it was not a site of communal
degeneration but rather a catalyst for community cohesion.
Just a mile away from the Forer family home, Ann Brown and her sister Karen were
building their own “cul-de-sac collective.” Their parents, originally from the city’s Eastside, with
socialist politics and modest life savings, bought their first home in North Hollywood and then
shortly thereafter moved to Van Nuys. Ann and Karen quickly integrated into the “neighborhood
gang that walked to school and walked home every day together.” Reminiscing on her early school
years, Brown was astounded by just how far her parents let her and her sister walk: “We walked
from like way past Vanowen and Whitsett, we crossed Laurel Canyon, we crossed everything went
to Victory Boulevard school, and our moms and dads were like okay with that…when I moved
back, I thought I would not have let my kids do that.”141 Ann Brown’s parents, akin to the Forers’,
fostered a kind of urban, working class sensibility in their children that they adapted to their
suburban environment. As Deborah Dash Moore notes about postwar Jewish settlement in Los
Angeles, “those who grew up in the city, especially the children of immigrants, quickly acquired a
streetwise savvy as they navigated patterns of daily life, walking from home to school, running
140 For more see, Becky Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 19-68; June Williamson and Ellen Dunham Jones, Retrofitting
Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (Wiley: New Jersey, 2009); Michael Sorkin, Variations on a Theme
Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: New York, 1992); 141 Although she did not elaborate on this in our interview, one can infer from Ann’s comments that she would not let
her own children traverse that distance both because it was far, but also because the neighborhood had undergone
dramatic demographic shifts in the intervening years.

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errands at local stores, visiting relatives, playing games etc.…”142 In the case of the Dan Forer and
Ann Brown, such a streetwise savviness was an attribute that they cultivated amidst the manicured
lawns and orange groves of the San Fernando Valley. In her elementary and junior high-school years
Ann’s sense of belonging emerged from the mobility she experienced on the streets of Van Nuys
with her neighborhood collective.
To Dan, the public youth community erased racial or ethnic difference. “It was not, I would
say, really diverse, but I would also say it wasn’t very racist in any way…I don’t think we saw
anybody as different.” Dan wasn’t aware of “prejudice or racism until [he] studied it in school” and
his dad told him about “being a freedom rider.” In fact, it was not until he accompanied his parents
at age eleven to the L.A. Coliseum in 1968 for Matin Luther King Jr.’s memorial tribute that Dan
felt he “stepped out of this idyllic world and into the real world.” For him, Van Nuys was a “little
Disneyland” where the street culture leveled the playing field. Jewish youth recognized that the
Valley was predominantly white, but, as children, they did not understand why their schools were, as
Sarabeth, whose family migrated to the San Fernando Valley from Brooklyn, noted, “pure white.”143
Indeed, youth growing up in Van Nuys were unaware of the systemic advantages that enabled their
parents to become homeowners with private pools, while their counterparts in nearby Pacoima
waited years for a public pool that seemed never to come.
Unlike the Forers, who traveled south to LA’s downtown area to attend Synagogue or
Sarabeth’s family who joined a conservative synagogue in the West Valley, Ann Brown’s family
became deeply engaged in the burgeoning world of Jewish Community Centers that proliferated
across the South and West. The Jewish Community Center (JCC) movement had existed since the
interwar years but swelled concomitant with Jewish suburbanization in the post-World War II
142 Moore, To the Golden Cities, 4. 143 Sarabeth Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein February 1, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.

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period. As the historian Jenna Weissman Joselit notes, the Jewish Community Center “served as a
cultural clearinghouse where the Jews of the neighborhood could go for a swim, play basketball,
attend a drawing class. Unlike the synagogue-center, though, it deliberately maintained an open door
policy, a nondenominational perspective.”144 The suburban JCC fostered a “new Jewish
neighborhood” that catered less to the material needs of the immigrant generation and more to the
recreational and cultural proclivities of their offspring. At the JCC, members explored and cultivated
a suburban Jewish identity in a “non-threatening” and “non-doctrinaire” setting.145
The Valley Cities Jewish Community Center (VCJCC) opened in 1951 on Burbank
Boulevard in Van Nuys and quickly transformed into the linchpin of Jewish life in the area. Indeed,
Aaron Paley’s family got involved with the Center even before it opened its doors. One afternoon
his young mother strolled with all three of her children no more than five minutes from their Van
Nuys home. She came across a sign on a large structure that read, “future home of Valley Cities
Jewish Community Center.” As Paley recalled, “My mother goes in, meets a woman named Anita,
the Membership Coordinator, my mother signs up and we become members of the Center and that
changed all of our lives.” Aaron Paley’s family soon befriended Ann Brown’s parents who had
helped launch the VCJCC and would lead its Saturday morning kinderschul, a school to teach
attendees Yiddish and leftist progressive politics.
For the Paleys and Browns, and a subgroup of other Jewish families settling in the east San
Fernando Valley, the opening of the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center, fostered a “magical
community.” As Ann Brown reflected, “I grew up at the Center, I mean, we were there through
144 Jenna Weissman Joselit, “From ‘Y’ to ‘J’: The History of Jewish Community Centers. Tabletmag January 17, 2019.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/history-of-jewish-community-centers 145 Barry Chazan, “What is ‘Informal Jewish Education,’” Principles and Pedagogies in Jewish Education (Palgrave Macmillan,
2021), 51-63

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elementary school and junior high, I think I was probably there every afternoon, there were different
special interest groups you know, there was ballet, and my mom taught guitar and drama group.”146
Figure 8: Teenage Folk-dancers at the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in 1963. Los Angeles Public Library
Photo Collection.
The overlap between her friend group at the Valley Cities Community Center and her junior
high school (Millikan) and high school (Grant), made it so Ann Brown’s identity was “90%” shaped
through the Jewish center and its summer camps. The same was true for Aaron Paley, who
described the belonging engendered by the Center as a series of “concentric circles”: There was the
broad community of VCJCC members, a smaller subsect of whom attended the Saturday
kinderschul, and then a subset of families who also assisted the Jewish Community Association
146 Brown, Interview

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(JCA) and VCJAA family camp. Although Aaron did not experience the same overlap between his
Community Center and his school groups as Ann, the consistent core of around two hundred
individuals who belonged to the VCJCC, the Saturday kinderschul, and attended both the VCJCC
summer camp and the JCA family camps, created a “Shtetl in the Valley.” Each summer that
“Shtetl” came alive at the VCJCC summer camp, “Brigadoon”-style, in which around fifty families
lived together for a week.147
The VCJCC became the “North Star” for families like the Paleys and Browns in part because
they were “a minority within a minority.”148 By the early 1950s, the Jewish population in the east San
Fernando Valley was expanding but the majority of newcomers hailed from far flung cities like
Chicago and Brooklyn. By contrast, the Paleys and Browns were part of a smaller contingency of
Los Angeles-born Jewish residents with enough savings to trade tenancy for homeownership in the
San Fernando Valley but not enough to purchase a home in the more affluent Westside or Beverly
Hills. As Aaron notes, they also did not fit in with the Synagogue-going Jewish community. If a
considerable number of Jewish newcomers to the east San Fernando joined congregations, the
VCJCC offered members a space to freely associate regardless of religious observance. The Center’s
members were “atheists and non-Zionists…radically progressive and they were Yiddishists.”As Ann
explained, “the Jewish center was not only not religious it was anti-religious, it was very secular
humanist, so it’s not like I was in a particularly religious community but it was a very Jewish, a very
cultural community.”149
The VCJCC’s multifaceted functions and political radicalism made it a suburban counterpart
to the Jewish institutions of Los Angeles’ Eastside. As historian George J. Sánchez has
147 Moore, To the Golden Cities, 71-72. For more on the mythology of the “shtetl” in the Jewish popular and literary
imaginary see Luce, “Yiddish Writers in Los Angeles and the Jewish Fantasy Past,” 481-483 and Jeffrey Shandler, Shtetl:
A Vernacular Intellectual History (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2013). 148 Pantiliiat, Interview 149 Brown, Interview

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demonstrated, the Soto-Michigan Center in Boyle Heights served throughout the World War II era
as a cultural nexus for the entire Boyle Heights community, which meant that it “welcomed all
groups through its doors.”150 In the 1950s, when agents of California’s Un-American Activities
targeted the Soto-Michigan Center alleging Communist collusion, it became clear that the Center’s
political radicalism was a red herring. The Center was under attack not just for supporting labor
rights but also for “promoting and defending multiracialism.” Though the VCJCC resembled such
cultural institutions as the Soto-Michigan Center, it did not serve a multiracial community. The
VCJCC’s racially homogenous membership allowed it to parry scrutiny not spared similar
institutions in the City’s Eastside.
Besides arts and technical classes, the Center offered a nursery for young, working moms
and courses on political organizing. The Center’s secular humanism nourished the leftist politics
Ann Brown’s parents had raised her and Karen with: “For most of my elementary school years into
junior high, I had to accompany my mom to sit in front of a huge market to pass out leaflets to not
buy grapes and not by lettuce because my mom was involved in the United Farm Workers.”
Brown’s political education came from both her mother and her father, a Spanish teacher and Public
Administrator respectively. While Brown’s mother taught Spanish and ESL classes at Poly Technical
High School in Sun Valley, a working class neighborhood in the Northeast Valley, Brown’s father
was deeply integrated in Los Angeles municipal politics. In addition to teaching public
administration at the University of Southern California and Los Angeles City Community College,
he edited and managed the Western City Magazine and started several organizations dedicated to
public affairs. Most saliently, the ninth circuit Judge appointed Brown’s father as mediator during
the contentious planning committees of the Century Freeway (Interstate 105). Given the
150 Sánchez, Boyle Heights, 142.

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controversies surrounding other urban renewal projects, Brown’s father presided as a trusted and
empathic figure, responsive to the needs and stakes of all parties.
With two working parents engrained in city life and politics, Ann Brown developed a
worldview that not only extended beyond her suburban neighborhood but also that contrasted
starkly with her neighbors. If Dan Forer’s first exposure to the “real world” came when he attended
Martin Luther King Jr.’s memorial at the Coliseum in South Los Angeles, Ann Brown remembered
the “animosity” she and her mother received from local shoppers who balked at their request to
boycott certain agricultural products to support Latinx migrant workers. As she moved through
elementary school, Brown realized that her family’s progressive orientation did not concord with the
prevailing political climate of Van Nuys: “I went with my mom to pass out literature on the Fair
Housing Act, and that was the first time I realized we are surrounded by racists, that we will have the
door slammed in our faces.” With the exception of the northeast, the San Fernando Valley was in
those days a white hamlet, populated primarily by residents who cast votes against racial equity in
housing and employment.151
The VCJCC offered its members a sanctuary from the racially exclusive politics of their
neighbors without disrupting the racial homogeneity of the neighborhood. The Center enabled the
endurance of Yiddish cultural traditions and radical politics, strengthened by life in multiethnic,
working-class communities, which deepened its members’ commitment to democratic principles.
But the Center was fundamentally an alternative space within the east San Fernando Valley, not a
space of outright resistance or political contestation. Its members advocated for social reform but its
presence did not challenge the Valley’s racial order, or the entrenched narrative of rural—and now
suburban—whiteness maintained by residents.
151 For more on Proposition 14 see, Martinez Hosang, Racial Propositions, 53-90

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By the time Ann Brown reached Grant High School in the late sixties/early 1970s, she and
many of her peers from both the VCJCC and her school formed an alternative group, “the Freak
Longs.” The Freak Longs participated in campus demonstrations to aid the school’s teacher strikes,
even taking over the administration building. As Brown put it, “we were a very political generation”
that was also, like their counterparts across the nation, experimenting with new substances and
experiences. The peer group built a youth culture outside in the “parking lot of the Jewish Center.
“It’s where I first dropped acid,” Ann declared, and the summer camp was where she lost her
virginity. The Center’s programming “went with the times” including offering classes in
psychodrama, but it was not alone in embracing aspects of 1960s counterculture. Jewish youth
across the east San Fernando Valley turned to recreational drug use during their adolescence. Marci
Pantilliat, who had found her own social network through the Jewish sorority B’nai B’rith Girls
(BBG), would smoke pot with her friends in the back parking lot of Mike’s Pizza. As Marci recalled,
“In the same parking lot [as Mike’s Pizza] was a biker bar, so there was a combination of bikers and
just nerdy Jewish kids.” Parking lots supported the social worlds generally and marijuana use
specifically of Valley youth. Indeed, if there was one commodity that the east San Fernando Valley
had in spades during the 1960s, it was space. Jewish adolescents transformed that public space into
their own havens of expression and experimentation. While their parents’ generation praised the
Valley’s ample parking, their children hailed its ample parking lots. It was there that they felt most at
home, finding the Valley to excel in one very clear sense over the city.
The youth culture of the VCJCC was discernibly edgier than in the more affluent
neighborhoods of Los Angeles’ Westside. In her early adolescence, Ann felt significantly more at
ease at the Valley Center than among her peers at the Jewish Center in the Westside, where
members were demonstrably wealthier. Ann recalled being “very judgmental” towards her affluent
counterparts in the Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica neighborhoods who attended the prestigious

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“mothership kinderschule.” Brown and her peers were eager to ditch their Yiddish classes to smoke
pot in the parking lot, contrasting sharply with the dedicated disciples of the Westside who seemed
keen to learn. Brown recalls her impression of those students as “a bunch of ass lickers,” a
humorous reflection on her adolescent rivalries.152
Ann Brown’s participation in the Westside’s kinderschul and her ties to the VCJCC shaped
a distinct identity, emblematic of her generation’s experience in the east San Fernando Valley.
Despite her family’s economic advantages, Ann and her peers felt like underdogs both within the
Valley and across the city: “We were always the underdogs, we didn’t have the money, we didn’t
have the same as the LA groups that were thriving.”153 Being the underdog, however, was a source
of pride for Ann because it signaled that she and her peers, “struggled more” which made them, in
turn, “more noble.” Similarly, coming from Van Nuys Marci Pantilliat felt like an outsider in
Hollywood but comparably cooler than her west Valley counterparts: “I felt certainly an outsider,
like a hillbilly you know, I felt like people in Hollywood were so cool. I guess I didn’t feel as cool but
in Van Nuys I felt totally cool.” Within the social geography of the wider San Fernando Valley, Van
Nuys signaled urban hip. Within Greater Los Angeles, however, Van Nuys was like “being from the
sticks.”154
For Aaron Paley, being a suburban underdog lacked the same fashionable detachment. He
recalled,
I was not really proud of being from the Valley, at all, I mean, I was jealous of my friends
because the overnight camp, camp JC, that we went to, it pulled Jews from all over LA, so
we would meet them, people who were like from the Westside, who were from Brentwood
or who were from Echo Park, Los Feliz, and the kids who went to Marshall High, I thought
that was cool.
152 Brown Interview 153 Ibid. 154 Pantilliat interview

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For Paley, it wasn’t merely that the Valley lacked something. It actively felt deficient. As he
observed, “the town was there, was over the hill, it was another place, and you really felt it, really
felt, apart from it.” In Van Nuys, he felt himself far removed both physically and socio-culturally
from the city. That separateness formed the foundation of the Valley’s regional identity, contributing
to its racialized white heritage and its reputation as the “cocoon of the middle class,” while also
engendering a feeling of existential alienation among its younger residents. Marci Pantilliat recalled a
similar sentiment: “We weren’t as sophisticated as someone from Hollywood but we were more
sophisticated than the people from the West Valley.” Marci, Ann, Aaron and many of their peers
internalized this identity as the “suburban underdog,” though even that label held different
emotional registers for second generation residents of the east Valley.
Cruising Van Nuys and the Emergence of Valley “Cool”
For youth growing up in postwar suburbia, a driver’s license symbolized newfound
independence and personal freedom. It represented an escape from the stultifying conformity of
their parents’ living rooms and a gateway to embody the city’s liberating spirit. However, for youth
like Marci, Ann, Dan, and Aaron, a driver’s license, wasn’t just a getaway from the suburbs in the
traditional sense. Rather, it was a means to claim belonging in the east San Fernando Valley. Instead
of heading south to Venice or the Santa Monica beaches, they frequently used the suburban
landscape—filled with public spaces and broad thoroughfares—for collective recreation and
adolescent defiance. There is perhaps no better expression of this than cruising Van Nuys Boulevard
on Wednesday nights.
Van Nuys Boulevard, one of the main thoroughfares in the east San Fernando Valley,
traverses every neighborhood from Sherman Oaks' Ventura Boulevard to Pacoima's Fenton Avenue.
Often referred to as the aorta of the east San Fernando Valley, it serves as a symbolic artery

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connecting the region's diverse communities. Spanning north to south, the boulevard passes a
spectrum of socioeconomic strata, offering a tangible glimpse into the Valley's wide-ranging
economic disparities and cultural richness. Despite its multifaceted significance, Van Nuys
Boulevard remains a cherished space for residents, representing both ownership and pride in their
community.
Figures 9 (top) and 10 (bottom): Cruising Van Nuys Boulevard, summer 1972. Photographs by Rick
McCloskey. Photos accessed at flashback.com on August 11, 2022.

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Car cruising became a hallmark of American youth culture concurrent with the heyday of US
automobile manufacturing in the post-World War II period. Although cruising was first and
foremost a ritual involving “males and their cars,” women joined cruising nights as integral
participants in the act of mobile public exchange.155 Across Southern California, white youths
enthusiastically flaunted their hot rod cars along major suburban streets. In the east San Fernando
Valley, the General Motors Auto Plant on Van Nuys Boulevard naturalized cruising as the activity de
riguer.
Although the Vietnam War years had subdued the craze, by the early 1970s, the spectacle of
Van Nuys Boulevard teeming with teenagers and their customized cars gained national attention.
Van Nuys Boulevard became synonymous with cruising, and became the epicenter of white middleclass youth culture in the San Fernando Valley. It drew adolescents from both the west and east
sides of the Valley. Participants were adamant about asserting their presence on the streets and
155 Gary Cross, Machines of Youth: America’s Car Obsession (University of Chicago Press, 2018).

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connecting with each other. Dan Forer nostalgically reminisced about cruising as a means of
building “one giant family”— suburban adolescents’ own version of breadwinner liberalism.156
As he noted, “from the older kids [you] heard about cruising Van Nuys Boulevard.” The whole
event would begin around 6 or 6:30 at a hamburger stand like Bob’s Big Boy. The motorcycles
would begin the procession followed by the hot rods, lowriders, or vans. For Lisa Garcia, who grew
up in present-day Arleta, cruising was for “meeting and stimulation.” It was a “pick-up scene right
before your eyes.”157
Cruising Van Nuys Boulevard extended the vibrant youth culture that many had cultivated
on their bikes in their cul-de-sacs throughout the east San Fernando Valley. But more than that, The
“Boulevard” on Wednesday nights turned the east San Fernando Valley into a place unto itself, not
merely a referent to the city proper. On Wednesday evenings, Van Nuys became a destination,
drawing youths from across greater Los Angeles and bolstering the identity of those already residing
in its immediate vicinity. Yet cruising Van Nuys Boulevard, akin to horse riding in Shadow Hills,
also demonstrated how new generations crafted a distinct suburban whiteness. This racialized
identity was not tied to a “fictionalized rurality” but rather to youthful rebellion tinged with white
privilege. Where motorists of color in other areas of Greater Los Angeles consistently faced barriers
to their mobility, white teenagers in their hot rods and vans paraded with minimal restriction down
the Valley’s most notorious thoroughfare. As Lisa Garcia recalled, “The Boulevard,” as it was called,
even took priority over the ambulances whisking burn victims to the nearby Van Nuys burn center:
“the ambulances, would have to go all the way around, can you imagine? Can you imagine, to take
somebody to the burn Center, I mean so selfish, if you really want to know the truth.” 158
156 Robert O. Self, All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: New
York, 2012).
157 Lisa Garcia Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 11, 2022, Los Angeles, CA. 158 Ibid.

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Cruising Van Nuys Boulevard symbolized more than just a pastime for restive secondgeneration residents eager to break free from their manicured backyards. It embodied their embrace
of the “suburban underdog” identity. It was a retort to city kids, a way of showing how the Valley’s
youth had transformed the ‘little boxes’ into a vibrant cultural hub. However, this narrative omitted
the structural advantages their parents’ generation had enjoyed thanks to their state-sponsored
inclusion in the suburban “good life.” While cruising solidified the identity of white youth in the east
Valley, it failed to address the inherent privileges they held. Instead, it perpetuated the status quo, a
stark contrast to the car culture found in communities like the City of San Fernando and Pacoima.
In those areas, lowriders weren’t just vehicles for cultural expression, they stood as symbols of
resistance against spatial segregation and discriminatory policing. As Genevieve Carpio has argued,
restricting the mobility of lowriders has been one tactic through which state forces have racialized
people of color. Cruising in Van Nuys and the City of San Fernando, therefore, held vastly different
social and political connotations for residents.
159
It was not until the 1973 oil crisis that cruisers first faced pressure from their parents and
news outlets alike to curb their excessive gas usage. One week into the 1973 gas shortage, Lisa
Garcia, eager to join the cruise, deceived her parents, who had recently imposed stricter limits on her
car usage. Instead of going to the library as she had claimed, Lisa joined her friends at the Boulevard.
Later than evening, when a Van Nuys sergeant returned her lost purse to her home, Lisa faced her
parents’ fury as they realized the truth behind the books she claimed to be carrying. Cruising held
almost a mystical sway over the second generation, demonstrating their own deep sense of
belonging in the east San Fernando Valley.
For Valley youth, cruising Van Nuys was a means of asserting their identity as “suburban
underdogs,” straddling the line between suburban conformity and youthful rebellion. However, for
159 Genevieve Carpio, Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race (University of California Press, 2019), 4.

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Marci, Ann, Aaron, Dan, and Lisa this liminal existence was present in another way too. As Jewish
youth, they navigated multiple social worlds: the diverse communities of the city’s Eastside, the
suburban enclaves of the Valley, and the affluent Jewish community in the Westside. Their Jewish
identity became intricately intertwined with this sense of liminality. Raised by parents who
maintained ties to the working-class communities of Los Angeles through cultural or religious
institutions, professional obligations, or civic engagement, Jewish youth did not assimilate into the
suburban fold by abandoning the city’s immigrant and working class subcultures. Dinner
conversations at Marci Pantilliat’s home often revolved around her father Hershey’s connections to
Boyle Heights, while Aaron’s father spoke of his civil engineering office “over the hill.” Ann’s
father’s work in mediation work in mediation work in South Los Angeles exposed her to the
challenges faced by communities of color due to freeway development.
Within the suburbs, Jewish youth “ maintained a collectivist approach to space. They molded
the suburban landscape in their own image, utilizing private homes and goods for communal
activities. Moreover, the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center played a central role in fostering a
secular humanist and politically progressive outlook to the social concerns of the day. Yet the Shtetl
in the Valley also insulated many Jewish youth from the social inequities in their own backyard. This
cultural in-betweenness defined the second generation’s identity. Their political orientation was
often towards the city, and the country at large, not necessarily communities like Pacoima located
just a few miles away. Indeed, even those like Mark Lazar whose parents first bought homes in
Pacoima, like Mark Lazar, moved south to Sherman Oaks within five years of purchasing a home.
When the opportunity to purchase an affordable home presented itself, their parents chose an
ethnically Jewish neighborhood in an otherwise racially homogenous community. Despite their
advantages, “suburban underdogs” saw themselves occupying a distinctly lower tier of the social
hierarchy.

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By the mid- 1970s, the notion of the “suburban underdog” had become fully ingrained,
shaping how second generation youth, especially Jewish adolescents, claimed belonging in the east
San Fernando Valley. Yet as the posterity of the postwar era waned in the face of economic crises
during that decade, the reality began to surface: the “suburban underdogs,” were never truly the
underdogs. This realization raised new questions about the future of Valley residents’ identity and
sense of belonging as new migrants sought refuge in its evolving suburban landscape. What would
happen to the Shtetl in the Valley amidst economic restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s? How
would the teenagers cruising Van Nuys Boulevard adapt to the forces of change?
The Other kind of Suburban Underdog: Valley Populism in the late Twentieth Century
Suburban underdogs cultivated a sense of belonging in tandem with a larger movement to
erect official boundaries separating the San Fernando Valley from the city of Los Angeles: the
second formal Valley secession movement.160 As prominent Los Angeles scholars have elucidated, a
subset of the San Fernando Valley business establishment has agitated for secession from Los
Angeles since the region’s initial annexation to the city in the early twentieth century. While the
Valley’s earliest secession efforts did not yield tangible results, secessionists laid the groundwork for
a lasting regional antagonism between Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. The interwar years
halted calls for Valley autonomy, but Valley leaders continued to develop an oppositional identity
vis-à-vis the city as the neglected northern outpost within the expanding metropolis.
160 For more on the history of Valley secession see, in no particular order, Raphael Sonenshein, The City at Stake: Secession,
Reform and the Battle for Los Angeles (Princeton University Press, 2004); Tom Hogen-Esch, “Urban Secession and the
Politics of Growth: The Case of Los Angeles,” Urban Affairs Review 36, no. 6 (2001) 783-809; Jean-Paul R. de Guzman,
“Resisting Camelot: Race and Resistance to the San Fernando Valley Secession Movement,” California History 93 no. 3
(2016) 28-51; M Purcell, “Ruling Los Angeles, Neighborhood Movements, Urban Regimes, and the Production of
Urban Space in Southern California,” Urban Geography 18, 684-704.

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When the wartime economy brought the aerospace and automobile industries to the San
Fernando Valley, local politicians and business leaders spotted an opening to revive the dormant
secession movement. In the early 1960s, leaders from the West Valley formed the Valley-wide Better
Government Committee (VBGC). Citing unfair political representation and a general lack of
government investment, the VBGC made the issue of land-use its rationale for secession. The
VBGC gained only minor concessions from city government before retreating to the margins. But it
was only another decade before business leaders once again took up the mantle of Valley secession
through the Committee Investigating Valley Independent City/County (CIVICC). Between 1975
and 1978, CIVICC levelled similar complaints as its predecessor, and centered land-use control as its
main objective.
Second-generation Valley youth residing in the east San Fernando Valley were not
preoccupied with the postwar secession campaigns. They were simply children, navigating the streets
on their bikes during the VBGC campaign, and teenagers, engaging in activities like smoking pot and
cruising Van Nuys Boulevard during the CIVICC's reprisal. Secession wasn't a concern for them at
the time. However, the underlying notion behind both movements—that the Valley could, and
perhaps should, detach from the city—left a lasting impact. This was particularly evident because the
latter secession movement (CIVICC) coincided with two other campaigns where Valley leaders
expressed their discontent with LA city-government intervention: first, by protesting courtmandated school integration, and second, by endorsing regressive tax reform (Proposition 13).
In the southern neighborhoods of the east Valley, many older white suburbanites galvanized
in opposition to City interference, particularly concerning school desegregation. In contrast, younger
Jews of the Central Valley articulated their distinct suburban underdog identity by supporting school
integration. Dan Forer, who experienced busing in his final two years of high school, reflected, "we
were all in favor, gung ho, rah rah busing...we wanted it to be diverse." However, he admitted they

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never anticipated the conflict it would bring. Forer did not foresee a separate Valley and city in
integrating Los Angeles schools. The Valley, he believed, had to address the needs of Los Angeles as
a whole, especially regarding racial justice issues.
While Dan Forer and many of his peers supported civil rights through school integration,
not all Jewish parents in the Central San Fernando Valley shared their enthusiasm for busing. While
they were open to welcoming students of color into their high schools, many parents' support for
busing came with conditions. They endorsed it as long as it did not involve sending their own
children on long bus rides over the Santa Monica Mountains into the city's multiracial communities.
Ron Kline's parents exemplified this sentiment: "[my parents' primary] concern was not so much
about, you know, kids from different racial groups coming into, you know, our school, as much as it
was, I would get put on a bus and bussed somewhere else."161
This conditional stance highlighted the Valley's relationship with the more ethnically and
racially diverse areas of the city, which Valley residents preferred to navigate on their own terms.
While Jewish students in the Valley were comfortable being in the religious and ethnic minority as
long as the majority remained racially white, being in the minority in racially diverse, supposedly
"inferior" educational settings was a different story. White youths in the San Fernando Valley valued
their mobility, but when it came to addressing decades of residential and educational segregation,
they asserted their right to remain stationary.
As many Valley Jews leveraged their economic advantage through access to public schools,
education emerged as fulcrum around which intra-ethnic class tensions unfolded. According to Sara
Smith, numerous San Fernando Valley Jews felt disillusioned by their counterparts in the Westside,
who, on one hand, advocated for busing while, on the other hand, had the financial means to enroll
161 Ron Kline Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 15, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.

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their children in private schools.162 For Valley Jewish parents, suburbia meant access to exceptional
public schools in safe and affordable neighborhoods. They were reluctant to relinquish this privilege,
even if it meant compromising their Jewish liberalism. Despite harboring "liberal guilt," Ann
Brown's parents withdrew their daughters from district middle schools in favor of perceived better
options. Consequently, for many older generation Valley Jews, the demarcation between the city and
the Valley solidified. Beyond merely relocating from L.A.'s Eastside, perceived threats to their
modest middle-class lifestyle sharpened the division between the racially homogenous San Fernando
Valley and the multiracial communities of the city. Observations from Jewish youth, including Dan
Forer, shed light on the stark realities that were previously overlooked. For them, busing exposed
the flaws of a program hastily implemented without proper integration strategies, leading to sudden
disruptions and conflicts among student groups. Unfortunately, disparities between Valley residents
and those "over the hill" became apparent to Dan Forer, revealing complexities he had not fully
grasped until then. The “suburban underdog” began to reveal its cracks.
Dan’s reflections raise a broader question: while it was common for Jewish families of
immigrant backgrounds to ascend into the middle class while still maintaining a sense of connection
to the working-class, immigrant communities of previous generations, how would middle-class
Jewish suburbanites respond when these same communities transitioned into middle-class, racially
white neighborhoods? Access to quality public education, among other middle-class privileges, had
provided Dan Forer’s family with a sense of belonging—endorsed and financed by the state—as
existing between the multiethnic suburb of Monterey Park and the affluent, yet still unattainable,
Westside. In his view, the changing demographics of Van Nuys had the potential to redefine his
place within the Jewish community and society as a whole.
162 Sara Smith, “For the Wrong Reasons.”

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In the ensuing decades, divisions emerged as the second generation departed the east Valley
or relocated to wealthier neighborhoods such as Encino or Studio City. This shift disrupted the
politically progressive consensus among the many Jewish residents of the east Valley, prompting
some to adopt a more centrist political stance—embodied by the “Encino Man”—while others
departed the Valley to pursue social justice endeavors from a higher social standing. 163Nevertheless,
the second generation's sense of belonging remains intertwined with a suburban nostalgia, viewing
themselves as the "underdogs" of a region they, like Al Martínez, would "defend at any cost."
163 For more on the “Encino Man” see the next Chapter, “The Cost of Sanctuary.”

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CHAPTER TWO
The Cost of Sanctuary
On December 14, 1985, Lily S. Johnson wrote her councilmember Marvin Braude a letter:
“We are a typical middle class family living in Sherman Oaks financially barely making it even
though we all work hard.” 164 Although middle class families like the Johnsons had felt the strain of
recession for at least a decade, Mrs. Johnson felt compelled to remind Braude of “the wise adage
‘charity starts at home.’”165 Mrs. Johnson charged Councilmember Braude and his colleagues in City
Hall for neglecting their responsibilities to their constituents by endorsing the recently passed City
Sanctuary Resolution, which designated Los Angeles a sanctuary city for Central American
refugees.
166 She criticized Braude for “encouraging hundreds of thousands, and eventually, millions
of illegals to come to L.A.. Your ‘largess” is funded through our hard earned dollars.”167
Spearheaded by the City Council’s newest and youngest member, Michael Woo, the Los
Angeles City Sanctuary Resolution offered protection to the city’s Central American refugee
population by reinforcing an existing LAPD ordinance that assured police and other government
officials’ non-cooperation in reporting legal status to the INS.168 Most importantly, the Sanctuary
Resolution sent a message that the city’s burgeoning numbers of Central American migrants were
164 Lily Johnson letter to Marvin Braude, 14 December 1985, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District
11/Marvin Braude Papers, City Archives and Records Center (hereafter CARC), Los Angeles, California. 165 Ibid. 166 Intergovernmental Relations Committee Report and Resolution, 27 November, 1985, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary
[Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles,
California. See also, Victor Merina, “Council Votes 8-6 for L.A. Sanctuary,” Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1985. 167 Lily Johnson letter to Marvin Braude, 14 December 1985, CARC 168 The Los Angeles Sanctuary Resolution built on the 1979 Special Police Order. 40, which prohibited law enforcement
from apprehending individuals based solely on the suspicion that they are unauthorized immigrants. Los Angeles Police
Department presentation to Intergovernmental Relations Committee, 26 September 1985, Box 815505, Folder
“Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City of City Archives and Records Center,
Los Angeles, California. See also, Sarah Bottorff, “L.A. Urged to Offer Sanctuary to Refugees,” Los Angeles Daily Journal,
September 27, 1985.

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political refugees not economic migrants, and that in Los Angeles, they could make a home free
from the constant fear of deportation.169
Mrs. Johnson viewed the Sanctuary Resolution with its symbolic embrace of Central
American refugees as an additional financial burden on taxpayers, who were barely fending off the
winds of economic decline. Moreover, in her estimation, the thousands of Central American
refugees fleeing the war-stricken countries of El Salvador and Guatemala and settling in Los Angeles
were not political refugees. Rather, they were “illegal aliens” for whom the citizens of Los Angeles
had been forced to pay a cost. Indeed, what made Mrs. Johnson upset was not that the Sanctuary
Resolution flouted federal policy or exposed the Reagan administration’s complicity with
authoritarian regimes in Latin America. What troubled Mrs. Johnson was the notion that a Sanctuary
Resolution might channel public money to “illegals.” Like many of her neighbors in the San
Fernando Valley and across the city, Mrs. Johnson believed the Sanctuary Resolution had to be
repealed. “Before you take care of the world with our money, you should first take care of your own,
namely, us,” she exhorted.170
Johnson’s plea to prioritize the needs of “us”—interpreted as racially white, U.S. born
citizens—before extending assistance or belonging to “the world,” reflects a historical intertwining
of citizenship and whiteness in the United States. By invoking the needs of “us,” Johnson drew
upon a well-established script of who is considered a rightful member of U.S. society, and who is
therefore granted the rights to formally belong. Her statement linked national belonging to both race
and nationality, reinforcing the notion that certain groups are entitled to the privileges and resources
of formal citizenship, while others are not. Furthermore, her insistence on prioritizing the needs of
169 See Paul A. Kramer, “Sanctuary Unmasked: The First Time Los Angeles (Sort of) Became a City of Refuge, Los
Angeles Review of Books, October 25, 2020, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/sanctuary-unmasked-the-first-time-losangeles-sort-of-became-a-city-of-refuge/ 170 Lily Johnson letter to Marvin Braude, 14 December 1985, CARC

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“us” over Central American refugees underscores how residents aimed to define belonging as being
based on both formal citizenship and race. In her view, providing assistance, even symbolically, was
a threat to the privileges and resources allocated to the declining white citizenry.
Lily Johnsons’ sentiments provide a window into the fracturing socio-political landscape of
Los Angeles during the mid-1980s. It reveals how residents openly grappled with the definition of
belonging, both within and beyond the confines of formal citizenship. Economic decline across the
country, but especially within Los Angeles, had left many residents feeling financially insecure. In the
San Fernando Valley, those economic shifts had coincided with profound demographic changes,
leading some to remark that the San Fernando Valley was “a Refuge No More.”171 The narrative that
the San Fernando Valley was no longer a refuge for the white middle class, as it had been in the
three decades following World War II, intensified the racialized hostility that many Valley residents
directed towards Central American residents who, as the reasoning went, were poised to claim that
refuge for themselves.
In the city’s Republican officials, especially from the San Fernando Valley, Mrs. Johnson
found ardent allies. Council District 7 representative, Republican Ernani Bernardi, who had hardly
concealed his disdain for the city’s growing undocumented population before the Resolution’s
passage, became the initiative’s most strident foe. He rallied his constituents to petition for a ballot
measure that would turn the issue of Sanctuary over to voters in the next year’s election.172 Joining
Bernardi to “whip up a frenzy” over the Sanctuary Resolution was Harold Ezell, the Western
171 Bill Boyarsky, “San Fernando Valley: A Refuge No More,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1983. As Eric Ozuna and
Joel Kotkin write in reference to the demographic changes in the 1980s, “Part of the problem lies with the relative
suddenness of the change. As recently as the 1960s, about nine out of ten Valley residents were Caucasian. By 1980,
however, as much as twenty-five percent of the population was a racial or ethnic minority. Change in the 1980s was even
more rapid, with the most dramatic decreases in white population taking place in the central parts of the Valley. Some
areas that had been over eighty percent white at the beginning of the decade were not forty percent or less by the end.”
See Ozuna and Kotkin, “Changing Face of the San Fernando Valley,” 10. 172 Laurie Beckland, “Initiative Sought on LA Sanctuary,” Los Angeles Times; Sarah Bottoroff, “Councilman Pushes AntiSanctuary Drive,” Daily Journal, January 8, 1986.

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Regional Director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service who lobbied to formally punish
Los Angeles for defying Federal immigration policy.173 On the county level were Republican
members of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors Mike Antonovich (R-5), representing the
northwest San Fernando Valley, Deane Dana (R-4), and Peter F. Schabarum (R-1).174 As the body
responsible for setting and maintaining the county’s budget, and for funding critical social services
and programs, the Board of Supervisors members denounced the Sanctuary Resolution on the same
grounds of its “cost.” Plainly put, the Sanctuary Resolution, which reified existing city statutes and
stipulated no additional funding for refugees, would “cost” Los Angeles too much.175 But how
much, exactly, would it cost? What was the cost of Sanctuary?
Peter F. Schabarum posed the same question when he decried “What Price Sanctuary?????”
in a memorandum written days after the Sanctuary Resolution’s passage.176 Only, in asking the
question, Schabarum also buried the answer: “my own grandparents were examples of the American
immigrant dream. My grandfather, a German engineer, migrated to Mexico where he met and
married my Mexican grandmother. They eventually immigrated legally to California with their
children and became U.S. citizens. There were no welfare programs then and they and all other
immigrants worked hard to pay for food, clothing, and shelter. Today, those programs are more
173 Victor Merina, “Young L.A. Councilman Gets Badly Bruised in Sanctuary Battle,” Los Angeles Times, February 18,
1986. In the days after City Council passed the Sanctuary Resolution, Harold Ezell, the Western Regional
Commissioners of the INS publicly threatened to pursue federal legislation that would cut federal funds to the city of
Los Angeles. See “Ezell’s Revenge,” Daily News of Los Angeles, December 3 ,1985; Laurie Becklund, “Plans to Penalize
L.A. on Sanctuary Issue Questioned,” Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1985; Laurie Becklund, “INS Blasts City
Proposal on Sanctuary,” Los Angeles Times, November 26, 1985; Laurie Becklund, “L.A. Sanctuary Plan Assailed on Eve
of Vote,” Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1985; Victor Merina, “Sanctuary Resolution Changed from Victory to Trench
Warfare,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1986. 174 Ted Volmer, “L.A. Council Sanctuary Vote Blasted,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1985. 175 In discussing the Resolution’s practical implications, Victor Merina of the Los Angeles Times wrote that “Woo and
other council supporters stressed that the resolution basically reaffirms the city’s existing practice and that the
designation of the city as a sanctuary does not preclude federal Immigration and Naturalization Service officials from
arresting and deporting illegal aliens.” See, Victor Merina, “Woo Seeks a Compromise on Sanctuary Designation,” Los
Angeles Times, February 6, 1985. 176 “What Price is Sanctuary???,” n.d., Box 313, Folders 7-8, Papers of Edmund D. Edelman, Huntington Library
Manuscript Collections, San Marino, California.

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available to immigrants, both legal and illegal, and Los Angeles County is staggering under the
burden of caring for all those who come to our shores.”177
Lily Johnson, Bernarni, and Schabarum’s collective repudiation of the Sanctuary Resolution
marked a significant narrative departure in the debate over Central American refugees.178 It
redirected political discourse away from their legal status—were they refugees or economic
migrants—and towards a proxy battle over the cost of humanitarianism in the neoliberal era. What
made the City Sanctuary Resolution so objectionable, indeed, its “cost,” was not its actual
provisions, but rather that it bound the myth of America as a place of refuge to America as a place
of public assistance. For Los Angeles to fully embrace the free-market ethos of the late twentieth
century, the founding American creed of sanctuary would need to be definitively decoupled from
the policy of welfare for refugees and anyone else. The concept of sanctuary needed to be relegated
to the past and applicable only to those like Mrs. Johnson who had relied solely on their own hardearned dollars.
In this chapter, I explore a largely overlooked municipal battle over the word “sanctuary,”
shedding light on how local media, city politicians and constituents fought to inscribe their version of
“refuge” and “refugee” in Los Angeles’ collective consciousness. While residents from all corners of
the city played a role in the struggle over the Sanctuary Resolution, it was those from the San Fernando
Valley who led the charge. They seized upon the notion that the San Fernando Valley was no longer
solely their refuge, but was rapidly becoming a sanctuary for others. In so doing, they successfully
177 “What Price is Sanctuary???,” n.d., Huntington Library Manuscript Collections 178 Up until that point, the debate had centered around the legal status of Central American migrants. To no one’s
surprise, the federal government under President Ronald Reagan maintained that the refugees were no different than the
droves of migrants flooding the border in search of economic prosperity and better social services. Historians have long
noted that Reagan’s refugee policy reflected his administration’s need to conceal U.S. support of the right wing
paramilitary forces ruling El Salvador and Guatemala and responsible for some of the most egregious human rights
abuses of the twentieth century. See Cecilia Menjívar, Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America (University
of California Press, 2000); Hector Perla and Susan Bibler Coutin, “Legacies and Origins of the 1980s U.S.- Central
American Sanctuary Movement,” Refugee 26:1, 2009; Kyle Barron, “Sanctuary: A Movement Redefined,” NACLA Report
on the Americas, 49 no. 2 (2017) 190-197.

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linked “sanctuary” with the bête noir of the day: welfare. By framing the Sanctuary Resolution in the
vilification of, and the movement to abolish welfare, both Los Angeles city official and their
constituents rearranged the American dogma of sanctuary in the key of the free-market.179
On February 6th, 1986, when Michael Woo and Ernani Bernardi reintroduced the measure
without the word “sanctuary,” the debate over the status of Central American migrants had been
revised.180 The discourse on Central American refugees shifted from post-World War II
humanitarianism to addressing the city’s rising economic disparities and immigrants’ perceived
responsibility in exacerbating them. Central American refugees were cast as welfare recipients, with all
the racialized associations contained therein. They were depicted as dependents subject to workfare,
not resettlement aid. Consequently, Los Angeles was not a Sanctuary City for either Central American
refugees. But neither was it the sanctuary it had once been for the struggling white middle class.
181
Nevertheless, the debate of the City Sanctuary Resolution hastened the arrival of the “Era of
Compassion Fatigue,” in which many residents, especially those in the San Fernando Valley, no longer
held inviolate the principle of sanctuary if it bolstered the politics of welfare, and, in particular, if it
179 For more on refugee resettlement policy, welfare, and neoliberalism see, Odessa Gonzalez Benson, “Refugee
Resettlement Policy in an Era of Neoliberalism,” Social Service Review 90, no. 3 (September 2016), 515-549. For more on
racializing welfare discourses see, Fabio Perocco and Francesco Della Puppa, “Racialized Welfare Discourse on
Refugees and Asylum Seekers: The Example of “Scroungers” in Italy,” Social Sciences 12, no. 59 (January 2023) 1-18;
Hana Brown, “The New Racial Politics of Welfare: Ethno-Racial Diversity, Immigration and Welfare Discourse
Variation,” Social Service Review 87, no. 3 (2013), 586-612; Alejandra Marchevsky and Jeanne Theohairs, “Welfare Reform,
Globalization, and the Racialization of Entitlement,” American Studies 41, no.2/3 (2000) 235-265; Sanford F. Schram,
“Putting a Black Face on Welfare: The Good and the Bad,” in Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform, ed. Sanford F Schram,
Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fordings (University of Michigan Press, 2003), 196- 221; Premilla Nadasen, “From Widow to
“Welfare Queen”: Welfare and the Politics of Race,” Black Women, Gender & Families 1, no. 2 (2007) 52-77; Allison
Puglisi, “Identity, Power, and the California Welfare-Rights Struggle, 1963-1975,” Humanities 6, no. 2 (April 2017). 180 “News from Ernani Bernardi,” 7 February 1986, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City
Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 181 This argument, by no means, discredits the triumphant, courageous, and consequential work of the Sanctuary
Movement, or the thousands of allies in the Central American solidarity movement. For more on the “Sanctuary
Movement,” see Stolz Chinchilla and Nora Hamilton and James Loucky, “The Sanctuary Movement and Central
American Activism in Los Angeles.” Latin American Perspectives 36, no. 6 “Solidarity” (November 2009) 101-125; Hector
Perla and Susan Bibler Coutin, “Legacies and Origins of the 1980s U.S.- Central American Sanctuary Movement,” Refugee
26:1 (2009). Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, God’s Heart Has No Borders: How Religious Activists Are Working For Immigrants
Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).

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offered belonging to non-citizens from Latin America.182 Sensing that belonging might be extended
to Central American refugees, residents rallied to not only reattach it to formal citizenship, but,
arguably, to re-racialize citizenship in the post-1965 era. It was only eight years later that the “cost” of
sanctuary was formally legislated within the stipulations of Proposition 187. This chapter elucidates
how California’s body politic inched closer to that opprobrious measure, ironically, though notably,
accelerating the liberalization of belonging in the process.
“Our Money Goes Where Our Compassion Leads Us”: Councilman Woo Pushes Sanctuary
Councilmember Michael Woo’s leadership to make Los Angeles a sanctuary city began well
before the fall of 1985. As a staff member in the 1970s working for the Majority Leader of the
California Senate, David Roberti (D-23), Mike Woo worked on a healthcare bill that would have
provided emergency room services in county hospitals to all patients regardless of their immigration
status. Woo’s sustained efforts and dedication to that piece of legislation made its defeat at the hands
of conservative state politicians a “bitter” one. It not only introduced him to the acrimony
reverberating across the state’s political chambers over undocumented migrants and their supposed
cost, but it put him face to face with a man who helped ensure another legislative defeat in the form
of the Sanctuary Resolution a decade later.
By the late 1970s, Michael Antonovich, Republican Member of the Board of Supervisors,
representing District Five, which included parts of the San Fernando Valley, emerged as a prominent
advocate of austerity politics in Los Angeles. In particular, he positioned himself as a staunch
182 For more see Anjali Dutt and Danielle Kohfeldt, “Assessing the Relationship between Neoliberal Ideology and
Reactions to Central American Asylum Seekers in the United States,” Journal of Social Issues 75, no. 1 (2019) 134-152;
Odessa Gonzalez Benson, “Refugee Resettlement Policy in an Era of Neoliberalization,” Social Service Review 90, no. 3
(September 2016), 515-549. For more on “compassion fatigue,” see Sam Vong, “Compassion Politics: The History of
Indochinese Refugees and the Transnational Networks of Care, 1975–1994,” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2013) ; Rubén
G Rumbaut, “The Politics of Migrant Health Care: A Comparative Study of Mexican Immigrants and Indochinese
Refugees,” Research in the Sociology of Health Care 7, (1988) 143-202.

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opponent of the city’s growing undocumented population. As Woo recalled, Antonovich famously
refused money from the state to keep hospitals open longer if it also meant providing emergency
services to undocumented patients.183 It would be another ten years before he and Antonovich faced
off over the issue of city sanctuary, but Woo learned that men like Antonovich held great sway over
state politics, especially those that framed immigrants as a “drain” on public resources.
Emboldened by his time in Sacramento, including his continued work providing healthcare to
farm workers, Woo ran first for Los Angeles City Council in 1981.184 Although he lost his first bid
for office, Woo tried his luck again in the fall of 1985. He eked out a striking victory against an
incumbent councilmember. During his campaign, Woo made a promise to Sanctuary movement
activists that, if elected to City Council, he would endorse a proposal to designate Los Angeles a
Sanctuary city for political refugees. Bearing in mind his own immigrant family history, Woo identified
with the concerns of the Sanctuary activists and, on a strategic level, understood that his election was
the result of “a coalition effort by a lot of people who don’t normally work together.”185 No sooner
was Woo sworn into office than the activists enjoined him to make good on his promise.186 Woo
agreed to draft a motion for the Sanctuary Resolution. He was committed to supporting Central
American refugees and to honoring the multiracial faction that carried him into office.
By September 1985, Woo was serving as the Chair of the Intergovernmental Relations
Committee (IGR), a position not all that unusual for a freshman member of the Council. The IGR
183 In June 1979, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors filed a complaint, with Antonovich at the helm, that requested
$88, 921, 800 in damages for the costs which it incurred in providing healthcare services to illegal aliens for fiscal years
1976-1977 and 1977-1978. Laron letter to Edelman, Box 314, Folder 2, Papers of Edmund D. Edelman, Huntington
Library Manuscript Collections, San Marino, California.
184 Mike Woo Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, April 27, 2020, Los Angeles, CA. 185 Woo quoted in Frank Clifford, “Woo’s Victory- Asians Come of Political Age,” The Los Angeles Times, June 6, 1985.
See also Paul A. Kramer, “Sanctuary Unmasked: The First Time Los Angeles (Sort of) Became a City of Refuge,” Los
Angeles Review of Books, October 25, 2020, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/sanctuary-unmasked-the-first-time-losangeles-sort-of-became-a-city-of-refuge/ 186 Kramer, Sanctuary Unmasked.” See also Victor Merina, “Young L.A. Councilman Gets Badly Bruised in Sanctuary
Battle,” The Los Angeles Times, February 18th, 1986.

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“didn’t have a direct authority over city departments” but was a “vehicle for vetting proposals for the
city to take positions on legislation,” he later recalled. As it turned out, the IGR was “perfect for
steering the process relating to a resolution like the Sanctuary Resolution.”187 Throughout the fall,
Woo planned to hold a series of special hearings on the “impact of federal policies regarding Central
American immigrants on the City of Los Angeles.”188 Woo drew on his experience at the State
Legislature, which had given him “a very clear idea of how to use the public hearing process to build
a case, to lay the groundwork, to establish the basis for an argument that could be used effectively
with other council members as well as with the public.”189 In early September, 1985, Woo’s office
issued a Public Service Announcement to invite participants to the first of two special hearings.
The influx of refugees from Central America has caused much controversy in the city. While
many view these aliens as economic refugees who are seeking a better way of living, others
insist that political turmoil in countries like El Savador (sic) and Guatemala have caused
exodus. The categorification (sic) of Central American refugees has become the focus of
debate as to whether they should be granted asylum due to human rights reasons.190
Woo’s PSA got to the heart of the polemic: were Central American political refugees and should
they be granted asylum in Los Angeles? His office emphasized that the IGR hearings were an
opportunity for all sides of the policy debate to weigh in on the status of Central American migrants.
They invited representatives from both the INS and the Sanctuary Movement, as well as members
of the general public, to testify at the hearings. Although a Sanctuary Resolution was understood to
be the goal of the twin events, Mike Woo was careful to let speakers testify without an express
legislative agenda in the wing.
187 Woo, Interview. 188 “Intergovernmental Relations Committee Invitation to Special Hearings,” 1 October, 1985, Box 815505, Folder
“Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los
Angeles, California.
189 Woo, Interview. 190 “Public Service Announcement,” 26 September 1985, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City
Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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Throughout the two public hearings, held on September 26th and October 3rd respectively,
speakers primarily debated the legal status of the city’s Central American population: Were they
refugees or economic migrants? Did they have a viable case for asylum or was asylum merely a
subterfuge to enter without papers? Majority of the hearing’s participants confirmed that Central
American migrants qualified as political refugees.191 Speaking on behalf of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, Mark Ridley-Thomas stated that, “although the
Reagan Administration has chosen to interpret [the Refugee Act] so that it does not apply to Central
American refugees...there is no question that the Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants entering
the United States are political refugees fleeing political persecution.”31 Jack Rendler, representative
from Amnesty International, declared that “refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala are prima
facie political refugees, fleeing persecution in their own countries, regardless of whether or not they
meet the current textual or political requirements of U.S. Law.”192 Bishop Oliver Garver of the
Southern California Ecumenical Council testified forcefully that “We have sadly concluded that the
present U.S. government position that the vast majority of Salvadoran, Guatamalan [sic] and
Honduran new arrivals in Southern California are economic migrants, with no valid asylum claims, is
a tragic and evil lie and a violation of U.S. law. It would be a grave sin for us to accept that lie, and
we have determined we cannot and will not do so.”193
As most speakers pled with the IGR, and by extension the Los Angeles City Council, to
support Central American migrants’ case for political asylum, few mentioned the “cost” of
191 “Agenda for Second Intergovernmental Relations Hearing,” 3 October 1985, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary
[Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles,
California. 192 “Testimony on Federal Policies Regarding Central American Immigrants,” 26 September 1985, Box 815505, Folder
“Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los
Angeles, California. 193 “Bishop Garver and Reverend Eugene L. Boutiller Joint Testimony,” 26 September 1985, Box 815505, Folder
“Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los
Angeles, California.

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integrating political refugees into the fabric of the city. As the political refugees most speakers held
them to be, Central American migrants should be entitled to receive resettlement aid as stipulated
under the 1980 Refugee Act.194 Moreover, as members of the Los Angeles community, they were ipso
facto guaranteed the same social services granted all other residents. The “cost” of designating Los
Angeles a Sanctuary City was not the primary concern, or even a consideration, for most proSanctuary participants.
Bishop Garver parted, if slightly, with his peers. He made a point to “speak to you not only
of the theology and ethics of the refugee scene. I, and my colleagues, are also experts in the “nuts
and bolts” of refugee resettlement. (I resettled two Vietnamese refugees in my home—a joy!)”
Consciously or not, Bishop Garver felt it was necessary to assuage the “taxpayer” that “in our
resettlement programs, we work closely with government at all levels. Our volunteer efforts have
saved tax payers millions of dollars over the years. Our money goes where our compassion leads
us.” For Bishop Garver and his colleagues, compassion trumped cost, however minimal or
substantial. What’s more, in positing the ethos “our money goes where our compassion leads us,”
Bishop Garver begged a different question of the hearing’s crowd: Where does our money go if
there is no compassion left to give? To the Los Angeles residents in the audience, especially those
awaiting their turn to refute the activist’s claims, the answer to Garver’s question was: “not to you.”
Only, they could not see it. They’d become blind to their own predicament and its root cause.195
As the IGR hearings continued, it soon became clear that recognizing Central Americans as
political refugees could only come through a City Sanctuary designation. Indeed, by the time of the
194 See Arnold Leibowitz, “The Refugee Act of 1980: Problems and Congressional Concerns,” Annals 467, no. 1 (May
1983) 163-171. Although the Refugee Act of 1980 authorized assistance programs, including private-public partnerships
to carry out resettlement assistance, scholars have demonstrated that “one of the central objectives of the refugee
resettlement system is to help refugees achieve “self-sufficiency,” moving quickly away from resettlement aid. See
Anastasia Brown and Todd Scribner, “Unfulfilled Promises, Future Possibilities: The Refugee Resettlement System in
the United States,” Journal on Migration and Human Security 2, no. 2 (2014) 101-120. 195 Brown and Scribner, “Unfulfilled Promises, Future Possibilities.”

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public hearings dozens of local churches— under the leadership of Father Luis Olivares—and
advocacy organizations such as El Rescate and CARECEN had urged the municipality to see the
two as inextricably linked.196 In his testimony at the September 26th hearing, Reverend Eugene
Boutiller exhorted the Council: “Our most urgent plea to the city council is that you join us and
several other cities in an act of good will and decency declaring L.A. to be not only “THE PLACE”
but also a sanctuary: a place of safety, where local civic authorities morally oppose a possible death
sentence for the crime of undocumented arrival.”197 Reverend Boutiller implored Councilmembers
to join San Antonio and Mexico City and show the “same Western independence by bringing
sanctuary to a full council public debate as a proposed act of the city.” It was a direct assertion, in
what became a much broader case, that sanctuary proponents envisioned the Resolution as a
referendum on the city’s collective identity and its definition of belonging as much as a means to
protect refugees. Indeed, calling for a City Sanctuary designation was markedly different than
declaring spaces of worship as a sanctuary. As Paul A. Kramer later put it, “designating [cities] in this
way made them something more than mere regulations. It elevated the policies to a level of principle
and fastened them to a city’s moral and political identity.”198 What Reverend Boutiller and other
sanctuary and Central American solidarity activists called for, then, was for Los Angeles as a city to
uphold the nation’s founding creed as a refuge for the world’s dispossessed and oppressed,
regardless of the fiscal “burden.”
It was not just proponents of Sanctuary, moreover, who offered their appeals to the IGR.
Countering the chorus of Sanctuary supporters at the IGR hearings was the district director of the
196 For more on the life of Father Luis Olivares see Mario García, Father Luis Olivares: A Biography (University of North
Carolina Press, 2018).
197 “Bishop Garver and Reverend Eugene L. Boutiller Joint Testimony,” 26 September 1985, Box 815505, Folder
“Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los
Angeles, California. 198 Paul A. Kramer, “Sanctuary Unmasked.”

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INS who insisted that Central American migrants did not provide sufficient evidence to warrant
claims of political persecution: “If the aliens clearly are fleeing persecution in El Salvador, it would
be more consistent with their claims if they were to claim asylum as soon as they were out of danger
in the first country reached-which strongly supports the proposition that they are coming to the
United States for economic reasons.”199 The INS district director peddled a rallying point for
Sanctuary opponents. By choosing not to take refuge in Guatemala or Mexico, Salvadoran migrants
had betrayed their true economic motives for entering the United States. In a sense, though, the INS
director revealed his own ideological treason: In suggesting that Salvadoran refugees could have
sought asylum in Guatemala and Mexico, he undermined the United States’ distinct claim as a land
of refuge for the world’s oppressed. If refuge could be found elsewhere, then the U.S. was not the
beacon of Sanctuary for the persecuted it claimed itself to be.
Although the opposition was not the loudest during the IGR hearings, the testimony of
resident Sally Parks illustrated the vitriol certain Angelenos reserved for Central American refugees,
and the politicians who dared offer them a place, however symbolically, in the city. Besides
condemning Central American refugees as “bandits terrorizing Hollywood, armed with Uzi
submachine guns,” and drug dealers, Parks had much to say about “responsibility”:
Is the L.A. City Council ready to take responsibility for molestations and bombings if
they give their protection and sponsorship to this large number of people? Is it
possible that the L.A. City Council thinks that it is being asked to grant some sort of
symbolic sanctuary but will wake up next morning to discover that they have
incurred large financial obligations? They meaning the taxpayers. According to a
State Department Study, each Salvadoran in Los Angeles is already costing U.S.
taxpayers $4,000.200
199 “District Director of the U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service Presentation,” 2
October 1985, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City
Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 200 “Sally Parks testimony to the Intergovernmental Relations Committee Hearing,” 3 October 1985, Box 815505, Folder
“Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los
Angeles, California.

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Parks postulated faulty math and trotted out racial shibboleths. She linked the symbol of sanctuary
directly to fiscal burden. Refuge for Central Americans came with a bill the taxpayers of Los
Angeles, and most significantly, Sally Parks, would have to settle. It was not a particularly new angle,
but it reinforced the grafting of sanctuary with fiscal liability. 201
When the twin public hearings wrapped in early October, Woo had shored up the support
of the two other IGR members and began drafting a motion for a Council-wide vote.202 His office
shared a memo with Councilmembers, drawing their attention to the overarching sentiment, and
symbolism, of a possible Sanctuary Resolution: “Los Angeles is the Place…for everyone.”203 Indeed,
as the historian Dominic Vitiello recently put it, “Americans’ fight over sanctuary and sanctuary
cities are, at the their heart, about which newcomers deserve protection and support and of what
kinds.”204 In many ways, they are struggles over belonging. A Los Angeles city Sanctuary Resolution
meant that Central Americans were newcomers deserving of protection, and support. By November
12th, the IGR had a draft measure that it introduced for further discussion before it would then be
submitted to the City Council two weeks later for a final vote.
With rumors that a Sanctuary Resolution was in the works, a media maelstrom started to
brew. On one side were those who flouted migrants’ claims for political asylum and saw the
Sanctuary Resolution as not only as an affront to federal policy, but as an open invitation to “illegal
aliens.” Sanctuary, they insisted, would encourage “illegal entry of aliens into the United States
without proper inspection.”205 On the other side were those who hailed the Sanctuary designation as
201 Ibid. 202 “To the Council of the City of Los Angeles, Intergovernmental Relations Committee Report,” 2 November 1985,
CCL/13.01, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City
Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 203 “Michael Woo Memorandum to Councilmember Joel Wachs,” 5 November 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary
City,” City Council District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 204 Dominic Vitiello, The Sanctuary City: Immigrant, Refugee, and Receiving Communities in Postindustrial Philadelphia (Cornell
University Press, 2002).
205 Victor Merina, “A City of Sanctuary,” Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1985.

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the revival of a secular tradition begot by the abolitionist movement. Victor Merina, the Los Angeles
Times investigative reporter assigned to cover the Sanctuary Resolution vote, was an especially
instrumental voice of the time.In a piece published between the public hearings and the Council
vote, Merina highlighted the historical precedent of municipal Sanctuary endorsements. He
emphasized that in 1971 Berkeley granted refuge to sailors protesting the war in Vietnam,
establishing a basis for the city’s policy towards Central American refugees. Most saliently, Merina
floated the narrative, prominent amongst Sanctuary leaders, that the movement was reminiscent of
“the Civil War era when fleeing blacks relied on a flourishing Underground Railroad of people in
various towns who would house and protect slaves as they fled north.” This would not be the first
time administrators and journalists, on both side of the polemic, conjured up Antebellum race
relations—or race more generally—to drum up support from the public.206
On November 23nd,
, the IGR shared its draft of the Resolution with all members of the City
Council in preparation for a debate slated to take place just a few days later. Woo’s office also sent
out a memo “What the Sanctuary Resolution is and is not.”207 In forwarding the measure, the IGR
asserted that a Sanctuary designation would reduce the climate of fear and benefit all Angelenos,
especially law enforcement, by encouraging undocumented persons to report crimes or
misdemeanors without fear of detention or deportation.46 On this point, even those wary of the
Resolution could see its appeal. Los Angeles in 1985 had the largest population of Salvadorans
206 Victor Merina, “Sanctuary: Reviving an Old Concept,” Los Angeles Times, November 17, 1985; Victor Merina, “A City
of Sanctuary,” Los Angeles Times, November 23, 1985; Victor Merina, “Council Votes 8-6 for L.A. Sanctuary,” “Bradley
Ends Silence with Endorsement of Sanctuary Policy,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1985; Victor Merina, “L.A.
Council Backs Down, Revises Its Stand on Sanctuary Plan,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1985; Victor Merina,
“Sanctuary Resolution Changed from Victory to Trench Warfare,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1985; February 8,
1985; Victor Merina, “Young L.A. Councilman Gets Badly Bruised in Sanctuary Battle,” Los Angeles Times. 207 “What the L.A. City Sanctuary Resolution Does and Does Not Do,” 27 November 1985, Box 815505, Folder
“Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los
Angeles, California.

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outside of San Salvador. It was crucial to the public safety of all Angelenos that undocumented
residents felt safe to consult the authorities.
Most saliently, the IGR’s Resolution reaffirmed the deeply-held view of America as a land of
refuge: “Whereas, the United States of America has provided an enduring symbol of freedom for
generations of people from other countries who fear persecution in their native land on the basis of
their political beliefs.”208 For Reverend Donald L. Smith, “the impact of the symbolism outweigh[ed]
everything else.”209 One side of the Sanctuary battle had coalesced around the idea that designating
Los Angeles a Sanctuary city – defending the rights of Central American refugees—was central to
upholding the nation’s highest ideals. Reverend Anne F. Hines shared a similar sentiment in her
letter to Councilmember Marvin Braude: “Sanctuary is one of our most noble historical traditions,”
she wrote. “Most of our ancestors came here seeking refuge, and the underground railroad provided
such assistance during the time when slavery was legal in our country. By declaring Los Angeles a
Sanctuary you will be following in this courageous tradition.” 210 In fact, the “courageous tradition”
was central to the survival of Western Civilization. As Victor Merina explained it:
The concept of providing sanctuary, in which fugitives are immune from arrest in churches
or other sacred places, is steeped in Judeo-Christian and Greek tradition… As more cities
throw their support behind the sanctuary movement, the movement’s impetus has grown
and supporters claim that a secular tradition has been revived, reminiscent of the
Underground Railroad wen governmental bodies as well as individuals tried to protect
fugitive slaves.211
If a city Sanctuary Resolution represented the next chapter in the nation’s unfinished revolution then
the implication was that those who opposed it were impeding the country from fulfilling its
208 “City of Los Angeles Sanctuary Resolution,” 27 November 1985, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented
Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 209 Victor Merina, “‘A City of Sanctuary,’” Los Angeles Times, November 23, 1985. 210 “Anne F. Hines, letter to Marvin Braude,” 31 October 1985, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District
11/Marvin Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 211 Victor Merina, “Sanctuary: Reviving an Old Concept,” Los Angeles Times, November 17th, 1985.

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founding credo. The Lutheran minister and chairman of the National Sanctuary Defense Fund,
Donald Shultz, reiterated the point: “You see [the sanctuary issue] moving from religious groups to
cities, and my hope is that it will move toward pushing the country back to a sanctuary as a
whole.”212
Regarding financial responsibility, the IGR’s Resolution “recognizes that the many demands
placed upon the city’s limited fiscal resources by current citizens residing in Los Angeles, and
therefore urges the President and Congress to give greater consideration in their deliberations to the
fiscal needs of large urban areas such as Los Angeles which have borne a disproportionate share of
the cost burden resulting from Federal refugee policies.” Rather than blame Central American
refugees for being a financial burden on the city, the Resolution’s drafters lay responsibility at the
feet of the Federal Government. They beseeched it to provide more resources.
A few days elapsed between the initial presentation and the final vote. Opponents assailed
the proposal.213 In a press conference hosted by Harold Ezell, regional western commissioner of the
INS, and attended by L.A. Supervisor Michael Antonovich, Ezell lambasted the move as a
“ridiculous and disastrous kind of thing for a city council to do that has no business being involved
in national policy in the first place.”214He offered specious evidence that Sanctuary activists lured
“illegal aliens” by passing out instructions to smugglers and migrants that read, “please be sure not
to say to anyone that you have come to work. On the contrary, affirm always that you are a political
refugee, backed up by a good story.” Echoing Ezell’s sentiment, Barbara Norris of Echo Park sent a
letter to Northridge Councilmember Hal Bernson railing against Woo: “Dear Mr. Bernson,” the
letter reads, “Thank you for not supporting Sanctuary. My councilman is pushing this preposterous
212 Merina, “Sanctuary.” 213 Laurie Becklund and Victor Merina, “L.A. Sanctuary Plan Assailed on Eve of Vote,” Los Angeles Times, November 27,
1985; Mary Ann Milbourn, “Sanctuary Resolution ‘Ridiculous’ INS Says,” Los Angeles Daily News, November 27, 1985. 214 Laurie Becklund, “INS Blasts City Proposal on Sanctuary,” Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1985.

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notion—Mike Woo...Echo Park has become a nightmare due to illegal aliens and citizens are
prisoners.”215 Norris subverted the story by representing citizens as prisoners while the Central
American refugees, those fearful for their lives, who fled their homes to find themselves detained in
makeshift jails throughout the city, were criminals.216 Yet Norris’ revisionism seemed to presage the
miasma that awaited after Thanksgiving.
On Wednesday, November 27th, the day before Thanksgiving, all members of the Los
Angeles City Council convened for what became a “tense three-hour debate that included a clash
over the real meaning of the council action.”217 By the time of the Council-wide debate, Woo
contended that the Sanctuary Resolution, while it was intended to protect the Central American
refugee population of Los Angeles, transcended the current moment. As he recalled, “I was using
arguments, referring to precedent such as the United States government under Roosevelt sending
back that ship of Jewish refugees before World War II, or at least before the US entered.”
Accompanying Woo was Councilmember Zev Yaroslavsky who “argued that at various times in
history, other ethnic groups were denied entry to the United States by federal officials.” Yaroslavsky,
who represented a predominantly Jewish district, also raised the specter of the MS St. Louis and its
tragic legacy. “That, to me, is what this Resolution is about. This, to me, is what this debate is
about.”218 By likening the present moment to a historical event that was legible to all, and, indeed,
was a moment universally condemned, Woo and Yaroslavsky “struck a chord with not just Jewish
voters but other ethnic groups because it was a way of getting beyond the immediate circumstances
215 “Barbara Norris letter to Hal Bernson, Cc Michael Woo,” Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”,
City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 216 At the same time that the LA City Council was debating the Sanctuary Resolution, news was breaking that former
motels throughout the city were being converted into detention centers. See Victor Merina, “Motel Put to Use-as INS
Jail,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1986; Victor Merina, “INS Defends Conversion of Motel in Residential Area to
Detention Site,” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1986; Marita Hernandez, “INS Detention Center is a “Grant Hotel” of
Disillusionment,” Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1989. 217 Victor Merina, “Council Votes 8-6 for L.A. Sanctuary,” November 28, 1985, The Los Angeles Times 218 Ibid.

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relating to Central America.”219 It was also likely to resonate with many Jewish residents in the San
Fernando Valley, in particular the suburban underdogs, whose support would lend great credibility
to cause. On the other hand, the Sanctuary Resolution would serve as a litmus test for many Valley
Jews. Would they be willing to open their suburban sanctuary to Central American refugees? To be
sure, by the time of the vote, “both the support and the opposition for “the Sanctuary Resolution
had its reasons that went beyond the particulars of what was going on in the mid-1980s.”220
At City Hall, Woo framed the final vote in the underlying issue at hand: “The basic question
is what kind of city do we want Los Angeles to be, and what kind of country do we want to live
in?”221 To Mike Woo and his supporters, the Sanctuary Resolution was a plebiscite over the city’s
political identity. An affirmative vote would suggest to all Angelenos, and the nation at large, that in
a period of shrinking budgets and industrial flight, Los Angeles was still committed to being a place
of refuge for all. To the opposition, however, it would mean that the Sanctuary Resolution, was, at
its core, an affront to the values of the nation: “This is going to send a message to all of South
America and all other countries that if you can just get here, pay whatever you got to pay, then
you’re OK and I think that’s contrary to what this nation stands for,” Harold Ezell asserted. 222
After three hours of emotional debate, eight Councilmembers approved the Sanctuary
Resolution while six dissented.53 The Resolution’s passage lent legitimacy to what Hector Perla and
Susan Coutin have called the “refugee identity.”57 It routinely referred to Central American migrants
as “refugees” and affirmed the city’s position that Central American refugees qualified for asylum
pursuant to the 1980 Refugee Act. It also reiterated that both the LAPD and government agencies
219 In a show of support for the Sanctuary Resolution, Councilmember Zev Yaroslavsky “referred to the ancestry of the
various councilmembers and stated that other ethnic groups were denied entry to the United States by federal officials,
and some were forced into situations where they died.” “Intergovernmental Relations Committee Report and
Resolution,” Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City
Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 220 Woo, Interview. 221 Victor Merina, “Council Votes 8-6 for L.A. Sanctuary.” 222 Ibid.

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would not comply with the INS by reporting legal status. 58 Though it was primarily symbolic, the
Resolution temporarily settled the contest over the status of Central American migrants. Sanctuary
movement activists rejoiced. Jo’Ann de Quattro, the Sanctuary Chair for the Southern Ecumenical
Council’s Interfaith Task Force on Central America cheered the Resolution’s passage: “We believe
that by providing Sanctuary, it’s giving a message that our own [Reagan] Administration is not
administering the refugee laws correctly. They should be applied to these people from Central
America and they are not.” The Sanctuary Resolution would not change federal policy, or the
Reagan Administration’s selective applicability of the 1980 Refugee Act, but it sent a clarion message
to the Central American refugees settling in Los Angeles: you belong. As Jo’Ann de Quattro
exclaimed, “I think that the resolution itself, the declaration itself, is a signal to the refugees who are
here among us that the L.A. City Council will be supportive of them and their presence here in order
to try to eliminate their fear of deportation.”223
Citizen-Exile, Bel Air Sandinistas, and Bleeding Hearts: Three Narratives of Opposition
Councilmember Woo likely anticipated some degree of controversy surrounding his
Sanctuary Resolution. But he couldn't’ have foreseen the extent to which it would inflame the city’s
electorate. What he considered to be “an all-American pledge of protection for the oppressed,” as
benevolent as “motherhood and apple pie,” turned into a battleground of ideological warfare.224 This
was because the Sanctuary Resolution represented far more than a symbolic gesture of safety and
recognition for Central American refugees in Los Angeles. It became a referendum for all residents
across the city, particularly the San Fernando Valley, to express their anxieties about the evolving
223 Merina, “A City of Sanctuary.” 224 Paul A. Kramer, “Sanctuary Unmasked”

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concept of belonging. In an era marked by budget cuts in social welfare, residents sought to reaffirm
their belonging as formal citizens, and to reconnect belonging to the state.
The Resolution’s passage on November 27th, 1985 set off the city of Los Angeles and
became a veritable civil conflict. Much of the fighting took place in the media. Yet archival research
in the files of Los Angeles City Councilmembers representing the San Fernando Valley, where the
Sanctuary Resolution generated great division, reveals that the most zealous combatants were the
city’s constituents.225 Close examination of constituent letters to Councilmembers between October
3rd, 1985, the second IGR hearing, and February 6th, 1986, when the Council re-issued the
Resolution without the word “sanctuary,” demonstrates how Valley residents became polarized over
the meaning of “refuge” and “refugee” in the neoliberal era. The Sanctuary Resolution stirred
residents of all political affiliations to weigh on the meaning of belonging in an era of economic
restructuring.
Among the opposition to the Sanctuary Resolution three emblematic narratives emerged.
The first cohered around what I call the “citizen-exile.” The identity, grounded in deeply-rooted
racial nativism, posited that U.S. citizens living in Los Angeles during the peak of Central American
migration in the 1980s were the true refugees, not Central Americans. According to this narrative,
Central American migrants had purportedly forced citizens into a state of exile in “their” city. The
citizen-exile narrative subverted the political, social, and economic realities to argue that the
Sanctuary Resolution had it wrong: U.S. citizens in Los Angeles were the ones experiencing
225 The San Fernando Valley’s constituents and representatives were central to the Sanctuary debate. Popularly known
for its reactionary and conservative political agitation—especially the campaign for Proposition 13—the San Fernando
Valley was home to a large community of Jewish homeowners, many of whom split over the issue of Sanctuary. The San
Fernando Valley at this time was also becoming home to an increasing number of Central American refugees, which
resulted in political factionalism between those in favor of a Sanctuary Resolution and those who opposed Sanctuary on
the grounds of its cost.

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displacement and dispossession. They, not the Central Americans seeking political asylum, were the
ones in need of refuge.
On November 27th, 1985, Margot Trasatti of Van Nuys wrote “AN OPEN LETTER TO
THE LOST ANGELES CITY COUNCIL.”226 “I am outraged and appalled at the Sanctuary
Resolution passed today by the Council! How dare you make such a decision for this city without
the consent of the voters – the people who are going to pay for this folly of yours,” Trasatti
exclaimed. Trasatti did not perceive the Sanctuary Resolution as a means to uphold the nation’s
founding ideals. Instead, she accused City Councilmembers of betraying U.S. democracy by not
seeking the consent of the people. She then articulated “the citizen-exile” in its starkest form:
Haven’t we enough trouble already with the aliens and illegals already overrunning our city?
There are areas in the city were (sic) one can’t even hear English spoken anymore. They are
not becoming Americans like the early immigrants to this country, rather they are turning
neighborhoods into miniature replicas of their countrys (sic) making us strangers in our own
town.
On the face of it, Trasatti’s vituperation seems to align with the long-standing strain of racial
nativism that has pervaded the United States since the 19th century. Yet when viewed within the
context of the contentious debate over a city Sanctuary designation, Trasatti’s words take on a new
valence. They imply that those most deserving of a refuge were the legal citizens of Los Angeles
who have been alienated from their own home, feeling like “strangers in our own town.”
Trasatti’s invective was just one in dozens of letters that applied refugee discourse to U.S.
citizens. As one anonymous “long-time resident of Los Angeles” wrote, “no apologies were made to
Americans who will witness the further destruction of their homeland because of the continuous
invasion by illegals.”227 The author continued, stating “many Americans are suffering displacement in
226 “Margot Trasatti letter to Los Angeles City Council,” 27 November, 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,”
City Council District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. : 227 Ibid.

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their own country.” In refuting the Resolution, anti-Sanctuary constituents averred that “what is
literally happening is that people are being driven from their homes in Latin America, and they are in
turn driving Americans (sic) citizens out of their homes with the aid and consent of their elected
government.”228 The narrative of the citizen-exile turned the question of who qualifies as a refugee
on its head. It asserted that the Central American refugees were not the refugees Sanctuary activists
claimed them to be. Instead, the refugees were American citizens whose government had “driven”
them into a state of exile in their own country by permitting Central American refugees to seek
Sanctuary in Los Angeles.
Thomas Begley of Encino pulled no punches. In his rancorous letter to Councilman Braude,
Begley encapsulated the citizen-exile narrative, literally in capital letters (figure 11).
228 “Steven H. Animow letter to Marvin Braude,” n.d., Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District 11/Marvin
Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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Figure 11: Thomas Begley of Encino letter to Councilman Marvin Braude, December 2, 1985
Begley's vitriol serves as tangible evidence of the racial nativism prevalent among the most fervent
anti-Sanctuary activists. However, it signifies more than just a racially charged zero-sum political
stance. Begley's sentiment suggests that he perceived the Sanctuary resolution as not just a policy
disagreement, but as a direct threat to the well-being and livelihoods of U.S. citizens. By expressing
that the resolution diminished the "air supply" of U.S. citizens, Begley implies a sense of suffocation
or deprivation, portraying the Sanctuary policy as a detriment to the very essence of life. This

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characterization underscores the depth of fear and resentment felt by some individuals towards
policies perceived as prioritizing the needs of immigrants over those of native-born citizens.
The second narrative that emerged from anti-Sanctuary constituent letters revolved around
the “Bel-Air Sandinista,” as the supposed greatest threat to American society. On November 27th,
Saul David of Van Nuys began his letter to “Councilman” on a sardonic note: “I assume it’s
pointless to urge you not to support the preposterous venture into foreign policy currently addling
the heads of City Council members. But I live here and the bizarre exercises in group lunacy passed
by my representatives makes a fool of me too—so I write anyhow.”229 A caustic humor permeated
the narrative of the “Bel Air Sandinista,” aimed at trivializing the Sanctuary Resolution and the ideals
for which it stood.
Saul David continued: “It’s painfully clear that no matter how hard you and the Bel Air
Sandinistas try, you have yet to prove that anyone sent back [to Central America] was, in fact, killed.
But you go on and on and I can’t imagine why except for the trendy vanity involved.”230 By indicting
L.A. Councilmembers as “Bel Air Sandinistas,” Saul David intimated that pro-Sanctuary
representatives were enemies of the state (a satirical allusion to the U.S.-sponsored paramilitary
contra forces that sought to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front in
Nicaragua). Additionally, by referencing the affluent Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air and
accusing Councilmembers of “trendy vanity,” he insinuated that the Sanctuary Resolution was
merely for optics and lacking substance. In his view, the legislative agenda that fall was akin to a
circus: “Bring in the Clowns,” he concluded.
231
229“Saul David letter to Marvin Braude,” 27 November 1985, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District
11/Marvin Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 230 Ibid. 231 Ibid.

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The 'Bel Air Sandinista' offered a compelling critique of Los Angeles politics in the
neoliberal era. It artfully depicted a paradox where the ultra-wealthy, despite benefiting from
capitalism, were portrayed as either advocates of wealth redistribution or champions of socialist
principles. Meanwhile, the middle-class denizens of the Valley found themselves trapped in the
middle, grappling with the fallout of these conflicting ideologies. This portrayal highlighted the irony
of the affluent leading the charge toward socialism, while those in the middle bore the brunt of the
consequences.
Expanding upon the satire of the “Bel Air Sandinistas” were letters that directly linked proSanctuary Councilmembers to communism. On January 14th, 1986, Charles Norris wrote
Councilman Marvin Braude to proclaim that “The City Council has made the word “Sanctuary” into
a red-ink word. Their hearts have overwhelmed their collective common sense.”232 To Norris, the
idea of Sanctuary in the neoliberal era was metonymic of communism, or the penetration of
communist ideals into U.S. governance. Such was the view exhibited by the political cartoon (figure
1) depicting Councilman Woo as a “salaried communist mole.”233
232 “Charles W. Morris letter to Marvin Braude,” 14 January 1986, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District
11/Marvin Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 233 “Bynum cartoon,” 1985, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael
Woo, City Archives and Records, Los Angeles, California.

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Figure 12: Political Cartoon sent to the office of Councilmember Michael Woo. Created by Bynum 1985.
Michael Woo Papers. Los Angeles City Records and Archives
In Bynum’s cartoon, Michael Woo is not only a communist infiltrate but his Sanctuary Resolution is
an “undeniable victory” for “the communist.” To the opposition, Woo’s Sanctuary Resolution was
not only a “red-ink” word, or the work of “Bel Air Sandinistas,” it was proof that communism had
seeped into the second largest city in the United States. As Sonya Jason of Woodland Hills put it,
“The Sanctuary movement is a deliberate, revolutionary plan designed to destroy our government.
This movement, if unchecked, will be the Trojan horse that Harold Ezell of the US Immigration and
Naturalization Service has accurately described it to be.” 234 It was not the first time opponents
described the Sanctuary Resolution as a “trojan horse,” poised to undo U.S. democracy. Bessie M.
Neilson put it rather succinctly: “The Sanctuary Movement is an open invitation to revolutionaries,
234 Sonya Jason, letter to the editor, “Beware of the Sanctuary Trojan Horse,” Daily News of Los Angeles, n.d.

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communists, and criminals under the guise of seeking freedom from persecution.”235 In their
attempts to “red-bait” Sanctuary proponents and accuse them of being communist agents,
constituents implied that a Sanctuary Resolution was tantamount to a communist takeover. The
narrative of the “Bel Air Sandinista” fed into the third, and perhaps most potent critique offered by
the Sanctuary opposition – the portrayal of bleeding hearts and fiscal burden. Among the antiSanctuary constituent letters, the most common objection related to the financial implications a
Sanctuary Resolution would impose upon Los Angeles taxpayers. As the local opposition did not
classify Central American refugees as refugees (the “Citizen-Exile” narrative), constituents viewed
Central American migrants not only as a “drain” on public resources but also as “welfare cheats.”236
Their letters constituted a case not only against Central American refugees and their purported cost
to Los Angeles taxpayers but also constituted an outright assault on government assistance
programs.
Donna Hull, “a 4th generation Californian and a second generation Los Angeles resident,”
expressed outrage at the City Council’s decision to designate Los Angeles a Sanctuary for “illegal
immigrants.”237 She pointed out that “our welfare rolls are over-burdened already with people who
need help. People who are here legally—and are citizens.”238 Hull’s sentiments reflected her disdain
for immigrants whom she believed deprived U.S. citizens of their rightful assistance and instead
strained the welfare system. Richard O. Miles, in a letter to Councilman Joel Wachs, expressed both
“amazement and anger at you and so many of the Council members wanting to give Sanctuary to
more illegal aliens—as if we don’t have enough over-crowding, immigrants on welfare, and in our
235 “Bessie Nielson letter to Joel Wachs,” 24 November, 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Council
District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 236 For more on the racialized discourse surrounding Latin American immigrants, see Leo Chávez, Latino Threat Narrative
Second Edition (Stanford University Press, 2013); Frederick Luis Aldama, Latinos and Narrative Media: Participation and
Portrayal (New York: Palgrave, Macmillian, 2013). 237 “Donna Hull letter to Joel Wachs,” 2 December 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Council District
2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 238 Ibid.

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schools, who come just for aid infinitum. Aiding and assisting illegals is a felony. How can you do
this to our U.S. citizens in LA?”239 Donald S. Sanford of Studio City echoed the belief that the fault
“belonged to “freshman Councilman Woo, Wachs (my Councilman) and the other blunderbusses
who voted to encourage more illegal aliens (we don’t have enough) to flock to our city where,
presumably, they will be greeted with open arms and welfare checks. Guess who’s going to pick up
the tab for this magnanimous invitation by Woo et al?”240 In a political climate that impugned
welfare, constituents were quick to neglect refugees’ claims for asylum and instead branded them as
welfare recipients, exploiting the “bleeding hearts” of city officials and cashing in on federal aid.
In addition to suggesting that Sanctuary would encourage more “illegal immigration,” some
constituent letters detailed how their political views had shifted over time due to the perceived social
costs of immigration. Writing to Councilman Woo, one constituent prefaced their letter by stating,
“First, let me assure you that I am not some kind of right-wing racist. I used to believe as you do
until some ghastly personal experiences demonstrated to me how bad things are getting.”241
Opening their letter with a disclaimer about not being a “right-wing racist,” the constituent attempts
to legitimize their perspective while distancing themselves from overtly racist sentiments. In one
sense, this reflects a recognition of the stigma associated with anti-immigrant views and a desire to
present one’s opposition in a more “palatable” manner. But more than that, this dynamic exposes a
broader trend forming among purportedly liberal constituents in the mid-1980s: the notion that one
can uphold a political identity or viewpoint while simultaneously harboring racialized biases about
immigrants. Indeed, amidst demographic shifts and socio-economic hardship, residents grappled
239 “Richard O Miles postcard to Councilman Joel Wachs,” 2 December 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,”
City Council District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 240 “Donald S Sanford letter to the editor of the Harold Examiner,” 5 December 1985, CCL/02 Box 4619, Folder “L.A.
Sanctuary City,” City Council District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.
241 “Anonymous constituent letter to Michael Woo,” Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City
Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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with reconciling their ideological stances with personal biases, all while striving to avoid being
labeled a racist. In navigating this balance, many leveled complaints against welfare abuses as a
means of expressing concerns about immigration, particularly unauthorized migration from the
Global South. This strategic approach allowed residents to sidestep over accusations of racism while
still advancing their agenda effectively.
The constituent then recounted the experience of a senior citizen friend whose
neighborhood had been “taken over by Latin immigrants”:
[my] friend was slow to move (flee is a more appropriate term) because she is visually
handicapped, and has extreme difficulty looking for an apartment. When I went to visit her
at night, I was astounded at what I saw. Most of her neighbors were on welfare, so they sat
around all night drinking beer and playing loud music…
The constituent’s choice of the word “flee” underscored the citizen-exile narrative, positioning this
friend as a refugee needing to flee an unlivable circumstance. Moreover, the constituent framed their
argument against Sanctuary around the belief that unauthorized migrants exploited their access to
welfare rather than earning their own way—a claim that lacked substantiation but nevertheless
illustrated how racialized welfare discourse was easily grafted onto Central American refugees.
Moreover, the constituent’s attempt to distance themselves from racist labels while concealing
racialized perceptions about immigrants reflects a broader phenomenon in the San Fernando Valley.
C. Gilpin expressed deep disappointment in Councilman Joel Wach’s vote on the Sanctuary
Resolution, affirming that “this kind of statement, however symbolic, can only encourage illegal
immigration.”242 She asked: “Where are the funds to provide adequate police for the crime and drug
use in our district? School space is already so limited, the children on our street may have to attend
all year schools.” Mrs. Gilpin’s appeal to the concerns of the youth, echoed the anxieties
surrounding “latchkey children” that circulated among anti-Sanctuary constituents. Writing to
242 “C. Gilpin letter to Joel Wachs,” 3 December, 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Council District 2/
Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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Councilmember Joel Wachs, Erika Scarano of the Neighborhood Action Group, relayed similar
sentiments about the supposed financial strain on young families. As she exclaimed, “young families
cannot afford to buy a home without both parents working or simply having to make ends meet,
resulting in Latchkey children.”243 The mention of the “latchkey children” resonated deeply with
anti-Sanctuary constituents, who were concerned not only over the future loss of private property
(“can’t afford to buy a home”) but also about the presumed loss and neglect of their children
(“resulting in Latchkey children”). Yet perhaps at the heart of the “latchkey children” narrative was a
deeper concern over the meaning of belonging in the face of economic hardships and societal
changes. Residents like Gilpin and Sarcano had forged a sense of belonging in the Valley as
homeowners and devoted parents. Moreover, their children found solace in the warmth of a full
household upon returning home from school. Yet, with the passage of City Sanctuary, this very
foundation stood poised to be profoundly destabilized.
In a scathing letter written on December 3, 1985, one constituent minced no words.
244 “The
resolution passed by the City Council making Los Angeles the “Sanctuary City” for illegal aliens
(posing as political refugees) was an outrageous, irresponsible, contemptible, cheap political trick led
by the phony and ambitious Michael Woo,” the letter began. It continued by lambasting Mr. Woo
and his allies for their perceived lack of responsibility towards the city and its citizens. For this
constituent, Sanctuary equated to shirking their enshrined duty to the citizens of Los Angeles, who
bore the brunt of the burden. The letter asserted:
Charity is supposed to begin at home, but with these cheap, cynical politicians, such as Mr.
Woo and his cohorts, it begins everywhere but at home. It is outrageous that so many of our
243 Erika H. Scarano letter to Councilman Joel Wachs, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Council District 2/
Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 244 “Letter to Various Members of the City Council, Harold Ezell, Regional Manager of the INS, Members of Congress,
the President, the INS, Various Newspapers, TV Stations, Radio, Cardinal Mahoney of LA etc…” 3 December, 1985,
Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Council District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los
Angeles, California.

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own citizens are suffering, such as our senior citizens on limited, fixed incomes, being shut
out of decent, affordable places to live, all because of a growing horde of illegal aliens, with a
growing number of our own people forced to live on the streets in misery, uncared for and
forgotten by the “bleeding heart” pack of hypocrites in public office whom we are cursed
with.
Expanding on the narrative of the “citizen-exile” this constituent portrayed Sanctuary as
synonymous with neglect of the home. Rather than being a cornerstone of U.S. democracy,
Sanctuary for Central American refugees was tantamount to abandonment of the homeland. The
letter also revealed the constituent’s growing political conservatism, stating, “As a former moderate
Democrat, it is such acts and policies as the above on the part of the present Democratic leadership
that threaten to turn it into a minority party and most deservedly so."245
In the aftermath of the Resolution’s passage, constituents grew increasingly vocal about their
belief that Sanctuary would come at the taxpayer’s expense. Ruth Matthes, identified as “a voter,”
implored Councilman Marvin Braude: “Why is it we never have enough money for Schools,
Highways, Jails etc., but there’s always enough for you bleeding hearts to give away from outside our
City? I’ve been a taxpayer for forty years, and I bet I couldn’t get one nickel from this city if I were
destitute. But you on the Council seem to feel we must care for everyone! Bah!”246 Matthes’ remarks
combined the “citizen-exile” with the “bleeding heart” narrative to oppose Sanctuary. She lamented
that her tax dollars didn’t benefit her directly, and instead were redirected by “bleeding heart”
politicians to care for “everyone.” Similarly, Bessie Nielson echoed this sentiment, arguing that,
there is nothing in our Constitution that says we have to take in and care for everyone in the
whole world who wants to come. We, the United States of America, have done more than
any other nation to help the poor and downtrodden on earth. We have been very generous,
more generous than wise to be truthful, but now we need time to assimilate the flood we
245 Ibid.
246 “Ruth Matthes letter to Marvin Braude,” 2 December, 1985, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District
11/Marvin Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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have already received. We need time to recover economically and to help our own people get
jobs.”247
By reminding the Los Angeles City Council that the Constitution does not mandate social assistance
and suggesting that the time for helping the earth’s downtrodden has passed, Neilson argued that
refuge was a tradition of the past. She asserted that the United States had already surpassed other
nation-states in its generosity, and could now, without hesitation, deny Sanctuary to those seeking it.
“A Small Gesture of Thanks:”: Pro-Sanctuary Constituents Promote Unbounded Belonging
If anti-Sanctuary constituents wrote letters accusing Central American refugees of overburdening welfare rolls, pro-Sanctuary residents thanked immigrants for doing just the opposite:
maintaining the welfare of Los Angeles. A “Message Memo-While You Were Out” recorded on
November 26, 1985 by a staffer of councilmember Joel Wachs, conveyed that Michael Seligman of
North Hollywood “is in favor of the Sanctuary proposal and thinks that this is just a small jesture
(sic) of thanks for all these people do for the welfare of L.A.”248 It was a sobering illustration of the
two sides of the sanctuary dispute. On the one hand there were those who condemned Sanctuary as
a perfidious pretext to boost the welfare politics of the Great Society at the expense of citizen tax
payers. On the other hand, were those who saw the Sanctuary Resolution as a solemn declaration of
thanks to the individuals who had insured the city’s economic and social stability in a moment of
historical rupture. David Argall of the Libertarian Party reinforced this view, in light of the longue
durée of immigration to the United States when he wrote in response to a KNX Radio editorial:
Ever since this nation was founded, every generation has feared that a flood of aliens was
going to ruin this country—putting Americans out of work, overwhelming welfare and jail
247 “Bessie Nielson letter to Councilman Joel Wachs,” 24 November, 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City
Council District 2/ Joel Wachs, City of Los Angeles City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 248 “While You Were Out from Michael Seligman,” 26 November, 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City
Council District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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and, in general, behaving like a bunch of foreigners. Each generation of aliens has, in turn,
proved them wrong. The aliens, our ancestors, were honest, hardworking and tax paying—
just the type no nation ever has enough of. Of course, this demonstration that their fears
were nonsense did nothing to stop Americans, whether old or now acceptable former aliens,
from thinking that the next generation of immigrants was somehow “different” and totally
unacceptable. It’s now our turn, as we pay too much attention to the hysteria and selfserving propaganda put out by the Immigration Department. Like our ancestors, our current
generation of aliens, illegal or legal, is a decided asset to this country, providing us with much
of what we want and need. Those advocating keeping them out are calling for us to cut our
own throats. 249
Argall critiques the recurring fear and prejudice against immigrants in American history. He argues
that each generation's concerns about immigrants have been unfounded, as immigrants have
consistently proven to be hardworking and law-abiding contributors to society. Furthermore, he
highlights the harmful effects of anti-immigrant hysteria and propaganda, which hinder the
recognition of immigrants' valuable contributions to the country, yet he fails to recognize the role of
race in that history. David Argall’s memo served a visceral reminder that the United States economy,
particularly as it shifted from industry to service, was driven by migrant labor. Denying their entry
and deporting them was tantamount to “cut[ting] our own throats.” Agrall's support for Sanctuary
subtly conveyed a belief in self-responsibility. He suggested that migrants deserve belonging because
they are inherently self-reliant workers. This went beyond the typical bootstrap narrative, embodying
a fundamental endorsement of the neoliberal principle of individual accountability
Close analysis of the pro-Sanctuary constituent letters reveals that many Angelenos
sponsored a Sanctuary designation because it upheld an inviolable American tradition. But it was not
lost on either the anti- or pro-Sanctuary factions that the City Council’s vote on the Sanctuary
Resolution occurred the day before Thanksgiving. In many ways the Sanctuary Resolution vote
turned into a discursive battle over the meaning of Thanksgiving, as a cornerstone of American
democracy in an era of “compassion fatigue.” Mary Brent Wehrli wrote to Councilman Joel Wachs:
249 “David Argall editorial to JNX Newsrad,” 17 October, 1985, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented
Aliens]”, City Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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“It is Thanksgiving Day and I am giving thanks for you and the stunning victory of November 27,
1985. Thank you for taking a leadership role in the vote to make La Ciudad de Los Angeles a city of
sanctuary.”250 Echoing the sentiment, Paulita Berney wrote Marvin Braude “On Thanksgiving Day”
to give “thanks for [his] stand on LA being Sanctuary City for Central American refugees.”251 Donna
M. Wright, the Associate Director of Publications for the Southern California Interfaith Hunger
Coalition applauded Braude for his “comment/rhetorical question of how affirming laws and
humanitarian work [could] be hurtful to our country. What a marvelous thought on the day before
Thanksgiving!”252 Pro-Sanctuary constituents envisaged a direct link between the Sanctuary
Resolution and the myth of Thanksgiving. They envisioned a Sanctuary Resolution as fulfilling
America’s destiny as a land of refuge for the persecuted. Anti-Sanctuary constituents, to the
contrary, saw the Sanctuary Resolution as proof that city officials had turned their backs on the
promise of America. Rose Brugetti of Van Nuys articulated this perspective in her letter to
Councilman Braude:
I don’t think it is right what councilman Woo and the men who voted like him, is doing
making Los Angeles a place for every poor person in the world to come to Los Angeles;
Where are all the jobs for all these people come here. Thanksgiving, did you see on T.V. the
long line people were in to get a Thanksgiving dinner, those people want jobs. If the Council
want (sic) to help, give these people jobs that are out of work. 253
Conflicting the constituents who claimed the Sanctuary Resolution embodied the spirit of
Thanksgiving, Mrs. Brugetti’s sense was that a Sanctuary designation deepened the suffering of
Americans who lived in want – want of jobs, want of food, want of stability.
250 “Mary Brent Wehrli letter to Joel Wachs,” 28 November, 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Council
District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 251 “Paulita Berney letter to Wachs,” 28 November, 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Archives and
Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 252 “Donna M. Wright letter to Joel Wachs,” 4 December 1985, Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Council
District 2/ Joel Wachs, City Archives and Records, Los Angeles, California.
253 “Rose Brugetti letter to Marvin Braude,” November 1985, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District
11/Marvin Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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In the weeks leading up to and following the City Council passed the Sanctuary Resolution,
pro-Sanctuary constituents hastened their efforts to link Sanctuary with America’s founding mythos.
As Dan Regan wrote, “I strongly urge you to support the Council Resolution to declare L.A. a
Sanctuary for Central American refugees, fleeing war in Central America. Sanctuary is an old and
honorable tradition.”254 Virginia Moore summarized the sentiment, writing to Marvin Braude that
“your affirmation of our long held support for immigrants is wonderful and a credit to the City. It
makes a strong statement about American ideals, that they still hold true in this chaotic world.”255
One of the most forceful arguments in support of the Sanctuary Resolution cane from Rabbi
Neil Comess-Daniels of the Temple Shir Shalom. In his letter, Rabbi Comess-Daniels counteracted
the “citizen-exile” narrative of anti-Sanctuary advocates to offer his own take on the controversy:
“As for myself,” he wrote to Braude, “I come from a tradition that unequivocally commands me not
to “subvert the rights of the stranger.” As a Jew, not only because of recent history but also because
I am to remember that I was “a stranger in the land of Egypt,” I am in the position of being able to
empathize with those “strangers” whose rights are being abrogated.”256 Rabbi Comess-Daniels’
words concorded with the religious sentiment of the wider Sanctuary Movement. But they also,
crucially, appealed to the city’s politically powerful Jewish constituency in affirming the rights of
Central American refugees.
254 “Dan Regan postcard to Joel Wachs,” Box 4619, Folder “L.A. Sanctuary City,” City Council District 2/ Joel Wachs,
City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.
255 “Virginia Moore letter to Marvin Braude,” 2 December, 1985, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District
11/Marvin Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 256 “Rabbi Neill Comess-Daniels letter to Marvin Braude,” 8 November, 1985, Letter from Virginia Moore to
Councilman Marvin Braude, 2 December, 1985, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District 11/Marvin
Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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Figure 13: Pro-Sanctuary Postcard sent from Barbara Meyer in Sherman Oaks. The symbolic imagery of the
postcard conveyed the debate at the heart of the city Sanctuary Designation. Would Los Angeles as a city
extend belonging to Central American refugees? Los Angeles City Records and Archives, Joel Wachs papers.
The Price of Sanctuary in the Public Imagination
In the hours after the City Council passed the Sanctuary Resolution, County Supervisor Mike
Antonovich, vehemently denounced the decision: “[the] sanctuary movement is not a human effort
to provide asylum. It is a political movement designed to undermine our society and cost our law
abiding taxpayers millions of dollars to pay for welfare benefits, schools, health services, and other

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services to those who break the law.”257 Antonovich’s statement exposed the truth at the heart of the
opposition. Antonovich’s outrage stemmed not from the fact that the Sanctuary Resolution violated
federal law—because the Sanctuary Resolution adhered to legal parameters. Rather, what enraged
local politicians like Antonovich to the point of apoplexy was a deeply held—and widely reinforced
but erroneous—belief that the Sanctuary Resolution would impose significant financial burdens on
citizen taxpayers. Not only would it “swell the welfare rolls with children of illegal aliens from
Central America,” but it would deepen the linkages between refuge and federal assistance, at the
expense of neglecting citizens most deserving of state support.
258
On Tuesday, December 3rd, 1985, the Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to urge the Council to
repeal the Sanctuary Resolution. 259 Supervisor Deane Dana forwarded the motion: “last week, the
Los Angeles City Council declared the City of Los Angeles a Sanctuary for undocumented aliens. I
believe that such action is deceptive and indefensible. The City Council’s action creates the false
impression that undocumented aliens who come here to find Sanctuary will be provided with help
with housing, food, health care, jobs, and other necessitates of life usually provided to refugees.
However, the city has made no provision to offer such services.”260 The Supervisor’s motion made
no mention of the status of Central American refugees because, by then, it didn’t matter. To him,
and his fellow Supervisors (Ed Edelman was the sole dissenter), the fact that Central American
refugees sought asylum—and the rights guaranteed therein—was beside the point. What was
significant, however, was the fact that the Sanctuary Resolution seemed to lull “undocumented
aliens” into an illusory state of belonging. And that prospect, simply put, cost too much. It cost too
257 “News from Michael D. Antonovich,” 27 November 1985, Box 331, Folder 14, “Illegal Aliens 1976- 1986,” Papers
of Edmund D. Edelman, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections, San Marino, California.
258 Ibid. 259 Paul Pringle, “Supervisors Oppose City’s Sanctuary Plan,” Daily News of Los Angeles, n.d. 260 “Motion from Supervisor Deane Dana,” 3 December, 1985, Box 331, Folder 14, “Illegal Aliens 1976- 1986,” Papers
of Edmund D. Edelman, Huntington Library Manuscript Collections, San Marino, California.

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much in practice and it cost too much symbolically: it permitted the promise of America to become
interwoven with the promise of welfare for non-citizens.
Allegations trotted out by Sanctuary opponents bolstered the neoliberal economic
restructuring and austerity measures of the era. In a state like California and a city as diverse as Los
Angeles, narratives of resource depletion had especially racialized undertones. Before the trope of
the “welfare queen” gained national traction, California served as the nursery for President Reagan’s
war on welfare.Just over a decade before the Sanctuary vote, Governor Reagan pushed the
California Welfare Reform Package (1971 and 1974), which disproportionately targeted working
families of color.66 Californians of diverse backgrounds were familiar with rhetoric that either
explicitly or tacitly associated Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with families,
especially women, of color. Yet as sociologist Hana Brown has observed, California also functioned
as a testing ground for discourses that broadened anti-welfare policy beyond the black-white binary
to include Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans.It proved no stretch for anti-Sanctuary opponents
to plug Central American refugees into a powerful and growing movement to shrink the welfare
state. Sanctuary became a stand-in not only for impunity for “illegal aliens” but also for “welfare
cheats.”261
Yet arguably, the political debate over Sanctuary did far more than that. It became a
Rorschach test over who belonged within the country’s sphere of responsibility. If the nation’s
identity rested on its history as an “enduring symbol of freedom...for generations of people from
other countries who fear persecution” then Central American refugees stood firmly within the social
contract. The drive to convert Central American refugees into illegal aliens, and the widespread
objections to the City Sanctuary Resolution was therefore not solely bound up with the Reagan
Administration’s need to conceal its own human rights abuses. It was, as Daniel Rodgers has
261 Hana Brown, “The New Racial Politics of Welfare.”

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claimed, “a debate between visions of society.”262 Was California, and by extension, the United
States, willing to extend its circle of obligation to hundreds of thousands of non-white refugees in
the neoliberal era? Could humanitarianism survive in the “era of Compassion Fatigue?” By New
Year’s Eve, Ernani Bernardi, the notorious “gadfly” of the Los Angeles City Council, announced
plans to bring these questions to the people of Los Angeles. He proposed a petition to put the
Sanctuary Resolution on the ballot.
In a press conference held on January 7, 1986, Bernardi announced that he would soon
launch a petition drive that would let Angelenos vote on the Sanctuary Resolution.
263 The measure,
which he hoped to get on the November ballot, was in response to the deluge of letters and
telephoned responses he received in the wake of the council’s sanctuary resolution. Representative
of L.A.’s 7th district (San Fernando Valley, Van Nuys area), Bernardi likely thought such a move
would galvanize constituents to express their disapproval of the district’s rapidly shifting
demographics. Not known for being especially anti-immigrant, Bernardi nonetheless allied himself
with Harold Ezell and conservative supervisors Peter Schabaraum, Mike Antonovich and Deane
Dana, in openly repudiating the Council’s November Resolution. He claimed it would “induce large
numbers of new immigrants to head for Los Angeles.”
Councilman Woo, meanwhile, was thunderstruck by his sudden notoriety, and fearful when
he received a death threat.264 Reflecting on the weeks after the Council passed the Resolution’s he
stated, “frankly, the opposition was stronger and more vocal than I expected it to be. I assumed that
because the Resolution was largely symbolic and didn’t really change city policy I assumed it
wouldn’t be very controversial but I definitely misread the public reaction.”265 Contrary to his
262 Daniel Rodgers, Age of Fracture (Harvard University Press, 2003). 263 Laurie Becklund, “Initiative Sought on L.A. Sanctuary, “Los Angeles Times, January 8, 1986; Victor Merina, “Young
L.A. Councilman Gets Badly Bruised in Sanctuary Battle,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1986. 264 Woo, Interview. 265 Ibid.

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previous stance, in the new year Woo began to retract his support for the Sanctuary designation. In
late January, he initiated private discussions with Bernardi, utilizing seasoned Council members
Ferraro and Braude as intermediaries. As Woo recounted, “It was not difficult for me to reach the
conclusion that it would be politically disastrous for me to have to spend time and effort and raise
money to oppose a repeal campaign and so I made a tactical decision that it was better to pull back
and basically rescind that resolution.” On February 6th Woo announced his desire to strike a
compromise with Bernardi. If Bernardi abandoned his initiative plan, Woo would endorse a revised
resolution without the word “sanctuary.” Woo wanted to avoid a bitter and “racially divisive
campaign,” and claimed it “would be disastrous for the city to have an initiative go on the ballot
which would pit one ethnic group against another ethnic group and would exacerbate tensions that
are already out there in the community.”266
A day later, Bernardi and Woo released their revised resolution. In a public statement,
Bernardi heralded the new resolution: “I am very pleased that today we can put an end to the
Sanctuary issue and take a constructive first step forward dealing with what I believe is the number
one problem in the city today—that of immigration particularly illegal immigration—a problem that
for too long has been ignored.” He continued: “I would like to take a moment here to thank the
thousands of people who supported the drive. In my 25 years with the City Council, I have never
experienced such an outpouring of feeling regarding a Council action.” For his part, Woo praised
the new Resolution for retaining much of its original substance even if it nullified the Sanctuary
designation. He reiterated the Council’s intention of reducing the climate of fear in which refugees
live and reassured the Los Angeles public that the council assumed the responsibility of serving the
266 Woo, Interview.

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needs of all residents.In his statement’s most revealing section, Woo spoke candidly about his
decision:
I would like to close with a personal note. As a first-time candidate in 1981, I personally
experienced the divisiveness of a campaign in which race became a major issue. It was an
ugly spectacle which needlessly pitted ethnic group against another, inflaming the petty
jealousies, resentments, and prejudices which lie not so far below the surface in our
seemingly cosmopolitan city. I will do anything I can to protect the city of Los Angeles from
being subjected to a city-wide campaign which could so easily degenerate into racial hatred. I
don’t want to give a free forum to the hate groups or the demagogues who thrive on these
ethnic tensions.267
Reflecting on his own experience as an Asian American man in Los Angeles, Woo was concerned
about what an initiative drive would unleash. He knew that racial antagonisms simmered right below
the surface and a ballot measure risked opening the floodgates once again.
Los Angeles in the years leading up to the Sanctuary Resolution underwent substantial
political change. The 1973 election of Tom Bradley, the first African American mayor, the Chicano
movement, and a multi-ethnic coalition of progressive elected officials posed a challenge to the
conservative white preeminence that had long characterized city politics.As a freshman politician,
indeed one of the first Asian Americans elected to city government, Woo was as cognizant of Los
Angeles’ long-term racial history as he was mindful of the impact an initiative petition might have on
his liberal colleagues’ upcoming election prospects. Speaking to Victor Merina, Woo proclaimed,
“To me, it was very clear. I wasn’t willing to prolong the battle over that one word.” While some
activists cast aspersions at Woo for being “a sell-out,” other progressive lawmakers charged Bernardi
for working at the behest of Ezell and inviting a “long, drawn-out emotionally charged campaign
that would split the city and perhaps exacerbate racial tensions.”268 Although Bernardi had fashioned
267 “Statement by Michael Woo,” 7 February 1986, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City
Council District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 268 Victor Merina, “Young L.A. Councilman Gets Badly Bruised in Sanctuary Battle,” Los Angeles Times, February 18,
1986.

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himself as the Council’s resident “curmudgeon” and, in the opinion of Woo, was not playing out any
grand scheme, historical vantage allows us to see Bernardi’s initiative drive as an effective means of
intimidating progressive initiatives. No stranger to Los Angeles’ fraught racial past, Bernardi, who
had served on the council since 1961, raised the specter of racial conflict because it would
discourage Woo and his allies from pushing the Sanctuary issue. At the time, Sanctuary activists
impugned Bernardi’s move as premeditated: “It is apparent that the City Council acted to withdraw
the word sanctuary from its resolution out of concern for the racist hysteria which was being
provoked by critics of the resolution.”269
The new Resolution, which passed the Council almost unanimously (11-1), still shielded
refugees and other undocumented residents who reported crimes from deportation. But its language,
besides removing the word “Sanctuary,” was noticeably different. The November 27th resolution
uniformly referred to the migrants as refugees whereas the February 7th had mostly adopted
“undocumented alien.” 270 For some, the shift in language symbolized a moral resignation: “There
was no compromise. There was a backing off of the commitment to Sanctuary. What we did was
take a step back from our commitment to a basic principle,” lamented council member Robert
Farrell. Others saw the debate over the word “Sanctuary” as a futile semantic struggle.
271 In a letter
prepared by Woo’s office for anti-Sanctuary constituents, Woo defended his compromise on the
premise that, “the unmet needs in our community are too important to be obstructed or stalemated
by semantical arguments over the meaning of the word “sanctuary” or any other words in this
resolution.”272While such pragmatic policy-making prevailed, it obscured the fundamental nature of
269 Ibid 270 “City Council Resolution,” 7 February, 1986, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council
District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California. 271 Merina, “Young L.A. Councilman.” 272 “Letter for Sanctuary,” 18 March, 1986, Box 815505, Folder “Sanctuary [Undocumented Aliens]”, City Council
District 13/ Michael Woo, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.

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the political battle over Sanctuary—a battle over the meaning of belonging in the neoliberal era.
Initially a debate over how the government would categorize Central American migrants—as
economic migrants or political refugees—the removal of “Sanctuary” from the Resolution made it
not only difficult to parry the selective application of the 1980 Refugee Act. It also allowed both
local and federal governments to evade their shared responsibility toward Central Americans and to
communicate their belonging within the city of Los Angeles.
Conclusion
The 1985 Los Angeles City Sanctuary designation, often no more than a footnote in the
broader history of the Sanctuary Movement, laid bare the tensions over the meaning of belonging in
the neoliberal era. Councilman Woo’s Sanctuary Resolution coincided with a period in which many
white citizens in Los Angeles felt their own belonging was under assault. Leveraging the notion of
the citizen-exile, they criticized officials for seemingly prioritizing “welfare cheats”—Central
American refugees—over citizens. Many deployed racialized welfare discourses to equate Sanctuary
with a program held in anathema, effectively undermining the Resolution and reframing the
conversation over political asylum to fiscal burden.
Residents citywide expressed their views on the Sanctuary Resolution, but those from the
San Fernando Valley had particularly vested interests. For progressive Jewish residents, the
Resolution was a test of their historic commitment to immigrants and asylum seekers. Many
supported Sanctuary on humanitarian grounds, emphasizing the moral imperative to offer refuge to
those in need, irrespective of politics. J. Kellenberger of Northridge eloquently articulated this
sentiment. He stressed the shared humanity that obligated a compassionate response to the refugees’
plight:

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I urge that, on purely humanitarian grounds, this resolution should be adopted. Whatever we
may feel about the political situations in Guatemala and El Salvador, we cannot deny the
physical fact of the presence in our city of large numbers of refugees from these countries.
The question is: How shall we treat these refugees, who are in need of shelter and sanctuary?
I submit that their need in itself should answer the question…Given their need, we as fellow
human being are morally called upon to respond to it—quite independently of our political
persuasions.273
This humanitarian perspective resonated with many Jews in the east Valley, who positioned
themselves as allies to the growing refugee population. However, for others, the Sanctuary
Resolution forced a reckoning with the changing demographics of their neighborhoods, including
shifts in property values, density, and land use, socioeconomic composition and racial makeup.
While most Central American refugees initially settled in Westlake and Pico Union, many turned to
the more affordable east San Fernando Valley, unsettling the established sense of belonging among
Valley residents who feared that the Valley was no longer the refuge of the white middle class.
The insecurity over changing demographics and the liberalization of belonging would continue to
escalate in the ensuing decade, culminating in the passage of Proposition 187 in 1994. Between 1985
and 1994, many of those who had originally endorsed the Sanctuary Resolution evolved into what
the labor activist Joel Ochoa has termed the “Encino Man.”274 These “Reagan Democrats,” the
Encino Man were not simply those who favored economic deregulation, but also who increasingly
sought to recouple belonging with formal citizenship.
Despite being overlooked in the historiography, the L.A. Sanctuary Resolution marked a
critical turning point in the evolution of belonging during the neoliberal era. While it did not
formally extend Sanctuary to Central American refugees, it nevertheless paved the way for them to
carve out their own sense of refuge within the city. In a segmented labor market, many turned to
273 “Kellenberger letter to Marvin Braude,” 24 October 1985, Box 20610, Folder “Sanctuary,” City Council District
11/Marvin Braude, City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, California.
274 Joel Ochoa Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, April 24, 2024, Los Angeles, CA

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entrepreneurship in the city’s informal economy. In particular, they helped transform the city’s swap
meets, including the San Fernando Swap Meet into vibrant sites of belonging—a space to which we
now turn.

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CHAPTER THREE
Plazamaking
In the early Spring of 1993, Rosibel Gómez, a refugee from El Salvador, arranged a colorful
array of dresses at her puesto in the San Fernando Swap Meet. Priced between $2 and $10, her dresses
offered customers a bargain by department store standards. On a good day, Gómez could earn
anywhere from $200 to $300, an income that had supported her family since the mid-1980s. Nearby,
Kukrit Parnprome diligently tended to his stall, cleaning aquariums and stocking pet feed. His
business, an offshoot of his family’s fish-breeding business in Thailand, represented one way
migrant entrepreneurs adapted to a globalized market by selling imported supplies at the San
Fernando Swap Meet.275 With his earnings, Parnprome sustained his family of five. Just a few aisles
away, Cecilia Cruz delicately folded used-clothing into neat piles for browsing customers. Her
daughter, Jenny Suria, served as an interpreter for English-speaking shoppers seeking a good deal. 276
This scene was typical at the San Fernando Swap Meet in the 1990s, where vendors
unloaded their belongings in the wee hours of the morning and stored them away in minivans and
station wagons by sunset. Three days a week vendors came to ply their trade and consumers came
to seek a bargain277 Like flea markets, swap meets were bustling marketplaces where vendors sold a
275 For more on immigrant occupational choices and the segmented labor market see Nora Hamilton and Norma Stoltz
Chinchilla, Seeking Community in a Global City: Guatemalans and Salvadorans in Los Angeles (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 2001); Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an
Era of Economic Integration (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002). 275 A swap meet is characterized by two or more persons/businesses that offer merchandise for sale or exchange;
prospective vendors are charged a fee for renting a space; and prospective buyers are charged a fee of admission. See
“Publication 111, Operators of Swap Meets, Flea Markets, or Special Events,” California Board of Equalization, last modified
May 2020, https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/pub111/
276 Deborah Yu, “The Swap Meets- The Buyers Look for Bargains,” Daily News of Los Angeles, April 5th, 1993. 277 For swap meet scholarship see Julia Brown-Bernstein, “Under the Canopy: Finding Belonging at the San Fernando
Swap Meet, 1979-2019,” Journal of American Ethnic History 41, no. 1 (2021), 77-104; Jennifer Renteria, “The Starlite Swap
Meet” in East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte ed. Romeo Guzmán, Caribbean Fragoza, Alex Sayf Cummings, and
Ryan Reft (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020), 208-218; Karina Alvarado, Alicia Ivonne Estrada, Ester E.
Hernández ed., U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance (Tucson: University of
Arizona Press, 2017); Magdalena Barros Nock, “Swap Meets and Socioeconomic Alternatives for Mexican Migrants: The

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mélange of used or new goods. Throughout the late twentieth century, they served as vital
commercial spaces wedged between informal street vending and more formalized private
enterprise.278 Swap meets primarily served as hubs of economic activity, where vendors conducted
businesses to sustain themselves and their families.279 But they were not just where vendors plied
their trade. They were loci of community-building for the region’s migrant population, fostering
cultural expression, collective memory, and social refuge for vendors and consumers alike. For
individuals like Rosibel Gomez, Kukrit Parnprome, and Cecilia Cruz, the San Fernando Swap Meet
provided a sense of belonging in an increasingly globalized and neoliberal economy.
In this chapter, I examine the San Fernando Swap Meet, a cornerstone of Southern
California’s swap meet industry and an “urban anchor” for many working-class residents of the east
San Fernando Valley.280 I propose that the San Fernando Swap Meet, alongside the broader swap
meet industry, functioned as a forum of “plazamaking” for racialized groups in the east San
Fernando Valley. Plazamaking expands on the theory of placemaking to suggest how individuals
Case of the San Joaquin Valley.” Human Organization 68 no. 3 (2009): 307-317; Carla Maria Guerrero, “Our Way of Life:
The Swap-Meet Subculture” (Master’s Thesis, University of Southern California, May 2008); Celia Savidge, “Remateras
and Asset Building: Dimensions of Cultural Wealth at the Swap Meet,”(Master’s Thesis, Northern Arizona University, 2020). For
Latinx entrepreneurship in the formal sector see Jody Agius Vallejo, Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican Middle Class
(Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2012); For more on entrepreneurship in the informal sector see Pierrette
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2001); Emir Estrada, Kids at Work: Latinx Families Selling Food on the Streets of Los Angeles (New York:
New York University Press, 2019); Rocio Rosales, Fruteros: Street Vending, Illegality, and Ethnic Community in Los Angeles
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020).
278 For more on immigrant entrepreneurship see: Zulema Valdez, “Intersectionality, the Household Economy, and
Ethnic Entrepreneurship,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 39, no. 9 (2016): 1618-1636; Jody Agius Vallejo and Stephanie
Canizales, “ Latino/a Professionals as Entrepreneurs: How Race, Class, and Gender Shape Entrepreneurial
Incorporation,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, no. 9 (2016): 1466-4356; Emir Estrada and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo,
“Intersectional Dignities: Latino Immigrant Street Vendor Youth in Los Angeles,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 40,
no, 1 (2011): 102-131. Zulema Valdez, The New Entrepreneurs: How Race, Class, and Gender Shape American Enterprise (Palo
Alto: Stanford University Press, 2011). 279 All the vendors consulted in this study said they sold at the San Fernando Swap Meet to earn a living above anything
else. Although their dividends vary, all interviewees had enough of a profit margin to support their families, which often
included immediate and extended family members. 280 The San Fernando Swap Meet is located at 585 Glenoaks Avenue, San Fernando, California, 91340. While they share
many characteristics, indoor swap meets have followed a different historical trajectory than outdoor swap meets and
warrant their own examination. Here, I draw upon Natalia Molina’s notion of an “urban anchor,” which distinct from
anchor institutions “help communities find their moorings.” As she describes them, urban anchors are “smaller, built by
the community for the community.” See Natalia Molina, A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a
Community (University of California Press, 2024), 22-23.

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collectively transformed historically “white” suburban spaces into multiracial privatized-public
plazas.281
While plazas are often associated with the colonial architecture of European empires, the
concept predates European arrival, with roots stemming back to indigenous marketplaces like the
pre-colonial tianguis in Tlatelolco.
282 These markets have long been central to community life. They
are large-scale public and semipublic spaces in which individuals gather, commune, and engage in
daily practices that sustain their lives. Swap meet vendors in Southern California, with a lineage to
the tianguis market, have carried on this tradition. Over the past fifty years, swap meets in Southern
California have transformed into modern-day plazas, distinct from smaller establishments like
restaurants or convenience stores. They serve as hybrid economic spaces, blending elements of free
enterprise with mutual assistance, while also functioning as public spheres where people assemble to
exchange ideas, unwind, and discuss issues of “public concern.”283
In the context of the east San Fernando Valley, I argue that plazamaking has helped to
counter racializing narratives and structures that marginalize groups like undocumented migrants.
Even as the swap meet industry faced scrutiny from neighborhood associations and citizens’ groups,
vendors found ways to counteract the stigmatization of these spaces. By congregating en masse at the
swap meet, residents asserted their right to space and belonging on a large scale. Additionally, the
swap meet provided working-class residents recreational opportunities comparable to the area’s
281 My ideas about public/private are largely informed by Jeff Weintraub, “The Theory of Politics of the Public/Private
Distinction,” in Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy ed. Jeff Weintraub and Krishan
Kumar (Chicago 1997) 1-42. 282 Many of the vendor see the swap meet as the descendant of the “tianguis” market, a large public market in Mexico’s
largest cities and towns. The tianguis has roots stretching back to Tlatelolco, the largest indigenous market of the Aztec
Empire. For more on the tianguis see, Ernesto Licona Valencia, “Un Sistema de Intercambio Híbrido: El
Mercado/Tianguis La Purísima, Tehuacán-Peubla, México,” Antípoda no. 18 (2014), 138-162; Silvia Mete, Luca Tomaino,
Giovanni Vecchio, “Tianguis Shaping Ciudad: Informal Street Vending as a decisive element for economy, society and
culture in Mexico,” Journal of Urbanism Vol 1. No. 26 (2012), 3-13; Armando Martínez Garnica, “De la Metáfora al Mito:
La Visión de las crónicas sobre el tianguis prehispánico,” Historia Mexicana 34, no. 4 (1985) 685-700; Luisa Pare,
“Tianguis y Economía Capitalista,” Nueva Antropología 1, no. 2 (1975) 85-93. 283 My discussion of the public sphere is largely informed by Nancy Fraser, specifically her article, “Rethinking the Public
Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” Social Text , no 25. (1990) 65-80.

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more privatized sources of leisure, including Six Flags Magic Mountain and Universal Studios, all
while living within their means. Through the San Fernando Swap Meet, residents cultivated
multiracial coalitions and civic membership during the neoliberal era.
Plazamaking emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as an effective response to the challenges
posed by globalization. As individuals immigrated to the east San Fernando Valley during these
decades, they brought with them a wealth of experience in navigating the demands of a neoliberal
economy. Often forced to seek work outside their professional fields and within the informal sector
before their migration, migrants drew upon their diverse skill sets to establish businesses and engage
in plazamaking at the San Fernando Swap Meet. Plazamaking at the swap meet thus exemplifies how
migrants leveraged their relational capital to engage in what I term “transgressive globalization.” By
building relationships across ethno-racial and linguistic lines, especially with Korean wholesale
purveyors, many vendors at the San Fernando Swap Meet relied on globalized supply chains to
secure affordable products for their businesses. Transgressive globalization highlights vendors’
adeptness at harnessing policies of free trade to meet their own needs. Without minimizing the
precarious conditions of this labor, I nonetheless contend that plazamaking has played a crucial role
in fostering belonging, supporting families, and modeling innovative approaches to sustaining
livelihoods that transcend national boundaries in the east San Fernando Valley.
Suburbanization and the Swap Meet Sweeps Southern California
The San Fernando Swap Meet opened in 1971 on a parcel of land just west of the landing
strip at the San Fernando Airport. William Hannon, representing the San Fernando Dragstrip and
Airport Corporation, submitted an application to the City Council of San Fernando. He aimed to
repurpose the land after drag racing on the site was discontinued.
284 Hannon’s partner in the
284 “Airport Swap Meets Studies,” Los Angeles Times, October 4, 1971.

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endeavor was Fritz Burns, a figure notorious for leading the Valley’s postwar suburbanization, and
with whom Hannon had jointly acquired the San Fernando airport back in 1952. Their acquisition of
the airport helped fuel the Valley’s postwar population boom and the expansion of defense
contracts, particularly in the aerospace and high-technology sectors. Imagining the prospects of their
vast holdings, Hannon and Burns envisioned the airport as a pivotal node in the region’s
transportation network as well as host to the area’s cultural scene.285
Yet Hannon and Burns were not alone in recognizing the potential of the swap meet
industry proliferating across Southern California in the postwar era. Originally conceived as a space
where white, middle-class suburbanites sold the flotsam and jetsam of their homes, the swap meet
grew throughout the postwar decades into a dynamic cultural hub. Offering a unique blend of
leisure and curiosity—in much the way garage sales do today—swap meets quickly became a fixture
in suburban locales such as Santa Fe Springs, Anaheim, Vineland, and El Monte.
286 Owners of
Drive-In Movie Theaters and dragstrips capitalized on the trend, hosting daytime swap meets in
their parking lots to boost revenue.
287 By the early 1970s, swap meets had garnered a reputation for
their eclectic and unpredictable nature—a consumer “Wild West” – as depicted by this 1979 film
poster, “Swap Meet.” They also evolved into highly gendered spaces associated with sexual
experimentation and “deviance”— a meet (or meat) market, and a setting where men could seduce
women under the guise of a hectic and “wild” marketplace.
285 Ibid 286 Nock, “Swap Meets,” 307-317 287 Jennifer Renteria, “The Starlite Swap Meet,” KCET History & Society, August 25, 2014
https://www.kcet.org/history-society/the-starlite-swap-meet

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Figure 14: “Swap Meet” movie poster, direct by Brice Mack, 1979
Despite attracting primarily white crowds, swap meets were cast as marginal spaces, replete
with racialized depictions as “part department store, part Middle Eastern bazaar, and part
carnival.”288 One Los Angeles Times profile described the swap meet as “the new marketplace,”
offering a wide variety of goods at prices significantly lower than commercial retail outlets. Contrary
288 Nancy Rivera Brooks, “Swap Meets: Business Booms as Bargain Hunters Search Novelties in Bazar Settings,” Los
Angeles Times, December 21, 1987.

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to some beliefs, the items available at swap meets were not necessarily used. Rather, one could “find
clothes, stereo equipment, leather goods, car parts, and other new items at considerably reduced
prices.”289
During the 1970s, California’s swap meets became more ethno-racially and linguistically
diverse.290 The end of the Bracero program in 1964 and the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act led
to a surge in migrant entrepreneurs who settled in Southern California.291 Faced with widespread
employment and residential discrimination, many migrants turned to swap meet vending as a means
of economic survival. As Magdalena Barros Nock has observed, Asian migrants were among the
first to introduce new products such as apparel to the swap meets across California’s central
Coast.292 However, in the mid- 1970s, Latinx migrants, particularly Mexican migrants familiar with
open-air markets in Mexico and a connection to the country’s tianguis markets, entered the swap
meet industry as vendors.
293 Undocumented migrants arriving post-1965 heavily relied on swap
meets for both employment and consumption. While vendors were required to possess a resale
permit and a tax identification number, formal citizenship was not a prerequisite and vendors were
289 James Brown, “A Bazaar Twist,” Los Angeles Times, October 19, 1976. 290 Nock, “Swap Meets, ”308 291 By eradicating national origins quotas, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act allowed for formerly excluded Asian
immigrants and European immigrants. But by placing a numerical quota for the first time on nations from the Western
Hemisphere, the law drastically changed long-standing patterns of migration. The net effect of this was that
unauthorized migration increased as formerly contract and seasonal workers continued to enter the country but settled
without authorization. See Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton
University Press, 2004).
292 Ibid. 293 As Nock and the interviewees in this study have noted, the tianguis market, a pre-Hispanic outdoor market in Mexico,
has greatly informed the look, function, and popularity of the swap meet in the United States. For more on the tianguis
see Sandra Alcarón, El Tianguis Global, (Ciudad de Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana, 2008): 19; Mauricio Baros
Townsend, “Altares y Tianguis: Una apología del espacio abierto en Sudamérica,” Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y
Urbanismo de la Universidad de Chile 11, no. 6 (2017): 113. 293 See Danú Fabre Platas and Carmen Egea Jiménez, “Los espacios de intercambio: los Tianguis de Páztcuaro
(Michoacán, México), entre la tradición y las estrategias de supervivencia,” Documents d’Análisi Geográfica 61, no. 2 (2015):
265-287; Ernesto Licona Valencia, “Un Sistema de intercambio híbrido: el mercado/tianguis la purísima, TehuacánPuebla, México,” Antípoda 18 (2014): 137-163.

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never asked to present immigration papers.294 Over time, Latinx vendors gradually outnumbered
Asian vendors in the region’s outdoor swap meets.
The diversification of the swap meet industry mirrored a broader demographic shift
occurring across Southern California’s suburbs. As historic immigrant enclaves within the city
became increasingly unaffordable and densely populated, suburbs witnessed a surge in both ethnoracial and socioeconomic diversity. Becky Nicolaides has recently highlighted this trend, noting that
“from 1970 to 2020, nonwhites living in America’s suburbs rose from just under 10% to 45% of all
suburbanites.”295 The neoliberal economy produced an hourglass economy, wherein migrants
primarily occupied lower-tier jobs, forming part of what scholars have termed “the precariat.”296
Sociologists have pointed to the ways municipal disinvestment, deindustrialization and white outmigration created concentrated pockets of suburban poverty.297 Consequently, many found
themselves settling in lower income areas of the suburbs. This phenomenon was especially evident
in the east San Fernando Valley, where by the late 1970s, long-time residents had started to observe
a stark increase in inequality. Randy Romero succinctly summarized this shift, stating, “[by 1979]
you either had the haves or the have nots, there was no middle ground anymore.”298
Amidst these shifts, the swap meet industry became a contested arena where white suburban
residents voiced their anxieties about the changing demographic composition of “their”
neighborhoods.
299 Initially, swap meets drew the ire of local merchants, who accused them of
294 Garcés, Interview. 295 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 1 296 See Catherine S. Ramírez, Sylvanna M. Falcón, Juan Poblete, Steven C. McKay, and Felicity Amaya-Schaeffer ed.
Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship (Rutgers University Press, 2021): 5-6.
297 For more see Timberlake Howell. “Racial and Ethnic Trends in the Suburbanization of Poverty in U.S. Metropolitan
Areas, 1980-2010,” Journal of urban affairs 36, no. 1 (February 2014): 79–98; Karyn Lacy, “The New Sociology of Suburbs:
A Research Agenda for Analysis of Emerging Trends,” Annual review of sociology 42, no. 1 (July 30, 2016): 369–384 298 Romero, Interview 299 I put “their” in quotation marks to acknowledge how these kinds of referents—“their,” “our,”—as Daniel Hosang
Martínez has noted, contributed to the rise of what he calls “political whiteness.”

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harboring illegal activities and engaging in unfair competition. 300 The San Fernando Swap Meet was
a focal point of such criticisms. Merchants alleged that the swap meet served as a “ ‘fence’ or outlet
for stolen goods which thieves can take from the local stores and quickly sell at the swap meet.’”301
Critics disparaged swap meet vendors as “jobbers,” lacking an “established business,” and who
purportedly purchased goods from “defunct stores and outlets.” These “jobbers,” as the logic went,
“eliminate[d] any chance of fair free enterprise.”302 Local merchants regarded swap meets not as
legitimate businesses but as illicit spaces that hindered the free-market.
Despite negative portrayals, swap meets buoyed residents as they navigated economic
downturns in the late 1970s. They were, as one reporter put it, venues where “rich folks and poor
alike rub elbows to get the most of their money.”303 Beyond mere commerce, swap meets
supplemented diminishing social provisions by providing opportunities for entrepreneurship
without extensive government intervention: “The swap meet puts people in business without the
government spending millions for training programs,” claimed William Hannon, the owner of the
San Fernando Swap Meet.”304 Moreover, the opening of the California Swap Meet Association in the
late 1970s standardized management practices and offered vendors a degree of collective bargaining
power.305 This development helped dispel myths of lawlessness and improved the industry’s public
300 Martha Willman, “Cities Caught in Controversy Over Swap Meets,” Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1972. 301 Martha Willman, “Swap Meets Unfair, Merchants Complain,” Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1972. 302 Ibid. 303 Ken Lubas, “Buyers Try to Stretch Dollars at Swap Meets,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1979. 304 Ibid. 305 California Swap Meet Industry. “Home.” Accessed January 31, 2021. http://calswapmeets.com/

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image.306 In the early 1980s, the swap meet simultaneously filled a gap left by the retreating welfare
state and adapted to neoliberal logics.
307
Swap meets continued to flourish across Southern California throughout the 1980s. Their
growth was closely tied to the influx of Mexican immigrants yet the entry of Central American
vendors into swap meets gave the industry a new dimension. The civil conflict and U.S.-sponsored
military interventions in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua during the 1970s and
1980s drove thousands of refugees to seek asylum in Los Angeles, as discussed in chapter two.
308
Upon their arrival, refugees discovered that swap meets offered more than just a marketplace—they
provided an informal refuge alongside the official sanctuary offered by churches and human rights
organizations.309 Within the bustling atmosphere of swap meets, vendors engaged in political
discussions and reminisced with fellow vendors and customers.310 Other times, the aroma of
traditional dishes wafting through the air served as a comforting reminder of the homes they left
behind.
311 The swap meet offered a distinct form of refuge compared to religious institutions. It
provided a somatic experience that allowed refugees to seek sanctuary not only through shelter but
through their senses.
By the 1980s, the swap meet had become “a way of life for some, a form of entertainment
for others, and a lucrative business for many.”312 Across Southern California, swap meets boasted
306 For more on disparaging media portrayals of the swap meet industry see “Theater Chain Acts to Placate Swap Meet
Foes,” Los Angeles Times, June 16th, 1985; “Local: 4 Arrested in Swap Meet Killing,” Los Angeles Times, July 19th, 1990;
Frank Ransom, “Council Extends Ban on Indoor Swap Meets,” Los Angeles Times, January 16th, 1992; Lesley Wright,
“Swap-Meet Neighbors Press Parking Issue,” Los Angeles Times, September 30th, 1998; Man is Shot to Death at Indoor
Swap Meet,” Los Angeles Times, August 6th, 2006; “Alleged Phony Goods Seized at Swap Meet,” Los Angeles Times,
October 13th, 2005; Jessica Garrison, “Dozens of Bikers Brawl at O.C. Fairgrounds Swap Meet, ” Los Angeles Times,
October 27th, 2001; “Man Gets 94 Years in Swap Meet Killing,” Los Angeles Times, September 27th, 2000. 307 As a space that both offered social provisions without government intervention, the swap meet adapted to a political
economy that enabled the economic deregulation and diminishing social welfare programs.
308 Alvarado, Estrada, Hernández ed., U.S. Central Americans, 5-21. 309 Ibid., 23. See also Nora Hamilton and Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, Seeking Community in a Global City: Guatemalans and
Salvadorans in Los Angeles (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001). 310 Ricardo Zavala Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein February 24th, 2019, City of San Fernando, California. 311 David Angelo Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein February 19th, 2019, City of San Fernando, California. 312 Duke Sherlean, “Buyers, Sellers, and Swap Meet Dwellers,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1980.

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waiting lists for permanent stalls and attracted upwards of 20,000 people on any given weekend day.
The region’s largest swap meets, such as the Costa Mesa Swap Meet, drew tourists in droves, who
would “visit [the swap meet] just like they visit Disneyland.”313 Describing the scene on the ground,
Duke Sherlean of the Los Angeles Times painted a vivid picture of the tapestry of goods on offer:
Walking through the huge outdoor market is like walking through an amusement park.
There is so much to see your eyes cannot take in all the products and people. You see a
middle-aged couple selling odds and ends from a VW van, a smooth-talking salesman
cooking an omelet on a portable gas burner to demonstrate the wonders of his pots and
pans. Farther down, you find a man selling custom made shoes, a woman selling hats,
another selling dolls, and a lone man at a table selling collectible coins.314
In many respects, likening the swap meet to an amusement park was fitting. Indeed, many flocked
to the swap meet for collective diversion, and waited on lines to do so. Yet unlike Disneyland,
admission to the swap meet in the early 1980s typically cost consumers no more than $.50, while
vendors paid a modest $8 to rent 15 by 25 foot stalls.315 A more appropriate descriptor, then, might
have been “haven.” Swap meets functioned as an economic and social sanctuary, particularly during
recessionary periods. In fact, Deborah Yu of the Daily News referred to the swap meet as a “haven of
opportunity for cash-poor entrepreneurs tired of the rat race.”316Beyond their unbeatable prices, it
was the swap meet’s “informal atmosphere” that most appealed to consumers and vendors alike.317
Bob teller, operator of the Orange County Swap Meet, highlighted this social aspect, noting that,
“At a swap meet, the sellers are your peers. You get to deal with people on your own level.” Jim
Goodridge, head of the Great American Flea Market Directory, echoed this sentiment emphasizing
that at the swap meet, consumers gets to be “a participant” in the experience.
318
313 Ibid. 314 Ibid 315 Prices differed depending on the day. These were weekend prices, generally consistent throughout the region.
“Havens for Hagglers,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1981. 316 Deborah Yu, “The Swap Meets- Buyers Look for Bargains,” Daily News of Los Angeles, April 5, 1993. 317 Nancy Rivera Brooks, “Swap Meets: Business Booms as Bargain Hunters Search for Novelties in Bazaar Settings,”
Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1987. 318 Ibid.

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Indeed, part of what contributed to the swap meet’s informal and welcoming atmosphere
was its physical layout. Resembling the age-sold marketplace, a labyrinth of stalls and canopies
evoked the kind of communal space that “society [had] done for thousands and thousands of
years.”319 Vendors and costumers mingled openly, dining together in the open-air food hall,
surrounded by families, and shoppers of diverse backgrounds. Throughout the mid-1980s swap
meets visibly catered to a Latinx clientele, offering products, entertainment, and concessions that
appealed to multi-generations of Latinx consumers. Describing the North Hollywood Swap Meet,
one reporter claimed that it was the “only place in the neighborhood where customers can get their
palm read and hair done, book a flight to Mexico, and buy a frame print of the Last Supper, all
under the same roof.”320 A surge in Latinx vendors and consumers can be attributed to the 1986
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which not only paved the way to citizenship for over
3 million migrants but also heightened border policing that disrupted longstanding patterns of
circular migration.321 As many immigrants resided permanently in the region, the swap meet industry
emerged as a viable avenue for income generation. Furthermore, while IRCA’s employer sanctions
were rarely enforced, they prompted many undocumented migrants to view swap meet vending as a
more secure occupation to contract labor. Private spaces of commerce, swap meets were less likely
to be targets of INS raids, providing an additional sense of stability for undocumented vendors. And
for migrant women in rural areas who accompanied their husbands working in the agricultural
sector, swap meets became a means of securing steady employment.322
Swap Meets Mirror Suburban White Anxiety
319 Ibid. 320 Peter Hartlaub, “Vendors Call Landlord Racist,” Daily News of Los Angeles, October 5, 1997. 321 Ana Raquel Minian, Undocumented Lives, 6. 322 This was especially true for individuals whose salaries did not fully cover their expenses or those who sought a boost
in their discretionary income. See Nock, “Swap Meets,” 308-309.

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As swap meets adapted to serve the region’s working-class largely Latinx immigrant
population, they faced increased opposition from predominantly white neighborhood associations
and citizens’ groups. One notable controversy occurred in Santa Ana California on the evening of
July 6th, 1987, when residents from the Washington Square neighborhood squared off against swap
meet supporters at City Hall.Over six hundred people gathered to debate the fate of the city’s two
most popular weekend swap meets—one operating in the Civic Center’s Eddie West Field since
1979, and the other recently opened in the parking lot of Rancho Santiago Community College.
Residents, citing reduced property values, increased traffic, noise, and litter, exerted pressure on city
council members to permanently shut down the swap meets.
323
Richard Norton, operator of both swap meets and a candidate for City Council, attributed
local opposition to racial and ethnic prejudice.324 Washington Square, which lodged most
complaints, was a predominantly white neighborhood, while the two swap meets served a primarily
Central American and Mexican migrant base.
325 Norton decried: “the bottom line is…the neighbors
are white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who don’t want Hispanics in the neighborhood.”326 Despite
Norton’s efforts to address homeowners’ concerns, their resistance persisted.
327 Latino Council
member, John Acosta, condemned the opposition as racist, citing remarks about “‘the Mexicans are
taking over.”328 The Santa Ana City Council closed the Eddie West Field Swap Meet and later
banned outdoor swap meets citywide.329 This incident wasn’t isolated to Santa Ana. Beginning in the
323 Bob Schwartz, “Crowd Packs Santa Ana City Hall to Debate Future of 2 Swap Meets.” The Los Angeles Times, July 7th,
1987. See also Anita Snow, “Swap-Meet Battle Could Come to a Head Tonight: Santa Ana Might Decide to Close
Events Some Residents say Ruin Neighborhoods.” The Orange County Register, July 6th, 1987. 324 See Erin Kelly, “Santa Ana Loses Bid to Shut Down Rancho Santiago College Swap Meet.” The Orange County Register,
February 27th, 1988.. See also Anita Snow, “Swap-Meet Battle Could Come to a Head Tonight: Santa Ana Might Decide
to Close Events Some Residents say Ruin Neighborhoods,” July 6th, 1987. 325 Erin Kelly, “Santa Ana Loses Bid to Shut Down Rancho Santiago College Swap Meet.” The Orange County Register,
February 27th, 1988. 326 Bob Schwartz, “Santa Ana Pressured to Close Swap Meets.” The Los Angeles Times, June 27th, 1987. 327 Ibid. Norton hired cleaning crews, off-duty police men to monitor the area, and posted barricades to mitigate traffic
jams. See also, Bob Schwartz, “Crowd Packs Santa Ana City Hall to Debate Future of 2 Swap Meets,” July 7th, 1987. 328 Ibid. 329 Greg Hernandez, “Santa Ana: Outdoor Swap Meets Outlawed in 5-2 Vote.” The Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1991.

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1980s, suburban homeowners across Southern California targeted swap meets, alleging that they
drove down property values and contributed to urban blight. Swap meets became racially encoded
entities that threatened the “character” of historically white suburban neighborhoods. As Natalia
Molina has argued, such racial scripts, like those ascribed to the vendors of the Eddie West Field and
Rancho Santiago Swap Meets, could easily transfer to other communities with growing Latinx
populations.330 By the 1990s, swap meets across the region were seen as markers of an imperiled
community and signaled to white residents the presence of an imminent “Latino Threat.”331
Mainstream media highlighted isolated incidents of robberies, counterfeit goods, noise, littering, and
overall resistance to swap meets.332
The San Fernando Swap Meet did not face as fierce opposition as those in Orange County,
but it wasn’t immune to controversy. In the summer of 1984, allegations swirled that its operator
William Hannon owed substantial sums in admission taxes and police wages to the City Council of
San Fernando. Despite the swap meet’s contributions to the city’s revenue, the Council threatened
closure, with Hannon lamenting that the Council was trying to “tax us out of existence.”333 Swap
meet vendors like Dagoberto Garcia and the Cruz brothers voiced their concerns at Council
hearings. They emphasized that the “swap meet was the only way they have of making money.”
Garcia, a seller of toys and porcelain figurines for nine years, highlighted the loyalty of his customers
within the Latinx community: “This is a good place to sell because there are a lot of Latino people
330 For more on racial scripts, see Natalia Molina, How Race is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical
Power of Racial Scripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014). 331 Chavez, The Latino Threat, 3. Chavez defines the “Latino Threat” as the belief that Latinos are “unwilling or incapable
of integrating, of becoming part of the national community…that they are part of an invading force from south of the
border that is bent on reconquering land that was formerly theirs (the U.S. Southwest) and destroying the American way
of life.” 332 See “Theater Chain Acts to Placate Swap Meet Foes.” The Los Angeles Times, June 16th, 1985; “Local: 4 Arrested in
Swap Meet Killing.” The Los Angeles Times, July 19th, 1990; Frank Ransom, “Council Extends Ban on Indoor Swap
Meets.” The Los Angeles Times, January 16th, 1992; Lesley Wright, “Swap-Meet Neighbors Press Parking Issue.” The Los
Angeles Times, September 30th, 1998. 333 David Wharton, “Tax Debt May Lead to End of Swap Meet,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1984.

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and they like the figurines and toys. I have been here a long time and I have my steady customers.”
Similarly Julian and Art Cruz, who sold designer jeans, jackets, and shirts purchased wholesale from
their uncle, highlighted that the swap meet was their primary source of income. Istvan Hajnal, a
vendor of women’s underwear, criticized the Council’s approach, stressing the impact on vendor’s
livelihoods: “the City Council has the legal right to go to court to get the owner to pay. They have
no right to hurt the sellers.” Customers, such as Mary Collie of Van Nuys, also bemoaned the
potential closure, stating, “It would be kind of sad if they closed because a lot of people come here
with their kids and they buy things they could not otherwise afford.”334
Indeed, among the most compelling arguments put forth by vendors was the analogy
likening the closure of the swap meet to shutting down a factory, given its potential to displace over
700 workers. In the mid-1980s, residents of the east San Fernando Valley were keenly aware of the
wave of plant closures sweeping Los Angeles. Many swap meet vendors lived alongside factory
workers from sites like the GM auto plant in Panorama City/Van Nuys, Lockheed in Burbank,
Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, and Price Pfister in Pacoima. They understood the looming threat of
economic restructuring and its potential to disrupt their lives. Moreover, as a non-unionized labor
force, swap meet vendors had limited recourse compared to factory workers in the event of
shutdown. Thus, the comparison was befitting. The closure of the swap meet would have the
equivalent impact as a plant shutdown, without any of the benefits packages, and would devastate
the livelihoods of hundreds of residents.335
334 Ibid. 335 Ibid.

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Figure 15: Pat Sullivan and Sue Christensen, two of 600 residents opposing a proposed swap meet at the
Veterans Memorial Stadium in Long Beach, California 1980.
Fortunately, within a few months, the San Fernando City Council dropped the charges and
revised its city ordinance to lower the admissions tax. Faced with economic challenges, the City
Council of San Fernando agreed to settle, securing an additional $100,000 in revenue for the city.
The City Administrator Don Penman stressed the role of economic hardship in reaching a
settlement, stating: “We’ve experienced financial difficulties in the last year, and this will help. And
now, [the feud] is one less negative thing for the city to well on.”336 Indeed, while immigration
reform and U.S. militarism in Latin America accelerated the growth of Southern California’s outdoor
swap meets, economic restructuring undergirded the industry’s expansion in working class, suburban
336 Jeanette Valentine, “Swap Meet’s Owner, City Reach Accord,” Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1984.

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communities of color, particularly the east San Fernando Valley. The closure of auto and aerospace
plants in Southeastern suburbs of Los Angeles throughout the 1980s, along with similar closures in
the San Fernando Valley during the early 1990s, resulted in the loss of unionized, blue-collar jobs.337
In response to these structural changes, swap meet vending became an even more crucial
source of income for migrant workers to support their families338 Vendors found the barrier to entry
significantly lower in the swap meet industry compared to traditional retail spaces. Joseph IsaTatavosian, an Armenian vendor, succinctly summed it up: “I didn’t have a lot of money to start a
business and it was cheaper to start at a swap meet than at a mall.”339 Moreover, as the late 1980s
witnessed the rise of low-wage, non-unionized service sector jobs, many residents turned to the
swap meet as an alternative site of employment. Within this sectoral shift, the swap meet became an
increasingly appealing option for undocumented migrants seeking greater autonomy and security
compared to the exploitative conditions prevalent in downtown L.A.’s industries.340
During the 1990s, the swap meet industry experienced a boom in the east San Fernando
Valley, with 11 operating in the area alone. The closure of smaller factories, in particular, fueled this
growth, driving the expansion of indoor swap meets. According to the California Swap Meet
Vendors Association, indoor swap meets had been increasing by 20 annually since 1985, often
finding homes in abandoned factories of warehouses.341 Displaced industrial workers, like Miguel
Ríos, who immigrated from Mexico in 1978 to work 10-hour days at a local factory, took up swap
337 See Ruth Milkman, L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement (Russell Sage Foundation,
2006); Laura Barraclough, Making the San Fernando Valley: Rural Landscapes, Urban Development, and White Privilege (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2011), 186; Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working Class Suburbs of
Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 329. 338 Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven, 328-332. 339 Yu “At the Swap Meets.” 340 Angelo, Interview 341 Ibid.

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meet vending in 1990. “I try to realize my dreams,” he declared, “to be self-employed.”342 Besides
allowing vendors to fulfill their dreams of self-employment, indoor swap meets also started to offer
social services. For instance, the developer of the Fiesta Plaza Swap Meet in Sylmar hoped to
incorporate community services into the venue. Speaking to reporters, Steve Brown stressed that
“the northeast part of the Valley has been neglected as far as government services are concerned.”
By September 1993, Brown had initiated discussions with state agencies and English language
training schools. He intended to allocate space to social service organizations which he thought
“would really enhance the community.” Amidst the changing economic landscape of the east San
Fernando Valley, the swap meet continued its role in filling the void left by the diminishing presence
of social welfare services.
Despite their obvious benefits, swap meets continued to be regarded as impediments to the
city’s economic recovery during the 1990s. They became concrete representations of the citizen-exile
narrative prevalent in Los Angeles—often interpreted as evidence of how non-citizens encroached
upon the residential refuges of the middle class. Besides their physical presence, which was
necessarily larger than other retail establishments, residents complained of the “smells, “and “the
music,” emanating from the swap meet. In 1994, a faction of Los Angeles City Council members
advocated for stricter regulations on indoor swap meets emerging in South Los Angeles. Rita
Walters, Nate Holden, and Mark Ridley-Thomas, among them, expressed concerns over swap meets
operating without conditional use permits. Their fears stemmed, in part, from demographic shifts in
their own districts as South Los Angeles, historically the center of L.A.’s Black community, was
transitioning into a Latinx area.343 Council member Rita Walters articulated their stance most
342 Hartlaub, “Vendors call Landlord.” 343 For more on the demographic transition of South Los Angeles, see Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Manuel Pastor,
South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South L.A. (New York University Press, 2021); Abigail Rosas,
South Central is Home: Race and the Power of Community Investment in Los Angeles (Stanford University Press, 2019).

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emphatically: “Swap meets are not in any way to be considered a business that benefits the
community that I represent…They are blights on the community. They add to the deterioration and
decay of the community. I don’t see why they should be allowed to continue to just proliferate like
rabbits.”344 Unwittingly, perhaps, Walters’ remarks tapped into tropes of hyper-fertility that had
contributed to the racialization of Latinx migrants in the late twentieth century. Notably, it wasn’t
solely white suburbanites raising concerns about the swap meet industry. Other racialized groups,
including Black residents in South Los Angeles, also conveyed their anxieties over the industry. In
other circumstances, tensions surfaced between Latinx vendors and Korean landlords, with vendors
citing discriminatory leasing practices at swap meets across the city. 345 Commonly, Korean
entrepreneurs ran indoor swap meets, overseeing the business of predominantly Latinx renters.
Although most insisted relations between the two groups were generally amicable, hostilities
emerged within the heightened pressures of the 1990s.
Against the backdrop of economic restructuring and rapid demographic shifts, the swap
meet became a battleground for defining belonging. Did swap meets jeopardize the sense of
belonging for some residents while nurturing it for others? Did the presence of swap meets facilitate
the ascent of the neoliberal order or function as a lingering vestige of the mid-century social welfare
state? Within these larger debates, I posit that throughout the 1990s the swap meet transformed
into a locus of plazamaking. There vendors and customers of diverse ethno-racial backgrounds
contested the prevailing racial nativism of the era by reshaping the suburban landscape into a
collective assertion of belonging.
344 Patrick McGreevy, “Crackdown Sought on Swap Meets,” Los Angeles Daily News, August 11, 1984. 345 Hartlaub, “Vendors Call Landlord.”

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Plazamaking at the San Fernando Swap Meet
In recent years, there has been a marked rise in literature on placemaking, with particular
attention paid to how racialized groups utilize placemaking as a tool for community building.
346
Drawing on the insights of critical geographers such as Henri Lefebrve and Doreen Massey, among
others, scholars have explored the intersections of place with processes of racialization, gender
construction, capital, and class.347 Scholars of relational race formation have dedicated attention to
what George Lipsitz has termed “the racialization of space and the spacialization of race.” 348
Recently, Natalia Molina has highlighted how racialized groups in Los Angeles have become
placemakers through their collective engagement in semi-public places like the Nayarit restaurant. 349
Observing that placemaking within racialized groups has functioned differently, she notes that “the
kinds of spaces created, how they are used, the relationships that sprang from them, and the
nurturing of collectivity and inclusivity they enabled resulted in a placemaking that could be
resistance and opposition—a counter to dominant spatial formations and imaginaries.”350 Building
on this concept, I propose the term “plazamaking” to describe the distinct process of placemaking
evident in the creation and evolution of large-scale spaces like the San Fernando Swap Meet.
346 While my analysis draws from a variety of texts that engage with theories of placemaking, I have found Pierrette
Hondagneu-Sotelo’s work on community gardens especially enlightening as it posits ways that immigrants use urban
space (in this case gardens) as “ an expression of immigrant agency and creation, with immigrants using homeland seeds
and plants to anchor themselves in a new place, bringing together culture and nature to materially remake a strange new
environment into a familiar home.” See Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Paradise Transplanted: Migration and the Making of
California Gardens (University of California Press, 2014), 5. Although she focuses on community gardens, I theorize that
swap meets operate in a similar fashion for migrants in the suburbs. Regarding the intersection of precarious labor and
placemaking, see Melinda Hickson, “Precarious Placemaking,” Annual Review of Anthropology 46 (2017): 49-64. 347 Among others, my work relies heavily on the work of Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey and Laura Pulido. See, among
others, Henri Lefebvre and Kanishka Goonewardena, Space, Difference, Everyday Life: Reading Henri Lefebvre (Routledge,
2008); Brett Christophers, Rebecca, Lave, Jamie Peck ed. The Doreen Massey Reader (Agenda Publishing, 2023); Laura
Pulido, “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity I: White Supremacy vs White Privilege in Environmental Racism Research,
Progress in Human Geography 39 no. 6 (2015_, 809-817; Laura Pulido, “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity II:
Environmental Racism, Racial Capitalism and State-Sanctioned Violence, Progress in Human Geography 41 no. 4 (2017),
524-533; Laura Pulido, “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity III: Settler Colonialism and Nonnative People of Color,”
Progress in Human Geography 42 no. 2 (2018), 309-318. 348 Lipsitz, “The Racialization of Space and the Spatialization of Race.” For more on the racialized and gendered
construction of space, see Doreen Massey, “Politics and Space/Time.” The New Left Republic 1 no. 196 (1992) 65-84. 349 Molina, Place at the Nayarit. 350 Ibid., 22.

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I define plazamaking as the process by which racialized groups, especially immigrants,
repurpose historically exclusive (sub)urban spaces—often associated with racially white identities—
for collective use and public consumption. Plazamaking has a rich historical foundation, embodying
an ongoing effort to reclaim space from the dominant class and foster a move inclusive vision of
community. In the context of swap meets, vendors and consumers engage in plazamaking by
adapting neglected (sub)urban infrastructure such as abandoned factories or warehouses, or defunct
Drive-In theaters and transforming them into thriving centers of economic activity and mutual care.
In the east San Fernando Valley of the 1990s, the swap meet served as a counterforce to both racial
nativism and deindustrialization. As a privatized public space that prioritized visibility and
accessibility, the swap meets countered attempts to confine racialized groups to private, largely
interior spaces. Moreover, as a hybrid economic space that combined free market capitalism with
mutual care and assistance, swap meets empowered residents of east Valley’s working-class within
the neoliberal system.
In this section, I explore how vendors at the San Fernando Swap Meet actively engage in the
process of plazamaking. Through ethnographic research and oral history interviews with vendors,
entertainers, and staff, I uncover how the San Fernando Swap Meet evolved into a vibrant center of
economic vitality, a public sphere, and an intergenerational source of belonging in the east San
Fernando Valley.
Much like all swap meets throughout Southern California, the San Fernando Swap Meet is a
socio-spatial where vendors sell their goods and customers negotiate for bargains. Vendors can lease
a puesto on a daily, monthly, or yearly basis, with rental prices varying depending on location in the
swap meet. The most desirable spots, such as those along the fence or corners, come at a higher

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cost, and Sundays they typically incur additional fees.
351 Vendors determine their own schedule, but
most choose to sell rain or shine, including on holidays. They typically arrive in the mornings
between 5:30am-7am and remain until the late afternoon.
352 Most customers and long-term clients
are neighbors, creating a familial atmosphere within the swap meet. This is especially evident among
Mexican vendors who draw upon a shared history of working in the tianguis markets throughout
Mexico. Spanish reverberates through the swap meet, serving as the predominant language among
vendors and customers alike. The aisles teem with products seemingly tailored to the needs and
preferences of a Latinx consumer base, from huaraches to retablos, from Suavitel laundry detergent
to salvia medicinal tinctures. Vendors support their families but they also see their business
contributing to the welfare of their co-vendors, regardless of national origin, citizenship or ethnicity.
Through their social membership, vendors forge a sense of self-efficiency and autonomy that helps
them withstand the exigencies of a global market.353
Aspiring entrepreneurs can become vendors through a variety of means. Typically, they
begin their career by selling on a daily basis, gradually accumulating enough capital—often by
pooling familial resources—to afford monthly or yearly puesto rentals.
354 Alternatively, some vendors
transition to the swap meet after gaining experience in small businesses. Martín Santander, for
instance, pivoted to selling furniture, including bed frames, sofas, and mattresses, after working in a
local furniture store. For him, the San Fernando Swap Meet offered obvious advantages to pitching
for his own shop. Whereas a storefront business would require a costly showroom, at the swap meet
Santander can bring one or two samples—a bed frame or a sofa or two —and show potential
351 “Rental Info,” San Fernando Swap Meet, accessed January 31, 2021,
https://www.sanfernandoswapmeet.com/content/RentalInfo.aspx
352 Renteria, “The Starlite Swap Meet,” 208-218 353 For an excellent survey of a “day in the life” of a Southern California swap meet, see Renteria, “The Starlite Swap
Meet,” 208-218 354 Rudy Merina Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 12th 2019, City of San Fernando, California.

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customers other options on his cell phone, all with minimal overhead.355 This flexibility is
particularly advantageous in Southern California where space is at a premium and the rental market
is prohibitively expensive. Santander’s puesto illustrates both the creative strategies vendors deploy
and the economic benefits of the swap meet. Additionally, by relying on neighbors, fellow
congregants, family members, or friends to help them enter the market, vendors leverage their
existing social networks to reduce the barriers to entry in the swap meet. Regardless of their entry
point, entrepreneurs at the swap meet depend on both market and social capital to finance their
ventures.
356 This social capital, cultivated through paisano networks, can include start-up loans, a
wider distribution of costs, or the pooling of resources among neighbors and family members.357
The San Fernando Swap Meet is Maria Garcés’ “second home.”358 At fifty-seven,. Garcés’
has supported her family of four on the income she makes at her apparel business. When Maria
Garcés opened her puesto at the San Fernando Swap Meet in 1980, she sold refurbished bicycles she
collected from around her neighborhood. Forty years later, Garcés can still be found under her dark
blue canopy, selling men’s and women’s apparel she purchases from Korean-American wholesale
distributors in downtown Los Angeles.359 Garcés sells Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday and tries never
to miss a day. Working at the swap meet allows Garcés to spend her days with her husband, Mario,
and, occasionally, her grown children. She recalls the early days when her three children
accompanied her at the swap meet, professing that “they thank me for being so cabrona with them,”
by forcing them to spend afternoons after school and weekends at the swap meet.360 Garcés believes
that the swap meet helped her children stay focused on their education at a time when many in the
355 Martin Santander Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 15th, 2019, City of San Fernando, California. 356 Valdez, The New Entrepreneurs, 69 357 Rosales, Fruteros, 706-708 358 Garcés, Interview. 359 Ibid. 360 “Cabrona” in this context can be interpreted as strict, even mean at times.

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area joined gangs: “they didn’t have a choice. They came with me and my husband whenever they
weren’t in school. They didn’t have time to get into trouble.” She beams with pride that her son is
now a cadet in the Los Angeles Police Department.361
Garcés also enjoys vending at the swap meet because it “serves our Hispanic
community…our neighbors are our friends and also our customers.” For her, the swap meet is not
just a workplace, but a fraternal space, that draws many Latinx customers from her neighborhood.
“Oh, I love to talk. Everyone knows that about me,” she declares. Garcés’ clients value her products
and are loyal to her: “they will only wear my pants. They know the product we provide is good…
and the price cannot be beat.” Garcés has remained committed to the swap meet community over
decades, weathering challenging times both financially and politically. She notes, “When Donald
Trump came into office, the swap meet was deserted for two or three weeks. The people were
scared, they wouldn’t come. We all suffered.” Garcés speaks of her fellow vendors as kin, noting
that “we all suffered.” She reflects on how a fluctuating economy, especially the 2008 recession, and
the anti-immigrant sentiment ignited by the Trump campaign and administration, caused a downturn
in business. Garcés empathizes with her fellow vendors, and notes that the swap meet quickly
became a forum for vendors to openly address the hardships they faced.
362
Like Garcés, Ricardo Zavala, finds that vending at the swap meet evokes a sense of kinship.
At fifty, he sells kitchenware with his female partner under a bright white canopy. Like Garcés, he
maintains a close relationship with other vendors and his clients:
With the neighbors, you make a kind of family environment because you see them every day.
I mean, you basically live together, more sometimes even than the people in your house
because here you arrive around 5, 6 or 7 in the morning and stay until 3, 4, sometimes 5 in
361 Ibid. The economic restructuring of the early 1990s and the closing of the General Motors Plant in 1993 further
plunged central areas of the San Fernando Valley, especially the City of San Fernando, Pacoima, and Sun Valley into
economic hardship and gang violence—which has been around since the 1970s—grew exponentially. See Bloch, “An
Autoethnographic Account,” 386.
362 Garcés, Interview

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the afternoon and you’re here almost every day. It’s a family more than a business… because
for example, your clients come and they tell you their stories, and sometimes you even
become like a handkerchief for them to cry on. And yeah, it’s a big diverse family.363
Mr. Zavala details the daily sacrifice of a vendor, who commences their work well before daybreak
and spend the majority of the day in the company of their colleagues..
364 The exacting nature of their
labor fosters a strong sense of solidarity among vendors. Josefina González, a seasoned veteran of
twelve-years, who operates a perfumería under a hot pink canopy, affirms this sentiment of closeness:
“We’re all friends and neighbors, we share breakfast together or a coffee in the morning before the
customers arrive. In that way we kind of live together. Depending on where your table is… you
always have a neighbor and you develop healthy relations with them.365 Ironically, what Josefina
González and Ricardo Zavala discover at the San Fernando Swap Meet resembles the suburban ideal
envisioned by Fritz Burns and William Hannon for the Valley’s white veteran families. Indeed, the
most quintessentially suburban aspect of the east Valley is not the conventional track homes
developed in the area in the postwar period, but rather, the aisles of puestos at the San Fernando
Swap Meet.
Younger generations regard the swap meet as more than just a market or workplace, for
them it’s a home away from home.
366 As Carla Maria Guerrero remarked, “I’m surprised sociologists
and anthropologists aren’t all over [the swap meet]. If they were, they would find children like me
who have been born and raised here. There are families who have never known anything else.”367
Rudy Merina essentially “grew up” at the San Fernando Swap Meet.368 As a young boy, he would rise
at 6am every Saturday and Sunday to accompany his parents to their puesto in row “E.” While his
363 Zavala, Interview 364 Ibid. 365 Josefina Gonzalez Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 19th, 2019, City of San Fernando, California.. 366 See Celia Savidge, “Remateras and Asset-Building: Dimensions of Cultural Wealth at the Swap Meet,” (Master’s Thesis,
Northern Arizona University, May 2020). 367 Guerrero, “Our Way of Life: The Swap-Meet Subculture,” 4. 368 Merina, Interview.

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parents chatted with customers, Rudy and his siblings helped as best they could. He fondly recalled
how his father used to give patrons extra change so they could tip Rudy and his brothers. Now
eighteen, Rudy assists his father in managing their puesto. Though he maintains positive relations with
his neighbor’s, Rudy is discerning about which puestos to avoid and why. Like any familial setting, the
swap meet isn’t immune to conflicts and disputes.369
Figure 16: Shoppers, consumers, and canopies at the San Fernando Swap Meet, San Fernando, Swap Meet. Photo taken by
Julia Brown-Bernstein, August 17th, 2019.
The allure of the swap meet extends beyond its affordability. The space embodies a cultural
essence that draws consumers seeking both company and recreation. As Juan Pedredo, a guitarist,
aptly observes, “the people come here not only for the prices but for the community, let’s say, for
the culture here.” It is both the tangible and intangible ambiance—"swap meet culture,”—that
Pedredo claims “exudes a fragrance of conviviality.” Families spanning generations make regular
369 Ibid. For more on the tensions that can arise among families selling, see Emir Estrada, Kids at Work: Latinx Families
Selling Food on the Streets of Los Angeles (New York: New York University Press, 2019).

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visits—a visit to the swap meet is a cherished weekend tradition. They congregate in the designated
“food court” or simply peruse the rows with their strollers in tow. As Pedredo elaborates, “There
have always been people who are attached to the swap meet, and they make it a custom to come
with their children. They bring their children, their hair is nicely combed and the women are all
dressed up, and they walk in circles with their strollers, sometimes buying a toy for the kids or an
animal balloon from the clowns.”370 The weekend ritual suggests how the swap meet has become a
hallmark of life in the northeast San Fernando Valley.
Situated amidst the sprawling amusement parks of the San Fernando Valley—Six Flags
Magic Mountain in the northwest corner of Santa Clarita and Universal Studios/City Walk in the
southeast—the swap meet offers a distinctively accessible form of privatized public space. While
lacking the flashy attractions of amusement parks or studio tours, it symbolizes immigrants’
adeptness at reshaping the suburban landscape to fulfill both economic and recreational needs in an
era dominated by neoliberal ideals of private property and individualism. Attuned to this
phenomenon, Martín Santander notes a trend: “I’ve noticed that people come here as a Sunday
routine, they stroll and look but sometimes never buy.”371 Similarly, Josefina Gonáalez remarks on
the familiar faces that grace the swap meet, underscoring the swap meet’s enduring role as a
communal hub: “[I] almost always sees the same clients. There are those that come on Sundays,
those that come only on Saturdays, and those that come during the week.”372
Historians have long observed a pattern that working class migrant groups tend to remain
within their ethnic neighborhoods for socialization, commerce, religious activities, even banking.
373
As Lizabeth Cohen has shown, until the Great Depression Eastern and Southern European
370 Juan Pedredo Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 24th, 2019, City of San Fernando, California. 371 Santander, Interview. 372 Gonzalez, Interview. 373 For more, see Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours For What We Will: Workers & Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

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migrants residing around Chicago—including their second generation offspring—maintained a
strong attachment to their local ethnic institutions.
374 Even if it meant traveling further distances,
and in some cases paying higher prices, individuals remained steadfast in their affinity for the
language and customs of their previous towns of residence.
375 Historians Arnoldo de León and
George Sánchez have similarly documented how Mexican entrepreneurs in Chicano communities of
the Southwest provide spaces for social interaction and civic membership.376 Similarly, the San
Fernando Swap Meet functions as a public sphere for neighbors to socialize, decompress from the
week, and discuss issues of common interest. While it carries a nostalgic charm, evoking cultural and
collective memories, the swap meet is fundamentally an innovative space that balances tradition and
adaptation.
While the San Fernando Swap Meet “is the number one site for recreation in San
Fernando,” David Angelo perceives it as filling a vacuum neglected by the city government.
According to Angelo, “There aren’t movie theaters, the parks are kind of pitiful, and there really
aren’t any other central meeting points…people come here principally for leisure, to walk, to occupy
themselves.”377 For Angelo, the dearth of outdoor spaces leads people to the swap meet when they
might prefer to be elsewhere. San Fernando, a city of just under three-square miles with an
architecturally picturesque “downtown,” conceals a stark reality of poverty, with approximately 10%
of its 30,000 inhabitants living below the poverty line.378 Both the City of San Fernando itself and
the swap meet reflect the impact economic restructuring has had on migrants like David Angelo.
374 Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (Cambridge: University of Cambridge
Press, 1990).
375 Ibid., 30. 376 Arnoldo de León, Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: Mexican American in Houston (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989); George
Sánchez Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles 1900-1945 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993)
377 Angelo, Interview. 378 Irene Garcia, “City of San Fernando Unveils its Blueprint to Attract Business Growth; the Small Town Has Tried for
Years to Lure Services. Now it Has a Vision,” Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1999.

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Often excluded from other opportunities and spaces, his entrepreneurship in the swap meet is an
untoward reminder of his status within the city’s segmented labor and housing markets. Contrasting
this perspective, however, Ricardo Zavala views the swap meet as an asset of Latinx communities
not merely the result of municipal disinvestment. In his estimation, the swap meet represents a
reservoir of ingenuity and resilience among new immigrants, something for which they seldomly are
given credit. The swap meet allows people to get exercise, socialize, and be outside, in addition to
purchasing their daily provisions.379
Vendors at the San Fernando Swap Meet are aware that they are cultural conduits for multigenerations. Juan Pedredo, a guitarist who plays Pedro Infante and Agustín Lara ballads, articulates
this consciousness: “the people like to remember the past, right? It reminds them of their Uncle or
their brother who played the guitar. People would get together in the beaches or in the hills and they
would take out their guitars. It is tradition.”380 Juan Pedredo has played at the San Fernando Swap
Meet for over twenty years. Even the opening chords of popular rancheras or corridos evoke a sense of
nostalgia. As he notes, “it brings them beautiful memories of Mexico, the Mexico from before, from
those years when you could travel around freely in the streets, from your grandfather’s living
room.”381
Pedredo is not the only musician to have filled the swap meet’s aisles with melodious
memories, transporting listeners to another mindscape. Don Camilo Ramirez, “an elderly, cavalier
señor who plays the violin and sings” was another prominent figure at the San Fernando Swap Meet
in the early 2000s. The Los Angeles Times reporter Mary Helen Ponce dedicated an entire column to
Ramirez, writing that,
Don Camilito as the vendors call him, is very popular among the tradespeople; they respect
his talent and age and seem to look out for him. He doesn’t sing at funerals or wedding or in
379 Zavala, Interview. 380 Pedredo, Interview 381 Ibid.

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church but enjoys the camaraderie and following he has found at the swap meet, where he
discreetly sets a money box atop the gravel. Before singing he clear his throat and sips
bottled water. I once saw a man toss money in the box as he went by. He never asked for a
tune merely tipped his hat to Don Camilo.382
Don Camilo held a revered position at the San Fernando Swap Meet yet maintained a humble
demeanor. He preferred to play for the crowds in the swap meet than at formal events, for which he
commands admiration from his coworkers. Although passersby tip him without prompting, others
spend a $1 to hear their favorite canciones de amor.
Historians have long documented the role of music, especially corridos, in Chicano and
Mexican immigrant communities.383 Figures like Don Camilio and Juan Pedredo serve as conduits,
bringing forth Mexico’s deeply cherished sonic traditions to the aisles of the San Fernando Swap
Meet. However, beyond mere entertainment, these vendors serve as custodians of cultural memory.
Their music “cuts through the melee,” imbuing the swap meet’s denizens with an auditory sense of
belonging. It augments the sensory experience of the swap meet by permeating the space from one
corner to that reverberates across the generations. Yet Pedredo worries that the memories his songs
elicit are swiftly fading away. He sees his performances as a form of resistance against cultural
amnesia: “The people now they’re forgetting Mexico.”384 From atop his plastic bucket at the San
Fernando Swap Meet, Pedredo operates within a transnational framework, what Alicia Schmidt
Camacho has called a “migrant imaginary.”385 He lives in the United States but resides in an
existential borderlands. He hopes to elicit memories of the Mexico he wishes to—and hopes others
will— remember, all while struggling to make a livable wage from his perch in the San Fernando
Swap Meet.
382 Mary Helen Ponce, “At the Swap Meet, Música of the Heart,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2001. 383 See, for instance, Martha Sánchez, Corridos in Migrant Memory (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007);
Josh Kun, “Allá in the Mix: Mexican Sonideros and Musical Politics of Migrancy,” New Public, 27 (2015), 533-555. Mary
Helen Ponce, “At the Swap Meet, Musica of the Heart,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2001. 384 Ibid. 385 See Alicia Schmidt Camacho, Migrant Imaginaries: Latino Cultural Politics in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (New York: New
York University Press, 2008).

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Pedredo’s performances generate a broader sense of nostalgia for the past but they are
suffused with a fresh sound, shaped by his life as an undocumented immigrant in Los Angeles.
Though they may sound similar, these renditions are not identical to the originals. Each corrido sung
by Pedredo is inflected with the tune of his daily challenges, resulting in a unique musical expression.
Such could be said about a variety of the products found at the swap meet. Ranging from the fiery
tang of hot Cheetos doused in lime juice—a favorite among teenagers who devour them straight
from the bag with forks—to the embroidery of the charros boots proudly worn at carne asadas, these
products fuse elements of Mexican regional culture with influences specific to the San Fernando
Swap Meet and its surrounding community.
Beyond reconfiguring cultural products and transmitting memories of Mexico, vendors also
redefine the suburban ideal. In many neighborhoods of the east San Fernando Valley swap meet
vendors demonstrate that the characteristics of suburban living are not moored to racial uniformity
or a middle-class status. Instead, they foster a community that exudes many of the elements that
once attracted individuals to the suburbs: security, ample space, independence, and neighborliness.
Importantly, these qualities thrive at the San Fernando Swap Meet without imposing limitations on
race, gender, or citizenship.
Even so, within the broader social hierarchy, the swap meet occupies a distinct position
between corporate retail and informal street vending. Surrounding its perimeter are food and
clothing vendors who, for various reasons, conduct business outside the formal confines of the
swap meet. Some may opt not to obtain a business license or cannot afford the rental fees for a
puesto within the swap meet. Either way, despite existing within the same commercial landscape,

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these sidewalk vendors are set apart from those within the swap meet itself, creating a noticeable
distinction between the two groups.386
If swap meet vendors reconceptualize the suburban ideal, their journey to the swap meet,
not unlike the street vendors just outside the swap meet, was driven by necessity when they were
denied employment elsewhere. Upon migrating to the east San Fernando Valley from Michoacán in
the early 2000s, David Angelo “could not get a job in his field of engineering.” So he turned to swap
meet vending because “it’s like being in your country for a moment, you speak with the same kind
of people, you see the same products that you used to buy.”387 Over the last decade, Angelo has built
a successful cosmetics business. In addition to the San Fernando Swap Meet, he sells makeup at four
different swap meets across L.A. county and has developed a network of vendor friends, underlining
how the sense of belonging exists outside of a physical location.388
Vendors take pride in the products they sell and the service they offer their customers.
Ricardo Zavala, specializing in kitchenware and home decor, prioritizes customer satisfaction over
profit margins. He insists that he offers a better service to his clientele than chain stores like Target,
which he believes are deceitful and unreliable: “If someone buys a product, I give them a month’s
warranty and if they have a problem, I let them exchange it for another or I give them something
equivalent of what they bought.”389 Zavala’s warranty and exchange policy illustrates the trust
vendors establish with their clients. Relationships exist outside the formality of paper receipts. Yet
Zavala’s comments bespeak the swap meet’s liminality in modern society. Amid this mutualism, the
386 Participant observation from June 2019-August 2019 showed that every day the swap meet was held, and even on
days when it wasn’t, street vendors lined Glenoaks Blvd from Maclay Avenue to 118 Freeway. 387 Angelo, Interview 388 David Angelo’s insights echo the work of Thomas Bender who has argued that community is not defined solely by a
geographic location but is more aptly observed in social interactions. See Thomas Bender. Community and Social Change in
America (New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 1978), 3-14. 389 Zavala, Interview.

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swap meet vendors must still navigate a capitalist landscape as they straddle the ethos of preindustrial markets with the demands of modern commerce.
Zavala cements his relationships with customers by educating them on product use: “I have
a custom, with everything I sell, that I always look up on the internet how to use it and I show the
people. That’s how I sell all my merchandise. Everything I sell, I’m going to show how it works.”390
He emphasizes his expertise, even extending his assistance to aspiring entrepreneurs by opening an
adjacent puesto for mentoring purposes: “I train people how to start their own business here. People
come to me and ask me for help and I’m going to do my best with that.”391 David Angelo also
prioritizes product quality and maintains strong ties with his distributors: “I have my suppliers who I
have worked with for years, they think about me, and they always send me the quality of product
that I want.”392 He refuses to compromise on quality and insists that he will not sell his customers
makeup that is expired or dry.
While vendors take pride in their products, they are nonetheless entrenched in the
advertising industry. It's a common sight to see them promoting items marketed as "productos
100% naturales" alongside mannequins displaying skin-tight jeans tailored to a normalized feminine
shape (see figure 16). Despite viewing their labor as distinct from that of major retailers like Target,
vendors still find themselves operating within an ascriptive labor market. This market dynamic
forces them to contend with larger stores, balancing more informal labor relations with the demands
of the broader retail landscape
390 Ibid. 391 Ibid. 392 Angelo, Interview.

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Figure 17: Shoppers at the San Fernando Swap Meet, San Fernando, California. In the background note the
“Productos 100% Naturales” juxtaposed with the mannequins selling jeans. Photo taken by Julia BrownBernstein, August 17th, 2019.
Swap meet vendors from younger generations recognize the valuable expertise they cultivate
through their involvement. As Rudy Merina remarks,
It has been a huge learning experience, I’ve been able to learn Spanish. I’ve been able to
learn how to do business…I’m already talking to my teacher about it, because I’m in
economics right now. I’m talking to my teacher about everything I’ve done and she’s talking

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about stocks and everything. Like, I understand it pretty well, because I grew up doing
business.393
At just eighteen years old, Merina displays noticeable business acumen, honed through his intimate
understanding of the swap meet.
394 This experiential learning not only aids him in his academic
studies, especially his advanced economics class, but also positions him and his peers as cultural
intermediaries. Younger generations bring their own set of skills and cultural capital to vending.395
For instance, Merina has his own sales pitch, and his own persuasive strategies to boost his family’s
electronics business. Speaking from experience as a high school student, Rudy highlights for
prospective buyers all the educational programs that come with the tablets and that would support
their child’s success in school.396 In this way, the San Fernando Swap Meet is a site of
intergenerational exchange. If Rudy accrues cultural wealth from his many years working alongside
his parents, he also breathes fresh air into the swap meet through his own acquired skills and
knowledge. Although Rudy sees himself pursuing another occupation, he “would have no problem
just going to the swap meet and selling stuff there.”397
Second generation vendors, like Merina, not only introduce new clientele to the swap meet
but also challenge existing perceptions of the industry. For instance, Rudy encouraged a friend,
Damian, to come to the swap meet for the first time even though Damian had lived kitty corner to
the swap meet for his whole life. According to Merina, Damian, an African American high school
student, never went to the swap meet because he thought it was for “Hispanics.” After Merina’s
393 Merina, Interview. 394 In our interview, Rudy Merina elaborated on his approach. First, he establishes a rapport with his client. He
determines which language his customers feel most comfortable speaking (usually Spanglish). Then, since Rudy Merina
oversees the tablet section of the family’s electronics business, he enquires about intended usage. If they want the tablet
for their child, he recommends a program, “Leapfrog,” that teaches multiplication, division, and reading, and even
comes with parental protections.
395 For more on capital, see Savidge, “Remateras and Asset Building.”. 396 Merina, Interview. 397 Merina, Interview.

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reassurance that the swap meet was for “everyone,” Damian first ventured into the swap meet and
now brings his whole family.398
The San Fernando Swap Meet offers female vendors a platform for economic autonomy,
distinct from the conventional occupational roles often ascribed to women, such as domestic work
or street vending. While scholars have examined the entrepreneurial activities of Latinas, focusing in
particular on domésticas and street vendors, the San Fernando Swap Meet adds a unique perspective.
Here, female vendors establish a distinct form of gendered solidarity, contrasting with the often
solitary nature of female-dominated domestic labor, street and bathroom vending. They look out for
each other as remateras, a feminist identity developed in the context of the swap meet and embodied
by its many female vendors. Josefina González states that opening a business allowed her to become
her own boss: “I don’t like to work for companies, I don’t like contracts. I have always enjoyed
working independently and have looked for places where I can work, essentially, for myself.”399 Luz
Castellanos observes that the swap meet is not a gendered occupational niche, like housekeeping or
child care, emphasizing that “women run just as successful if not more successful businesses here.”
400 “Furthermore,” she adds, “I have never liked having someone boss me around.”401 Although the
interviewees most highlighted their autonomy at the swap meet, the relationships they form with
other female vendors are one of the swap meet’s most distinguishable characteristics.
The San Fernando Swap Meet serves as a microcosm of Mexico’s diverse geopolitical
landscape. Vendors and consumers from Mexico’s thirty-one states converge within its expansive
eighteen-acre space. Reflecting on his own experience, Ricardo Zavala explains that: “I’m from the
state of Guanajuato but there are a lot of people from states I’ve never been to, even when I lived
398 Merina, Interview 399 González, Interview. 400 For more on gendered aspects of ethnic entrepreneurship see Vallejo and Canizales, “Latino/a Professionals as
Entrepreneurs,” 1650-1652. See also Hondagneu-Sotelo, Doméstica. 401 Luz Castellanos Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 19th, 2019, City of San Fernando, California.

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there. Mexico is a big country and it’s impossible to know it all. So when you get [to the swap meet]
you learn tons of different traditions, cultures, dialects, accents etc…”402 Zavala’s observations
challenge narrowly defined notions of transnationalism. Whereas many scholars focus on the
connections of people across national borders, the swap meet illustrates the intricate dynamics and
interdependencies within Mexico itself.
The people from the South of Mexico immediately recognize that I am from the center. And
I also recognize when a person if from the North of Mexico or from the South, or when
they are from Central America or South America as well. You hear the accent, the words
they use, their different foods. Or you chat with them and learn a little of everything. You
learn different cultures, politics, costumes. It’s very rich here. There is a cultural richness in
those aspects.403
Within the boundaries of the swap meet, national and intranational barriers are permeable.
Individuals maintain distinct modes of communication but these disparities create a sense of
belonging.
404
The San Fernando Swap Meet serves as a nexus for vendors, primarily first and secondgeneration immigrants, offering a unique lens to examine how individuals partake in plazamaking.
Indeed, while the swap meet is predominantly comprised of residents from Latin America, it is far
from homogenous. Swap meet vendors hail from a diverse range of backgrounds, spanning
nationalities such as Armenian, Korean, Iranian, and Indian, alongside those originating from
various states of Mexico, Central and South America. Juan Pedredo accentuates this ethnic pluralism
by pointing out the multitude of faces at the swap meet, “more than just Latino people come here.
There’s also Jewish people. There’s a lot of Filipino people. The Filipino likes to come here to be
with our race, the Mexican race. There are African Americans, and a lot of Hindu people. Hindus
402 Zavala, Interview. 403 Ibid. 404 Further study might explore how vendors from different regions within Mexico interact and whether those
differences are magnified or mitigated by the shared experience of swap meet vending.

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like to be around us. There are even white people.”405 Pedredo’s observation that Filipinos and
Hindus “like to be around us,” is noteworthy and warrants further consideration. It suggests that
while the swap meet primarily serves a Latinx clientele, it fosters a sense of belonging for diverse
ethno-racial groups, including Filipinos and Indians. Although sometimes perceived as a
monoethnic space, swap meet vendors develop a sense of solidarity that transcends ethnic
boundaries, creating a more inclusive retail environment.
In 1992, Davit Mirzoyan, an Armenian immigrant, found a niche selling Levi jeans at the
swap meet when he could not find employment in mechanical engineering. He arrived in the San
Fernando Swap Meet on a tip from a Mexican neighbor, “the people is taking care of each other” he
states.406 Mirzoyan learned Spanish, the lingua franca among vendors and customers alike and, in the
words of Mirzoyan, a requisite for entrepreneurship in the San Fernando Valley: “this is San
Fernando, first stop of Latinos from Mexico. Most of them when they come here, they come to San
Fernando Swap Meet. 70% speak only Spanish,” he proclaims. 407 While Spanish prevails, the San
Fernando Swap Meet reflects the diverse demographics of the northeast San Fernando Valley,
continuing a tradition stretching back to the nineteenth century when Mexican, Japanese, and
Filipino laborers helped transform the region into an agricultural powerhouse.
Vendors like Pedredo and Mirzoyan indicate that swap meet vending unites individuals from
diverse backgrounds because of a shared sense of racial and social marginalization in Los Angeles.
They acknowledge that the San Fernando Swap Meet and broader industry are racialized sites of
ethnic consumption.408 Yet through their continued dedication, they actively challenge these
narratives and defy the racial stereotypes that have long defined both the industry and all its
405 Pedredo, Interview. Rudy Merina also mentions this noting that “there’s a lot of cultures there. There’s Hispanics,
there’s a lot of Asians, African Americans. Other people are there too.” Merina, Interview. 406 Mr. Mirzoyan Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 19th, 2019, City of San Fernando, California. 407 Ibid. 408 This was a common theme across all interviewees.

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participants. Since the early 1970s, their plazamaking efforts have reshaped the landscape and
cultural fabric of the east San Fernando Valley,. Their presence became particularly vital during the
1990s era of deindustrialization and its subsequent revitalization. Despite vendors' concerns about
the lack of municipal protections for the swap meet, they draw strength from their historical
mobilizations and the unwavering support of the community. This collective resilience builds
vendors’ confidence that the swap meet will remain a site of belonging and livelihood for
generations to come.
The 1999 Mobilization
Established in the early 1970s, the San Fernando Swap Meet endured its most formidable
challenges during the 1990s. At no point was the industry more stigmatized than the years leading up
to and during Governor Pete Wilson’s virulently xenophobic administration, which oversaw the
passage of Proposition 187 in 1994, barring undocumented migrants from social services, and the
approval of Proposition 227 in 1998, which outlawed bilingual education.409 Yet such legislative
measures were passed amid an era of economic upheaval, during which time spaces like the San
Fernando Swap Meet faced opposition not only from homeowners’ and citizens’ groups, but also
from retail development—the “silver bullet” of deindustrialization.
In late October 1999, the San Fernando Swap Meet vendors were threatened with closure
once again, this time due to potential redevelopment plans of the site into a 400,000-square-foot
retail-commercial project.410 In a shocking move, co-owner of the parcel, William Hannon, signed a
deal with Regency Realty Corporation to construct two major big box stores and smaller retail shops
where the San Fernando Swap Meet was held three times a week. Outraged by the move, swap meet
409 See Hosang Martinez, Racial Propositions. 410 Gregory Wilcox, “Valley Retail Project Proposed,” Los Angeles Daily News, October 20, 1999.

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vendors swiftly mobilized to protest the proposed redevelopment plan. Veteran vendor Eduardo
Delgado formed a coalition called “Save the San Fernando Swap Meet,” to resist closure.
411 Delgado
voices his concerns to reporters: “I’m very angry…I’ve been working here 19 years. I’m a citizen. I
pay taxes. I have a good record. I have to raise my two daughters.” Delgado’s words resonated with
Judy Adams, who had managed the San Fernando Swap Meet for 28 years. “Each little stall is a
business,” she uttered. “I’m caught between a rock and a hard place because I have feelings for these
people.”412
Claiming that the retail development would be a boost to the local economy, developers
maintained that a big box shopping mall would amount to community revitalization. Yet vendors
remained skeptical. On October 27, 1999, 400 vendors staged a protest at San Fernando City Hall
brandishing signs, megaphones and drums. They made a horseshoe around the steps of City Hall to
demand chanting, “Save our Swap Meet, Yes We Can!” Their outcry resonated deeply, suggesting
the profound impact closure would have on the livelihoods of over 1,000 residents from the
northeast San Fernando Valley. At 62 years old, vendor Francisco Villagrana held back tears. A
seasoned vendor of 28 years, Villgrana decried, “this is the only income I have… where am I going
to look for a job at my age?”413 His words echoed those uttered by vendors in 1984, who likened the
potential shutdown of the swap meet’s to a factory. The comparison in 1999 underscored that the
city’s redevelopment plans mirrored a broader trend sweeping the east Valley in the aftermath of
plant closures.
411 Jason Kandel, “San Fernando Vendors Picket,” Los Angeles Daily News, October 23, 1999. 412 Ibid. 413 Ibid.

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Figure 18: Demonstrators march down Maclay Avenue to protest a developer’s plan to build a retail center on
the site of the San Fernando Swap Meet. Los Angeles Times, October 27, 1999.
The opposition to the redevelopment plans extended to younger community members, with
the children of the vendors emerging as the most vocal opponents. Victor Polanco, whose parents
had been longstanding vendors, played a pivotal role in organizing the demonstration. He
underscored the deep-seated frustration of his generation: “We don’t want the swap meet to close
down…they have to think about the people they’re putting out of work. There’s 1,000 vendors that
have been here for years.”414 Despite assurances from elected officials, the city maintained that “it’s
in the best interest of the city to develop that land. No one wants a swap meet in their backyard. It
doesn’t fit with our image of economic development.”415
The mayor’s response highlighted the growing significance of big box consumerism to
economic revitalization. Instead of safeguarding a longstanding community, local politicians favored
the establishment of a Target or a Home Depot. This prompted vendors like Martha Carillo, who
supported her three children, mother, and grandmother on her swap meet income to profess: “This
is not just a swap meet; it’s a tradition.” She continued, “If they close it, what are we all going to do?
414 Irene Garcia, “Crowd Protests Swap Meet Development,” Los Angeles Times, October 27, 1999. 415 Irene Garcia, “ Swap Meet Closure Comes at a Price,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1999.

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Where are we going to go? A lot of people will be on the street. I never imagined it would come to
this.”416 Amid the uncertainty and mounting pressure, Councilman José Hernandez, whose parents
sold jewelry at the swap meet for 23 years, pledged support for relocation : “I grew up around that
swap meet, so this is very close to my hear… I really feel for them and I’d like to help them find
another place.”417 However, vendors remained steadfast in their determination to resist relocation,
even considering pooling money to buy the property. As Delgado phrased it, “They want us to just
go away, but we’re not. We’re going to fight.
Conclusion
And fight they did. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the redevelopment deal had
dissolved and the property was purchased by the Robertson Properties without plants to relocate the
swap meet.
418 In 2003, the company split the property with the Los Angeles Unified School District
Financing Corp, which downsized the size of the swap meet but helped ensure its continued
existence.
419 Today, the San Fernando Swap Meet covers nearly 17 acres of land and operates as a
Limited Liability Corporation.420 Although it serves the greater San Fernando Valley, it attracts
commuters from Lancaster/Palmdale, Crescenta Valley, Antelope Valley, and Santa Clarita Valley.
The San Fernando Swap Meet boasts a weekly average of 1,000 vendors and 26,000 shoppers.421
Vendors provide at least seventy-four types of new and used products to the community, containing
416 Ibid 417 Ibid. 418 “Aggressive San Fernando Retail Push Hitting a Wall,” Los Angeles Business Journal June 11, 2000.
https://labusinessjournal.com/news/san-fernando-aggressive-san-fernando-retail-push/ Accessed May 3, 2024; “Stalled
Land Deal Benefits Vendors at Swap Meet,” Los Angeles Business Times, May 28, 2000. https://sfvbj.com/news/retailstalled-land-deal-benefits-vendors-at-swap/ Accessed May 3, 2024. 419 Roger Vincent, “LAUSD Buys Part of Swap Meet Site,” Los Angeles Times, July 5, 2003. The San Fernando Swap
Meet is adjacent to the Cesar Chavez Learning Academy campus, an LAUSD district high school. In 2003, LAUSD
purchased part of the land the swap meet currently occupies. See Vincent, “LAUSD.” 420 Vicente Rabello, e-mail correspondence with author, March 18th, 2019. 421 “About Us,” San Fernando Swap Meet, accessed January 31, 2021, https://www.sanfernandoswapmeet.com/

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all the goods of any major department store.422 The San Fernando Swap Meet contributes
approximately $700,000 per year (or $60,000) per month in Admissions Tax revenue and $75,000 in
sales tax revenue.423 In addition to vendors, over a dozen residents from the local community work
at the swap meet. Sergio Bautista has worked there for ten years: “I like working here, it’s friendly. I
know the people.”424 Employees like Sergio learn business skills that align with a “business model
[that] brings together an outdoor exchange of sellers who… continue to provide this long-standing
cultural tradition, where the people of this community buy from their family and friends and have a
shared relationship.”425
In fact, in a period of neoliberal revitalization, marked by the widespread expansion of big
box stores across the east Valley, the enduring presence of the San Fernando Swap Meet stands out
as a beacon of resilience. Not only does it exemplify residents’ successful plazamaking efforts, but it
also serves as a counterforce against the rise of Depotland, the focus of Chapter Four. While
surrounding areas succumbed to the homogenizing force of Big Box recovery in the wake of plant
closures, the swap meet has maintained its identity as a dynamic community hub. Its ability to
withstand the tide of corporate encroachment, while vendors engage in transgressive globalization to
support their families, serves as a testament to the strength of local entrepreneurship and
community mobilization.
422 Sergio Bautista Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, February 11th, 2019, City of San Fernando, California. 423 Francisco Castro, “No Swap, No Meet,” The San Fernando Sun, May 13, 2020. 424 Bautista, Interview. 425 “Talking Points for the San Fernando Swap Meet August 25th, 2018” sent to the author in an email correspondence
with Vicente Rabello, March 18th, 2019.

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CHAPTER FOUR
Building Depotland
On Saturday, April 11, 1992, Democratic Presidential hopeful Reverend Jesse Jackson made
a stump stop in Van Nuys, California. He was there to lead a rally for UAW Local 645 autoworkers
who, in August of that year, were scheduled to lose their jobs when the General Motors Van Nuys
auto plant officially shut down. Jackson made the rally a campaign stop to support autoworkers as
well as to denounce politicians who had betrayed the nation’s working people and done nothing to
stop plant closures. “We need alternatives to plants closing, alternatives to jobs leaving. We need an
alternative vision. We need a new President,” he exclaimed to an impassioned crowd.426
By April 1992, Los Angeles’s regional economy was in flux. A decade of plant closures and
the departure of airframe-aerospace, automotive, and other high technology firms had severely
undercut regional and local economies and crushed livelihoods.427 Blue-collar workers feared the
erosion of their middle-class incomes and the upward mobility it gave their children. At the April
11th rally, Jackson spoke directly to the concerns of autoworkers who continued to assemble cars in
the face of the plant’s impending shutdown. The audience cheered for him as he entreated his fellow
Democratic Party candidates to “in the face of this pain…choose partnership not polarization.”
426 Michael Connelly, “Jackson Leads Hundreds in Jobs Rally in Van Nuys,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 12, 1992. Jackson’s
Van Nuys stump stop in 1992 came nearly a decade after he had first allied himself with the GM Van Nuys workforce
by backing the Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open. In the mid-1980s, Jackson joined the movement to hold
General Motors accountable to the community. The Campaign ensured the plant’s existence through the late 1980s but
not its survival all together.
427 See Manuel Pastor, State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America’s
Future (New York: 2018); Edward J. Soja, “It All Comes Together in Los Angeles,” in Postmodern Geographies: The
Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (London: 1989), 190–221. For more on the Plant Closures Project, see Alison
Givens, “Fighting Shutdowns in Sunny California,” Labor Research Review 1, no. 5 (1984), 1–14.

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Just three weeks after Jackson demonstrated with autoworkers in Van Nuys, the city of Los
Angeles erupted into Uprising. The murder of Latasha Harlins and the acquittal of four police
officers in the beating of Rodney King reflected city government’s neglect of South Los Angeles,
especially its shifting demographics and inequalities.428 Although the GM Van Nuys auto plant was
miles away from the epicenter of the unrest, it fell well within the geography of the Uprising.429
Besides being a target for looting and arson between April 29th and May 6th, 1992, the Northeast San
Fernando Valley was also the site of Rodney King’s beating on March 3rd, 1991.430 The shoulder of
Foothill Boulevard, where four policemen mercilessly battered King, is a memory site that haunts
the community of Lakeview Terrace to the present.431
Yet the fates of South Los Angeles and the Northeast San Fernando Valley had become
intertwined long before the 1992 Uprising. Back in 1983, when GM shut down its auto plant in
Southgate —plummeting the area into economic distress and driving hundreds of its African
American employees to the Van Nuys plant—the two communities became linked by a shared fight
against deindustrialization. With the support of the South Los Angeles community and its worker
transplants, the employees at GM Van Nuys managed to stave off closure for almost a decade.432 Yet
by the early 1990s, the Northeast San Fernando Valley also faced ascending poverty rates and
minimal government intervention.433 Mere months after the 1992 Uprising, the General Motors auto
428 For more on South Los Angeles’ shifting demographics and local politics see Abigail Rosas, South Central is My Home:
Race and the Power of Community Investment in Los Angeles (Palo Alto, 2019). 429 “Report of the Chief Legislative Analyst, Overview of the Ad Hoc Committee on Recovery and Revitalization
Actions,” 1992, folder 19, box 0825, Tom Bradley Administrative Papers, Special Collections, University of California
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.. See also Stefano Bloch, Going All City: Struggle and Survival in LA’s Graffiti Subculture
(Chicago, 2019). Allen J. Scott and Edward W. Soja eds., The City: Los Angeles and Urban theory at the End of the Twentieth
Century (Berkeley, CA, 1996). 430 John M. Molina, “King Arrest Becomes Odd Landmark,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 21, 1993. 431 The author taught for six years at a public school in Lakeview Terrace, just a mile from the site of Rodney King’s
beating. From informal conversations with community members, students, and families, it is clear that the site of King’s
beating is one that has lingered in the minds, especially of the area’s shrinking Black population, to the present. 432 Eric Mann, Taking on General Motors: A Case Study of the UAW Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open, (Los Angeles,
1987).
433 Stefano Bloch, “An Autoethnographic Account of Urban Restructuring and Neighborhood Change in Los Angeles’
San Fernando Valley,” Cultural Geographies 27, no. 3 (2020): 379-394.

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plant closed for good, displacing 2,600 employees and destabilizing the plant’s surrounding
communities.434
Few historical studies have linked the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising with the closure of the GM
Van Nuys plant only four months later.435 Yet what links them in the post-1992 era is Jackson’s
"partnership not polarization” plea, an ethos that came to define much of Los Angeles’ political
economy for the remainder of the 1990s. Only the kind of partnerships Jackson summoned—
multiracial coalition-building or solidarity within the democratic establishment—were not the
partnerships that predominated Los Angeles’ policy response in the era of 1990s deindustrialization.
Rather, what emerged were what I call neo-recovery partnerships.
Neo-recovery partnerships, much like the more standard private-public partnerships (PPPs),
are those in which individuals from the public sector collaborate with individuals in the private
sector to fund projects (infrastructural, organizational, and institutional) that, ideally, yield efficient
and beneficial outcomes for the public good and for private investors. Yet what differentiates neorecovery partnerships from traditional PPPs is that they are designed for, and ineluctably tied to, the
revitalization of deindustrialized urban areas. 436 Neo-recovery partnerships were based on the
premise that deregulated zones of commerce, big box consumerism, and service employment would
help emancipate individuals from dependency, be it tied to unionized labor or state provisions.
Rather than insist that city government replenish the jobs eroded by deindustrialization or provide
compensatory social programs, proponents of neo-recovery partnerships turned to private capital to
434 Hugo Martin, “GM Closure Also Hurts Merchants,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 14, 1992. 435 A very important exception to this is the scholarship of cultural geographer Stefano Bloch, whose work and scholarly
generosity have greatly influenced this article.
436 PPPs have characterized much of U.S. governance, even during the heyday of the nation’s welfare state. But the
1990s marked a definitive uptick in the popularity and ubiquity of PPPs. Rather than see PPPs as an immutable force, we
view them as historically constructed. Faced with the departure of heavy industry and the hemorrhaging of blue-collar
labor, Los Angeles city officials turned to private investment and market ideology to “revitalize” communities like those
most affected by the 1992 Uprising and those surrounding the General Motors Van Nuys auto plant. In the early 1990s
in Southern California, city officials devised a new brand of PPP—the neo-recovery partnership—as the primary policy
response to deindustrialization.

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replace former manufacturing plants and revitalize their surrounding communities. City officials, if
at first reluctantly, eventually facilitated the conversion of industrial sites, like the former GM Van
Nuys auto plant, for service sector development.437 Doing so, it was thought, would restore
residents’ sense of community pride and deepen their belief in free enterprise.
After the General Motors auto plant shut down in August 1992, the site lay vacant for four
years until Los Angeles city officials, General Motors, real estate developers, and private investors
aided its rebirth as an outdoor “power center,” to be called The Plant.438 This neo-recovery
partnership formed in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising and consolidated after the 1994
Northridge earthquake. Those two events, which city officials used to create the Los Angeles
Revitalization Zone and the Earthquake Recovery Zone respectively, allowed city government to
incentivize private investors to purchase and rebuild the site into a mixed-use retail and lightindustrial complex. In a relatively short span of time, the former GM auto plant had turned into a
shopping mall, The Plant, legitimizing the neo-recovery partnership and assisting Southern
California’s shift to the service economy and its embrace of Depotland. The neo-recovery
partnership that brought The Plant to life suggested that retail campuses signaled freedom, mobility,
and access. It played to what certain labor activists called the “7/11 Complex,” in which the
entrepreneurial aspirations of the working class might lead individuals to identify with big business
while denying their own class position.439
437 The leading political proponents of the neo-recovery partnership were Los Angeles Republican Mayor Richard
Riordan and Democratic councilman Richard Alarcón. Initially, Riordan and Alarcón disagreed over what should replace
the GM auto plant. There were fears, particularly from Alarcon’s camp, that a retail center could not provide the job
security or high wages that industrial employment had offered his constituents. But by 1997, both politicians had
become brokers in the neo-recovery partnership that brought The Plant to life. 438 At the turn of the twenty-first century, so-called power centers proliferated on the suburban landscape. Unlike
traditional postwar malls, power centers are sprawling campuses largely composed of big box chains like Costco, Home
Depot, Walmart etc. See Bob Howard, “Holiday Retail Outlook: Big-Box Stores Set Sights on Valley” Los Angeles Times,
Sept. 28, 1991.
439 Mann, Taking on General Motors, 104-105.

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But neither the neo-recovery partnership behind The Plant, nor the commercial center itself,
revitalized the surrounding community or freed individuals from the hardships they faced.440
According to 2020 census data, 18 percent of residents living in Los Angeles District Seven, the
district just north of the former auto plant, live below the federal poverty level (FPL) and 44 percent
live below 200 percent of the FPL.441 And in District Six, the community immediately surrounding
the site, 23 percent live below the FPL and 53 percent live 200 percent below the FPL.442 What The
Plant did do, however, is contribute to the rise of a new working class in the San Fernando Valley,
based on low-wage, non-unionized labor, and populated largely by undocumented migrants who had
settled in the area after the 1986 Immigration and Reform Act.
The closure of the GM Van Nuys auto plant and its conversion into The Plant demonstrates
two critical but understudied historical processes. First, it reveals how neo-recovery partnerships
emerged in the wake of deindustrialization in Southern California and amidst shifting national
immigration policy. Second, the site’s transformation into a retail complex reveals the gradual and
highly mundane means by which neoliberalism gained hegemony in the United States. 443 The rise of
the neoliberal order, as historian Gary Gerstle, has recently termed it, materialized and became
440 See Scott Garner, “Panorama City is Slowly Shaking Off its Post-Industrial Trauma,” Daily Press, June 16, 2018; Laura
Barraclough, “The Rise of Homelessness in the Valley: And the Sad History of a Los Angeles Shopping Center,” Pacific
Standard, June 14, 2017, https://psmag.com/economics/a-picture-of-a-shopping-center-is-worth-1000-words (accessed
Apr. 14, 2023).
441 County of Los Angeles Public Health. Los Angeles City and Community Health Profiles, Los Angeles City Council District Six
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/ohae/docs/cchp/pdf/2018/LosAngelesCityCouncilDistrict6.pdf (accessed May 19,
2023).
442 County of Los Angeles Public Health. Los Angeles City and Community Health Profiles, Los Angeles City Council District
Seven http://ph.lacounty.gov/ohae/docs/cchp/pdf/2018/LosAngelesCityCouncilDistrict7.pdf (accessed May 19, 2023.
See “San Fernando Valley Economy Report,” California State University Northridge, 2005-2006, 78,
http://www.mulhollandinstitute.org/Library/Economics/Pub_CSUN_SFV_Economic_Report_05-06.pdf (accessed
May 19, 2023).
443 See Andrew J. Diamond and Thomas J. Sugrue ed., Neoliberal Cities: The Remaking of Postwar Urban America (New York,
2020), 5. See Thomas Adams, “New Life, New Vigor, and New Values: Privatization, Service Work, and the Rise of
Neoliberal Urbanism in Postwar Southern California,” in Diamond and Sugrue ed., Neoliberal Cities, 49-77. Although
Adams argues that the privatization of redevelopment in Los Angeles can traced back to the immediate postwar period,
I argue that the city’s rampant deindustrialization in the 1990s marked a critical re-imagining of urban revitalization.
Rather than adopt the earlier strategy of replacing “slums” with privatized spaces, the 1990s marked a moment in which
community revitalization became the preserve of the business sector.

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hegemonic because in the transition from an industrial to a service economy—literally the
conversion of a former auto plant into a retail campus—the neoliberal rationality became tethered to
the concept of “revitalization,” and with that, Depotland was born. 444
“It was like Dancing in an Open Grave”: The GM Van Nuys Plant on the Eve of Closure
By the mid-1980s, auto workers at the General Motors Auto Plant in Van Nuys felt
cautiously optimistic that their plant would make it beyond the infamous decade of shutdowns. It
had been a tumultuous few years since GM declared in 1982 that the Van Nuys plant was on the
company’s “danger list.”445 Van Nuys workers, all members of UAW Local 645, responded to the
news by rallying behind the Campaign to Save GM Van Nuys (hereafter referred to as the
Campaign), a union-led movement to keep the plant in operation.446 The Campaign’s success gave
workers some confidence that they might be spared the future facing other Southern California
manufacturing plants like GM Southgate, which shut down in 1983.447 Most significantly, the
Campaign framed the closure of the Van Nuys plant in a larger struggle for civil rights. By 1983,
Latinx workers constituted over 50 percent of the workforce, Black workers, 15 percent, and women
and Asian and Pacific Islanders, 5 percent. The Campaign and its supporters insisted that GM had
not only a moral responsibility to keep the plant open but that workers could galvanize a multiracial
444 I employ Wendy Brown’s conceptualization of the “neoliberal rationality,” which “transmogrifies every human
domain and endeavor along with humans themselves, according to a specific image of the economic. All conduct is
economic conduct; all spheres of existence are framed and measured by economic terms and metrics, even when those
spheres are not directly monetized.” See Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (New York,
2015), 9-10. See also Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era
(Oxford, UK, 2022).
445 Rowe, “California Local Fights to Survive,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1983; Henry Weinstein, “At Top Speed Now,
but Nothing’s Forever: Community Fighting to Save Van Nuys GM Car Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 5, 1983. 446 Mann, Taking on General Motors. 447 The Campaign’s mobilization inspirited workers to believe that their plant could parry GM’s threats. See Michal
Goldman’s documentary, Tiger by the Tail and Henry Weinstein, “Boycott by UAW Of GM Threatened,” Los Angeles
Times, May 15, 1983; Crowe, “Calif. Local Fights to Survive,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1983; Henry Weinstein,
“Community Fighting Save Van Nuys GM Car Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 5, 1983

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base of support to boycott its products.448 Besides being instrumental to the plant’s survival, the
Campaign maintained that industrial labor in the Northeast San Fernando Valley was crucial to the
region’s social and economic stability.
The Campaign secured the plant’s existence for several years, and remains one of the most
significant, if overlooked, labor movements of the late-twentieth century. But by November 1986,
after a ten-month layoff, GM announced plans to close eleven plants in Michigan, Ohio, Missouri,
and Illinois. Miraculously, Van Nuys was spared.449 “It’s tremendous…It’s great to have news like
this,” Gil Luna professed at the time.450 Three years later, General Motors announced that the Van
Nuys plant would not produce the next generation of the Firebird and Camaro models. To cut labor
and transportation costs, and consolidate production in the Midwest, the forthcoming models would
be produced at GM’s new plant in Sainte-Thérèse, Canada.451 The Van Nuys plant seemed sure to
close. George Veloz, a thirty-three year veteran, recalled that a friend in management pulled him into
his office: “He told me, ‘come in here, and shut the door, what is said here, stays here.’ I go, ‘okay.’
Finally he goes, ‘there is no future here. Leave.’ So I transferred and went to Tennessee, the Saturn
plant on January 1st, 1991.”452
448 Eric Mann Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 2, 2022, Los Angeles, CA. 449 Alan Goldstein and James Risen, “GM Will Close 11 Factories with 29,000 Auto Workers; Van Nuys Plant is
Spared,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 6, 1986. Many speculated that it was Van Nuys’ adoption of the Team Concept, a
production style modeled after Japanese manufacturing methods, that ensured its continued existence. Under Team
Concept, workers assembled vehicles in teams, instead of performing one repetitive task, and supposedly wielded more
autonomy in production quality and labor-management relations. But many Union leaders virulently critiqued Team
Concept and it proved divisive within the Local’s membership. See Gregory Crouch, “On the line in Van Nuys,” Los
Angeles Times, Dec. 13, 1988.Others argued it was the Campaign, while others pointed to the market, which had
historically yielded above-average sales of Camaros and Firebirds. Regardless, workers at GM Van Nuys were elated that
they continued to escape the fast coming waves of plant closings.
450 Alan Goldstein, “Nagging Fears Persist as Several Other Factories Close: GM Workers at Van Nuys Express Relief,”
Los Angeles Times, Nov. 7, 1986. 451 Joseph B. White, “GM Indicates Glum Tidings for 5 Facilities—Plants in U.S. and Canada Could Become Victims of
Capacity Reductions,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 16, 1989. 452 George Veloz Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, November 10th, 2022, Van Nuys, CA.

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Upon hearing the news, elected officials took pains to bargain with GM. Republican
County Supervisor, Michael Antonovich, wrote a telegram to the GM headquarters: “the closing of
the facility would have a sizable impact on the San Fernando Valley and the economy.”453
Antonovich, like other city politicians, hoped that GM would make the Van Nuys plant a flex
facility, capable of producing whatever the market mandated or shift production to electric cars.454 In
the late 1980s, Los Angeles city officials across the political spectrum were eager to ensure that
manufacturing jobs remained in their districts. Their constituents depended on industrial labor to
pay their bills and it elevated the tax base of the district. Yet more than that, local politicians
believed that production should remain near the consumer market. The prevailing ethos was still
that corporations like GM had an obligation to manufacture its vehicles in the same region as one of
its most profitable markets.
By 1990, it was not just automotive or aerospace firms that closed shop as defense contracts
dried up. In May of that year, Oscar Mayer, a leader in the meat-packing industry, closed its Vernon
plant. The decline of heavy industry terminated an “economic safety valve for thousands of
residents who either could not or did not want to go to college,” the historian Rodolfo Acuña
lamented.455 The GM Van Nuys plant had been a stalwart for thousands of workers, but it was one
in a sea of factories throughout Southern California that supported a largely non-white blue-collar
workforce. As Acuña saw it,
At bottom, what’s at stake is the kind of metropolis we want in the year 2050….low-paying
jobs and poverty are increasing at a faster pace in Los Angeles than anywhere else in the
country…Since Latinos are among those who have most acutely experienced the impact of
plant shutdowns, Latino politicos should take the lead in developing a common strategy to
stop the Oscar Mayer’s from moving out.456
453 Chip Jacobs, “L.A. County Supervisors Please with GM to Keep Van Nuys Plant, save 4,000 jobs,” Los Angeles Times,
May 14, 1990.
454 Jacobs, “LA County Supervisors.” 455 Rodolfo Acuña, “And Then There Were No Blue-Collar Jobs,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1990. 456 Ibid.

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In a city in which manufacturing was concentrated in predominantly non-white, working-class, and
immigrant communities, it was clear that fighting to keep plants open or, at least, finding
commensurate employment, would be the challenge facing L.A. leaders in the century’s last decade.
It was also, for that matter, an issue of economic and racial justice.
January 1991 brought one of the biggest layoffs in the history of GM Van Nuys.457 “We’re all
depressed about it,” stated Richard Ruppert, the Local’s shop chairman. GM spokeswoman Kathy
Tanner assuaged their worries: “the business plan is to convert Van Nuys to a flex plant to produce
a variety of models for West Coast markets.”458 A day after GM announced its Van Nuys layoff,
councilmember Richard Alarcón sent a memo to Mayor Bradley reiterating that the plant manager,
Barry Herr, held that the long term goal for the plant was not closure but conversion to a flexplant.459 Local politicians had faith that GM would find a way to avert closure. Either the company
would update the auto plant from an assembly division to a more nimble production facility or it
would find another model for its Van Nuys workforce. Politicians reckoned that GM, too, believed
that production should stay near the biggest consumer market.
Yet two months later, GM announced that it would eliminate the second shift altogether.
Closure seemed a fait accompli. “We’re here to express our anger,” Mark Masaoka, a unit chairman
and former organizer in the Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open, protested. “This is an orphan
plant and we’re building an orphan model,” he continued.460 Masoaka’s words resonated across the
Local. As the sole remaining auto assembly plant in Southern California, the Van Nuys plant
457 James Peltz, “GM Will Lay Off 850 Workers at Van Nuys Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 25, 1991. By the early 1990s,
3,000 workers staffed all assembly divisions, but surplus inventories and bloated supplies resulted in indefinite layoffs for
nearly a third of the workforce. For GM Van Nuys, the nine-year old Firebird and Camaro inventories were piling up
such that on January 10th the Plant had a 179-day supply as opposed to the 75-100 day supply that was more typical for
slow-selling winter months. Or, to put it differently, in 1978 the GM Van Nuys plant reached peak sales, selling 447,
1110 Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds. In 1990, that number was down to 116. 458 Chip Jacobs, “GM to Lay Off 850 at Van Nuys Plant,” Los Angeles Business Journal, undated. 459 Richard Alarcón to Mayor Tom Bradley, undated, Frederick Schnell, General Motors, 1979-1991, folders 4-5, box
4202, Tom Bradley Administrative Papers, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
460 Patrice Apodaca, “Workers Protest Cutbacks at GM,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 29, 1991.

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workers had little recourse. In the past, laid off or idled workers could get jobs at the nearby
Lockheed plant in Burbank. But Lockheed was also downsizing its operations and moving most of
its production out of California. There were few places to turn.461
By the summer of 1991, workers’ fears came true. It was Friday morning, July 19th when GM
officials ushered the entire day shift into the back lot. A spokesperson from Detroit announced that
the Van Nuys plant would cease operations and close permanently in August 1992. “It was like a
blow to the chest,” said Johnny Nieto a fourteen-year veteran. “It’s a shocker to say the least,’ Jess
Pacheco added. Rather than decompress that evening at Opies bar or Chevy Ho’s, as was custom,
workers retreated to their homes to tell their spouses and children. Although the workers had a
safety net—a recently signed three-year contract that guaranteed them 85 percent of their take home
pay for 36 weeks—there was no doubt that GM’s announcement sowed seeds of uncertainty and
displacement. As Ronald, a twenty-four year veteran, recalled, the announcement of closure caused
crises among many couples and families; separations and divorces increased.462 Bruce Lee, the UAW
western regional director, called the closure “a total betrayal,” while democratic representative
Howard L. Berman denounced the “devastating news, not only to [the plant’s] employees but to the
community at large.”463
News of closure created a media maelstrom. A choir of voices emerged to editorialize the
closing of the forty-five year old plant, and to weigh in on its replacement. Bob Baker of the Los
Angeles Times claimed “L.A.’s Booming Auto Industry Now a Memory.”464 He was right. The closure
of the GM Van Nuys plant marked the end of an era. Workers watched their middle-class living
461 Patrice Apodaca, “Workers Angry, Anxious about GM Closure Plan, Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1991. 462 Ronald Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, November 16, 2022, Van Nuys, CA. 463 James F. Peltz, “General Motors in Van Nuys to Close,” Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1991. 464 Bob Baker, “L.A.’s Booming Auto Industry Now a Memory,” Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1991.

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evaporate and entered the industrial worker diaspora, crisscrossing the country to find work.465 In
light of its closure, Baker eulogized the plant’s postwar heyday:
It was a time when industrial jobs were an attainable ladder up from poverty. A time when
you could carve out a middle class existence with merely a high school degree or less. A time
when the expressions ‘blue collar’ and “working class” carried more meaning, more purity. A
time when “service sector” would have been mistaken for the military.466
The Los Angeles Times professed “The Need to Replenish Vanishing Jobs.”467 As the editorial put it,
“the death of local auto production—the decline began a decade ago—is a harsh reminder that our
manufacturing jobs need to be replaced with new ones.”468 The predominant view was that industrial
labor should be replaced by other manufacturing jobs. There was not yet a formalized trend to turn
former industrial sites into those for service or retail.
Residents also opined on what should replace the GM Van Nuys plant. Eileen Barry of Lake
View Terrace, a rural community northeast of the plant, wrote that,
When something such as the announced 1992 closing of the Van Nuys GM plant happens, it
is our responsibility as citizens of this nation and planet to make something positive come
from this potential economic disaster. Instead of looking at the plant site for a shopping mall
or office buildings, consider using it to manufacture products from materials rescued from
the “waste stream” not gutting our canyons.469
Barry saw her duty as a citizen to see that the Van Nuys plant be repurposed for environmental and
humanitarian causes. It would not improve anyone’s quality of life, especially those in the Northeast
San Fernando Valley who suffered the environmental consequences of heavy industry for decades,
that the plant to be replaced by a mall or offices dedicated to business endeavors.
Barry’s words underwrote the sentiments of Mayor Bradley and a cohort of other democratic
politicians, including Congressman Howard L. Berman and Assemblyman Richard Katz, who saw
465 UAW Local 645 monthly retirement meeting observed by the author November 2022-May 2023. 466 Ibid. 467 “The Need to Replenish Vanishing Jobs,” Los Angeles Times, July 23, 1991. 468 Ibid. 469 “Other Avenues Open for GM Plant,” Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1991.

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the plant’s announced closure as the last straw in an alarming exit of manufacturing firms from the
area. On August 6, 1991, Bradley invited federal, state, and local politicians, economists,
transportation experts, business, and labor leaders to a meeting about the GM plant closure. The
meeting’s “discussion items set an agenda for the future and create[d] a unified plan to help those
workers who have lost their jobs, while reversing the trend of economic erosion in the Los Angeles
basin.”470 After the August 8th meeting, Bradley, Berman, and Katz pleaded with the GM CEO,
Robert C. Stempel, to “ensure that the General Motors Plant site remains an economically vital
element of the community.”471 The meeting bolstered their conviction that the Van Nuys plant was
still a profitable entity: “We are not convinced that the Van Nuys Plant operation cannot continue to
be economically feasible. Recognizing that more vehicles are sold in Southern California than any
other region of the United States, we believe General Motors Corporation should give greater
consideration to preserving the Van Nuys plant operation.”472 Bradley’s letter voiced the general
outlook of Los Angeles city leaders that GM Van Nuys had not only untapped profit-making
potential but also a responsibility to produce its goods near its best-selling market.
The Bradley administration organized a task force to monitor and address the ramifications
of the announced shutdown.473 They hoped for the plant’s persistence as an auto assembly factory
but would “work collaboratively to find the most effective plant site use” if closure was irreversible.
If talks failed, Bradley would create a private-public partnership to repurpose the plant as a hub of
470 Bradley, Katz, Berman Co-Host Meeting to Determine the Future of the GM Plant and to Discuss Efforts to Prevent
Industrial Flight from Los Angeles, August 7, 1991. Collection 293, Box 4775, Folders 1-2, Tom Bradley Administrative
Papers, University of California, Los Angeles Special Collections, Los Angeles, California. 471 Mayor Bradley letter to GM CEO Robert Stempel, August 16, 1991, folder 26, box 4760, Tom Bradley
Administrative Papers, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
472 Ibid. 473 Using the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) Title III funds, the Bradley administration initiated a series of
programs for displaced workers to assist with retraining and job replacement. Although these programs were intended to
aid workers, the JTPA has had a mixed legacy. Scholars have argued that the JTPA contributed to the infusion of market
ideology into the administration of social policy. See Dan Nuckols, “Public/Private Partnerships as Implementing
Strategy: The Job Training Partnership Act,” Journal of Economic Issues 24, no. 2 (June 1990), 645-651; Thomas R. Bailey,
“Market Forces and Private Sector Processes in Government Policy: the Job Training Partnership Act,” Journal of Policy
Analysis and Management 7 No. 2 (1988), 300-315.

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railway research and development.474 It was always his goal to see that the site be devoted to
industrial use. Bradley requested Stempel’s cooperation on several occasions but was ultimately
disappointed by the GM CEO’s resistance to work with the city to find an alternative industrial use
for the plant.475 On October 23, 1991 Bradley announced his administration and the Los Angeles
County Transportation Commission’s hope that the Morrison Knudsen (MK) Corporation might
purchase the GM plant and convert it into a state-of-the-art assembly plant of rail cars. Unlike GM,
which seemed simply to abandon the area, “[MK] made a major commitment to the Los Angeles
economy.”476
Representatives from the private sector were involved in the discussions, and key
stakeholders in the site’s future, but the priority of the Bradley administration and other democratic
representatives was that the plant be used for manufacturing purposes.477
By December it was clear that Bradley and his democratic allies could not persuade GM to
reconsider its plans for shutdown. The politicians held a press conference to relay their discontent.
“I did not find General Motors willing to reinvest back in Southern California to the extent that
Southern California has been willing to invest in GM,” Assemblyman Katz bemoaned. 478 Los
Angeles commuters had been loyal GM customers for decades and helped make its Camaros and
Firebirds the company’s hottest selling model.479 Democrats like Katz insisted that General Motors
had a duty to hire and manufacture in the region.
474 “Work Together or Flop Together: Recent Economic Blows Show the Need for a Public/Private Partnership,” Los
Angeles Times, Aug. 9, 1991. 475 Mayor Bradley letter to GM CEO Robert Stempel, August 19, 1991, folder 27, box 4760, Tom Bradley
Administrative Papers, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
476 “Bradley Announces Major Corporation Actively Pursuing Building a Rail Car Construction Plant at the General
Motors Facility,” October 23, 1991, folder 1, box 4933, Tom Bradley Administrative Papers, Special Collections,
University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 477 Michael Stremfel, “Ideas Abound for the Redevelopment of GM Plant,” Los Angeles Business Journal, Aug. 5, 1991. 478 Frank Clifford, “GM Stands Fast on Van Nuys Closure,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 18, 1991. 479 Eric Avila, The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City (St Paul, MN, 2014) ; Scott L. Bottles, Los
Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City (Berkeley, CA, 1991).

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For Katz, the scheduled closure of one of his district’s longest running and most productive
manufacturing firms presented an important political opportunity. In 1990, he announced a possible
1993 mayoral run, and in November 1992, he was up for re-election. A successful bid to keep the
GM Van Nuys plant open—and stand up for the blue-collar workers who lived in his working-class
district—would shore up his popularity. It was no wonder that Katz “made no attempt to conceal
his bitterness about [GM’s] decision” at the December 17 press conference.480 But Katz had
detractors like Ernest Dynda of Agoura Hills who decried his seeming opportunism:
When it comes to a healthy California economy and the preservation of manufacturing jobs,
our politicians are a day late and a dollar short. Typical is the sobbing of Assemblyman
Richard Katz over the closure of the General Motors Van Nuys Plant, scheduled in 1992.
Where was Katz in 1989, when GM was looking for help and direction as it planned its
facility usage in a changing market? County Supervisor Mike Antonovich made contacts with
GM’s Detroit leaders and received tentative commitments to look at electric car production
as a possibility. While Richard Katz was planning gas-tax increases, and bond proposals
(more taxes) for rapid transit and other schemes, other states were luring GM away with
incentives and protections against runaway regulation.481
Dynda’s broadside bespoke an emergent political polemic: What had caused, and who was really to
blame, for the flight of industry from the city? For constituents like Dynda, moderate democrats like
Richard Katz failed by not incentivizing corporations like GM to stay or by maintaining a more probusiness stance. Environmental regulations and high taxes drove industry away and left areas like
Panorama City in a state of social and economic distress. Dynda’s words reverberated for the
remainder of the decade, as politicians from across the political spectrum clamored to fill the void
left by heavy industry and to “revitalize” the communities left reeling from its absence.
Urban studies scholar Joel Kotkin indicted the city’s “psychological deindustrialization,” a
process by which “business and political elites lose their fundamental faith in their community’s
ability to compete successfully in the global economy.”482 Yet based on their memorandum, task
480 “Ideas Abound.” 481 Ernest Dyna, “Too Little, Too Late on GM Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 24, 1991. 482 Joel Kotkin, “Catching the Next Wave,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 11, 1991.

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force, and public statements, neither Bradley nor his leading officials fell prey to “psychological
deindustrialization.” They maintained that Los Angeles County was still a hub of industrial
productivity and attempted to forestall the area’s economic erosion. Whether it was willful blindness
or political maneuvering, the Bradley administration did not accept industrial flight as a predestined
outcome of economic restructuring. There were still options and steps to take to ensure the
continued existence of high-paying manufacturing jobs.
Some, including Kotkin, were less convinced that the retention of heavy manufacturing was
worth aspiring for. At question, rather, was how the city might rebound from the era’s irreversible
economic shifts and how its residents would re-emerge in the post-Fordist era.483 Kotkin directed his
critique towards those who “largely devalue market capitalism as a way out of the economic
malaise.” As he wrote,
No degree of revived class consciousness or government subsidy, for instance, will bring
back the high-paying unionized factory jobs at Van Nuys… Nor will the agenda of the
emerging “progressive” factions or the much-talked-about coalition of ‘people of color’
likely spark any reindustrialization. For one thing, many associated with this effort have little
but contempt for even the basic principles of capitalism.484
Kotkin endorsed a vision for Los Angeles that embraced revitalization through ethnic owned
businesses, entertainment, international trade, tourism, and high technology electronics. He argued
for growth in the garment and textile industries, which, he said, “should continue to expand,
fostered by a steady influx of labor, skills, and capital from overseas.”485 Kotkin’s response to the
city’s shifting economy did not address how the city might support its new “working class,”
including many recently settled undocumented migrants filling the city’s service sector. Kotkin’s
483 Indeed, the flurry of comments reflected less of a concern for enticing industrial giants to stay and more a
preoccupation with what would replace them and how.
484 Kotkin’s comments also reveal the extent to which neoliberal economic restructuring was a racial project, designed to
reify existing social hierarchies in the post-Fordist era. 485 Kotkin, “Catching the Next Wave,”

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words underscored the neo-recovery partnership that would eventually create The Plant and the
grafting of neoliberal ideology to community revitalization.
Blythe Street and the Restructuring-Generated Crisis in the Northeast San Fernando Valley
GM’s planned closure of the Van Nuys plant came amidst a climate of economic malaise
and an “increasingly negative image of the city in the national and local media.”486 But no image was
as pernicious as that painted by the local media and residents who denounced the blight surrounding
the GM Plant, especially Blythe Street. By the early 1990s, Blythe Street, a two-block residential
neighborhood that ran perpendicular to Van Nuys Boulevard and the GM plant, had become a
symbol of all that besieged the Northeast Valley—and by extension the city of Los Angeles—in the
era of economic restructuring: “Police call Blythe a ‘supermarket’ for drug dealers. Local public
health officials say it is a ‘hotbed’ for communicable diseases. Although some of the area’s
apartment buildings are well-maintained, most are run-down and a few appear to be little more than
dank dungeons…”487
Blythe street was also the wellspring of the Blythe Street Locos, a gang founded in the 1980s
that the media and police surveilled constantly. As one reporter described it, “if you want to get a
look at the troubles bedeviling Los Angeles—the recession and gangs—this isn’t a bad place to
start… Blythe is one of those streets packed with low-rent apartments, a place where some people
hand laundry to dry on a chain link fence and the occasional sofa sits abandoned at curbside. The
Latino neighborhood is a mix of working poor, people on welfare and gang members.”488
Disparaging and racialized portrayals of Blythe Street had saturated the pages of the Los Angeles Times
486 Ibid. 487 Stephanie Chavez, “Crime, Disease Plague Blythe Street Open Drug Sales and Unsanitary Conditions Are Rampant in
Van Nuys Barrio,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 24, 1985. 488 Scott Harris, “Wheels of Change Turning at Plant Site,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 6, 1996.

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and the Valley Daily News for decades.489 Even before the announced closure of the General Motors
plant, Blythe Street had been the target of high scale law enforcement, including Operation Cul-DeSac, which involved placing barricades on street ends to deter drug trafficking.490 Such
contemptuous depictions of the street’s residents, primarily recently settled migrants, reinforced the
“Latino Threat Narrative,” circulating throughout Los Angeles in the early 1990s.491
The impending closure of the General Motors plant exasperated public fears. It led one
resident to call for a jail to be put in its place: “We in the West Valley know that the Van Nuys
General Motors Plant is in a very high crime and dope-infested area—the perfect place to build a
prison. That’s where most of the crime in our Valley is, so why not house the criminals in their own
area?”492 Besides its abject racism, the op-ed bolstered the narrative that prisons were the remedy to
deindustrialization and mass incarceration the solution to poverty.493 Such a process was already
afoot in other deindustrializing suburbs of Los Angeles like Lynwood, where Lockheed, which once
operated and employed in the thousands, would eventually be replaced by the Lynwood Regional
Justice Center.494 No authority seemed to entertain the suggestion, but there were calls from
community members and city officials that at least a portion of the auto plant’s site be dedicated to
law enforcement.495
Blythe Street typified to the public what was at risk for the community when the plant
closed. Without the plant to draw workers and business, the surrounding area seemed vulnerable to
489 Jocelyn Stewart, “Apartment Building is a Rare Refuge from Street’s Mayhem,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 24, 1992. 490 Richard Lee Colvin, “Police to Seek broad Powers Against Panorama City Gang,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 10, 1992;
John Johnson, “Barricades Make a Dead End for Crime,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1990. In addition, from May 1987-
July 1989 a special narcotics task force of 13 uniformed officers from police divisions throughout the San Fernando
Valley surveilled Blythe Street in search of drug dealers. See Tracey Kaplan, “Private Fund Offered to Fight Crime,” Los
Angeles Times, Aug. 11, 1989. 491 Leo R. Chavez, Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (Palo Alto, CA, 2008). 492 Joseph F. Barcarella, “Other Avenues Open for GM Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 9, 1991. 493 See Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (Berkeley, CA
2007).
494 Michael Z. Dean, “From Lockheed to Lockdown in Lynwood; Unemployment and the Resurgence of California’s
Carceral State,” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2022).
495 Hugo Martin, “GM Project Raises Crime, Traffic Concerns,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 7, 1996.

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even greater decline. The fate of Blythe Street, and the city’s response to it in the post-1992 era,
became entwined with the overall revitalization of the community and the redevelopment of the
GM auto plant. Racialized and criminal depictions of Blythe Street, its residents and its struggles,
belied decades of municipal divestment in the Northeast San Fernando Valley. Perhaps Blythe Street
was beset by unlawful activity, but its residents deserved far more than barricades and perpetual
police surveillance. What they needed, however, was up for debate in much the same way that the
public soon deliberated over its response to areas most impacted by the Los Angeles Uprising, just a
year later.
The LARZ: The Los Angeles Uprising from the Perspective of the (818)
Given how the media skewed its coverage of the events spanning April 29-May 4th, 1992 few
people have a clear sense of how the Uprising impacted areas outside of South Los Angeles. The
Northeast Valley, especially the immediate community surrounding the GM Van Nuys plant, was
within the overall geography of the Uprising. During those six days, the neighborhood of Panorama
City became a locus of looting and arson. In his vivid auto-ethnographic account of economic
restructuring in the Northeast Valley, cultural geographer Stefano Bloch observed how during the
days of the Uprising,
The National Guard surrounded the Panorama Mall even as our local convenience stores
burned to the ground after being emptied of their bags of chips, cases of beer, and bootleg
CDs. The symbolism of that line of guards suggested that the mall was the only thing worth
saving in our neighborhood, although most of us rarely shopped there. The smoke from the
fires filled our apartment and burned our eyes as news helicopters circled overhead with a
constant deafening roar.496
Bloch’s recollections convey the priority given to retail spaces like the Panorama Mall. The National
Guard’s flanking of the commercial center, a relic of its postwar identity as a white suburban
enclave, demonstrated to young residents that the spaces popularized by locals (liquor and
496 Bloch, “An Autoethnographic Account,” 386.

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convenient stores in particular) were disposable property. By contrast, commercial institutions were
structures to protect. The premium placed on the Panorama Mall during the Uprising presaged the
civic outlook of the post-1992 era. It was as if the Panorama Mall was a fortress of community
empowerment paving the way for revitalization in the neoliberal era.
Although news coverage of the 1992 Uprising glossed over areas like Panorama City, local
and state politicians were aware that the damage extended beyond South Los Angeles (Figure 19).
With Rebound L.A. at work in South Los Angeles, democratic Assemblywoman Marguerite ArchieHudson of the state’s 48th district introduced AB38X, a measure to create the Los Angeles
Revitalization Zone (LARZ). LARZ was a five-year place-based community economic development
program designed to give tax breaks to businesses “that rebuild their facilities and create jobs for
residents who live in the riot-torn neighborhoods.”497 Policy makers pursued a policy response that
“focused on economic development and community self-determination through community
development and small-business enterprises.”498
497 Jerry Gillam, “Senate Oks Bill to Create Riot Revitalization Zone,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 12, 1992. 498 James H. Spencer and Paul Ong, “An Analysis of the Los Angeles Revitalization Zone: Are Place-Based Investment
Strategies Effective Under Moderate Economic Conditions?” Economic Development Quarterly 18, no. 4 (Nov. 2004) 368-
383, 370.

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Figure 1
Figure 19: A map of the damaged building sites. The circle marks the area surrounding the GM auto plant.
“Reports of the Ad Hoc Committee on Recovery and Revitalization,” Tom Bradley Administrative Papers, folders
18, box 825, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
In early September, 1992 the LARZ bill cleared the Assembly 27 to 2, leading State Senator
Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) to call AB38X, “the only major bill to come out of the Legislature to
attempt to rebuild the community.”499 The bill stipulated that eligible areas were those with a zip
code or a census tract that contained two or more damaged structures, that included an area zoned
either commercial or industrial, and either contained or was adjacent to census tract(s) which qualify
499 Ibid.

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Figure 20: A map of the proposed revitalization zones. The circle marks the area surrounding the GM auto
plant. “Reports of the Ad Hoc Committee on Recovery and Revitalization,” Tom Bradley Administrative
Papers, folder 19, box 825, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
as a High Density Unemployment Area (HDUA) (Figure 20) .
500 Tax incentives in the LARZ would
include income tax credit for hiring construction workers who live in the zone and sales tax credit
for the purchase of building materials to replace or repair damaged structures. In addition, banks
and other lending institutions would receive a tax break on the net interest income from debt
payments.501
500 “Reports of the Ad Hoc Committee on Recovery and Revitalization,” folders 18-20, box 825, Tom Bradley
Administrative Papers, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
501 James Nguyen H. Spencer and Paul Ong, “An Analysis of the Los Angeles Revitalization Zone.”

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Although the LARZ emerged in the wake of the 1992 Uprising, its provenance lay in the
place-based development programs that proliferated in the United States since the 1980s. Policies to
reduce and eliminate urban poverty have been a feature of U.S. policy stretching back to the rise of
industrial capitalism. But it was not until the early 1970s when British urban planner Peter Hall
introduced the term “enterprise zone” as a mechanism to stimulate growth in low-income
neighborhoods. Enterprise zones operated by guaranteeing low taxes and eradicating governmental
interference for businesses in geographically designated areas.502 They migrated to the United States
in the early 1980s when Representatives Jack Kemp (R-NY) and Robert Garcia (D-NY) sponsored
the Urban Development and Enterprise Act.503 Throughout the 1980s, many states, including
California, experimented with enterprise zones in order to generate private sector investment in
economically distressed areas (Figure 3).504 Yet in the aftermath of the 1992 Uprising, Los Angeles
policy makers backed LARZ, pinning faith on the private sector to ignite redevelopment and
promote community repair.505 At the time, John Bryant, chairman and founder of Operation Hope,
502 Stuart M. Butler, “Enterprise Zones: Pioneering the Inner City,” Economic Development Tools (1981), 25-41. 503 See Lily Geismer, Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality (New York, 2022), 143-169; Don Hirasuna
and Joel Michael, Minnesota House of Representatives, Enterprise Zones: A Review of the Economic Theory and Empirical
Evidence Policy Brief, Jan. 2005; https://www.house.mn.gov/hrd/pubs/entzones.pdf (accessed May 12, 2023); Jill
Zuckman, “Enterprise Zone Alchemy: ‘90s-Style Urban Renewal: In Washington, Policy makers Debate Whether the
Idea Works, How Many Areas to Target and Which incentives to Use,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 50 (1992),
2354-7; Theodore R. Carter, III, “Job Creation and Urban Renewal in the 1980s: The Kemp-Garcia Urban Jobs and
Enterprise Zone Bill,” St Louis University Public Law Forum 3 (1983), 177-98. 504 To date, the results of enterprise zones continue to be mixed. See James H. Spencer and Paul Ong, “An Analysis of
the Los Angeles Revitalization Zone”; A.H. Peters and P.S. Fisher, “State Enterprise Zones Programs: Have They
Worked?” Upjohn Institute, Jan. 1, 2002,
https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1057&context=up_press&mc_cid=70f649e2da&mc_eid=UNI
QID (accessed May 12, 2023).
505 “Reports of the Ad Hoc Committee on Recovery and Revitalization,” Tom Bradley Administrative Papers, folders 18-20,
box 825, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

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summarized the general mindset: “The inner city isn’t going to be rebuilt and revitalized without the
financial community.”506
The LARZ rolled out throughout the remainder of 1992 and lasted five years. Its inclusion
of the area surrounding the GM auto plant generated far less media attention than its expansion into
areas scarcely, if at all, impacted by the unrest.507 As it turned out, the LARZ became a controversial
(and largely denounced) piece of legislation. Upon hearing that the LARZ was providing tax breaks
to businesses in some of the most affluent areas of Long Beach, Assemblywoman Archie-Hudson
proclaimed “this is not what was supposed to happen.”508 Although the LARZ proved controversial,
it set a precedent for the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), which sought to
revitalize poor and low income areas by incentivizing the business sector to redevelop abandoned
land. Indeed, the LARZ coverage of Panorama City served a role in the replacement of the GM auto
plant site. It inspired the area’s representatives, especially Richard Alarcón and Los Angeles Mayor,
Richard Riordan, who both took office in 1993, to not only see tax-break zones as an integral
component of revitalization but to see them as evidence of “recovery” for residents in Los Angeles.
“There Will be a Hole in the Valley Larger Than Hell”: The Closure of GM Van Nuys
In the weeks following the Uprising, city officials and Mayor Bradley focused on providing
assistance to areas affected by the events. Meanwhile, auto workers at the General Motors auto plant
in Van Nuys labored through their last summer on the assembly line.
The switches went on and the work began. Things clanged and banged and slammed, and
welding torches sent huge showers of sparks into the air… conveyor belts jerked with a
hissss (sic) of steam, and fire walls and fenders… rock and rap music from dueling radios
506 Kara Glover, “Revitalization Zone Plan Wins Lukewarm Reception,” Los Angeles Business Journal 15, no. 4 (1993), 6. 507 Tina Griego, “Zone of Contention: Critics Blast Tax Incentives for Areas Untouched by Riots,” Los Angeles Times,
Nov. 11, 1993; Jill Levoy, “Tax Breaks’ Success in Riot-Torn Zone Unclear,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 18, 1995. 508 Griego,” Zone of Contention.”

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clashed in the oily air, creating yet a second level of dissonance that became a surreal
Salvador Dali world translated abruptly into sound.509
By May, some workers had retired. Others capitalized on a contract signed in 1990 between GM
and the UAW that guaranteed workers’ 100 percent of their take home pay through 1993 provided
they enroll in retraining programs at different educational institutions throughout the area. Auto
workers signed up for classes at community colleges and vocational schools.510
Besides investing in retraining programs, auto workers showed up to the plant with a mix of
grief, denial, and fury.511 Los Angeles Times reporter, Al Martinez, whose son-in-law was set to lose his
job, rued: “There’ll be a hole in the Valley larger than hell.”512 Workers felt a deep sense of betrayal.
“It ain’t right,” said one twenty-eight year veteran: “The work’s going to Canada, Mexico, and the
South because GM can get it done cheaper.” Workers had their own interpretations of GM’s
decision to close their plant, but few denied that global economic restructuring had made U.S.
automobile production a dying craft.513 “We will become the early casualties of Bush’s proposed
North American Free Trade Agreement,” asserted three of the original organizers of the Campaign to
Keep Van Nuys Open.514 Manuel Olimpio, a fifteen-year veteran, complained that “They gave us a
medallion and a barbeque picnic. We don’t need that. We need a job.”515 Cheaper labor costs,
509 Al Martinez, “It’s Almost Time to Turn Out The Lights at the GM Plant in Van Nuys,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 18,
1992.
510 Jeff Schnaufer, “Ex-GM Workers Flock to Classes,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 29, 2002.. Yet a plan was also in place for
workers after the plant closed in August. Workers would be eligible for two educational opportunities, namely 2,800
hours of classes under a tuition assistance program at regionally accredited four-year colleges and universities,
community colleges, or vocational training schools or 1,8000 hours of job-related courses that would be taught inside the
plant by LAUSD contracted Adult and Occupational Teachers. David Rees, “Laid-Off Van Nuys Workers Crowd Classes
as GM Pays for Retraining,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 30, 1992.
511 Al Martinez, “It’s Almost Time to Turn Out The Lights at the GM Plant in Van Nuys,” Los Angeles Times, August 18,
1992. Author participant observation with UAW Local 645 workers at monthly retiree meetings September 2022-April
2023.
512 Ibid. 513 Many workers reasoned that GM had closed the plant because of increasing environmental hazards in the
surrounding areas. Neighbors complained incessantly about the paint fumes and pollution. Some workers believed this,
and a class-action lawsuit brought against GM, was the main reason the company pulled out of Van Nuys. 514 Mark Masaoka, Jake Flukers, Pete Beltran, “The Tragedy of GM Closing,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 6, 1992. 515 Patrice Apodaca, “End of the Road for GM’s Van Nuys Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 28, 1992.

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deregulation, and international competition put employees out of work. Of that, they were sure.
“We’re all in our 40s. What are we going to do? Asked Joan Ochoa, a fifteen-year veteran.516 Chris
Dorval’s answer? “Anything and probably everything.” Physical traces of workers’ resentment
materialized: Cigarette butts and beer bottles were tossed into unfinished cars, and there was an
unusually high rate of absenteeism.
Soon August 27th, the date of closure, arrived. At work that day, employees held back tears
as they exchanged hugs and addresses. Juanita Washington, a twenty-two year veteran, said she had
been crying all day. “I’m losing all of my friends. They are like your family.”517 The plant manager
distributed memory books resembling yearbooks and featuring classroom-style photos of each
assembly department (Figure 4). Worked lined up to see the final Camaro roll off the line. For Maria
Negrete, a seventeen-year veteran, it was not until that moment that she realized it was the end.
Hundreds of workers signed the last Camaro, which bore the sign on its back bumper, “the
heartbeat of America stops here.”518 The closure of the last automobile assembly plant west of the
Rockies symbolized the collapse of U.S. industrial dominance, a wrenching rupture with the West’s
past (Figure 5).
For Jim Ealy, a twenty-one year GM veteran, the Van Nuys plant closure was his second
time walking away from friends and colleagues. He had been a transplant from Southgate. Back in
1983, Ealy had the option to continue working for GM in his hometown and seized it. 519 The
closure of GM Van Nuys, however, put him and so many others who had yet to complete thirty
years (the amount of time needed for retirement) in the position of taking a buyout, relocating to
another state, or opting into retraining programs until the UAW-GM contract ended in 1993. Greg
516 Lisa Pope, “Final Day Arrives at GM Plant,” Valley Daily News, Aug. 27, 1992. 517 Ibid. 518 See Andrew Warren and Tim Moore, “When Camaros and Firebirds Roamed the San Fernando Valley,” Los Angeles
Times, Aug. 25, 2022. 519 Lisa Pope, “Grim Goodbyes at GM.”

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Joseph, also a Southgate transplant, took his luck by driving to the Wichita Falls, Texas GM plant
hoping to get off the lengthy waitlist there. Lois Booker, also from Southgate, simply worried about
her Van Nuys colleagues. After the Southgate plant’s closure, she lost a friend to suicide and
watched the dissolution of many friends’ marriages.
Jose Casas who had retired from the plant the year before, arrived with his mariachi band to
play a Mexican folk song often heard at funerals and farewell parties.520 Lingering in the parking lot,
workers shared memories. Abigail Martin, for example, recalled how she was the first female
employee to become pregnant while working on the line and named her son Chevy Jr. Virginia
Miramontes, the first female assembly line worker, picked a rose from the bushes that adorned the
front entrance of the plant: “The rose feels sad because they’ve been neglected in the same sense
they’re neglecting us.” Miramontes continued, “some of us couldn’t say goodbye to each other
because we had lumps in our throats… I’ve left a part of me here.” 521 (Figure 6). Other workers had
a slightly more sanguine outlook. In the “Fender Bender,” the Local 645’s newsletter, Monica from
the second shift implored her “Brothers and Sisters [to]… hold your heads high and although this is
the end of the line, Be strong, think positive, new beginnings are here. It’s time to move on with our
families and friends. Let’s keep our friendships together, don’t ever let that end! For we are family
you and I.”522
520 Ibid; Patrice Apodaca, “End of Road for GM’s Van Nuys Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 28, 1992. 521 Terri Vermuelen, “Final Car Rolls off GM’s las SoCal Assembly Line,” United Press International, Aug. 28, 1992. 522 Fender Bender newsletter, “The End of the Line.” Van Nuys Plant,
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1283960911739108&set=g.485272624890829 (accessed May 8, 2023)

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Figure 21: Photo of the GM Van Nuys Auto Plant Memory book, distributed to employees on the
plant’s last day in operation. “Van Nuys Plant 8000 Van Nuys Blvd 91409” Facebook Group
Figure 22: Photo of workers lined up to see the last Camaro roll off the line. “Van Nuys Plant 8000
Van Nuys Blvd 91409” Facebook Group

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Figure 23: Memory book photo of the Soft Trim department. “Van Nuys Plant 8000 Van Nuys Blvd 91409”
Facebook Group.
Even though closure brought uncertainty, workers had some security thanks to the 1990
UAW-GM contract. The local establishments that depended on the plant’s workforce for business,
however, were less fortunate. City officials understood that every manufacturing job rippled out to
create new jobs in the community. As Benjamin Reznik, the chairman of the Valley Industry and
Commerce Association explained, “the closure of the GM plant is devasting for the area because
each manufacturing job creates several other jobs for suppliers and service oriented businesses.”523
Yet no individual or agency gave much consideration to the bars, liquor stores, pizza joints, or
restaurants facing economic hardship once the plant shut down. The owners of the Trophy Room
bar, Ray and Pearl Foster, felt the plant’s closure in a myriad of ways. Besides the loss of revenue
was the loss of friendships and community: “When you’ve been around for 26 years, it’s more of a
friendship loss than a business loss,” Ray exclaimed.524 In the weeks after the plant closed, Opies bar
523 Hugo Martin, “GM Closure Also Hurts Merchants,” Los Angeles Times, Sept.14, 1992. 524 Martin, “GM Closure.”

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owner Flower Nguyen, an entrepreneur of Vietnamese descent, experienced a 50-75 percent drop in
sales. More than that, she missed her friends. Shop owners like the Fosters and Nguyen had
weathered the plant’s historic lay-offs. But the workers had always came back. Small businesses had
witnessed an older generation retire. But then came their children. The plant’s closure was definitive.
Besides enduring the emotional fallout of the plant’s shutdown, small business owners
contended with an increasingly deserted area. Ever since GM put the Van Nuys plant on the
“danger list,” the surrounding business corridors deteriorated. Plant closure expedited the area’s
economic downturn by reducing real estate values and increasing retail vacancies. Residents of
Panorama City, especially the Blythe Street community, experienced the plant closure as a form of
imprisonment. First, the plant had a chain link fence enclosing its hundred-acre lot. Charred wood
and debris from the Uprising still scattered the neighborhood. And then, worst of all, the Los
Angeles Police Department (LAPD) encaged the entire Blythe Street community by placing concrete
barriers at the east end of the street leading to the plant.525 The physical injunction closed off “the
neighborhood to the growing drug trade, the solicitation of prostitution, and drive by shootings.
Residents had to enter and exit the neighborhood across the street from the No Trespassing sign in
front of the plant’s entrance.” Evictions abounded. A year after the plant closed, the City Attorney
ordered a civil gang injunction against hundreds of Blythe Street residents, effectively barring them
from the area to which they lay claim, now considered a “safe zone,” and driving them further
north, deeper into the Panorama City/Pacoima border.526
The area’s business establishment called for private investment and a pro-business response
to the plant’s closure. Richard L. Paley, executive vice president of the United Chambers of
525 See Paul Hoffman and Mark Silverstein, “Safe Streets Don’t Require Lifting Rights,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 11, 1993;
“False Premise, False Promise: The Blythe Street Gang Injunction and Its Aftermath,” A Report by the ACLU Foundation
of Southern California, May 1997, https://www.scribd.com/document/99227764/False-Premise-False-Promise (accessed
May 8, 2023).
526 Bloch, Going All City, 121.

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Commerce of the San Fernando Valley insisted that “We need to have our city council promote
business not negate business.”527 Paley’s words reflected the outlook of California Governor, Pete
Wilson, who believed that both Los Angeles and the state must rebound “business-by-business, jobby-job.”528 Fortunately, the LARZ had just cleared the California Senate. And though there was still
no plan for the shuttered GM plant, it appeared that conditions might conspire to make the site
liable for private sector intervention. The hundred-acre of land fell within the LARZ, but several
years passed before developers took advantage of tax incentives to implement any kind of
redevelopment. In the meantime, Assemblyman Richard Katz proposed the first potential
replacement for the plant. Katz’ plan was a PPP to convert the auto plant into a Department of
Transportation research and development center to help private firms produce high speed-rail lines,
clean-air vehicles and develop other advanced forms of urban transit.529
By April 1993, Katz’ idea had gone nowhere and General Motors reported that there had
been no specific offers on the site. The press predicted that the plant was likely to become “one of
the biggest industrial real estate white elephants Los Angeles has seen.” 530 (Figure 7). The
abandoned auto plant caught the attention of real estate developer Dan Selleck, of Selleck
Properties, a private Woodland Hills-based real estate brokerage that Dan, his father, and his brother
the actor Tom Selleck opened.531
527 Ibid. 528 Carla Rivera, “Wilson Says Restaurant in Example of Rebuilding,” Los Angeles Ties, Jan. 14, 1993. 529 Hugo Martin, “Closed GM Plant May Be Research Site,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 4, 1993. 530 Patrice Apodaca, “Site of Old GM plant Is Facing a Rocky Road,” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1993. 531 Dan Selleck Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, Mar. 6, 2023, Los Angeles, CA.

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The City’s “White Elephant”: The Plant Nobody Wanted
Born and raised in Van Nuys, Dan Selleck grew up knowing dozens of neighbors who
worked at the GM plant. As a boy, he took field trips through the plant’s Body Shop and was scared
of all the wires, guns, and sounds inside. In 1994, when Dan saw the site bordered up and
abandoned, he pondered how he might help. Yet the odds were firmly against Dan, and any other
party for that matter, that expressed interest in the shuttered plant. Other deindustrialized suburbs
of Los Angeles, namely the City of Commerce, Pico Rivera, and Southgate, had attempted to
redevelop areas once inhabited by heavy industry, but had little success regenerating the kind of jobs
the closed manufacturing firms had provided. On the one hand, there was the city of Southgate,
which had purchased the ninety-acre site GM plant for $12 million in 1985 and sold it to a private
developer. But by 1992, only two parcels boasted buildings. Developers believed it would take
another five years to complete the entire redevelopment. (The Southgate plant’s slow and long death
and its paltry replacement helped create the conditions that resulted in Uprising.) On the other hand,
there was the City of Commerce, which had lost the Chrysler Plant, as well as the Firestone Tire &
Rubber and Uniroyal plants. That city struggled until the private developer Trammell Crow
converted the former industrial sector into a massive retail center called the Citadel.532 The Citadel
generated jobs but, as Ira Gwin the city’s Director of Community Development put it, “We’ve lost a
lot our good-paying blue-collar workers and they’ve been replaced by quite a bit of office, retail, and
low-paying, non-union warehouse workers.”533 With the Citadel in mind as a model, real estate
developers in the San Fernando Valley envisioned a retail complex or distribution center for the GM
plant replacement.
532 “The Citadel to Rise at Former Tire Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 22, 1987; Leon Whiteson, “Citadel of Commerce,”
Los Angeles Times, Feb. 1, 1991. 533 Patrice Apodaca, “Van Nuys Faces Tough Road in Finding a Buyer for GM Plant,” Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1993.

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Figure 24: The front page of the Los Angeles Times labeling the abandoned GM auto plant the city’s “White
Elephant.” A framed photo of the article adorns the walls of the Woodland Hills office of real estate developer
Dan Selleck, whose firm, Selleck Properties, eventually purchased and developed the auto plant into the
commercial power house the Plant. Dan Selleck text message to author.
A year and a half after closure, the hundred-acre site still lay shuttered without any
redevelopment prospects in the pipeline.534 Local politicians and GM remained hopeful that a
manufacturing firm would purchase the site while real estate brokers pushed for its conversion into
a retail center. Councilman Richard Alarcón voiced concern: “We could swing some kind of retail
operation in the near future. But we probably would lose in the long run.”535 He worried about the
impact retail would have on other businesses, not to mention that commercial development would
funnel thousands into low-paying non-unionized labor.536 As a freshman councilmember, Alarcón
brought new energy and a bevy of young staff members to confront the challenges facing the 7th
district. Yet he also hoped that the Pacoima Enterprise Zone and the LARZ—which no city official
from the San Fernando Valley had yet to leverage in earnest for revitalization purposes—would
534 Ibid. 535 Russ Britt, “Still No takers for Local Plant Site,” Valley Daily News, Oct. 10, 1993. 536 Russ Britt, “Sale to City is Only One Option,” Valley Daily News, Mar.10, 1994.

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finally trigger economic recovery.537 District Seven had the lowest annual household income in the
Valley and the highest number of multi-unit family housing. Alarcón looked to tax-incentivized
development programs as at least one, if not the main, catalyst for community revitalization.538 As
Jim Lites of the state Assembly Taxation and Revenue Committee put it, “everyone wants a zone,
it’s the “in’ thing.”539
And then, the Valley shook. At 4:31 am on January 17th, 1994 residents of the San Fernando
Valley—and the entire Los Angeles County—were suddenly jostled out of sleep by a 6.7 magnitude
earthquake. The damage wreaked by the 1994 Northridge earthquake was unfathomable for even
those most inured to the region’s shifting plates. It caused over fifty-seven fatalities, over $20 billion
in damages and over $40 billion in economic loss.540 Official response to the earthquake, not all that
dissimilar from the 1992 Uprising, revealed how vital private sector assistance had become within
the city’s “ecology of fear” and its vision of social policy—disaster capitalism as some put it. 541 On
July 12, 1994, the L.A. City Council approved a plan to include the former GM plant site in its
“Northridge Quake Recovery Zone.” The recovery zone granted the Community Redevelopment
Agency (CRA) latitude to use property taxes from recovery areas to bankroll bond measures for
public improvements and provide loans to quake victims. 542
Additionally, any recovery zone, CRA-backed redevelopment project would utilize tax
increment financing (TIFs).543 TIFs performed two critical functions. First, they allowed for
redevelopment projects to be funded through speculative future tax revenues. In other words,
537 Hugo Martin, “Alarcón Brings New Vigor to 7 th District,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 25, 1993. 538 “Alarcón Hopeful on Post-Gm Jobs,” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1994. 539 Levoy, “Tax Breaks’ Success in Riot-Torn Zone Unclear,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 18, 1995. 540 California Department of Conservation, “Northridge Earthquake, January 17, 1994,”
https://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/earthquakes/northridge (accessed May 20, 2023). 541 Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (Verso, 2022). 542 A. Leonard Smith to Gary Mendoza, November 20, 1996, box 764738, Executive Office of Mayor Antonio R.
Villaraigosa Collection, Los Angeles City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, CA. 543 Tax increment financing (TIF) began in the postwar period through the passage of Proposition 18. But by the 1990s,
it had become one of the most popular means to fund urban redevelopment. See Adams, Neoliberal Cities.

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redevelopment projects could use the promise of future profits to pay for the project. Second, TIFs
incentivized “municipalities toward private, commercial development rather than public, residential
development.”544 Placing the former GM site within the earthquake recovery zone—and, therefore,
available for CRA, tax increment financed projects—made the site much more attractive to private
developers who watched as GM struggled to sell its shuttered Van Nuys plant.
Yet given the CRA’s controversial history in the city, several critics railed against how much
power the recovery zone would vest in the agency. Beyond the repercussions of TIFs, some feared
that the recovery proposal would permit redevelopment officials to use eminent domain powers to
condemn homes and businesses. As one critic put it, “when you recover, you don’t recover by
taking everybody’s homes and businesses away.”545 The statement illustrated the crux of L.A.’s
approach to 1990s deindustrialization and social unrest. What exactly did it mean “to recover”? Did
recovery mean redevelopment through an influx of private dollars into impoverished communities
and of service-oriented businesses that paid meager wages, but at least provided jobs? It seemed that
few politicians questioned recovery in the non-economic sense. To what extent was recovery an
affective endeavor? If industrial jobs were not coming back, then how could revitalization still
provide residents a sense of belonging (as the GM plant had its employees and local business
owners), as well as stable, livable wages for the area’s residents?
In the summer of 1994, GM finally reported receiving several offers for the site. One of
those offers came from the city of Los Angeles itself, which offered to purchase the site via a nonprofit in exchange for a series of tax breaks. GM held out for a higher bidder but lowered the asking
price from $50 to $30 million.546 With both the LARZ and the Recovery Zone in place, the GM site
544 Adams, Neoliberal Cities, 58. 545 Hugo Martin, “GM Plant Tabbed for ‘Recovery Area’ Plan,” Los Angeles Times, July 12, 1994. 546 “Alarcón Hopeful on Post-GM Jobs, But Deal’s Not Done in a Day,” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1994; Patrice
Apodaca, “Asking Price for GM Plant Drops,” Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1994.

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was more appealing to private developers.547 Dan Selleck saw his opening. For the site, he
envisioned a mixed-use, part commercial, part light industrial complex. The large, boxy parcel of
land seemed destined for the increasingly popular “power center” of big box chains like Home
Depot or OfficeMax. The population density of the Panorama City community was also
appealing.548 Dan recognized an amenable climate for private redevelopment. GM had done its due
diligence clearing contaminated soil and mitigating any environmental hazards.549 The city of Los
Angeles, especially under Republican Mayor Richard Riordan, was eager for GM to sell the property,
and offered to expedite the process by ensuring that permitting and zoning would not stall in City
Hall. At the time, Rocky Delgadillo, an aide to Mayor Riordan, stated “We want something to
happen there as soon as possible.550 By May, 1995, rumors swirled that the sale of the GM plant was
“imminent.”551 By June, the deal was “close.” By February 1996, it was done.552 Dan Selleck’s firm,
Selleck Properties, would develop the commercial side with retail stores and a multiplex movie
theater. Voit Cos, a private developer responsible for the Woodland Hills Warner Center, would
take on the industrial element. The city would fund the construction of a new police substation, also
to be housed on the parcel, while GM would retain around twenty-seven acres for a vehicles
emissions testing center. All parties were content with the project, and as Dan Selleck later reflected,
“everyone was coming from the right place.”553
547 Ron Galperin, “Special Zones Offer Firms Tax Breaks and Other Incentives,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 30, 1994. 548 See Sam Enriquez, “Quintessential Suburb is No More,” Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1992; John Schwada, “The ‘80s:
Retrospective,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 31, 1989 549 Selleck interview. 550 Henry Chu, “Abandoned GM Plant in Van Nuys May be Developed,” Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1995. 551 Henry Chu, “Sale of Shuttered GM Plant in Van Nuys Reportedly Imminent,” Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1995. 552 Hugo Martin and Henry Chu, “Deal is ‘Close’ on GM Plant, Official Says,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1995; Hugo
Martin, “Project Means New Future for GM Site,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 6, 1996; Rick Orlov, “Deal Reached on
Developing GM Property,” Valley Daily News, Feb. 6, 1996. 553 Selleck, Interview.

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Just as residents, journalists, and public intellectuals surfaced to editorialize the closure of the
GM auto plant, the announcement of its replacement invited a whole new round of social
commentary.
For years, the General Motors plant in Panorama City symbolized a community full of
optimism and opportunity. When the plant shut down in 1992, after years of scaling back
production and workers, the vacant complex turned quickly to a symbol of a community on
the skids. But the Van Nuys Boulevard site may yet again serve as an engine of revival.554
If the closure of the auto plant had marked the “death” of the San Fernando Valley’s manufacturing
economy, the commercial center signified “new life.”555 The commercial center offered “a reason for
neighbors to believe,” a “boost for a depressed community,” and a “shot in the arm.”556 Indeed,
developers claimed that the commercial center would create at least 2,000 new jobs in the
“economically beleaguered area” while the police substation would reduce crime.”557 Mayor Riordan
stated that the “GM site will send a message of recovery.”558 Local residents agreed. As Greg
Gagnon stated, “It’s better than having open land sitting there…Any new businesses in Panorama
City should help. At least it opens new jobs…hopefully.”559 Small business owners, who had lost
substantial profits when the plant closed, like El Taco Loco owners Antonio and Hermina Ramirez,
were optimistic that the commercial development would bring back some percentage of their
proceeds.
Yet as much as social commentary emphasized the retail complex’s economic potential—
and supported the proposed police substation—many also noted that the “tenants won’t be creating
554 “There’s Life After GM,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 18, 1996.. 555 “New Life for a Dead Factory,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 8, 1996. 556 Scott Harris, “Wheels of Change at the Plant Site, “ Los Angeles Times, Feb. 6, 1996; Efrain Hernandez Jr., “Deal:
Boost for Depressed Community,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 6, 1996; “There’s Life After GM;” “A Happy Ending at GM
Site,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 8, 1996. 557 Hugo Martin, “Alarcon Could Get Campaign Mileage Out of GM Site,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 9, 1996. 558 Hugo Martin, “Center at Ex-GM Site on Course,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 2, 1996. 559 Hernandez, “Deal.”

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any high paying jobs.”560 The commercial development would generate jobs for residents, first
through construction and then through retail, but neither would bring the job security, retirement
benefits, or high wages that unionized industrial labor had brought the auto plant workers decades
before. In response, Alarcón and the center’s developers highlighted its light industrial component, a
slight concession to the demands of labor advocates who knew that commercial development could
never fully replace what they had lost.
Meanwhile, plans continued in “first gear” at the GM site. The neo-recovery partnership
between Riordan’s administration, Selleck Properties, Voit Cos. and General Motors ensured that no
part of the renovation got bogged down in red tape. Tractors razed the plant in 1997. Recalling the
sight of demolition, former auto worker Alex Gomez recalled that he cried. The rubble just got to
him (Figure 25).561
Figure 25: Photo of the demolished auto plant from the Valley Daily News. “Van Nuys Plant 8000 Van Nuys
Blvd 91409” Facebook Group
560 Ibid. 561 Alex Gomez Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, September 27, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.

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Although razing the site was the first step, there were not sufficient funds from private developers,
nor the requisite infrastructure, to construct a mixed commercial/industrial power center. The neorecovery partnership then turned to the federal Economic Development Agency (EDA) for help. In
addition to the $9,158,123 allocated by the city, the partnership requested $4,000,000 of Earthquake
Assistance funds from the EDA.562 The EDA funds would be used to construct four lanes of traffic
to enter and exit the center with ease, to improve grading, sewage, storm drains, water and to
underground power conduits.563 In its grant proposal, the city of Los Angeles reinforced the
narrative that retail development was tantamount to community empowerment and recovery.
The GM project is critical to the revitalization efforts of the San Fernando Valley. The
proposed project will benefit the Northeast San Fernando revitalization efforts through the
attraction of permanent business…The project is symbolic in its message to the San
Fernando Valley business community due to the retention and creation of 2,000 highly
sustainable jobs.564
The underlying message of the grant proposal was that the in-progress commercial center was
“critical” to the community’s revitalization. Revitalization was thus tied to the attraction and
permanence of private business. The narrative had changed since Bradley’s days when community
pride meant that children aspired for manufacturing jobs in their community; or when companies
produced goods close to their biggest markets. As a spokesperson for the Voit company put it, “I
think that particular part of the Valley have heard enough about the downers, whether it’s the
earthquake, the riots, or plant closings… this is an example of our faith in this community.”565 To be
sure, retail created jobs. But South Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Uprising illustrated the limits
of private sector investment. Rebuild L.A. had been a categorical disappointment, because, as one
562 “U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration Correspondence,” box 764738, Executive
Office of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa Collection, Los Angeles City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, CA. 563 Ibid. 564 Ibid. 565 Patrice Apodaca, “Developers at Home with GM Sites Risks,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 12, 1996.

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journalist put it, “Rebuild L.A. was trickle-down economics in a non-profit.”566 Nevertheless, once
GM had finished the cleaning the site, tenants like Home Depot, Babies R Us, Ross Dress for Less,
Party City, and Mann Multiplex Theater started to lease at the site.567 New “sustainable jobs” to
revitalize the community could be found at big box stores or a multiplex movie theater.
Figure 26: The “power center” The Plant. The only remnant of its history as an auto plant can be seen
in the Mall marquee, styled in the image of a car insignia. Photo by Julia Brown-Bernstein, November
10, 2022, Los Angeles, CA
566 See Elizabeth Hinton, America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion (New York, 2021); Melissa
Chadburn, “The Destructive Force of Rebuild L.A.,” Curbed LA, April 27, 2017,
https://la.curbed.com/2017/4/27/15442350/1992-los-angeles-riots-rebuild-la (accessed May 19, 2023). 567 Hugo Martin, “Mann to Build Theaters on Former GM Site in Van Nuys,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 4, 1996; Darrell
Satzman, “6 Retailers Agree to Join Valley Project,” Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1997; Hugo Martin, “GM Project Gets
Into High Gear,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1997.

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The Plant Comes to Life
On September, 28 1998 the first store, Party City, opened at The Plant.568 Those involved in
the center’s development praised it as a site of “replanted hopes.”569 It proved what was possible
when a municipality partnered with private investors to revitalize a deindustrialized community
sorely in need of resources. Yet the irony of The Plant as a replacement for the GM plant was not
lost on former auto workers. For instance, Nelson Belanger, a thirty-year GM veteran who had
earned $20 an hour while on the assembly line, came out of retirement to take a job at Home Depot
making about $8 hourly.570 There was no denying that “revitalization” did not mean commensurate
employment or economic security. But a job was a job.
The Plant catered to the needs of younger generations of Valley residents who utilized it for
ordinary retail purposes. As one reporter put it, “today, some of the young parents roaming the
aisles of Home Depot or Babies R Us at the former site of the GM factory know nothing of the
dreary days after the plant closed in 1992, taking 2,600 jobs with it.”571 In the early days of The Plant,
the press emphasized its low crime rates (even though the police substation never materialized) and
its community-feel as a “popular destination” for families. Teenagers and early adults patronized
The Plant for its arcade or multiplex theater. Dean Mortelli, born and raised in Van Nuys, went to
The Plant in the summer of 1999 to see the film “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.”572 He had
heard that The Plant was once the site of the famed GM auto plant, but that history seemed
“ancient” by the end of the 1990s. Indeed, over the course of just a decade, the Northeast Valley’s
local economy scarcely bore physical traces of its industrial past.
568 Jill Levoy, “First Store Opens on Former Site of GM Plant,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 25, 1998. 569 Sue Fox, “Replanted Hopes,” Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1999. 570 Ibid. 571 Ibid. 572 Dean Mortelli Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, November 19, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.

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But the question remained: did The Plant, with its 300,000 square feet of retail/shopping
center space, 520,000 of light industrial space, and 3,700 seat movie theater revitalize the area? What,
in the end, did revitalization mean in the neoliberal era? Richard Alarcón and Dan Selleck were
proud of what they accomplished through the neo-recovery partnership that brought The Plant to
fruition. For liberals like Alarcón, Selleck and even Joel Kotkin, who had envisaged the San
Fernando Valley’s shift to the service economy, there was no way to return to the region’s postwar
manufacturing dominance. The neo-recovery partnership had decoupled the imperative that goods
be produced where they were sold. Community revitalization meant service employment and there
were things far worse than that. Yet for long-term residents of Panorama City, The Plant was a site
that nobody who actually lived in the area used: “What are we going to do, sit at the California Pizza
Kitchen, or whatever is there, and pretend like we’re living our best life?”573
Conclusion
The conversion of the GM auto plant to the commercial power-center The Plant may be a
parable. It speaks to the recent history of hundreds of deindustrializing areas in the throes of the late
twentieth century’s “Next Shift.”574 As the historian Gabriel Winant has forcefully demonstrated in
his account of late-twentieth century Pittsburgh, the collapse of industrial employment in the
rustbelt progressed in lockstep with the rise of the region’s low-wage, and practically invisible, care
economy and its workers. The privatized welfare benefit system wrangled out of the New Deal
Order inbuilt the structures that have spawned a healthcare system staffed by low-income women of
color. At first blush, the sectoral transformation that undergirded the GM auto plant’s conversion
573 Stefano Bloch interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 8, 2023, notes, Los Angeles, CA. 574 Gabriel Winant, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America (Cambridge, MA,
2021). While Winant focuses on the rise of the care economy in Pittsburgh, this chapter explores another model, the rise
of the service economy, in a region heavily impacted by immigration policy in the 1990s.

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into The Plant mirrors the “shift” Winant vividly depicts. The groundwork for the rise of a largely
immigrant-driven service economy in the suburban San Fernando Valley had already been laid by
the postwar “consumers’ republic,” access to which Reutherite unionism had purportedly
guaranteed the auto plant’s workforce.575 It had also been facilitated, moreover, by postwar
immigration reform—both the 1965 and 1986 immigration acts—which increased the population of
undocumented immigrants who soon filled the area’s low-wage labor force.576
Yet deeper analysis of the forces that brought The Plant to life, and which assisted the
region’s shift from an industrial to a service economy, reflect something more akin to the ethos of
“cheap” that historian Bryant Simon brings to bear in his retelling of the horrific 1991 fire at the
Imperial Foods poultry factory in Hamlet, North Carolina.577 In that case, the neoliberal imperative
of cheap labor and cheap goods, not to mention corporate greed, led to the death of twenty-five
factory workers, and exposed the sheer depravity of late American capitalism and the toll it inflicts
on workers, predominantly those of color.
The neo-recovery partnership that brought The Plant to life was, arguably, not motivated by
the same rapacity that led to the incineration of the Imperial Foods poultry plant. Certainly those
involved seemed to believe that The Plant was a creative, largely beneficial, antidote to the area’s
downward-spiraling economy. But historical vantage reveals that The Plant, with its shortage of
labor protections and economic mobility, was community revitalization “on the cheap.” Rather than
revitalize the area by expanding the social citizenship of industrial workers, their families, and a
growing low-income and immigrant population, the neo-recovery partnership that brought The
Plant to life promulgated a brand of community revitalization in the Northeast San Fernando Valley
575 Lizbeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York, 2003). 576 See Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton, 2004) and Ana Raquel
Minian, Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration (Cambridge, MA, 2018). 577 Bryant Simon, The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives, (Chapel Hill, NC, 2020).

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that deepened the pockets of private investors, while further impoverishing the area’s working-class
inhabitants. It is this model of community revitalization that appears to have swept across
deindustrializing urban regions, which were not dominated by one main industry, like steel in
Pittsburgh, but rather by a plethora of industries including aerospace and automotive firms, like the
San Fernando Valley.
Unlike in Winant’s chronicle of Pittsburgh’s “Next Shift,” those who filled the ranks of the
Northeast San Fernando Valley’s burgeoning service economy were not necessarily the wives of the
displaced auto workers, African American women, or Afro-Caribbean immigrants, though they
certainly included many Latinx immigrant women. Rather, those who joined the payrolls of The
Plant’s Home Depot, Babies “R” Us, or its multiplex theater were former workers themselves or,
more commonly, their children.
578 If employment at the GM auto plant in Van Nuys was a form of
generational wealth, and cultural capital, that parents passed down to their children, The Plant
helped curtail the upward mobility of the area’s largely non-white population. Children of former
industrial workers would increasingly have to look outside of their community for career
advancement and economic opportunity. For a generation of Northeast Valley residents, community
revitalization meant leaving, not staying, in their community to find jobs that might proffer the
relative stability their parents enjoyed as workers at the GM Van Nuys. Reflecting on the
transformation of many of the area’s former manufacturing into sprawling shopping centers,
Ernesto Ayala, a life-long Pacoima resident exclaimed, “how is that a gift to our community?”579
578 “Current and Projected Employee Data, OfficeMax, 7872 Van Nuys Blvd.,” Oct. 22, 1999, , box 764738, Executive
Office of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa Collection, Los Angeles City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, CA;
“Current and Projected Employee Data, “Hometown Buffet 7868 Van Nuys Blvd.,” Dec. 1, 1999, , box 764738,
Executive Office of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa Collection, Los Angeles City Archives and Records Center, Los
Angeles, CA; “Current and Projected Employee Data, Babies “R” Us, 7886 Van Nuys Blvd,” Dec. 18, 1991, box
764738, Executive Office of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa Collection, Los Angeles City Archives and Records Center,
Los Angeles, CA; “Current and Projected Employee Data, Home Depot, 7870 Van Nuys Blvd., undated, “Current and
Projected Employee Data, “Hometown Buffet 7868 Van Nuys Blvd.,” Dec. 1, 1999, , box 764738, Executive Office of
Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa Collection, Los Angeles City Archives and Records Center, Los Angeles, CA. 579 Ernesto Ayala Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, Oct. 1, 2023, Los Angeles, CA.

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Driving past The Plant today, all that remains of its automotive past is a marquee styled in
the fashion of a car insignia, as if to say that The Plant was the auto plant’s “natural” successor. The
Plant’s glimmering marquee obscures the fact that its existence was the result of strategic and
calculated, if also historically contingent, decisions made by ordinary people. And yet, the lessons are
in the details. Historians have often critiqued the study of neoliberalism as abstraction. Or, as the
historian Julia Ott contends, “we should not treat neoliberalism as if it possessed a pre-determined
historical trajectory or an essential nature.”580 If we are to understand the “forces and circumstances
on the ground that legitimated [neoliberalism] and made it popularly appealing,” then we cannot
ignore sites like the former GM auto plant in Van Nuys. The neoliberal order did not solely emerge
from the pockets of billionaires, financial institutions, or think tanks. The non-elite history of
neoliberalism, and how local politicians, and their constituents, gradually succumbed to its
dominance, is, perhaps, our best vista into how neoliberal ideology gained hegemony in the United
States. The story of how one highly productive auto plant turned into a standard fare commercial
center becomes emblematic of the broader dynamics of neoliberalism and the manifold processes
that conspire to give it legitimacy. The Plant set the standard for community revitalization in the east
San Fernando Valley. So, when Price Pfister, another economic mainstay closed its doors, officials
and developers knew, almost on instinct, what would replace it. Depotland had arrived.
580 Sugrue and Diamond, Neoliberal Cities, 5.

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CHAPTER FIVE
Price Pfister Workers Pfight Pfree Trade
Filiberto González, a student at California State University Northridge, approached the gates
of the Price Pfister Faucet Foundry on November 30th, 1996, carrying a protest sign that read:
“Dignity and Respect for Price Pfister Workers.” Raised in Pacoima, California, the home of Price
Pfister’s main foundry since 1965, González joined dozens of labor activists, community members,
and former workers who had gathered on Paxton street to protest the company’s recent layoff of
300 workers and its impending relocation to Mexicali, Mexico.581
By November, demonstrations in front of the faucet foundry had become a regular
occurrence.582 Several months earlier, Price Pfister began phasing out its hourly workers and shifting
operations south of the U.S.-Mexico border.583 Purportedly to defray the costs of Proposition 65, a
state regulation mandating that the company update its casting methods to reduce the lead content
of its faucets, Price Pfister executives eyed Mexicali as the next seat of production. Workers,
predominantly Latinx residents of Pacoima, responded by mobilizing a diverse coalition of labor and
community organizers to condemn the company’s plans and hold Price Pfister accountable to the
community that had fueled its success over the past three decades.584 Moreover, they saw through
the company’s façade, recognizing, as Richard Espinoza, an eighteen-year veteran, stated, that “This
all has to do with NAFTA. Proposition 65 is just an excuse for Price Pfister to ship jobs south
581 Dade Hayes, “Hunger Striker Collapses on Day 10,” Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1996; Dade Hayes, “Laid-Off
Price Pfister Worker Ends Hunger Strike After Collapse,” Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1996; 582 Xenaro Ayala interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, January 16, 2024, Los Angeles, CA; Julie Tamaki, “Faucet Factory’s
Workers Protest,” Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1996. 583 Between February and October 1996, the company gradually lay off 550 workers. In November, it initiated another
lay off of 300 workers. Barry Stavro, “Price Pfister Cuts 550 Jobs to Comply with State Safety Law,” Los Angeles Times,
September 19, 1996.
584 Roberto Inigo, “Compañía de grifos Price Pfister se va de Pacoima a México: Trabajadores Protestan por Despidos y
Falta de Compensación a Pesar de los Años Laborados,” La Opinión, October 5, 1996.

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where they can pay lower wages.”585 Throughout the fall, workers and community organizers held
demonstrations to save their jobs, or at the very least, to secure an adequate severance package from
the nation’s third-largest faucet manufacturer.586 However, the holiday season heightened the
workers’ sense of urgency, as many suspected that the new year spelled permanent closure.
On November 21st, a week before their Thanksgiving break, five laid off workers launched a
hunger strike.587 Invoking the spirit of the United Farm Workers movement, Claudia Molina, one of
the hunger strikers, told the Los Angeles Times, “I try to follow the example of Cesar Chávez, I
personally will get the satisfaction that I tried to do something peaceful.”588 The hunger strikers slept
in a mobile home and spent their days in lawn chairs under a blue canopy outside the company’s
gates. At night, they reunited with their families, as protesters chanted and prayed for their
protection.589 When Filiberto González joined the demonstration on Saturday, November 30th, the
strikers were in their tenth day, and one, Victoria Sevilla, was visibly failing. That afternoon,
protesters marched as white bedsheets bearing the slogan “Price Pfister: Another NAFTA
Nightmare” blew in the wind. Across the street, a group of protesters from Zapopan, Mexico
gathered around a statue of the state of Jalisco’s patron saint and led a Catholic mass. A dozen
dancers and musicians in traditional Aztec dress performed to the cheers of passersby. In
585 Barry Stavro, “Pacoima May Lose Fixture as Factory Shifts Jobs South,” Los Angeles Times, October 1, 1996. 586 The company offered to give laid off workers half a week’s pay and a week’s health benefits for each year worked, up
to 26 years. But worked demanded one week’s pay and two weeks’ health benefits per year worked, up to 30 years. José
Cardenas, “Satisfying a Different Hunger,” Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1996. 587 Cardenas, “Satisfying.” For more on the hunger strike, see Roberto Inigo, “Despedidos de Price Pfister Deciden
Continuar Huelga de Hambre: La Empresa No Responde a Sus Demandas,” La Opinión, November 27, 1996. 588 Ibid. 589 Dade Hayes, “Hunger Striker Collapses on Day 10,” Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1996.

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the middle of the mass, Sevilla collapsed and was treated at a nearby hospital. Protesters continued
their prayers and hymns in Spanish.590 González remarked that, “it’s hard to see that,
but on the other hand, it gives us an example of the kind of sacrifices people are willing to make.”591
Indeed, it was a sacrifice.592 As the historian Nayan Shah has observed, a hunger striker
“makes a crisis, and more than that, embodies a crisis.”593 For the workers, union members of the
Teamsters Local 986, and Pacoima residents more broadly, Price Pfister’s closure was a crisis, and
the hunger strikers personified it through their own refusal to eat. Yet the crisis extended beyond the
closure of one singular faucet factory. It was, in the words of the urban geographer Edward W. Soja,
an example of the “restructuring-generated crisis” that swept across the Los Angeles basin
throughout the late-1980s and 1990s.594 By 1996, the Northeast San Fernando Valley had already
witnessed the departure of the area’s long-standing durable goods manufacturing firms, such as the
General Motors auto plant in Panorama City and Lockheed in Burbank. The end of the Cold War
and subsequent collapse of the U.S. defense economy gutted what locals referred to as the “I-5
Corridor” in the Northeast Valley, transforming what was once a thriving manufacturing
powerhouse into a factory burial ground.595 This deindustrialization disproportionately affected the
590 Hayes, “Hunger” 591 Cardenas, “Satisfying” 592 Sevilla recovered and subsequently ended her hunger strike. But the other four hunger strikers continued for another
week after talks between the workers’ union, Teamsters Local 986, and Price Pfister executives failed. For more, see
Deborah Adamson, “Price Pfister, Union Suspend Labor Talks,” Los Angeles Daily News, December 3, 1996. It’s
important to add that the strikers were even joined by Regina Robles, the eight-year old daughter of one of the strikers,
who told reporters that “Yo decidí quedarme porque quiero apoyar a la gente de Price Pfister que ha sido despedida y a
los que van a ser despedidos. No me da miedo. Yo me di cuenta que la gente necesitaba ayuda y me metí a la huelga.” I
decided to join because I want to support the people from Price Pfister who have been laid off and those who will be let
go. I am not scared. I realized that the people needed help and I joined the hunger strike.” Roberto Inigo, “Niña Se Une
a la Huelga de Hambre: Trabajadores de Price Pfister Emocionados Por El Gesto,” La Opinión, December 6, 1996. 593 Nayan Shah, The Refusal to Eat: A Century of Prison Hunger Strikes (University of California Press, 2022), 1. 594 Edward W. Soja, “Los Angeles, 1965-1992: From Crisis-Generated Restructuring to Restructuring-Generated Crisis,”
in Allen J. Scott and Edward W. Soja ed. The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century
(University of California Press, 1996), 426-460. 595 This deindustrialization also effected other manufacturing dense areas like the Alameda Corridor in the Southeast of
Los Angeles, which, in part because of the 1992 Uprising, received far greater attention than the I-5 Corridor in the
Northeast San Fernando Valley.

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Valley’s ethno-racially diverse eastside, and spurred its shift from a manufacturing to a service-based
economy. It also reconfigured social relations and residents’ connections to community, to capital,
and to the state (Chapter 4).
Yet there was something about Price Pfister’s closure that hit differently. To start, Price
Pfister was located in Pacoima, historically known as Los Angeles’ “first Black suburb,” and the
heart of the Valley’s working-class community. In a suburban expanse otherwise marked by
exclusionary politics and racial covenants, Pacoima distinguished itself in the postwar era as a
multiracial enclave with a vibrant cultural, religious, and commercial life.596 Unlike the neighboring
City of San Fernando, in which the railroad tracks delineated the paved, street-lighted white
northside from the Mexican southside, Pacoima, as long-term resident Xenaro Ayala recalled,
“didn’t have any divisions, it was just a poor community.”597 Between the 1960s and 1990s, Pacoima
was the stage for the Valley’s progressive grassroots activism. It became the focal point for
campaigns to end police brutality, gang warfare, and the crack-cocaine epidemic, as well as
movements advocating for fair housing, labor and immigrants’ rights. However, by the late-1980s,
economic restructuring severely undermined Pacoima’s once-flourishing middle class. Long-standing
Black families began migrating north to Palmdale/Lancaster, while developers capitalized on mass
migrations from the Global South by constructing subprime apartment complexes in the area’s
deteriorating housing market. In 1986, Pacoima was designated one of California’s first enterprise
zones, as it came to epitomize the challenges facing Los Angeles during the recessionary 1990s.598
596 Although with clear and important differences, Pacoima is often vernacularly compared to another, perhaps more
commonly known, multiracial community, Boyle Heights. For more on Boyle Heights see, George J. Sánchez, Boyle
Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy (University of California Press, 2021). For
more on Pacoima’s history, see Crystal Jackson,
597 Xenaro Ayala, Interview 598 Insert literature on Pacoima, Los Angeles in the 1990s. Stephanie Chavez, “Pacoima Leaders Praise Choice as
Enterprise Zone,” Los Angeles Times, February 19, 1986

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For long-term Pacoima residents, then, Price Pfister was a stalwart of the neighborhood’s
halcyon manufacturing past. For more recent migrants, it provided the stable wages they sought in
migrating to the United States. And for the next generation, Price Pfister represented more than just
a site of employment; it was a beacon of opportunity within their community. It provided not only a
job to aspire to but also a pathway out of the working-class. In essence, Price Pfister served as a
lifeboat in an era of deindustrialization.
Price Pfister’s imminent closure in 1997 held a distinct significance for another reason. Just
three years after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (hereafter NAFTA),
Price Pfister’s relocation underscored the harsh—and also paradoxical—consequences of trade
liberalization for workers in the Western Borderlands: In maximizing profits, corporations that
relocated from places like Pacoima to south of the U.S.-Mexico border were displacing a
predominantly Mexican immigrant and Chicanx labor force.599 Global free trade exemplified a new
political economy, wherein capital moved more freely across borders, while migrant workers, feeling
pushed out of their countries of origin, yet marginalized within the United States, faced intransigent
barriers to mobility.600 The irony was not lost on Price Pfister employees, particularly those who had
migrated to the East San Fernando Valley after 1965. In 1977, Alejandra Torres, one of the hunger
strikers, had accompanied her husband as a teenager to the San Fernando Valley in pursuit of
employment. Both had secured jobs at Price Pfister, raised their children, and naturalized in 1993.
Speaking to reporters, Torres described Price Pfister’s move to Mexicali as “ironic as hell.”601
Mercedes Hernandez, an eight-year assembly veteran, immigrated from Mexico in the early 1980s,
599 In the case of Price Pfister, workers were laid off without a severance package. Add here 600 For more on this sense of double exclusion, see Ana Raquel Minian, Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican
Migration (Harvard University Press, 2018). 601 Scott Harris, “Hunger Strikers Feel It in Their Guts,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1996.

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settled in Pacoima, and bought a home to raise her four children. She now contemplated returning
to Mexico. 602
While assembly workers like Alejandra Torres and Mercedes Hernandez mourned the
company’s move to Mexicali, others were hardly surprised. Luis Hernandez, a material controller at
the plant, scoffed, “They keep telling us at the plant that the work is slow, but we know that’s not
true. We know that it is being shipped down to Mexico. I know because I was sent to Mexicali two
weeks ago to help train workers there.”603 Meanwhile, reporters from the local media depicted Price
Pfister’s move as a tragicomedy. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, the reporter Scott Harris jeered,
“Would this drama get more attention if it were less ironic? Would fewer Americans shrug if this
weren’t so much a saga of immigrants from south of the border losing jobs to people who stayed
south of the border?” In the context of California’s 1990s anti-immigrant hysteria, Harris’ glib
remarks were utterly unsurprising, not to mention distasteful. And yet, they raised important
questions simmering beneath the surface of deindustrialization in the Southwest: to what extent did
the ascent of free trade, along with plant closures that largely displaced immigrant and Chicanx
workers, refashion the dynamics of belonging and community-formation in the Western
Borderlands? How did Price Pfister workers and Pacoima residents confront the challenges posed
by global capitalism, and how did their responses to this new economic order shape the history of
Los Angeles, particularly the San Fernando Valley, at the end of the twentieth century?
In this chapter, I explore the collective efforts of Price Pfister workers, community
members, and labor activists as they rallied against free trade in Pacoima, California. My aim is
twofold. Firstly, I demonstrate how, amidst the rise of global capitalism, the labor movement in the
East San Fernando Valley, like the rest of the Los Angeles, shifted away from the mid-century, state602 Stacy Finz, “It Was More Than Just a Job to Some,” Valley Daily News, February 1, 1997. 603 Julie Tamaki, “Faucet Factory’s Protest,” Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1996.

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sanctioned model of formal unionization to a more locally situated, and community-centered form
of organizing, despite achieving only modest material gains. Labor activists built upon the model set
by labor activist Bert Corona and the Centro de Acción Social Autónomo (CASA) in the late 1960s
to organize immigrant workers and promote civic membership, regardless of their legal status.
Secondly, I highlight how this new approach enabled immigrant and U.S.-born workers of Latin
American descent, particularly their children, to forge a sense of belonging rooted in communitybased resistance to free trade, labor organizing, and environmental justice. I focus on the
collaboration among Price Pfister workers, members of La Raza Unida (and La Raza Estudiantil),
and the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project (LAMAP)—the joint actions of which surpassed
the sole influence of the Teamster’s Local 986 and paved new horizons for the contemporary labor
movement. Most importantly, I reassess the legacy of the LAMAP. While it has often been viewed
as “an opportunity squandered,” with its dissolution marking the end of labor’s revival in Los
Angeles, I argue that its lingering impact exceeds its stated objectives. The organizing model it
charted, exemplified in the Price Pfister mobilization, has left an enduring mark on an entire
generation of Pacoima residents, establishing a new paradigm of belonging in the Borderlands.
The “Cadillac” of Bathroom Fixtures: Price Pfister Workers Cast and Plumb Suburbia
In 1910, Emil Price and William Pfister founded Price Pfister Brass Manufacturing Co., with
a focus on producing electric generators for farmers residing in unelectrified areas of Los Angeles.
Two years later, the company shifted manufacturing to garden hoses. During both world wars, Price
Pfister played a vital, if overlooked, role supplying specialized valves and fittings to the U.S. military.
However, it was the post-1945 housing boom that significantly elevated Price Pfister’s status. In
1960, the company relocated from downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley. 604 As the
604 Alan Goldstein, “Faucet Firm Tries to Tap New Markets,” Los Angeles Times, February 4, 1986.

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Valley’s housing stock swelled, especially throughout its central Flatlands neighborhoods, Isadore
Familian, the President and CEO of Price Pfister, saw a golden opportunity for his company to
dominate the home faucet market in the West.605 In 1965, the company inaugurated its expansive
500,000 square foot factory on a sprawling 30-acre industrial site in Pacoima.606 This milestone
marked an important achievement for the company and Los Angeles officials heralded it as further
proof of the Valley’s postwar ascendance. Councilman Everett Burkhalter (figure 26), in particular,
championed the arrival of large-scale manufacturing to the working-class, multiracial community of
Pacoima.
Figure 27: Councilman Everett Burkhalter uses a prybar to “cut the ribbon,” opening a new extension of
Paxton Street, Pacoima, from the San Fernando Road railroad crossing. This marked the end of more than a
decade of efforts by businessmen, Pacoima Chamber of Commerce, and city officials to open a giant industrial
area. Pictured with Burkhalter are Isadore Familian, President and CEO of Price Pfister, P.M. Gomez, a
member of the board of directors of Pacoima Chamber of Commerce, and Ben L. O’Brien, Chairman of
Pacoima’s Chamber of Commerce Civic Improvement Committee. Los Angeles Public Library Digital Archive,
Valley Times Collection, April 1, 1959.
605 “Price Pfister Brass Firm Opens Up Plant in Pacoima,” Van Nuys Valley News, July 30th, 1965. 606 “Price Pfister Moves Into Pacoima,” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1965.

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By the time Price Pfister opened its Pacoima plant, the Northeast San Fernando Valley had
already cemented its status as a thriving manufacturing hub. This was largely due to the presence of
industry giants, including General Motors in Van Nuys and Lockheed-Martin in Burbank.607 The
influx of defense contracts, coupled with arrival of migrants from the Midwest and Jim Crow south,
transformed the Northeast Valley into a nucleus of blue-collar workers. Black workers settled
primarily in the redlined community of Pacoima, where they could purchase homes close to their
worksites. Notably, the Joe Louis Housing Development, designed for Black veterans, served as a
critical site in reshaping Pacoima from its historical identity as a Mexican American and Japanese
neighborhood into “America’s first Black suburb.”608
Among Pacoima’s residents were Mother Ada and Willie Robinson, who migrated from
Shreveport, Louisiana to Los Angeles in the 1940s. Initially, they both found employment at
Lockheed, but were commuting from a hotel in downtown Los Angeles, paying “a dime to go to
work and a dime to come back. From downtown to out [in the Valley].”609 In the mid-1960s, Willie
Robinson hired into Price Pfister, joining a workforce of mostly Chicanx, Filipino, and white
workers. Reflecting on their relocation from Watts to Pacoima, Mother Ada Robinson reminisced,
Well, I’ll tell you what. My husband got a job here on San Fernando road…That
place it was another little ol’ town, they done knocked it out. I can’t call the name.
But anyway, he got a job working where they made pipes. And so sometime they
would want him to work overtime, cause somebody didn’t come in on time. So he
would do it. My husband was a workaholic. So when he’d get off of work…he’d be
tired. So he’d be coming home and he’d get sleepy, he’d pull on the side of the
freeway. They had just built that freeway, too. The 5 freeway. And he said to me
when he come home one morning, ‘You know what Ada, I just so sick of those
police waking me up, and I done gone to sleep. He say, ‘Ada, go to the Valley.’610
607 Allen J. Scott, “High-Technology Industrial Development in the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County:
Observations on Economic Growth and the Evolution of Urban Form,” Allen J. Scott and Edward W. Soja ed. The City:
Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century (University of California Press, 1996), 276-310 608 Crystal Jackson, The Entrance: Pacoima’s Story 609 Mother Ada Robinson Interview by Emory Holmes II, May 7, 2002, transcript by Lillian McDowell, Box 2, Item 11,
Northeast San Fernando Valley Oral History Project, California State University Northridge Special Collections. 610 Ibid.

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Despite Willie Robinson’s initial reluctance to move to Pacoima, describing it as “them woods, them
sticks, and them rocks,” Ada Robinson ventured out to the Valley one September day. There, she
successfully secured her family a home on the south side of the railroad tracks, an area where Black
and Mexican residents were able to purchase homes. In 2002, Ada recalled convincing her friend to
accompany her on a reconnaissance trip to the Valley: “I got my friend next door, he’s an old man, I
said ‘Jurney,’ don’t you want to ride with me today,’ ‘oh yeah,’ ‘oh yeah.’ I say, ‘Come on, boy,’ he
say, ‘Where we going now?’ And I say, ‘I don’t know where we going, but I’m going to the Valley. I
don’t know where I’m gonna end up at.’ He say, ‘OK. Let me get my pipe.’” The Robinsons
eventually settled into a fixer-upper in Pacoima that they purchased from two Jewish real estate
developers. They became active members of their local Baptist Church, where Ada eventually
embarked on her Ministry, while Willie Robinson continued his employment at Price Pfister.
Figure 28: Willie Robinson at his last job at the Price Pfister plant in Pacoima. Circa 1960-1970. California State
University Northridge Digital Collections, Ada Robinson Photograph Collection.

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‘
Figure 29: Ada and Willie Robinson after their arrival in Los Angeles, circa 1930-1940. California State
University Northridge Digital Collections, Ada Robinson Photograph Collection.
While the Robinsons built their lives in Pacoima on Willie’s Price Pfister paycheck, long term
Chicanx and Mexican residents, the largest ethnic groups at Price Pfister, saw the plant as more than
just a worksite; It was a kinship network. An eighteen-year veteran, Richard Espinoza joined his
father (a thirty-year veteran), and later met his wife at the plant. When Espinoza hired in as a
teenager, Price Pfister was a “lifetime” job.611 It was a job, like those at General Motors, AnheuserBusch Brewery, Lockheed, or Hughes Aircraft, that young men, in particular, inherited from their
fathers or uncles. Yet to younger Pacoima residents, like Sandra Sánchez, Price Pfister was “well,
everyone and their mama worked there.”612 Recounting that her father, mother, brother, and cousin
were employed at Price Pfister, Sandra Sánchez described the plant as “Mostly homey, you know, a
611 Barry Stavro, “Pacoima May Lose Fixture as Factory Shifts Jobs South,” Los Angeles Times, October 1, 1996. 612 Sandra Sanchez interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, September 11, 2023, transcript, Los Angeles, California.

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lot of relatives worked there, or they knew someone, a relative, that worked there. I remember my
mom, my mom worked there for almost forty years, they did a lot of potlucks.”613 With so many
relatives employed at the same time, Sandra Sanchez noted that her family members all “carpooled,
you know, and just talked about what happened at work, they gossiped.”614
The actual labor at Price Pfister was as physically demanding as any other job in durable
goods manufacturing. Sandra Sánchez witnessed the toll firsthand: her brother, a welder, lost his
finger on the job, while her mother, a mechanic, had to wear a uniform equipped with heavy gloves,
steel-toe boots, and protective headgear.615 Yet arguably, the most hazardous aspect of the job
wasn’t what workers handled, but what they, and the company’s consumers, inadvertently ingested.
For its entire duration in Pacoima, Price Pfister relied on sand casting methods to manufacture brass
faucets and pipes, which, as would later be widely condemned, contained a perilous amount of lead.
Brass, being an alloy of copper, zinc, and lead, posed significant health risks. Price Pfister’s
production process involved casting molten metal into molds, allowing it to cool and solidify. Lead
plugged pores in the alloy, ensuring that the faucets were watertight.616 While on the job, workers
inhaled these particles, adding an extra layer of injustice when the company refused to provide
extended benefits to its employees after closure. Yet amidst these conditions, workers forged
lifelong friendships. As Sandra Sánchez reflected, “they kind of all knew each other. They ended up
being each other’s godparents for their kids, it wasn’t just work, but also like a social community,
that they, they did go to work, but they also you know, made the best of it.”617
613 Ibid. 614 Ibid. 615 Ibid. 616 Don Lee, “Price Pfister May Feel Sting of Suit Filed by State,” Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1993. 617 Ibid.

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For two decades, Price Pfister’s payroll reflected Pacoima’s diverse demographic character,
with Chicanx, Mexican, Filipino, Black, and white workers filling the plant’s rosters.618 Yet by the
mid-1980s, global economic restructuring, along with mass migrations from the Global South, led to
a substantial increase in the plant’s immigrant workforce. Migrant workers from Latin America,
including many undocumented migrants, found steady employment—and a community—at Price
Pfister. Simon Solorio immigrated from Mexico to Pacoima in 1977, initially finding it difficult to
build a social network. Upon joining Price Pfister, however, he discovered that many of his
coworkers hailed from his home state of Michoacan. “Everyone spoke Spanish,” Solorio recounted
to a Los Angeles Times reporter. “They were my paisanos.”619 In addition to forging friendships with
coworkers, many immigrant employees, like Celia Magallón, met her husband at the plant.620
From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, undocumented workers arriving in Los Angeles
found that Price Pfister offered more stable wages and safer working conditions compared to the
new industries proliferating around the city’s deteriorating Alameda corridor.621 Indeed, immigrants
arriving to Los Angeles in the mid-late 1980s, and especially in the 1990s, discovered that the entire
basin, not just the San Fernando Valley, was experiencing industrial flight.622 Between 1979 and
1994, the departure of manufacturing titans like Firestone, Uniroyal, Goodyear, Ford, General
Motors, among others, had reduced the city’s manufacturing jobs by 31 percent.623 The Alameda
Corridor, the industrial stretch between downtown Los Angeles and the twin ports of Long Beach
618 For more on the history of Japanese residents living in the San Fernando Valley, see Crystal Jackson, The Entrance;
Barraclough, Making the San Fernando Valley, 53-54. The “Japanese Americans in the San Fernando Valley Oral History
Project Collection” at the Special Collections and Archives at California State University, Northridge is an invaluable
resources.
619 Finz, “It was More.” 620 Ibid. 621 For more on the Alameda corridor, see Milkman, L.A. Story, 145-186; Soja, “Los Angeles, 1965-1992,” 430. 622 Manuel Pastor, State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America’s Future
(New York: New Press, 2018), 102-103. 623 Tom Gallagher, “Everybody Loved It, But….” Z Magazine, November 1, 1998,
https://znetwork.org/zmagazine/everybody-loved-it-but-by-tom-gallagher/

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and Los Angeles, had not only deindustrialized, but was already well on its way to reindustrializing
through a surge in the manufacturing of nondurable goods.624 These newer factories, especially
those in the garment industry, were non-unionized sweatshops that employed predominantly
undocumented workers at poverty wages.625 By contrast, Price Pfister stood out as one of the few
remaining unionized plants in a landscape of sweat labor. Owing to its history as a dependable
source of employment, and its enduring presence in Pacoima, Price Pfister offered a notably better
quality of life for new arrivals in Los Angeles.
Even so, in a context of economic restructuring and heightened racial nativism, Price Pfister
did not escape the surveillance of the INS. Although most of the workers at Price Pfister were
documented, the INS staged periodic raids in the plant throughout the late 1980s.626 Sandra Sánchez
contemplated the impact of this retributive, anti-immigrant climate on her own family:
One time that I know of, Immigration raided Price Pfister. And they ended up taking
my brother. But my brother had papers, you know? But he just didn’t carry like his
green card with him. He didn’t have it, and neither did my mom, ‘cause this, that
wasn’t something that you, like those were personal documentation that you don’t
wanna lose. They didn’t have the real ID like now. So, there was a raid, an
immigration raid, and they got taken and my dad had to go pick ‘em up, and take ‘em
their green card—well, my mom and dad are citizens now, but at that time, you
know, they had green cards only—to the INS center downtown, I think San Pedro
or LA somewhere down there. If not, they were gonna get deported.627
While INS raids were less common at Price Pfister compared to other workplaces in Los Angeles,
Sandra Sánchez’ family’s experience highlights the interconnected vulnerabilities migrants, and U.S.-
624 For more see Ruth Milkman ed. Organizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Unions in Contemporary California (Cornell
University Press, 2000).
625 The interdisciplinary literature on the reindustrialization of South Los Angeles is vast but see, among others, Andrew
Gomez, “Organizing the “Sweatshop in the Sky”: Jono Shaffer and the Los Angeles Justice for Janitors Campaign,”
Labor 15 no. 2 (2018): 9-20; Scott L. Cummings, “Hemmed In: Legal Mobilization in the Los Angeles Anti-Sweatshop
Movement,” Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 30, no. 1 (2009): 1-84; Kimi Lee Richard, “Organizing
Immigrant Women in America’s Sweatshops: Lessons from Los Angeles Garment Worker Center,” Journal of Women in
Culture and Society 33, no. 3 (2008): 527-532; Robert R.S. Ross, Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops
(University of Michigan Press, 2004). 626 Felix Hernandez Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 14, 2024, Los Angeles, California. 627 Sanchez, interview.

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born citizens of Latin American descent faced as blue-collar workers during an era of
deindustrialization. Furthermore, as more plant’s either left Los Angeles or were replaced with
sweatshops, manufacturing holdouts like Price Pfister garnered increasing scrutiny from the INS.
This not only shifted dynamics within the workforce but also raised workers’ awareness of the
interrelated nature of labor reform and immigrant rights.
Meanwhile, on the business front, the rise of the free market in the 1980s prompted a
significant overhaul and rebranding initiative within Price Pfister. Despite the company’s expansions
in the late-1960s, which culminated in its acquisition by Norris Industries Co. in 1969, it wasn’t until
the “merger mania” of the 1980s that Price Pfister embarked on a comprehensive rebranding
endeavor. 628 Throughout the 1980s, Price Pfister underwent five changes in management, ultimately
falling under the ownership of Black & Decker Corporation by the decade’s end. Seizing upon the
prevailing ethos of individualism, Price Pfister sought to tap into the burgeoning “do-it-yourself
market,” as the company’s President Peter Gold declared in 1986.629 The company had dominated
the Sunbelt’s home faucet market since the 1960s, using its catalogs to tempt plumbers and parts
distributors with crystal-knobbed faucets. Yet Price Pfister still trailed behind its two competitors:
Delta Faucet of Indianapolis and Moen of Ohio.630 Now under Black & Decker Corp., Price Pfister
aimed to bolster its nationwide brand recognition and court consumers through home-improvement
magazines. As Doug Martinez, Price Pfister’s marketing director at the time, put it, “You can still
dramatically change the look of your bathroom with a faucet without having to tear out your
sink.”631 However, the company’s national television advertising campaign was its most effective
628 Alan Goldstein, “Faucet Firm Tries to Tap New Markets,” Los Angeles Times, February 4, 1986; Alan Goldstein, “Price
Pfister to Offer 18% of Its Shares to Public,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1987; James F. Peltz, “Price Pfister Taps New
Markets,” Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1992. 629 Mitch Boretz, “Pfister’s Future: Takeover in the Offing For,” Valley Daily News, March 31, 1988. 630 Goldstein, “Faucet Firm” 631 Peltz, “Price Pfister Taps.”

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marketing tactic. The iconic 1987 commercial, featuring glistening decorative fixtures set against a
black backdrop, succinctly captured the company’s message.632 The narration of the commercial
went as follows:
Presenting the Pfaucet. Pfunny thing about Pfaucets: you might think they’re all the same,
until you look into a Price Pfister Pfaucet, Price Pfister Pfaucets are, in a word, ‘Pfabulous,’
since they have a heart of solid brass, the pfact is, they hold up better and longer. No
pfooling. Nice, too, they’re affordable. So when you’re faced with getting a Pfaucet, get a
Price Pfister: The Pfabulous Pfaucet with the Pfunny Name.633
Remarkably, the advertising campaign proved successful. Price Pfister’s market shares grew
throughout the remainder of the 1980s. The ‘pfabulous pfaucet’ that workers in Pacoima had been
expertly crafting for decades appeared to be, at least for a time, just that.
Free-Trade’s ‘Giant Sucking Sound’: Price Pfister Pforeswears Pacoima
At the second televised presidential debate in 1992, independent candidate Ross Perot
augured that the North American Free Trade Agreement would result in a “giant sucking sound” as
U.S. factories shut down and relocated south of the U.S.-Mexico border. He then beseeched voters
to send him to Washington wherein “the first thing [he’d do] is study that 2,000 page agreement and
make sure it’s a two-way street.” 634 Four years later, as NAFTA took full effect, Ross’ remarks
proved prescient. As one Valley resident sneered, “Well, folks , it appears that Pat Buchanan, Ross
Perot, Ralph Nader, and all the ‘good, old-time’ Republicans were right: ‘Free trade’ does have a
‘very loud sucking sound,’ don’t you agree?”635 In the Western Borderlands, however, the relocation
of U.S. corporations to Mexico carried symbolism closely connected to the region’s history. As one
resident asserted,
632 See the commercial on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-UPREl3s0o 633 Ibid 634 See the clip here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/perot-in-1992-warned-nafta-would-create-giantsucking-sound/2019/07/09/1f2a84e9-a56c-4487-9c43-892ab1b0c782_video.html 635 T.B. Tuso, “Public Forum: Blame The Law For Loss of Price Pfister,” Daily News of Los Angeles, February 6, 1997.

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Price Pfister shafted more American workers by moving its facilities to Mexico. American
companies have moved out of the United States with the blessing of our people in the
government—the same people who are supposed to look out for the interests of the
American worker….If we want our children and our children’s children to have jobs, we
better start looking carefully at what we spend our money on and where. If not, pretty soon
we will be glad to give California back to Mexico because there will not be very much left
here to live for.636
The last lines of this op-ed revealed the core of the matter for a subgroup of residents in the Valley.
Without the prospect of capital accumulation, the vast expanse of land encompassing the U.S.
Southwest and Western Borderlands was essentially disposable, highlighting the entrenched logics of
settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and white supremacy that formed the foundation of the United
States’ territorial claims. Late twentieth-century deindustrialization stirred the deep-seated anxieties
of many residents who, for so long, depended on the U.S. government to protect their economic
interests. Yet it also brought to light the arbitrary nature of the nation’s spatial boundaries and,
indeed, their growing permeability for capital at the turn of the twenty-first century. If the
foundation of US empire rested on the dispossession of native land in the Western Borderlands, the
advent of free-trade had, in the eyes of some, rendered that land valueless.
Faced with the imminent closure of their plant, workers at Price Pfister blamed NAFTA,
blasting it for the loss of their jobs and the erosion of their middle-class standard of living. Yet, in
truth, Price Pfister workers’ resistance to free trade—and the neoliberal order that sanctioned it—
had begun long before NAFTA. It was in the early 1970s, barely a decade into the company’s tenure
in Pacoima, that workers at the plant began to organize for better representation in their union, and
improved working conditions at their plant.
In the mid-1970s, two Price Pfister workers, Telesforo González, a Mexican immigrant, and
Arlene (surname unknown), a Chicana from Santa Paula, California, entered the Maclay Street office
636 Dante Rochetti, “Exporting Jobs,” Daily News of Los Angeles, October 27, 1986.

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of El Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida in the City of San Fernando.637 There, they enlisted the
support of the chapter’s chairman and local High School teacher, Xenaro Ayala, to advocate for
better representation from their union local, Teamsters Local 986. At the time, the City of San
Fernando chapter of La Raza Unida was immersed in the farm workers’ struggle, famously
championed by the labor activist, Cesar Chávez.638 The City of San Fernando’s branch of El Partido
Nacional de la Raza Unida was one of the party’s most strident chapters, formed out of a MEChA
political committee based at what was then “Valley State College,” (renamed two years later to
California State University Northridge).639 According to the chapter’s origin story: “hundreds of
Chicanos and Mexicanos were registered in San Fernando and Pacoima by Northridge students in
1971. These early organizers formed La Raza Unida Chapter in San Fernando…transforming the
organization from a student migratory one to a stable one.”640
Although the San Fernando La Raza Unida remained an active chapter, the defeat of the
party’s candidate, Andres Torres, for State Senate in 1973, marked the beginning of its shift away
from electoral participation towards community action.641 As a result, Ayala recognized the pressing
need to assist workers in his own backyard and help secure better working conditions for employees
at Price Pfister. As he recounted, “[Telesforo and Arlene] came to our office in the City of San
Fernando and they talked to us, and we had a couple of meetings with them. We formed at that time
what was called Obreros Unidos, which was part of la Raza Unida, and we took up a lot of the
637 Ayala, Interview. For more on La Raza Unida, see Benjamin Márquez and Rodolfo Espino, “Mexican Support for
Third Parties: The Case of La Raza Unida,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33, no. 2 (2010): 290-312; Armando Navarro, La
Raza Unida Party: A Chicano Challenge to the U.S. Two-Party Dictatorship (Temple University Press, 2000). 638 For more on how the UFW functioned in urban settings, see Randy Shaw, Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chávez, the UFW, and
the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century, (University of California Press, 2008). 639 Juan Paul de Guzman, “ ‘And Make the San Fernando Valley My Home’: Contested Spaces, Identities, and Activism
on the Edge of Los Angeles,” )ProQuest Dissertations, University of California, Los Angeles, 2014), 168-224. 640 “A Brief History of La Raza Unida Party,” UC San Diego Special Collections and Archives, Herman Baca Digital
Collection.
641 Mike Castro, “La Raza Quits Politics for Community Action,” Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1974. See also Juan
Paul de Guzman, “ ‘And Make the San Fernando Valley My Home.’”

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issues, in particular, the issue of representation of the workers by the union.”642 Obreros Unidos,
originally an agricultural union founded in Wisconsin in 1966, launched successive campaigns to
advocate for migrant farmworkers who traveled from their hometown in Texas to farms in the
Midwest.643 Ayala and the members of the San Fernando La Raza Unida formed an independent
faction of Obreros Unidos for Price Pfister workers dissatisfied with their Local’s efforts, or lack
thereof, to improve working conditions at the plant. Throughout the mid-1970s, the San Fernando
Raza Unida—and the local Obreros Unidos—“held marches there at the Price Pfister, and at the
union office, and organized a committee to collect food for the Price Pfister workers.”644 The
community-based organizing initiated by the San Fernando chapter of Raza Unida to support Price
Pfister workers set a critical precedent. It signaled the beginning of a lasting relationship between
Price Pfister workers and the greater Pacoima community. More saliently, it marked the workers’
gradual drift from the formal halls of their Teamsters Local to the modest surroundings of a small,
unheated office with “odd furniture…and revolutionary posters.”645
In the intervening years between its “Pfabulous Pfaucet” advertising campaign and its 1996
layoffs, Price Pfister, and nearly twenty other faucet manufacturers, lost a lawsuit filed by the state of
California and the National Resources Defense Council. Filed under the terms of Proposition 65, a
1986 ballot measure prohibiting California businesses from selling products that contain toxic
substances, the lawsuit ended up tarnishing Price Pfister’s reputation and costing the company 2.7
million dollars.646 Of the 19 brands tested, Price Pfister discharged the second-highest amount of
642 Ayala, Interview 643 See Jesus Salas, Obreros Unidos: The Roots and Legacy of the Farmworkers Movement (Wisconsin Historical Society Press,
2023).
644 Ayala, Interview. 645 Mike Castro, “La Raza Quits.” 646 Don Lee, “Price Pfister May Feel Sting of Suit Filed by State,” Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1993. Douglas J.
Martinez, “Faucets are Safe,” Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1993; “Faucet Makers Agree to Provide Warnings,” Los
Angeles Times, May 25, 1993; Gregory J Wilcox, “Faucet Firm Settles in Lead Suit,” Los Angeles Daily New, January 31,
1996; Barry Stavro, “Price Pfister Cuts 550 Jobs to Comply with State Safety Law,” Los Angeles Times, September 19,
1996.

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lead in tap water. Although the company’s public relations team defended its products— “the health
and safety of our customers has always been the top concern at Price Pfister,” the vice-president of
marketing, Doug Martínez, insisted—the damage was done.647 Now required to update is antiquated
casting methods and provide warning labels on its products, Price Pfister initiated its first round of
layoffs and gradual relocation to Mexicali in the winter of 1996.
Though it came as no surprise that Price Pfister blamed California’s regulatory climate for its
misfortune and the plant’s closure, the controversy sparked a flurry of social commentary. Some
Angelenos, despite their own interests, endorsed the company’s decision to leave Pacoima. “The
blame has been put on management for caring more about profits than their workers. But the blame
really belongs on the shoulders of the people of the state of California,” griped one editorial in the
Los Angeles Daily News. Yet for workers, Pacoima residents, and the Teamsters Local 986 leadership,
it was clear that fault lay with the North American Free Trade Agreement. Manny Barbosa, the
coordinator for Local 986, stressed that Price Pfister is moving to Mexicali “for the same reason
every company is shutting down here and going to Mexico. They want to totally maximize their
profits.”648 Felix Hernández, a project staff organizer for the Teamsters who became involved in the
Price Pfister mobilization, reflected that, “That whole environmental thing was nonsense. That
wasn’t a reason at all. The biggest culprit was NAFTA, and the workers knew it…[Price Pfister]
never complied with any of those Prop 65 ordinances. It was strictly NAFTA that caused them to
move. I mean, that’s the American way, they got, you know cheaper labor across the border.”649
The reality was evident in the figures: Price Pfister workers earned around $17 per hour, whereas in
Mexicali Price Pfister could employ 17 individuals for the same wage. Workers, for their part,
remained clear-eyed about Price Pfister’s relocation. Crescencia Ramirez decried that, “When I
647 Don Lee, “Price Pfister Under the State’s Gun,” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1993. 648 Barry Stavro, “Pacoima May Lose Fixture.” 649 Hernandez, Interview.

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started to work [at Price Pfister], I never thought about when the plant was going to close… now
they are going to take all the jobs to the other side.” Jose Zamora, an eight-year veteran, anticipated
the end of his career, despite the workers’ resistance. He did not reserve much faith in the Teamsters
union either, lamenting, “They don’t know nothing.” Relations between Price Pfister workers and
the Local 986 had frayed since the mid-1970s when workers sought the assistance of La Raza Unida.
But with the advent of trade liberalization in the 1990s, workers became acutely aware of their
union’s increasing impotence. Even Manny Barbosa conceded to the workers’ discontent: “They feel
betrayed. They blame the union, too. What can we do? I can’t go stand at the border when literally
hundreds of companies are moving down there.”650
As flippant as Barbosa’s retort may have been, it underscored a crucial shift in labor relations
at the turn of the twenty-first century. Global free trade had irrevocably undermined capital’s loyalty
to its workers, and even to its consumer base. Moreover, without the backing of the state, indeed
with the state actively facilitating the erosion of that bond, organized labor held little sway.
Seemingly gone were the days when the Union chambers met the fiduciary and affective needs of its
members. What’s more, by the mid-1990s, the Teamsters Union found itself embroiled in its own
internecine warfare, which only further attenuated its effectiveness.
By December 1996, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters stood at a crossroads. In
the midst of widespread de-unionization, the Teamsters contended with internal ideological shifts
and a sharp decline in membership. It was “a very turbulent time,” Felix Hernández recalled.651 The
preceding months, leading up to the union’s Presidential election, witnessed the escalation of
conflicts between the union’s two increasingly militant factions. The two candidates, Ron Carey and
James P. Hoffa, had strictly divided the union’s rank and file. With the incumbent, Ron Carey,
650 Hernandez, Interview. 651 Ibid.

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representing the “more progressive union folk,” compared to Hoffa’s “more conservative side,” the
upcoming December elections signified more than just the selection of the union’s leader. If Carey
stood for the grassroots, community-oriented style of organizing championed by John Sweeney, the
new President of the AFL-CIO, Hoffa embodied the union’s “old guard,” advocating for an
industry-focused, top-down approach to organizing. In 1991, Carey made history as the first union
president in 90 years to be elected directly by the rank and file.652 His reelection would provide a
mandate to further empower the unions’ 1.4 million members. It would also serve as a referendum
on the union’s principles, organizational strategies, and future trajectory.
There were further distinctions, however, between the two camps. The Carey/Hoffa
showdown occurred at a critical juncture for the U.S. labor movement. As it sought to rebuild its
numbers by enlisting the country’s burgeoning population of immigrant workers, the AFL-CIO’s
newly elected progressive leadership began pouring funds into a large-scale organizing campaign of
immigrant workers. Although the relationship between immigrant workers and labor unions in the
United States has always been fraught, the 1990s saw several successful organizing campaigns that
highlighted the potential for newer immigrants to rejuvenate the labor movement, especially in
California, which had the highest concentration of immigrant labor.653 The widely studied Justice for
Janitors in 1990, American Racing Equipment, and Drywallers’ campaigns had showcased the
possibilities for successful labor campaigns with immigrant workers at the forefront.654 Within the
Teamsters, however, the push to organize immigrant workers stirred tensions, particularly within the
Hoffa faction. As Felix Hernández explained it,
When immigrant communities organize, or when they have rallies, they usually carry the
American flag, but they also have the Mexican flag too. It’s just part of their culture. And a
lot of the union members didn’t like that, that was considered taboo to them. They were,
652 Stuart Silverstein, “Teamster Leader Claims Victory,” Los Angeles Times, December 15, 1996 653 See Hector Delgado, New Immigrants, Old Unions: Organizing Undocumented Workers in Los Angeles (Temple University
Press, 1993).
654 Milkman, L.A. Story; Milkman, Bloom, and Narro, Working for Justice.

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you know, gung-ho American, which is understandable. I think it was a lack of
understanding for the culture and a lack of just intelligence around that in general. It was the
old guard versus the more progress new folks. 655
Organizers like Hernández, recognized that a Carey victory would not only promote greater
protections for migrant workers toiling in a globalized, free-market economy; It would also advance
a style of labor organizing that, in carrying forth the work of the United Farm Workers’ Union and
Obreros Unidos, was deeply intertwined with a larger struggle for social and racial justice. For
immigrant workers in Los Angeles’ non-unionized manufacturing industries and their supporters, a
Carey victory would also send a strong message to the leaders of a new organizing
project transforming the Los Angeles labor movement: the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action
Project (LAMAP).
LAMAP’s Community Approach to Labor in Los Angeles
To seasoned labor organizers, Peter Olney, the former leader of the Service Employees
International and furniture workers unions and David Sickler, the regional director of the AFL-CIO,
the challenges facing Los Angeles in the aftermath of the 1992 Uprising were inextricably linked to
the deteriorating Alameda corridor. The loss of thousands of high-paying industrial jobs in the
aerospace and automotive industries had paved the way for open shops producing textiles, apparel,
and other non-durable goods. Moreover, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)
had a transformative impact on the labor movement in Los Angeles, yielding both positive and
negative consequences. On the one hand, as Joel Ochoa, a revered student activist in Mexico and a
labor activist in the U.S., recalled, “[IRCA’s amnesty clause] became an incredibly empowering tool
for the people to come out of the shadows. You know, three million people were able to regulate
their status, two million in California. So something incredible happened. Organizing undocumented
655 Hernandez, interview

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workers exploded.” 656 On the other hand, the act’s employer sanctions, which had passed with the
support of the AFL-CIO, made it exceedingly risky for undocumented workers to engage in union
activities. As David Bacon explained it, the penalty of sanctions primarily fell on the workers rather
than the employers, especially when the INS conducted its frequent immigration raids. Employers
would often use the threat of raids and deportation as leverage against organizing efforts, thus
discouraging undocumented workers from unionizing. 657 So while immigration reform of the mid1980s helped facilitate three of the most successful labor drives of the late twentieth century, it also
amplified anxieties among union members and prospective union members about the prospect of
organizing undocumented workers.
658
These legislative shifts were exacerbated by city government’s decades long disinvestment in
South Los Angeles, setting the stage for an Uprising in 1992. As Olney and Sickler saw it, the
Alameda Corridor symbolized the consequences of a neoliberal political economy, in which
predominantly immigrant laborers from Latin American and Pacific Rim countries labored under the
most precarious of conditions while residents of the surrounding communities grappled with
enduring challenges as a “permanent underclass.”659
In the two years following the Uprising, city officials pursued a strategy of revitalization
based on what I have referred to as neo-recovery partnerships (see Chapter 4). These were privatepublic partnerships deliberately designed to funnel private sector funds into deindustrializing sectors
of Los Angeles, such as the Northeast Valley in order to “revitalize” economically “distressed”
communities. Yet from the perspective of the city’s labor organizers and scholars, private
investment and enterprise alone were insufficient to address the underlying issues that had led to the
656 Ochoa, Interview 657 David Bacon Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 27, 2024, Los Angeles, CA 658 Ochoa, Interview. 659 Mary Helen Berg, “Labor Leaders Aim Efforts at Immigrants,” Los Angeles Times, October 30th, 1994.

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Uprising. As the UCLA professor Gilda Haas explained it, “If you have 700,000 manufacturing
workers and they have poor working conditions and wages, that’s going to affect the communities
they live in. So if you’re going to talk about rebuilding L.A., you have to start there.”660 Economic
development, as they saw it, necessitated a durable and inclusive labor movement, not only the
influx of private capital.
In 1994, Olney, Sickler, Joel Ochoa, and Carlos Porros, an environmental activist founded
the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project. A nonprofit group comprised of UCLA-based
scholars from the school of urban planning, community, and labor activists, LAMAP’s goal was to
mobilize a multi-union, community-based, and industry-wide drive to organize the city’s
approximately 700,000 manufacturing workers.661 Utilizing the findings from scholars affiliated with
UCLA’s Community Scholars Program, an initiative led by Professors Gilda Haas and Goetz Wolff,
Olney and Sickler asserted that the key to reigniting the city’s labor movement was to organize
whole industries, a tactic that had proven effective during labor’s mid-century heyday. Olney and
Sickler studied the success of multi-union campaigns in places like Silicon Valley, where the
Campaign for Justice had effectively organized thousands of low-wage, subcontracted manufacturers
and service employees. They also drew inspiration from the AFL-CIO’s California’s Immigrant
Workers’ Association (CIWA) and the Centro de Acción which had been organizing undocumented
workers. Olney’s plan was for LAMAP to organize all manufacturing workers under one entity, with
individual unions allocating funds and bargaining as a collective front. As Olney put it, “you
organize the entire industry to level the playing field, so that unions don’t compete around labor
costs. Workers can drive wages to higher levels and not be whipsawed by employers.”662
660 Berg “Labor Leaders.” 661 Hector Delgado, “The Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project: An Opportunity Squandered?” 662 Olney quoted in Delgado, “The Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project,: An Opportunity Squandered,” 228.

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Yet what truly distinguished the LAMAP was its commitment to community-based
organizing. LAMAP’s leadership understood, as Joel Ochoa articulated it, that “It is essential that
labor build and sustain a presence in the community in the form of labor/community centers with
the goal of creating a real labor and community alliance.”663 Inspired by Saul Alinksy’s community
organizing and Bert Corona’s model at the Centro de Acción Social Autónomo (CASA), Olney,
Sigler, and Ochoa conceived LAMAP as a movement for economic, labor, and racial justice. The
LAMAP was dedicated to improving the overall health of communities, focusing on such issues as
religious activities, environmental justice, neighborhood watch groups, and public education. As
Felix Hernández explained it, “having a real presence in the community was extremely important
because, most unions especially in the Latino community, are viewed as outsiders, so [LAMAP] said,
‘no, you have to have a presence in the community as well.’”664 LAMAP established an office in the
Alameda Corridor with the purpose of organizing “for the people and not just for getting
members.”665 Assisting LAMAP’s community-oriented organizing was Father Pedro Villaroya, the
Director of Hispanic Ministries for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Villraroya’s experience working
with laborers in maquiladoras in Northern Mexico propelled his involvement with LAMAP.
Regarding the alliance between the Catholic Church and LAMAP, Father Villayora preached that,
“The Human Person can only be fulfilled when there is dignity and justice at work. This is what
LAMAP is all about and this is the message that the Priests and Bishops will bring to the People,”
He believed that LAMAP’s mission extended beyond advocating for improved wages; rather, it was
about “giving poor people a place in society.”666 Father Villaroya’s observation shed light on
LAMAP’s lasting impact: more than a labor movement, it helped working people, especially the
663 Delgado, ““The Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project,: An Opportunity Squandered,” 230. 664 Hernandez, Interview. 665 Delgado, ““The Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project,: An Opportunity Squandered,” 232. 666 Gallagher 1998.

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city’s undocumented immigrants, forge a sense of belonging rooted in their humanity rather than
nationhood.
LAMAP’s mission to cultivate a sense of belonging for workers echoed Bert Corona’s
original vision for CASA, albeit on grander scale. Reflecting on CASA’s influence on the workers it
helped to organize, Joel Ochoa, a longtime collaborator of Bert Corona, highlighted the essence of
“autónomo” within CASA’s ethos. The organization did not focus on external funding but rather
the investments of its members. It organized people, charging members $20 annually, and in
exchange members received organizational protection, and most importantly, a sense of belonging.
Every member of CASA received a credential, serving as their ID, which included essential
information such as a phone number and guidelines for navigating interactions with immigration
authorities. The credential that CASA provided its members, as Ochoa explained it, “gave you a
sense of a place where you can find shelter, not necessarily a room or something like that, but shelter
more in the social meaning of the word.” He elaborated on the power of a credential for
undocumented workers: “it allowed you to prove you are who you are claiming to be. And that was
quite a challenge [for undocumented workers]. And that’s what CASA was. CASA was giving you a
credential that in essence was saying you know, maybe I am undocumented, but this is who I am,
and my name is so and so, and this is who I am, which is the whole purpose of identifying yourself.
You have to prove who you are.”667 The ability to “prove who you are” outside official or national
recognition was critical to CASA—and LAMAP’s—effort to organize workers. LAMAP similarly
sought to provide its members with the means to prove their identities thereby fostering a sense of
belonging within the city. Without relying on federal monies both organizations aimed to foster a
667 Ochoa, Interview.

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sense of belonging that gave workers the ability to assert who they were. And that, according to
Ochoa, “was a very powerful thing.”668
Within this context—LAMAP’s formative years and the Carey/Hoff showdown—labor
organizer Felix Hernández first learned of the Price Pfister layoffs. Inspired by his activist sister,
Hernández graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 1995 with the “sole intention of being
involved in the labor movement.” He immediately took a position as a project staff organizer for the
Teamsters Local 572, where he represented workers at the Ralph’s supermarket chain. Spurred on by
early triumphs with the Teamsters, including with the bus drivers of Los Angeles Unified School
District, Hernández endorsed LAMAP’s vision of “building up the community, because it was
something that was long term. That was the future of unionism in Southern California.”669 In
October 1996, Felix Hernández arrived to the Price Pfister foundry in Pacoima. Confessing that his
initial engagement was to campaign for Ron Carey because the Price Pfister Local 986 was
supporting James Hoffa, Hernández quickly developed a commitment to the workers’ cause:
In the spirit of LAMAP, I individually became interested in [the Price Pfister] struggle. [The
workers] were telling us about how they were being laid off and that the company was
offering them no kind of severance or extended benefits regardless of their time of service.
We asked, ‘well, you know, what is your local union doing about it?’ And that’s when all the
firestorms started. We were pretty much blocked by Local 986 from doing anything for the
workers. So we basically turned to LAMAP and we started doing what LAMAP does,
basically, community action, civil disobedience, unsanctioned strikes, and worker actions.670
Hernández worked closely with Emilio Servín, a veteran worker, and leader of the hunger strike,
who helped convince his coworkers to participate in collective actions. Felix explained his and
LAMAP’s approach to the Price Pfister workers: “We would plan and organize in conjunction with
[Emilio Servín]. And this [was] in the same vein as LAMAP, building leaders within the workforce,
as opposed to having an outside union organizer such as myself going out and directing traffic there.
668 Ibid. 669 Hernandez, Interview. 670 Ibid.

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That wasn’t my plant. Our plan was just to go up there and start a committee and build the worker
involvement and strength in the company.”671
Throughout the fall of 1996, Hernández, Servín, and other organizers based in Pacoima,
ferried workers to different Home Depots throughout the San Fernando Valley to distribute
informative leaflets and inform customers of Price Pfister’s plans to leave Pacoima. Ultimately, the
question workers posed to their neighbors echoed the words of Alejandra Torres, “How can Price
Pfister dump us out of our jobs, and then turn around and expect Latinos to continue buying their
faucets? What they are doing is a kind of discrimination against our whole community.”672 LAMAP’s
efforts to situate the labor movement within community had begun to leave a noticeable mark on
the mindset of workers.
671 Ibid. 672 David Bacon, “Price Pfister Workers Go Hungry to Save Jobs,” November 30, 1996.
https://dbacon.igc.org/Unions/12pripfi.htm

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Figure 30: Price Pfister workers sign a petition requesting Teamsters Union Local 986 intervention in
securing a better severance package. Los Angeles Times Photo Archive, UCLA Special Collections.
La Raza Estudiantil Galvanizes a New Generation of Activists in Pacoima
As Teamster and LAMAP organizers rallied Price Pfister employees to demand an improved
severance package, their longtime ally, Xenaro Ayala, was welcoming workers back into his office on
Maclay Avenue. Even before Felix Hernandez’ arrival in Pacoima, workers once again turned to La
Raza Unida for assistance. Recounting his second campaign with the Price Pfister workers, Xenaro
Ayala explained that, “we got involved once again, we had a history with the workers, so a lot of
them knew us and they would come to our events, so that started happening again, They didn’t see
anybody doing anything to at least raise their voices to say, we don’t agree that the company is being
sent to Mexicali. It’s needed here.”673 Among Xenaro Ayala’s efforts were weekly demonstrations on
Sunday afternoon in the Richie Valens park in Pacoima. There, organizers collected food and
673 Ayala, Interview

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donations for laid off workers who, particularly as late fall approached, were feeling the strain of
their piling bills. By the mid-1990s, however, Xenaro Ayala was not operating alone. At that point,
his son, Ernesto Ayala, a high school student at San Fernando High School, was leading the charge
in his school’s La Raza Estudiantil. In 1995, Ernesto Ayala, then a member of MEChA, was growing
progressively disenchanted with the group’s political activism within the Democratic party. “We
were like, ‘hey man, the community, you know, we need to do stuff ‘in the community.’ So we split
up and formed La Raza Estudiantil…and actually one of the first things we did was helping the
Price Pfister workers.”674 Detailing how he got his co(p/m)adres to join the mobilization, Ernesto
Ayala shared that, “The workers told us, ‘hey you know what, they’re gonna close the factory and we
all have to figure it out.’ So the workers went on strike and we went back to high school, we said,
‘Hey, we’re gonna do this. We’re gonna go help them out.”675
Having essentially grown up in La Raza Unida’s office on Maclay Street, just blocks from
the Price Pfister foundry, Ernesto Ayala found it only natural to organize on behalf of the workers.
He enlisted the help of his friend, Juana Macías, who had previously been involved in a letter-writing
campaign to stop the federal repeal of the national school lunch and breakfast programs. “I got
really interested, like ‘hey, I can be involved with the community, and you know, kind of do
something good,” she recounted.676 When Ernesto approached Juana about helping La Raza
Estudiantil organize a protest for the Price Pfister workers who had lost, or were at risk of losing,
their jobs, Juana’s response was, “yeah, I’m down.” So she promptly started “spreading the word”
by phoning and inviting people. “I’ve always been a kind of social butterfly,” she exclaimed. “I
remember we got a big group out there, and the news, people showed up.”677
674 Ayala, interview. 675 Ibid. 676 Juana Macias Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, January 29th, 2024, Los Angeles, CA. 677 Macias, Interview.

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Throughout the fall of 1996, Ernesto, Juana, and the members of La Raza Estudiantil began
making daily visits to the Price Pfister foundry “after school, on weekends, Saturdays and
Sundays.”678 They were often there into the early hours of the morning: “We were there one
hundred percent,” said Xenaro Ayala, Ernesto’s father. “We were there working sometimes until
three o’clock, four o’clock in the morning, passing out fliers.”679 By that point, Felix Hernandez and
the organizers from LAMAP had set up a makeshift organizing center on Paxton Street. Inside the
mobile home that sat squarely in front of the factory’s gates, organizers, workers, and the
intergenerational members of La Raza Unida and Estudiantil collectively planned their next actions,
including a massive community-based demonstration slated for December, to be called La Fiesta en
el Barrio, and a hunger strike, planned for the week before Thanksgiving.
Pforging Belonging: The Role of Anti-Free Trade Activism in Pacoima
As word spread throughout the fall that Price Pfister was laying off its workers in
preparation for its relocation to Mexicali, Los Angeles elected officials deployed various strategies to
persuade the company to remain in Pacoima.680 As Rocky Delgadillo, Mayor Richard Riordan’s
assistant deputy for economic development, phrased it at the time, “We are doing a full court press
on this.”681 Consistent with the city’s prior efforts to stem the hemorrhaging of jobs, Riordan’s
administration and Councilman Richard Alarcón stitched together a comprehensive incentive
package to entice the corporation to stay. Most notably, Riordan’s economic retention team and
Alarcón’s office leveraged Pacoima’s status as an enterprise zone to convince the company that
678 Ayala, Interview. 679 Ayala, Interview. 680 Hugo Martin, “L.A. Showers Incentives on Price Pfister,” Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1996; Deborah Adamson,
“Combating Jobs’ Flight South,” Daily News of Los Angeles, October 18, 1996; Darrell Satzman, “Federal Aid Available to
Displaced Workers,” Los Angeles Times, October 25, 1996; 681 Martin “L.A. Showers Incentives on Price Pfister.”

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staying in Pacoima was a favorable business decision. Businesses within the enterprise zone qualified
for substantial financial assistance, including tax breaks on new equipment and in hiring local
workers, among other exemptions. Moreover, the Los Angeles Community Development Bank, a
private-public lending institution created in 1992 after Los Angeles was denied recognition as a
federal empowerment zone (which would have included Pacoima), would offer Price Pfister
federally-backed loans to remain in Pacoima.682 Yet the city’s offers did not stop there: officials
indicated that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power would consider offering the plant
discounted power rates, and that the city itself would provide Price Pfister millions in low-interest
bonds to modernize its equipment and casting methods.
As the representative of district 7, one of the city’s most deindustrialized districts, Alarcón
was already well-versed in the art of retaining capital within the city. As a freshman councilman back
in 1992, Alarcón had led the city’s efforts to replace the Northeast Valley’s most devastating loss, the
General Motors Auto Plant in Panorama City (chapter three) with the outdoor shopping center, The
Plant. By the time Price Pfister announced its plans to relocate to Mexicali, Alarcón knew all the
tools in his arsenal. He formed the “red team,” comprised of government officials, union
representatives, community and business leaders, and workers. This newly minted neo-recovery
partnership collaborated on a 30-page document, listing all the incentives and benefits of the facility
in an effort to convince Price Pfister to stay, or to attract a new investor following its departure from
Pacoima.683 Although Price Pfister seemed “receptive,” and “open,” to the city’s offers, the fact
remained that under NAFTA, the motivation for companies like Price Pfister to relocate to Mexicali
went unmatched.
682 Julia Sass Rubin and Gregory M. Stankiewicz, “The Los Angeles Community Development Bank: The Possible
Pitfalls of Public-Private Partnerships,” Journal of Urban Affairs Vol 23, no. 2 (2001): 133-153. 683 Julie Tamaki, “Officials Tout Idled Price Pfister Foundry to Investors,” Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1996.

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With city officials incentivizing Price Pfister with tax breaks, Price Pfister workers tackled a
different problem. While “everything the city and the red team is doing is good stuff,” activist like
Felix Hernandez felt that city officials had “kind of lost touch with the human side of the whole
struggle.”684 As Hernandez saw it, the company’s layoffs meant that “there are a lot of children who
are unfortunately suffering because everybody is playing politics.”685 In contrast to the LAMAP,
whose approach to economic development in deindustrializing sectors of Los Angeles centered on
securing the material benefits of workers, the city prioritized retaining business.
Despite what the city could offer, employees knew that Price Pfister would eventually
relocate to Mexicali. Reflecting on his involvement with the Price Pfister mobilization, long term
labor organizer David Bacon noted that, “I don’t think the workers believed that they could stop the
relocation of the jobs…because all you had to do was look around at LA and it was just
everywhere.”686 Xenaro Ayala agreed, “I think a lot of people from that era were hopeful that some
type of humanity would spark into that issue, by Price Pfister itself or the U.S. government itself, but
sadly enough we realized that [Price Pfister] had made their decision and they were going to close
[the factory].”687
Price Pfister workers, especially recent migrants, arrived in the San Fernando Valley with
diverse experiences in labor organizing. However, nearly all had witnessed firsthand the impacts of
neoliberal economic reform within their countries of origin, including the opening up of private
markets to foreign investment. As Felix Hernandez explained it, “[Workers] understand the
dynamics. They’re a lot smarter than people give them credit for. They do understand that the wages
are cheaper down there, and you know, they understand, whether they are unionized or not, that
684 Ibid. 685 Ibid. 686 Bacon, Interview. 687 Ayala, Interview.

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they stand a chance of losing their job. Nothing lasts forever when it comes to labor, even less for
workers that are not organized.”688
This perspective marked a notable distinction among Price Pfister workers. Long term
middle-class workers in the San Fernando Valley viewed their factory jobs as “lifetime work.” Yet
they now confronted the stark reality that not only were those jobs vanishing, but the necessary
skills were also becoming obsolete in other sectors. As Democratic assemblyman, Roderick Wright,
who represented a stretch of the Alameda corridor succinctly put it, “These are people that helped
land a rocket ship on the moon, but they can’t land a job.”689 Moreover, veteran workers had to
contend with the diminishing influence of their locals in addressing capital flight. Despite their years
of dedication and service, workers found themselves increasingly powerless in the face of economic
restructuring that favored outsourcing across borders.
The middle class was disappearing, along with its jobs, wages, and lifestyle. In a suburban
area like the east San Fernando Valley, whose identity was so ingrained with the postwar suburban
ideal, a diminishing middle class heralded the emergence of a new community. Leading that
transformation were the area’s migrant workers, many of whom by the mid-1990s were accustomed
to the volatile nature of capital, especially when it had the latitude to move freely across borders.
These workers were also adept at organizing beyond the confines of the formal union, as many had
both extensively participated in union activities and endured years of state-sanctioned labor
repression in Latin America.
Indeed, part of what distinguished labor organizing at Price Pfister in the 1990s was the prior
experiences workers brought with them of trade unionism before migration. As David Bacon
explained, the Price Pfister workforce consisted primarily of Mexican and Central American
688 Hernandez, Interview. 689 Paul Heffner, “Middle Class Losing Foothold,” Daily News of Los Angles, June 1, 1997.

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migrants, each bearing vastly different backgrounds in labor organizing from within their respective
countries of origin. Mexican immigrants, who constituted the majority of workers at Price Pfister,
held contradictory perspectives about unionization. On the one hand, Mexican migrant workers
came from a legal context in which labor rights, at least on paper, were exceptionally strong. As
David Bacon continued, the Mexican Revolution had secured significant worker protections that
workers knew but rarely experienced in practice. Consequently, there existed a pervasive skepticism
towards unions, which were often referred to as “sindicatos fantasmas,” or protectionist unions, for
their close affiliation with the PRI. David Bacon articulated that many Mexican migrant workers had
belonged to guilds that were “unions” in name only. These unions, labeled as “charro,” were closely
allied with, if not outright coopted by, the ruling party and the Mexican business elite that sought to
keep Mexico attractive for foreign investment. Many migrant workers at Price Pfister arrived in
Pacoima with a considerable degree of disillusionment and distrust, as they perceived unions to
serve the agenda of the powerful rather than the workers’ best interests. Furthermore, the
industrialization of Mexico’s northern border in the mid-1960s, exemplified by the maquiladoras,
had shed light on the harsh working conditions inherent in an increasingly integrated global
market.690
In addition to the migrant workers from Mexico, there were those who immigrated to
Pacoima from Central America, especially El Salvador. Many of these employees, as noted by David
Bacon, had “belonged to popular movements in El Salvador and so came with a much more militant
idea of what a union should be.”691 For these workers, joining a picket line often meant risking their
lives. As Bacon explained, “When you come from a country where the consequences of going on a
picket line are that the military are going to show up and somebody is going to die, going on strike
690 Bacon, Interview. 691 Ibid.

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and being on a picket line in the United States is much safer. So people from El Salvador, and
especially Guatemala, came with a much more militant attitude towards unions.”692 Their
experiences prior to migration had instilled in them a heightened sense of urgency, and also a more
radicalized commitment, to labor rights, making them adept organizers and seasoned activists in the
struggle against free trade at Price Pfister.
With a focus on the workers themselves, representatives from LAMAP, along with members
of the San Fernando Raza Unida and Raza Estudiantil, helped to sponsor collective actions aimed at
addressing the immediate needs of laid off workers. Price Pfister had “let [workers] go with
nothing,” denounced Felix Hernández. They needed basic necessities, and with the holidays coming
up, laid-off workers especially needed money to buy their children presents. Felix Hernández
recalled that “we’d have workers that would come out during their break and you know, stand with
us. And also workers after their shift would come out as well, too.”693 Alongside the financial
support provided by employees, the coalition of community and labor activists organized canned
food drives for the laid off workers. Ernesto Ayala described the work as “very grassroots.” He
continued, “when we were in high school, we put a box in my dad’s classroom and a few other
teacher’s classrooms, and we were collecting canned foods.”694 The weekly marches transformed
Pacoima’s urban landscape into a theater of justice. Recounting how the mobilization utilized the
surroundings, Ernesto Ayala remarked, “We marched from there Price Pfister, we went up Herrick
Avenue, we turned right on Herrick all the way down right on Van Nuys and probably right on San
Fernando Road, and back to Price Pfister. I remember people in the community were coming out,
you know, shouting, and pumping their fists and all that. It was beautiful.”695
692 Ibid. 693 Hernandez, interview. 694 Ayala, interview. 695 Ibid.

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Figure 31: Google maps, adapted by Julia Brown-Bernstein to mark with a red rectangular to delineate
the marching route that activists and workers followed around Price Pfister, marked with a star.
In addition to their food drives, members of La Raza Estudiantil held study groups in the
evenings. Designed as a forum for high school students to learn about their history, the study groups
would meet “one or two nights a week.” Reflecting on her experience, Juana Macias recalled that the
study groups allowed her to “find our identity… to give us pride of who we were, who our ancestors
were, where we came from.”696 For adolescents growing up in Pacoima in the mid-1990s, and
witnessing the area’s swift decline, the study groups helped participants to not only contextualize
what they were experiencing, but also to effect positive change in their community. “Once we
started learning about our own history and our own, like what we hadn’t been taught in school ever,
696 Macias, Interview.

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then that gave us kind of like ‘you know what? We need to fight for our own people, for our own
community. We need to fight. We need to show them, we need to educate them, and we need to
speak up for them, be the voice of the voiceless.”697
Armed with the knowledge of Pacoima’s history, and the larger history of dispossession in
the Western Borderlands, Juana worked alongside her peers to support the Price Pfister workers:
“For us, the most important thing was getting the word out that we were out there and that, you
know, we can form protests and come and help them out with whatever they needed.”698 What
workers needed was not the guarantee that Price Pfister would stay in Pacoima, as their elected
officials were suggesting, for they well knew that the company would leave. Instead, they sought a
severance package that honored their dignity, recognized their years of hard work, and
acknowledged their loyalty to Price Pfister. In the absence of the plant, workers sought a means to
provide for their families and to sustain their lives in Pacoima.
Simon Solorio voiced his fear of losing his community in the wake of closure, stating “[At
Price Pfister] there was a sense of community. Now we’re all splitting up. Some went to Arizona and
others to Mexico. But this is now where my roots are.”699 Simon Solorio’s allusion to “roots” invites
deeper discussion. As a Mexican immigrant, Solorio experienced with his coworkers at Price Pfister
a sense “withness” - an affective register, akin to fictive kinship, that imparts a sense of belonging
tied not to nationhood or the state but to community. The sense of withness that Solorio developed
at Price Pfister was what he anticipated losing when the plant relocated to Mexicali. Due to their
personal encounters with deindustrialization in their countries of origin or their observations of it
within Los Angeles county, Price Pfister workers saw labor organizing in the mid-1990s as a means
to sustain community rather than a means to merely retain business within that community. It was a
697 Ibid. 698 Ibid. 699 Finz, “It was More Than Just a Job.”

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sentiment that resonated with labor organizers like Felix Hernandez—and the LAMAP—and
community activists like Xenaro Ayala, Ernesto Ayala, and Juana Macías. They understood that in
the neoliberal era, the labor movement needed to encompass more than just economic survival; it
needed to preserve workers’ place within their community. This was especially critical for migrant
workers, like Solorio, who had built “roots” in Pacoima through the paisano networks he developed
at Price Pfister.
“The Last of a Fading Breed of Worker”: The Mobilization Intensifies
Despite their persistent efforts, workers and their allies did not receive the desired response
from Price Pfister. Executives stood firm, refusing to increase the severance package from half a
week’s pay and week’s health benefits per year worked, up to 26 years, to the workers’ request of
one week’s pay and two weeks’ health benefits per year worked, capped at 30 years. Worse, the
company announced that only workers still employed at the time of an agreement signing would
receive severance, leaving over three hundred already laid-off workers with nothing. As
Thanksgiving approached, Emilio Servín, the leader of the worker contingent at Price Pfister,
proposed a hunger strike. “He wanted to follow in the same vein as what Cesar Chávez did,” Felix
Hernández recalled.700 Despite his initial reluctance, Hernández eventually joined the hunger strike
along with Emilio Servín, Luis Cruz, and several recently laid-off women: Alejandra Torres, Victoria
Sevilla, Claudia Molina, and Teresa Robles.
The huelga de hambre commenced on November 21st, a week before Thanksgiving, with
plans to continue until Thanksgiving day, when workers would present Price Pfister with the
“Turkey of the Year” award.701 Yet workers soon decided that the strike should continue until the
700 Ibid. 701 Jose Cardenas, “Satisfying Another Hunger,” Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1996.

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following Monday, December 2nd, when negotiations between Price Pfister and the Teamsters Union
were scheduled to take place. Speaking to La Opinión, hunger strikers confessed that what most
affected them was not the fasting itself but missing their Thanksgiving meal with their families:
“especialmente el Jueves, cuando todo el mundo va a estar cenando, nosotros vamos a quedarnos
aquí,” Emilio Servín reported. 702 The situation was particularly distressing given that strikers, who
had gone weeks without a paycheck, soon turned their thoughts to Christmas: “Lo que más me
duele es que no voy a poder estar con mis nietos y me siento muy triste porque no les voy a poder
comprar regalos esta Navidad por falta de dinero,” Victoria Sevilla lamented.703
To the great disappointment of all involved, Monday’s scheduled discussion between the
Union and Price Pfister failed, with neither side willing to yield on their demands.704 The suspension
of talks dealt a significant setback to the mobilization efforts. “It was very disheartening,” recalled
Felix Hernandez. The sadness was compounded by the sight of trucks departing from Pacoima
bound for Mexicali, carrying all the equipment out of the Price Pfister foundry705 And yet, despite
their sorrow, the workers remained determined: “Vamos a seguir luchando hasta que ganemos, y si
no ganamos nos vamos a sentir a gusto pues hicimos todo lo posible,” Sevilla insisted.
The strikers’ resolve passed on to the next generation. Regina Robles, 8 years old, joined her
mother, Teresa Robles, in the hunger strike.706 As her mother entered her second week without
food, Regina Robles’ decision to strike symbolized the responsibility that a new generation felt
toward their community. “Yo decidí quedarme porque quiero apoyar a la gente de Price Pfister que
ha sido despedida y los que van a ser despedidos…No me da miedo. Yo me di cuenta que la gente
702 Roberto Inigo, “Despedidios de Price Pfister Deciden Continuar Huelga de Hambre,” La Opinión, November 27,
1996.
703 Ibid. 704 Deborah Adamson, “Price Pfister, Union Suspend Labor Talks,” Daily News of Los Angeles, December 3, 1996;
“Temen Mas Despedidos En Pacoima,” La Opinión, December 4, 1996. 705 Ibid. 706 Roberto Inigo, “Niña Se Une a La Huelga de Hambre,” La Opinión, December 6, 1996.

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necesitaba ayuda y me metí a la huelga.”707 Motivated by a call to support not only laid-off
employees, like her mom, but also those at risk of losing their jobs, Regina Robles viewed her
decision to forgo eating as a means to stand in solidarity with the broader community. Indeed, as
the worker Gerardo Ochoa noted, it was the children—Pacoima’s next generation—who would
suffer the most when Price Pfister left Pacoima: “Los niños también están sintiendo [sic] el impacto,
ellos quieren ayudar, hacer algo,” he professed. 708 Ochoa’s words reverberated across the
community. Without the proximity to high-paying unionized jobs like those at Price Pfister, the next
generation would in all likelihood have to look outside of Pacoima to secure high wages and more
secure employment opportunities. At just eight-years old, Regina Robles may not have
comprehended the full extent of that future, but she intuitively grasped that the flight of capital
would not impact her mother’s generation alone. Regina Robles’ commitment left a lasting
impression on Felix Hernández, “She was on fire,” he recalled. “She would sit there and look at the
managers and owners of the company when they were pulling out of the driveway. She would sit
there and stare them down. She was over here, ‘I’m here until this over.’ She amazed me.”709 Despite
her militancy, Regina Robles’ participation did not last long, as the strikers called off la huelga
shortly after negotiations failed. But the next generation continued to show support for the
mobilization, by visiting the mobile home, posing questions to activists there, and sitting with
demonstrators.710 That is “how you learn activism,” Felix reflected.
The Price Pfister mobilization’s emphasis on intergenerational and community-centered
organizing set it apart from traditional labor organizing methods, which predominantly relied on
union action alone to advocate for workers’ rights. The strategy pursued by Felix Hernandez and
707 Ibid. 708 Ibid. 709 Hernandez, Interview. 710 Ibid.

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LAMAP, in collaboration with La Raza Unida and Estudiantil, proved effective in tying the fate of
the Price Pfister workers to that of the entire community, transforming the struggle into a collective
one. Building upon this community-wide coalition, Xenaro Ayala of La Raza Unida, and Ernesto
Ayala, leading the student campaign, organized La Fiesta en el Barrio, a march and demonstration,
designed to provide toys, food, clothes, and other essentials for workers ahead of Christmas. As
Juana Macías reflected, Fiesta en el Barrio was for all the Price Pfister families, whom activists feared
would not be able to provide their children a Christmas.711 The event began in front of the Price
Pfister factory on Paxton Street, drawing nearly 300 participants, and proceeded along Bradley
Avenue to Bradley Plaza. Juana, for one, did not anticipate Fiesta to grow as larger as it did:
More and more people would come out there and like, it just became a big enough
crowd that it was covered by the news…. We just didn’t expect that big of a turnout.
I was kind of thinking, ‘okay, maybe 8 people will show, a dozen at max, but it got
pretty big, and it was pretty awesome, just to see different reporters there and I
thought ‘okay maybe this will make a difference. So I was kind of hopeful. I think we
were all kind of hopeful to see that the community came out.712
According to reports, a couple hundreds of people attended the Fiesta en el Barrio in 1996.
Surprising though it may have been, the fact remained that Fiesta en el Barrio reflected what, by
December of 1996, had become a unifying movement for Pacoima residents. While Price Pfister
workers may not have achieved a fairer severance package by the end of 1996, and the “red team”
may not have persuaded the company to remain in Pacoima, the residents of Pacoima united to
support neighbors in the face of plant closure.
Several weeks later, plant closure arrived. In late January, 1997, Price Pfister shut down its
faucet foundry. Although the company kept on a couple hundred administrative positions, it let go
of nearly half of its manufacturing workforce. Workers’ demonstrations continued into the spring of
711 Macías, Interview. 712 Ibid.

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1997, as by that point hundreds of workers still lacked adequate compensation.713 In early 1997, the
movement intensified, drawing the attention of political leaders from across the partisan spectrum
into its ranks, among them Ollie McCaulley, a Republican candidate vying for State Senate. Speaking
to La Opinión, McCaulley declared that, “Lo más triste de esto es que los representantes locales no
han hecho nada por esta gente. Lo único que ellos están pidiendo es que les den la oportunidad [sic]
de una vida mejor.”714 McCaulley’s words exemplified the strategy of aspiring politicians who hoped
to exploit the crisis stemming from the city’s economic restructuring to appeal to the city’s working
class, predominantly Latinx immigrant base. However, they did so without genuinely incorporating
the demographic into the broader populace or advancing policies that would address their material
needs. Reflecting on the McCaulley’s benevolent overtures, Ernesto Ayala chuckled reminiscently,
“He was a Republican guy, and he came and was like, ‘Oh, I wanna help you guys, but what’s up
with all these Mexican flags?’ So we were like ‘man, get outta here.’”715 From the perspective of the
community activists rallying behind the Price Pfister workers, the sudden appearance of city
politicians in Pacoima served as further proof that a solution to the crisis would emerge from within
the community, not from within the city’s political chambers. Furthermore, it suggested that
politicians were willing to help to the extent that workers renounced their transnational identities
and their pride in their Latinx heritage.
713 Martha Willman, “Buy Offer Made as Price Pfister Closes Foundry,” Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1997. 714 Roberto Inigo, “Empleados Despedidos Exigen Beneficios: Cientos de Trabajadores de Price-Pfister Realizan
Protesta en Pacoima,” La Opinión, March 24, 1997. 715 Ayala, Interview.

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Figure 32: Laid-off worker Vladimiro Garcia protesting the closure of Price Pfister. Ricardo DeAratanha for
the Los Angeles Times
One massive demonstration, in particular, occurred on Palm Sunday, when over 300 protestors with
signs that read, “No More Making Black & Decker Rich,” showed up in front of the factory’s gates.
Following a mass and blessing of the palms, demonstrators brandishing bullhorns and loudspeakers,
commenced their five-mile march to Richie Valens park.716 Even workers who remained employed,
Jose Pimentel among them, showed up: “I’m here because my heart is with my people. I still have
my job but I must support my fellow workers who have lost theirs.”
By April 1997, Felix Hernández and the LAMAP contingent had left the front gates of Price
Pfister.717 Yet the organizing framework they, and la Raza Unida, helped to establish endured. The
716 Inigo, “Empleados,”; Greg Sandoval, “300 Protest Terms of Price Pfister Layoffs,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1007. 717 Hernandez, Interview. For more on the end of LAMAP, see Delgado, “The Los Angeles Manufacturing Project.”

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mobile home remained, too. Frustrated with the consistently subpar representation from their
Teamster Local, workers stepped into leadership roles, forging the Comité Fuerza Unida
(Committee of United Force), to champion their cause for a just severance package. The Comité
Fuerza Unida announced plans to boycott all Black & Decker products. They reached out to major
retailers, including Home Depot, to spread the word and convince store owners to discontinue
stocking Black & Decker products. Before the national boycott, workers staged protests in Home
Depot parking lots. Meanwhile, other demonstrators entered the stores and deliberately purchased
Price Pfister products using coins, causing delays to the checkout lines.718 This approach reflected
the vision of activists like Hernandez and those affiliated with the LAMAP, who aimed to cultivate a
more activist union, where members took on leadership positions, fostered alliances within the
community, and fervently advocated for their rights.
Yet the Price Pfister mobilization had achieved far more than that. It had given employees
who had grown increasingly alienated from the traditional model of union organizing a renewed
sense of belonging in Los Angeles’ working class. As Felix Hernández explained it, “The Old Guard
Union was never anything that had to do with belonging. I mean, there was pride in union
membership, but the steady decline of the union over the years leading up till maybe the eighties and
nineties was a direct result of that. I mean people didn’t feel like they belonged. There was a lot of
people that were disgruntled, there was a lot of unions that would look after their own interests as
opposed to the interests of their workers.”719 By contrast, the LAMAP model, in collaboration with
La Raza Unida and Estudiantil, had charted an alternative framework for engaging workers, and the
community writ large, in a struggle for economic and racial justice. It was this approach that helped
nurture workers’ sense of belonging during an era dominated by privatization and free trade.
718 Roberto Ingio, “Empleados Despedidos Piden Boicot De Productos,” La Opinión, June 9, 1997. 719Hernandez, interview.

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Whenever you see a presence in the community of a group like LAMAP, or an organizing
committee or anything like that, you know, that helps you not only with union issues, but
also with immigration issues, also helps with you refinancing, anything that may come up,
you’re gonna tend to gravitate towards that place. You know, unions failed at that. They
failed involving the community in the union.720
Felix Hernández’ words reflected what lay at the heart of the new labor movement and the shifting
role of unions. The advent of free trade and the neoliberal order had upended nearly every aspect of
a migrant workers’ life, not just their workplace or union hall. To effectively integrate immigrants
into the labor movement—and indeed to reorganize the union—it was imperative to address the
entirety of their being. Foremost in that project was the fundamental need for the immigrant
working class to be cared for, a task that neither the state nor politicians were willing or equipped to
undertake. “People flocked to us,” Hernández shared. “We had crowds there all the time, and even
the people that were not gonna get anything out of it, they would show up.” He continued,
A lot of them, believe it or not, some of it was just for comfort. People that were losing their
homes, that were losing their jobs, somebody that didn’t have enough to eat, we’d all pitch
in, and you know, get ‘em money for food, or whatever we needed to do. I really think that it
bonds people closer together. We live in a very individualistic culture, our society in general.
And when you see people coming together collectively, that’s a big, I mean it really hits you
to your heart.721
Felix Hernández spoke directly to how the Price Pfister mobilization, despite falling short of its
objectives, had an alternative, but perhaps equally consequential, impact on the lives of workers. In a
neoliberal state in which “all forms of social solidarity were to be dissolved in favour of
individualism, private property, personal responsibility, and family values,” the Price Pfister
mobilization fostered a revitalized sense of collective responsibility, mutualism, and social capital
within Pacoima. 722 It was a community-based form of resistance to neoliberalism.
720 Ibid. 721 Ibid. 722 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press, 2005), 23.

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Through the mobilization, Price Pfister workers and their allies asserted their collective
power and solidarity outside the confines of the traditional union. Yet it fostered their sense of
belonging in a different sense, too. Reflecting on his involvement in the fall of 1996, David Bacon
contends that the Price Pfister mobilization allowed workers to reclaim ownership over their own
lives in the wake of NAFTA. Globalized free trade had unfairly vilified workers by shifting the
blame of job loss onto workers rather than the company. In this narrative, unions had become too
powerful and workers were asking too much, leading companies to seek cheaper wages and “ready
labor” elsewhere. Yet through their mobilization, workers became educated and empowered in the
conviction that their jobs belonged to them. “Fighting is about the will to survive,” David Bacon
explained. “It’s not just about whether or not you can win what you’re fighting for, whether it’s to
stop the closure from happening, or forcing the company to give you some severance so that you
can survive on that,” he continued. It’s about maintaining the belief that, “I’m not going to blame
myself for this. I am not going to say what the company is telling me, that I was too expensive.”723
What the Price Pfister workers achieved, then, was less about tangible material gains and
more about redefining the essence of being a worker in the neoliberal age.
When you fight back, when you have the hunger strikes and the demonstrations and
the food [donation] club and the rest of what, what it’s like saying is that we are not
going to roll over. We are not going to blame ourselves. We are going to fight this
company because… we have a right to our jobs, which is at least as important, if not
more important than the company’s rights to the factory. We live in capitalism
where property says private property rights trump everything. But we own the
factory. We can do whatever the fuck we want. And as workers, what we have to say
is that our jobs belong to us. They don’t belong to you, they belong to us.
The workers’ struggle symbolized a profound reclamation of dignity and agency in the face of
neoliberal policies that both devalued their being and exploited their labor. By asserting their
723 Bacon, Interview.

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presence and challenging the narrative of blame imposed upon them, the Price Pfister workers
reshaped the discourse surrounding labor rights at the turn of the twenty-first century.724
The “Virgin Soil” of the Neoliberal Era: The Coscto-fication of Pacoima
By spring 1997, Roberto Inigo of La Opinión called Price Pfister’s closure “the end of the
American dream.”725 For new homeowners, including veteran workers, Carmelo Aburto and María
Hinojosa, both in the process of paying off their mortgages, Price Pfister’s closure meant that their
homes became, in the words of Hinojosa, “como un castillo de arena que se viene abajo.” It was
undeniable that Price Pfister’s refusal to offer any severance package to laid off workers, coupled
with the inability of organizing efforts to secure one, left hundreds of workers and their families in
desperate circumstances. The relocation of Price Pfister from Pacoima to Mexicali also adversely
affected many workers’ families in Mexico: “Todo se vino abajo,” lamented Carmelo Aburto. “Estoy
muy deprimido, mi mama murió el año pasado y mi papa está enfermo en México. Ya no le voy a
poder mandar dinero.”726 The remittance market also suffered as a result of Price Pfister’s relocation
to Mexicali. Migrant workers who routinely sent money to family members in Mexico would no
longer have the means to do so, disrupting another crucial source of connection and financial
stability for many immigrants in the Northeast Valley and their relatives in Latin America. In early
1997, employees from California’s Economic Development Department, including Norma Gallegos,
arrived to oversee an on-site re-employment center. Speaking to reporters, Gallegos lamented that,
“It was almost as if a city had vanished. The whole company was a community. People met there,
724 Bacon, Interview. 725 Roberto Inigo, “Despedido Pone Fin al “Sueño Americano,” La Opinion, April 4, 1997. 726 Ibid.

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fell in love, got married, bought their homes in the area. They never traveled out of the safety zone.
It was everything to them.”727
Facing few other options, many laid-off workers turned to the North American Trade
Readjustment Act, a federal program designed to help workers displaced by NAFTA. They enlisted
in retraining programs that offered classes ranging from computers to cosmetology.728 Yet even with
retraining classes, the job search posed challenges for Price Pfister workers, many of whom did not
speak fluent English and who had an elementary-school level education. “It’s very difficult to place
the monolingual population,” said Gabriel Garcia, an employment specialist with the Northwest San
Fernando Valley Comprehensive Jobs Assistance Center. Exacerbating the challenge of facing
Spanish speaking workers was the mounting opposition to bilingual education in California public
schools. Price Pfister layoffs coincided with the campaign for Proposition 227, a ballot measure
mandating that English language learners be taught predominantly in English. Discrimination against
Spanish speakers was pervasive in both California’s public and private sectors, further complicating
the job search for displaced industrial workers in the late 1990s.729 Consequently, former Price
Pfister workers were often forced to accept lower wages with few benefits and employment at the
margins of the service economy. Celia Magallón, a laid-off worker enrolled in a cooking school at
Mission Community College, used to make $9.85 an hour plus benefits on the Price Pfister line.
After losing her job at Price Pfister, she hoped to obtain a job as a cafeteria worker in the Los
Angeles Unified School District making an hourly wage of $7.21 without benefits. But within a
political climate that denounced the use of Spanish in public settings, that aspiration unfortunately
proved ambitious.
727 Kerry Cavanaugh and Rachel Uranga, “Retail Complex to Bring Jobs Back to Old Plant,” Los Angeles Daily News, July
19, 2004.
728 Julia Scheeres, “8 Laid-Off Price Pfister Workers Using NAFTA Recipe to Retool Skills,” Los Angeles Times, May 20,
1997.
729 For more on Proposition 227, see Pastor, State of Resistance, 85-86.

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For the next three years, former Price Pfister employees would join hundreds of other
displaced industrial workers from across the Los Angeles basin as they entered the region’s
burgeoning service sector. Meanwhile, from 1997 to 2000, the Price Pfister facility in Pacoima
continued with a notably diminished workforce. By 2000, however, the company announced its
plans to shutter its factory permanently, transferring any remaining manufacturing jobs to Mexicali
and all administrative positions to new offices in Orange County.
City officials endeavored to secure funds and find an investor to acquire the property. They
set their sights on retail redevelopment, as Depotland was already the prevailing model of
revitalization. Indeed, as the new millennium drew closer, Los Angeles elected officials readily
embraced the neo-recovery partnership as a strategy to “revitalize” areas of the city grappling in the
wake of capital flight. This was the same strategy that Pacoima and the area’s representatives,
including Councilman Richard Alarcón, State Senator Alex Padilla, Representative Howard Berman,
and Mayor Riordan and Villaraigosa embraced to redevelop the 24-acre site off of Paxton Street in
Pacoima.
City officials knew the steps to build a neo-recovery partnership. Initially, they applied for
and received funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) recently
allocated Brownfields Economic Development Initiative. The Brownfield’s Economic Development
Initiative (BEDI) was a competitive grant program designed to “assist cities with the redevelopment
of abandoned and underused industrial and commercial facilities, where expansion and
redevelopment is burdened by real or potential environmental contamination.”730 In 2002, the Los
Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) obtained a grant for a $1.4 million and $7.4
million in low interest loans for its “Pacoima Center project,” which would be a retail campus akin
730 For more, see https://archives.hud.gov/hudprograms/bedi.cfm

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to those proliferating across Los Angeles’ deindustrializing sectors.731 At the time, Steve Andrews the
CRA’s chief of strategic planning reported that the award was “great news and a major advance for
the project,” he reiterated that, “when Price Pfister closed, it was a huge blow to Pacoima and
hundreds of jobs were lost in the poorest areas of the Valley.”732
Backed by politicians at all levels, the Pacoima project seemed to be gaining momentum.
However, it would be another few years before the vacant lot saw any redevelopment. An extensive
environmental review revealed that the plot was heavily contaminated with metals, Volatile Organic
Compounds (VOCs), pale oil, and petroleum hydrocarbons. Reports also showed that the
groundwater surrounding the site contained VOCs emanating from the nearby Holchem Chemical
plant.733 Therein commenced a prolonged period of remediation in which Black & Decker paid the
Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) and the California Department of Toxic
Substance Control (DTSC) to oversee the site clean-up.
Community activists, former workers, and Pacoima residents rallied to ensure that Black &
Decker’s site clean-up adhered to environmental mandates. It was clear that the Price Pfister
mobilization had a lasting impact on the community as residents continued their advocacy during
the site’s transition and redevelopment. Jane Williams, the Director of California Communities
Against Toxins reported that the site remediation was conducted, “safely with much community
participation.” Describing community members’ involvement in the clean-up, Chihiro Tamefusa
explained that,
Williams worked with the DTSC to design a health and safety plan that prohibited the
stockpiling of contaminated materials and requires washing the trucks that carry
contaminated material before they leave the site. In addition to this, Williams put a banner in
731 Bill Hillburg, “Pacoima Project Gets Cash Grant,” Daily News of Los Angeles, November 2, 2022. 732 Ibid. 733 Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles Board Memorandum adopted by the Agency Board
on July 17th, 2008 with regards to the costs for property to be acquired by Plaza Pacoima LLC for the development of
the Plaza Pacoima Retail Center. Los Angeles City Clerk online documents
https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2008/08-1931_rpt_cra_07-17-08.pdf

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the community with the Air Quality Management District (AQMD) regional inspector’s
phone number. If community members saw any dust leaving the site, they would call the
inspector for him to check immediately. She also worked with mothers living in the
neighborhood; she gave video cameras to them so that they could film whenever the
contractors were not following the rule.734
The mothers to whom Tamefusa referred were part of the Community Inspectors of Pacoima
Beautiful, an environmental justice non-profit established in 1996.735 Five mothers founded Pacoima
Beautiful out of growing distress over the piles of trash and noxious odors that they and their
children endured. Drawing upon Pacoima’s history of grassroots activism, these mothers joined
forces to foster a safer and cleaner community through initiatives such as community clean-ups and
tree planting events.736 The Price Pfister site clean-up brought greater visibility to Pacoima Beautiful
and greater awareness throughout the community. The organization’s then-leader, Marlene
Grossman, played a crucial role in assisting Pacoima mothers to decipher the figures within the site’s
environmental review and understand the impact of the “contaminated dust clouds” looming
overhead. What was once a civic group that lead litter campaigns and the pick-up of abandoned
sofas transformed into a full-blown movement for environmental justice: “Our group,” Grossman
was quoted saying, “has slowly worked up to identifying toxic sites, diabetes testing, the amelioration
of lead poisoning, and study of asthma triggers and overcrowding.”737 Pacoima mothers were now
armed with the knowledge, a critical mass, and the platform to advocate for an environmentally safer
community.
734 Chihiro Tamefusa, “Environmental Justice in Remediation: Tools for Community Empowerment,” (Senior Thesis,
Pomona College, 2016,) 54.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=pomona_theses
735 Pacoima Beautiful https://www.pacoimabeautiful.org/about See also, “Envisioning a Greener LA: Environmental
and Economic Sustainability for Boyle Heights, Pacoima, & Wilmington,” A Project of UCLA Luskin Community
Scholars, June 2014, Vision Document https://www.labor.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2014-CommunityScholars_Envisioning-a-Greener-LA.pdf 736 Pacoima Beautiful “About.” Accessed April 5, 2024. https://www.pacoimabeautiful.org/about 737 Steve Mikulan, “Pacoima’s Lot,” LA Weekly, September 22, 2005. Accessed April 5, 2024.
https://www.laweekly.com/pacoimas-lot/

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This environmental justice activism exemplified residents’, especially local mothers’, capacity
to drive change within their community in the postindustrial era.738 Although community members
and activists may have been unsuccessful in achieving their stated goals during the Price Pfister
mobilization, they still exercised the authority to shape the site’s impact on their collective health and
that of future generations.739 In so doing, residents reasserted their sense of belonging within their
community and insisted upon the self-evident, yet often neglected, fact that their bodies belonged to
them.
While Pacoima residents were mobilizing around their rights to environmental justice in the
wake of plant closures and capital flight, real estate developers spied a unique opportunity.
Predominantly Latinx immigrant communities that had suffered from the devastating consequences
of deindustrialization were ripe for retail redevelopment. To developers, they were the “virgin soil”
of the neoliberal era. With an abundance of vacant land parcels (zoned for industrial and commercial
use), hard-working immigrant families, and geographic isolation from the rest of the city, Pacoima
presented an ideal setting to introduce “power centers” along the I-5 corridor, particularly within
Pacoima. Councilmember Alex Padilla enthusiastically welcomed the prospect of retail development
in his district. Speaking to Daily News reporters he declared that, “It’s symbolic of the turnaround for
the whole community… Now retailers’ eyes are open to an untapped market where you have a lot of
hardworking families. They don’t make $100,000 a year, but they eat ice cream, too. They drink
coffee, too, and they want to shop in their own community.”740 With just a few words, Padilla
encapsulated the essence of this historical shift. If residents had once aspired for high-paying,
738 For more on the role of motherhood in local activism, see Sánchez, Boyle Heights, 213-240. 739 For more on Pacoima’s environmental activism see Envisioning a Greener LA: Environmental and Economic
Sustainability for Boyle Heights, Pacoima, & Wilmington,” A Project of UCLA Luskin Community Scholars, June 2014,
Vision Document https://www.labor.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2014-Community-Scholars_Envisioninga-Greener-LA.pdf 740 Brent Hopkins, “Major Retailers Looking to Latino Market,” Los Angeles Daily News, March 18, 2004.

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unionized jobs within their community, they now hoped to shop and dine at chain stores there. And
who could blame them? Their high paying jobs had disappeared, yet many still desired the
convenience and accessibility of local amenities, now, more than ever, they found it in the form of
Costco and Target.
Critical to that shift within Los Angeles was real estate developer Arturo Sneider and his
firm, Primestor Development Inc. Founded in 1991, Primestor pioneered bringing large- scale retail
complexes to urban, working-class communities across Southern California. When Arturo Sneider
immigrated to Los Angeles from Mexico City in 1986, he witnessed the poverty, violence, and
disinvestment in areas predominantly inhabited by Latinx immigrants. It dawned on him that he
could combine activism with real estate development by founding a firm devoted to enhancing the
built environment of marginalized communities throughout Los Angeles. As he articulated it in The
Hispanic Review, “I would qualify this as a labor of love. Our activism takes place in real estate
because we think that we can create, in the built environment, a very tangible, distinct, positive
change—and in some small way, make people’s lives better.”741 Throughout the early to mid-1990s,
Primestor Properties as it was then known, directed its efforts towards “brownfield sites,” like the
former Price Pfister parcel, which were ubiquitous throughout Los Angeles. Despite the toxic cleanup, these brownfield sites presented developers the prospect of receiving financial assistance from
the city and federal government, albeit whatever remained after budget cuts. Moreover, if developers
could secure additional funding from private lenders, they could propel the projects forward with
support from capital partners.742 In other words, brownfield sites provided an ideal opportunity for
the establishment of a neo-recovery partnership.
741 A.J. Sak, “How Arturo Sneider Builds Up From Within,” The Hispanic Executive, December 30, 2019. Accessed April
4, 2024. https://hispanicexecutive.com/arturo-sneider-primestor/ 742 Jacquelyn Ryan, “Cleaning Up,” Los Angeles Business Journal, October 30, 2011. Accessed April 4, 2024.
https://labusinessjournal.com/real-estate/cleaning/

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Discussions between Primestor, the Mayor’s Office, Council District 7, the Community, and
the Los Angeles CRA began in the summer of 2006. By that point, Primestor had already completed
numerous projects in Bell Gardens, Downey, Huntington Park, Carson, and South El Monte.
Sneider’s approach had proven highly successful in attracting mass marketers and big box stores to
Latinx neighborhoods. As Sneider explained, “We’ve been marketing and pitching the Hispanic
urban market for years… when people finally realize that it exists, they said, ‘hey, call those crazy
guys at Primestor. Then we really took off.’”743 Primestor Development seized upon the growing
buying power of Latinx immigrant populations. In the early 2000s, as immigration rates leveled,
developers directed their attention to Latinx families eager to pay their hard-earned dollars at retail
complexes that also fostered a familial atmosphere. Speaking to reports, Sneider highlighted the
diverse consumer base by providing an example of a Spanish-speaking grandmother who wished to
shop at a carnecería while her English-speaking grandson browsed videos games at GameStop.744
Sneider and his business partner Leandro Tyberg formed the Plaza Pacoima LLC, a venture
partnership between Primestor and Prudential Insurance Company of America, to manage the
ownership and financing of the project site. With funding secured and ownership established, the
Plaza Pacoima LLC leased parcels to Lowes Hardware store, Best Buy, and, to the delight of the
Mayor’s Office, Costco. Mayor Villaraigosa had actively courted Costco to expand its presence in
Los Angeles, where only four Costco stores in the city, the latest of which was built in 1996 in the
Los Feliz/Atwater Village neighborhood. Mayor Villaraigosa championed Costco’s all-in-one model,
emphasizing its ability to meet “community needs—offering groceries, a pharmacy, gas station, and
general merchandise in one location.”745 Although Costco was not a fully unionized employer, its
comprehensive range of consumer services appeared to compensate for its shortcomings in labor
743 Hopkins “Major Retailers.” 744 Brent Hopkins, “Latino Buying Power More Influential,” Daily News of Los Angeles, April 13, 2007. 745 Kerry Cavanaugh, “Mayor Saw Potential in Costco,” Daily News of Los Angeles, July 28, 2008.

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protections. Costco’s presence in Pacoima bridged the gap left by the city’s inability to retain
manufacturing firms and the government’s retreat from civic life and social services. Residents
could no longer rely on the government for wrap around services, but they could get a range of
needs met at Costco.746
Community activists and local business leaders praised Costco’s commitment to Pacoima.
Despite initial concerns that it might pose a threat to local business, Julie Fonseca, the business
development officer with the Valley Economic Development Corporation, insisted the Costco
would actually retain shoppers in Pacoima: “There was a lot of people leaving Pacoima to do their
shopping,” Fonseca explained. Pacoima residents wanted to spend their money locally. Nury
Martínez, of the non-profit Pacoima Beautiful, whose mother lost her job when Price Pfister closed,
lent community support to Costco’s arrival in Pacoima: “We felt Costco was going to be able to
provide good-paying jobs,” she said. 747
Adding to Costco, and the Plaza Pacoima’s credibility, was the Community Benefits
Agreement (CBA) orchestrated by the CRA in early 2007. This agreement was the result of a
collaboration among a broad-based coalition of Pacoima stakeholders, including community-based
organizations, religious institutions, social service providers, and local residents, who conducted a
comprehensive assessment of community needs. The long-term tradition of grassroots organizing in
Pacoima made it so the CBA came to include over 24 organizations, and established a standing
weekly meeting that met over 30 times in 2007. Detailing the work of the Coalition, authors of the
Board Memorandum wrote that,
The Coalition distributed over 15,000 bilingual flyers for two community-wide meetings that
were attended by more than 200 residents. In addition, the Coalition held numerous smaller
746 Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles Board Memorandum adopted by the Agency Board
on July 17th, 2008 with regards to the costs for property to be acquired by Plaza Pacoima LLC for the development of
the Plaza Pacoima Retail Center. Los Angeles City Clerk online documents
https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2008/08-1931_rpt_cra_07-17-08.pdf 747 Kerry Cavanaugh, “Mayor Saw Potential in Costco.”

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focus groups in which 60 community members participated. Through these meetings, the
Coalition distributed and collected 234 surveys which provided a preferential ranking of
community needs. The Coalition then engaged in a consensus-building process to translate
those needs into benefit categories for the CBA. From this data, job-related benefits
emerged as the community’s top priority, while establishing a local cultural arts facility
ranked second. This entire community needs and prioritization process took nearly five
months to accomplish.748
The redevelopment of the former Price Pfister plant held great significance for Pacoima residents.
The factory had long served as an economic anchor in the community, and it was clear that residents
wanted to see it replaced with something that replenished jobs above all else. Although the Coalition
did not triumph in every regard, the CBA did secure local hiring for 354 permanent and 438
construction jobs, 75% livable wages, on-site security measures, environmental mitigations through
the form of a LEED designation, a community oversight committee, and, as illustrative of some of
the neighborhood’s other challenges, a prohibition on Check Cashing Businesses and Payday
Lenders. Most notably, the CBA fostered trust within the community, and therefore its support for
Plaza Pacoima.
The project was finalized in 2008, with hopes of opening around Christmastime 2009. As
they had with the opening of The Plant in Panorama City, city officials, business leaders, and the
local media heralded Plaza Pacoima as “relief in a big box plaza.”749 They cited Costco, Best Buy,
and a Lowe’s as “signs of hope” and “a testament to the power of community organizing.”750 La
Opinión proclaimed that “Una Nueva Esperanza Nace Para Pacoima.”751 Besides the jobs that Plaza
Pacoima would bring to the community, councilmember Alarcón claimed that the “impact is huge
748 Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles Board Memorandum adopted by the Agency Board
on July 17th, 2008 with regards to the costs for property to be acquired by Plaza Pacoima LLC for the development of
the Plaza Pacoima Retail Center. Los Angeles City Clerk online documents
https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2008/08-1931_rpt_cra_07-17-08.pdf 749 “Relief in a Big Box Plaza,” Daily News of Los Angeles, July 29, 2008. 750 Ibid. 751 Ivan Mejía, “Una Nueva Esperanza Nace Para Pacoima,” La Opinión, July 25, 2008.

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on the psychology of the people of the Northeast Valley,”.752 In early January local residents like
Johanna Cuellar lined up at the site to apply for a job at one of the Plaza’s Big Box stores. “It’s very
hard to find a job here in Pacoima, even in little grocery stores or liquor places,” Cuellar told
reporters.753 Yesenia Lopez, another job seeker, celebrated Plaza Pacoima’s arrival as it meant that
she would no longer have to drive to the other side of the Valley for work.
Both residents sought jobs at Lowes Hardware, perhaps unaware of the irony of their
choice. The Lowes Hardware store at Pacoima Plaza, stocked with many Price Pfister products,
would soon be importing—and selling—the same faucets that were once Pacoima manufactured on
the same ground; Now, Pacoima residents would be selling the products they once made. Despite
the community activism to reduce toxic air and groundwater, the trucks carting those faucets back
into Pacoima might generate similar, if not worse, levels of pollution than the Foundry ever did. 754
Nevertheless, Plaza Pacoima marked the “rebuilding of the community,” and “truly an economic
miracle,”755 after the vacant lot had become the “economic graveyard” of the Northeast San
Fernando Valley.756
752 Connie Llanos, “Questions Surround Proposed Panorama Malls, Condos,” Daily News of Los Angeles, October 8, 2008. 753 Brandon Lowrey, “Hope rises on Pacoima Site,” Daily News of Los Angeles, January 9, 2009. 754 Steve Mikulan, “Pacoima’s Lot,” LA Weekly, September 22, 2005. Accessed April 5, 2024.
https://www.laweekly.com/pacoimas-lot/ 755 Jennifer Oldham, “Work Begins on Pacoima’s New Costco,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2009. 756 Lowrey, “Hope Rises on Pacoima Site.”

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Figure 33: Conceptual Rendering of “Plaza Pacoima”
Conclusion
Plaza Pacoima, completed in 2010 at a cost of $78 million, now boasts an 80-foot freeway
pylon sign beckoning motorists heading eastbound on the 118 freeway. Arturo Sneider’s crowning
achievement lures local residents to purchase packages of 30-rolls ply toilet paper at Costco or mass
produced electronics at Best Buy. Gone are the days when couples like Ada and Willie Robinson
raised their family on their Price Pfister paychecks or union organizers like Felix Hernandez rallied
demonstrations on street corners.
While Lowes stills sells Price Pfister bathroom fixtures, arguably the greatest paradox of all,
what most endures in Pacoima is the indomitable spirit of community activism exemplified by the
Price Pfister mobilization of the mid-1990s. In December 2023, local residents, activists, and
especially La Raza Unida joyously celebrated the 25th annual Fiesta en el Barrio, a testament to not
only the lasting impact of Pacoima’s grassroots organizing, but also, the Price Pfister workers, labor
activists, and community residents who courageously fought free trade. Through the Fiesta en el
Barrio, longtime community activists Xenaro and Ernesto Ayala have helped sustain and build a new

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generations’ historical memory of the era. The event’s most recent Facebook flier explained the
history of the event:
Fiesta en el Barrio is a community celebration where the local chapter of La Raza Unida
committed to helping the striking Price Pfister workers here in Pacoima at the Paxton St.
Plant which employed over 1,300 people. The workers were told that the company would
move to Mexicali and that the workers should basically figure it out. Leaving them and their
families in despair when the Holiday season came around. Many of these recently
unemployed community residents had not paid their rents or mortgages thus had no money
even to celebrate. La Raza Unida and La Raza Estudiantil from SFHS came together to
organize a toy and food giveaway at Ritchie Valens Recreation Center. The year was 1995
and La Raza Unida has been organizing this event ever since. The goal is not to provide
charity. The goal is to build power by raising consciousness around issues affecting our
Community such as those that led to the organizing of Fiesta en el Barrio in the first place,
which are Capitalism, Neoliberalism, and the fact that our people do not exercise their right
to “Self Determination.” We do this by breaking break and bringing smiles to our little
Chicanitos and all children of Pacoima.”757
Offering both a vernacular narrative and historical analysis of the Price Pfister events, the Facebook
flier and organizers of Fiesta en el Barrio attributed the foundry’s closure to the ascent of global
capitalism and neoliberalism. It entreated Pacoima residents to advocate for their own selfdetermination in the face of these challenges, marking the next chapter in a longstanding history of
colonial subjugation in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands.
The resistance efforts undertaken by workers and their allies mounted in the mid-1990s may
have not have delivered the material benefits that activists initially hoped for. Indeed, LAMAP
disbanded shortly after Price Pfister shut down in 1997. However, from the crucible of NAFTAinduced plant closures, emerged a distinctive form of community activism, deeply entrenched in
opposition to globalized free-trade, deindustrialization, and their attendant consequences. Residents
cultivated a renewed sense of belonging, intricately tied to the welfare of their neighbors, the dignity
of their labor, and the environment.
757 MeChA de LAMC Facebook Page, posted December 22, 2023. Accessed April 5, 2024.
https://www.facebook.com/mechadelamc/?locale=el_GR

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CONCLUSION
Belonging in the (818)
Looming above a curtain of gasoline pumps at the Speedway station on Herrick Avenue and
Van Nuys Boulevard is a mural of Toypurina, a revered Tongva-Gabrieliño medicine woman, set
against a tapestry of native flowers.758 Her gaze is commanding, her eyes bear unwavering resolve.
Toypurina has remained a celebrated and widely represented figure across the Los Angeles basin for
generations.759 Her pivotal role in the 1785 revolt against the San Gabriel Mission, where she is said
to have used her divine power to immobilize the Mission’s Catholic Priests, has solidified Toypurina
as a feminist icon of colonial resistance, indigenous self-determination, and community
empowerment.760
The mural of Toypurina on Van Nuys Boulevard is proudly mentioned alongside the
dozens of public murals that today constitute Pacoima’s “Mural Mile.” This three-mile stretch
features colorful frescos painted by a cadre of local artists, adorning the exterior walls of local
restaurants, laundromats, and highway underpasses.761 In recent years, Pacoima’s “Mural Mile,” has
758 For more on Toypurina, see Luhui Whitebear, “Resisting the Settler Gaze: California Indigenous Feminisms,”
Feminist Formations 35, no. 1 (2023): 97-116; Steven Hackel, “Indian Testimony and the Mission San Gabriel Uprising of
1785,” Ethnohistory 50, no. 4 (2003): 643-669; “Life Story: Toypurina (1760-1799),” Women and the American Story,
Accessed June 2, 2024, https://wams.nyhistory.org/settler-colonialism-and-revolution/settler-colonialism/toypurina/ 759 Other public murals of Toypurina can be seen in Boyle Heights, El Monte, Pacoima, and UCLA
https://100.ucla.edu/news/new-mural-captures-campus-history-and-uclas-future; https://www.pbssocal.org/historysociety/toypurina-a-legend-etched-in-the-landscape-of-los-angeles 760 Maria John, “Toypurina: A Legend Etched in the Landscape of Los Angeles,” PBS SoCal, May 15, 2014. Accessed
April 16, 2024. https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/toypurina-a-legend-etched-in-the-landscape-of-losangeles#:~:text=A%20Toypurina%20mural%20in%20Pacoima,artists%20and%20public%20art%20advocates.&text=F
ew%20details%20survive%20about%20the,Spanish%20colonial%20rule%20in%201785.
761 For more on mural mile, see April Aguirre, “The Mural Mile of Northeast San Fernando Valley,” PBS SoCal, July 6,
2012. Accessed April 16, 2024, https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/the-mural-mile-of-northeast-san-fernandovalley; Frank Shyong, “Art of Paint and Persuasion: Muralist Levi Ponce is Helping to Reclaim Pacoima’s Image,” Los
Angeles Times, August 23, 2013; LA List Podcast, “Touring Pacoima’s Mural Mile,” https://laist.com/shows/taketwo/touring-pacoimas-mural-mile; Mike Sonksen, “Mural Mile: A History of Pacoima Told Through the Tapestry of
Street Art,” LA Taco, April 17, 2019. Accessed April 16, 2024. https://lataco.com/mural-mile-pacoima-history; Denise
Hamilton, “Storming the Mission: Toypurina a Female Shaman Who Led a Revolt Against Spanish Rule Emerges as an
Icon,” Alta, January 4, 2022. Accessed April 15, 2024. https://www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a38377991/toypurinaindigenous-shaman-denise-hamilton/

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been hailed as a symbol of the community’s triumphant rebirth after the tumultuous decades of the
1980s and 1990s. With several prominent features in the local press, Pacoima’s “Mural Mile” has
become both a popular “urban hike” and also a source of community pride for younger generations
of Pacoima residents, even as some have critiqued the murals’ male-dominated imagery and vision.
Yet the creators behind the Toypurina mural, a feminist artist collective known as HOODsisters
(Honoring our Origins, Ourselves, and Our Dreams), have advanced this arts movement by
positioning “womyn” as the protagonists of Los Angeles’ regional history and of Pacoima’s twentyfirst century resurgence.762 Completed in March 2014, the Toypurina Mural united local artists and
their children to harness the enduring power of an indigenous feminist icon. It stands as a poignant
reminder to all passersby that those who shape history dwell among us, not apart from us.
The feminist coalition that brought the Toypurina mural to fruition on Van Nuys Boulevard
is part of a long lineage of grassroots organizing that has characterized the multiracial and workingclass community of Pacoima. Yet the artists belong to a new generation of Pacoima residents—a
generation that grew up not surrounded by the area’s industrial giants but rather by its powercenters. This was the generation that went back-to-school shopping at Target on Osborne and
Laurel Canyon and applied for their first jobs at Costco. Indeed, located just a few miles north of the
shopping center The Plant, the Toypurina mural is a resounding example of how community
members have banded together to shape—literally paint—the postindustrial east San Fernando
Valley. From the heights of the freeways, the pylon sign for Plaza Pacoima towers above the
Toypurina mural, casting a long shadow across the thoroughfare. But at eye-level, amidst the daily
rhythms of Pacoima’s fruteros and paleteros, its commuters, and school children, Toypurina reigns.
762 April Aguirre, “Womyn at Work: Muralist Sistas Bring Color to San Fernando Valley,” PBS SoCal, March 19, 2014.
Accessed April 16, 2024. https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/womyn-at-work-muralist-sistas-bring-color-to-sanfernando-valley; Hailey Branson-Potts, “All-Woman Art Collective’s Murals Transform a Drab Corner of Pacoima,” Los
Angeles Times, October 13, 2014; See also Michael Robin Chavez, “Toypurina Mural,” Los Angeles Times,
https://www.latimes.com/visuals/photography/la-me-hood-sisters-mural-pictures-20141013-photogallery.html

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Figure 34: HOODsister member, Meztli Icue Papalotl receives a hug from one of her three daughters after they
began the Toypurina mural in Pacoima. Michael Robinson Chávez for the Los Angeles Times.
Figure 35: The completed mural of Toypurina, a Tongva-Gabrieliño medicine woman, and feminist icon who
spearheaded a rebellion against Spanish colonial leaders and Catholic Missionaries at the San Gabriel Mission in
1785. The mural is located at Michael Robinson Chávez for the Los Angeles Times.

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Diosy, the founder of Voices Unidas en Pacoima, sees the Toypurina mural as a constant
affirmation that she belongs in Pacoima.763 “I have found my village in Pacoima,” she explains. “I
definitely have people that are minutes away that I can ask to babysit my kid, or ask for a cup of
sugar. I have finally gotten that village for myself.”764 Through her leadership of Voices Unidas—a
collective focused on connecting Pacoima residents with their roots and community, and
documenting their voices and experiences—and her regular appearances on local radio station 101.5
and Valley Views media, Diosy embodies how Pacoima residents define belonging in the
postindustrial era, claiming it for themselves regardless of their formal citizenship. She exemplifies a
phenomenon I’ve explored in this dissertation, that is the liberalizing of belonging.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, the east San Fernando Valley underwent rapid and
dramatic transformations. Orchards gave way to asphalt, while boulevards flourished with date
palms and Big Bobs fast-food drive-thrus. Amidst this evolution, a surge of middle-class families
reshaped their lives in suburban subdivisions, navigating the allure of exclusivity with a commitment
to leftist politics. They carved out a "Shtetl in the Valley" as their children embraced an identity as
"suburban underdogs." However, beyond the manicured lawns of the track homes and the
democratic politics of its newcomers, the region harbored significant disparities. Van Nuys
Boulevard, frequented by white teenage cruisers, led to historically working-class communities of
color. Residential segregation and federally direct public housing had transformed Pacoima into a
predominantly Black and Mexican American enclave, while nearby Panorama City courted white
families furnished with GI checks. The arrival of over 100 department stores catered to the area's
defense-contracted workforce. Manufacturing dominated the local economy, supporting its
increasingly diverse population.
763 For more on Voces Unidas en Pacoima see https://www.instagram.com/p/C3b1Xoirg33/?img_index=1 and tune
into KROJ 101.5 FM.
764 Diosy Interview by Julia Brown-Bernstein, March 12, 2024, Los Angeles, CA

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For many, the east San Fernando Valley symbolized a refuge—a place where predominantly
white middle-class families found belonging as citizens during an era when the government aimed to
regulate capital for the public good. However, this "public" was inherently white and U.S.-born.
Belonging for residents in the east San Fernando Valley was tied to their citizenship, and the
securities granted therein. Yet macro-level changes, including the 1965 Immigration Act and post1973 economic restructuring, challenged this notion of refuge. As refugees and migrants from the
Global South, alongside immigrants from Iran, India, Korea, Armenia, and other high-migration
countries, settled in the area, the concept of sanctuary took on new dimensions. Could the east
Valley’s residents, especially the area’s large liberal Jewish population, extend refuge to others,
especially non-citizens?
Indeed, alongside these demographic shifts, a changing political order magnified the sense of
dislocation. The Neoliberal Order brought cascading changes to the region’s economy, marked by
rapid industrial decline. Longstanding firms that once provided refuge and reliable wages for a
diverse cross section of the east Valley’s residents closed their doors. The General Motors auto plant
and the Price Pfister faucet foundry were two casualties of 1990s economic restructuring that
transformed not only how residents sustained their livelihoods, but how they built a sense of
belonging in the east Valley’s flatlands. Despite these challenges, residents displayed resilience,
adapting to the changing landscape. Importantly, many migrant newcomers had already navigated
the destabilizing effects of neoliberalism elsewhere, their adaptability honed by prior encounters with
global economic readjustment. Profoundly affected but undeterred by the closing factories, these
residents devised ingenious strategies to reconstruct belonging beyond the confines of formal
citizenship. From their plazamaking within the burgeoning swap industry to the grassroots labor
movements, they defiantly created new modes of mutual care while also leveraging the globalized
economy for their own livelihoods. And yet, as the landscape metamorphosed into Depotland, a

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fresh set of challenges emerged. Some embraced the tenets of neoliberal ideology, claiming
belonging based on their self-responsibility and consumerist rituals. Others turned to environmental
activism to stake claim to a place reeling in the aftermath of capital flight.
Amidst these changes, belonging became an increasingly contested terrain across all
segments of the east Valley. Further south in Van Nuys and North Hollywood, contrasting
responses emerged: some residents developed scripts of displacement and forced exile while others
clung to nostalgic myths of their suburban underdog status, even though their own economic
advantages revealed the fallacy of that reasoning. A new political subjectivity emerged—the “Encino
Voter”—who, while benefiting from the liberalization of the economy, professed liberal values that
would, on principle, endorse an expanded notion of belonging. While residing in exclusive enclaves,
the “Encino voter” welcomed newcomers provided they didn’t challenge the status quo. Unlike
typical NIMBYs, the Encino voter didn’t necessarily aim to halt change within their communities—
many were insulated by their economic privilege anyways—but rather, they sought to inscribe their
definition of belonging into the community’s “official” boundaries. This impulse gave rise to a
grassroots movement to rename and redefine neighborhoods in alignment with their vision of a
suburban refuge. These efforts, though met with both support and opposition, highlighted the
fractured social landscape of the east Valley, and the shifting politics of belonging in the neoliberal
era. As one Los Angeles Times journalist framed it, “Name-change advocates contend that a new name
can enhance community pride and property values. Critics see it as an attempt by the “haves” to
distinguish themselves from the “have-nots.”765
765 Ron Galperin, “What’s in a Name?: Residents work to Change Community Names in Effort to Improve Image,
Distance Themselves from Troubled Areas,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1994.

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Alongside the Arleta ZIP code reinstatement campaign, east Valley residents aimed to
rename their neighborhoods through homeowners associations and citizen advisory panels.
766 One
such example was the creation of "Valley Village." Beginning in 1985, North Hollywood
homeowners campaigned for greater control over local zoning laws, leading to the formation of the
Valley Village Homeowners Association. By 1986, they successfully lobbied for an interim ordinance
restricting building heights and, by early 1991, they celebrated the installation of street signs bearing
the name "Valley Village." For these residents, renaming was a means of reclaiming belonging,
preserving the neighborhood's identity amidst rapid change. While critics accused them of engaging
in covert secession, residents saw renaming as a means of historical preservation and community
cohesion. Although they could not, on principle and practically, stop the demographic shifts, they
sought to safeguard the suburban refuge of their youth, redrawing boundaries to conserve their
place. While they couldn't halt demographic shifts, they aimed to protect the suburban sanctuary of
their youth by redefining boundaries and asserting their place in the community through political
action, thus emphasizing the importance of formal citizenship as a cornerstone of their belonging.
766 Nonetheless, name changing spread in popularity: In 1986, Canoga Park residents paved the way to become West
Hills. In 1991, West Sepulveda became North Hills, Valley Village separated from North Hollywood, and Chandler
Estates moved to Sherman Oaks from Van Nuys. By 1994 residents of La Tuna Canyon successfully petitioned to
rename their community Rancho La Tuna, separating themselves from the working class and increasingly immigrant Sun
Valley.

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Figure 36: Valley Village neighborhood signs, Los Angeles Times
Meanwhile, In the northeast neighborhoods of Panorama City, San Fernando, and Pacoima, a new
paradigm of community revitalization was taking shape. Developers, similar to those behind
Depotland, adopted a fresh strategy at the turn of the millennium. Instead of focusing solely on
power centers, their approach shifted towards creating pedestrian-friendly retail hubs tailored to the
area's diverse ethnic populations. Recognizing the economic and cultural potential of malls designed
to resemble vibrant open-air markets, developers like Cary Lefton and Michael Bollenbacher sought
to capitalize on this concept. Drawing inspiration from the success of the San Fernando Swap Meet
established by Hannon and Burns years earlier, they envisioned spaces like Plaza del Valle and the
Zocalito of Pacoima. These developments aimed to evoke the ambiance of small towns in Mexico,

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featuring amenities such as walkways, plazas, a mariachi bandstand, a food court, lush landscaping,
and an open-air market, all infused with a distinctive Latino theme.
Figure 37: Plaza del Valle in Panorama City, Los Angeles. https://medium.com/@ericbrightwell/plaza-del- valle-allvalley-everything-b6a2ff69881b
In Panorama City, once hailed as the West Coast’s Levittown, Plaza del Valle epitomized the
triumph of neoliberalism and its exploitation of the liberalization of belonging, despite its practical
repudiation of those ideals. Yet, the commercialization of plazamaking by those aiming to foster
belonging among the east Valley’s migrant entrepreneurs and their families falls short when
compared to the enduring efforts of the HOODsisters and their generation of Valley residents. They
recognize that belonging traces its roots to Toypurina and a legacy that predates the rise of the
nation-state. Belonging may have been influenced by neoliberal forces, but the recent history of the
east Valley demonstrates that it still resides within the adaptive hands of its residents.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Periodicals and News Media
California Eagle
Daily News of Los Angeles
KCET Los Angeles
LA Curbed
La Opinión
LA Weekly
Los Angeles Business Journal
Los Angeles Daily Journal
Los Angeles Sentinel
Los Angeles Times
Orange Country Registrar
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Washington Post
Manuscript Collections
California State University, Northridge Special Collections
Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Resident’s Association Collection
Acuña (Rodolfo F.) Collection
Associated Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley Collection
Cities of Destiny Oral History Project Collection
Daily News Morgue Files of the Bustop Campaign Collection
Fridkis (Cliff) Legal Files of the Bustop Campaign Collection
Goldener (Paul J.) United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers
of America, Local 645 Collection
Gaitán (Henry) International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU),
Local 13 Collection
Industrial Association of the San Fernando Valley Collection
Japanese Americans in the San Fernando Valley Oral History Project Collection
Lockheed Labor Relations Collection
Latino Cultural Heritage Oral History Project Collection
Nava (Julian) Collection
Northeast Valley Oral History Collection
Northridge Civic Association Collection
Picus (Joy) Collection
San Fernando Valley Health Consortium Collection
San Fernando Valley Oral History Project Collection
Urban Archives General Oral Histories Collection
Van Nuys High School Newspaper Collection
West Van Nuys Chamber of Commerce Collection
Zero Population Growth of Los Angeles Inc. Collection

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Cal State Los Angeles Special Collections
Central American Solidarity L.A. Network Collection
Loyola Marymount University Special Collections
“Which Way, L.A” Collection
Mayor Richard J. Riordan Administrative Papers
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Papers of Edmund D. Edelman, 1953-1994
University of California, Los Angeles Special Collections and Archives
Tom Bradley Administrative Papers
University of Southern California
Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles Reports and Publications
Los Angeles Public Library
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Los Angeles City Archive and Records Center
Mayor Tom Bradley Collection
Mayor Sam Yorty Collection
Mayor Richard Riordan Collection
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Collection
Community Development Department
CD 13 Michael Woo 85-93
CD 12 Hal Bernson
CD 11Marvin Braude
CD 03 Joy Picus
CD 02 Joel Wachs
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Ayala, Xenaro. January 16, 2024. Los Angeles, California.
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Baker, Steve. February 4, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Bernardo, Joseph. January 27, 2022. Los Angeles, California.

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Berman, Dale. March 8, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Boles, Helen. November 15, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Boston, Michelle. January 20, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Bowen, Bill. August 7, 2023. Los Angeles, California.
Brown, Ann. January 31, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Castañeda, Marcos. March 11, 2024. Los Angeles, California.
Chaloukian, Dale. February 9, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Cohen, Chet. March 23, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Combs, Ernie. September 22, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
DeBlasio, Carl. April 4, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
DeBlasio, Deborah. February 3, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Diaz, Ronald. November 16, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Drake, Robert. February 23, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Fernandez, Diosy. March 12, 2024. Los Angeles, California.
Forer, Dan. February 16, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Garcia, Lisa. February 11, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Geller, Steven. March 17, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Getzoff, Eli. March 3, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Gladden, Dori. February 8, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Golden, Greg. March 4, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Gomez, Alex. September 27, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Goodman, Cindy. February 3, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Hernandez, Felix. March 14, 2024. Los Angeles, California.

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Hodjati, Holly. February 10, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Jackson, Crystal. March 18, 2024. Los Angeles, California.
Kotkin, Joel. August 10, 2023. Los Angeles, California.
Kline, Ron. March 14, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Lavis, James. January 17, 2023. Los Angeles, California.
Lazar, Mark. January 31, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Lewis, Cary. March 22, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
MacDougal, Gigi. February 3, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
MacInnes, Julia. January 26, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Macias, Juana. January 29, 2024. Los Angeles, California.
Mann, Eric. March 2, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Martinez, Alex. February 4, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Martinez, Alysan. April 12 and April 26, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Martinez, Frank. November 21, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Mertens, Stephanie. September 2, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Ochoa, Joel. April 24, 2024. Los Angeles, California.
Olney, Peter. March 28, 2024. Los Angeles, California.
Paley, Aaron. March 11, September 2, October 10, November 4, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Pantilliat, Marci. March 15, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Phillips, Marlena. March 24, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Redekker, Brennen. February 1, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Reznik, Benjamin. March 13, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Rivera Salgado, Gaspar. April 2, 2024. Los Angeles, California.

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Rodd, Phillip. March 28, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Romero, Randy. February 2, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Salzman, Josh. March 16, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Sanchez, Sandra. September 11, 2023. Los Angeles, California.
Schwartz, Bob. October 5, 2023. Los Angeles, California.
Smith, Shannon. February 22, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Soderlund, Christine. February 8, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
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Tauber, Doug. November 2, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
Veloz, George. November 10, 2022. Los Angeles, California.
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Yarovslavsky, Zev. September 22, 2022. Los Angeles, California.

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Creator Brown-Bernstein, Julia (author)

Core Title Liberalizing belonging: race, service, and the making of the postindustrial San Fernando Valley

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Degree Conferral Date 2024-05

Publication Date 06/12/2024

Defense Date 05/28/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag immigration history,neoliberalism,OAI-PMH Harvest,race and ethnic studies,Social history,U.S. West and Mexican Borderlands,urban history

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Deverell, William (committee chair), Sanchez, George (committee chair), Baumgartner, Alice (committee member), Gualtieri, Sarah (committee member), Molina, Natalia (committee member)

Creator Email brownber@usc.edu,jbrownbe@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113996178

Unique identifier UC113996178

Identifier etd-BrownBerns-13084.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-BrownBerns-13084

Document Type Dissertation

Format theses (aat)

Rights Brown-Bernstein, Julia

Internet Media Type application/pdf

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Source 20240612-usctheses-batch-1167 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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