Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican PastChronicling the rise of Los Angeles through shifting ideas of race and ethnicity, William Deverell offers a unique perspective on how the city grew and changed. Whitewashed Adobe considers six different developments in the history of the city—including the cementing of the Los Angeles River, the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1924, and the evolution of America's largest brickyard in the 1920s. In an absorbing narrative supported by a number of previously unpublished period photographs, Deverell shows how a city that was once part of Mexico itself came of age through appropriating—and even obliterating—the region's connections to Mexican places and people. Deverell portrays Los Angeles during the 1850s as a city seething with racial enmity due to the recent war with Mexico. He explains how, within a generation, the city's business interests, looking for a commercially viable way to establish urban identity, borrowed Mexican cultural traditions and put on a carnival called La Fiesta de Los Angeles. He analyzes the subtle ways in which ethnicity came to bear on efforts to corral the unpredictable Los Angeles River and shows how the resident Mexican population was put to work fashioning the modern metropolis. He discusses how Los Angeles responded to the nation's last major outbreak of bubonic plague and concludes by considering the Mission Play, a famed drama tied to regional assumptions about history, progress, and ethnicity. Taking all of these elements into consideration, Whitewashed Adobe uncovers an urban identity—and the power structure that fostered it—with far-reaching implications for contemporary Los Angeles. |
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User Review - DarthDeverell - LibraryThingIn Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past, William Deverell argues, “Los Angeles came of age amidst (and in part because of) specific responses to Mexican ... Read full review
Contents
City of the Future | 1 |
The Unending Mexican War | 11 |
Remembering a River | 91 |
Ethnic Quarantine | 172 |
Whitewashed Adobe | 250 |
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adobe advertising Angelenos Angeles Chamber Angeles City Angeles County Angeles River Anglo April author’s Behymer Papers Berkeley booster brickyard California history Chamber of Commerce chap Charles Fletcher Lummis city’s Clara Street Committee Crabb cultural diary Dickie downtown Los Angeles early elite epidemic ethnic event February Fiesta flood control future Happy Book houses Huntington Library Indians industrial Ismael Vargas Jess Garcia John Steven McGroarty Juan Garcia L. E. Behymer lived Los Angeles basin Los Angeles County Los Angeles River McGroarty’s McWilliams Mexican American Mexican labor Mexican population Mexico Meyberg Mission Play Montebello November officials Oxnam parade Pasadena past planners play’s pueblo quarantine quoted race racial railroad regional Samarano San Gabriel Serra Simons brothers social Southern California Southwest Spanish story tion tourist twentieth century typical University of California urban W. I. Hollingsworth Wallace Walter Malone Walter Simons West William workers wrote yard
Bibliographic information
| Title | Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past |
| Author | William Deverell |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | University of California Press, 2005 |
| ISBN | 0520246675, 9780520246676 |
| Length | 330 pages |
| Subjects | › › › History / United States / State & Local / General History / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY) Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General |
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