Final Blog Post

Coming into this class I had a very negative and monolithic perception of Los Angeles. Growing up in San Francisco as a Giants fan I was taught to hate the Dodgers (and also Los Angeles). I considered San Francisco to be more cultured, cosmopolitan, socially conscious, and hip in its aesthetic. As for Los Angeles, I associated the region with extreme excess, image-consciousness, materialism, and consumerism. Shows like Entourage and the OC encouraged this characterization (not that I watched them all too often!). I never really thought about how cultural representations of Los Angeles privileged a very narrow—often a white—subjectivity. Nor did I fully grasp the diversity of experiences contained within LA, especially the experiences of individuals and communities that are either negated or distorted in popular images and media.

Through this class my old issues with Los Angeles have given way to a new set of issues (and also some new appreciations). I am no longer merely repulsed by the superficiality of Los Angeles’ popular culture, so much as I am concerned with the condition of places within Los Angeles that are far less glamorous and superficial. I no longer spend my time thinking about the cars that people buy in Beverly Hills or in Orange County, because I realize that these examples of excess materialism never exist in isolation; they are part and parcel of a deep inequality that has been racialized and spatially entrenched through historical processes. LA’s enclaves of materialism reinforce LA’s enclaves of environmental degradation and immiseration.

Through this course I have come to understand the significance of racial formation; indeed the relationship between race and class is more concrete and graspable now. Los Angeles’ geographic and material inequality cannot be understood without grappling with the centrality of racial formation. Surbanization and decentralized urban expansion during the postwar period altered peoples’ social consciousness and sense of racial identity. The process by which certain people became white, and others racialized, took place alongside the regidification of materially unequal spaces.

Alongside my growing consciousness of Los Angeles’ inequalities, I have also come to appreciate the unique and powerful forms of activism and resistance that this region has harbored. More specifically, the ascendance of multiracial and multiethnic organizations around environmental justice—such as the Bus Riders Union and the South Central Farm—is encouraging because it addresses the reality of unequal geographies (spaces, regions, neighborhoods, that have been discriminated against, neglected, or exploited). Identity politics in Los Angeles has in some ways been reinforced by, and in other ways overcome by, the centrality of space. More so than any other factor, it seems opportunity in Los Angeles is circumscribed by where one lives or grows up (though race, class and gender are spatialized). Given that injustice in LA operates in very spatialized ways, I believe that environmental justice has emerged as the most successful form of resistance; it foregrounds geography and space to unite people in the fight for justice.

Final Reflection Post

Like Kate, When I decided to come to Claremont, I lamented that I would be living outside of Los Angeles. Other than the nice year-round weather, Los Angeles turned me off completely. It seemed like a sprawling poorly planned metropolis with an aging, inefficient transit system. Since I arrived, I had the opportunity to see a couple jazz shows in Hollywood and went into downtown Los Angeles once or twice. Then, last semester, I took a course called "Building Los Angeles" where we learned about the development of Southern California and its architecture. Every Saturday, we either rode Metrolink or took a bus to see various sites in Los Angeles, including buildings and infrastructure. We visited the LA River to understand how the river had shaped the development of the Los Angeles Basin, and how the residents had tried to control the river by encasing it in concrete. We also saw numerous examples of early modern architecture in the Los Angeles basin.

While I had a newfound respect for the architecture and history of Los Angeles development after last semester, I was left wanting to know more about the people who actually live in Los Angeles and especially the people whose neighborhoods we didn't visit because the architecture wasn't notable. This course was very illuminating in exposing how race has shaped LA and how specific events have had a lasting impact on the culture of Los Angeles, as well as individuals' lives. While I had always been critical of the freeway system for its environmental consequences, I had not realized the way its had torn largely minority communities apart in order to benefit the largely white upper class who dominated the roadways at the time. Although the public is much more aware of community issues than it once was, I think we need to be careful that we don't disrupt the way of life of communities who can't represent themselves in this time of enthusiasm for green infrastructure building.

I was also particularly fascinated by the two major LA riots: the Watts Riots of 1965 and the Rodney King Riots of 1992. Race issues are often studied academically and ignored by the general public as well as pushed aside by those involved. While the widespread violence and hostility of the riots is unforgivable, it is hard not to have sympathy for the rioters' anger. It seems that one of the most important tasks for communities is to provide a constructive avenue for their members to build something new. From what we heard in class and what I saw in The Garden, the South Central Farmers are doing just that. By providing a place for the community to engage in a constructive activity, they are not only directly benefitting the community by providing a place to grow food, they bring the community together, so that when tragedies happen, they can effectively address an issue. I hope that some of the insights I have gained in this course will not only give me a greater appreciate for Los Angeles, but will help me to understand the dynamics of whatever city I end up living in after school.

When I first heard this semester’s topic for AMST103 I was bit suspicious of how something as broad as an “Introduction to American Cultures,” could take place within the relatively narrow framework of Los Angeles. However, as the semester progressed I realized how the city encompassed, and often epitomized, many important trends and topics in the country’s history. Ultimately, I really enjoyed focusing on Los Angeles because it allowed us to observe broader themes in a smaller, more manageable context.

However, I found that the more we read about problems in Los Angeles the more unsatisfied I became. Like Christian, I also struggled with our distance from the people who’s stories we analyzed and picked apart. I spent a lot of time thinking about how privileged I was to be able to observe the problems in our country from the safety of a private liberal arts college and how this position of privilege played into the very issues we were discussing. I do believe that is incredibly important to critically study the past so we can better understand how to make effective change in the future and in this regard, the course was very helpful. It taught me how to piece together a variety of sources, from academic scholarship to popular music, to create an in depth picture of our culture and society. But I wish that we had more extensively explored the position from which we were surveying Los Angeles and if, or how, this affected our scholarship. The Los Angeles activity was definitely one of my favorite parts of the class because it encouraged involvement in the greater community. In this way I also found the Ruiz article that Kaitlin mentioned to be very interesting. Ruiz’s article offered an answer to my questions as to how a scholars can negotiate the space between themselves and what they “study” by arguing that “civic engagement should be an essential component of any American studies curriculum,”(17) and that the key ingredients for that engagement are “respect and collaboration”(13).

Looking back at the semester, I believe that one of the most valuable things that I will take away from the course are these questions because they are what will inspire me to continue investigating American studies and propel me to become more actively involved in the community. Equally important, this class gave me the tools to understand the importance of social justice work and explained the unique opportunity that American studies offers to combine academic scholarship with activism.

What I Have Gained from this Class

After taking this class I can definitely say that generally, I have gained a greater understanding of the race relations and development of minority culture within a specific community. Learning about the history of different racial groups within the Los Angeles community significantly expanded my knowledge of the details of defining racial and cultural status, interactions between minority groups over time, and how minority cultures were grew from, or in some cases, struggled with the complex relations they were involved in.

As the class has come towards the end I have considered the array of material we covered over the course of the semester, and remembered back to the first day when we all went around saying our individual perceptions of LA. Similar to what we briefly discussed in class today, I have thought about how I no longer perceive LA to be a beach scene with sprawling population, smog, traffic and celebrities. Although these are definitely characteristics of LA, there is a much broader description of LA encompassing much more of its history and growth that we have studied and discussed during American Studies. Studying the interactions between individuals, movements to improve minority status and rights, jobs and work life of minorities, public transportation, and housing distribution have all helped me gain an expanded understanding of the complexity of race relations and how they define the city outside of just popular culture.

Specifically I really enjoyed studying the South central gardeners and how the community came together to establish the garden, share it with many people, and fight for it as they learned they were losing it. Hearing the teenagers talk about their involvement was very interesting particularly because they were students, our age, who had found their passion in keeping this community together through an activity involving nature in a city I previously did not consider to be very natural and fertile. Overall, their story was fascinating in how they found the positive lights and moved forward with their passion.

I also enjoyed exploring the article about Compton and how it explained the growth of a community beyond its nationally known negative reputation. Previously, I had only known Compton to be the “ghetto” as many people explained it when talking about the neighborhood surrounding USC. However, the article broadened what I know about the neighborhood, from its history, to its reputation and associations, to what the direction it is moving in.

Last summer I worked with a nonprofit organization helping organize community volunteer events. With this internship I became very interested in community development and ways in which to bring a community together. Although these were a theme of our studies, the story of the South central gardeners and the article about Compton particularly interested me because I was able to look at common issues in communities everywhere, and how they were approached within the context of Los Angeles, whose history I now have a thorough understanding of.

People live here?

Like Amy, I came into this class with an entirely different image of Los Angeles than what I now have. My one-dimensional notions about LA probably came mostly from the influence of the media and popular culture, too. I don’t even remember when that started, but I can remember that as early as 6th grade, I hated this place. Part of my hatred for LA also developed out of a few bad experiences I had when I came here for the first time, when my brother was visiting colleges. Wherever my bad feelings about LA came from, when I chose Pomona, I considered its location to be its biggest and, perhaps, only recognizable weakness (at the time). When people in my community asked where Pomona was, I was genuinely ashamed to say that it was in LA and that I had chosen to go to college in such an ugly, unnatural, polluted city that seemed to lack authenticity and human soul. I believed that I could not and would not be able to identify with LA or the people who live here.

Throughout this class, my feelings about LA have changed from disgust and repulsion to appreciation. Being saturated in the history of LA has given me the opportunity to actually find beauty in this landscape – sometimes when I am driving into LA, I see a hill and think that it is actually pretty, or I imagine the green hilly landscape described by Deverell. But beyond imagining the buried and distorted “natural” landscape, it has been particularly transformative for me to learn that LA is not defined by the social and cultural artificiality that seems to emanate from its name, or rather what I came to associate with it. Furthermore, it isn’t just a buried “natural” landscape, but there are buried human experiences and lives here too, built landscapes that have been buried through the apparatuses of racial injustice. Now, I think about what I’m driving through and over – real people and communities who are/were embedded in a history of injustice. However, this is not the extent of the history we have learned: it’s not that these injustices are the only thing at play – people have revolted against this system of racial exclusion and formed powerful coalitions that have done radical work with tangible results. Not only has it been important for me to learn about the production of race in LA in terms of structural and historical injustices but also about the people here who are active agents in and against these processes.

Final Blog Post

This class exposed me to new ways of approaching topics. Some of things I found most interesting related back to the idea of racial formation. In the Pulido reading and many others, the idea of racial triangulation is invoked. By moving away from a purely white/Black binary, authors such as Deverell and Avila were able to more fully grasp how race and ethnicity operates, as well as what purpose and who it serves. I liked learning about the degree to which racial categories have been fluid and dynamic rather than purely static groupings.

Before this class, I wasn't able to articulate the way that race and ethnicity have been produced through spaces. It is something that was always on my mind but I wasn't sure how to talk about it. For example, I’ve always loved taking the train around the surrounding area and looking at the difference places. But it wasn’t until taking this class that I was able to string together my own observations in a way that better conceptualizes the historical contexts that have led to development and reshaping of these communities. This class has enabled me to use an analytic framework to understand the way LA and other cities are built and understood.

Because of the variety of readings and other things we did in class, I never felt like I became too boxed in. In the past I've struggled with some of my classes because I wasn't sure how they related to anything in my life. But I felt that this class helped me broaden my own awareness; I have became more aware of the intersectionality of race, sex, and gender as well how issues such as immigration, labor rights, and prison reform for example overlap and invite coalition building. On a more personal level, something I have been grappling with for a long time is the idea of the academy vs. activism. I thought I was supposed to resolve it by ranking one above the other. But even just looking at the American Studies scholarship, it becomes clear that this binary is challenged through their work.

I also thought bringing in Kelsey and Ashley was a good way of wrapping up our course because hearing them talk made me think about how valuable a theoretical basis can be when coupled with action. This is part of the reason I decided to declare American Studies as a result of this class; from day one I liked the emphasis on social justice and community organizing. Taking this course also made me feel less disconnected and more aware of being part of a larger Los Angeles community. This class has enabled me make the connections I wasn't able to or willing to make on my own. This is probably the most important thing I am going to take away from it all.

Last Blog

Before coming to Claremont and learning more about Los Angeles, I had always gotten the impression that Victor Villaraigosa was a pretty good guy; he had grown up in East Los Angeles, went to UCLA and became a labor organizer.  I later chose to do a research paper on how Villaraigosa won the 2005 mayoral election after he was defeated by the same opponent, James K. Hahn, in 2001.  

                What I found was that James Hahn had won in 2001 by mobilizing the Black vote.  He did this by reminding Black voters how his father, Kenneth Hahn (someone who was mention in our readings) had supported many civil rights issues while he was county supervisor.  James Hahn even boasted about growing up in Crenshaw, even though the community was primarily white when he lived there.  Ultimately, the Black community was credited with giving James Hahn a boost in defeating Villaraigosa.  After the election, it was suggested by the Los Angeles Times that Villaraigosa show the black community that the high Latino population would not destroy the political participation of African Americans.   

                However, during James Hahn’s days in the mayoral office, he chose to fire Bernard Parks, the Los Angeles Police Chief, and also a prominent figure in the Black community.  With this decision, many of the people in the African American felt betrayed by Hahn.  And so, in 2005, Villaraigosa showed the black population that he could represent them by meeting with popular leaders like Parks and other political members in their community.  That is not to neglect the great impact Latino voters had on helping Villaraigosa win.  In 2005, the Latino population came out in the highest numbers than ever before, the most being in East Los Angeles where Villaraigosa grew up. Villaraigosa had become the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles in over one hundred years.

                The reason I bring up Villaraigosa’s victory is because it always seemed to me that he represented Los Angeles in many ways.  He was born and raised there, he was a minority, and even worked to improve the situation of his fellow community members.  I believed that he would have a great impact on the city, being that he grew up on those streets and saw the injustices taking place.  However, when I went to see The Garden, I realized how much one could change when politics come into play.  The Garden exposed Villaraigosa making deals with forever 21 to support his campaign, the same company who was planning to build a factory on the community garden.  Sure, Villaraigosa talked a lot about how he supported the farm workers, but he never acted on it. Instead, he watched the trees come crashing down.  Throughout many of readings and films, we have seen the huge impact politicians have on various movements, and how they could make or break a certain cause.  What we tend to see is that most times (not all the time) the main concern is how the political figure is going to get re-elected.  What that boils down to is who is receiving the most money in their campaign, no matter how much one is supposed to be connected or involved in the community. 

Final Blog Post

I definitely have a clearer understanding of American Studies scholarship. If I had to articulate the theme of our class, I would say that in order to imagine a more survivable future, we should look to the past of distinct spaces. The narratives and texts we studied were useful in drawing a vision of Los Angeles in which local spaces are active in the complex systems of identity and community formation that come together within broader networks to define America. This is obviously valuable, but in spite of this, I had always felt that there was a troubling corollary. I had always thought that academia and local spaces really did not communicate and that this problem was irreconcilable. I found that as we moved into the semester my knowledge of Los Angeles (as a native Los Angeleno) was inadequate. I couldn’t shake this unease about thinking that it was only because I was in the privileged sphere of academia that I interacted to these local narratives. I mean, provided I live in the suburbs, most of my childhood was spent in Bellflower and South Gate and later working with my father in San Pedro. However, I did not connect to these spaces in the way we had read about. Fortunately, the LA activity gave me more perspective. I realize now that while it is true that most people probably will never understand the traditions and complexities of these spaces, there are conscious efforts to counteract this trend. I guess I’m leaving this class with a clearer sense of the problem and thinking about possible solutions—what I’ll do with this, I’m not really sure, but there's hope for something.

Local People

Overall, I am going to try to take away from this course some of the more positive and hopeful topics that we discussed. I appreciated that while we did learn about some very deep and unjust issues, we were presented with examples of ways to take action and to right those wrongs. By finding out about what local people are doing to improve their communities and environments, I developed a new, more fleshed-out understanding of Los Angeles.

Like Aerienne, I found learning the South Central Farms to be a particularly interesting part of the course. I am also very interested in environmental issues and would have liked simply reading about the work of these organic farmers; having some of the farmers come to class, though, made the subject all the more interesting and personal. After seeing both the short documentary the South Central Farms representatives showed to us in class and "The Garden" outside of class, I was struck by the number of people participating in the organization. Both documentaries, I felt, did a really good job of representing many different people working at the farm, from people in leadership positions to general members of the community. Hearing the stories and views of the individuals who came to class, I got a sense of the importance of the South Central Farms for the community on many different levels. This was a very positive part of the class, and inspired me to find an organization that I feel equally passionate about to work for.

I was also really interested by the LA River expedition from 2008 which was briefly mentioned in class. It was really fun to see this alternative approach to protecting the Los Angeles river, and to see the potential ways this river could be used for good by the people of Los Angeles. I have not had a chance to look into this expedition in more depth as I would like to yet, but it made me curious about the hundreds of other small-scale actions individuals are taking to try to improve LA. It makes sense for a city that has made its fame from creating movies and the like to have creative individuals finding inventive ways to protest environmental and social injustices taking place. This class has made me want to look at these smaller movements in LA started by local people.

Experiencing the real Los Angeles

Similar to Brandon I am also an outsider looking in. This year is my first visit to America, and one of the reasons I chose Claremont was its close proximity to Los Angeles as the city has always fascinated me. I am an American Studies major back in England so therefore I had briefly been exposed to some of the realities of LA. I had learnt about the Watts Riots in a history class and had read an article by Mike Davis in a sociology class. However the chance to look at LA in such depth and whilst in such close proximity has been a chance of a lifetime for myself. We also do not have an official American Studies department so this was a great opportunity to take a class which incorporates all the disciplines.

I have particularly enjoyed learning about the people themselves, especially the visit by the South Central Farmers. Their dedication and determination to the project whilst trying to juggle the commitments of College are admirable. I feel that through the documentaries, talks and texts we have learnt a lot about the communities which are present in LA and how they express themselves. I live very close to London (probably the same distance as Claremont to LA) which in many respects can be compared to LA. This class has made me consider the way in which I perceive culture in London and the communities which are present there. I had always seen London as a place to go for good shopping, clubbing and to see a show at the West End. I never thought about the people who were living in London in poor housing or the high crime rates, I feel this class has taught me that these factors cannot be ignored.

I had visited LA several times before this class had started I didn’t really look with my eyes open, I went to see the LA Dodgers, Disneyland, Walk of Fame and all the other tourist hotspots. However on subsequent visits I feel that the readings and discussions have had a profound impact on my understanding of LA. I have learnt about the people who live there and their experiences and have visited parts of LA that I never would have thought about visiting before this class. For example the very weekend after the Golden Gulag reading by Gilmore I encountered two men who had just been released from prison. I could not help but overhear their conversation, in which they had already resigned themselves to the fact that they would soon return to prison as if it was inevitable. This conversation could have been taken straight out of the Gilmore text. I guess what I am trying to say is that the texts are all very true to life and really do represent what is happening in LA.

I feel that the skills I will take away from this course will help me to look at culture in any town or city in a very different light. I have learnt that Los Angeles is a city full of diverse culture and fascinating people which is sadly overshadowed by the Hollywood film industry, tourist attractions and the media. This course has allowed me a glimpse at the real side of Los Angeles, the good and bad, the beautiful and ugly.

Zandy's post

After reading all the texts in our American Studies class, I decided that my favorite text was the Straight Into Compton article. This article provided surprising and enlightening details on the transformation of a once middle-class neighborhood to one of the most notorious neighborhoods in the US. After hearing Compton invoked often by the media and in pop culture, it was exciting to learn more specifics about this particular neighborhood in Los Angeles.
While reading the article, I noticed how the educational system played a significant role in the neighborhood’s transformation. Throughout this class I frequently noticed the impact of education on a community. This article proved how proper education is vital if a community wants to progress. It was interesting to see that Compton once had a decent educational system and during this time the neighborhood was considered nice. However, with the development of crack cocaine and gangs in Compton, the school system deteriorated. Many students became embroidered in these activities and thus did not focus on their studies. As a result, the school system declined along with the neighborhood. Since students did not get a good education and possibly go to college, the neighborhood was unable to progress. Thus, Compton provides a great model for why a community needs to invest in education.
Another interesting aspect of the article was the fact that pop culture provided an image of Compton that did not present all the facts. Many rappers in the 1980s and 1990s incited Compton into their lyrics in order to sound “gangsta”. The most prominent example was NWA and their album Straight Outta Compton. Even though many of the NWA rappers were not even from Compton, the rap group wanted to create an image by invoking Compton. Although the group did present some accurate facts surrounding life in Compton, it filtered out many other aspects important to the neighborhood. Also, movies such Boyz in the ‘Hood and Menace II Society did not show Compton’s general historic reality, but instead tried to show it as one the most notorious neighborhoods in the country. Because of these pop cultural references, society solely learns about the chaos of the neighborhood instead of its other aspects.
--Zandy

Suprisingly Interdisciplinary

When I signed up for this class at the beginning of the semester, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I never realized how interdisciplinary the course could be, and I now have a completely different view of the city of Los Angeles. Looking back, my favorite aspect of the coarse was my ability to connect it to other courses I was taking, despite the fact that they are in completely different subjects. I am taking an Asian Religious Traditions class at CMC, and one of our activities was a trip to a Buddhist temple. I was lucky enough to visit the temple when they were celebrating the Thai New Year, so there was a large festival with tons of authentic Thai food available to the visitors of the temple. I also took this opportunity to use the temple visit as my LA activity. This was a perfect example of how diverse the LA area is. I was very surprised to find that the temple was located in the middle of a neighborhood in Ontario. When I walked past the gates of the temple, I felt as if I was stepping into a completely different world, almost forgetting that I was in a residential LA area. Before coming to the Claremont Colleges, I had only visited LA once before, which limited my view of the area. This class helped me to see all aspects of LA and all it has to offer.
In my Core class, which focuses on traditional and modern fairytales and they psychoanalytic interpretations behind them, we have discussed at length the role of Disney in the fairy tale realm, as well as the racial stereotypes portrayed in them. Our discussion of Disneyland and other films, including Tarzan, reminded me of many points of discussion that were brought up in my Core class. As Maggie mentioned before, the newest Disney film that is soon to be released, The Princess and the Frog, stars the first African American princess. There has been a lot of discussion and debate about multiple aspects of the film that appear racist and insensitive, including whether or not the prince should also be African American. I realize that regardless of what Disney decides, there will always be a group that finds aspects of the film at fault, as seen as the changes made in the Tarzan films, where regardless of the changes made, there were sill parties that were offended.

Misconceptions Cleared

Whenever people ask me if I have seen LA I often said no. But my understanding of LA used to differ form what I now understand of it. Three years ago, I envisioned LA as the center of Americas film and music industry. A vibrant city with a raging nigh life and five star restaurants, where the high society enjoys the so-called ‘fab-life’(MTV Cribs) A place where famous movie stars loitered on streets, mostly accompanied by a crew of stalking paparazzi.
My imagination of LA fit the accurate description of Sun Set Boulevard. All I knew about LA was form the television shows and movies. I then realized that I was thinking of Downtown LA and as an outsider to the area I was unaware of the existence of other parts of LA. But Intro to American Cultures broadened my prospective on the city and got me thinking of the city form various different angels. For example, studying about LA form a geographical, cultural, racial and economic prospective.
I like the fact that we had to participate in an LA activity. Its only when you interact with the real world and have mindful discussions and then refer to academic texts to back up your arguments that you know you realize how much you have learnt in class. I only realized this when I was speaking to a friend from Pasadena about the FHA housing reading that I realized how much I knew and how much he didn’t know about his home town.
Overall I would say the class was really interesting. From the music at the beginning of the class, to the Youtube clips made the class even more entertaining. Some of the discussions were really interesting, especially the ones about culture and music. What I will take away form this class is a greater understanding of the area around me. As this is my first American Studies class, I think I have learnt a great deal about America and its past. Hopefully many of my naïve misconceptions have been cleared. Now my answer has changed to yes I have been to LA, but I am still looking forward to visit Sun Set Boulevard and drum on the streets sometime this year.

word association

On the first day of class we were asked for words we associated with LA. If I remember correctly most of the words given had a negative connotation. I don’t remember mine specifically but I think it may have been plastic surgery…a topic we never got around to.  You see I came into this class with the preconceived notion that LA was a, superficial, cultureless, and racially divided city. In fact, I did not see LA as a city per se but rather suburbs connected by highway (I must mention that I hate driving).  How did I come to these negative feelings towards LA, you may ask. Did I spend any significant time in LA? No. But my view of LA, formulated from popular culture, was valid from my perspective.

            What I’ve realized with this course, however, is that labeling anything one-dimensionally (like LA as strictly materialistic) only prevents one from realizing the truth. It is an excuse not to go further, to make fact out of stereotype somewhat like racism.

             Perhaps the Sides article “Straight into Compton” best personifies my point.  The word association with Compton has become synonymous with crime, poverty, drugs, gang-violence, Black’s, and urban crisis. In looking at Compton’s history we see that it “originated” as a working-class white neighborhood that resisted black integration (as Black’s fled to LA during WWII through post-WWII) exemplified in Compton City Council’s prevention of pubic housing. Despite Compton’s resistance towards Black families seeking the “suburban dream” Compton became an intergraded suburb (although white’s still welded the political power. )

            It was not until the decreased industrial jobs and the Watt’s Riots that whites began to flee Compton. With decreased manufacturing jobs, white flight, economic decline and increased gang violence Compton changed. This change was exploited by popular culture/media exposure such as NWA’s song  “Straight-out of Compton” which personified Compton as a violent, drug-infested, and bleak social landscape. This one-dimensional concept of Compton was profitable and therefore furthered through films like “Boy’s in the Hood.”

            The negative connotation that came along with Compton made many communities dissociate with Compton including East Compton who voted to be called East Rancho Dominguez instead. Ironically, East Compton was the neighborhood that was most notorious for drugs in Compton.  So who are the people of Compton then? Are they working-middle class people searching for the “suburban dream”? Are they what we see in the NWA video?  Is it either or? I mean, NWA who capitalized on Compton’s “dangerous image” didn’t even fit the stereotype. Ice Cube, for example, was taking advanced architecture courses in Arizona before the group assembled! Also, there is a large Mexican population in Compton that is completely ignored from the image of Compton.

            Basically, Sides and this course made me realize how powerful and incorrect word-associations are. Word- associations are one-dimensional and ignore the complex and history of a place or thing. Side’s shows, through Compton’s history, that Compton in not simply a bleak, violent, gang and drug infested suburb it is composed of a diverse group of people, people who are not encompassed under Compton’s definition.  Side’s challenge of Compton’s definition parallels my changing definition if LA. Yes, I do believe parts of LA are materialistic but I also believe that LA has so much to offer: culture, diversity, social movements and history that we can all gain/learn from. From now on I will defend LA rather than define it. 

A Closer Look

The city of Los Angeles has always meant one thing for me- home. Its places and people have always influenced me. I’ve known the city my entire life. Or at least I thought I did before I took this class.

 Disneyland has always been a big part of life. It has always been, as my friend says, “our motherland, our home.” And all the while I’ve never questioned it- the Disney films, Disneyland, everything Disney. The Disney films and characters that once filled up our childhood days come to life as we pass the gates of Disneyland into the “world of Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Fantasy.”  They bring out joy and happy memories from the past. But now I’ve realized I need to take a closer look at Disneyland itself and what it originally stood for and the purpose it was meant to fulfill. In class, it was mentioned that Disneyland portrayed races in stereotypical ways and I had never thought about it that way. It really relies on the stereotypical versions of the many races. It raises the question of what message Disney is trying to send its “guests,” particularly the younger “guests.” In my media studies class, we discussed Disneyland as a kind of simulation of reality and the idea that we lose sense of what’s real and what isn’t and somehow places like Disneyland have become more real than reality itself. However, Disneyland doesn’t portray an accurate image of reality. It only shows stereotypes. Even though I don’t think the love I have for Disneyland will change due to nostalgia, the realization that Disney is different than what it seems definitely changes my perception of how minorities and other races are portrayed by Disney. 

            The most memorable thing that I will take from the class is the realization that even though I thought I knew Los Angeles, it turned out that there was and still is much I need to learn. Deverell’s Whitewashed Adobe described the Simon Brickyard as being one of the most successful brickyards in Los Angeles. It was surprisingly located where I live now. I hadn’t even thought about the history of the city I lived in, I just always thought it was the same old city I’d always known. Now after taking this class, I realize that there is so much about home and Los Angeles that I have simply looked over. I just accepted that the way things are now had always been that way, which based on  from what we read in this class, is not the case at all.

Looking Back

One very important thing which I will take away from this class is a sense of how insidious and yet unseen a white supremacist power structure can be. Throughout the course, I was constantly left gaping as my naivety regarding race relations was flattened by moment after historical moment where the most seemingly innocuous things were used to reaffirm white dominance in the hierarchy of race. The disappearance of street cars, viewed as dirty because of their potential as a public space, where all races could come together; the construction of freeways being used as an excuse to break up and destroy communities of color; the redlining practices of the FHA, enforcing segregation by denying people of color the ability to flee the emaciated city for the suburbs; more recently, the anti-gang ordinances used against minority youth and the brutality of the LAPD leveled against them; the over-incarceration of these same young men and women, aided by the Three Strikes rule—all of these things would have once seemed so innocent and unintentional to me. This course has taught me to look for intention—not to be overly suspicious, but to learn to connect the dots between a policy and the harm that it can do.

This has also affected my understanding of history as a process. While I certainly understood before taking this class that history builds on itself with each moment continuing into the next, I think before now I always read it through the lens of that fabled American dream, upward mobility. To some extent, I had previously failed to understand how fifty-year-old policies could still hobble a new generation, even after the policies themselves have been stricken. One thing that really drove this point home for me was doing research for a previous blog post, and learning that the majority of foreclosures in my home state’s capital were occurring in neighborhoods that had previously been redlined. This point was, of course, also addressed in the Avila readings and more recently in “Straight in to Compton”, but I think reading about redlining in a city that I closely identify with—instead of L.A., which I certainly know more about now, but is still a mystery to be explored and unraveled—really opened my eyes.

Finally, the single most important thing I have learned in this class came with the very first reading, and has been emphasized ever after. It is, simply, the idea that as scholars of American Studies, we have the power, and perhaps the obligation, to examine our topics from a moral perspective, to ascribe values of good and bad to the past and the present. And, somehow, we also earn the right to discuss the future, even to point in the direction that we would like to see that future go, as Gilmore does with her theses in Golden Gulag, and as Kun does less extensively in “What is an MC?” This idea, that a scholar does not only engage with material to understand it but also to enact positive change in the word, I found incredibly inspiring. More than anything else, the realization that this field gives me the opportunity to academically engage my hopes for America makes me want to continue my education in American studies.

South Central Farm

As the child of hippies and a possible Environmental Anaylsis major, I'm naturally inclined towards anything relatively environmental in nature (pun intended)-- a large part of my life philosophy is about resourcefulness and reuse: the reuse of clothes, food, energy, trash, space, etc. Being raised a lower-class vegetarian, I know how difficult it can be to afford fresh fruits and vegetables, much less organically grown. Because of this, the segment of the class regarding the South Central Organic Farm was, for me, the most fascinating and enjoyable. It was great to see a group of people coming together for the greater good of the community, especially with something as important as food. In a lot of cases, lower class families can't afford to eat healthy foods, so I found this to be a really positive and uplifting ideal that the community was working towards. At times, especially in this modern era, I tend to lose a lot of faith in the American population--it feels as if apathy has shrouded the United States like a dark cloud. That being said, it is always pleasantly surprising to see Americans coming together and using what few resources they may have to make a positive change; there seems something very typically American about the idea. Though the people of South Central had very little money, space, or time for volunteering, they took the little that they had to create a great, safe space which brought together and united the entire community, despite being in a harsh urban environment; this is something which I have great respect and admiration for. Having done volunteer work on a local organic farm near my own home in Illinois, I felt I could relate to these individuals on a personal level--it's all about an exchange of hard work and dedication for a greater good on a community level.

Upon hearing that Forever 21 and the city of Los Angeles were responsible for the seizure of the property, I was enraged; it immediately struck me as a great injustice. After class, I came back to my room and began researching the situation, and upon finding out more, I decided to join those from the farm and boycott Forever 21, telling all my friends and peers to do the same. It upset me to know that our own government would abuse the power of eminent domain to such a degree that it would compromise the well-being and hard work of so many individuals. Seeing the struggle which these people went through and the compromises they had to make trying to save the farm moved me to tears, especially the scene in the film in which the farm was being bulldozed. This indeed raised many questions for me, one being to what extent can the government breach our property rights? I myself have had personal experiences with the power eminent domain, which I was reminded of during this segment of the class; perhaps my own battles with this problem contribute to my sympathy and interest in the subject. I was raised in a lower-class neighborhood in Indianapolis with proximity to a large river, The White River, an affluent shopping area, and good school districts. The property values in surrounding areas were all very high but because of the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity associated with the neighborhood, no one wanted to live there. Recently, my former home (currently my grandmother's house) has been targeted for eminent domain. My grandmother and her neighbors were told that their properties would be seized and they would receive compensation so that the city could build upscale river condominiums. Currently, they are still going through legal battles over the properties, but it seems that the city will win the case. In my eyes, it doesn't seem fair that the government can violate someone's property rights so casually, not taking into consideration the sentimental values associated with it. Whether it is my grandmother's house or the South Central Farm, it doesn't matter; inevitably, this issue still exists today and should not be something that is swept under the rug, and it's something which this class has further motivated me to investigate.

Multimedia

I agree with Maria in that I think one of the coolest parts of the class was the multi media aspect. Being as this class is very historically based, often times I find those classes can be somewhat monotonous and hard to grasp everything. I usually find that I have a hard time in historical classes just with constantly reading about what happened and not having much other context. It was cool in this class that not only did we have readings, but we also did a lot with film, music, fiction writing, etc. I find that it is so much easier to get a better understanding of the historical context and what was going on with all of the different multimedia aspects. Even just the short Youtube clips that we watched that were from those different times such as the Disney clips and the Tarzan clip were really interesting to see. My friend had to do a presentation for her Fairy Tales class so we were watching trailers for the new Disney movie coming out with the African American princess. There has been a lot of controversy around this, even with minor things such as what her name should be. She is from New Orleans and meets a prince who is supposedly more “olive” skinned and is voiced by a Brazilian actor. A lot of people are wondering why she doesn’t fall in love with an African American prince while others say why should he have to be African American? I started thinking about this because of the different racisms portrayed in the old Disney and Tarzan clips. It’s interesting that even though we have made so many leaps and bounds today, those same issues are still prevalent, just in a different light and setting. Also, it has been really cool to have the music at the beginning of every class. It almost sets a tone for how the class will go, and I always really enjoy it whenever the music is specifically mentioned in our readings. For example, it was extremely interesting to get all of that historical background about songs such as “Straight Outta Compton” or “No Hay Manera” and then to study the songs and music videos in class as well. While it is possible to just listen to the songs or watch the videos on your own time, it was really interesting to get to analyze them in class together and find some deeper meaning in them. Songs like those don’t really seem like they would be analyzed or used in a collegiate course like this, so it was cool to see that it is possible to use them so in depth and study them. In terms of the readings we looked at, it always amazes me how often readings from this class are referred to in my other classes. For example, our Mike Davis reading was always brought up in our other classes and it was nice to have background on the reading and be able to have knowledge about it and refer to it. Also, our fiction readings added a cool context to the class, putting less of an analytical spin on everything. Overall, having the multi media aspect in this class really made it relatable and thoroughly enjoyable. While other classes sometimes have that same aspect, this one always had something extra going along with just the straight readings and that always kept me intrigued and wanting to do the work.

April blog post

The two main aspects that I really liked about this class were the use of multi-media sources and the idea that events should be set against a backdrop of community and cross-community culture and relations to really understand how and why they happened. For the latter, a specific example would be the Lopez reading. Lopez places the Chicano movement within the context of the Biltmore Six and East Los Angeles Thirteen trials. Another example would be the Pulido reading in which the creation of the Third World Left movement is explained by discussing the history of and the interactions between the African American, Chicano, Asian American, and Native American movements during that time. The understanding that I received about the historical events that we studied in class was much more thorough than anything I would ever had gotten from my high school history text book. The readings offered a lot of new information with various viewpoints which was refreshing and set the readings apart from one another. This class was like a history class make-over. It was also interesting to see the way in which the films we saw and the fiction we read added to my understanding of the topics we were discussing. There is a different dynamic to learning when we are able to study sources other than analytical, research-based literature. Not knowing anything about Los Angeles before I came here to Claremont, I was able to learn a lot about the city and about the greater Los Angeles area through its centralized role and constant presence in our readings about ethnicity and race relations. I don’t think I ever really had any kind of expectation of what Los Angeles would be like before this class and certainly before college. I knew it was an important city but I had no
tlineidea as to the extent of its importance. To me, Los Angeles wasn’t so much a defined city with concrete buildings and people as more of a nebulous place that had a vague purpose in American society. I liked how this course grounded a topic as general as race relations with something more specific such as the history of Los Angeles. I suppose that is why I felt like I have a much better understanding of the history of race relations in Los Angeles because the readings were very focused and more specific than a regular history course. One idea that constantly caught me off guard was how closely connected the different racial groups in Los Angeles (or in any city, I suppose) are - not just in a physical sense (the ways in which races physically interact) but also in a conceptual and ideological way (race relations does not simply refer to interactions between minority groups and whites but also between different minority groups). In this class, I have been able to see how race is physically presented and formed in Los Angeles and understand more about the extent in which international and national cultures influence each other.

I had always believed I was well versed in the racial and social discrepancies of Los Angeles. I grew up as the only white kid in my neighborhood (mostly made up of Mexicans and Salvadorians) and I commuted everyday to Studio City where I went a private school (mostly white and Jewish). I experienced high society Los Angeles and working class Los Angeles on a day to day basis. To me, the city a place that did not embrace reality. It presents itself as glamorous and untouchable, but I viewed it as a giant gentrified plot of land. The areas that are not yet gentrified, like East L.A. and South L.A., lack funds and decent quality of life. I saw that as the city's way of making low income citizens and people of color so uncomfortable that they are forced to leave. Then Los Angeles could live up to its glamorous reputation. Needless to say my outlook on Los Angeles was grim.
Things began to change after I read the article "What is an MC?". The writer, Josh Kun, vocalized everything I felt about Los Angeles, but also added a sense of hopefulness for the future. He references "No Hay Manera", a song that takes two different cultures and presents them in away where they are not fighting each other. The cultures are not blended, but are both present in a harmonious way. The class discussion of this article made me think of the time when my brother and I were being yelled at to "Go home! We were here first. This is our land" by a visibly inebriated young Latino on Halloween. Kun's article did, in a way, rectify that memory. The conflict of cultures in Los Angeles seemed blatantly violent and not fixable. Though the disharmony in Los Angeles is present, there can be found a unity of the multiple cultures, not as one, but as layers.
After reading and experiencing so many negative aspects of Los Angeles I will take away from this class an understanding of what needs to happen. How the cultures do not need to clash or assimilate. High society Los Angeles needs to acknowledge the cultural transition, as well as, history and embrace it.

What I'll Take Away

I have always thought that the way space was arranged was the result of many different visions colliding into one another. I assumed this should be the case with Los Angeles especially because it is known to be so diverse. It is known for its sprawl, and I had thought that all of that space would allow various groups to develop how they wished to. I acknowledge that was a pretty naïve idea. I had thought that of course, one group could, and probably did have more influence than the others. But I just had no idea that a vision of white superiority could be executed so efficiently and in so many ways. Space and race are so tightly braided together in Los Angeles it is impossible to study one without the other. This is most interesting because this is not an issue of the past. Until this class, I never heard about the FHA policies that pretty much blocked people of color from white neighborhoods. I knew nothing of slum clearance or racist covenants. I guess I never realized that the racism of the past that shaped space was so blatant and backed by policy.
Before I came here for school, I had always thought that because Los Angeles was diverse, it meant that everyone was mixed up pretty much randomly within the space. I didn’t realize that the communities are really broken up by race. Yes, Los Angeles is diverse. But it is only diverse because there are various pockets of races/ethnicities.
What really interested me at the beginning of the year was the notion that Los Angeles has romanticized its Mexican roots, culture, and people. the outright police brutality inflicted on many of the African American community, this façade may not turn too many heads. It doesn’t call attention to itself, and is so sly because it tries to pass itself off for celebration of diversity. I feel like I can identify with this because it is very similar to the commoditization of the Hawaiian culture back in Hawaii where I’m from. I really appreciated Amy’s post about her spring break visit there because she seemed so aware. When people visit the islands, they go to staged luaus and buy fake leis from the tourist shops in Waikiki. And yet, I bet most of them do not encounter many, if not any Native Hawaiians.

Coming into this class, I knew Los Angeles was a divided city on a variety of levels. I, actually, imagined it as two cities. The first, a sprawling series of wealthy suburbs connected loosely by highways packed with luxury cars. In this Los Angeles, celebrities and rich mingled, shopped and made movies. The other is the one of poverty and crime, formed by images from hip-hop, the Rodney King riots and hyperbolic reporting. The second city mainly consisted of people excluded from the luxuries of the first city. While this class did further illustrate the divides of Los Angeles, it gave me a more dynamic perspective on them.

Through this class, I gained an understanding of how intentional structural forces shaped the current cultural divides of the city. The most illustrative institutional force is the housing policies discussed in Avila’s book. Seeing the way in which the FHA explicitly denied loans to people of color, helped me to understand the current dynamic of the city. I also found Deverell’s book enlightening on how intentional ethnic divides from the city’s early history shape today’s society. The work of Mexican immigrant laborers literally built and fueled the city, yet white American excluded them from the story of Los Angeles. The fact that their histories, and the histories of other communities we covered, are not part of the popular narrative of Los Angeles astounds me. This exclusion, I think, helped contribute to my formerly limited perspective of the city.

I also learned that simply because there are many communities and identities, does not mean that there will always be the violent division seen on cable news. The visit from the volunteers from South Central Farms gave Los Angeles genuinely helped change my perspective of this. They illustrated how grassroots movements can help people overcome the structural barriers that can limit intercultural dialog. A reading that reinforced this, for me, is Wild’s Street Meeting. Reading about the multiethnic child’s play of the early 1900s illustrated that the current cultural divisions are not natural and do not have to exist. They are, instead, the product of policies that manufactured them.

What I'll Take Away from AMST103

Overall, I think the most important part of this class to me has been thinking about both race and Los Angeles and my personal connection to both of them.  First off, I learned a lot of the early history of Los Angeles and California.  Having just moved to California from Massachusetts for college, this class gave me more of a background of the space where I am living and I like having this connection to the history.  Of course I had learned some things before in US History, but I think in elementary school, each state tends to focus on its own history. (Which is apparently why I learned about pilgrims every year instead of missions.)  Before I came here for college, my experience with California consisted of three vacations that my family had taken to visit relatives out here and do the typical touristy things- San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, Sea World, etc. I saw CA as a vacation spot, and as a young child I never thought about the state’s past.  Also, in this class I learned more about the culture of LA than I might have found out about from just being in Claremont.  Los Angeles functions as a space demarcation which we used to focus our studies of race.  For me it also is now the place where I am living for at least four years of my life.  I think learning about the history of Los Angeles can make me feel more connected to the place where I am.

In addition, this class has brought to my attention issues of race that I had never really considered before.  I was aware of race before, but had never really given the idea much consideration.  This class has brought up many questions for me which I have been considering and which I think I will need to continue to contemplate.  These thoughts include questions like whether race even can or should be defined, to what extent defining race is helpful or not, how I individually identify my race, whether I even need to, and whether it is meaningful to even question my race.  My answers to these questions are still not fully formed, and can vary from day to day.  I think that finding the answers to these questions will contribute to my personal identity, both literally by defining my racial identity, but also by defining where I stand on important racial and societal issues.  In kind of a cliché sequence of events, this class has helped me to explore my individuality and get to know myself better.  Although I never would have expected it from an Intro to American Cultures class, I have had a great opportunity to learn things about myself I never would have thought to ask myself.  

Golden Gulag class notes

•The problem
==> Prison system is a burgeoning social space/mechanism which was implicated in issues of income, jobs, gender, urban development, etc. the raise in spending strongly suggests that it was something that changed state structure, local and regional identities, and social identities as it became part of the state economy and infrastructure
•What is prison supposed to do and why?
==> Govern people through retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, incarceration, prisons protect social stability, current ideas of rights/freedoms (especially democracy)
•The dominant and counterexplanations for prison growth
==> Is the crime – “crackdown” true?
− Drug epidemic/threat to public safety
− Structural changes in employment
==> Why prisons now? Why does the state change?
− Racial cleansing – new slavery
− Pursuit of profits (surplus cash/privatization of public)
− Rural urban competition
− Reform school
•Looking backward to look forward
==> More resistance, more criminals
==> 1968 – increase in profit and wealth because of war
==> racial hierarchies
==> shift in the job market/power
==> surplus didn’t create prisons, but it helped
•From reform to punishment
==> Rehabilitation → incapacitation
==> Changed in 1977
==> Before 77, parole boards contained many problems
==> Cheaper to punish than reform
==> CA legislature wanted parole officers to be more liberal when invoking parole violations, thus more convicts returned to prison but crime didn’t increase
•Capital for construction
==> In order to expand prison construction, rapidly turned to borrowing (LRBs) to avoid political backlash (tax).
==> This allowed for prison expansion that included nonviolent criminals and an entirely new social policy
•Siting the prisons
==> Considerations
− Land – rural agricultural l(and?) taking up land surplus
− Communities/NIMBY – which communities can organize
− Politics – LA prison battle legislature
− Economics – powerful landholders selling idle land at inflated prices, promised jobs for labor surplus, fewer employers dependent on traditional economy
•Producing more prisoners
==> Increase in prison legislation
− Drug recriminalization, profiling of criminals
− 3 strikes – new demographics of prison (race, incomes, nature of crime)
•Industrializing punishment
==> Not as much focus on where the crimes came from, but more about how to control those committing the crimes
==> Financing the prisons: how they got the $ and why they got the amounts they did, not really any strict rules about the allocation of $
==> Growing population → increased crime → increased needs for prisons thus need for more $ to improve efficiency
==> Increase in requirements for prison workers who were not taught as much about where the crimes came from but more about the efficiency and control of the system

Definitions of race

We've been talking a lot about different racial identities in class and I was curious about the currently accepted definitions of race. So I did a little research online and found a couple definitions. As might be expected, the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary's definition is very broad and not terribly enlightening. [1]

race: a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock
b: a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics
c: a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits

In 1998, the American Anthropological Association published a statement on race that they believe ``represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists.'' They first describe scientific notions of race. The vast majority, about 94% of physical variation lies within commonly accepted racial groups. That is, geographic racial groups only genetically differ from one another by about 6%. This is because human beings have always interbred when they have come into contact with other groups. Because of interbreeding, physical variations occur gradually and are independent of each other. For example, skin color tends to vary according to whether a region is more tropical and sunnier or whether it is a more temperate region, but this is not necessarily tied to eye color or curly or straight hair.

Clearly, race has meanings far beyond physical characteristics. The AAA trace the concept of race to ancient hierarchies used to compare different individuals to God. These hierarchies were given more credibility by Europeans in order to rationalize their colonization of the rest of the world and at its most extreme to justify slavery of non-Europeans. They associated superior traits with Europeans and inferior traits to others. As ideas of evolution and natural selection became more developed, culminating in the publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859, many Europeans applied pseudo-scientific reasoning to justify their racism. They claimed that whites had evolved further from apes than Africans, and that Africans were therefore more primitive and more suited to manual labor.

Today, anthropologists accept that all humans can learn any cultural behavior, regardless of their genetic background. No one is born with any specific culture or language. Therefore disparities between "racial groups" has nothing to do with biological inheritance but is a product of "historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances." In light of these conclusions, it seems that are notions of race are based almost entirely on visual differences between individuals. As interracial marriages and children become more and more prevalent, will our traditional notions of race fade into obscurity because it will become more difficult for strangers to assign racial identity to others?


[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race%5B3%5D
[2] http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm

The Watts Towers and the militaristic architecture of LA

When I read the Schrank article one of the first things that struck me was Watts Towers’ stark contrast with other forms of architecture in Los Angeles. In my art history course last semester we read a chapter from Mike Davis’ City of Quartz entitled “Fortress L.A.” that discussed how the buildings and planning of Los Angeles create a militaristic and exclusionary environment. To illustrate this architectural “style” my professor focused primarily on the new Cathedral of Our Lady in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of LA. I think it’s really interesting how the Watts’ Towers both fits into Davis’ portrait of L.A. and compares to the antagonistic design of the Cathedral because it is within this framework that the Watts’ Towers developed its unique importance to the local and international communities.

In the chapter “Fortress L.A.” Davis explores the “architectural policing of social boundaries”(223) in Los Angeles. He argues that the chained link fences and video cameras that characterize downtown LA function as exclusionary symbols that frame underrepresented groups’ perceptions of the city but are unnoticeable to the upper/middle class. Coupled with an aggressive “containment” of the homeless policy and growing gentrification, the militaristic face of the city has directly influenced the continued fragmentation of LA. The destruction of public space, a familiar point in our class, is explained by Davis as a “universal and ineluctable consequence of this crusade to secure the city”(226). This point relates to Schrank’s article because the city’s attempt to demolish the towers to make space for a commercial housing project is another example of the eradication of public space in exchange for corporate defined redevelopment. The subsequent appropriation of the towers as a symbol of successful urban renewal mirrors LA’s fascination with “urban realist” architecture, as exemplified in the work of Frank Gehry (236-240).

The recently rebuilt Cathedral of Our Lady, designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, similarly integrates security precautions into its post-modern design. Like Gehry’s works, the Cathedral’s tightly controlled exterior gives way to a luxurious interior complete with a 2.5 acre plaza, multiple gardens and a gift shop. Moneo wanted to restrict how people used the building, so the expansive 58,000 square foot cathedral has only one entrance, which is gated. The unwelcoming facade of the building also reflects the tensions of the Bunker Hill neighborhood that had previously been forcefully redeveloped by the city. In addition, the design of the Cathedral comments on the city’s historic past through the adobe color of its concrete exterior and location on the historic El Camino Real.

When I first learned of the Watts’ Towers, I immediately thought back to the new Cathedral of Our Lady because of the evident disparities between two of the most iconic examples of Los Angeles architecture. Although both works dominate the surrounding landscape because of their relative height, the face of the Cathedral is heavily guarded with few windows and high walls whereas the Towers are completely exposed and open. Both reflect the militaristic nature of the city that Davis articulately described in “Fortress LA” but they do it in very different ways- the Cathedral by internalizing drastic security features and displaying an exclusionary exterior; the Towers by embodying the raw and “brutalizing physicality of the modern urban experience” (Schrank 277).

Link to Compton article in Newsweek

http://www.newsweek.com/id/190655

Radical Thought and Academia--A Bit of a Ramble

American Studies Blog Post #2:

After class today I began thinking about radical thought within Academia, and the broader historical trends that have taken place within American political discourse. A question popped into my mind: How does the increased formalization and legitimization of critical and radical thought within academia relate to, if at all, the deradicalization of American political discourse and culture and the pacification of students?

On the one hand, since the “Power Movements” many disciplines have been legitimized and secured—after decades of fighting—that welcome critical, oppositional and radical analyses of society. Ethnic studies, American studies, women’s studies, queer studies, cultural studies and probably a host of others build off of canonical texts that articulate endemic, intractable, fundamental problems with society, and often pose revolutionary or liberatory ways of moving forward. Capitalism, patriarchy, racism, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and other dominant ideological and structural forces are interrogated, unpacked, and intellectually dismantled. Perverse contradictions, inequalities and hierarchies are de-naturalized and wrestled with in all of these disciplines.

Yet that being said, I cannot help but notice that the growing legitimization and normalization of radical thought within academia has also taken place alongside two other problematic (according to my own subjective values) trends: the conservatization of American mainstream political culture and discourse, and the rise of a less active and less critical generation of students (of which I am a part). Within our country capitalism and unfettered markets seem less questioned and more immutable than ever (this is changing in slight ways as evidenced by Obama’s election and mild economic interventionism). Racial inequality and discrimination, though less blatant and no longer legal, still characterize American society. And yet, few imaginative alternatives to the current social and economic order have any serious currency within American political discourse. Only mild tinkering with the market economy is considered, and bolstering public goods and services will be a battle for the Obama administration. Inequality and poverty seem to be relatively low-profile political issues in America, and racial inequality (in terms of outcomes and substantive opportunity) is practically taboo to speak about.

As academia has become incredibly diverse ideologically, it seems American political discourse has narrowed and become more conservative. Are these trends related? On the one hand, it seems that academia has become a haven of sorts for radical thought during an era in which conservatism and reformism have reigned. It makes sense that an institution with at least a degree of autonomy (from business and government) has become the repository for radical thinking even when such thinking holds no wider political viability. That being said, I wonder if the legitimization of radical thinking in academia has in any way hindered the Left’s growth since the Reagan Revolution. For one, radical thought in academia often seems to be depoliticized and decontextualized (crazy ideas from the past that are severed from the actual people and struggles that precipitated such thinking). Also, as academia has become the main repository for radical thinking and radical intellectuals, it seems that a geographical gulf has formed between communities that disproportionately bear the brunt of structures of domination (be they social or economic) and ideas from the Leftist tradition. More privileged members of society attending four-year institutions are exposed to revolutionary ways of thinking, yet such thinking may often be merely consumed like candy--taken as ideas that are to be wrestled with for the sake of one’s own intellectual development, not because they are to influence praxis.

In this way, I wonder if those most capable of revolutionizing society (those with the lived experiences that inspire action) are most distanced from the ideas that could be empowering, and those least capable of revolutionizing society (those with the greatest stake, materially speaking, in the status quo) are exposed to radical thought, yet often consume it as part of an intellectual feast en-route to a comfortable, professional existence.

These are very rough ideas, though I am simply entertaining the thought that the legitimization of radical thought within academia, and the fact that academia has become somewhat of a haven for radical thinking during a conservative era, may have had some serious ramifications: namely, the fact that privileged people have complete access to critical theory and the theoretical products of the Leftist tradition, while working class and underprivileged people are completely distanced from these narratives and traditions—both spatially and otherwise. Moreover, I wonder whether the access disparities have hampered the Left’s reemergence.