Battling Mexican apartheid in Orange County, CA: race, place, and politics, 1920-1950

2019-04-17Popularly thought of as a “white space” of middle-class lifestyle, work, and leisure, Orange County, CA is usually represented with images of Anglo homesteaders, citrus farming, suburbanization, theme parks, and conservative politics. With few exceptions, Orange County’s ethnic Mexican population has existed along the popular and intellectual periphery of the region, frequently overlooked by scholars analyzing it’s social, economic, and political significance to the nation as a whole. My work corrects this omission by revising the history of Orange County from a “white space” to a multi-ethnic borderland space rooted in the converging migrations of Anglos, Europeans, and ethnic Mexicans. Although overlooked by previous scholars, this borderlands perspective is a more accurate representation of the social relations and institutions that emerged in Orange County as a result of simultaneous domestic and international migrations from the U.S. Midwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Mexico. By interpreting the region anew through the lenses of migration, place making, identity formation, and cross-cultural interaction, this dissertation presents a fresh perspective on the growth and municipal development of the region during the first half of the twentieth century. In order to show the transformative influence of Chicanas/os-Latinas/os on the municipal development of Orange County, I detail their direct impact on the region as it transitioned from a multi-ethnic borderland to an ethno-racial apartheid, and the eventual upending of the segregationist system. Using oral histories, census records, maps, municipal records, memoirs, local histories, organizational documents, and newspapers, I examine a series of social flashpoints surrounding labor, housing, public accommodations, education, and political representation. Connecting mobilizations that have thus far been viewed in isolation, I narrate the history of the movement for Mexican American civil rights in Orange County from 1920-1950