History of Los Angeles - Essay Example

History of Los Angeles Order No. 274147 No. of pages: 5 1st 6530 Over half a century ago, when Carey McWilliams referred to the countryof Southern California as an “Archipelago” of isolated communities, he was not far from the truth because he did not look at the country as a unified whole, but as a network of suburban villages. (Carey Williams, 1946) Many of the cities of Southern California came to depend on the urban infrastructure of Los Angeles which earned the name of a “fragmented metropolis.” The country’s appetite for a large pool of cheap labor and its close proximity to the border of the United States and Mexico, often lead to confrontations between the white and the nonwhite population. Generally, the population of a place represents the level of growth in the region. Large groups of different kinds of people continuously flowed in, either for work or business and contributed to this population. During the 18th and the early 19th centuries, the longest standing residents of the region were the Native Californians that were made up of tribal groups like the Kumeyaay/Diegueno, Luisseno, Cupeno, Gabrieleno and Chumash etc. As a result, the social political and cultural groups were highly complex and diverse. These people practiced a shared ecological base consisting of fishing, hunting and food gathering. Gradually, they began to throw into disarray one of the most efficient agricultural in works and in the territory because they began selling the mission lands and stocks to a group of ranchero families who finally “became the de facto political power in the region.” (Fogelson, 1988) During the 1830’s, many Anglo - Americans arrived in South California and married into Californio families and gained control over the economy and politics. Though many of the Yankees became converts to Catholicism, there also became citizens of Mexico and adapted themselves to Mexican customs and traditions. This led to Colonial disorganization and the Americans began to view the Mexican society in a negative light. Due to the major land holdings they were heavily burdened with taxes, which were further compounded by “the gold- rush sponsored windfall in the cattle market petered out and in the 1860’s several years of drought effectively killed the Rancho system.” (Cleland, 15- 20) Though many places scrambled for capital, power and business, but the real competition was between Los Angeles and San Diego. But In the wake of the gold rush, San Diego did not keep pace with Los Angeles. Due to its natural harbor to the south of San Francisco Bay, San Diego experienced a good measure of national prominence which took it beyond Los Angeles. But this was short lived because as soon as the Boom got busted, San Diego suffered more losses than its rival which made it very difficult to recoup its losses. Therefore, by 1900, San Diego had to play a supporting role to Los Angeles because its fate was sealed. Between 1890 and 1915 both Los Angeles and San Diego flourished and the population swelled with a diverse mix of people from different origins. There were South Africans, Japanese, African Americans and many native-born whites who came in search of a new kind of urban life. Los Angeles was deemed as the “Iowa with palm trees” and boosters began to promote it as a “city of homes.” (Fogelson, chap 3) Peter Schrag points out that California’s “government by initiative” have made use of scapegoats of different kinds of which the major one is the government. He states that it is because of the “passage of Proposition 13 which made it convenient to divide the post- world war II era in California……..with its huge investment in public infrastructure and its strong commitment to public services and a generation of declining confidence and shrinking public services.” The heaviest part of the burden has come to fall on the region’s demography as well as on the “children, whose educational opportunities have declined.” (Peter Schrag, 1998) Right from the beginning of the 20th century, the composition of U S cities had undergone a drastic change in the demography it exhibited as what is seen today. The main reasons behind these changes can be attributed to the newer economic models and greater immigration of populations from various parts of the globe. The period from the 1970’s onwards, has seen the mushrooming of racial and ethnic groups in American cities, making their way mostly from Asia and Latin America. While earlier, the city had a mix of blacks and whites, the proliferation of peoples from all corners of the globe have created several axes of nationality and ethnicity. A homogenous mixture in population is a welcome intervention, but the riots and social eruptions of the Latin and African American communities has spread a lingering doubt about the sustainability of mixed ethnic populations. The alarm bells have started to ring ever louder because a large population of the big American cities is made up of this group of people. (Rodriguez, 1996) The racial tensions which accompany ethnic populations was seen during the Watts Riots of 1965 when Proposition 14 was passed which brought in segregated housing once again, to prevent the large number of Blacks who had made California their home after the end of the second World War. Riots broke out in the Watts section of Los Angeles and many Whites directed their ire against Governor Brown who was sympathetic to the cause of the minorities. Racial tensions flared up in the 1990’s, especially after the Rodney King affair, where white Los Angeles police officers were videotaped while beating King, a Black motorist. Their acquittal in 1992 led to a frenzy of arson and looting in South Central Los Angeles. These riots also revealed that the “myths of multiculturalism only disguise the sad reality of a society still separate and unequal. ”Education in the state has also borne the brunt of racial and ethnic tensions and although Universities follow a complex admission system based on race and ethnicity, the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court directive in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke abolished such racial quotas but allowed for a consideration of race in granting admissions. Blacks came to understand that their “rebellion” was actually a protest against racism and economic inequality, while the whites looked upon the riots as a “destruction of civil society.” Rioters were blamed for the breakdown of the order of things by the whites, while the rioters blamed it on the suburbanizing white community for being stubbornly unwilling to tackle urban problems. Finally, it was “multiculturalism” came to be called a myth that had “disguised the sad reality of a society still ‘separate and unequal.” (Edward T. Chang, 1999) Los Angeles is looked upon as the portent of our urban future inspite of its racial pluralities. Immigrant labor has been made scapegoats by taking risks associated with economic, urban and cultural problems. Racial and ethnic diversity have risen due to the escalation of population. Businesses have spread far and wide into global markets making southern California a paradox among places. References Carey McWilliams, (1946) Southern California Country. An Island on the land. New York; Duell, Sloan & Pierce. Chap. 15. Cleland, Cattle on a Thousand Hills. Fogelso, Fragmented Metropolis, 15 – 20. Edward T. Chang and Jeannette Diaz Veizades, Ethnic Peace in American City. Building Community in Los Angeles and Beyond. ((New York: The new Press, 1999, 4-5, 9-10, 16) Fogelson. Fragmented Metropolis. Chap. 1 Rice, Bullough and Orsi. Elusive Eden, 95. 115 – 123. Walton Bean and James J. Rawls, California: An interpretive History. 5th edn. New York McGraw Hill, Inc. 1988) 44 – 55. Fogelson. Fragmented Metropolis. Chap. 4, 110 – 123. Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost. California’s Experience America’s Future. (New York: The new Press, 1998) U.S. Immigration and Intergroup Relations in the Late 20th Century: African Americans and Latinos Journal article by Nestor Rodriguez; Social Justice, Vol. 23, 1996 U.S. Immigration and Intergroup Relations in the Late 20th Century ... http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=JcqdhvGZQjCT4v3pfmThSJnNnWJpsFwF9zjyQKFNLsyPQbL8M6Xq!-954900154!-1632266300?docId=5000432440 History of California -Index http://www.lhslobos.org/calihistory/ Read More