Contents
Introduction: Burn the Wagon: Finding Silenced Histories, Lost Intersections, and Radical Possibilities in Greater El Monte
Romeo Guzmán, Carribean Fragoza, Alex Sayf Cummings, and Ryan Reft
Part I Origins and Departures
1 The Tongva People
Aurelie Roy
2 Toypurina: A Legend Etched in the Landscape
Maria John
3 From Alta California to American Statehood: Race, Change, and the Californio Pico Family
Ryan Reft
4 Here Come the El Monte Boys: Vigilante Justice and Lynch Mobs in Nineteenth Century El Monte
Karen Wilson and Dan Lynch
Part II Social and Political Movements
5 Rise, Fall, Repeat: El Monte’s White Supremacy Movements
Daniel Cady
6 Ricardo Flores Magón and Anarchist Movement in El Monte
Yesenia Barragan and Mark Bray
7 Bitter Fruit: The El Monte Berry Strike of 1933
Melquiades Fernandez
8 Schools for All: The Desegregation Campaign in El Monte
Rachel Newman
9 City of Achievement: The Making of the City of South El Monte, 1955-1976
Nick Juravich
10 La Lucha Continua! Gloria Arellanes and the Women of the Chicano Movement
Juan Herrera
11 Toward a Radical Arts Practice: Theater and Muralism during the Chicano Movement
Carribean Fragoza
12 American Dreams and Immigrant Realities in a South El Monte Shoe Factory
Adam Goodman
13 Dreams of Escape and Belonging: The Making of Asian El Monte
Alex Sayf Cummings
Part IIINature and the Built Environment
14 Hicks Camp: A Mexican Barrio
Daniel Morales
15 Life at Marrano Beach: The Lost Barrio Beach of Los Angeles
Daniel Medina
16 From Small Farming to Urban Agriculture: El Monte Subsistence Homesteading
Ryan Reft
17 A Community Erased: Japanese Americans in El Monte and the Greater SGV
Andre Kobayashi Deckrow
18 Whittier Narrows Park: A Story of Water, Power, and Displacement
David Reid
19 Transportational El Monte, From the Red Car to the Freeway
Ryan Reft
20 The Starlite Swap Meet
Jennifer Renteria
Part IVPopular Culture
21 El Monte’s Wild Past: A History of Gay’s Lion Farm
Michael Weller
22 Memories of El Monte: Art Laboe’s Charmed Life on the Air
Jude Webre
23 El Monte’s Wildweed: Biraciality and the Punk Ethos of The Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce
Troy Andreas Araiza Kokinis
24 The Punk and the Seamstress
Apolonio Morales
25 A Gay Bar, Some Familia, and Latina Butch-Femme: Rounding out the Eastside Circle at El Monte’s Sugar Shack
Stacy I. Macías
26 All the Zumba Ladies: Reclaiming Bodies and Space through Serious Booty-Shaking
Carribean Fragoza
Part V Literary Cartographies
27 1181 Durfee Avenue: 1983 to 1986
Michael Jaime-Becerra
28 Train versus Pedestrian on Valley Boulevard
Alex Espinoza
29 Epiphany Catholic Church
Toni Margarita Plummer
30 Rush Street
Carribean Fragoza
31 Durfee Avenue
Salvador Plascencia
Epilogue: East of East: Suburban Cosmopolitanism in the San Gabriel Valley
Wendy Cheng
Acknowledgments
Selected Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index