20. The Starlite Swap Meet

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Introduction: Finding Silenced Histories, Lost Intersections, and Radical Possibilities in Greater El Monte 1
4. Part I. Origins and Departures
5. Introduction 15
6. 1. The Tongva People 17
7. 2. Toypurina: A Legend Etched in the Landscape 25
8. 3. From Alta California to American Statehood: Race, Change, and the Californio Pico Family 37
9. 4. Here Come the El Monte Boys: Vigilante Justice and Lynch Mobs in Nineteenth-Century El Monte 49
10. Part II. Social and Political Movements
11. Introduction 57
12. 5. Rise, Fall, Repeat: El Monte’s White Supremacy Movements 59
13. 6. Ricardo Flores Magón and the Anarchist Movement in El Monte 68
14. 7. Bitter Fruit: The El Monte Berry Strike of 1933 74
15. 8. Schools for All: The Desegregation Campaign in El Monte 81
16. 9. “City of Achievement”: The Making of the City of South El Monte, 1955–1976 89
17. 10. ¡La Lucha Continua! Gloria Arellanes and the Women of the Chicano Movement 102
18. 11. Toward a Radical Arts Practice: Theater and Muralism during the Chicano Movement 112
19. 12. American Dreams and Immigrant Realities in a South El Monte Shoe Factory 124
20. 13. Dreams of Escape and Belonging: The Making of Asian El Monte since 1965 135
21. Part III. Nature and the Built Environment
22. Introductions 147
23. 14. Hicks Camp: A Mexican Barrio 149
24. 15. Life at Marrano Beach: The Lost Barrio Beach of Los Angeles 158
25. 16. From Small Farming to Urban Agriculture: El Monte and Subsistence Homesteading 163
26. 17. A Community Erased: Japanese Americans in El Monte and the Greater San Gabriel Valley 174
27. 18. Whittier Narrows Park: A Story of Water, Power, and Displacement 185
28. 19. Transportational El Monte: From the Red Car to the Freeway 194
29. 20. The Starlite Swap Meet 208
30. Part IV. Popular Culture
31. Introduction 217
32. 21. El Monte’s Wild Past: A History of Gay’s Lion Farm 219
33. 22. Memories of El Monte: Art Laboe’s Charmed Life on the Air 226
34. 23. El Monte’s Wildweed: Biraciality and the Punk Ethos of the Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce 234
35. 24. Punk and the Seamstress 242
36. 25. A Gay Bar, Some Familia, and Latina Butch-Femme: Rounding Out the Eastside Circle at El Monte’s Sugar Shack 250
37. 26. All the Zumba Ladies: Reclaiming Bodies and Space through Serious Booty Shaking 261
38. Part V. Literary Cartographies
39. Introduction 269
40. 27. 1181 Durfee Avenue: 1983 to 1986 271
41. 28. Train versus Pedestrian on Valley Boulevard 276
42. 29. Epiphany Catholic Church 280
43. 30. Rush Street 286
44. 31. Durfee Avenue 292
45. Epilogue: Suburban Cosmopolitanism in the San Gabriel Valley 297
46. Acknowledgments 309
47. Selected Bibliography 313
48. Notes on Contributors 323
49. Index 329