Making a Non-White America: Californians Coloring outside Ethnic Lines, 1925-1955

by Allison Varzally

Overview

What happens in a society so diverse that no ethnic group can call itself the majority? Exploring a question that has profound relevance for the nation as a whole, this study looks closely at eclectic neighborhoods in California where multiple minorities constituted the majority during formative years of the twentieth century. In a lively account, woven throughout with vivid voices and experiences drawn from interviews, ethnic newspapers, and memoirs, Allison Varzally examines everyday interactions among the Asian, Mexican, African, Native, and Jewish Americans, and others who lived side by side. What she finds is that in shared city spaces across California, these diverse groups mixed and mingled as students, lovers, worshippers, workers, and family members and, along the way, expanded and reconfigured ethnic and racial categories in new directions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520253452
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/02/2008
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Allison Varzally is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton.

Read an Excerpt

Making a Non-White America
Californians Coloring outside Ethnic Lines, 1925-1955

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By Allison Varzally
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Copyright © 2008 The Regents of the University of California
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-25345-2

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Chapter One
California Crosscroads

"Like many other small villages in the wild, majestic mountains of the Sierra Madre de Nayarit, my pueblo was a hideaway," Ernesto Galarza wrote of Jalcocotán, Mexico, his birthplace. As a result of economic and political instabilities wrought by the Mexican Revolution and capitalist expansion, however, this hideaway ceased to be a refuge. Seeking work and safety, the Galarzas and other peasant families began a series of migrations that would carry them across the Mexico-U.S. border. Passing through Tepic, Mazatlán, Nogales, and Tucson, the Galarzas finally reached Sacramento. They settled into the "Lower Sacramento ... the quarter that people who made money moved away from." It was, he wrote, "not exclusively a Mexican barrio but a mix of many nationalities," including Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Hindus, Blacks, Koreans, and Portuguese, a neighborhood that was a truly multicultural setting.

The Galarzas' long journey and diverse neighborhood typify the migration and settlement experience of so many working-class minorities in roughly the second quarter of the twentieth century. Inside California's big cities and small towns, non-Whites lived and socialized in truly mixed neighborhoods rather than ethnically specific enclaves; they regularly bumped into and brushed up against one another as they went about their daily routines. These integrated spaces demonstrated not only that the Golden State had accumulated a varied population but also that this population was distributed in ways that made diversity visible and important to everyday experience. In part, making ethnoracial communities in California was about discouraging physical and social contacts with other groups. But in the end, the spatial concentration of non-Whites made their intermixing almost inescapable.

Patterns of migration, discrimination, and ethnoracial formation created the state's heterogeneous spaces. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the spread of capitalism generally and American power specifically encouraged the migration of the Galarzas and many others to the United States. California loomed large in the imaginations of Asians, Mexicans, and Europeans as a place of particular promise. It also beckoned to Americans from other states, including Black southerners and Native Americans, who thought their lives could be better out West. These new arrivals set up and settled into systems of difference that expressed the stresses of their migrant experiences. Informed by local diversity, the rise of nationalist movements, and the racial assumptions of long-time Californians, the new arrivals expanded their notions of kinship beyond the familiar borders of village or region. Established Whites participated in this process of making ethnoracial categories by building stronger boundaries around their privileges. In addition to sweeping revisions in immigration and marriage law, Whites' skillful, increasing use of real estate covenants, as well as prejudicial hiring, housing, and educational practices in the decades before World War II, severely restricted the opportunities of minorities.

The consolidation and segregation of ethnoracial groups resulted in multiethnic, working-class communities in the least desirable sections of metropolitan and rural areas. There, a mixture of ethnoracial groups met in schools, community centers, religious institutions, restaurants, and shops. Although European immigrants inhabited these districts, advantages attached to their legal status as White made their residence more voluntary and temporary; thus their attachment to the place and its occupants was more often attenuated or tentative. In the end, the physical closeness of so many distinct groups constituted the fertile ground from which panethnic social and cultural connections sprouted.

ACCENTUATED DIVERSITY

The rush of so many immigrant and migrant groups into California created a place of pronounced diversity by the middle decades of the twentieth century. The state had long boasted of a special demography, but the convergence of new peoples strengthened this claim. States of comparable population size-New York, Florida, Texas, and Michigan-had accumulated large numbers of non-Whites, but none had California's variety. For example, the 1940 census found that Whites represented 95.6 percent of the total population of New York State, whereas Blacks accounted for 4.2 percent, and "other races" a mere 0.2 percent. In Texas Whites constituted 82 percent of the population; 14 percent were Black and a paltry 0.03 percent were of other races. In California 95.5 percent of the population was White, 1.8 percent Black, and 2.7 percent belonged to "other races." The significant presence of American Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and Mexicans widened the range of the Pacific state's peoples. The newcomers who hailed from Asia and Mexico as well as eastern Europe and the American South were pushed and pulled by many of the same forces. Shaping their movement were political unrest and economic distress in home areas-often precipitated by, or at least related to, U.S. engagements overseas-as well as abundant work opportunities in California. Men migrated more regularly than women, a pattern that engendered unique family and sexual dynamics.

As a result, through much of the second quarter of the twentieth century, California had a much larger and more male population of minorities than in previous periods and most other American regions. Although not the most lopsided, its 1940 sex ratio of 103.7 males per 100 females was the thirteenth highest in the nation. Of those primarily western states that boasted more severe imbalances, such as Montana, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona, none had populations as large and as diverse as California's. Washington, for example, had an aggregate sex ratio of 109.1:100, with twice as many Chinese men as women, and 1.25 times as many Japanese men as women. But the total Chinese and Japanese populations reached only 2,086 and 4,071, respectively, tiny populations when compared with the 39,556 Chinese and 93,717 Japanese who made their homes in California. The larger size of these Asian groups made demographic imbalances more conspicuous and meaningful.

Among the immigrants who chose California as their destination in increasing numbers during the early twentieth century were Mexicans. They joined an established population of residents of Mexican origin with local roots that often preceded the U.S. conquest. Dramatic changes in Mexico introduced during the Porfiriato political period (1876-1911) prompted many citizens to travel northward. Hoping to modernize his country's economy by improving transportation, raising agricultural productivity, and attracting foreign investment, Porfirio Diaz ordered the privatization of communal land, the construction of railroads, and the introduction of new machinery. As in other parts of Latin America, U.S. businesses played an active role in this economic development, becoming major shareholders in Mexican railroads, establishing industries, and selling manufactured products. The historian George Sanchez has reported that almost two-fifths of all foreign investments by Americans were made in Mexico by 1911. As the U.S. and Mexican economies became more entangled and capitalism more far reaching, land became more expensive and more concentrated in the hands of a few. Formerly independent farmers suddenly found themselves working for wages on land they had once owned. Those dispossessed who could not find work as tenants or sharecroppers wandered into the cities of northern Mexico and searched for industrial jobs. Food prices climbed even as a labor surplus forced wages lower. This dim picture darkened when revolution broke out in 1910, forcing Mexicans to contend with political turmoil in addition to economic difficulties. Increasingly, Mexican workers contemplated a longer migration-one that took them, like members of the Galarza family, across the border into the American Southwest.

Shifts in the economies of states such as New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and California also encouraged the migration of Mexicans. New and widespread irrigation projects, the extension of railway lines, and the introduction of refrigerated boxcars contributed to the impressive expansion and productivity of the region's agriculture. In the first decades of the twentieth century, California became the nation's leading agricultural producer, a feat made possible by economies of scale introduced by new technological innovations as well as inexpensive labor. Recognizing the advantages of Mexican workers who accepted wages comparatively better than those prevailing in their native country but low by American standards, large agribusinesses sent labor recruiters to border towns. These agents staffed railroads, mines, factories, and farms throughout California. As American workers joined the military or entered defense work during World War I, the depletion of the labor force only intensified the recruiters' efforts and boosted immigration rates.

A disproportionate number of adult Mexican men chose work across the border. In 1910 the El Paso immigration station reported women as only 6.8 percent of those arriving from Mexico. Typically, Mexicans practiced a kind of circular migration in which the men would travel back and forth across the border in rhythm with the seasonal demands of their work. However, the tightening of U.S. immigration policy in 1921 and continued political chaos led some Mexican families to make their migration more permanent, moving wives and children into California. By 1920 the Mexican-born population, concentrated in the state's southern half, had risen to 478,000 from 103,000 in 1900. By 1940 the Mexican population in Los Angeles alone stood at 61,248.

Asian immigrant groups, hailing primarily from the Philippines, China, and Japan, joined Mexicans in the state in the late 1800s and early 1900s as they too fled political unrest and sought better economic opportunities. Chinese were the first Asian group to arrive in California during the gold rush, and the treatment they received would set the standard for later Asian arrivals. A large-scale diaspora beginning in the 1840s sent Chinese to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and Africa, as well as Hawaii and California. Political conflicts, namely, the Opium Wars and peasant rebellions, encouraged the migration. So did economic troubles caused by flooding, imperial taxes, and foreign competition. Yet more than misfortune in China propelled the migrants. The majority originated from the province of Guangdong, a region whose economic development and coastal location meant greater familiarity with the United States. Residents of this delta of the Pearl River enjoyed greater contact with missionaries and traders, who shared news of the gold rush and other California opportunities. Many men acted upon this information, borrowing money, saving, or signing labor contracts to pay for their eastward passage.

Chinese wives remained behind in greater numbers than in Mexican families. The cost of the journey, the men's hope of a quick return, and responsibilities to in-laws discouraged the women's travel. Employers in California also objected to the emigration of wives and families whom they believed would distract workers from their migratory routines. Therefore, although 50 percent of the immigrants were married, most had not brought their wives. In 1885 Chinese women represented less than half the Chinese population in America. Thirty-five years later the sex ratio was a shocking 27 males per female. The gap narrowed during the twentieth century but never closed completely. In San Francisco, where Chinese were most numerous, Chinese men still outnumbered Chinese women by approximately 3 to 1 in 1930. By 1950 a statewide Chinese-American sex ratio of 161.8:100 marked the continued surplus of men.

Japanese began coming to California via Hawaii in the 1890s, a few decades after the first Chinese. As in Mexico and China, the economic problems in Japan in part explained the movement. To pay for its expensive program of modernization and Westernization, the Meiji government placed new taxes on land and adopted a deflationary policy, leading many small farmers to lose their land. The high wages promised by American agents for work in Hawaii and on the mainland convinced many Japanese to leave their homeland. Their government tightly controlled the exodus, viewing Japanese abroad as representatives of their country. To ensure a more stable overseas community, the Meiji regime encouraged the emigration of women. This prescription, along with the picture-bride system, in which immigrant single men would choose wives after viewing a set of photographs sent from home, created a more sexually balanced society. The eventual Japanese sex ratio of 2.5 males per female approximated that of European immigrants'. By 1920 women constituted 34.5 percent of the Japanese population in California. As the century advanced, the Japanese became both a more stable population, reaching a comfortable sex ratio of 116:100 in 1950, and, unlike the Chinese, one that was more concentrated in Los Angeles County. Seattle had enjoyed the largest Japanese population in 1900, but two decades later Los Angeles could rightfully call itself the "metropolis of Japanese America."

Filipinos, the third most prominent group of Asian immigrants, became Californians in large numbers during the 1920s and 1930s. Perhaps more than the migration of any other group, their movement demonstrated the destabilizing consequences of U.S. imperialism. As residents of a U.S. territory who often spoke English, understood American customs, and carried the status of nationals, these arrivals enjoyed a familiarity with and an ease of entry into the United States unknown by Chinese, Japanese, or Mexicans. The majority of Filipinos who chose California as their destination were young laborers from poor families in the Ilocos region who found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Changes in the Philippine economy, brought about by the United States, favored large landowners and commercial agriculture. Dispossessed peasants responded eagerly to American labor contractors who were offering jobs in Hawaii plantations or California fields. Between 1920 and 1927 most Filipinos arriving at the ports of San Francisco and Los Angeles had spent time in Hawaii, but by the late 1920s and early 1930s most came directly from the Philippines. Men dominated the immigrant flow, resulting in bachelor societies that resembled those of the Chinese. In fact, between 1924 and 1929 only 16 percent of the twenty-four thousand Filipinos coming to California were women. This imbalance reflected employment demands, the expectation of a short stay, and restrictions that Filipino families placed on the travel of single women.

Adding to the variety of Asian immigrants were Koreans and Asian Indians. The small numbers of these arrivals made them less conspicuous in California communities and explain the more limited attention they receive in this history of intercultural relations. Encouragement by American missionaries, a desire to escape from Japanese imperialism, and economic troubles all contributed to the movement of about eight thousand Koreans between 1903 and 1920 to Hawaii and the mainland (with the vast majority settling in Hawaii). As in the Japanese community, the picture-bride system helped create nuclear families on American soil. The community never reached significant size in the years before World War II, though, largely because Japan severely limited Korean emigration after 1905.

Asian Indian immigrants constituted a similarly small proportion of California's diverse minority population. Sixty-four hundred Indians came in search of economic opportunities better than those at home, where British land-tenure policies had hurt small farmers. Even more male in composition (about 99 percent) than other Asian immigrant groups, the Indians usually labored in California fields in ethnic group-specific gangs, with some rising to the rank of tenant farmer by the 1920s.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. California Crossroads
2. Young Travelers
3. Guess Who's Joining Us for Dinner?
4. Banding Together in Crisis
5. Minority Brothers in Arms
6. Panethnic Politics Arising from the Everyday

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index