Place Studies on Tourism and Identity in Modern South Carolina
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ABSTRACT Title of Document: SOMBREROS AND MOTORCYCLES: PLACE STUDIES ON TOURISM AND IDENTITY IN MODERN SOUTH CAROLINA Paula Nicole King, Doctor of Philosophy, 2008 Directed By: Professor Mary Corbin Sies, Department of American Studies This dissertation examines the rise of tourism as an important social and economic force in the U.S. South through place studies of tourist sites in South Carolina. The roadside attraction South of the Border and the historically black town of Atlantic Beach are analyzed as touriscapes that provide historical narratives foregrounding the connections between place and southern identity in the modern era. Touriscapes are defined as places where perspectives overlap and identities intersect to produce spaces of serious cultural and historical significance as well as recreation and fun. Both of these touriscapes were enacted as tourism developed and Jim Crow segregation began to crumble, and they have survived into the twenty-first century. They are sites of commercial development, resistance, and political strife that should be studied, engaged, and preserved for future generations to better understand the complexity of southern history, culture, and identity. SOMBREROS AND MOTORCYCLES: PLACE STUDIES ON TOURISM AND IDENTITY IN MODERN SOUTH CAROLINA By Paula Nicole King Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2008 Advisory Committee: Professor Mary Corbin Sies, Chair Professor Angel David Nieves Professor Leslie Rowland Professor Nancy Struna Professor Psyche Williams-Forson © Copyright by Paula Nicole King 2008 Dedication To my father, Paul Michael King ii Acknowledgments I want to thank Professor Mary Corbin Sies for helping the intellectual focus of this work develop and for the rigor with which she read it and the time she took to discuss it with me. I came to the University of Maryland, College Park, to learn about cultural landscape studies. As a student in the Department of American Studies, I encountered a rich and rigorous exploration of place that has changed my work and my perspective on American culture. Professor Nancy Struna has assisted my intellectual development from my first semester at the University of Maryland, and I am better for it. I sincerely thank the rest of my dissertation committee, Professors Angel David Nieves, Leslie Rowland, and Psyche Williams-Forson, for their time and expertise in helping me to develop and focus my interests in tourism and southern identity. My family in South Carolina, especially my mother, Frances Earle King, provided unending love and support that have profoundly influenced my emotional and intellectual development. Thanks to my grandparents, Earl and Mary Frances Lewis, my brother and sister, Paul King and Robyn Ward, and my nephews Rodney and Lee Ward, for their love, encouragement, and company. In addition, my friend, copy editor, and sounding board down South, Rebecca Snurr, read and commented on this draft and accompanied me on many trips to South of the Border. My nephew Rodney and friends Darren and Alison Thrash-Davis attended the 2007 Atlantic Beach Bikefest with me as part of my research for this project. Thanks to my colleagues at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) for their support as I wrote this dissertation, especially Professor Jason iii Loviglio, who read and offered comments on this work. I would also like to thank my many wonderful students at UMBC who have inspired me to continue to see things with new eyes every semester. My most wonderful, caring, and considerate husband, Bay Woods, took the time out of his busy duties as teacher and administrator to read every part of this work numerous times and offer invaluable comment, even though I never once read his dissertation on Plato’s heroes and villains. Without traveling the road I have with Bay, I would never have been able to complete this dissertation. Our dogs, Waylon and Mr. Bojangles, provided walks when I needed a shift of perspective and fresh air. Finally, I thank my father, to whom this work is dedicated, for inspiring wonder in me from an early age. He always encouraged me to seek out knowledge and made me feel as if I could accomplish anything I set my mind to. He was a great man who grew up in a segregated South, but was able to see beyond it. He taught me tolerance and to always stand up for what I believe in but never to stand so hard that I could not be moved by what was right. He was an educator and an inspiration to generations. He read numerous parts of this work and was my trusted research partner from the beginning, and, even when he was sick and in pain, he accompanied me to make photocopies and visit archives. He will travel with me in all I do, always. iv Table of Contents Dedication.................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgments....................................................................................................iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................v List of Illustrations ...................................................................................................vi Chapter 1: Introducing the Touriscape.......................................................................1 Chapter 2: Beautiful Places, Smiling Faces in the Newer South...............................22 Chapter 3: Behind the Sombrero: Alan Schafer’s South of the Border, 1949-2001...59 Chapter 4: The Saga of the Black Pearl: Change and Continuity in a Black Beach. 128 Chapter 5: Conclusion: Symbols of a Newer South............................................... 211 Bibliography ......................................................................................................... 240 v List of Illustrations 1: South of the Border Landscape (author photo, 2000) page 1 2: Cul de Sac in Atlantic Beach (author photo, 2006) page 3 3: 2006 U. S. Census Data on Race (U. S. Census Bureau) page 7 4: Sombrero Tower at South of the Border (author photo, 2000) page 59 5: “Welcome to South of the Border” Billboard (author photo, 2000) page 60 6: “Beeg Man” Pedro Statue at South of the Border (author photo, 2000) page 62 7: Outside of South of the Border Motor Inn (author photo, 2000) page 75 8: South of the Border Motor Inn Individual Garages (author photo, 2000) page 80 9: Sign for Dirty Old Man Shop at South of the Border (author photo, 2000) page 81 10: Silver Arcade, Converted Video Gambling Parlor (author photo, 2000) page 95 11: Closed Golden Horseshoe Video Gambling Parlor (author photo, 2000) page 96 12: Antique Shop at South of the Border (author photo, 2000) page 97 13: South of the Border Billboard (author photo, 2000) page 108 14: Outside of Pedro’s Africa Shop (author photo, 2000) page 111 15: Sign at the Entrance of Pedro’s Africa Shop (author photo, 2000) page 111 16: “Wiseman” Artifact from Pedro’s Africa Shop (author photo, 2008) page 114 17: Figurine 1 from Pedro’s Africa Shop (author photo, 2008) page 115 18: Figurine 2 and Artifact from Pedro’s Africa Shop (author photo, 2008) page 116 19: Pedro’s Africa Shop T-shirt 1 (author photo, 2008) page 117 20: Pedro’s Africa Shop T-shirt 2 (author photo, 2008) page 117 21: Shelf of Items at Pedro’s Africa Shop (author photo, 2008) page 117 22: Little Mexico Shop in Mexico Shop West (author photo, 2008) page 120 23: Pedro’s Africa Shop and Sombrero Tower (author photo, 2008) page 121 24: Irish Pedro Statue (author photo, 2008) page 123 25: Pedro Billboard (author photo, 2008) page 128 26: Cul de Sac at Atlantic Beach (author photo, 2006) page 156 27: Evan’s Motel at Atlantic Beach (author photo, 2006) page 165 28: Tourist and Bikers at Myrtle Beach (author photo, 2007) page 167 29: Black Bikers at the Atlantic Beach Bikefest (author photo, 2007) page 195 30: Japanese Speed Bike from Atlantic Beach Bikefest (author photo, 2007) page 200 31: Author at Atlantic Beach Bikefest (author photo, 2007) page 202 32: Atlantic Beach Historical Marker (author photo, 2006) page 210 vi Chapter 1: Introducing the Touriscape If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them? - Bumper sticker (seen on a car in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina) My opening quote addresses the tensions between two aspects of leisure culture—hunting and tourism. In a tone that is meant to be comical and antagonistic, this bumper sticker combines the practice of hunting, which can be both work and leisure, with tourism, which simultaneously provides work to some and leisure to others. The bumper sticker offers a criticism of the traffic and crowds produced when visitors flock to the warm coastal region of the South Carolina coast. In an intentional play on the meanings of “season,” a term related to natural change, this quote makes the tensions of social change in a southern community, where both hunting and tourism are aspects of everyday life, apparent. The display of this item further signifies that the driver is an insider (a local) defining his identity against the annoying outsiders (tourists). This bumper sticker expresses a disdain for tourists; however, today it is the tourism, and not the more traditional activity of hunting, that provides the dominant forms of work and amusement in Myrtle Beach. As the weather warms, travelers who head south on Interstate 95 towards the state of South Carolina will pass numerous billboards advertising South of the Border, the immense neon roadside attraction with a Mexican 1 bordertown theme. Quite a few will actually stop at this site of consumer culture and architectural kitsch. The weary will lodge at the motor inn. The hungry will eat at one of the many restaurants—perhaps the Hot Tamale, the Sombrero Restaurant, or Pedro’s Diner. Shoppers will browse the numerous souvenir shops. The largest shops, Mexico Shop East and West, are on opposite sides of Highway 301, which served as a main north-south route before being displaced by the interstate.