UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Grassroots Surrealism: The Culture of Opposition and the Crisis of Development in 1930s California A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Elizabeth E. Sine Committee in charge: Professor Luis Alvarez, Co-Chair Professor Daniel Widener, Co-Chair Professor Dayo F. Gore Professor David G. Gutiérrez Professor Sara Clarke Kaplan Professor Nancy H. Kwak Copyright Elizabeth E. Sine, 2014 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Elizabeth E. Sine is approved, and it is accepted in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Co-Chair ________________________________________________________________________ Co-Chair University of California, San Diego 2014 iii DEDICATION For my grandma Eileen, mother Shelley, and Nicholas. iv “In some periods and circumstances, the given relationships, socially and politically, seem inert and fixed. Culture signifies the predictable and overpowering reproduction of what ‘is.’ It claims the verities of tradition and authorizes familiar futures from the repetitions of a naturalized past (‘what has always been the case’). Politics becomes the machinery of maintenance and routine. The image of a different future becomes displaced into fantasy and easily dismissed. The cracks and fissures are hard to find. “But there are other times when things fall apart. The given ways no longer persuade. The present loosens its grip. Horizons shift. History speeds up. It becomes possible to see the fragments and outlines of a different way. When this happens, the formal institutional worlds of politics in a nation or city and the many mundane worlds of the private, the personal, and the everyday move together. They occupy the same time. The present begins to move. These are times of extraordinary possibility and hope. New horizons shimmer. History’s continuum shatters.” —Geoff Eley1 “We wish to preserve the fire of the past, not the ashes.” —William James2 1 Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), viii-ix. 2 William James, qtd. in Vicki Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 103. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………………………iii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv Epigraph…………………………………………………………………………………...v Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………vi Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………..viii Vita…………………………………………………………………………………........xii Abstract of the Dissertation…………………………………………………………......xiv Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Capitalist Development in Global California……………………………………….8 Labor, Culture, and Politics in the 1930s………………………………………….21 Difference, Solidarity, and the Surrealist Imagination…………………………….28 Organization……………………………………………………………………….37 Chapter 1 Everyday Insurrection and the Making of California’s Agricultural Crisis…41 The Social Synthesis of California Agriculture in the Late 1920s………………...47 The Politics of Daily Life in California Agricultural Working Communities…….61 Cantaloupe and Crisis in the Imperial Valley………………………………….…..79 Resonance and Expansion of the Agricultural Crisis……………………………...90 Beyond the Fields………………………………………………………………….96 Chapter 2 Crossings and Convergences in the Imperial Metropolis: Building a People’s Front in San Francisco…………………………………………………………………...99 Struggle and Community Formation in Early-Twentieth Century San Francisco…………………………………………………………………...104 The Evolution of Inter-Community Relations in the Early Years of the Depression………………………………………………………………….115 Forging a Coalition and (Re)Defining Solidarity………………………………...124 Possibilities and Contradictions……………………………………………...…...134 “A Strike is a Small Revolution”…………………………………………………147 Chapter 3 Unusual Weather in the Land of Sunshine: Los Angeles’ Cultural Front from Below…………………………………………………………………………...………150 Culture and Power in the Open Shop City……………………………………….157 Subversive Spectacles…………………………………………………………….170 Community Theater and Community-Making in South Los Angeles……………184 Jazz and the World of Popular Front Youth Culture……………………………..193 vi A Central Avenue State of Mind............................................................................211 Chapter 4 The Politics of Multiracial Autonomy and the Culture of Opposition in 1930s Round Valley…………………………………………………………………………...214 Genealogies of Multiracial Struggle in the Lands of Round Valley Indians……..220 The Crisis of Power and Shifting Strategies of Race Management in the Great Depression………………………………………………………………….237 Alternative Visions and Circulations of Struggle in Round Valley……………...245 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...266 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….278 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation draws on the support, encouragement, input, and inspiration that I have received from a wide community of people during the past six years I have spent at UCSD. First, I want to thank my advisors, Luis Alvarez and Danny Widener. Thank you, Luis, for your ongoing reminders that academic work is as much about listening as it is about asserting, that the process is as important as the product, and that the richest modes of learning are those anchored in community. Thank you, Danny, for encouraging me to see history simultaneously as a toolkit and as art, and for pressing me to ask the urgent questions about the past that can help us to find where openings exist in the present. Beyond supporting and helping to develop my research, both of you have modeled for me what it means to make academic work a channel for social justice, and I aspire to live up to the example you have set. My entire dissertation committee is a veritable dream team. Dave Gutiérrez has provided support for this project all the way through, always urging me to keep in view the pressing question of why this project matters in the first place. Nancy Kwak has also lent her support from the earliest stages, helping to guide and develop not only my research and writing but also my teaching, along the way exemplifying what it means to combine excellence in scholarship with generosity of spirit. Sara Clarke Kaplan has helped nurture the ideas at the heart of this project at key junctures, helping to deepen my sense of the interconnections and interdependencies that link a critical analytical gaze with an eye toward political possibility. Through her written work, Dayo Gore has been important to the directions of my research since before she arrived at UCSD, encouraging viii me to see the contributions to libratory struggles that have emerged beyond the many boundaries that usually circumscribe the study of social movements. To have her join my committee and to be able to draw directly on her insight—about my dissertation and things beyond it—is a privilege for which I am tremendously grateful. I have also drawn on the generous support and contributions of other faculty from across and beyond UCSD. In particular I want to express my gratitude to Nayan Shah, Lisa Lowe, and Roberto Alvarez, each of whom has contributed profoundly to the questions, ideas, and imperatives that drive this dissertation. I am grateful to the archivists, librarians, and library staff who helped me locate and access sources for this project. In particular, I thank Rachel Borum at the Round Valley Public Library, Conor Casey at the Labor Archives of Washington State, Peter Filardo at Tamiment Library and Wagner Labor Archives at New York University, David Kessler at the Bancroft Library, Catherine Powell at the Labor Archives and Research Center, Michele Welsing at the Southern California Library for Social Sciences and Research. Thanks also to the staffs at Brawley Public Library, El Centro Public Library, Mendocino County Historical Society, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, San Francisco Public Library, UCLA Special Collections, UCSB Special Collections, and Willits Library. Generous financial support from the Fund for Labor Culture and History, University of California Center for New Racial Studies, Roosevelt Institute, Bancroft Library, Center for Global California Studies, University of California Humanities Research Institute, Latino Studies Research Institute, and UCSD Department of History made this research possible. A research fellowship from the History Department at ix UCSD and a dissertation fellowship from the University of California Office of the President facilitated this dissertation’s completion. My research has benefited from a great many individuals whom I have met along the way. I had the good fortune of participating in the Western History Dissertation Workshop at Autry National Center in 2012. The contributions of all involved enriched my work, and the event as a whole provided a living example of the joys of scholarly collaboration. I especially want to thank Bill Deverell, whose comments and encouragement helped shape important parts of this project. I also want to express my appreciation to Michael