Urban borderlands : multiracial histories and gendered borders in Los Angeles / Isabela Seong Leong Quintana

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Quintana, Isabela Seong Leong, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chinese--California--Los Angeles--History.

Chinese.

Chinese Americans--California--Los Angeles--History.

Chinese Americans.

Community life--California--Los Angeles--History.

Community life.

Mexican Americans--California--Los Angeles--History.

Mexican Americans.

Mexicans--California--Los Angeles--History.

Mexicans.

Los Angeles (Calif.)--Race relations--History.

Los Angeles (Calif.).

Los Angeles Plaza (Los Angeles, Calif.)--History.

Los Angeles Plaza (Los Angeles, Calif.).

Race relations.

California--Los Angeles--Los Angeles Plaza.

California--Los Angeles.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations, maps

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2026]

Summary:

"Los Angeles in the late nineteenth century was bustling with the rise of industrialization, but the growing labor force that propelled it, mostly consisting of Mexican and Chinese men, was met with exclusion policies and deportation campaigns. Nevertheless, Chinese and Mexican women, children, and men built vibrant residential and business districts-until they were all but eradicated in the 1930s. In this compelling and textured history, Isabela Quintana unearths the entwined stories of Chinatown and Sonoratown through the everyday lives of their residents. As Quintana argues, their ordinary experiences illuminate the interlocking and gendered processes of racial segregation and border formation that built the Los Angeles we know today. The blurry borders, geographic, cultural, and otherwise, between these communities-what Quintana calls urban borderlands-were less defined than official records would have us believe. Centering the lives of women and children, and the archival glimpses and silences that account for them, Quintana uncovers moments of familiarity, kinship, conflict, and collaboration born of proximity and shared space, particularly that of the Los Angeles Plaza. Revealing experiences of border policing, racial violence, and perceived foreignness, Quintana's dynamic narrative offers an innovative approach to understanding the layered histories of urban renewal in Mexican and Chinese Los Angeles"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Los Angeles' urban borderlands

A stratigraphy of proximities: space, labor, and gender in the Los Angeles Plaza vicinity, 1700s-1930s

Ya Hit and the 1871 massacre

Making do, making home

With whole-hearted abandon: landscapes of youth and gender, 1900s-1930s

The Placita raid: narrating Los Angeles

Gendered border practices

Toward a lens of multiplicity

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (JSTOR, viewed June 24, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version: Quintana, Isabela Seong Leong Urban borderlands

ISBN:

9781469687346

1469687348

9781469675817

1469675811

OCLC:

1521232902

Publisher Number:

CIPO000228995

CIPO000228988

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license