Racial Fault Lines
The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California
Tomas Almaguer
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley • Los Angeles • London
Chapter 7 is reprinted in revised form by permission of Labor History. It originally appeared as "Racial Domination and Class Conflict in Capitalist Agriculture: The Oxnard Sugar Beet Workers' Strike of 1903," Labor History 25, no. 3 (Summer 1984 ): 325-350.
In memory of my father, with love, for my mother, with pride, for David and Miguel, and, with indebtedness, for Clementina.
University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 1994 by The Regents of the University of California
Almaguer, Tomas. Racial fault lines : the historical origins of white supremacy in California I by Tomas Almaguer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-07597-8 (alk. paper) ; ISBN 0-520-08947-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) !. White supremacy movements-California-History. 2. RacismCalifornia-History. 3. California-Race relations. I. Title. F870.A 1A46 1994 93-42513 305. 8'009794-dc20
Printed in the United States of America 98765432 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. §
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CHAPTER TWO
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''The True Significance of the Word 'White' "
Given their free-labor sentiments and their profound belief in "Manifest Destiny," European Americans migrating into the new American Southwest could have been expected to despise completely the Mexican population they encountered in California. Although these prejudices undeniably affected their initial impressions of Mexican society, white immigrants actually assigned Mexicans an intermediate location in the new society they imposed in the region. Indeed, compared to the treatment ultimately afforded...