This thesis argues that in critical discussions of the history, mythology, and literary culture of California, the work of Los Angeles’ bibliographers, antiquarians, collectors, librarians, and archivists has been hugely overlooked. Examining this group from the end of the nineteenth century through to the 1930s, this thesis proposes that their collection and assemblage of literary, historical, and visual material about California – often dubbed Californiana – points to a much wider and more systemic operation of regional mythology. Critically evaluating the history of these bibliographic institutions in Southern California, this thesis argues that the collecting and arranging of Californiana has been as influential to the construction of regional knowledge as the material itself. This thesis is concerned with both the literal and metaphorical shapes of history that these collections construct. Essentially, whilst there has been much scholarship on the mythography of Los Angeles and California history, this thesis proposes that how that history has been indexed and classified is as important and generative as what was written in its key historical and literary texts. This thesis is mostly about white elites of Anglo-American Southern California and how they framed regional history in line with their, at times, imperialist beliefs about the region’s Spanish, Mexican, and Native American past. Whilst there is a substantial amount of academic literature on Anglo society, this thesis proposes that an entire strata of this culture has been relatively unexamined. This group of antiquarians, bibliographers and collectors were centrally concerned with cataloguing and arranging texts and historical data about the region and the conclusions we can draw from their work significantly advances our historical understanding of how the epistemology of American culture in the region operated, with all the social divisions that imperial lens implies. Anglo collecting and bibliographic culture developed in Los Angeles in a historical context radically different to, and much later than, other American cultures of regionalism. Reframing the region’s past as antiquity, they collected and assembled Californiana in a setting of late-modernity in which the landscape of Southern California was rapidly changing. Through bookshop catalogues, the building and housing of library collections, the activities of the historical society,

Mexican labor in the United States

Assembling the past, re-imagining the region : Anglo collecting of California history and literature in Los Angeles, c.1900-1930

Negotiating race relations through activism: women activists and women's organizations in San Antonio, Texas during the 1920s

(2003). Sugar Beets, Segregation, and Schools: Mexican Americans in a Northern Colorado Community, 1920-1960. Journal of Latinos and Education: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 69-88.

Sugar Beets, Segregation, and Schools: Mexican Americans in a Northern Colorado Community, 1920-1960

On November 3, 1970, the federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) convened the Interagency Committee on Uniform Civil Rights Policies and Practices. Under the general direction of Frank C. Kent, director of the office's Human Rights Division, approximately 30 middleand highlevel equal-opportunity officials from federal departments and agencies with programs affecting "poor or minority group citizens" were brought together. A Racial Data Collection Subcommittee established by this committee held four biweekly meetings between January 14 and February 25, 1971, and then recommended among other things that the federal government develop "uniform racial/ethnic data categories." The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was to establish a standard set of racial/ethnic categories to be employed in all data collection efforts and in the evaluations making use of the new data. Each agency was to implement this direction by undertaking the amendment of all data collection instruments with racial designations (Sklar and Cotter, 1971: 1, 5, 8, 11, 98). The recommendations of the subcommittee (also known as the Interagency Racial Data Committee) were designed to be far-reaching, affecting every category of statistical data compiled by federal agencies and contractors. Significantly, however, the subcommittee's membership included not a single representative from the Department of the Interior or from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Moreover, the report collected from the Interior Depart-

The Hispanic Spin Party Politics and Governmental Manipulation of Ethnic Identity

There is a lack of cliometric literature addressing the characteristics of Mexican migration during the Age of Mass migration (1850–1914). To fill this void, I analyze an original data set—the Mexican Border Crossing Records (MBCRs) publication N° A3365—to disentangle the initial mechanics of Mexican migration in the early twentieth century. I first offer a historical overview on Mexican migration to the United States in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I introduce these novel micro data that record individual characteristics of migrants that crossed the Mexico-US border from 1906 to 1908. 

In Chapter 3, I address the initial determinants of the Mexican-American migration stream. I use the migrant’s location of last residence and final destination to identify migration corridors at the local level (migration streams between Mexican municipalities and US counties). In addition, I provide a quantitative assessment of the push and pull factors that may explain differences in migration intensity across corridors. These factors include the US-Mexico wage gap, market potentials, living standards and access to railways. 

In Chapter 4, I use the migrant’s height—a proxy for physical productivity of labor—to quantify the selectivity of Mexican migration. In addition, I exploit the Panic of 1907 as a natural experiment of history to study the speed that migrant self-selection adjust and change to both environmental and economic factors. This financial crisis provides me with exogenous variation in height to evaluate if unexpected shocks affecting the demand of immigrant workers can induce short-run changes in migrant self-selection. To explain shifts in selection patterns, I focus on labor institutions as mechanism of adjustment. Specifically, I study the enganche, a system of labor recruiting that neutralized mobility and job-search costs. In Chapter 5, I exploit the reported locations of birth, last residence and destination to classify migrants based on their chosen migration method: direct or stage migration. The micro data reveal that forty percent of the migrants moved within Mexico before crossing the border. I estimate correlations between stage migration and potential wage at the destination controlling for the immigrants’ age, literacy, sex, marital status and birthplace. In Chapter 6, I offer some concluding remarks. My findings expand our knowledge about the initial patterns of Mexican migration using micro data not analyzed previously. They show that in the early twentieth century, the decision to migrate was a function of diverse forces, which effects and magnitudes varied across Mexican regions. Also, Mexican migration was characterized by an intermediate or positive selection, and labor institutions involved in the migration process shaped migrant self-selection. Finally, Mexicans used stage migration to reach the US border, and it was associated with a significant wage premium at the destination.

Mexican labor in the United States

Citations

Assembling the past, re-imagining the region : Anglo collecting of California history and literature in Los Angeles, c.1900-1930

Negotiating race relations through activism: women activists and women's organizations in San Antonio, Texas during the 1920s

Sugar Beets, Segregation, and Schools: Mexican Americans in a Northern Colorado Community, 1920-1960

The Hispanic Spin Party Politics and Governmental Manipulation of Ethnic Identity

Cliometric essays on Mexican migration to the United States

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