After the Fires: The Reterritorialization of Race and Class in Southern California since 1992
ASE Commons (Coordinated by Macarena Gómez-Barris, Sarah Banet-Weiser, and Umayyah Cable)
Summary:
A Series on Race, Power, and Critical Thought whose aim is to highlight the research of American Studies & Ethnicity (ASE) core and affiliated faculty and graduate students, and to build community through sustained conversations and workshops.
Description:
Speaker: Juan De Lara (ASE)
Respondent: Laura Pulido (ASE)
Professor De Lara will discuss a work in progress that explores how global capital and social movements have reshaped Southern California's geographies of race and class. He will examine how the literal and political fires that set L.A. ablaze in the post-1992 Rodney King debacle served as a wake-up call for progressive leaders and marked a sea change in Los Angeles politics. A new generation of social movement organizers emerged from the ashes and quickly realized the need to rethink and rescale their strategies if they were to confront the shifting couplings of global capital and regional power that transformed Los Angeles at the end of the 20th century. What have we learned in the past twenty years about the nexus between race, space, and class in Southern California? And what does the latest round of economic and demographic change mean for our collective future?