My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (Historical Studies of Urban America) Book

In the 1920s, thousands of white working-class migrants helped build suburbs of Los Angeles such as South Gates, Watts, and Bell Gardens from the ground up, constructing their own homes with their own labor. Families raised chickens and grew gardens in their backyards, men labored long hours in nearby factories, and communities revering hard work and self-reliance were forged. With the economic prosperity that followed World War II, these blue-collar suburbs struggled to assume a middle-class identity. In their quest for the suburban good life, residents fought to preserve their neighborhoods from perceived threats of social diversification-including working mothers, tenants, and black neighbors-all in the name of white homeowner rights. Nicolaides reveals how these political aims paved the way for the emergence of Nixon's "silent majority" and inflamed the racial enmity that erupted in the 1965 Watts rebellion. Through her exploration of these conflicts, she reminds us how suburbs have played, and continue to play, a central role in American history.