A pair of new tomes from Pomona people take fresh looks at two of the West Coast’s top cities. Latinos at the Golden Gate: Creating Community & Identity in San Francisco, by Pomona College Professor Tomás F. Summers Sandoval Jr., is “among the first books detailing the experiences of Latin American immigrants and their descendants in San Francisco over the course of a century and a half … paying special attention to those moments when these mostly Spanish-speaking migrants coalesced to express pan-ethnic solidarity, identity and community,” according to the web story.
In a blog post, Summers Sandoval discussed the impact of gentrification on San Francisco’s Mission District, a traditional center of the city’s Latino community:
A series of ‘tech booms’ over the last 15 years has brought capital and development to this once working-class barrio. It has also begun to chip away at the once dominant Latino cultural landscape. Trendy restaurants and cafés, redeveloped condominiums, and non-Latino residents (with ample disposable incomes) are increasingly part of the neighborhood’s profile. The visible markers of the Mission’s Latinos—Spanish-language businesses, affordable housing, and, of course, Latino families—are seemingly on the decline. The result is a tension-filled neighborhood where the issue can sometimes result in anger and frustration.
A state or two to the north, Bill Mullins ’68 has written Becoming Big League: Seattle, the Pilots and Stadium Politics. He tells the “story of Seattle’s relationship with major league baseball from the 1962 World’s Fair to the completion of the Kingdome in 1976” focusing on “the acquisition and loss, after only one year, of the Seattle Pilots.” According to the Tacoma News-Tribune, “Mullins attended two Pilots games in 1969 while a graduate student at the University of Washington. He remained fascinated and turned to the story when he wanted a project after leaving Oklahoma Baptist University where he taught American history.”
