2023 Lawrence W. Levine Award Winner, Organization of American
Historians
Between the 1980s and the first decade of the twenty-first century,
Asian Americans in Los Angeles moved toward becoming a racial majority
in the communities of the East San Gabriel Valley. By the late 1990s,
their "model minority" status resulted in greater influence in local
culture, neighborhood politics, and policies regarding the use of
suburban space. In the "country living" subdivisions, which featured
symbols of Western agrarianism including horse trails, ranch fencing,
and Spanish colonial architecture, white homeowners encouraged
assimilation and enacted policies suppressing unwanted "changes"--that
is, increased density and influence of Asian culture. While some Asian
suburbanites challenged whites' concerns, many others did not. Rather,
white critics found support from affluent Asian homeowners who also
wished to protect their class privilege and suburbia's conservative
Anglocentric milieu. In Resisting Change in Suburbia, award-winning
historian James Zarsadiaz explains how myths of suburbia, the American
West, and the American Dream informed regional planning, suburban
design, and ideas about race and belonging.