Under the Perfect Sun at 20: What Have We Learned, Where Are We Now?
Those who do not move, do not notice their chains. ― Rosa Luxemburg
This evening, the San Diego Central Library is hosting Kelly Mayhew and me for a discussion of our book, Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See at 20.
Of course, the first thing that will be most apparent to those in attendance is the absence of Mike Davis, who we lost last October. It was the honor of a lifetime for us to do this project with Mike, and we will do our best to properly note that at the event. He was, as Jesse Marx observed in his tribute to Davis in the Voice of San Diego, “a giant of urban theory.” Along with this, we would be remiss to leave out that Mike was one of the most important writers on the left in a generation, an American socialist intellectual without equal.
He is and will be missed, not just by those on the left but by anyone seeking to understand how power works on the local, national, and international levels.
His analysis, from investigations into the private governments of San Diego and Los Angeles to the complex whole of global capitalism, offers a crucial map for scholars and activists seeking to grasp the immensity of the challenges we face from the struggles of working people to contest an unjust economic system to the efforts of advocates for environmental justice seeking to stave off the worst impacts of catastrophic climate change.
When it came to our city, Mike aptly observed that “a narrowly political history of San Diego would tell us surprisingly little about its evolution from a dusty hide-and-tallow port to the tenth largest metropolis in the United States.”
Thus, his focus was on “the imbalance between government initiative and private power” that defined San Diego more than anything else. As he wrote, “In San Diego . . . there have never been vote-rich unions, civil rights groups, or ethnic political machines to countervail the influence of local capitalists and developers. For much of its history, San Diego government has been closer to a private utility than a commonwealth.”
Hence, Mike’s section of Under the Perfect Sun outlines the making and re-making of San Diego by a series of largely unchecked plutocrats beginning with the snarling Republicans of old to what he called “high tech . . . opportunist Clinton Democracy.”
So, we move from John D. Spreckels, “King of the Vigilantes” crushing dissent amidst the Free Speech Fight during the Progressive era to a new class of politically “hermaphroditic” plutocrats ushering in a “tidal wave of gentrification” that continues to the present day.
In the second and third sections of the book, Kelly and I offer what is essentially a peoples’ history of San Diego that gives a bottom-up view of our city from the perspective of activists of all stripes seeking to challenge the local hegemony.
In “Just Another Day in Paradise: An Episodic History of Rebellion and Repression in America’s Finest City,” I chronicle the struggles of workers, immigrants, and civil rights and anti-war advocates to contest the powers that be.
In “Life in Vacationland: the ‘Other’ San Diego,” Kelly interviews a wide range of activists and everyday San Diegans who tell their own stories about what it is like to live and struggle in our tourist wonderland.
One of the most instructive incidents of San Diego’s activist history that I outline is the IWW Free Speech fight in 1912 that showed the heroism of radical unionists who risked their lives to stand on a soap box at 5th and E Streets, and the brutal violence that local elites unleashed to keep San Diego free from what they saw as “undesirable citizens.”
Also seminally important is CIO leader Luisa Moreno’s efforts to organize a workforce largely comprised of women of color in the face of powerful, deeply racist opposition, followed by her civil rights work challenging the Navy’s failure to reign in the repression of young Latinos in San Diego by servicemen.
In the post-World War II era, the United Farm workers’ organizing wins against a corrupt group of local plutocrats and a racist Teamsters union helped set the stage for a more progressive labor movement as did the struggles of folks like Peter Zchiesche and the workers in the local shipyards. Other stories like the trailblazing activism of Harold Brown and the Congress of Racial Equality or the GIs resisting the Vietnam War also paved the way for a very different San Diego than its moneyed boosters ever imagined.
Kelly’s portraits capture many moments in San Diego past and present. For example, Carlos Blanco’s account of working with Angela Davis on the student uprisings that led to the creation of UCSD’s Third College, Mary Grillo’s gripping story of SEIU’s janitor’s strike, and the humbler narratives of what it’s like to be an undocumented student at San Diego State or neighborhood advocate Sonia Rodriguez’s work with the Environmental Health Coalition stand out. These snapshots capture how people actually live in San Diego and struggle to change things for the better.
What emerges is how regular folks can alter the narrative of a city, that leaders are important, but it’s the boots on the ground efforts that move the needle for the better.
Where are we now, 20 years after the publication of Under the Perfect Sun?
In some ways, things are radically different, with a wholesale political transformation of San Diego city and county government to Democratic dominance. The dreams of the libertarian right and its think tanks of San Diego becoming a thoroughly privatized “Indy by the Sea” or an anti-union “Wisconsin of the West” went down in flames.
Indeed, San Diego, ruled by the right for almost its entire history, is now a metropolis where Republicans have a hard time getting elected. And while far from running the show, labor and local activists have a seat at the table that was unimaginable not that long ago.
On the other hand, economic and racial inequality are still starkly evident, particularly on the old east of 5/south of 8 axis, homelessness is at epidemic levels, affordable housing is virtually non-existent, the backcountry is imperiled by sprawl and deeply vulnerable to catastrophic fires, and urban communities of color continue to suffer from environmental racism and over-policing. And addressing any of these problems will be nearly impossible unless our (now) largely Democratic leaders abandon San Diego’s traditional tax and fee aversion, which will hamstring progressive politics and make it impossible to do big things. Recently, the passage of measure B is a step in the right direction but much more is necessary to change the game.
Politically, while we have Democratic dominance, the private forces of local capitalists and developers still pull the strings in far too many ways, and, as with politics at the state level, moneyed interests have simply moved to competing for leverage in the Democratic Party rather than futilely fighting the overwhelming demographic and political shifts in our landscape.
So, in sum, many challenges remain, and if there is a lesson from the history we outline in Under the Perfect Sun, it is that only a truly progressive political movement which unites working class communities of color, union and non-union, along with progressive whites in environmental and other social justice circles that can stand up to the entrenched power of the economic elites. Deeply rooted in community and intersectional in nature, such a movement is the answer to what ails us.
That, not petty factionalism, cults of personality, business unionism, or neoliberal Democratic politics, is the only way to win a just and sustainable future for us all.
The San Diego Central Library is commemorating the 20th anniversary of the publication of Under the Perfect Sun on Monday, March 6th at 6:30 PM.
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We will never be united and Progressive as long unions continue stomp on the environment. They are sadly part of the group that sez build everywhere and be damned. Sacramento has aligned itself with developers on things like AB9 and 10 and the density bonus waivers of conditions and enviro review plus conditions and grants waivers over everything is a huge mistake for our environment and quality of life. They are creating'projects' not neighborhoods and homes.
I did not know we lost Mike. Crushing news. I have *Dead Cities* on my nightstand now. I never thought of him as a Socialist. He seemed to me to be where we should be, but I am Norwegian heritage. How I wish I could applaud your new work tonight, but don’t get around much anymore, having an old ailing car and living a mile from public transport’s #11, but I applaud your work and will buy (not only borrow from our beloved library) *At 20*. Thank you.