A People’s History of Global Los Angeles

My book manuscript in progress explores the relationship between economic globalization, criminalization, and urban social movements in one city. Between the election of Tom Bradley as Los Angeles’s first Black mayor in 1973 and the aftermath of the 1992 rebellion, L.A. rose to become not only the second-largest U.S. metropolis, but also a model “global city”—complete with a glittering financial district, a multiracial and international workforce, and the busiest port in the Americas. A People’s History of Global Los Angeles provides a new perspective on L.A.’s transformation by theorizing what I term the politics of protection: struggles over the uneven distribution of global economic restructuring, mass migration, and violence across urban space. By drilling down to the level of one city and its neighborhoods, I highlight the many Angelenos—including workers, immigrants, community activists, and criminalized youth—who pursued a future where the risks and rewards of the global economy would be shared, and social protection extended to all.

Portions of this research have appeared in the Journal of Urban History, the LA Review of Books, Protean Magazine, Public Books, and the anthology Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California.