Abstract
From the 1940s through the 1960s, Monterey Park was a community whose activities revolved around active service clubs, friendly churches, and a collegial chamber of commerce. Two hotly competing weekly newspapers (the Progressand theCalifornian) together thoroughly informed residents about what was going on in town. Since the early 1970s, however, the city’s social and cultural landscape has been reshaped. This chapter describes the changing environment in Monterey Park from the 1940s through the conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s, when ambivalence toward the new immigrant Chinese, antagonism toward bilingual education, and hostility toward the proliferation of ethnic-oriented businesses