Domesticating the International: Los Angeles as Case Study

1. “Domesticating the International: Los Angeles as Case Study”: For this panel, my paper will trace themes from Los Angeles history that can be incorporated more broadly into a survey of the US experience with globalization, turning the focus inward as to how mainstream and ethnic Americans within the US participated in foreign relations and were impacted by the mutuality of the resulting interaction. 

Angelenos showed enthusiastic and sustained awareness of their Pacific location, making the city a valuable window into grassroots responses to globalizing trends of the early- to mid-twentieth century.  Civic boosters sought to make the city the pre-eminent West Coast port. Concurrently, educators and social/civic groups grappled with intercultural relations, for example, re-envisioning immigrants as valuable sources of knowledge at a time of intense nativism. Attention to their outreach expands the context within which such topics as urbanization, immigration, and the women’s movement are usually treated in survey courses