Race and Retail: Consumption across the Color Line 9780813571720

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R ACE AND RETAIL

Rutgers Studies in Race and Ethnicity Controversies in race and ethnicity cannot be fully understood through a single analytical lens or disciplinary approach. Such issues require sustained, collaborative analysis—drawing on insights from law to history, from sociology to literature, from labor studies to anthropology, from political science to health-related scholarship, and from biology to cultural studies. Focusing primarily on edited volumes, the series aims to bring multiple theories, methods, and approaches to bear on how racial and ethnic politics, identity, culture, structures, and social relations function in the modern world. Through innovative critical commentary and sustained policy engagement, this series encourages scholarship aimed at expanding and deepening the study of these issues in the United States and around the globe. Organized by the Rutgers Center for Race and Ethnicity, the series is an outgrowth of the breadth, depth, and strength of the field at the University and is committed to new collaborative scholarship that bridges boundaries. Readers will find a deep and expansive understanding of the intricate and often unrecognized ways in which race and ethnicity shapes and is shaped by modern societies. Mia Bay and Ann Fabian, eds., Race and Retail: Consumption across the Color Line Keith Wailoo, Alondra Nelson, and Catherine Lee, eds., Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History Keith Wailoo, Karen M. O’Neill, Jeffrey Dowd, and Roland Anglin, eds., Katrina’s Imprint: Race and Vulnerability in America

R ACE AND RETAIL Consumption across the Color Line

Edited by

M i a B ay a n d A n n Fa bi a n

Rutger s Uni v er sit y Press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Race and retail : consumption across the color line / edited by Mia Bay and Ann Fabian. pages cm. — (Rutgers studies on race and ethnicity) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–8135–7171–3 (hardcover : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7170–6 (paperback : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7172–0 (Web PDF) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7535–3 (ePub) 1. Retail trade—Social aspects—United States—History. 2. Stores, Retail— Social aspects—United States—History. 3. Minorities—United States— Economic conditions. 4. Shopping—Social aspects—United States—History. 5. Consumption (Economics)—Social aspects—United States—History. 6. United States—Race relations—Economic aspects—History. 7. United States—Commerce—Social aspects—History. I. Bay, Mia. II. Fabian, Ann HF5429.3.R28 2015 306.3089′00973—dc23 2014043683 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This collection copyright © 2015 by Rutgers, The State University Individual chapters copyright © 2015 in the names of their authors All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Introduction Mia Bay and Ann Fabian

vii 1

Part I: Race, Place, and Retail Spaces 1

Traveling Black/Buying Black: Retail and Roadside Accommodations during the Segregation Era Mia Bay

15

2

Retail Messages in the Ghetto Belt Naa Oyo A. Kwate

3

The Other Migrants: Mexican Shoppers in American Borderlands Geraldo L. Cadava

57

Southern Retail Campaigns and the Struggle for Black Economic Freedom in the 1950s and 1960s Traci Parker

77

4

5

Servicing a Racial Regime: Gender, Race, and the Public Space of Department Stores in Baltimore, Maryland, and Johannesburg, South Africa, 1940–1970 Bridget Kenny

34

99

Part II: Race, Retail, and Communities 6

Athabascan Village Stores: Subsistence Shopping in Interior Alaska in the 1940s John W. Heaton

123

7

Deghettoizing Chinatown: Race and Space in Postwar America 141 Ellen D. Wu

8

Marketing Identity, Negotiating Boundaries: Ethnic Entrepreneurship in the Coffeehouses and Narghile Lounges of Paterson, New Jersey Neiset Bayouth

163

v

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Contents

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The Changing Politics of Latino Consumption: Debates Related to Downtown Santa Ana’s New Urbanist and Creative City Redevelopment Johana Londoño and Erualdo R . González

10

The Spatial Politics of Black Business Closure in Central Brooklyn Stacey A. Sutton

176

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Part III: The Inner Landscapes of Racialized Consumption 11

Selling Voodoo in Migration Metropolises Melissa L. Cooper

12

“A Fantasy in Fashion”: Luxury Dressing and African American Lifestyle Magazines in the 1980s Siobhan Carter-David

13

14

Racial Discrimination in Retail Settings: A Liberation Psychology Perspective Jerome D. Williams, Geraldine Rosa Henderson, Sophia R . Evett, and Anne-Marie G. Hakstian Does the Retail Environment Affect Mental Health? Satisfaction with Neighborhood Retail and Social Well-Being among African Americans in New York City Azure B. Thompson and Sharese N. Porter Notes on Contributors Index

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295 299

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Isa Ali, Stephen Allen, Jahaira Arias, Mekala Audain, Anandani Dar, Ashley Glassburn Falzetti, Christopher Hayes, Grace Howard, Shatima Jones, Julia Katz, Allison Miller, Donovan Ramon, Kartikeya Saboo, Kaia Shivers, Wendy Wright, and Hakim Zainiddinov, graduate assistants at the Center for Race and Ethnicity; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s John E. Sawyer seminar program; Leslie Mtchner at Rutgers University Press; copyeditor Kate Babbitt, researcher Kaisha Esty, cover designer Isabelle Smeall, and, finally, Mia Kissil, who kept the many pieces of the book together.

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INTRODUCTION M I A B AY A N D A N N FA B I A N

In December 2013, Barneys, Macy’s, and several other major New York retailers announced plans to adopt a “Customers’ Bill of Rights” in the wake of several high-profile incidents in which store officials accused black customers of theft. In June 2013, for instance, the actor Robert Brown, a star of HBO’s Treme, was handcuffed and “paraded” through Macy’s by two undercover police officers who took him to a small room located in a hidden corner of Macy’s— just steps from the pantyhose department.1 Known as Room 140, it contains two chain-link holding cells. Acting on tip from a Macy’s employee, the police officers handcuffed Brown to a bench inside one of cells while they verified his identification and checked the credit card he used to buy a $1,350 Movado watch—even though the clerk who sold Brown the watch had already reviewed both. “I didn’t know there was a jail inside Macy’s,” said Brown, who was stunned by the incident. He also reported that the officers kept telling him, “Your card is fake. You’re going to jail.”2 Brown’s case hit the news, but he is far from the first member of a minority group to end up in one of Macy’s holding cells. Macy’s has a long history of profiling African American, Latino, and other ethnic minority customers. In 2005, the retailer paid New York State $600,000 to “settle a complaint that its New York department stores engaged in racial profiling and the unlawful handcuffing of customers detained on suspicion of shoplifting.”3 Nor is Macy’s the only store with a history of such complaints. New York City’s Commission on Human Rights is currently investigating the “loss prevention practices” that have inspired similar complaints at seventeen other major retailers.4 A voluntary reform measure adopted by such stores, the new “Customers’ Bill of Rights” aims to discourage the racial profiling and detention of minority group customers—a practice colloquially known as “shop-and-frisk” stops. The one-page bill is designed to be publicly posted by participating retailers and proclaims, “Profiling is an unacceptable practice and will not be tolerated.” It also affirms the participating establishment’s commitment to ensuring that “all 1

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shoppers, guests, and employees are treated with dignity and respect and are free from unreasonable searches, profiling, and discrimination of any kind.” To that end, the retailers who post the bill commit to “the use of internal programs to test compliance with our strict prohibition against profiling practices”; promise to require store employees to “respect the basic civil and legal rights of any person suspected of shoplifting or other crime committed on store property”; and promise that “employees who violate the company’s prohibition on profiling will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.”5 Detractors describe the Customers’ Bill of Rights as a “marketing ploy” that is unlikely to put an end to the racial discrimination experienced by many shoppers.6 And while its impact remains to be seen, many of its provisions reiterate civil and legal rights already accorded to all shoppers by law—which have not prevented such discrimination in the past. Moreover, the Customers’ Bill of Rights takes on a problem that goes well beyond the customer service policies of any particular store. Retail discrimination against people of color has deep roots in the social and economic divisions that structure American society and create patterns of wealth, poverty, and social mobility that vary from group to group. As the essays of this book underscore, race and ethnicity have socioeconomic reverberations that have long shaped the shopping experiences of all Americans. Who we are often dictates what we buy, where we can buy it, how much we pay for it, and in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, even what we want to buy. In a society marked by economic disparities that map out along racial and ethnic lines, race and ethnicity have often served as rough proxies for class—tools that retailers, realtors, restaurateurs, marketers, advertisers, and a wide variety of other purveyors of goods and services use to separate the affluent customers whose patronage they value from poorer shoppers whose patronage seems far less promising. Although many Americans see consumption as a matter of individual preference in which anyone can buy anything they can afford to pay for, who we are shapes our experience of the market. Patterns of racial, ethnic, and economic segregation shape American consumers’ retail opportunities, experiences, and preferences in much the same way that they shape the demographic composition of our nation’s housing projects, ethnic enclaves, affluent suburbs, inner-city neighborhoods, and gated communities. Our shopping experiences mirror the social, economic, ethnic, and racial contours of our neighborhoods. Whether they are designed for a specific group or are the product of complex histories of demographic change, most American neighborhoods tend to be home to populations largely made up of members of the same racial or ethnic group. Historians of modern American consumer culture often trace its origins to the last decades of the nineteenth century, an era marked by heightened racial and ethnic divisions. During these years, mass production and urbanization made all Americans increasingly dependent on “goods

Introduction

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made by unknown hands.”7 These developments also fostered the emergence of a consumer world shaped by Jim Crow racial segregation in the South, other, more informal forms racial discrimination in the North, and the proliferation of ethnic enclaves of new immigrant workers in the North’s rapidly industrializing cities. As the sociologist Douglass Massey notes, such newcomers, regardless of their race or nationality, have usually “settled in enclaves located close to an urban core, in areas of mixed land use, old housing, poor services, and low or decreasing socioeconomic status,” creating a “diversity of segregation patterns” that have varied over time without ever disappearing altogether.8 As they achieved prosperity, many immigrant groups assimilated into mainstream American society, leaving their old neighborhoods behind for whitemajority “areas that offered more amenities and improved conditions.”9 But even though the out-migration of white ethnics helped create the affluent suburbs that now surround most American cities, socioeconomic mobility and assimilation have never been equally available to all. The blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and other minority group members who began to migrate to American cities in increasingly large numbers in the twentieth century were often subject to restrictive covenants, redlining, racially discriminatory federal housing policies, and other forms of discrimination that limited their economic opportunities and residential mobility. And these complex patterns of settlement and remigration—and the ongoing economic inequalities they fostered—created the highly racialized geographies that structure contemporary residential and retail landscapes.10 Although less ubiquitous than they once were, white-majority residential neighborhoods still made up over 80 percent of all U.S. neighborhoods in 2010, while black-majority and Hispanic-majority neighborhoods number 4.7 and 5.3 percent of all neighborhoods, respectively. Only 6.4 percent of neighborhoods are racial or ethnically mixed enough to have no clear majority.11 Residents in these divided neighborhoods quite naturally end up in certain stores and businesses, where they confront retail opportunities and experiences that also vary by neighborhood. Retail varies from place to place because the racially and ethnically segregated neighborhoods in which modern-day Americans live are not just neighborhoods; to marketers they are geodemographic clusters of consumers.12 Marked out by market researchers, these clusters divide consumers into segments defined by both geography and demography, using zip code and other census data on race, ethnicity, age, and other social characteristics to predict who will buy what and how much they will pay for it. Geodemographic cluster models of this kind often help determine what kinds of stores set up shop in specific neighborhoods, creating striking racial and ethnic disparities in consumer access to variety of different goods. High-quality fresh food, to cite an obvious example, is more readily available in affluent white neighborhoods than in poorer black and Hispanic neighborhoods—which are geodemographic clusters that supermarkets consider

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to be unprofitable. As numerous studies show, residents of urban “food deserts” have limited access to well-stocked supermarkets or grocery stores. Instead, they have to make their food purchases at convenience stores and fast food outlets, where fresh food is scarce—and often costly.13 Both Robert Brown’s hours in a Macy’s cell and the store’s agreement to post a Customers’ Bill of Rights suggest that racialized understandings of consumption extend beyond neighborhoods to create associations between particular kinds of people and particular kinds of products—a process that helps explain why Macy’s employees found it easy to assume that Brown could not afford an expensive watch. Marketing campaigns often target specific demographics and frequently include images that link certain types of goods to certain types of people. Although luxury goods, such as expensive watches, are sometimes advertised in campaigns featuring black celebrities, they are generally marketed to wealthy white people, which is one reason why Brown’s purchase seemed so suspicious. Had he spent the same amount of money on a more utilitarian and less luxurious purchase, like a modestly priced bed or sofa, his visit to Macy’s might have been uneventful. There have been similar events at other high-end retailers. In October 2013, acting on a tip from a Barneys employee, NYPD detectives took Trayon Christian, an African American student from Queens, into custody after he bought a $350 Ferragamo belt at the Madison Avenue store. In a lawsuit filed against the store and the police department, Christian reported that the detectives asked him “how a young black man such as himself could afford to purchase such an expensive belt.”14 “Barneys is of the opinion that he [Christian] doesn’t fit the profile of someone who should be shopping at Barneys,” noted Christian’s lawyer.15 Profiling and the confrontations it provokes give us a glimpse into the tangled relations of race and retail. The arrests at Macy’s and Barneys highlight the social consequences of the structural inequalities that run through our consumer economy. Part of the problem, these cases suggest, is that while race is often a proxy for class among retailers who are perfecting their “loss-prevention practices,” minority group consumers are individuals who cannot be easily reduced to a race or a class. Instead, black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American consumers, like other shoppers, may be rich, poor, or in between, and they enter stores with consumer preferences and desires that are not only mediated by class but are also shaped by advertisements and the suggestions of marketers that the expensive commodities on display at high-end retail stores are available to anyone with money enough to buy them. Advertisements for the Movado watch that Brown purchased feature black celebrities such as Jennifer Hudson, Wynton Marsalis, and Blair Underwood, which may be one reason why the watch appealed to Brown, who is a black celebrity himself. But both the Macy’s staff and the police saw him as a black consumer rather than a celebrity and therefore unlikely to be able to afford the watch.

Introduction

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Meanwhile, Trayon Christian was subject to similar suspicions, which proved equally wrong in his case. Christian, a college student who used his paycheck from his work-study job to splurge on a Ferragamo belt, was not a typical Barneys consumer. In fact, he said, he had never bought anything at Barneys. But the Ferragamo belt had a cachet that extended beyond Barneys’ largely white and wealthy customer base. “He’d seen the belt on a lot of his favorite celebrities, including rapper Juelz Santana.”16 In late summer of 2014, both Macy’s and Barneys consented to pay fines to the New York attorney general’s office and to adopt policies to curtail the racial profiling that leads to wrongful detentions of minority shoppers.17 But whether such measures will prove effective remains an open question. Macy’s 2005 racial profiling settlement addressed similar issues with little lasting effect. As sites where stereotypes about race and class meet the complexities of race and class on the ground, retail exchanges and shopping establishments have been persistent flashpoints for conflict not only between blacks and whites but also between whites, Mexicans, Asian Americans, and a wide variety of other ethnic groups, whose members have at times found themselves unwelcome at various white-owned businesses. Likewise, as business owners, members of minority groups can also find themselves at odds with white neighbors and with real estate developers who have their eyes on property in gentrifying neighborhoods. Retail can also be a site of tensions across minority group lines, as is seen in the troubled histories of contact, conflict, and outright violence between groups such as Korean shopkeepers and their black and Latino customers in Los Angeles. As such histories illustrate, race and ethnicity have long shaped the economic well-being, purchasing power, and daily consumption experiences of all Americans. Yet the subject of race and retail is surprisingly understudied. Just as marketers have not always been attentive to the needs of black, Latino, Asian, and other minority-group consumers, scholars have not always fully captured the degree to which race and ethnicity shape day-to-day retail experiences of every kind. Part of the problem may simply be the vast scope of subject, which crisscrosses decades, disciplines, and subfields in ways that makes any comprehensive study of race and retail a challenge. Instead, we have studies from a variety of fields that document inequalities in the world of consumption. Economists, for example, have shown that minority-group consumers often pay more than whites for houses, cars, and others goods; scholars of public health have compiled data documenting the presence of food deserts in black and Hispanic neighborhoods and tried to assess the costs in physical health and personal well-being; ethnic studies scholars and urban historians have explored the long histories of Chinatowns, Koreatowns, and barrios in U.S. cities and traced both the tastes of ethnic consumers and the marketing of ethnicity to outsiders; historians, geographers, and political scientists have chronicled the emergence of white suburbs and gated communities where residents shop at malls that are largely inaccessible to

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nonwhite consumers; scholars of consumer culture have described the importance of women as consumers, charted the rise of various ethnic markets, and examined the ways minority group consumers have tried to use their purchasing power to advance their status in American society; and those who describe the United States as a “consumers’ republic” capture the extent to which our economic lives influence our standing as citizens.18 Taken together, such studies underscore that there is nothing postracial about American shopping. But few works bring together this far-flung scholarship to present an interdisciplinary consideration of the complex play of forces at work in racialized retail markets. This volume is designed to start a conversation about these issues. Race and Retail: Consumption across the Color Line grew out of a conference that brought together a small group of interdisciplinary scholars doing pioneering work on the history and character of racialized retail markets; the susceptibility of those markets to forces such as supply and demand; the impact of racially segmented markets on consumers and on the racial and ethnic communities they serve; the role of ideas about race and ethnicity in structuring such markets and in identifying highly racialized consumption communities; the use of racial identities and ethnic identities in the marketing and sale of goods and services; and the question of whether restructuring retail and consumption can foster social justice. Taken together, these questions require answers that are beyond the scope of both our conference and this book, but as these essays make clear, they generate a wide-ranging conversation about the complex connections between race and retail. Our collection includes works by authors from the fields of history; sociology; urban planning; public health; business; geography; Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino studies; and southern studies, whose scholarship testifies to the interdisciplinary breadth and significance of questions about race and retail and delves into the complexities of racialized markets across a geography that extends from Alaska to the American South. As authors move through this territory, their essays document the extent to which retail establishments, both past and present, have often catered to specific ethnic and racial groups, creating patterns of commercial segregation that mirror the residential segregation that continues to divide towns and cities into racial and ethnic neighborhoods. They also offer analyses of the everyday impact of these patterns and chart their impact on minority consumers, neighborhood life, urban planning, racial and ethnic entrepreneurship, consumer activism, labor market discrimination, and market-driven visions of racial uplift. We have divided the work of our contributors into three broad groupings. Part I of the book, “Race, Place, and Retail Spaces,” begins with an essay by Mia Bay entitled “Traveling Black/Buying Black: Retail and Roadside Accommodations during the Segregation Era.” Bay’s essay explores the challenges black

Introduction

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travelers faced during the segregation era, many of which involved restrictions on consumption. Not only were African Americans barred from purchasing many travel services (such as tickets for whites-only railway cars and seats on some buses and planes), they had trouble obtaining everyday necessities on the road. Railroad dining cars, airport restaurants, and gas stations often refused to serve blacks. The inability of black to buy goods and services from such vendors complicates versions of U.S. consumer history that stress the power of the purse. Although focused on modern-day consumers, the section’s second essay, Naa Oyo A. Kwate’s “Retail Messages in the Ghetto Belt,” likewise explores the limited power exercised by black consumers. Kwate’s empirical study of the statistics that marketers and retailers use to determine and justify decisions on where to locate high-quality stores helps explain the distinct retail geography that characterizes predominately black neighborhoods. Her evidence suggests that the market research tools provided by organizations such Esri, one the world’s leading providers of GIS mapping software, segment consumers by race in ways that mask the economic complexity of black neighborhoods. Kwate’s research points to the decisions that have often left consumers in poor neighborhoods with unhealthy choices such as fast food restaurants and liquor stores. Geraldo L. Cadava’s essay, “The Other Migrants: Mexican Shoppers in American Borderlands,” looks at ethnic market segmentation and the neglect of minority group consumers from a transnational perspective. Cadava recounts the history of how federal policies policing the Mexican border have been enacted with no regard to encouraging or even preserving the stream of wealthy Mexican border crossers who have long come the United States to shop. Mexican consumers, who are the economic lifeblood of U.S. border towns such as Phoenix and Laredo, are largely invisible to most Americans, who have difficulty seeing Mexican border crossers as anything other than illegal immigrants who take money from the United States rather than making any contribution to its economy. Two works on the complex intersection between labor and consumption in the retail marketplace round out this section. Traci Parker’s “Southern Retail Campaigns and the Struggle for Black Economic Freedom in the 1950s and 1960s” explores the ways that African American campaigns for full access to retail establishments have always been about both labor and consumption. In the 1930s, black activists sought to link the two by staging campaigns that urged customers, “Don’t buy where you can’t work.” As Parker explains, the sit-in protesters of the 1960s also sought to promote the hiring of black workers. At stake in all these movements, Parker argues, is a conviction that black shoppers and black workers all shared a common fate and could not advance without supporting each other. Her essay offers a historical account of the workings of linked fate in the fascinating career of African American saleswoman Doretha Davis, who integrated the selling floor at W. T. Grant’s in Charlotte during the 1960s.

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In “Servicing a Racial Regime: Gender, Race, and the Public Space of Department Stores in Baltimore, Maryland, and Johannesburg, South Africa, 1940– 1970,” sociologist Bridget Kenny takes up the tangled issues of race, gender, labor, and retail, comparing shopping experiences in the segregated cities of Baltimore and Johannesburg. Kenny asks why department stores became such important arenas for protest. Attentive to both struggles over labor and the experiences of consumers, Kenny’s research suggests that black and white shoppers and workers alike framed question of access to department stores as a “struggle over a set of relations understood to be the ‘market.’” Access to the genteel department store market offered consumers respectability, status, and inclusion not only through commodities they purchased but also through their interactions with the gendered and racialized labor forces of these stores. The essays in Part II, “Race, Retail, and Communities,” investigate how race and ethnicity configure the marketplaces and shopping experiences of particular communities. It begins with an essay by historian John W. Heaton, “Athabascan Village Stores: Subsistence Shopping in Interior Alaska in the 1940s.” Heaton chronicles the complex interaction between traditional Athabascan practices of subsistence and Alaska’s twentieth-century market economy. His research establishes a place for Native Alaskans in modern American consumer culture and argues that Native subsistence shoppers found the means to reproduce their cultural identity even as they purchased name-brand luxury items and massproduced commercial goods. In “Deghettoizing Chinatown: Race and Space in Postwar America,” historian Ellen D. Wu traces the role of commercial spaces in the slow transformation of Asian Americans from “aliens ineligible for citizenship” to a distinctly “not black” “model minority.” Drawing on research that focuses on the two decades following World War II and highlights the backdrop of Cold War politics, Wu chronicles the work of ethnic entrepreneurs, social scientists, policy makers, and ordinary residents of San Francisco’s Chinatown who welcomed shopping tourists to stores and restaurants and promoted Chinatown and Chinese American businesses as an exotic alternative to the urban poverty of stigmatized black ghettoes. Wu’s study of Chinatown is followed by geographer Neiset Bayouth’s “Marketing Identity, Negotiating Boundaries: Ethnic Entrepreneurship, Retail and Consumption in the Coffeehouses and Narghile Lounges of Paterson, New Jersey.” Bayouth’s study of coffeehouses and narghile or hookah lounges explores the ways that commercial districts both express and help shape ethnic identities. The kinds of coffeehouses and hookah lounges she describes have a long history in the Arab world, dating back to rest stops along sixteenth-century trade routes. But their meaning and functions have changed in the twenty-firstcentury United States. What can their successes and failures teach us about Arab American businesses? How do they cater to college students and to Paterson’s Hispanic community?

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The next essay, “The Changing Politics of Latino Consumption: Debates Related to Downtown Santa Ana’s New Urbanist and Creative City Redevelopment,” by ethnic studies scholars Johana Londoño and Erualdo R. González, explores the politics behind developments in Latino urban spaces. Here, Londoño and González, who have been studying Latino neighborhoods in Santa Ana, California, and Union City, New Jersey, focus on developments in the former community, a predominantly Latino city in the heart of conservative Orange County. They are particularly interested in the ways the collection of ideas known as “New Urbanism” or the “creative city” helps explain decisions by zoning boards and city councils to bypass the needs of working-class Latinos and cater to non-ethnic white middle-class consumers. Once again, a racial or ethnic logic seems to supersede the pure economic calculation that celebrates the $1 billion buying power of Latino consumers. In “The Spatial Politics of Black Business Closure in Central Brooklyn,” urban planner Stacey A. Sutton looks closely at several black-owned businesses in rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhoods. Her research focuses on the histories of decades-old black-owned businesses and explores the effects of the selective enforcement of building and fire codes, which puts small entrepreneurs at a tremendous financial disadvantage. Studying a Haitian American–owned tire shop, Sutton discovers that officials from the fire department visited the building eight times in 2010 and each time used fire code violations to limit the number of tires the owner could have on site. Business suffered. When small businesses such as this tire shop close, civic leaders and real estate developers are very ready to welcome high-end businesses and big-box stores. The third section is entitled “The Inner Landscapes of Racialized Consumption.” In “Selling Voodoo in Migration Metropolises,” Melissa L. Cooper, a scholar of southern studies, describes the racial dimensions and marketing appeal of a fascination with voodoo practices that swept cities in the United States early in the twentieth century. According to Cooper, voodoo was one of several of the invented African survivals of the period. Her essay describes the movies, advertisements, and voodoo experts who sought commercial profits in voodoo. In “‘A Fantasy in Fashion’: Luxury Dressing and African American Lifestyle Magazines in the 1980s,” cultural historian Siobhan Carter-David studies popular magazines aimed at black audiences in the 1980s and argues that their feature stories, advertisements, and editorials offered visions of an elite consumer world open to middle-class black audiences—a sort of racial uplift through consumerism, style, and fashion. She analyzes the ways these magazines (most of which were short lived) marketed an aesthetics of opulence. The 1980s was a “decade of contrasts,” she writes, when a taste for luxurious display trumped careful saving and actual economic security—or so it seemed in the world of glossy magazines that offered fantastic spreads depicting black wealth and comfort. The economic downturn of 1987 brought publishers and readers back to earth, but the fantasy

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gives Carter-David a chance to explore how, during this brief period, black audiences imagined a conspicuous participation in the marketplace. Essays by scholars of public health and business who investigate the psychological effects of the racial workings of retail environments conclude the book. Again, something more than simple economics is at play. Jerome D. Williams, Geraldine Rosa Henderson, and their colleagues at the Rutgers Business School at Newark explore the psychological costs and consequences of retail discrimination. In “Racial Discrimination in Retail Settings: A Liberation Psychology Perspective,” they take up the kinds of experiences we described in the opening of this introduction. How does consumer racial profiling plague black shoppers? Their research documents how patterns of discrimination create feelings of humiliation and violation among many black shoppers. While narrow interpretations of equal protection statutes may make it difficult to win suits against retail establishments, Williams, Henderson, and their collaborators suggest that lessons of “liberation psychology”—efforts to see things from the perspective of oppressed groups—might help to create more equitable retail environments. In “Does Retail Environment Affect Mental Health? Satisfaction with Neighborhood Retail and Social Well-Being among African Americans in New York City,” Azure B. Thompson and Sharese N. Porter approach the psychological impact of retail racism from a different perspective. Taking Central Harlem as their case study, Thompson and Porter examined the mental health of black consumers in neighborhoods where fresh food is scarce and advertisements for cigarettes and alcohol and fast-food chains abound. The results of their community-based research documented that the residents of Central Harlem are deeply dissatisfied with their retail environment. But they also showed, much to Thompson and Porter’s surprise, that the dissatisfaction might be best regarded as healthy: The many respondents “who reported being dissatisfied with retail,” these authors note, “had better social well-being than those who reported being satisfied with retail.” Thompson and Porter conclude by speculating that their findings may well support other medical evidence suggesting that “individuals who can express their experience with racism face lower health risks than do individuals who internalize it.” However, they also remain concerned about the long-term effects of the “inequitable distribution of unhealthy retail in Black neighborhoods” and call for an “environmental justice approach to retail equity” that would offer structural solutions to this deep-rooted problem. The essays in this book suggest that such solutions will be hard to come by. Read together, they document myriad intersections between race and retail and open up still more avenues for investigation. They show that retail racism has a long history that extends beyond the shop floor into marketing, advertising, and employment, and persists to this day. But at the same time, our authors leave open the possibility of future progress by also showing that the connections between race and retail do not begin and end with questions of discrimination.

Introduction

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Instead, they illustrate that consumption is a capacious site of ethnic entrepreneurship, identity building, racial and ethnic uplift, and cultural continuity and change, all of which combine to make dynamic interactions around race and retail an ongoing and potentially changeable central force in American social and economic life.

Notes 1. On Macy’s holding cells, see Andrea Elliott, “In Stores, Private Handcuffs for Sticky Fingers,” New York Times, June 17, 2003. 2. “‘Treme’ Actor Arrested at Macy’s for Buying Mother a $1,350 Watch,” DNAinfo.com, DNAinfo New York, October 25, 2013, http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131025/civiccenter/actor-third-person-sue-nypd-for-shopping-while-black, accessed February 1, 2014; Kerry Burke, Ginger Adams Otis, and Dareh Gregorian, “Rob Brown, Star of ‘Treme,’ Says He Was Arrested at Macy’s after Buying Mom Watch,” NY Daily News, October 25, 2013, http:// www.nydailynews.com/new-york/black-man-sues-macy-cuffed-making-legit-purchasearticle-1.1496735, accessed February 1, 2014. 3. Andrea Elliot, “Macy’s Settles Complaint of Racial Profiling for $600,000,” New York Times, January 4, 2005. 4. Adrianne Pasquarelli, “Lawmakers Target Racial Profiling by Retailers,” Crain’s New York Business, November 25, 2013, http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20131125/RETAIL_APPAREL/131129926/lawmakers-target-racial-profiling-by-retailers, accessed February 1, 2014. 5. Customer’s Bill of Rights, National Action Network, http://nationalactionnetwork.net/ press/national-action-network-rev-al-sharpton-along-with-other-civil-rights-groups-and-theretail-council-of-new-york-draft-historic-customers-bill-of-rights-against-racial-profiling/. 6. Katie Mcdonough, “Macy’s and Barneys Introduce ‘Customer’s Bill of Rights’ to Address Racial Profiling,” Salon.com, December 10, 2013, http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ macys_and_barneys_introduce_customers_bill_of_rights_to_address_racial_profiling/. 7 Wesley Clair Mitchell quoted in William R. Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2011), 7. 8. Douglas Massey, “Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Conditions in U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” in America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, vol. 1, ed. Neil J. Smelser, William Julius Wilson, and Faith Mitchell (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001), 391. 9. Ibid. 10. For a searing recent account of the history of racial segregation its economic impact on black Americans, see Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, May 14, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/. The more detailed historical works on which Coates draws include Beryl Satter, Family Properties: How the Struggle over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America (New York: Picador, 2010); Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (New York: Random House, 2010); and Thomas M. Shapiro and Melvin L. Oliver, Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality (New York: Routledge, 1997). 11. Barrett A. Lee, John Iceland, Gregory Sharp, “Racial and Ethnic Diversity Goes Local: Charting Change in American Communities over Three Decades,” 12, working paper, Russell Sage Foundation, September 2012, http://www.russellsage.org/research/reports/ racial-ethnic-diversity.

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12. For a more detailed overview of the role of geodemography in marketing, see Austin Troy, “Geodemographic Segmentation,” in Encyclopedia of GIS, ed. Shashi Shekhar and Hui Xiong (New York: Springer US, 2008), 347–355. 13. See, for example, Julie Beaulac, Elizabeth Kristjansson, and Steven Cummins, “A Systematic Review of Food Deserts, 1966–2007,” Preventing Chronic Disease 6, no. 3 (2009): 1–10; and M. verPloeg, V. Breneman, T. Farrigan, K. Hamrick, D. Hopkins, P. Kaufman, B. H. Lin, et al., “Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences: Report to Congress,” ERS Report Summary, June 2009, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, http://ers.usda.gov/publications/ ap-administrative-publication/ap-036.aspx#.U7X277HSikc. 14. Julee Wilson, “Black College Student Arrested for Buying a Designer Belt, Barneys & NYPD Slapped with Lawsuit,” Huffington Post, October 23, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2013/10/23/trayon-christian-lawsuit-barneys-new-york-nypd_n_4148490.html. 15. “‘Treme’ Actor Arrested at Macy’s for Buying Mother a $1,350 Watch”; Kerry Burke, Mark Morales, Barbara Ross, and Ginger Adams Otis, “Barneys Accused Teen of Using Fake Debit Card for $349 Belt Because He’s a ‘Young Black American Male,’” New York Daily News, October 22, 2013, http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/barneys-accused-stealing-blackteen-article-1.1493101, accessed August 21, 2014. 16. Wilson, “Black College Student Arrested.” 17. Alan Feuer, “Macy’s to Pay $650,000 to Resolve Bias Inquiry,” New York Times, August 20, 2014, A19. 18. Kenneth J. Arrow, “What Has Economic to Say about Racial Discrimination?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no. 2 (1998): 91–100; John Yinger, “Evidence on Discrimination in Consumer Markets,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no. 2 (1998): 23–40; P. A. Riach and J. Rich, “Field Experiments of Discrimination in the Market Place,” The Economic Journal 112, no. 483 (2002): 480–518; Mary J. Fischer and Douglas S. Massey, “The Ecology of Racial Discrimination,” City & Community 3, no. 3 (2004): 221–241; M. verPloeg, V. Breneman, T. Farrigan, K. Hamrick, D. Hopkins, P. Kaufman, B. H. Lin, et al., “Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences”; Renee E. Walker, Christopher R. Keane, and Jessica G. Burke, “Disparities and Access to Healthy Food in the United States: A Review of Food Deserts Literature,” Health & Place 16, no. 5 (2010): 876–884; Vanessa Künnemann and Ruth Mayer, eds., Chinatowns in a Transnational World: Myths and Realities of an Urban Phenomenon (New York: Routledge, 2011); David R. Diaz, Barrio Urbanism: Chicanos, Planning, and American Cities (New York: Routledge, 2005); Marye C. Tharp, Marketing and Consumer Identity in Multicultural America (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2001); Marilyn Halter, Shopping for Identity: The Marketing of Ethnicity (New York: Schocken, 2007); Alexis McCrossen, ed., Consumer Culture in the United States–Mexico Borderlands (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2009); Ivan Light and Edna Bonacich, Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles, 1965–1982 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); David R. Roediger, Working toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs (New York: Basic Books, 2006); Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic (New York: Vintage Books, 2003); Shiho Imai, Creating the Nisei Market: Race and Citizenship in Hawai’i’s Japanese American Consumer Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010); Robert E. Weems, Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1998).

1 • TR AVELING BL ACK/ BUYING BL ACK Retail and Roadside Accommodations during the Segregation Era M I A B AY

A “Jim Crow traveling kit” used by African American minister Joseph K. Bowler when he traveled south of the Mason-Dixon line illustrates some of practical obstacles black travelers faced in the segregated South. The kit, which Bowler described to a reporter for the Chicago Defender in 1922, was designed to allow the minister, a Massachusetts resident, to travel through the South in relative comfort. It included “a pair of soiled overalls purchased from an auto mechanic,” “a supply of salmon and other canned goods,” and “a miniature gasoline stove and small table top the size of a scrub board.” Bowler wore the overalls to avoid the expense of “soiling” good clothes in the “dirty Jim Crow coaches,” where “white conductors and news vendors often spat tobacco juice on the seats . . . [and] the white farmers use[d] the Jim Crow coaches as luggage cars in which to transport chickens and hogs.” But the key components of his kit addressed the distinctive retail geography African Americans were forced to negotiate when traveling Jim Crow. He carried food supplies and a small tabletop and a stove so he could make and eat his own meals. “The dining car is a closed corporation as far as our people are concerned,” Bowler explained, further noting that “white people below the Mason Dixon line maintain that we are animals, virtually camels, and can go without food or water for several days.”1 While Jim Crow kits as elaborate as Bowler’s may have been rare, throughout the segregation era few African American travelers hit the road without well-founded worries about where they would be able to buy food and other necessities. Moreover, such worries were not limited to the South or alleviated by the advent of new forms of transportation such as long-distance buses, 15

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driving, and flying. African American travelers initially saw buses, automobiles, and planes as offering an escape from Jim Crow, but all would prove deeply disappointing in this regard. Both bus lines and airlines adopted forms of segregated seating. And even traveling by car did not guarantee black travelers access to roadside accommodations of any kind—a problem those who traveled by plane and bus also faced. Indeed, instead of offering genuine alternatives to segregation, these new forms of transportation complicated the Jim Crow map black travelers navigated by adding new way stations where African American travelers could find themselves unable to purchase food, drink, or other necessities. Racial discrimination against black consumers is ubiquitous in American history. But as the essays in this book underscore, both its history and its impact are understudied. The unique challenges discrimination imposed on African American travelers during the segregation era have been especially neglected. They deserve closer attention, especially given that segregation, modern transportation, and U.S. modern consumer culture grew up together. Although various forms of travel segregation existed in the antebellum era, racial divisions of common carriers first became widespread during the golden age of railroading, which extends from the 1870s to 1920s—decades that were also a high point in the history of Jim Crow. Indeed, railroad cars were in fact one of the first places where southern state governments mandated segregation by race. Created and sustained by regional customs and consumer preferences as well as by law, the system of segregated seats, waiting rooms, roadside services, and accommodations that developed along railroad lines also provided the model for the segregation that black Americans would later experience when traveling by bus, automobile, and airplane. As this chapter will show, the experiences of Jim Crow–era black travelers illuminate the divisive racial geographies in which twentieth-century American consumer culture first took shape and illustrate how such geographies persisted even as the changing technology of American travel made them increasingly difficult to maintain and impossible to navigate. Black travelers’ experiences also dramatize the complex connections between consumption and citizenship. While consumption has most often been studied as a site of democratic political agency, for much of African American history consumption was above all the arena in which blacks experienced the full measure of their economic disenfranchisement.2 Indeed, the history of travel segregation illuminates that common carriers and other travel industries often catered to the racial preferences of white consumers in ways that often left blacks with very little economic agency. African American travelers could exercise little power of the purse when confronted with the whites-only waiting rooms, parlor cars, rest stops, service stations, and airport lounges that railroads, bus lines, gas companies, and airlines created to appeal a white-majority market. Instead, they traversed a landscape in which not even their money was always welcome.

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From “Indigestion to Insult”: The Jim Crow Car An artifact of the post-emancipation era, the Jim Crow car was invented by southern whites bent on drawing a color line that would effectively eviscerate the civil rights blacks had gained during Reconstruction. Prior to the 1880s, racial segregation on trains was largely informal and consisted of conductors refusing to let black travelers ride in what was known as “ladies’ cars,” special cars the railroads set aside for women and families (which were sometimes also designated first-class cars). These cars had a variety of features designed to make travel by rail more appealing to women. Most important, probably, was that they were the only place on the train where smoking was not permitted in an era when smoking was all but ubiquitous among men and very rarely practiced by women. Moreover, ladies’ cars also rode at the end of nineteenth-century trains, which typically consisted of a coal- or wood-fired locomotive followed by two passenger cars. The forward car was known as “the smoker” not only because it was invariably filled with tobacco smoke but also because it rode directly behind the engine and thereby exposed its occupants to the smoke and sparks cast off by the locomotive. Ladies’ cars protected female travelers from exposure to either kind of smoke. Ladies’ cars also offered other amenities such carpeting, restrooms, and padded seats. But as emancipation opened up the possibility of travel by rail to an evergrowing number of black passengers, gender proved to be an increasingly problematic proxy for race. Middle-class black women and sometimes black couples sought access to the ladies’ car, and when they were refused, they sued, achieving enough success in the courts to inspire states across the South to pass a series of “colored” or “separate car laws.”3 Designed to make racial segregation uniform and give it a more secure legal footing, these laws forced the railroads to segregate their passengers by race, which they were initially reluctant to do because they feared that adding extra cars might increase their expenses.4 However, in practice, the new laws required virtually no change in the actual facilities offered to black and white passengers. They simply relegated all blacks to smokers. Despite the inequities they imposed, the separate car laws survived Supreme Court scrutiny in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). This landmark case originated with a suit launched after Louisiana Creole Homer Plessy was arrested and fined $25 for defying segregation laws by taking a seat in a “whites only” first-class car on a commuter train that ran from New Orleans to Covington in 1892. Far from the first challenge to racial segregation on nineteenth-century railroads, Plessy’s suit built on previous state-level black challenges to transportation segregation and aimed to challenge the constitutionality of Louisiana’s Separate Car Act, which required “railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in this state” to “provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races.” Plessy’s lawyer, Albion Tourgée, argued that separate car laws denied Plessy and

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other blacks their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law. But the court disagreed. The Fourteenth Amendment, the justices famously maintained, “could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.” The court’s decision provided lasting precedent for a wide variety of municipal and state segregation laws mandating “separate but equal” accommodations not only on trains but also in public schools, toilets, restaurants, hospitals, hotels, theaters, cemeteries, and public facilities of all kinds. Ironically, given the case’s origins, the “separate but equal” legal doctrine enshrined in Plessy had a more limited application to travel segregation than it did to other forms of racial segregation. Although its limits were honored largely in the breach, Plessy applied only to “enforced separation of the races, as applied to internal commerce of the state.” As a matter of law, the Supreme Court has no authority over the regulation of interstate commerce, which is controlled by Congress. And the court was careful to emphasize that fact in its ruling in Plessy, which notes that because “the East Louisiana Railway [is] . . . a local line, with both its termini within the State of Louisiana,” its ruling in the Plessy case would raise “no question of interference with interstate commerce.”5 Left unresolved, however, was the status of black passengers traveling across state lines, who would continue be subject to segregation in many states but would also continue to have legal grounds for civil rights litigation. As the twentieth century opened, black travelers navigated a complex geography of both formal and informal discrimination that covered not only where they sat but also where they ate and what they could buy. Segregation was required by state law on trains and other common carriers traveling within the southern states and in a number of western states. Meanwhile, it was neither prohibited nor permitted in other western, midwestern, and northeastern states, and it was actively prohibited by law in just over a dozen states. Railroad-station waiting rooms, restaurants, and any other facilities that served food, including railroad dining cars, were also subject to segregation law where such laws existed. When it came to dining, segregation’s legal complications were compounded by the fact that railroad food services were subject to both restaurant and railroad laws, which were not necessarily complementary or even compatible. Stationary restaurants were free to cater to an exclusively white or an exclusively black clientele and often did so. But Plessy v. Ferguson specifically mandated that railroads and other common carriers had to provide black and white passengers with separate but equal facilities in southern states. At the same time, however, railroad officials also had to abide by state laws that required black and white railroad and streetcar passengers (and later bus passengers) to ride in either different vehicles or distinct sections of one vehicle; if the latter, the vehicles were to be “divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs.”6

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And restaurants could be subject to additional regulations. In Alabama, for instance, facilities that served food could not accommodate blacks and whites in the same room unless, as the state legislators put it, “such white and colored persons are effectively separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.”7 The logistics of dining car service made separate facilities that fit any of these requirements almost impossible to implement. None of the railroads were willing to operate two dining cars. Instead, they adopted a wide variety of ways of separating black and white diners that ranged from excluding blacks from food services entirely to creating segregated seating in their dining compartments to seating African American diners only after all their white passengers were finished eating to having waiters and other railroad food service personnel take food to the colored car. On railroads, as elsewhere, separate but equal was far from equal, so the worst of these arrangements often prevailed. Smoke-filled, dirty, and uncomfortable Jim Crow cars sometimes amounted to nothing more some wooden seats planted at one end of a baggage car, and the passengers who traveled in them frequently had virtually no access to railroad dining cars or station cafés. Regardless of the condition of a train’s colored car, African American travelers could never be entirely certain whether they would be able to purchase food and under what circumstances. When black journalist Thomas Fleming traveled cross country by train as a teenager in 1919, for example, he rode on a train where black passengers were not admitted into the dining car. His aunt and uncle, who put him on the train, evidently assumed as much: they supplied him with a large wicker basket containing four days’ worth of sandwiches. But during his journey, he noticed that the train’s black passengers also had the option of ordering food from the dining car. “When black people in the chair car wanted hot food, the waiter would bring them a menu, take their order and bring the food to them. They had to eat where they were sitting. Of course, they were charged the same price as the white customers who got full table service,” he later recalled.8 By contrast, when William Pickens traveled from Lynchburg to Norfolk, Virginia, in 1920—a year later—he could not get food or water. There was also a dining car on his train, but it offered no service to black passengers, whose only hope of food came when the train made a 20-minute stop in Petersburg to allow white passengers who were “too stingy to pay for dining service and tips” to grab a quick meal at the station’s lunch counter. At the end of their meals, just as the train resumed its journey, the lunch counter’s staff sent out a basket full of cold leftover food, “which could never be sold to white customers, in an effort to get rid of it among the colored passengers.” The food they sent, Pickens noted bitterly, only added “indigestion to insult.” For seventy-five cents you could get “a quarter of an impenetrable dried hen fried the day before yesterday, old bread

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and a slice of musty pie,” whereas “the white passengers in the lunch room may get a hot drink or a fried egg for a few cents.” Moreover, the passengers who bought the overpriced food could not get cutlery or any beverages with their meals—railroad employees were not allowed to bring glasses, dishes, or flatware into the colored car.9 When the railroads that traversed segregated states opened up their dining rooms to black customers, they observed the requirements of segregation law either by holding a separate seating for black diners—which invariably took place after white diners had consumed their meals—or by setting aside a small number of special tables for black customers and requiring them to eat partitioned off by a curtain. Both arrangements discriminated against African American consumers, who had to either wait for their meals or eat hidden behind a curtain—an experience that blacks found truly humiliating. “The first time that I was seated behind a curtain in a dining car, I felt as if the curtain had been dropped on my selfhood,” Martin Luther King recalled in his autobiography, describing it as one of the moments in which he realized that “I could never adjust to the separate waiting rooms, separate eating places, separate rest rooms, partly because the separate was always unequal, and partly because the very idea of separation did something to my sense of dignity and self-respect.”10 But the segregated seating system—in which African Americans only ate after all white passengers had finished their meals—was little better. The announcement that “negroes are now being seated in the colored car” came only after train officials had been seating whites for several hours.11 Not surprisingly, African American train travelers often brought their own food instead of trying to eat in railroad dining cars.

Jim Crow on the Highway Black consumers also sought alternatives to Jim Crow, welcoming each of the new forms of transportation that emerged over the first half of the twentieth century as an opportunity to evade the indignities of the colored car. When buses first began to compete with streetcars in the 1910s, black entrepreneurs in Austin and other Texas towns established “Jitney” services designed to spare African Americans “the humiliation in riding on ‘Jim Crow’ streetcars.”12 By the 1920s, there were a number of small black-owned intercity bus lines, which were “operated by Negroes for Negroes.” But such bus lines were never numerous and began to disappear altogether when travel dropped precipitously during the Great Depression, which wiped out many of the bus industries’ small carriers. By the mid-1930s, the only surviving intercity bus companies were large operations such as the Greyhound Bus Corporation and the National Trailways Company, an amalgamation of the remaining independent carriers. Both were owned and operated by whites. Some African American entertainers, such as blues singer Ma Rainey, bought their own buses to avoid traveling Jim Crow while touring.13

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But most African Americans faced widespread discrimination when they traveled by bus. In the South, as historian C. Vann Woodward notes, “the advent of the cross-country buses as serious competitors of the railways was marked by the extension of the Jim Crow train law to the buses in all particulars, including seating arrangement, waiting rooms, toilets, and other accommodations.”14 African American bus travelers also faced various forms of segregation and exclusion outside the South. An exposé published in the Chicago Defender in 1927 revealed that some bus lines refused to carry African American passengers, others carried only a limited number, and all but one of the intercity bus lines then serving Chicago seated black passengers in the back of the bus. White journalist Albert Libby, who researched the story by posing as a southerner who did not want to sit next to a person of color, was told by an official from the Inter-State Bus Company that “we seat niggers in the back,” while the ticket agent at the Ni-Sun Bus company assured him: “We never under any circumstances sell a ticket to a Negro. We sell some tickets to Mexicans, but only if they are well dressed and clean, and then they ride in the rear. But we intend to keep Negroes out.” When Libby asked the agent how he discouraged African Americans who wanted to buy tickets, he explained that he simply told all black passengers that the tickets for whatever bus they wished to ride were “all sold out!!” Vendors at the city’s largest carrier, an amalgamation called the Purple Swan-Greyhound-Oriole Bus line, were slightly more accommodating, accepting “a maximum of four” black passengers per coach. Ticket agents for the Shoreline Bus Company successfully discouraged black customers by following a script provided by their boss: They told African American ticket-seekers that while the Shoreline Bus Company was “compelled by law to sell transportation” to all comers, black passengers would not “be permitted the use of the waiting room . . . [or] be allowed refreshment or use of the lavatories.” On hearing this news, black customers invariably lost interest, a young female ticket agent cheerfully told Libby: “They get offended . . . and go away.”15 Although designed to discourage black passengers, the Shoreline agents’ warnings were not incorrect. African American travelers who managed to travel by bus faced additional challenges when it came to roadside accommodations. Unwelcome at many of the roadside restaurants that served bus passengers, black customers were not always permitted to get off the bus. African American passengers lucky enough to secure a seat on Purple Swan-Greyhound-Oriole buses, Albert Libby discovered, were forbidden from “getting off the bus at any time during the trip.” On an eleven-hour trip, which included three or four scheduled stops during which white passengers could seek “refreshment and comfort,” but black passengers “were imprisoned “with no opportunities for lunch . . . and no lavatory facilities, whatsoever.”16 First available starting in the 1920s, automobiles offered a far more attractive alternative to African American consumers who wished to avoid traveling

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Jim Crow. As early as 1924, Atlanta’s black newspaper The Independent was encouraging its readers to “buy a car of your own and escape jim-crowism from street car service.”17 Arthur Raper’s 1936 study of blacks in rural Georgia found African Americans using automobiles as a way of breaking away from “the irritations of unequal transportational facilities,” as did later works by investigators who visited black communities across the South.18 “Of course Negroes ride in the Jim Crow here,” one well-to-do African American told black sociologist Charles Johnson, who researched segregation in the mid-1940s. “But I don’t ride in it. I just don’t ride the trains now. I use my car to drive anywhere I want to go. That’s one reason I have a car.”19 However, cars were beyond the means of many black travelers and never allowed even well-to-do blacks to fully escape segregation. For all that early African American drivers claimed that “race is most completely ignored on the public highway” and celebrated the “effective equality” that could be achieved at “twenty-five miles an hour or above,” driving presented a variety of problems, both old and new.20 In the South, Jim Crow etiquette could extend even to the rules of road. According to historian Jerome Packard, “At many four-way-stop intersections in the South, the right-of-way was determined not by who reached the intersection first, but rather by the race of the drivers. When confronting a white driver who was female, a black male driver in the South could and sometimes did face a lifeor-death decision.” Passing white drivers was also problematic. In Mississippi, historian Neil R. Macmillan writes, local “custom forbade black drivers to overtake white drivers on unpaved roads.” Or, as one black Mississippian understood this custom: “It’s against the law to pass a white man because the black man might stir up dust that would get on white folks.”21 And throughout the South, parking could also subject one to segregation: Many towns reserved the parking spots on their main streets for whites. Black drivers faced still more ubiquitous challenges when it came to consumption.22 Traveling any distance by car required stops for food, gas, and accommodations and took African American drivers outside their own communities into terrain where they could never quite be certain what kinds of retail discrimination were in force. African American travelers could not be absolutely sure that they would be welcome at gas stations in the southern states or whether they would be allowed to use gas station restrooms. Congressman John Lewis’s family rarely left Alabama, but when they did, they planned ahead. They prepared for a 1951 trip to Buffalo, New York, by consulting a relative who had made this trip before to find out “which places along the way offered ‘colored’ bathrooms and which were better just to pass on by” and then carefully mapped out their drive around “the distances between service stations where it would be safe for us to stop.”23 An example of retail racism, the mistreatment of African American customers at gas stations may have also had an economic rationale. Black consumers

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were far from the primary target of the service station industry that developed alongside the automotive industry. Faced with the challenge of selling largely indistinguishable products such as motor oil and gasoline, service stations sought to create a welcoming, home-like environment that would ensure consumer loyalty in an era when most car owners were white. Their efforts were informed by ideals most closely associated with white middle-class domesticity and were designed to appeal the nation’s growing population of white female drivers. To that end, beginning in the late 1920s, Shell, Standard Oil, Sunoco, and Texaco began to build “English-cottage-style stations” complete with chimneys, gabled roofs, shuttered windows, and flower boxes. “Dress your station up with Flowers, Here is how to go about it,” advised Petroleum News, the industry’s main journal.24 Service station chains also advertised “Home Clean” restrooms, to use the Shell Oil’s catchphrase, which Texaco countered by instituting and advertising a “White Patrol” of forty-eight inspectors who traversed the country inspecting the company’s facilities.25 Unfortunately, the domestic ideals the White Patrols policed were white: black people had little to no place in the sheltered, homelike environment early service stations sought to create. Accordingly, even where they could buy gas, black travelers often found themselves barred from using the bathrooms, lunch counters, soda fountains, and restaurants at roadside service stations. In the South, such accommodations were segregated by law, but such arrangements were not uncommon elsewhere. For instance, the restaurant at Standard Oil’s Myers station near Joliet, Illinois, greeted travelers with a large “We do not cater to colored” sign until 1948, when Illinois state representative Corneal Davis finally persuaded the company to have it removed.26 Whereas white travelers returned from long car trips talking about the “pleasant incidents connected with it,” one black writer noted in 1933, black travelers came home with memories of the “Jim-Crowism” they encountered at “rest stops and service stations.” Like African American train travelers such as Joseph Bowler, black drivers learned to assemble Jim Crow kits before driving any distance. They loaded up their cars with food, water, and maps (so they would not have to stop and ask for directions) and carried amenities such as toilet paper and “pee cans,” assuming that they would not be able to use roadside restaurants. Many also filled their gas tanks before leaving home and even carried additional gas in the trunks of their cars.27 If they had to stop for gas, they tried to time their trips so they could make such stops in major cities. In 2006, African American scholar John Hope Franklin looked back on one such trip, describing a drive from Charleston, South Carolina, to Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 7, 1941—the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Although news of the attack was broadcast shortly after 2 p.m. that day, Franklin and his wife, Aurelia, knew nothing of it until they arrived in Raleigh that evening. Their car had no radio and like most “black families motoring through the Jim Crow South,” they had “packed

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box lunches to avoid the humiliation of being turned away from restaurants . . . and relieved themselves in roadside ditches because service-station restrooms were often closed to them.” Occasionally, they would be lucky enough “to come upon a black-owned service station.” But “you could drive from Charleston quite nearly to Baltimore before finding one.”28 The challenges black drivers faced gave rise to a variety of travel guides designed to help them figure out where they could stop. Published between the 1930s and 1960s, these included Hackley and Harrison’s Hotel and Apartment Guide for Colored Travelers (1930–1931); Grayson’s Guide; The Negro Motorist’s Green Book and the Negro Travelers Greenbook (1936–1966); The Go Guide to Pleasant Motoring (1952–1959); and Travelguide (1947–1963). The first such book, Hackley and Harrison’s Guide (1930), was the brainchild of Edwin Henry Hackley, a lawyer and journalist, and Sarah D. Harrison, secretary of the New London Negro Welfare Council. It opens with an illustration of the service it aims to provide, which takes the form of a November 8, 1929, letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Harrison. Anticipating a trip through Connecticut later that month, Du Bois asks Harrison, who sometimes rented out her spare bedroom, if there was “a colored boarding house in New London.”29 He further explains that he would be traveling by car and hoped to spend the night in New London. His letter reveals that like most black travelers, he could not travel to an unfamiliar town and simply assume that he would be able to find a place to stay. Indeed, by the time he wrote to Harrison, he had already circulated his first inquiry about colored boarding houses in New London, a letter written a week earlier to his friend George Crawford, a New Haven resident, who probably gave him Harrison’s name.30 Hackley and Harrison’s Guide addressed the problem Du Bois faced, and its listings further underscored how difficult it was for black travelers to find accommodations. National in scope, the Guide lists comparatively few hotels or other easily identifiable commercial establishments. Instead, the predominant form of accommodations for black travelers in many towns would have been difficult for any stranger to find without local assistance: they were mostly rooms such as Sarah Harrison’s guestroom, which the Guide described as “private accommodations available conditionally,” rather than “rooming houses.”31 Hackley and Harrison’s guide was short lived. It appeared just as the Great Depression decimated the travel market, and shortly after it began publication coauthor Edwin Henry Hackley died. Unable to keep it going by herself, Sarah Harrison published only one updated edition the following year, which she retitled The Traveler’s Guide (1930). But subsequent guides proved more enduring. The Green Book, which was the longest lasting and most widely distributed of these guides, was regularly republished for thirty years and reached a circulation high of 2 million in 1962. It was founded by Victor Green, a New Jersey mailman, who published the Green Book with his wife and brother. Green modeled

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his guide on two very different publications: the Automobile Green Book, a road guide to the to the East Coast published by the Automobile Legal Association, and New York City’s Kosher Food Guide, published by Organized Kasruth Laboratories. Published quarterly, the Kosher Food Guide was designed primarily to “serve as a guide to observant Jewish Women desiring to uphold dietary laws.” In addition to listing approved packaged foods, it enumerated hotels, summer resorts, and camps that catered to Jewish travelers.32 The Negro Motorist’s Green Book combined features of both publications, offering road information and travel tips; geographically organized listings of hotels, restaurants, taverns, drugstores, service stations, beauty parlors, and barbershops that welcomed black customers; and advertisements for some of the businesses it listed. Initially focused on the New York area, over time it expanded to list roadside establishments across the United States. When Green introduced an airline edition in 1953, the guide also included some international destinations. Most of the businesses listed in The Green Book and other black travel guides were African American owned, but the guides did not discriminate; they also listed and advertised welcoming white-owned establishments. Indeed, starting the mid-1940s, the Esso gas station chain became one the Green Book’s major advertisers and sold the book at all of its stations. Green Book’s arrangement with Esso was a testimony to how useful the book was to blacks who traveled frequently. Although a subsidiary of Standard Oil, Esso, which operated in New York and New England, was unusually progressive: it both offered franchises to African Americans and actively sought black customers. Esso employed two African American executives who directed marketing and publications for “their race group,” James A. Jackson and Wendell P. Allston. Both men used the book and encouraged their station managers to distribute it. Jackson, a business veteran who started his career in sales, even provided a testimonial. “If there had been a publication such as this when I started traveling back in the nineties,” he wrote in an article that ran in a 1947 edition of the Green Book, “I would have missed a lot of anxieties . . . and saved a lot of mental energy.”33 Jackson’s endorsement may have run alongside advertisements for “Happy Motoring . . . with Esso Products and Services,” but other travelers with no stake in the book expressed similar sentiments. Black Chicagoan Earl Hutchinson, who first purchased a Green Book in 1955 to use on a trip to Berkeley, California, remembered it as “the Bible of every Negro highway traveler in the 1950s and early 1960s,” and the New York Amsterdam News called it “the beacon light for the traveler and vacationer in the United States.”34 “Just what you have been looking for!! NOW WE CAN TRAVEL WITHOUT EMBARASSMENT,” The Green Book proclaimed in its ads, while the Travelguide bore the motto “Vacation and Recreation without Humiliation.”35 However, even when they used such guides, African American travelers found road trips difficult and potentially dangerous. John Williams, who used the

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Travelguide to drive across the country in the mid-1960s, found some of the accommodations he was directed to uninhabitable. After arriving at yet another dilapidated hotel in Jackson, Mississippi, he had coffee in its “dingy little dining room and rushed out, overwhelmed by the place. Segregation has made many of us lazy but also has made many of us rich without trying,” he reflected. “No competition; therefore, take it or leave it—and you have to take it. The slovenly restaurant keeper, the uncaring hotel man, the parasites of segregation have only to provide the superficial utensils of their business.”36 However, poor accommodations were never the most serious problem Williams and other African Americans who traveled by car faced. Hazards their travel guides could not prevent included getting lost, cars that broke down, traffic accidents, and getting pulled over by the police. In many areas, any one of these unexpected occurrences could expose black travelers to white hostility or even white violence. In the Deep South especially, black drivers were often especially likely to be ticketed for speeding and other moving violations. Moreover, black car ownership was itself an affront to many white southerners. The first generation of black southerners to purchase “a well kept or expensive automobile . . . were suspected of stealing it,” wrote black columnist George Schuyler in 1930. And even after white southerners grew more “accustomed to seeing Negroes buying automobiles,” blacks who drove expensive cars offended white sensibilities— so much so that some “well-to-do African-Americans kept to older models so as not to give the dangerous impression of being above themselves.”37

Flying Black Not surprisingly then, flying, which became an increasingly common form of civilian transportation during the World War II era, was initially hailed as a decisive escape from Jim Crow. “Air Travel will simply squeeze the Jim Crow out of the transportation system in this country,” predicted African American air force pilot Lt. William Ellis in 1945. “There is not enough room in the air for back seats, people will simply have to travel closer together.”38 But Ellis, who also anticipated that he and other African American airmen would be hired to fly the planes, proved overly optimistic. The first African American airline pilot was not hired until 1963, and then only after African American air force veteran Marlon Green won a landmark Supreme Court case against discrimination in the airline industry. Most of the airlines’ early routes were interstate, so segregation on airplanes was never legal. But various forms of Jim Crow nonetheless occurred. Indeed, scattered evidence suggests that some early airlines refused to carry black passengers at all. For instance, when African American clarinet player Wilton Crawley was told by United Artists Theatre to fly from El Paso, Texas, to Los Angeles to play in one of its productions, Crawley was initially unable to buy a ticket.

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He was informed that the “company drew the color line,” a challenge he ultimately overcame by putting on a turban and traveling as “a Hindu gentleman . . . carrying a clarinet case.”39 But by the 1940s, various systems of segregated seating had evolved. The Chicago and Southern Airline admitted in 1945 that it practiced Jim Crow seating on its Dixie-bound flights. “It is true that Negro passengers are requested to assume the forward seats on the airplane,” an official for the airline wrote to Theodore Allen, a black federal government employee who protested when one of the airline’s stewardesses made him reseat himself in the front of the plane after he and the white man with whom he was traveling took seats in the middle of the plane. The airline’s representative was unapologetic about the practice and instead maintained that “from the standard of personal comfort, these [forward seats] are the most desirable seats in the aircraft. Thus it should be made clear that the practice rather than one of discrimination, is one of offering Negro accommodations and facilities which are equal or superior to those offered other passengers.”40 By the 1950s, however, most airlines seem to have adopted less obvious forms of segregating their black passengers. Prior to 1951, when a former employee successfully challenged the practice in a New York court, American Airlines used a secret code to avoid “the seating of Negro passengers next to white passengers whenever possible,” and trained its phone operators to identify Negro passengers “by their Southern accents or the neighborhood in which they lived.”41 Delta, which stressed southern hospitality as a key feature of its regional brand, also kept its black employees out of public view. Founded in Monroe, Louisiana, and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, after 1941, Delta employed African Americans in maintenance crews. But it did not hire its first black stewardess until 1966, and it did not feature an “on-board black flight attendant (i.e. performing southern hospitality)” in any of its advertising until 1972.42 Instead, Delta advertising featured white stewardesses serving white passengers in a world far removed from its Atlanta headquarters, where blacks made up one-third of city’s population in 1940, and over half after 1970. Blacks who braved the white world of flying suffered indignities beyond segregated seats. First in line for any kind of travel disruption, they were sometimes bumped to make room for white passengers, as jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald found out when she got stranded in Honolulu in 1954. Fitzgerald was flying from San Francisco to Sidney, Australia, for a concert tour with an accompanist and her secretary, who were also African American, when she had her journey cut short. After getting off the plane when it stopped to refuel in Honolulu, Fitzgerald and her companions were not allowed to reboard, not even to retrieve the clothes and other personal items they had left behind. They then had to wait three days before they could get another flight. Pan American Airlines claimed that they were bumped through “inadvertence,” but Fitzgerald sued the company for racial discrimination and won, receiving $7,500 in damages.43

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Black passengers were also subject to other slights, including segregation on the ground. African American member of Congress Charles C. Diggs of Michigan was among the first generation of black frequent flyers. At first he was “heartened to see that this newer mode of conveyance was not into the old pattern of segregation and discrimination established by railroads and bus lines.” But his sense of satisfaction did not last long. He was soon disappointed to discover that “undemocratic practices” were common in airports, as he noted in a 1955 complaint to the president of Continental Airlines. In southern airports, he routinely encountered waiting rooms marked “for white only,” separate waiting rooms and water fountains, “the refusal of limousines and taxi companies to carry Negroes[,] . . . [and] discrimination and/or segregation against Negroes in airport restaurants.”44 In airports, as in other travel facilities, blacks faced regulations that were unpredictable and varied from place to place. At the Chattanooga Airport, for example, Diggs was astonished to find that blacks could eat in the restaurant but could not use its toilet. “It appears that we can consume food and beverages in the same place, but must eliminate same in separate facility.” African American journalist Carl Rowan, who flew from Minneapolis to Nashville in 1951, reported that he encountered segregation signs but courteous service in Nashville and the Louisville, Kentucky, airport where he changed planes had no Jim Crow signs or facilities. But the counter attendants there practiced the “old racial protocol system” Rowan had known since his childhood. He was “served only after all whites had been waited on.”45 In short, segregation compromised the convenience of flying in a host of ways, as can be seen in Jackie Robinson’s 1948 trip with his wife from Los Angeles to Daytona Beach, Florida, where he was scheduled to break the color line in baseball. Dressed to the nines for their American Airlines flight, the couple expected to travel in style and were embarrassed when Robinson’s parents saw them off with a supply of sandwiches. But the food came in handy. After the Robinsons were bumped from their first flight during a layover in New Orleans, they spent twelve hours at New Orleans Airport, which did not serve black customers in its coffee shop or restaurant. Furthermore, when they finally resumed their journey to Daytona, they were ordered off the plane in Pensacola, Florida, where their flight stopped to refuel. The airline needed to make room for three white passengers. The Robinsons finished their journey by Greyhound bus, on which they were forced to ride in the back, and they could not eat at the roadside restaurants along the route. Their sandwiches were long gone and they were too insulted to order food to go, so they sustained themselves on that twelve-hour leg of the journey by eating apples and candy bars.46 In 1948, Diggs succeeded in pressuring Harry Truman to desegregate the federally owned Washington National Airport, but other facilities were slow to follow suit. The complete desegregation of U.S. airports would not be accomplished

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until 1963, after a long series of public protests and Department of Justice lawsuits. Likewise, months of freedom rides, federal pressure, and a Supreme Court order were required to bring about the 1961 desegregation of interstate buses and bus stations in the South, while segregation remained in effect in many roadside restaurants and hotels until well after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Despite the sustained opposition that the segregation of public accommodations generated among blacks, the shaky legal ground on which segregated interstate travel facilities stood, and the complications they imposed on transportationrelated businesses, travel segregation proved difficult to overturn.

Overturning Jim Crow The segregation of public accommodations was never just a matter of law. It was often informal rather than required by law, and where it was required, it was difficult to get rid of, even after it was rejected by the courts. Invented on the ground rather than in the courts, it took shape alongside the commercial travel industries in which it was practiced, and it was often mandated by regional customs and profit-driven understandings of consumer preference. Indeed, economist Gavin Wright suggests that the segregation of public accommodations “was fundamentally a business policy by profit-seeking firms.” After all, it was practiced not only by southern businesses but also by national hospitality chains and commercial carriers that observed segregation south of the Mason-Dixon Line and northern businesses that did not welcome black customers. The owners of all these businesses segregated their services at least in part because they “feared that serving blacks, particularly in the socially sensitive activities such as sleeping and eating, would result in the loss of white customers.”47 Sustained by law in some areas and as time-honored social customs in others, segregation is not easily reduced to a purely economic institution. But economic motives certainly contributed to its persistence over time. If traveling black was a deeply demeaning inconvenience, traveling white was an amenity that business owners believed white consumers valued highly. Moreover, for all the potential profits that serving African American customers offered, such customers were rarely seen as valuable enough to offset the white business they might discourage. As we have seen, black travelers often had little choice but to travel Jim Crow, and the accommodations they endured often provided a profitable market for the common carriers’ worst seats, leftover food, and other substandard travel goods and services. In the end, it would take not just Interstate Commerce Commission rulings and changes in federal and local laws to desegregate roadside race and retail, but also sit-ins, freedom rides, boycotts, and other forms of protest that threatened the economic well-being of segregated establishments. For whites, segregated transportation was an amenity that took shape alongside the passenger travel business itself. The “colored car” was an artifact not

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Figure 1.1. Sign on a restaurant, Lancaster, Ohio, August 1938. (Photo by Ben Shahn. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

only of southern segregation laws but also of the development of a national travel industry that encouraged whites to see train compartments, seats on common carriers, and even filling stations as safe, home-like places where blacks and other people were either not permitted or were relegated to separate and inferior accommodations. Not just required by law in many southern states, travel segregation was promoted by many businesses there, who marketed their “whites only” facilities as clean, safe, and superior to less exclusive accommodations. “LOOK LADIES SEGREGATED RESTROOMS[,]” proclaimed a billboard advertising the attractions offered at one southern resort, while other businesses made similar claims more modestly.48 Signs announcing “We Serve Colored Carry Out Only,” “Colored Served in Rear,” and “We Cater to White Trade Only” were not just segregation signs, they were also advertisements promising first-class accommodations—or at the very least, the promise of racial exclusivity, which could stand in for the concrete provision of superior services.49 Little wonder, then, that civil rights activists such as Ella Baker insisted that the desegregation of lunch counters and stores and other businesses was about something “bigger than a hamburger.”50 For blacks during the segregation era, retail racism was an inescapable mark of second-class citizenship. Never limited to the South, such racism could be on found on common carriers and in public accommodations across the country, and it affected black members of Congress, celebrities, and ordinary folk. Moreover, if Jim Crow travel practices made white

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travelers feel more at home in the world, they had the opposite effect on African Americans. Black travelers often confronted unanticipated difficulties and “painful embarrassments” that underscored their limited rights as consumers and as citizens. For them, travel was never associated with the freedom celebrated by white America’s bards of the “the open road” such as Walt Whitman and Jack Kerouac. African Americans travelers instead confronted an uncertain road. Never sure of what kind of welcome to expect, they were not always able to purchase the everyday goods and services needed by anyone far from home, such as food, drink, and accommodations.

Notes 1. “‘Jim Crow Kit’ Latest Fad for Journey South: Minister Equips Himself to Overcome Hardships of Southern Travel,” Chicago Defender, August 26, 1922. 2. See, for example, Lawrence B. Glickman, Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Lizbeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Vintage, 2003); and Robert E. Weems, Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1997). 3. Barbara Y. Welke, “Beyond Plessy: Space, Status, and Race in the Era of Jim Crow,” Utah Law Review 2000, no. 2 (2001): 267. 4. Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 143. 5. William James Hoffer, Plessy v. Ferguson: Race and Inequality in Jim Crow America (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012.) 6. William Logan Martin, The Code of Alabama: Adopted by Act of the General Assembly . . . Approved February 16, 1897 (Atlanta, Georgia: The Foote & Davies Company, 1887), 975. 7. Ibid. 8. Thomas C. Fleming, “Reflections on Black History, Part 9: Goodbye to New York— Nov 12, 1997,” http://www.sfmuseum.org/sunreporter/fleming9.html. 9. William Pickens, “Jim-Crowed,” Socialist Review 9, no. 2 (1920): 176. 10. Martin Luther King Jr., Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, ed. Clayborn Carson (1958; repr., Boston: Beacon Press, 2010), 7. 11. “Dr. Proctor and His Bacon,” The Appeal (St. Paul, Minnesota), August 6, 1921, 2. 12. “Jitney Buses Hurt ‘Jim Crow’ Cars,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 20, 1915, 1. 13. “No Jim Crow Here,” Chicago Defender, July 16, 1927, A3; Sandra R. Lieb, Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 39. 14. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955; repr., New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 116. 15. Albert A. Libby, “Exposes Bus Segregation in Chicago,” Chicago Defender, November 19, 1927, 1–2. 16. Ibid., 1. 17. Quoted in Blaine A. Brownell, “A Symbol of Modernity: Attitudes toward the Automobile in Southern Cities in the 1920s,” American Quarterly 24, no. 1 (1972), 34. 18. Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1936), 175. 19. Charles Johnson, Patterns in Negro Segregation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943), 270. 20. Raper, Preface to Peasantry, 175.

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21. These conventions were not universal: “In some places whites did maintain normal driving rules. But in others, Jim Crow was more important than highway safety.” Jerrold M. Packard, American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003), 167. 22. Neil R. McMillen, Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 11. 23. John Lewis, Walking with the Wind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 50. 24. Susan V. Spellman, “All the Comforts of Home: The Domestication of the Service Station Industry, 1920–1940,” Journal of Popular Culture 37, no. 3 (2004): 469. 25. Ibid., 471. 26. “Force Standard Oil to Drop Cafe Jim Crow,” Chicago Defender, February 28, 1948. 27. J. Freedom du Lac, “Guidebook That Aided Black Travelers during Segregation Reveals Vastly Different D.C.,” Washington Post, September 12, 2010. 28. Brent Staples, “John Hope Franklin,” New York Times, March 26, 2009. 29. Du Bois’s letter is reprinted Sarah Harrison, The Traveler’s Guide (Philadelphia: Hackley and Harrison’s Publishing Company, 1931), 5. 30. W. E. B. Du Bois to George Crawford, November 1, 1929, W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, MS 312, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. 31. Hackley & Harrison’s Hotel and Apartment Guide for Colored Travelers (1930), reprinted in Lisa Pertiller Brevard, Biography of Edwin Henry Hackley (1859–1940): African-American Attorney and Activist (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), 87. 32. Gretchen Sullivan Sorin, “‘Keep Going’: African Americans on the Road in the Era of Jim Crow” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Albany, 2011), 187. 33. “Not Only Happy Motoring but Happy Traveling by Any Method Is Obtainable through the Green Book Routing Say ESSO Special Representatives,” in The Negro Motorist’s Green Book (New York: Victor Green and Company, 1947), 10. 34. Earl Hutchinson Sr. and Earl Ofari Hutchinson, A Colored Man’s Journey through 20th Century Segregated America (Los Angeles: Middle Passage Press, 2000), 87. 35. Susan Sessions Rugh, Are We There Yet?: The Golden Age of American Family Vacations (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 77. 36. John A. Williams, This Is My Country Too (New York: Signet, 1966), 72–73. 37. Packard, American Nightmare, 91. 38. Douglass Hall, “Aviation May Alter Jim-Crow Travel Policies: Army Pilots Predict Vital Effects from Post-War Flying,” Afro-American, October 23, 1943. 39. “By Changing to a Hindu, Wilton Crawley Makes the Grade, Dodges Jim Crow,” Wyandotte Echo (Kansas City, Kansas), November 11, 1932. 40. Howard B. Woods, “Airlines Admit Jim Crow on Chicago Planes,” Chicago Defender, March 10, 1945. 41. American Jewish Congress and Gladstone v. American Airlines Inc., Queens County New York, September 28, 1951, 2, American Jewish Congress, records 1–77; Box 150, Folder 23, American Jewish Historical Society, New York, New York; “Charges Airline Anti-Negro Plan: Says Air Firm Has Bias Plan,” New York Amsterdam News, September 29, 1951, 1. 42. Drew Whitelegg, “From Smiles to Miles: Delta Air Lines Flight Attendants and Southern Hospitality,” Southern Cultures 11, no. 4 (2005): 7–27. 43. “Ella Wins $7,500 Suit,” The Plaindealer (Kansas City, Kansas), February 1,1957; Ella Fitzgerald, John Lewis, Georgiana Henry, and Norman Granz v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., Civil 97–356, RG 21, Records of District Courts of the United States, Civil Case Files, National Archives at Chicago. 44. Rep. Charles C. Diggs Jr. to the President of Continental Airlines, March 12, 1955, https:// airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/america-by-air/online/abaImage.cfm?webID=308.p7.

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45. Carl Rowan, South of Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), 15. 46. Chris Lamb, “‘I Never Want to Take Another Trip Like This One’: Jackie Robinson’s

Journey to Integrate Baseball,” Journal of Sport History 24, no. 2 (1997): 177–191. 47. Gavin Wright, Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), 76–77. 48. “Sign of the Week—Look Ladies, Segregated Rest Rooms!” Jet Magazine, January 5, 1956. 49. For examples of such signs, see “Photographs of Signs Enforcing Racial Discrimination: Documentation by Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Photographers,” Prints & Photographs Reading Room, The Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/rr/ print/list/085_disc.html. 50. Ella J. Baker, “Bigger Than a Hamburger,” Southern Patriot 18, no. 5 (1960): 4.

2 • RETAIL MESSAGES IN THE GHETTO BELT N A A O YO A . K WAT E

In an episode from the last season of the television show Seinfeld, Elaine, a white woman, dates Darryl, whom she believes is black. Because she deems it inappropriate to ask him about his race directly, she attempts to find out covertly, by looking for clues in his food and music choices. Elaine seeks the advice of her friends, George and Jerry, hoping that they can interpret these clues. It is an uncomfortable exercise, and George comments, “I don’t think we’re supposed to be talking about this.” Unbeknown to her, Darryl believes Elaine is Latina. At the conclusion of the storyline, the pair learns that they are “just a couple of white people” and are disappointed. After a momentary pause, Elaine suggests, “So, you wanna go to the Gap?” The studio audience laughs knowingly at this tongue-in-cheek representation of race and consumer behavior, but it is an uncomfortable laugh. We aren’t really supposed to be talking about this, much less laughing at what appears to be an essentialist argument about whiteness and a predilection for the Gap. As sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant argue, race is realized in part from racial projects, processes through which racial dynamics are interpreted and explained and resources are distributed along racial lines.1 Racial projects permeate everyday life, transforming race into commonsense expectations about how people should be or behave. Thus, “our tastes in music, films, dance or sports, and our very ways of talking, walking, eating, and dreaming become racially coded simply because we live in a society where racial awareness is so pervasive.”2 This kind of racial coding underlines our understanding of Elaine and Darryl’s comical shopping at the Gap. But racial codes are far from benign. Racial coding shapes our beliefs about individual differences in everything from temperament to athletic ability, characteristics that “are presumed to be fixed and discernible from the palpable mark of race.”3 The racial coding of retail products and spaces constitutes a racial 34

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project that offers quite pointed messages to and about black people as consumers and citizens. Racial codes inhere in the location and density of retail stores, the merchandise sold in them, the material characteristics of store infrastructure, and the industry characterizations that describe black consumers. Thus, racial dynamics create and are created by retail. John Logan and Brian Stults, sociologists who study changes in the U.S. population, have analyzed the entrenched racial segregation that exists in large northeastern and midwestern cities (e.g., Newark, New York, Chicago, Detroit) where a large proportion of African Americans live. They describe these cities as “the Ghetto Belt.”4 Likewise, scholars Douglass Massey and Nancy Denton define the ghetto as spatially segregated neighborhoods that are overwhelmingly black and that contain most black residents in the city.5 Their definition makes no assumptions about area income or social problems. I use ghetto in the same way and, per Logan and Stults, focus on a specific set of cities in the ghetto belt—Chicago, New York City, Detroit, and Philadelphia. In this chapter, I examine the messages that undergird retail environments in black neighborhoods in general and in the Midwest/Northeast ghetto belt in particular. I argue that the messages retailers give about black consumers and to black consumers perpetuate racism in direct and indirect ways. Accumulated evidence from social science and health literature tells us that a range of retail goods and services used in daily life are in scarce supply in black neighborhoods, while other stores (generally those that sell products detrimental to health) and related marketing are disproportionately represented. Many of these findings stem from research conducted in the ghetto belt, research that has shown large chain stores to be especially rare in such neighborhoods and that this scarcity is not attributable to income or other population characteristics.6 Their absence is a measure of what Denver D’Rozario and Jerome D. Williams have defined as retail redlining, or the racially motivated failures by retailers (particularly chains) to serve these neighborhoods.7 Retail redlining and the disproportionate targeting of deleterious products exists not just in the ghetto belt but across the nation.8 Inequalities in access and exposure to stores are just one way black neighborhoods are disadvantaged by retail and marketing. A broader and still more important issue is the nature of the messages that emerge from and drive the racial patterning of consumer markets. Negative and stereotypical representations about black neighborhoods and black consumption shape retail reputation and resources, opportunity structures, and perceptions about black people in the American imaginary.

Messages about Black Consumers National Narratives: Black Consumers Have Unsophisticated Tastes Messages about black consumers are in some instances quite explicit in their negativity. Reportedly, fast food outlets—especially those that sell fried chicken and fish—are profitable when sited near drug and liquor stores.9 Whether the

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ubiquitous retailers in black neighborhoods operating fast food restaurants and liquor stores deliberately seek such locations is unclear. However, as noted above, research shows that retail corridors in the ghetto belt are replete with outlets for vice products. More subtle—but nonetheless stereotypical—messages are embedded in market analysis tools that shape the decision making of retailers. Geodemographic segmentation systems are one example. These systems integrate a variety of quantitative data (e.g., census, purchasing behavior) using proprietary cluster analysis to describe market segments. Geodemographic segmentation systems are thought to provide retailers with descriptions of the consumer base in a given area by giving richer portraits of neighborhoods than those that rely entirely on census or other demographic data. Early market segmentation systems focused only on income. In the 1970s, more complex models were developed that included not just affluence but also age, lifestyle, and “psychographic” data such as behavioral traits and attitudes.10 By the 1980s, detailed systems similar to those we see today were common, designed to “identify clusters of customers with distinctive ways of life and then set out to sell them idealized lifestyles constructed around commodities.”11 Esri, a private company based in Redlands, California, was founded in 1969 as a small research group focused on land use. Today, the company enjoys a leading position in geographic information systems, providing a number of geographic analytic solutions, including the widely used ArcGIS software, and consumer demographics and lifestyle data used by retail and marketing industries. The Community Tapestry market, Esri’s geodemographic segmentation system, organizes neighborhood types hierarchically, numbered from 1 to 65, with 1 the best and 65 the worst. Each category also has a short descriptive label that epitomizes the dominant lifestyle characteristics of neighborhood residents.12 For example, category 1 is “Top Rung,” while 65 is “Social Security Set.” An Esri illustrated chart summarizes all the categories, provides a brief snapshot for each category, specifies the higher-order groupings in which each segment falls, and lists terse demographic information (e.g., “Prof/Mgmt” for occupational status) and a few key descriptors of consumer behavior (e.g., “Shop at Costco” and “Invest heavily in stocks”). The racial and ethnic characteristics of these groupings appear as simple as one-word descriptors such as “white.” Interestingly, these racial descriptors are applied as if they are unremarkable and empirical characteristics of a taxonomy that exists in nature. In the same way that an ornithologist might spot a short and stocky bird with a blue crest and a white collar and exclaim, “It’s a Belted Kingfisher!” the chart suggests that in their natural habitat, “Prosperous Empty Nesters” are identified by some of the following field marks: they are married couples without children, upper middle class, professionals or managers, and white. Setting aside for the moment the implication that there are no well-off black empty nesters, what this chart fails

Retail Messages in the Ghetto Belt

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to articulate is why the segment is “white.” According to Erik Erikson’s theory, childless older adults could enter either the psychological stage of generativity versus stagnation or the state of ego integrity versus despair. Thus, “Prosperous Empty Nesters” could just as easily have been categorized as “Stagnating Suburban Seniors.” Although the chart reads as a clinical nosology of consumer truth, someone created the labels on the chart and ascribed them to certain groups of people. Even if we believe that the diligent anthropologist can find “Prosperous Empty Nesters” in nature, why do their natural habitats—affluent, all-white suburban enclaves—exist? Esri’s Community Tapestry Handbook answers this question by arguing that neighborhoods are naturally occurring entities that find their genesis only in individual preferences: “Neighborhoods are natural formations of people drawn together by their common need for a ‘place’—for security and acceptance. . . . The most compelling feature about neighborhoods is the ability to attract or repel residents and shape their living standards and tastes.”13 Absent from this view is any recognition of the myriad institutional forces deployed to create and maintain neighborhoods. This elision perpetuates a neighborhood taxonomy that reifies refined taste, affluence, and consumer savvy as the province of white space. In fact, because whiteness implicitly represents institutional normality,14 the explicit naming of whiteness in these categories is all the more striking. As many scholars have documented, white people often have difficulty perceiving themselves as racial beings,15 and while blackness is generally salient and frequently noted, white people perceive whiteness as “normal and customary.”16 Whites perceive themselves as best embodying the concept “American.”17 Whiteness is a central feature of market segment systems used in the United States, which also draw clear and consistent connections between whiteness and upscale tastes. In Esri’s system, the top nineteen segments are characterized as “white.” Black people begin to appear in segment 28, and they are most common in segments numbering 50 and higher. Segments 62 and 64 are entirely black. Again, these classifications are constructed as if they exist in nature. Esri’s chart demarcates one set of predominantly black urban neighborhoods as “City Commons” and states that such “neighborhoods are found in large metropolitan areas, mainly in the South and Midwest.”18 Esri’s classification system is rife with subtle language that marginalizes black communities and other communities of color. For example, it defines “all-American” neighborhoods as those where residents are white, politically conservative, and working class and labels “rural neighborhoods with independent and self-reliant white residents who enjoy settled, traditional, and hardworking lifestyles” as “Salt of the Earth.” In contrast, terminology evoking tradition, homeliness, and simple living is generally absent from black segments. Esri terminology reaffirms that in the U.S. imagination, such characteristics are incompatible with black spaces, which are often seen as reservations of vice and moral bankruptcy. Moreover, the system’s wording

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frequently infers motivation to some segments but not others. For example, “Enterprising Professionals” are credited with a “thoughtful nature . . . reflected in their frequent purchases of flowers online and at the florist.”19 By contrast, City Commons residents, although noted for taking “their children to nearby city parks and playgrounds . . . for exercise,” are not described as “fitness and healthconscious” or “outdoors enthusiasts.” Despite the size and strength of the black consumer market in New York City, most black areas are classified in lower-ranking segments 45 and 61, “City Strivers” and “High Rise Renters,” respectively. Together, these segments denote lower-middle-class residents of a mix of family types, educational attainment levels lower than U.S. average levels, and high levels of unemployment and receipt of public assistance. Residents reportedly prefer fast-food restaurants such as Popeye’s and White Castle if they dine out at all, they watch a great deal of television, and they typically spend money on household items and apparel at discount stores and on the clearance racks of department stores.20 Similar trends are evident among other geodemographic systems. Applied Geographic System’s Mosaic system21 portrays black and Latino central city residents as profligate spenders who lack media savvy and live in households where “their television is probably on all day.”22 Predominantly white geographies are defined in a variety of ways, including “Upscale Suburbanites,” “Statusconscious Consumers,” “Hardy Rural Families,” and “Steadfast Conservatives,” but African Americans appear primarily in three segments, two of which are named “African American Neighborhoods” and “Getting By.” Geodemographic system narratives perpetuate racism by making whiteness normative, and making invisible the social structures that result in greater incomes and wealth in white neighborhoods. These systems are constructed as impartial quantitative truths, hardening pervasive stereotypes about black unsophistication and lacking consumer savvy. Market segmentation not only reifies but also exaggerates social difference in the pursuit of profits.23 Ghetto-Belt Data: Black Consumers and Unsophisticated Taste Further evidence of stereotyped constructions of black consumers is available in Esri’s Business Analyst Online quantitative data. I navigated spatially to define approximately the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and New York City. I then selected census block groups that were
60 percent black and had a total population of
100. Finally, I extracted data for percent black (2010 census), median household income (2000 census), total retail businesses, and dominant tapestry rating (Esri data).24 Table 2.1 reports descriptive statistics for the four cities. That black consumers are most frequent in the tapestry chart for segments numbered 50 and higher is reflected in the mean tapestry ranking in each city, which is over 40 throughout.

6

Tapestry ranking

Mean (SD)

65

Max

Mean (SD)

Detroit

49.98 (14.09) 256 0.61 0.98 0.89 (0.095) 256 10,000 110,745 31,582 (13,214) 252 0 177 15.67 (16.3)

Min

355 3

N

Source: Author’s analysis of data extracted from Esri Business Analyst Online.

65

Max

45.12 (14.42) Percentage black 0.6 0.99 0.90 (0.106) Median household 10,000 82,216 31,456 income (12,699) Total retail 0 67 13.9 (11.68) businesses

Min

Chicago

Descriptive Statistics for Census Block Groups in Ghetto Belt Cities

Variable

Table 2.1.

65

Max

41.9 (1.3)

Mean (SD)

Min

548 10

N

65

Max

Mean (SD)

Philadelphia

50.36 (10.57) 311 0.6 0.97 0.85 (0.09) 480 0.61 0.97 0.85 (0.104) 265 10,000 76,063 36,510 480 10,317 52,451 26,532 (14,555) (9,287) 275 0 210 16.22 471 1 88 19.45 (17.86) (14.65)

Min

311 5

N

New York

132

165 128

165

N

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LifeMode groupings are umbrella categories that organize subgroups of Esri tapestry segments based on particular themes or traits. In the ghetto-belt sample, however, only a few LifeMode groups were represented. Some categories were strongly tied to geographic region. For example, Traditional Living was applied overwhelmingly to the midwestern cities, and Family Portrait occurred almost entirely in Chicago, while Global Roots occurred almost entirely in New York City. But what is most striking is the restricted range of affluence and consumer savvy these market segments represent. The top-ranking group, “High Society,” was virtually absent in the sample, defining exactly ten (0.7%) block groups across Chicago, Detroit, and New York City (none existed in Philadelphia). Including the other two top-ranked LifeMode groups, L2 (Upscale Avenues) and L4 (Solo Acts), inches upscale groups to 6 percent of the sample. The top four groups and their proportions, both in the overall sample and in each city, are shown in Table 2.2. Table 2.3 shows the median value for median household income by LifeMode group and city. Six segments converge in the Metropolis LifeMode group, all centered in urban neighborhoods with older housing stock. These consumers are described as relying on public transportation and as living an urban lifestyle that includes dancing, “urban” and jazz music, much television watching, and a preference for movies over books.25 African American urbanity is portrayed in the metonymic sense of poor and problematic black landscapes. In contrast, predominantly white urban segments invoke the bourgeois, welleducated, refined, urban coffeehouse culture of Starbucks and the popular 1990s television show Frasier.26 Bivariate correlations find tapestry classifications to be inversely related to percentage black and median household income. Numerically lower tapestry segments are higher in purported consumer sophistication and affluence.

Table 2.2

Most Frequent LifeMode Groups: Intercity and Intracity Proportions Chicago

Detroit

New York City

Philadelphia

% of sample % in city % of sample % in city % of sample % in city % of sample % in city

Metropolis

16.2

36.6

21.4

55.3

46.3

67.7

16.1

78.2

Traditional living Family portrait Global roots

51.60

27.6

37.4

22.8

4.7

1.6

6.3

7.3

61.9

20.6

15.3

5.8

16.1

3.5

6.8

4.8

8.5

2.5

1.9

0.6

87.7

17.0

1.9

1.2

Source: Author’s analysis of data extracted from Esri Business Analyst Online.

Retail Messages in the Ghetto Belt

Table 2.3

41

LifeMode Groups: Median of Median Household Incomes Chicago

Metropolis Traditional Living Family Portrait Global Roots

$27,057 $41,535 $20,560 $13,779

Detroit

New York City

$26,516 $39,866 $18,465 $28,513

$35,895 $41,426 $21,156 $19,970

Philadelphia

$24,339 $41,315 $2,075 na

Source: Author’s analysis of data extracted from Esri Business Analyst Online.

Table 2.4

Distribution of Block Groups by Tapestry Ranking and Income Label

Tapestry ranking Tapestry income classification

1–4 5–18 19–40 41–61 62–65

High Upper middle Middle Lower middle Low

Number of block groups

1 69 326 717 266

Percent of Tapestry rankings

0.1 5.0 23.6 52.0 19.3

Thus, as median income increases in the ghetto belt, tapestry rating goes down. Conversely, as percentage black increases, tapestry rating also increases, though this relationship is weaker than that between income and tapestry rating. Descriptive income labels applied to each segment also make it clear that the ghetto belt is skewed to the lower end of the consumer market. More than 70 percent of ghetto-belt block groups are classified as Low or Lower Middle Income (Table 2.4). Although median income is inversely related to tapestry rankings, these relationships vary by city. Table 2.5 regroups the income categories in Table 2.4 into Upper (includes Upper Middle and High Incomes), Middle, and Low (includes Lower Middle and Low). Grouped as such, areas classified with the descriptive label Upper Income do indeed have the highest median household incomes based on census data. However, descriptive labels do not represent the same magnitude of income in each city. For example, Middle Income areas in New York City (mean  $51,436) are close to Upper Income areas in Chicago (mean  $59,850). This makes sense, given the higher overall incomes in New York City. I therefore converted income to z-scores (standardized scores) in order to determine how far block groups must deviate from the city mean in order to

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Table 2.5

Standardized Income Scores and Tapestry Rankings Upper income Income z-score

Chicago 2.23 Detroit 3.30 New York 1.71 City Philadelphia n/a

Middle income

Mean tapestry Income score z-score

15.12 13.08 9.61

Mean tapestry score

Low income Income z-score

Mean tapestry score

0.704 0.687 1.03

32.3 33.9 21.9

−0.54 −0.43 −0.387

54.5 58.3 49.6

1.46

30.6

−0.321

54.8

Source: Author’s analysis of data extracted from Esri Business Analyst Online.

land in Upper or Low Income categories. Chicago and Detroit’s Upper Income areas are, respectively, 2.23, and 3.30 standard deviations above the mean higher than in New York City. Thus, a higher bar appears to have been set in some cities. Mean tapestry scores also vary geographically. For example, New York City has lower (better) rankings for all income classifications. Disparities are particularly marked in Middle Income categories; the mean tapestry score in these categories is 9–12 points lower in New York City than elsewhere in the ghetto belt. It is unclear whether these differences reflect differential valuing of markets in the ghetto belt or whether tapestry ranking solutions are forced to meet a priori structural constraints. In the former case, the gloss of New York City’s prominence as a major U.S. city translates into better tapestry rankings than those of less prestigious cities. In the latter case, tapestry rankings are based on analyses that limit certain labels to certain regions of the country, irrespective of demographic characteristics. Overall, however, this variance across cities suggests that although black neighborhoods are frequently viewed monolithically, geographic context does matter. And yet variance across geography does not contest the overwhelmingly consistent construction of ghetto-belt consumers. Geodemographic segmentation views black consumers with skepticism and characterizes them as low in cultural capital, the knowledge and experience with social milieus that require or confer cultural skills and elite resources.27 Consumption is a particularly salient arena in which cultural capital is enacted and expressed.28 Geodemographic systems cast black consumers as simple, unsophisticated consumers who are far removed from the good life. Although segmentation systems have raised the profile and profitability of the advertising and marketing professions,29 they have functioned to undermine the viability of black market neighborhoods and to exclude African Americans from highly prized consumer strata.

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Black Consumers Are Disengaged from the Market Some segments of the marketing industry stereotype black people as unsophisticated consumers. Others suggest that they are not consumers at all. Historically, retail corporations, the advertising and marketing industry, and the media have paid little attention to black people. In the 1930s, white businesses assumed black people to be too poor, rural, or uneducated to be responsive to sophisticated advertising, and black newspapers lacked advertising from prominent white business concerns.30 By the 1940s, despite per capita incomes for blacks in the ghetto belt that approximated or exceeded those of whites in the national market, black consumers remained marginalized.31 However, postwar migration, increasing black incomes, and new media outlets such as Ebony finally began to turn the heads of national retailers and advertisers, resulting in significant courting of black consumer dollars. Black radio station programming increased, and corporations began to turn to primers on selling to black audiences.32 Advocates for the black market stressed that it was foolish to ignore increasingly affluent consumers, particularly in urban areas where targeting was facilitated by racial segregation.33 John H. Johnson, the founder of Ebony, and other black corporate leaders actively sought to portray the strength of black buying power and instructed white corporations on how to appropriately speak to and solicit the spending of this neglected consumer segment. Retailers were seeking “Mr. and Mrs. Consumer” (generic, white, middle-class, suburban shoppers), and convincing retailers that black consumers ought to be considered was a challenge.34 During the 1950s and 1960s, much of the marketing discourse (including that offered by marketers who themselves were black) made particular note of black people as brand loyal and oriented toward spending that would enhance their status and dignity in American society.35 Black and white marketers assumed that racism would shape black consumerism, but they made that assumption without any real critique. For example, some marketers argued that because black residents often contended with poor-quality goods in their neighborhoods, they would be more willing to spend significant amounts of money for good products and would be wary of off-brand or unknown goods.36 Some social scientists went further, envisaging black people as engaged with the white marketplace primarily to shake off self-hatred: “Of course, some of this [crossing of racial boundaries] grows directly out of segregation, where rapid population growth places unrelenting, insurmountable pressure on area resources and facilities. Most, however, is attributable to the self-rejection side of the Negro’s split self-image. Because of the combined weight of these two forces, Negroes trade in an atmosphere of scarcity and compulsiveness.”37 Other researchers claimed that black home seekers were prone to “real estate mania” because they readily took up apartments and houses vacated by whites, despite acknowledgments that enormous housing scarcities wrought by segregation generated intense demand.

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In many analyses of the African American consumer market, actual material conditions were secondary to a belief that black people needed to distance themselves from the larger black community and spend their way to a more proximal white identity.38 As Susannah Walker argues, the white-dominated industry conflated black consumer desires for status-seeking with a demand for fair and equal treatment in the marketplace.39 Appropriate recognition from white advertisers and retailers was seen as an important marker of racial equality, and spending power was a cornerstone through which to agitate for social change and civil rights.40 By the mid- to late 1960s, national corporations were actively seeking black consumers by incorporating images, language, and politics that they perceived to be black in their advertising. Black pride and “soul” were frequently invoked, but these ideas served largely as superficial aesthetic claims, eliding deeper economic or political issues.41 Such appeals reflected a new focus in marketing in general: companies courted specific market segments rather than generic consumers. Black consumers were now being targeted via new segmentation systems that included marketing strategies directed at whites (but in black packaging) and unique presentations that catered to blacks specifically.42 Today, seemingly little has changed in the ways black consumers are sought (or not). Indeed, in some ways, black consumers are perpetually unseen. Black buying power in 2009 was reported as $836 billion.43 And yet advertising and marketing firms that specialize in black consumer markets still have to make the case that corporations ignore this segment at their peril. In part, the continuing neglect of the black market reflects the fact that the industry continues to skew toward the “general” (read: white) market: 93 percent of $117 billion in advertising and marketing dollars goes to that portion of the market.44 It also reflects the racial segmentation of advertising agencies into camps—general market advertising (or GMA) and multicultural advertising (or MCA). GMA agencies predominate and continue to overlook the buying power of a changing U.S. demographic. They also lack culturally relevant communication.45 There are approximately fifteen to twenty prominent African American promotion and branding agencies.46 Among the top fifteen, stalwarts such as Burrell and Uniworld win major corporate clients including Disney, American Airlines, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, McDonalds, ConEdison, Colgate, Home Depot, Ford, and Marriott Hotels. Burrell couches its approach in what it calls “positive realism,” arguing that authentic connections with consumers require more than current celebrities or fads: “It’s about understanding who our consumers are and who they aspire to be. It’s about honoring their culture and values. . . . In order to do it right, you need to be an expert, immersed in the culture every single day.”47 And, much as John H. Johnson once enjoined advertisers to do, Burrell brings the capacities of black consumers into bold relief: “Black consumers have over a trillion dollars in spending power. Yes, black people still have money and want to spend it.” Similarly, the New Jersey MCA firm Diversity

Retail Messages in the Ghetto Belt

45

Affluence targets affluent “ethnic consumers” and, taking no chances that their spending potential might be overlooked, dubs them “Royaltons.”48 This company urges retailers to capitalize on black market segments, which have underestimated spending potential. These pointed calls from MCA firms seek to undo consumer stereotypes about black consumers as penurious and unsophisticated. Still, black neighborhoods are often characterized as low in demand for various goods, brands, activities, or services. Esri’s Market Potential Index (MPI) is one such measure of demand. The MPI integrates information from tapestry classifications, the U.S. census, and purchasing and survey data and other proprietary constructs to describe the lifestyle preferences, spending habits, and preferred brands and products of neighborhood residents.49 In New York City, the ghetto-belt city with the highest incomes, the greatest black spending power, and highest tapestry rankings, MPI values are nonetheless almost always negatively associated with percentage black. As the number of black people in census block groups increases, perceived demand decreases. This is true for a startling number of goods and services, and the relationship persists across the income spectrum. Table 2.6 shows bivariate relationships between percentage black and MPI for selected goods and activities for block groups where the median household income is $100,000 Table 2.6

Correlation between Percentage Black and Market Potential Index: New York City Block Groups with Income Greater than $100,000 (n  5,729)

Goods and activities

Bought books Bought any shoes Went to the beach, past year Dined out, past year Went to the movies, past year Went to the museum, past year Played chess, past year Flew kite, past year Kept indoor plants, past year Bought men’s jeans, past year Bought women’s shirt, past year Used electric blender Used electric toaster, past 6 months Used batteries, past 6 months Used glue, past 6 months Watched Antiques Roadshow Watched baseball

Bivariate correlation

−0.195 −0.173 −0.249 −0.269 −0.126 −0.275 −0.121 −0.192 −0.174 −0.167 −0.111 −0.187 −0.174 −0.164 −0.114 −0.159 −0.24

Source: Author’s analysis of data extracted from Esri Business Analyst Online. Note: Although correlations varied in strength, all were statistically significant at p  0.0001. This is to be expected with a large sample size.

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or more. Even among high-income New York City neighborhoods, demand is constructed as mutually exclusive to black consumerism. These data would have retailers believe that black people do not buy books, go to the beach, eat at restaurants, use blenders, or keep houseplants. And even after accounting for this purportedly low desire to buy or do anything, black neighborhoods have significantly less access to a wide variety of goods and services.50 Pharmacies are one example. It is not surprising, then, that a sample of black New York City respondents51 were almost twice as likely to name corner stores, bodegas, and 99-cent stores as the nearest location to buy toothpaste, rather than pharmacies. Finally, the desirability that higher geodemographic rankings typically confer to communities fails to materialize in the ghetto belt. Higher rankings simply do not translate into more stores. When I estimated bivariate correlations linking tapestry ranking to the total number of retail businesses (as reported by Esri Business Analyst Online), no relationship emerged. However, blackness was penalized; percentage black was inversely related to number of stores (r  −0.19, p  0.000), findings that echo the results reported in large-scale studies across the United States.52 Even the most prestigious segments were unable to capitalize on their relatively higher placement in the shopper hierarchy. Among LifeMode groups L1, L2, and L4 (n  88 block groups across the four cities), the relationship between tapestry ranking and total retail remained nonsignificant. Moreover, prestigious areas were more severely punished for having greater proportions of black residents; the negative correlation between proportion black and number of stores was stronger in more upscale areas (r  −0.314, p  0.008) than in other areas (r  −0.181, p  0.000).

Messages to Black Consumers Just as messages about black consumers codify negative representations about black people into reputations as consumers that undermine their spending power, messages to ghetto residents suggest that a restricted range of products and services are available to or appropriate for them. Messages to consumers are refracted not only through the presence of certain store types and merchandise but also through a style of retail buildings that identifies and advocates for a particular relationship between market and consumer. National and Local Narratives: Black Consumers Have Unsophisticated Taste Messages directed to black consumers purport that they lack sophisticated taste, just as messages about black consumers do. That blackness appears to fundamentally flaw neighborhoods for retailers suggests that contemporary marketing executives share the same assumption as the 1960s executives who believed that “Negroes are different in buying behavior from any other group with low income

Retail Messages in the Ghetto Belt

47

and education in America.”53 Such assumptions may also help explain why stores located in the modern ghetto belt often sell merchandise such as “Coco Rico Cola”54 and “quarter water,” items not available elsewhere. Store merchandise and advertising create messages for potential consumers about who they are perceived to be or aspire to be, implicitly arguing where their dollars are best spent. During the 1960s, industry pundits argued that the basic dilemma for black consumers was whether to strive against the odds for middle-class values—as demonstrated by their consumption habits—or to give up and do without.55 Ann Satterthwaite makes a similar observation, contending that shopping provides the illusion of freedom but that those with limited funds must choose between exclusion or debt in order to participate.56 For ghetto-belt residents, however, the reality is that even those who have the means may be excluded. “Pam,” a resident of Chicago’s southern suburbs, wrote the following in an online blog” For some reason, people seem to think everyone in the southern suburbs has a low income, and little education. . . . Hey retailers—many residents have graduate degrees and have incomes in excess of $100–200K. Go figure! Because our area is ethnically diverse, for some reason, retailers assume that the area would not support higher-end retail stores. I wrote to the owner of Lincoln Mall who point blank told me that they have trouble attracting retailers because of the demographics, and that even Kohls doesn’t feel those living in the area are their “client base.” Kohls is fine, but when in the hell did they become Saks Fifth Avenue? Really frustrating.57

It should be noted that Pam’s suburb is not “ethnically diverse”; it is predominantly black after years of racial transition. For that reason, retailers fail to perceive it as a viable market. As noted earlier, one of the few leisure activities attributed to black market segments is television watching. This may explain in part what I and my students found in our 2009 investigation of subway advertising in two of New York City’s black neighborhoods, Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Television shows accounted for the largest share of 1,400 subway-platform ads in these communities, at 22 percent. However, these ads represented a quite restricted range of genres. Emmy nominees or winners for 2010 or 2011, such as 30 Rock, Glee, The Office, Modern Family, Mad Men, or Breaking Bad were absent. The shows that were promoted instead included Dance Your Ass Off and Jersey Couture. Notably, none of the shows included black characters. Movie ads, the third most frequent ad category, were also narrow in scope and centered on comedies and action/ adventure. They did not include eventual Oscar nominees such as The Kids Are All Right, Inception, or Toy Story 3, all of which were soon to be released. Interestingly, the fourth most prevalent ad category was not for goods and services at all; they were Metropolitan Transit Authority SubTalk ads. These prosaic messages from

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the New York City Transit Authority instruct riders to report suspicious activity or dictate appropriate transit system behavior, such as abstaining from holding train doors. Camilo José Vergara’s visual documentation of features of the American ghetto includes “public service billboards,” which “have short messages designed to teach ghetto residents how to live. The admonitions in these billboards are a contemporary equivalent of Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac.”58 Granted, the visual admonishments and directives in SubTalk ads are present throughout the transit system, but the fact that they account for 7 percent of ad space in black neighborhoods suggests that advertisers ran out of things to say. Black Consumption Is Criminal The characterization of black consumers as disengaged from the market, with little to no demand for many products, is starkly juxtaposed with another common narrative—that of black people as “combat consumers.” According to the anthropologist Elizabeth Chin, the urban poor, particularly those who are young and black, are mythologized as susceptible to commodity fetishism and are willing to kill, injure, or steal from others to satisfy their desires for expensive brand-name goods.59 In the 1980s and 1990s, the media was full of stories about violence and robbery for such mundane articles as sneakers—often off the feet of the person wearing them. So too were images of “anti-consumers”: black welfare moms and drug dealers who spent unearned money on goods they didn’t deserve.60 Chin found that although young African American children in New Haven, Connecticut had a much more prosaic and even thrifty relationship with shopping, narratives of the engagement of the urban poor with consumer markets and material goods was pathologized, linked with antisocial outcomes such as robbery, damaged relationships, and misanthropy.61 Perceptions of problematic black consumerism suffuse ghetto-belt retail corridors. Some twenty years after the initial development of Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall in the 1940s, its department stores had begun to falter, particularly because white shoppers were leaving the city. In 1969, city planners sought to remake the area, even though it was the third most profitable retail strip in the country (worth $1.74 billion in 2009 dollars). The impetus for the renewal lay not in what existed but in what was possible. Black shoppers were coming to Fulton Mall in increasing numbers; read as poor shoppers, they had no place in Brooklyn’s central business district.62 These perceptions persisted in the 1980s, once the mall became a center for urban fashion and hip-hop. Planners continued to view it as tacky, finding fault not with the literal value of goods sold but with the inferred cultural value of these goods.63 City planners’ excision of black people from normative ideas about shopping as a routine or even pleasurable leisure activity profoundly dislocate black consumers from a key aspect of American identity. Black window shoppers at Fulton Mall are a case in point. This urban mall is an eight-block strip of densely populated stores on a street closed to vehicular

Retail Messages in the Ghetto Belt

49

Figure 2.1. Fulton Mall, 2008. (Photo by Naa Oyo A. Kwate.)

traffic; it was designed for public gathering. But black youth who do just that in Fulton Mall are seen as problematic. White yuppie residents take issue with groups of black youth and criminalize otherwise normative behavior.64 White teenagers are free to frequent suburban malls; “hanging out” is an innocuous behavior, celebrated in films such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High.65 But intensive surveillance and deterrence of black youth is common at many shopping malls. Black youth in New Haven frequently face discrimination and surveillance in the mall and have to assert their right to be there by demonstrating that they are capable of making purchases.66 A similar distaste for black customers takes shape in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal Malls, collectively known as the Atlantic City Mall, which opened in the borough with great fanfare in 1996. Full-page ads in the New York Times declared shopping to be the new national pastime, overtaking baseball—a status that was symbolically embodied by the location of the mall on the former site of Ebbets Field.67 Described as “New York’s new champion of retail,” in the 1990s, the Atlantic City mall promised such stores as Old Navy, Sports Authority, Circuit City, Kids R Us, and Marshalls.68 But mall developer Forest City Ratner was wary about the kinds of consumers the mall would attract. Seemingly anticipating that these stores would attract area youth (who are perforce problematic), the mall opened with signage prohibiting four or more teens from gathering in its halls.69 A recent (2010) sign at the mall speaks in an official and theoretically neutral voice that seems to be directed to all mall

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patrons but in fact presents a series of directives and admonitions clearly aimed at black customers, youth, and others seen as problematic. In twelve stern bullet points, mall management expounds a list of prohibited behaviors and notifies shoppers what consequences they may face for failing to comport themselves appropriately. For example: “Groups of four (4) or more may be dispersed. Customers must move in an orderly fashion through the premises and not

Figure 2.2. Atlantic Mall sign. (Photo by Nelson T. Saldaña.)

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block walkways or store entrances”; “Seating benches are to be used for shopping breaks not to exceed 15 minutes”; and “When conditions contribute to an overflow of individuals management reserves the right to disperse and/or eject individuals or groups.” It is difficult to imagine a group of two white middle-class parents and their two children being “dispersed” or security officers castigating elderly consumers for excessively lengthy shopping breaks on walkway benches. The sign is at once threatening and instructive, a more severe expression of Poor Richard’s Almanac for the ghetto. Black Codes and Bunkers These codes of conduct, which regulate, restrict, and problematize the behavior of black youth and black people are a modern equivalent of the Black Codes that prevented the assembly of free blacks in the Reconstruction South.70 In Buffalo, New York, in 1999, even more restrictive measures were employed to deter black shoppers. Knowing that black people constituted the majority of riders on a public bus route, mall officials refused public buses entry to the property, though charter buses were allowed. This policy took a tragic turn when a seventeen-yearold black girl was struck and killed by a truck while trying to cross the seven-lane highway that effectively created a moat around the mall.71 Retail physical infrastructures in black neighborhoods also make shopping a rather bleak affair, with stereotypes about black criminality writ into built spaces. Loïc Wacquant argues that current incarceration policies constitute a new apparatus that keeps black people physically and socially subordinate, merging ghetto and prison in a deadly symbiosis.72 For Wacquant, this is exemplified in public housing recast as detention houses, with security patrols and ID checks. Retail environments are similarly constructed; they frequently feature heavy metal shutters, bulletproof glass, multiple doors, and razor and barbed wire. The fortification of retail stores makes them a “siege-ready environment.”73 Siege-ready retail signals that these stores inhabit hostile territory, reinforcing the racial hierarchy that undergirds the fraught symbiosis between retailers and ghetto consumers. In some stores, clerks conduct sales transactions from behind bulletproof glass, a pointed commentary about the perceptions and value of the community to public and private actors, in this case, one that makes store patrons into inmates. Stores without windows conveys the same message as barred windows or bulletproof glass, creating bunker-like buildings that suggest that residents shop at their own risk. Siege-ready aesthetics serve as visual indicators that mark the ghetto for both outsiders and insiders. Drug dealers in Chicago’s Grand Boulevard neighborhood read physical disorder such as boarded-up buildings and litter as cues that the neighborhood is home to marginalized people, many of whom will be seeking to medicate their pain with illicit drugs.74 The same might be true for retail frontages that serve as bulwarks against criminal consumers. Ironically, the

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crime that ghetto-belt stores are constructed to resist is in fact made more frequent by the way they do business. Late operating hours, cash-carrying customers, intoxicated or otherwise distracted customers and hangers-on, and a context of “deniability” (a legitimate reason for an offender to be in a particular location) create crime hotspots.75 Community residents frequently protest the presence of liquor stores, not only because they sell health-defeating products and are prone to attracting or turning a blind eye to crime but also because their siege-ready aesthetics express wary contempt for customers. Said one commenter on a community blog in Grand Boulevard, “Stores like Jamaican Food & Liquors really lend nothing to the uplifting of a neighborhood. How can a store really consider itself part of a community when the owners immerse themselves behind bullet-proof glass? You can’t even touch your merchandise until after you’ve paid for it, which in my opinion is tantamount to telling citizens to give us your money and GTFOH.”76 In April 2012, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel initiated more aggressive policies for suspending and revoking the city’s liquor licenses, no longer waiting for major incidents such as shootings. Instead, community complaints culled from 311 (the city’s complaint hotline) and various city departments trigger enforcement action.77 The results have been mixed. In the case of Jamaica Food and Liquor, which Peter St. Jean’s interviewees described as a robbery hotspot,78 there were strenuous calls from community residents to close the store. A series of public hearings were held at which community members voiced numerous concerns. The Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection ordered the owner to desist from selling low-cost/high-impact alcohol (e.g., Mad Dog 20/20, Thunderbird) and instituted a number of other regulations, but the owner failed to implement any of them.79 As Jamaica Food and Liquor fends off challenges to its operation (at least for the meantime), its fortified appearance suggests imperviousness not only to crime but also to change. A visual dictionary of sprawl in the American landscape defines “impervious surfaces” as asphalt, concrete, or other paving or roofing materials that keep storm water from penetrating the ground.80 In suburbia, impervious surfaces cover much ground space, in the form of multilane roads, vast parking lots, and the rooftops of big-box stores. Physically and symbolically, ghetto-belt stores are impervious retail. Fortified buildings in concrete landscapes appear to be built to be impervious to whatever perceived onslaught may lay in wait; to be impervious to a human scale or human needs; to be impervious to the market; and, in the case of Jamaica Food & Liquors, to be impervious to community protests about its presence. The store-as-bunker aesthetic of ghetto retail creates a form of twenty-firstcentury Jim Crow signage. In Elizabeth Abel’s analysis of the segregated South’s Jim Crow signage, she asks how such signs might exist implicitly in the contemporary moment: “What are the undeclared color lines that continue to delimit

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neighborhoods? What modalities of racism still fracture the social landscape after the dismantling of Jim Crow? Where would the racial signs of our times be situated and what language would they use?”81 I argue that retail is one such undeclared color line, using architectural language that is interpretable by insiders and outsiders alike as defining colored-only space.

Conclusions Retail messages are both a cause and a consequence of racial inequality. Messages that treat black consumers as a monolith downplay market potential and reinforce narratives about criminal or otherwise morally suspect shopping behaviors, increasing the likelihood that black neighborhoods in the ghetto belt and elsewhere will have a dearth of needed retail and overexposure to vice products. A dearth of retail is in turn self-perpetuating, as corporations and independent storeowners seek out corridors with busy retail traffic. More broadly, such messages constitute a racial project that forms one of the apparatuses through which the ghetto is demarcated as a subordinate social and physical space. Because consumption is such a critical facet of American life, retail messages that relegate black consumers to the periphery of the market also relegate them to the periphery of public life. Economist Glenn Loury argues that discrimination is defined by how people are treated, while stigma is defined by who people are understood to be.82 Retail messages in the ghetto stigmatize black people as characterologically unable to participate in American consumption, or at best as participants in a limited and irrelevant sphere of the market. Although some disparities in retail access (e.g., pharmacies, fresh produce) might seem more important than others, it is clear that racial coding of consumption matters for all stores, even shopping at the Gap. But as long as dominant narratives suggest that “we’re not supposed to be talking about this,” racially patterned retail will continue to undermine the individual and collective well-being of black folks.

Notes 1. Michael Omi and H. Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (New York: Routledge, 1994). 2. Ibid., 60. 3. Ibid. 4. J. R. Logan and B. Stults, “The Persistence of Segregation in the Metropolis: New Findings from the 2010 Census,” census brief prepared for Project US 2010, March 24, 2011. 5. Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). 6. Center for an Urban Future, “Return of the Chains: This Year’s Borough-by-Borough Analysis of New York City’s Largest Retailers,” New York by the Numbers 2, no. 4 (2009); Naa Oyo A., Kwate, Ji Meng Loh, Kellee White, and Nelson Saldana, “Retail Redlining in

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New York City: Racialized Access to Day-to-Day Retail Resources,” Journal of Urban Health 90, no. 4 (2012): 1–21; and Rachel Meltzer and Jenny Schuetz, “Bodegas or Bagel Shops? Neighborhood Differences in Retail and Household Services,” Economic Development Quarterly 26, no. 1 (2012): 73–94. 7. Denver D’Rozario and Jerome D. Williams, “Retail Redlining: Definition, Theory, Typology, and Measurement,” Journal of Macromarketing 25, no. 2 (2005): 175–186. 8. Amy Helling and David S. Sawicki, “Race and Residential Accessibility to Shopping and Services,” Housing Policy Debate 14, nos. 1–2 (2003): 69–101; Mario Luis Small and Monica McDermott, “The Presence of Organizational Resources in Poor Urban Neighborhoods: An Analysis of Average and Contextual Effects,” Social Forces 84, no. 3 (2006): 1697–1724. 9. John C. Melaniphy, Restaurant and Fast Food Site Selection (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992), 83. 10. Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Vintage Books, 2003). 11. Ibid., 299. 12. Esri, Community Tapestry Handbook (Redlands, Calif.: Esri, 2007). 13. Ibid., 2. 14. Derald Wing Sue, “Whiteness and Ethnocentric Monoculturalism: Making the ‘Invisible’ Visible,” American Psychologist 59, no. 8 (2004): 761. 15. Derald Wing Sue, Rosie P. Bingham, Lisa Porché-Burke, and Melba Vasquez, “The Diversification of Psychology: A Multicultural Revolution,” American Psychologist 54, no. 12 (1999): 1061; Amanda E. Lewis, “Everyday Race-Making Navigating Racial Boundaries in Schools,” American Behavioral Scientist 47 (November 2003): 283–305. 16. Joe R. Feagin, Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations Remaking America with Anti-racist Strategies (New York: Routledge, 2009). 17. Thierry Devos and Mahzarin R. Banaji, “American  White?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88, no. 3 (2005): 447. 18. Esri, Community Tapestry Handbook, 88, emphasis added. 19. Ibid., 37. 20. Ibid. 21. Experian Business Strategies, Mosaic USA: Group and Type Descriptions (N.p.: Experian Business Strategies, 2006). 22. Ibid., 44. 23. Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic. 24. Esri, Community Tapestry Handbook. 25. Ibid. 26. James Lyons, Selling Seattle: Representing Contemporary Urban America (London: Wallflower Press, 2004). 27. Douglas B. Holt, “Does Cultural Capital Structure American Consumption?” Journal of Consumer Research 25, no. 1 (1998): 1–25; Alford A. Young Jr., The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011). 28. Holt, “Does Cultural Capital Structure American Consumption?” 29. Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic. 30. S. Walker, “Black Dollar Power: Assessing African American Consumerism since 1945,” in African American Urban History Since World War II, ed. K. L. Kusmer and J. W. Trotter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). 31. Ibid.

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32. R. E. Weems, “African American Consumers since World War II,” in The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship, vol. 1, To 1865, ed. Juliet E. K. Walker (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). 33. Walker, “Black Dollar Power.” 34. Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic. 35. Walker, “Black Dollar Power.” 36. Ibid. 37. H. A. Bullock, “Negro Market Orientations,” in Consumer Behavior and the Behavioral Sciences, ed. Steuart H. Britt (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966). 38. Walker, “Black Dollar Power,” 247. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid.; Weems, “African American Consumers since World War II.” 41. Walker, “Black Dollar Power.” 42. Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic. 43. “2010 ‘Buying Power’ Report Shows Black Consumers Spend as Economy Improves,” Target Market News, http://www.targetmarketnews.com/storyid11011001.htm, accessed August 12, 2014. 44. J. Bowman, “The Cross-Cultural Report,” Ogilvy & Mather, New York, 2012. 45. Ibid. 46. J. Villa, “Multicultural Agencies Must Beef Up Their Digital Offerings,” Advertising Age 81, no. 2 (2010): 12; Anonymous, “Multicultural Promotion and Branding Agencies,” Advertising Age 81, no. 17 (2010): 34. 47. “Positive Realism,” Burrell Communications, http://burrell.com/culture/culturalcurrency, accessed March 10, 2013. 48. “Home,” Diversity Affluence, http://www.diversityaffluence.com/, accessed March 10, 2013. 49. Kwate et al., “Retail Redlining in New York City.” 50. Ibid. 51. See Thompson and Porter, this volume, for the sample description. 52. Small and McDermott, “The Presence of Organizational Resources in Poor Urban Neighborhoods.” 53. Banks, “Dimensions of the Negro Market.” 54. Camilo José Vergara, The New American Ghetto (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995). 55. R. A. Bauer, S. M. Cunningham, and L. H. Wortzel, “The Marketing Dilemma of Negroes,” in Consumer Behavior and the Behavioral Sciences, ed. Steuart H. Britt (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966). 56. Ann Satterthwaite, Going Shopping: Consumer Choices and Community Consequences (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001). 57. Prange Way, “Lincoln Mall; Matteson, Illinois,” http://www.labelscar.com/illinois/ lincoln-mall-matteson, accessed March 10, 2013. 58. Camilo Jose Vergara and Howard Gillette, “Invincible Cities,” http://invinciblecities .camden.rutgers.edu/intro.html, accessed March 10, 2013. 59. Elizabeth Chin, Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. Rosten Woo, Meredith TenHoor, and Damon Rich, Street Value: Shopping, Planning, and Politics at Fulton Mall (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010).

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Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Chin, Purchasing Power. Sattherwaite, Going Shopping. Display ad 30, “On November 8, Forest City Ratner Returns the National Pastime to Brooklyn,” New York Times, November 8, 1996, A34. 69. Woo, TenHoor, and Rich, Street Value. 70. Naa Oyo A. Kwate, “No Loitering,” in Arsenal of Inclusion and Exclusion, ed. T. Armborst, D. D’Oca, and G. Theodore (New York: Actar, forthcoming). 71. “Mall Accused of Racism in a Wrongful Death Trial in Buffalo,” New York Times, November 15, 1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/15/nyregion/mall-accused-of-racismin-a-wrongful-death-trial-in-buffalo.html, accessed March 10, 2013. 72. Loïc Wacquant, “Deadly Symbiosis When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh,” Punishment & Society 3, no. 1 (2001): 95–133. 73. Vergara, The New American Ghetto; C. C. Cannuscio, E. E. Weiss, H. Fruchtman, J. Schroeder, J. Weiner, and D. A. Asch, “Visual Epidemiology: Photographs as Tools for Probing Street-Level Etiologies,” Social Science and Medicine 69, no. 4 (2009): 553–564. 74. Peter K. B. St. Jean, Pockets of Crime: Broken Windows, Collective Efficacy, and the Criminal Point of View (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 75. Ibid. 76. EveryBlock Chicago, http://chicago.everyblock.com. 77. F. Spielman and E. Esposito, “Mayor Says Problem Liquor Stores a ‘Cancer,’ Proposes Crackdown,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 11, 2012. 78. St. Jean, Pockets of Crime. 79. Alderman Will Burns, “Jamaica Foods & Liquor Update 4.26.12,” http://www .aldwillburns.com/news.asp?artId=5D5F5C56, accessed March 10, 2013. 80. Dolores Hayden and Jim Wark, A Field Guide to Sprawl (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004). 81. Elizabeth Abel, Signs of the Times: The Visual Politics of Jim Crow (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), xvii. 82. Glenn C. Loury, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002). 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

3 • THE OTHER MIGR ANTS Mexican Shoppers in American Borderlands G E R A L D O L . C A D AVA

Two popular expressions capture the entanglement of U.S.-Mexico relations: “When the United States sneezes, Mexico catches a cold,” and “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” According to both, Mexico suffers because of its proximity to the United States. However true the sentiment, the Mexican government’s late twentieth-century financial crises forced observers in the United States to recognize that their country’s fate was also tied to Mexico. Mexico devalued its currency several times during the 1970s and 1980s, which had a disastrous impact on the retail industries of the U.S. border region. A year after the 1982 peso devaluations, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) stated, “While Mexico caught pneumonia . . . the exposed border region had a heart attack.” The sudden decline of business from Mexico caused borderlands retailers to acutely experience their reliance upon Mexican shoppers.1 Much has been written about Mexico’s financial crisis in general—it stemmed from a population explosion that led to greater demands for public services, skyrocketing debt that left the country unable to pay its creditors, and the crash of oil, silver, and coffee markets—but only a few scholars have noted its effects on retail businesses in the U.S. border region. In response to the national and global financial crisis that caused Mexico to devalue its currency, wealthy Mexicans invested billions of dollars outside Mexico. The Mexican government forced banks to suspend the sale of dollars, placed new restrictions on goods coming into the country, devalued the peso in order to increase exports, and restructured its debt on terms favorable to international lenders. Members of Mexico’s middle class rebelled as they saw their dreams of financial security shattered. Such narratives of Mexico’s financial crisis offer a bird’s-eye view of domestic and international politics, yet they fail to capture the impact of the crisis on borderlands retailers, how events in Mexico deeply affected U.S. border communities in general, and how Mexican shoppers from different class backgrounds could 57

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Figure 3.1. Sign in El Paso, Texas, department store, announcing deep discounts due to the peso devaluations that decreased the flow of Mexican shoppers to U.S. border cities. (University of Texas at El Paso Library, Special Collections Department, El Paso Herald-Post Records, MS348, box 147, folder 23.)

be a desirable, even vital, group of foreigners within U.S. borders at a time of widespread anti-Mexican sentiment.2 For more than a century, borderlands retailers from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds have depended on Mexican consumers who have found themselves unable to shop in the United States during their country’s economic downturns. In the late twentieth century, following devaluations in 1976 and 1982, retailers lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Many fired employees or closed their businesses permanently. The effects of the devaluations on retail businesses penetrated other areas of economic life, causing increased rates of unemployment, declining sales tax receipts, and a spike in applications for food stamps and other forms of government support. Even though the economy of an entire region was turned upside down, the extent to which dozens of cities and towns in the United States depended on Mexican consumers remained largely invisible to federal officials and Americans living outside the border region. In typical fashion, many demonized Mexican border crossers as economically dependent on the United States instead of as contributors to the nation’s economy.3 The invisibility of Mexican consumers beyond the border region contrasted with their hypervisibility as undocumented workers or drug traffickers during

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Figure 3.2. Line of Mexicans in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, waiting to exchange their pesos

for dollars in the wake of the peso devaluations and to use as currency in both Mexico and the United States. (University of Texas at El Paso Library, Special Collections Department, El Paso Herald-Post Records, MS348, box 147, folder 21.)

the ten-year period that culminated with the signing of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Anthropologist Leo Chavez has called the racialization of Mexican immigrants part of a broad “Latino Threat Narrative” that posits that Mexican immigrants undermine the values, social harmony, and legal order of the United States. Inspired by this narrative, many Americans lobbied for legislation that would crack down on illegal entry through a combination of employer sanctions, more manpower along the border, and increasingly militarized means. Although the crisis for borderlands retailers and Mexican immigration both stemmed from Mexico’s financial malaise, they never were considered together, foreclosing the possibility that the infusion of Mexican consumers might become part of the public debate about immigration and border reform. Congress convened separate hearings about immigration reform and the retail crisis. The benefits and costs of immigration and economic relations with Mexico were decoupled; public debates focused on the costs, while the benefits of immigration became submerged and were generally articulated only at

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the local level. This chapter will document the neglected history of borderlands retail economies and its relation to debates about race and migration, offering a new perspective on the political economy of that region that suggests that U.S.-Mexico relations are more dynamic and mutually influential than debates about undocumented labor would suggest.4 The reliance of U.S. border cities on Mexican buyers and commerce with Mexico in general had been a fact of life for borderlands retailers since the late nineteenth century, even if it became national news only in the 1970s and 1980s. From their beginnings, cities along the U.S.-Mexico border depended on transnational commercial flows for their existence. Even before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which fixed the coordinates of the U.S.-Mexico border, towns along the Rio Grande conducted trade that set precedents for later commercial ventures. During the U.S. Civil War, Confederate states confronted with the Union blockade of cotton exports smuggled their cotton into Mexico; from Mexican ports, it reached markets around the world. Indigenous groups traded humans and animals across the border. With the arrival of U.S. and Mexican railroads, border cities during the late nineteenth century became processing centers for the minerals, animals, and produce that flowed between Mexico and the United States. Borderlands merchants in the American Southwest supplied Mexican troops during the Mexican Revolution. Throughout the twentieth century, general stores from Texas to California sold Mexicans ranch and farm equipment and department stores clothed Mexican shoppers in the latest American fashions. Finally, the creation of free-trade zones along the border in the mid-twentieth century, the establishment of maquiladoras, and the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 led to the explosion of cross-border commerce and reinforced the deep economic ties between cities on both sides of the border.5 Thus, when peso devaluations struck the border region in the late 1970s and early 1980s, national newspapers described the relationship between U.S. and Mexican border cities as one of economic interdependence, even as many Americans cast aspersions on Mexicans and pronounced increasing divisions between the United States and Mexico. Mexico often set the terms of the relationship. Amid growing fears of waning U.S. sovereignty in the border region—the drug trade and undocumented immigration led many to claim that the United States had lost control of the border—an article in the New York Times struck a chord by explaining how the “well-being” of the border region depended more on “decisions and economic forces emanating from a foreign capital,” Mexico City, instead of those from Washington, D.C. Another article about Laredo, Texas, stated that “economic rhythms” on the U.S. side of the border “have been set by events on the other side of the Rio Grande.” Even more plainly, articles in the Washington Post said that “as goes Mexico, so go the American border communities” and that U.S. border cities have “lived off the Mexican nationals.”6

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Recognizing the importance of Mexican shoppers to local borderlands economies, borderlands retailers, service-oriented businesses, and U.S. border city governments from the nineteenth century forward made several concessions in efforts to attract their business. Virtually all borderlands retailers accepted payment in pesos, saving their Mexican customers the inconvenience of having to exchange them for dollars before they shopped. “Thousands of American merchants” along the border even set the exchange rate a little higher than the official rate, which they believed would be an added “inducement” for Mexican customers to shop in their stores. Retailers also extended lines of credit to Mexican consumers who maintained open accounts with them; their clientele from south of the border paid bills when they received their biweekly or monthly wages or, if they were farmers or ranchers, when they harvested and sold their crops or herds. Moreover, borderlands retailers hired Spanish-speaking sales clerks, enrolled their employees in classes that schooled them in Mexican business etiquette, placed advertisements in Mexican newspapers, bought airtime on Mexican radio stations, and rented space on Mexican billboards. Stores such as Popular Dry Goods in El Paso, Texas, or Jácome’s Department Store in Tucson, Arizona, routinely kept Mexicans informed about European and American fashions by stocking Society Brand clothing, Arrow dress shirts, Oleg Cassini suits, and Rolex wristwatches.7 The hotels that hosted Mexican shoppers often were located just across the street from the department stores where they shopped. One hotel in Tucson set up a concierge desk at the city’s ritzy El Con shopping center so Mexican shoppers could check into their rooms at the mall and have their luggage and purchases taken directly from the mall to the hotel. U.S. border cities even made special financial arrangements and infrastructural improvements to lure Mexican shoppers across the border. They had tax holidays, arranged for bus travel from the border to shopping districts, and built electric trolleys such as the one in San Diego County, which, for a little more than a dollar and in less than twenty minutes, ferried shoppers from the Tijuana–San Ysidro border to downtown San Diego.8 All of these efforts proved successful, and many thousands of Mexican shoppers poured into U.S. border cities every day. In Texas, they shopped at the New Yorker and Tienda Amigo in Brownsville, Mike’s Man Shop and Palais de Parfum in McAllen, Casa Alberto and Bianca Fashions in Laredo, Las Reinas and La Casa Blanca in Eagle Pass, Popular Dry Goods and La Primera in El Paso. Farther west, they shopped at Bracker’s and Capin’s in Nogales, Arizona, or Cali-Mex in Calexico, California. Some of these stores catered to “middle- and upper-income Mexicans,” while others catered to a clientele that was made up almost exclusively of maquiladora employees and other members of the Mexican working class. High-end shoppers visited the United States to buy Rolex watches, diamond rings, luxury automobiles, and even vacation homes. Many

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working-class Mexicans saved portions of every paycheck to travel to U.S. border cities during the Easter or Christmas holiday seasons, when they splurged on televisions, radios, and other “fancy electronic goods.” Throughout the year they bought discount clothing, auto parts, and groceries in the United States.9 From the mid-twentieth century forward, Mexican shoppers arrived in U.S. border cities by foot, motor vehicle, or airplane, depending on their class background and the distance they traveled. Many of them shopped alongside working-class Mexican Americans at discount stores in city centers or specialty shops in segregated neighborhoods, but many also shopped in some of the most exclusive stores in the region. Mexican workers who lived just across the border and had jobs in maquiladoras or as domestics, janitors, or waiters in U.S. border cities entered the United States by foot, car, or bus to purchase everyday items. They customarily returned to Mexico by nightfall. Middle-class Mexicans living in border cities or state capitals such as Mexicali, Baja California; Hermosillo, Sonora; Culiacán, Sinaloa; Chihuahua, Chihuahua; or Monterrey, Nuevo León, often stayed a couple of nights and spent hundreds or thousands of dollars in U.S. border cities. Wealthier Mexicans flew in from Mexico City or other population centers, stayed longer, and spent thousands of dollars. Residents of border cities often spent thousands of dollars in the United States, while shoppers from farther afield sometimes spent less. But in general the shoppers with the greatest means traveled farther and stayed longer to spend more. All told, Mexican consumers spent billions of dollars every year in U.S. border cities, making the U.S. borderlands one of the most profitable regions for retail in the United States.10 Borderlands retailers that profited greatly from Mexican shoppers experienced a great shock as a result of the 1976 peso devaluation. The exchange rate dropped from 12 pesos per dollar to 20 pesos per dollar, causing an “instant financial depression” in U.S. border cities. For some retailers, Mexican shoppers had accounted for up to 90 percent of their sales, but that number also dropped steeply. In an effort to keep their Mexican customers, retailers lowered their prices, undercut banks by accepting fewer pesos per dollar than the official exchange rate and cutting bill payments in half, or let payments from Mexican customers slide for a couple of months. Retailers let go of employees, many businesses closed entirely, and the devaluation had ripple effects on other aspects of borderlands economies. The decline in sales to Mexican shoppers led to decreased sales tax income, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, led to “cutbacks in city services, layoffs of government employees, and postponement of new capital spending projects.” Each of these circumstances would repeat only a few years later, but by the end of the 1970s borderlands economies had improved significantly. One reporter writing after the 1982 devaluations even waxed nostalgic about the “boom years of the late 1970s.”11 At first borderlands business owners did not expect to suffer as much from the 1982 devaluations as they had in 1976, believing that the crisis would pass

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quickly. But once retailers realized that the new wave of devaluations would be prolonged they worried themselves sick, turning to antacids and booze in order to feel better. Describing the effects of the devaluations on a less intimate scale, a writer for the Chicago Tribune called the series of three devaluations—in February, August, and December of 1982—a “triple whammy” that “battered” U.S. border cities. The Los Angeles Times compared the devaluations to an “earthquake that won’t stop shaking.” The depth of the economic connections between the United States and Mexico made the impact of the peso devaluations totally devastating.12 Many economic sectors suffered—construction, real estate, service—but some observers argued that the decline of retail had the “most dramatic impact” on U.S. border cities and perhaps the greatest ripple effects. Many Mexicans could no longer afford to shop in the United States, and sales plummeted, stores closed, and unemployment skyrocketed. Before the devaluations, more than half of the goods consumed in many Mexican border cities came from the United States. Tens of millions of people legally crossed the border every year— 30 million between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez alone—and a great number of them were Mexicans who traveled to U.S. border cities to shop. After the devaluations, Mexican consumer spending in U.S. border cities dropped precipitously, from almost $5 billion in 1981 to $450 million by the mid-1980s. Seeing the economies of border counties in shambles and seizing the opportunity to claim federal funds, the governors of U.S. border states sought “disaster relief.”13 Even after the February 1982 devaluation, borderlands retailers were hopeful about the region’s potential for future economic growth. They claimed to have learned from the 1976 devaluation how to protect themselves against Mexico’s economic cycles, and with their discovery of new oil reserves, Mexican officials expected their country to return to stability after a decade of turbulence. National chain stores along the U.S.-Mexico border were more successful than other locations across the country. The J. C. Penney in El Paso had “one of the nation’s highest sales volumes for its size”; the Goodyear Tire store in Brownsville sold “more tires than any of the company’s other retail outlets”; and the “volume of retail sales per square foot” in the city of Laredo was “among the highest in the United States,” higher even than Dallas or New York. These facts had everything to do with Mexican shoppers. As the 1982 devaluations first hit the border region, the cross-border economies of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez were “thriving” and businesses in Arizona were “cashing in” on the Mexican consumers buying clothing, cars, and condominiums.14 Together the three devaluations in 1982 devastated the economies of Mexican and U.S. border cities. The Mexican government imposed strict import and currency controls, which led to a shortage of certain items in Mexico. Mexicans had a harder time procuring bank loans and store credit. Children who attended private schools in the United States transferred to Mexican public schools because

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their parents could no longer pay tuition. Employees at the once-successful J. C. Penney in El Paso greeted only a few dozen customers each day, and many of them were there only to browse. The Goodyear Tires store in Brownsville had to cancel more than $30,000 worth of contracts with Mexican customers. Considering the situation of border merchants next to the Rio Grande or in the middle of the arid Sonoran desert, newspapers appropriately used metaphors of a shrinking stream to describe the impact of the devaluations on the flow of Mexican shoppers. The stream was becoming a “trickle,” stated the New York Times. As it dried up, stores emptied out. After the devaluations, Mexicans who had shopped in the United States almost every day came once every couple of weeks. Some Mexicans stopped crossing the border altogether.15 Simply put, the devaluations meant that Mexicans were unable to afford what they had been able to buy in the past. Their pesos were worth one-sixth of their pre-crash value. Other ways of calculating the impact of the devaluations figured that the purchasing power of Mexican shoppers had been cut by 40 percent by February 1982, after the first devaluation, and by two-thirds by the end of summer, after the second. For years the residents of Mexican border cities had lived in a “dollar economy,” and dollars had become more expensive for them to purchase. Before the devaluations, 1,000 pesos bought a television. Afterward, the same amount bought a T-shirt. The Mexicans who continued to shop in the United States became thriftier. Many women carried calculators with them, the Wall Street Journal explained, so they would know that the “going peso rate” did not “cut into a good bargain.” Describing the worsening prospects of his Mexican clientele, Oscar Torrez, the owner of an El Paso grocery store, said in August 1982, just after the Mexican government announced the second devaluation, “They are twice as poor now, and they are growing poorer by the day.”16 The decreased purchasing power of Mexican shoppers led to plummeting sales and store closings north of the border. By 1983, in all four states along the border—Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California—“Mexican expenditures” fell to half of what they had been in 1979. Some retailers reported much greater losses of between 70 and 80 percent. In El Paso, between October 1982 and April 1983, retail sales fell by $140 million compared with the previous six months, even considering the devaluations in the winter and summer of 1982. Sales in a single “major department store” in the city fell by $16 million in one year. Merchants tried whatever they could to generate sales and cut losses. They slashed prices, reduced purchasing, pressured Mexicans to pay their outstanding bills, used accumulated savings as a buffer to help them weather the crisis, and accepted pesos at rates that were favorable to Mexican shoppers. Some stores shifted their customer service and advertising strategies, catering more to a native “Anglo” clientele. In an effort to lure more English speakers into their stores, they required employees to speak English in addition to Spanish, “lest potential Anglo customers feel slighted.”17

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Nevertheless, dust collected on stocked shelves, forcing many businesses to leave the border region or fold entirely. “Business just stopped flat like running a car into a brick wall,” said the manager of an International Harvester dealership in Brownsville, which sold farm equipment to Mexicans, who accounted for 80 percent of the branch’s business. Estimates of how many businesses closed as a result of the devaluations varied greatly—from hundreds to thousands—but clearly the effects were devastating. El Paso was considered to fare better than most border cities because it was bigger and had a more diversified economy, but a Safeway grocery store there closed, Sheraton Hotel employees kicked out sixty guests and locked the doors behind them, and a new mall that had opened just before the crash was declared “dead.” The businesses that remained open teetered “on the brink of financial disaster,” and many borderlands retailers expected that levels of business would never return to their pre-devaluation levels.18 The demise of retail businesses had cascading effects on almost every area of life on both sides of the border, which demonstrated clearly that the region’s prosperity depended on Mexican consumers. As Joe Alemán, the owner of a Subaru-Volkswagen dealership in McAllen, Texas, put it, “When the retail business suffers such a tremendous economic blow as this area has suffered, the effects are felt all the way down, from unemployment to manufacturing.” Indeed, unemployment rates in the border region soared. In the context of the national recession, unemployment across the country was already high, hovering at around 10 percent. But in the cities of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, which suffered chronically high unemployment, more than a quarter of all people were out of work. In the wake of the devaluations, unemployment rates in many borderlands cities matched those of south Texas. Stores that relied on a steady influx of Mexican pesos let employees go or reduced their hours. Capin’s department store in Nogales, Arizona, reduced the hours that store employees worked by 25 percent. La Bodega supermarket in San Ysidro, California, cut even deeper into Oscar Lizarraga’s hours in the four weeks after the August 1982 devaluation. One week after the devaluation, Lizarraga went from working forty hours to twenty-three hours. The next week he worked twenty hours; the following week, he worked eighteen hours; and in his last week at the store, he worked sixteen hours. At the rate of $5 per hour, he could not meet his basic needs while working so little. With many thousands of others, Lizarraga joined the ranks of unemployed people living in the borderlands.19 Other economic indicators besides the decline of Mexican shoppers and the rise of unemployment demonstrated the depths and ripple effects of the flagging retail sector, including the loss of income generated from sales taxes and increasing requests for public services. Demonstrating the central importance of retail to the overall health of borderlands economies, government officials in border cities understood higher sales tax income as a sign of a generally healthy economy, while lower sales tax income spelled trouble. In the wake of

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the devaluations, the income from sales taxes in many border cities plummeted, decreasing, for example, by 47 percent in Eagle Pass, 45 percent in Laredo, 43 percent in El Paso, and 35 percent in Brownsville. Income from sales taxes was one of the main revenue streams that enabled local governments to provide city services. In times of recession, therefore, police departments, fire departments, schools, and other local agencies were not able to hire as many workers. In addition, because of the national financial decline, federal funding had already been cut for local organizations that fed and cared for people who were poor, elderly, and unemployed. But the impact of the devaluations on borderlands economies meant that supplemental funding from local governments also dried up, limiting the support that such organizations were able to offer just when borderlands residents needed them most. The number of people requesting food stamps, free health care, and care for their aging parents skyrocketed. Social service and welfare agencies were stretched to their limits, leading many borderlands residents to cry out that the federal government was neglecting them and was prioritizing the plight of poor people, many of them minorities, in cities such as Detroit or Philadelphia instead.20 The sharp decline in business from Mexico affected virtually all aspects of borderlands economies. As the Washington Post put it, everyone from “doctors who rely on Mexican customers to private schools whose enrollments include Mexican children have felt the pains of the peso devaluation.” Home prices fell sharply, which hurt real estate. Contracts to build new industrial and residential spaces declined, which depressed construction. Establishments that were critical to local service industries, including restaurants and hotels that catered to Mexican shoppers, had fewer customers.21 Mexico’s financial troubles and the declining ability of Mexicans to conduct business north of the border even received blame for the outbreak of physical violence in the borderlands. Maurice Alexander, the chair of Laredo National Bank, “took a swing” at Emilio “Curly” Jacaman, who filed for bankruptcy and refused to let the bank repossess more than 100 automobiles purchased by Mexican shoppers before the devaluation. On the whole, the residents of border cities that had been pivotal to the growth of the American Southwest after World War II felt devastated. Downtown shopping districts already on the decline because of suburbanization and the rise of shopping and strip malls outside city centers became completely “deserted.” When the borderlands economy bottomed out, one official from Brownsville joked that he was thinking about selling “bottled sunshine” to the “rest of the country.” It was the only commodity he had left to offer.22 Some sectors of borderlands economies capitalized on the crisis, demonstrating both how the peso devaluations set off an uneven chain reaction that hurt some borderlands businesses and benefited others and the creativity of borderlands entrepreneurs in responding to their new economic circumstances.

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While real estate was down in general, a niche market developed for wealthy Mexicans purchasing primary or secondary residences north of the border. In La Jolla, California, for example, Mexicans bought “palatial homes” that had three to seven bedrooms and were adorned with Greek statues, “Roman-style pools,” and art collections worth more than a million dollars. Seeking to protect their money by investing it outside their home country, the buyers formed a new cohort of “Mexican immigrants” that included architects, lawyers, bankers, and politicians from Mexico’s financial centers. In addition to high-end real estate brokers, Mexican merchants, according to Mexican scholar Jorge Bustamante, “won the lottery.” Their sales increased to Mexicans who were no longer able to shop in the United States and to American shoppers and tourists searching for deals in Mexico on everything from groceries and leisure activities to gasoline and arts and crafts. Northern Mexico’s manufacturing industries—particularly maquiladora factories—also benefited from the devaluations. Multinational corporations increased their investments in the region because the cost of doing business there was less than in their home countries. As these export-based industries flourished, Mexico’s historical trade deficit with the United States became a trade surplus, and Mexican border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez experienced economic growth rates of between 5 and 7 percent per year in the 1980s. From 1982 to 1987, Mexico “tripled its sales of manufactured goods” to more than $10 billion per year, creating a “powerful sector” that benefited from a weaker peso.23 Banking and currency exchange operations that offered retailers loans and converted dollars into pesos and vice versa also felt the effects of the 1982 devaluations. On the one hand, the financial sector, like many others, felt the pinch of the devaluations. Many banks had Mexican customers who were unable to pay back their loans as a result of the devaluations. Borderlands retailers also defaulted on their loans and handed over their inventories to banks. A currencyexchange black market run by traders—coyotes, as they were called in Spanish— undercut the official price of pesos offered by banks. The traders purchased them from Mexicans or shopkeepers who were desperate to unload them, then sold them at a profit to tourists and others planning trips to Mexico. Retailers themselves competed with banks to exchange currency, seeing it as the only way to turn a profit when clothes, televisions, and radios remained on their shelves. “We’ve all turned into coyotes,” said the owner of a store in El Paso that sold women’s clothes; “for some of us it’s the only way to make money.” On the other hand, borderlands banks were some of the only institutions to benefit from the peso crisis. Wealthy Mexicans looking for a stable place to invest their money placed it in the American stock market or deposited it in U.S. banks such as Valley National Bank in Arizona or Texas Commerce Bank in Brownsville, which became “significant guardians of Mexican flight capital.” In the four counties along the Texas-Mexico border, Mexicans had deposited $2.3 billion by

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the end of 1982, and $4.4 billion by 1985. With these new deposits some banks offered loans to small businesses that included retailers, while others found it difficult to locate customers who would be safe bets to pay them back. As a result, banks in the borderlands had some of the lowest loan-to-deposit ratios in the country.24 National political leaders more concerned with policing undocumented immigration and the border responded slowly to the economic disaster for borderlands retailers. Beginning in the fall of 1982, after the second devaluation, elected officials held hearings in Washington, D.C., and San Diego, California, to determine what the federal government would do for suffering storeowners. As other congressional committees held hearings about immigration reform, the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives gathered shopkeepers, politicians, bankers, and the regional directors of federal agencies to testify about the disastrous effects of the devaluations on local border economies and commerce between the United States and Mexico. The purpose of the hearings was to propose the reimplementation of Small Business Administration (SBA) loans that had been disbursed after the 1976 devaluation but had been discontinued by the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981, which—in accordance with President Ronald Reagan’s budget priorities—significantly increased military spending and cut funding for nonmilitary domestic programs. Under the program, the SBA had offered loans of up to $100,000 to retailers and other small businesses that “suffered substantial economic injury as a result of economic dislocation, including currency devaluations.” On June 10, 1983, the same committee gathered a similar cast of characters in McAllen, Texas, to consider the effect of the devaluations throughout the Rio Grande Valley. Instead of centering on SBA loans, the hearing in Texas focused on the effects of the devaluations on increasing claims for food stamps, welfare, and social services, which were the combined results of the national recession and the Mexican economic crisis and together held grave consequences for ordinary Mexican and American citizens on both sides of the border. At a similar hearing on August 1, 1983, bankers and politicians from the border region testified before the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee about the “spread” of Mexico’s economic crisis to the United States.25 Almost a year and a half after the first devaluation struck retailers and others in the borderlands, the Reagan administration stepped in to address the problem, although many considered the administration’s proposals to be political theater rather than serious solutions. In August 1983, Reagan toured communities along the Texas-Mexico border, offering them what the Washington Post described as “package of federal assistance.”26 The assistance consisted of an acceleration of public works projects located in the region and “more aid” from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Farmers Home Administration, and the SBA. However, instead of increasing funding to these

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agencies, which would have gone against his budget principles and beliefs in limited government intervention, Reagan only encouraged them to direct a greater percentage of their allocated (and already reduced) budgets to the border region. He also placed Vice President George H. W. Bush at the head of a newly created Southwest Border Action Group, which would “study the border economy” and come up with additional solutions. Local officials—who, granted, were Democrats—saw these measures as grossly insufficient. The Democratic governor of Texas, Mark White, for example, stated that Reagan’s proposals, if enacted, would be like the “emperors of Rome handing out aspirin to the Christians after they’d been mauled by the lions.” Other critics claimed that Reagan’s initiatives brought more “hype than help,” especially to the border communities that needed it most. As part of its aid, the U.S. government gave $4.3 million to Cathedral City, California, an “affluent retirement community” near Palm Springs that was more than a hundred miles from the border. A frustrated Democratic member of Congress from El Paso said, “They didn’t even know where the border was.”27 Still more critics saw Reagan’s initiatives as part of an effort to “woo Hispanic voters”—many of them retailers and businessmen who were deeply affected by the devaluations—in the run-up to his 1984 reelection campaign. While in Texas, he met with the members of several middle-class and business-oriented civil rights organizations, including the American GI Forum, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Council of La Raza, the Hispanic Bishops of the U.S. Catholic Conference, and the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project. These and other Hispanic groups had criticized the president for his policies on bilingual education, jobs, and housing and for his failure to appoint Hispanics to high cabinet posts. His administration thus saw aid to the heavily Hispanic communities along the border as a way of improving his reputation among them. One of his advisors said that aid would be a “triumph of electoral politics,” and a member of Bush’s Southwest Border Action Group said it would be a way to “kill two birds with one stone”: it would subsidize Hispanic businesses and create jobs in a depressed region. In return, officials close to Reagan believed, Hispanics would see that “We’ve helped you guys, now you go vote for us.” However, many Hispanics and other borderlands residents saw Reagan’s efforts as a “quick-fix public relations campaign” that followed a historical pattern of federal disregard for their home region and their communities, except when it came to border enforcement.28 In the three decades after the 1982 crisis, there were several more peaks and valleys for borderlands retailers and U.S.-Mexican economic relations in general, which, this chapter has argued, have depended on shoppers from Mexico. After a brief recovery in 1984, another round of peso devaluations in 1985 slashed the currency’s worth from about 25 pesos per dollar to 410 pesos per dollar by

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early 1986, 860 pesos per dollar later in the year, and 2,500 pesos per dollar in 1987. When these devaluations struck the borderlands, an executive at El Paso’s Popular Dry Goods store, the largest clothing retailer in the city, said, “After we went through the shock of 1982, we didn’t think there was much more to lose,” but “we were kidding ourselves.” Retailers stopped accepting pesos altogether. Sales to Mexican shoppers declined and several more businesses closed. Business owners in U.S. cities realized again “just how linked” their communities were to the “fate of the Mexican peso.” The result of this new wave of devaluations was “runaway inflation,” but from a high of 159 percent in early 1987 it slowed to 52 percent by the end of the year, 20 percent by 1989, and 15 percent by 1990. By the end of the 1980s, trade relations along the border had improved considerably.29 The Harvard-educated president of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who took office in 1988, received much of the credit for “calming” the situation. He lowered inflation, nurtured the growth of northern Mexico’s maquiladora industries, encouraged foreign investment by privatizing state banks that had been nationalized after the 1982 crisis, and further liberalized trade relations between Mexico and the United States, shepherding along the free-trade agreement that became NAFTA in 1994. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mexico experienced a “renaissance,” and the Washington Post claimed that Mexicans had a “new confidence” in their country’s leadership that led Mexican shoppers to flood into U.S. border cities as they had before the crises of the late 1970s and early 1980s. From 1987 to 1988, the amount Mexican consumers spent in U.S. border states leaped from $1.5 billion to more than $2 billion. La Plaza Mall in McAllen again had a parking lot that was “full of license plates from across the border”; retailers in Brownsville were thrilled when Mexican women, “looking for something to wear to a party,” spent thousands of dollars on fur coats; and retail outlets in U.S. border cities once again had some of the “highest sales per square foot” compared with other stores across the country. They attributed their success to the “crowds of Mexican shoppers” that returned to their stores.30 Even though the increasing economic integration of the United States and Mexico had mixed results for people living in the borderlands, the businessminded citizens of both countries preached that it was precisely because of Mexico’s close cooperation with the United States that the country recovered from the crisis of the early 1980s. A Wall Street Journal reporter noted that many Mexicans believed that their country “emerged from its crisis when it began viewing its proximity to the U.S. as a business opportunity, not a threat to its sovereignty,” as the economic protectionists in the country had argued. After Salinas de Gortari proposed a free-trade agreement, one Mexican businessman from Mexico City, who owned a jewelry store and a restaurant called Wall Street (its motto: “taste of success”) said, “The whole world came here to invest.”

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Foreign investors poured more than $12 billion into Mexico, the stock market shot up 100 percent, the economy grew at a rate of 4 percent per year, retail sales grew faster than the population, and American companies opened franchises throughout the country. Explaining his company’s decision to expand into Mexico, one Texas businessman, praising what he called Mexico’s “free enterprise tradition,” said, “My Spanish isn’t that good but we all speak capitalism.”31 Many borderlands retailers were less enthusiastic, fearing what NAFTA might mean for the border region itself. They were uncertain what effects it would have on their businesses and cities. The agreement promised a complete opening of trade relations, job creation, and more competitive retail prices throughout North America. Some of these promises were fulfilled. Stores such as Walmart, Price Club, and Sam’s Club profited greatly; the maquiladora industry thrived; and Mexican corporations like Grupo Bimbo, a baked-goods company, broke into American markets. But many borderlands residents, whose livelihoods were based on trade with Mexico and the successful negotiation of tariff structures, worried that the “free trade era could ruin them.” The border represented the trade barrier that provided the means through which borderlands retailers earned money, leading a reporter for the Washington Post, who captured the fears of many business owners along the border, to wonder, “What happens to a border town when the border seems to be disappearing?”32 As it happened, Mexican consumers continued to shop in U.S. border cities, especially at the big-box stores that became some of the most successful chain stores in the country and in shopping centers from Brownsville to San Diego. But as American retailers expanded their operations in Mexico during the late twentieth century, Mexicans had less reason to shop in the United States. Garment industries in the U.S. borderlands that supplied retailers throughout the United States also suffered as NAFTA enabled U.S. companies such as Levi-Strauss to move a greater percentage of their fabric cutting and needlework to Mexico. Thousands of manufacturing jobs were lost and replaced with lowwage service positions or with nothing at all.33 Then in the mid-1990s, shortly after NAFTA took effect, another round of peso devaluations caused by a rapidly increasing budget deficit, plummeting currency reserves, and the market effects of political instability—including a rebellion in Chiapas and the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio—again led to decreased business from Mexican shoppers. Retailers tried anything to lure them back, including slashing store prices, offering them gift certificates, and paying their pedestrian or vehicle tolls to cross the border. Like the other pulleys and levers that moved U.S. and Mexican economies throughout the twentieth century, NAFTA and the devaluations of the mid-1990s again demonstrated the deep entanglement between Mexico and U.S. border cities.34

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As the border became easier for businesses to cross, it became a greater obstacle for Mexican shoppers, Mexican laborers, and other would-be border crossers. The near-invisibility of the border for transnational corporations made it difficult for many in the United States to see the magnitude of international commerce, despite the many thousands of Mexicans and Americans who crossed the border daily to conduct business on the other side. Instead, the rise of drug smuggling and undocumented immigration became the most visible characteristics of the U.S.-Mexico border region, leading to widespread anti-Mexican sentiment and calls for the construction of hundreds of miles of fencing that disrupted longestablished patterns of life throughout the area. After NAFTA’s implementation, a resident of Laredo recognized the effect this changing dynamic might have on the border city. She asked, “If NAFTA indeed changes the definition of the border—making it less a necessary stopping point for commerce and more just a geographic boundary for criminals and illegal immigrants—will anybody want to stop in Laredo anymore?” All along the international divide, other borderlands residents would ask the same question as they saw their cities becoming increasingly militarized. The signing of NAFTA coincided with the establishment of punitive border controls, including Operation Gatekeeper, Operation Safeguard, and Operation Hold the Line, which cracked down on undocumented immigration in urban areas such as San Diego, El Paso, and Nogales. And voters in California and Arizona passed anti-immigrant propositions that, if they had not been deemed unconstitutional, would have denied undocumented laborers access to education, health care, and other public services. As immigration scholars have demonstrated, these measures interrupted circular migration patterns and pushed undocumented immigrants underground. They refused to return to Mexico fearing that if they did, they would not be able to come back to their jobs and families in the United States.35 Proponents of these tough border and immigration policies encouraged Americans to think of Mexican immigrants as threats and as a net drain on the American economy. They were not asked to consider the other “Mexican migrants” who, as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times described them, could be found not in the “steamy kitchens of restaurants” or “dilapidated workers’ camps” but rather strolling along some of the most “elegant” streets in America, “wearing opulent jewelry and European fashions.” True enough, the plight of exploited Mexican workers deserves serious attention, and the “transplanted millionaires” I have described were not representative of the majority of Mexican shoppers. Yet their absence from public debates about immigration reveals how we as a nation first and foremost consider the costs associated with Mexican border crossers instead of their benefits. A sharp focus on undocumented immigration and ignorance of how the declining purchasing power of Mexican consumers devastated borderlands economies demonstrated that this was true in the 1970s and 1980s. It remains true today.36

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Notes 1. Stuart Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns,” Washington Post, August 2,

1983, D7. 2. Louise Walker, Waking from the Dream: Mexico’s Middle Classes after 1968 (Redwood City,

Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2013); Claudio Lomnitz, “Times of Crisis: Historicity, Sacrifice, and the Spectacle of Debacle in Mexico City,” Public Culture 15, no. 1 (2003): 139. 3. Laura Isabel Serna, “Cinema on the U.S.-Mexico Border: American Motion Pictures and Mexican Audiences, 1896–1930,” in Land of Necessity: Consumer Culture in the United StatesMexico Borderlands, ed. Alexis McCrossen (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2009), 157; David Lorey, The U.S.-Mexican Border in the Twentieth Century: A History of Economic and Social Transformation (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources Books, 1999), 102–103; John Crewdson, “Fall of Peso Sends Shock Wave along Texas Border,” Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1982, 6; “U.S. Lures Mexican Shoppers,” New York Times, November 17, 1984, 31; Walker, Waking from the Dream. 4. Leo Chavez, The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (Redwood City, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008), 2; Timothy Dunn, The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978–1992 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Douglas Massey, Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003). 5. Omar Valerio-Jiménez, River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2013), chapter 3; Casey Walsh, Building the Borderlands: A Transnational History of Irrigated Cotton along the Mexico-Texas Border (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008), chapter 2; Rachel St. John, Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), chapters 2 and 3; Geraldo Cadava, Standing on Common Ground: The Making of a Sunbelt Borderland (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013), chapter 3. 6. Robert Reinhold, “Pinning Hopes on the Peso,” New York Times, July 14, 1985, E3; Thomas C. Hayes, “Laredo, Tex., Braces for Free Trade,” New York Times, August 17, 1992, D1; Sue Anne Pressley, “For Some, Peso Crisis Takes Personal Turn,” Washington Post, February 5, 1995, A32; Dan Balz, “El Paso Doldrums Border on Peso Misery,” Washington Post, March 20, 1983, A4; Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns.” 7. Cadava, Standing on Common Ground, chapter 3; Jácome’s advertisement, El Imparcial, February 21, 1958; advertisement for Jácome’s, El Imparcial, February 25, 1958, 7; advertisement for J. Herbert Hall Jewelers, El Imparcial, March 18, 1980, 8. 8. Reinhold, “Pinning Hopes on the Peso”; Lydia Chavez, “Mexico Curbs: Border Suffers,” New York Times, September 25, 1982, 39; Cadava, Standing on Common Ground, 112; William E. Schmidt, “Southwest Is Cashing In on the Pesos from Wealthy Visitors from Mexico,” New York Times, February 10, 1982, A14; “U.S. Lures Mexican Shoppers.” 9. Reinhold, “Pinning Hopes on the Peso”; Graham Gori, “Latest Data Dampens Mexico’s Hopes,” New York Times, April 12, 2002, W1; Wayne King, “Peso’s Turmoil Shakes Economies of Cities on Mexican-U.S. Border,” New York Times, August 22, 1982, 1; Nicholas C. Chriss, “A Border Town Tycoon Sinks with Peso,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1977, G1; Stuart Auerbach, “Along the Border with Mexico, People and Goods Move Freely,” Washington Post, May 13, 1990, H2; Laura Keeton, “Border Stores Feel Downdraft of Peso’s Fall,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 1995, B1. 10. King, “Peso’s Turmoil Shakes Economies of Cities on Mexican-U.S. Border.” 11. “Exchange Rate Deals Blow to Calexico,” Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1976, B1; Earl C. Gottschalk Jr., “Shopkeepers North of the Border Suffer from Devaluations of Money in

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Mexico,” Wall Street Journal, December 14, 1976; Louis Sahagun, “U.S. Firms Dependent on Mexican Customers Are Suffering,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1983, 1, 6–7. 12. Alvin Nagelberg, “Texas Is Pained by ‘Triple Whammy,’” Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1983, F1; Gottschalk, “Shopkeepers North of the Border Suffer from Devaluations of Money in Mexico,” 46. 13. Nagelberg, “Texas Is Pained by ‘Triple Whammy’”; Sahagun, “U.S. Firms Dependent on Mexican Customers Are Suffering”; Hoffman and Balz, “President Plans Aid Package for Mexican Border,” Washington Post, August 13, 1983, A1; Chavez, “Mexico Curbs: Border Suffers”; Wayne King, “In El Paso, Hope Floats with Peso,” New York Times, March 21, 1983, A12; Matt Moffett and Steve Frazier, “A World Apart, Area along Border of Mexico, U.S. Has a Culture All Its Own,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1985, 1; King, “Peso’s Turmoil Shakes Economies of Cities on Mexican-U.S. Border.” 14. “Two Border Towns Feel Devaluing of Mexican Peso,” New York Times, February 28, 1982; Balz, “El Paso Doldrums Border on Peso Misery”; Crewdson, “Fall of Peso Sends Shock Wave along Texas Border”; James Bock, “In Marriage of Convenience, Mexico Is Needy Spouse,” Baltimore Sun, August 4, 1987, 1A; Reinhold, “Pinning Hopes on the Peso”; AP, “Thriving Economies Link El Paso, Juarez,” Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1981, B1; Schmidt, “Southwest Is Cashing In on the Pesos from Wealthy Visitors from Mexico.” 15. Chavez, “Mexico Curbs: Border Suffers”; “Two Border Towns Feel Devaluing of Mexican Peso”; Balz, “El Paso Doldrums Border on Peso Misery”; Crewdson, “Fall of Peso Sends Shock Wave along Texas Border”; King, “In El Paso, Hope Floats with Peso”; Joel Williams, “Mexicans Shopping in Texas Add to Profits of Border Malls,” Washington Post, January 7, 1990, H3; Sahagun, “U.S. Firms Dependent on Mexican Customers Are Suffering.” 16. Williams, “Mexicans Shopping in Texas Add to Profits of Border Malls”; “Two Border Towns Feel Devaluing of Mexican Peso”; King, “Peso’s Turmoil Shakes Economies of Cities on Mexican-U.S. Border”; Chavez, “Mexico Curbs: Border Suffers”; Reinhold, “Pinning Hopes on the Peso”; Brenton R. Schlender, “Peso Market Springs to Life Along Border,” Wall Street Journal, October 12, 1982, 33; Crewdson, “Fall of Peso Sends Shock Wave along Texas Border.” 17. Williams, “Mexicans Shopping in Texas Add to Profits of Border Malls”; Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns”; Sahagun, “U.S. Firms Dependent on Mexican Customers Are Suffering.” 18. Sahagun, “U.S. Firms Dependent on Mexican Customers Are Suffering”; Williams, “Mexicans Shopping in Texas Add to Profits of Border Malls”; Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns”; Statement of Hon. Solomon Ortiz, United States-Mexico Border Issues and the Peso Devaluation, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation of the Committee On Ways and Means, House of Representatives, Ninety-Eighth Congress, First Session, June 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1984), 66; Calvin P. Blair, “Border Towns: A Thin Economic Fabric,” Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1982, C5; Hoffman and Balz, “President Plans Aid Package for Mexican Border”; Balz, “El Paso Doldrums Border on Peso Misery”; King, “In El Paso, Hope Floats with Peso”; Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns.” Later estimates revised these numbers downward. See Reinhold, “Pinning Hopes on the Peso”; or Moffett and Frazier, “A World Apart, Area along Border of Mexico, U.S. Has a Culture All Its Own.” 19. Joe Alemán quoted in United States-Mexico Border Issues and the Peso Devaluation, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation, 57; Bock, “In Marriage of Convenience, Mexico Is Needy Spouse”; Sue Ann Pressley, “Streets of Laredo Bustling—for Now,” Washington Post, June 13, 1994, A1, A13; “Two Border Towns Feel Devaluing of Mexican Peso”; Anthony Ramirez, “Peso Problems Ripple Out to Families, Business,” Los Angeles Times, September 12, 1982, A1.

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20. Hoffman and Balz, “President Plans Aid Package for Mexican Border”; Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns”; “Two Border Towns Feel Devaluing of Mexican Peso”; Balz, “El Paso Doldrums Border on Peso Misery.” 21. Hoffman and Balz, “President Plans Aid Package for Mexican Border.” 22. Ibid.; Balz, “El Paso Doldrums Border on Peso Misery”; King, “In El Paso, Hope Floats with Peso”; Sahagun, “U.S. Firms Dependent on Mexican Customers Are Suffering”; Crewdson, “Fall of Peso Sends Shock Wave along Texas Border”; Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns.” On the decline of downtowns across the United States, see Alison Isenberg, Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 23. Lawrence A. Herzog, “Mexico’s Transplanted Millionaires,” Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1988, E5; Chavez, “Mexico Curbs: Border Suffers”; “U.S. Lures Mexican Shoppers”; Thomas W. Lippman and Martha Mueller, “Border Business Plays Shaky Mexican Peso Game,” Washington Post, January 3, 1982, D1; Bock, “In Marriage of Convenience, Mexico Is Needy Spouse”; Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns”; William A. Orme Jr., “Peso’s Fall Continues; Mexican Stocks Strengthen,” Washington Post, November 20, 1987. 24. Sahagun, “U.S. Firms Dependent on Mexican Customers Are Suffering”; Blair, “Border Towns: A Thin Economic Fabric”; “Two Border Towns Feel Devaluing of Mexican Peso”; Schlender, “Peso Market Springs to Life along Border”; Herzog, “Mexico’s Transplanted Millionaires”; Thomas C. Hayes, “Texas Border Banks Thrive,” New York Times, November 29, 1986, 37. 25. Parren J. Mitchell, chair of the Subcommittee on SBA and SBIC Authority, Minority Enterprise and General Small Business Problems, quoted in Effect on Small Businesses of the Mexican Peso Devaluations and Associated Exchange and Banking Restrictions, Hearings before the Subcommittee on SBA and SBIC Authority, Minority Enterprise and General Small Business Problems of the Committee on Small Business, House of Representatives, Ninety-Seventh Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C., September 29, and San Diego, Calif., November 8, 1982 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1983): 2; United States-Mexico Border Issues and the Peso Devaluation, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation; Stuart Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns,” Washington Post, August 2, 1983, D7. 26. Auerbach, “Peso Crisis Plagues Texas Border Towns.” 27. Hoffman and Balz, “President Plans Aid Package for Mexican Border”; King, “Peso’s Turmoil Shakes Economies of Cities on Mexican-U.S. Border”; Moffett and Frazier, “A World Apart, Area along Border of Mexico, U.S. Has a Culture All Its Own”; Francis X. Clines, “Reagan Offers Plan for Help on Border and Draws Rebuke,” New York Times, August 14, 1983, 1. 28. Hoffman and Balz, “President Plans Aid Package for Mexican Border”; Sahagun, “U.S. Firms Dependent on Mexican Customers Are Suffering”; Clines, “Reagan Offers Plan for Help on Border and Draws Rebuke”; David Montejano, ed., Chicano Politics and Society in the Late Twentieth Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998). 29. J. Michael Kennedy, “Steep Decline of Peso Felt on Both Sides,” Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1986, A7; Patrick McDonnell, “Life in San Ysidro: As Peso Declines, So Does Business,” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 1987, A1; Williams, “Mexicans Shopping in Texas Add to Profits of Border Malls.” 30. Matt Moffett, “‘Los Yuppies’: A 1980s-Style Boom Is Just Now Reaching an Awakening Mexico,” Wall Street Journal, December 18, 1991, A1; Joel Williams, “Mexico’s Economic Recovery Saves U.S. Border Stores,” Chicago Tribune, December 25, 1989, C3; Williams, “Mexicans Shopping in Texas Add to Profits of Border Malls.”

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31. Moffett, “‘Los Yuppies’: A 1980s-Style Boom Is Just Now Reaching an Awakening Mexico.” 32. Hayes, “Laredo, Tex., Braces for Free Trade”; Pressley, “Streets of Laredo Bustling—for

Now.” 33. Alexis McCrossen, “Disrupting Boundaries: Consumer Capitalism and Culture in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1940–2008,” in Land of Necessity: Consumer Culture in the United States-Mexico Borderlands, ed. Alexis McCrossen (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2009), 57–58; and Gary Gereffi, ed., Free Trade and Uneven Development: The North American Apparel Industry after NAFTA (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002). 34. Pressley, “Streets of Laredo Bustling—for Now”; Hayes, “Laredo, Tex., Braces for Free Trade”; “Border Cities Will Feel Biggest Impact,” Wall Street Journal, November 19, 1993, A7; Pressley, “For Some, Peso Crisis Takes Personal Turn”; Laura Keeton, “Border Stores Feel Downdraft of Peso’s Fall”; David Spener, “The Unraveling Seam: NAFTA and the Decline of the Apparel Industry in El Paso, Texas,” in Free Trade and Uneven Development: The North American Apparel Industry after NAFTA, ed. Gary Gereffi (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002), 139–160. 35. Pressley, “Streets of Laredo Bustling—for Now”; Massey, Durand, and Malone, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors. 36. Herzog, “Mexico’s Transplanted Millionaires.”

4 • SOUTHERN RETAIL C A MPAIGNS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR BL ACK ECONOMIC FREEDOM IN THE 1950s AND 1960s T R A C I PA R K E R

By the 1950s and 1960s, when African Americans organized widely publicized sit-ins and picket lines to force the desegregation of public accommodations in the American South, they had ostensibly abandoned the labor-oriented initiatives of the 1940s and focused on democratizing consumption. From Washington to Charlotte to Nashville, blacks had grown weary of working in and visiting downtown districts but having to travel several miles to eat or use restrooms in safe and acceptable places. They had begun to demand change.1 African American consumer protests focused on winning equal access to and respectful treatment in public accommodations and markets.2 But they had other goals. What began as demonstrations aimed at restructuring the physical space of the public sphere often grew into organized endeavors to dismantle the formidable barriers to black economic emancipation. These endeavors maintained a broad understanding of the black community’s shared interests and involved challenging segregation and discrimination in the marketplace on behalf of both black customers and black workers. Some southern movements, such as the Washington, D.C., department store campaign, pushed for fair employment after black customers had broken the racial barriers to their full participation in targeted sites of consumption. Others, like the Charlotte sit-in movement in 1960, secretly negotiated the hiring of African Americans in whitecollar and skilled jobs while the community was in the throes of lunch counter demonstrations.

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Because southern retail campaigns addressed both racial and economic oppression, they raise questions about whether scholars may have been too quick to conclude that the labor-oriented civil rights movement was, as historians Robert Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein have claimed, “lost” in the Cold War era. The labor-oriented movement began in the early 1940s, as blacks became more urban and proletarian and were encouraged to unionize by New Deal labor policies; a high-wage, high-employment economy; and a more radical white union movement.3 It confronted “both the public and the private, the stigmatic and the material harms of Jim Crow” in the North and South but collapsed in the 1950s with the rise of anticommunist and antilabor sentiments.4 African Americans then diverted their attention and energies to ending public discrimination and segregation and the psychological stigma of stateenforced racial classifications. “The black challenge of the 1950s and 1960s,” Korstad concludes, “came to be understood as a single-issue attack on Jim Crow and not as a more broad-based critique of racial capitalism.”5 This course “left the material, private-labor-market side of Jim Crow not only unredressed but also unaddressed,” Risa Goluboff argues.6 Not all scholars, however, share this perspective. Recently some have rediscovered the economic dimensions of the civil rights movement. Sophia Lee spotlights the activities of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s labor secretary Herbert Hill in order to demonstrate that the organization did not abandon black economic rights and working-class issues in the Cold War era. Nancy MacLean argues that after the Montgomery bus boycott, blacks mobilized to open the labor market. “Their efforts,” she observes, “fractured business unity, made the labor movement more accountable to its minority members, and ultimately, in 1964, succeeded in getting the federal government to provide black workers with a powerful tool with which to open an entry into the economic mainstream: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.”7 A close examination of the D.C. and Charlotte retail campaigns provides some perspective on the economic power and goals of the civil rights movement. The D.C. and Charlotte campaigns were the progeny of the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” movements of the 1930s, antidiscrimination programs steered by retail unions in the 1940s, and merit hiring initiatives in the post–World War II era.8 Given this lineage, it is no wonder that southern consumer actions promoted both equal employment and consumption in downtown retail establishments such as department stores, drugstores, and five-and-dimes. Retail stores—most notably department stores—were arbitrators of middle-class life and aspiration, instruments of social mobility and maintenance, and architects of a new conception of American democracy in the twentieth century. They welcomed all visitors to enter and browse. They presented customers with an astounding array of merchandise and lavish services that enticed them to buy much more than the bare essentials

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and indoctrinated them with the belief that an urban bourgeois lifestyle—a paradigm of economic freedom—could be realized and celebrated through shopping.9 Also, unlike other public accommodations and workplaces of this era that were branded ‘whites only,’ stores generally received blacks under the principle of free entry and browsing, then constrained their movement and participation in this space. African Americans were hired as maintenance and stockroom workers, elevator operators, porters, and maids but were barred from whitecollar staff positions in sales, clerical, and managerial work. Black customers were welcome to spend their money on material goods in many stores but were frequently ignored and underserved. They were refused service at eateries and beauty shops, prohibited from trying on and returning clothes, and denied credit. Some stores forbade black patronage entirely or on a whim, while others confined black shoppers to bargain basements. Razing these barriers, African Americans hoped, would bestow democracy, equality, status, prestige, and, above all, middle-class citizenship. Sales work offered liberation from low-skill, low-wage work and the potential of financial security, professional advancement, and greater independence and fulfillment. Being served and buying on equal terms with white consumers afforded blacks with an escape from their woes and promised happiness, comfort, prosperity, upward mobility, social superiority, and attractiveness and sexual appeal, if only for a few moments. Conditions were ripe in the postwar era for realizing these hopes. The decades after World War II—a period of steady economic expansion and the veneration of consumption as the “essence of American freedom”—marked a fundamental transformation in African Americans’ relation to the economy and consumer society.10 First, a demand for black labor in urban industries and the mechanization of farms released African Americans from agricultural work and encouraged a significant increase in black urbanization. Millions settled in cities in the North and West, as hordes of whites relocated to rapidly expanding suburban areas. Black populations grew significantly in southern cities, too, when war industries and later textile and other light industries relocated to the South. Second, in their new environments, African Americans took advantage of expanding educational opportunities, significant postwar growth in industrial and white-collar employment, and the relaxation of racial employment barriers. Third, due to these advances, African Americans’ purchasing power swelled from $8–9 billion in 1947 to $30 billion in 1969, while new media by and for blacks shaped an unprecedented consumer consciousness.11 Ebony magazine, in particular, “offered a grammar for postmigration black existence” and “sold the race new identities, a process that encouraged imagination of a black national community, and made new notions of collective interest—and politics—plausible.”12

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Now more urban, waged, and skilled, African Americans leveraged their power as both workers and consumers, building worker-consumer alliances, to challenge racialized patterns of labor, consumption, and urban landscapes. They  recognized that because of the postwar assault on labor, consumption was  the most promising avenue for realizing economic freedom. Further, the power of labor could be resuscitated when leveraged in tandem with black purchasing power. Worker-consumer alliances were grounded in linked fate. Linked fate, political scientist Michael Dawson argues, supposes that the “historical experiences of African Americans have resulted in a situation in which group interests have served as a useful proxy for self-interest.”13 In other words, because race has been a decisive factor in determining the life chances of African Americans, racial interests typically override economic polarizations. Linked fate fostered an acute sense of loyalty and an awareness that the race’s economic enfranchisement was intimately tied to that of its members and vice versa and thus stimulated individual and collective political action. In the 1950s and 1960s, this meant that because all blacks regardless of their own or their family’s social and economic status were treated as second-class citizens in the marketplace, most, if not all, African Americans were invested in dismantling Jim Crow and improving their and the group’s socioeconomic position. The integration of sales work, however, was a bit more complicated. While it most immediately benefited the more urbane and educated black middle class, virtually all blacks, regardless of class, trusted that opening white-collar work would benefit everyone involved. Middle-class blacks hoped to secure this skilled work to affirm their class position, while those of the working class believed that they would acquire the jobs abandoned by the middle class and, one day soon, move into white-collar employment and acquire middle-class status. And nearly all blacks expected that placing African Americans in sales would improve the experiences of black customers and vice versa. Worker-consumer alliances thus facilitated the emergence of a modern black middle class. Modern here refers to class identity produced by consumer capitalism, rather than industrial capitalism. Most accounts attribute the appearance of a sizeable black middle class to broad occupational shifts as black workers moved out of agriculture and service into industry in the 1940s and into whitecollar employment from the 1950s to the 1970s.14 However, where and what African Americans purchased was also fundamental to claiming, expressing, and being treated—or rather served—as members of this privileged stratum. That is, only when permitted to work, shop, and eat freely in the consumer sphere could African Americans lay full claim to middle-class citizenship. They were then expected to express their status through respectable behaviors and manners, and receive and affirm that status through their consumption of goods and services.15 All of this could be achieved in the world of retail.

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The Washington, D.C., Department Store Campaign On February 19, 1951, Hecht Company, a typical southern department store, despite its location on the periphery of the solidly Jim Crow South, sponsored a full-page advertisement in support of World Brotherhood Week. The advertisement featured a picture of black and white hands clasping in friendship and a message calling for “building bridges of brotherhoods.”16 The notice caught the attention of Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws (CCEAD), a multiracial civil rights advocacy group led by Mary Church Terrell and Annie Stein.17 The CCEAD was struck by the discrepancy between the store’s policy of segregated lunch counters and the brotherhood advertisement and hoped that the company “might be ready to change.”18 Unfortunately, this was not the case. After a series of fruitless conversations with store officials, the committee, with the support of over 100 civic, labor, and church groups, commenced “an active boycott campaign with stickers on bill stubs and pledge cards as the major technique.”19 Still the company refused to change its policy. By the summer of 1951, it was evident that the boycott was not having the desired effect and the CCEAD began to pursue a more aggressive strategy. In June, the committee sent volunteers to sit in at the lunch counter at the store’s downtown location at 7th and F Streets, N.W.20 In a letter to a Hecht’s boycott supporter, Stein wrote that the sit-in was organized “like a picket line, with twohour shifts. We had between 15 and 20 people sitting down at a time all through the day on Saturday. The manager would come over and say, ‘We don’t serve colored here’ and we’d say, ‘That’s all right, we’ll wait.’ He didn’t take a chance on throwing us out, because after all it really is the law now that they may not discriminate. Now the store is closed on Saturdays and we are continuing the sitdowns on Fridays.” On one occasion famed African American singer and dancer Josephine Baker joined sit-in demonstrators and tried to get served at the lunch counter. Even then, Hecht’s refused to integrate.21 On July 20, the boycott was reinforced with picket lines that marched in front of Hecht’s three times a week, calling customers’ attention to the store’s segregation policy.22 Picketers were required to obey a dress code designed by Stein, who reasoned that since the antidiscrimination laws required service to “any respectable, well-behaved person” (qualifiers for a “legitimate” consumer), picketers had to dress and act as such. In other words, African American protesters were expected to consume and display material goods and behaviors that reflected middle-class black respectability as evidence that blacks were deserving of full citizenship. Under this condition, the picket line became a site of identity formation. Marvin Caplan, a CCEAD member, recalled that on his first day on the picket

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Figure 4.1. Leaflet: “Fair Minded Americans Stay Out of Hecht’s.” (Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws Records, 1949– 1954, The Historical Society of Washington, D.C.)

line, even in the sweltering heat of August, demonstrators looked to be “dressed for church or some other formal occasion. They wore ties and jackets. A couple of them wore felt hats. The half-dozen women on the line, both black and white, were even more fashionably dressed. . . . All of them wore pretty summer dresses and summer hats.”23 However, not all were able to observe the dress code. In a

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letter to Stein, Alice Trigg, chair of the boycott, wrote that on one picket line a woman had “a dress on up to her knees and she was no small or good looking person at best, with a slip hanging about three inches all around, and the way she was rocking on those heels I wondered when she would sprawl.” Before Trigg had an opportunity to speak with the woman about her inappropriate attire, a fellow protester stopped her. The protester surmised that the woman likely was wearing her “working attire,” as “lots [of demonstrators] came from work . . . [and because] white people were always giving [blacks] that inferior feeling and [they] would be playing right into their hands” if they asked the woman to leave the picket line because of her attire.24 Although this working-class woman was not reprimanded for her dress, others like her probably were instructed on the finer points of middle-class consumption and behavior via observation or direct conversation with a CCEAD leader or member. In Washington, D.C., scholar Beverly Jones argues, “picketing became not only an effective device for forcing Hecht’s to negotiate but also an instrument of education.”25 Not only were protesters coached on being middle class, they also informed black and white passersby about the injustices perpetuated against the store’s “respectable, well-behaved” customers and persuaded them to join the boycott. One woman vowed not to buy much-needed curtains for her new apartment until Hecht’s submitted. She stated, “I can’t afford to pay cash for curtains. But Hecht’s is the only place where I have a charge account. But I’ll be darned if I’m going to let Hecht’s get away with making Negroes go hungry.”26 Another protester who sat in at Hecht’s lunch counter recalled the following story: A high-ranking officer sat down next to me. The clerk offered to serve him, but the officer stated that “this other man was here before me, serve him, I am in no hurry.” The waitress replied, “He can not be served because he is colored.” The officer ordered a coke. When it was brought, he ordered another and another, until there were six cokes in front of me. The waitress called the manager, who could do nothing about the cokes that had been already served to me. But he did order the waitress not take another order from the white officer.27

On the whole, the picketers received enormous public support. A 1951 progress report of the boycott from the CCEAD said, “Nearly 90% of the colored trade is kept out of our line, and about 5% of the whites came up to our pickets to pledge their support.”28 The committee received both words of support and money from individuals and businesses, including North Carolina Mutual Insurance of Durham, the Liberian ambassador to United States, and the American Psychological Association. However, not all African Americans backed the boycott. Some continued to shop at Hecht’s, including some Howard University students who visited the store on the days when the CCEAD was not picketing.29

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To fight the picket, Hecht’s held “fabulous sales” on days when demonstrators were present. But sales did little to quell the conflict or lessen the store’s financial loss. By the end of the summer, hoping to broker a compromise and end the boycott, Hecht’s offered African American patrons service and two stools at the sherbet counter.30 When protesters rejected this offer, the lunch counter manager proposed that they order their food at the lunch counter and sit at the sherbet counter. Viewing this as “ridiculous” and a different manifestation of Jim Crow, the CCEAD continued its campaign. In December 1951, just before a major Christmas protest, Stein addressed Coordinating Committee members at the organization’s meeting hall.31 She opined that Hecht’s was losing an enormous amount of business and predicted that the store would capitulate to their demands by early 1952.32 Just as Stein predicted, on January 14, 1952, almost one year after the first meeting between CCEAD and Hecht’s and a nearly $6 million loss to the store, Hecht’s quietly integrated its lunch counter.33 The store could not afford to suffer any additional financial loss or lose African American customers, especially since D.C.’s black population had increased by nearly 50 percent between 1940 and 1950 and was fast becoming the city’s racial majority.34 The store made no formal announcement. By some accounts, even when questioned about the integration of its lunch counter, some officials insisted that the store had never discriminated against its black customers, while others refused to admit that Hecht’s had changed its policy. But word of Hecht’s new policy was eventually leaked by some of the store’s black employees. Caplan recalled, “One Saturday, in about the middle of the month, a black porter came out to sweep the pavement while the line was in progress and softly and casually mentioned to a couple of the pickets that they didn’t need to picket anymore. The store, he said, had changed its policy.” Three days later, an African American woman was able to buy a sandwich and a cup of coffee from a white waitress without being ignored or rebuffed. And not long after that, Terrell, Stein, and three black women reporters from the Afro-American, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Associated Negro Press enjoyed lunch at the counter. 35 The disclosure of Hecht’s policy change by an African American porter hints at the importance of the worker-consumer dynamic in this boycott. In this protest, among others, many black employees supported efforts to integrate stores’ dining facilities. In their time away from work, they attended committee meetings, donated money, helped create flyers, and spread the CCEAD’s message about Hecht’s and its discriminatory policy. Others acted as secret agents. While on the clock, they obeyed the rules of respectability (regarding dress and conduct) set by the committee and listened for any information about store management’s plans to undermine the demonstration and later reported their findings to committee leaders. Black employees, especially those who were waitresses at Hecht’s lunch counter, occupied a particularly difficult position. While they supported the

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desegregation movement, they were forced to ignore protesters, many of whom were their families and friends, in order to keep their jobs and support their children. Unionized waiters and waitresses were instructed by their unions to cooperate with the committee and did so to whatever extent restaurant policies allowed them. But records suggest that few, if any, of Hecht’s waitresses were union members. Committee members wondered how a black waitress could have “enough nerve to refuse a colored patron” but expressed some sympathy about the fact that these women had to consider their jobs and families.36 Management told all African American employees that “they did not realize what this is all about and they should keep quiet.” It threatened “that all persons seen talking with the ‘strikers’ would be dismissed.”37 This “no talking” policy infuriated many black employees, especially waitresses who stood on the front lines (although on the other side of the counter) of the boycott. Three waitresses were fired after speaking to sit-in demonstrators, while another waitress was reassigned to a behind-the-scenes position after “allegedly” talking with committee volunteers. One African American waitress was so outraged by the treatment accorded to blacks that she refused to serve all people of color as long as her own people were ignored. On July 13, 1951, while a group of CCEAD members was seated at the lunch counter and being ignored, a woman from India approached the counter. The waitress declined to serve the Indian woman, “stating that if she is to be forbidden to serve colored Americans simply because of their color, she would not serve other persons of color.” In her stead, the lunch counter manager waited on the woman and, upon the completion of her meal, personally escorted her out of the store to prevent the group of CCEAD members from explaining the situation to her.38 Once free to eat at Hecht’s lunch counter, activists focused their energies on broadening African Americans’ economic opportunities in downtown department stores. In 1958, the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, a group of black church leaders in Washington, D.C., organized a one-day consumer boycott—a “Day of Prayer for Merit Hiring and Abstinence from Shopping”—to force the city’s major department stores to hire African American salesclerks and adopt merit hiring practices. Nearly one in two residents were African American and yet they comprised only a negligible portion of the city’s sales force. The Reverend E. Franklin Jackson, the committee chair, observed that “two or three sales girls” in five-and-dime stores formed the entire black sales force in downtown D.C.39 The one-day boycott, which corresponded with the committee’s ongoing “We Believe in Merit Hiring” sticker campaign, was unlike any other.40 With the support of nearly 200 black ministers and their congregants, the committee asked the city’s black population to observe March 27 as a day of prayer and to abstain from shopping on that day. The committee did not aspire to generate much fanfare, nor did it seek to “start a stampede away from the downtown shopping

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areas.” Rather, it hoped that the one-day action would serve as a “gentle, but firm nudge to the big shop-owners” and communicate that “if Negroes are not good enough to work behind the counter, they are not good enough to stand on the other side, either, as customers.”41 In the days before the boycott, the city’s white business and civic leaders were afraid that the protest would create “considerable misunderstanding and division within the community.”42 Hoping to assuage these fears, District Commissioner Robert E. McLaughlin met separately with department store executives and the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity to prevent the boycott. He proposed that the issue be delegated to the Commissioner’s Council on Human Relations. This group in turn proposed that it advise the district commissioners on race relations and quietly work toward integrating department store sales force.43 The committee rejected this proposal and on March 27, led by Jackson, black Washingtonians participated in the “Day of Prayer for Merit Hiring and Abstinence from Shopping.” In this stay-away campaign, protesters refrained from shopping in the district’s five major department stores and, in place of picketing and other forms of demonstration, attended services at the city’s black churches at noon and 8 p.m. to pray for success. African Americans stayed out of Hecht’s, Woodward & Lothrop, S. Kann Sons & Co., Lansburgh’s, and Julius Garfinckel & Company. The exact number of participants is unknown. However, observations from boycott organizers and store officials and employees indicate that the campaign “cut significantly into stores’ usual business.” Black customers were conspicuously absent from the selling floor, and the day’s sales reflected as much. Jackson estimated that the boycott kept approximately 90 percent of the usual black shoppers from stores.44 One organizer observed that at Hecht Company, a store “usually pretty crowded with Negroes,” only seven black customers wandered the aisles. Similarly, a white female model at Hecht’s noted that during her sixhour shift, she saw no “more than one in 50” African Americans. At Woodward & Lothrop, one store official stated: “There have been some Negro customers in here so far. But I saw many more shopping the first few days of the week.”45 Unfortunately, the shopping ban did not achieve the desired effect. While the committee chair expressed optimism that stores would soon be hiring African American clerks in the days following the ban, store officials resisted the adoption of merit hiring.46 Most officials were irritated by the ban and used it as another excuse for not hiring African American salesclerks, while others minimized the economic loss of the one-day boycott. Once again blaming blacks for their absence on the selling floor (the typical excuse being that no qualified African American sales workers existed), one official commented: “We were gradually getting ready to hire Negroes as sales help. We already employ them in office work and just about every other capacity. There was no bitterness at all up until now, but with this thing dragged out into the open, I just don’t know

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how long it’ll be before we hire them as clerks.” The president of another store explained: “I won’t say when we would have hired them but if we were going to do it in April, we sure wouldn’t do it now. This thing stirs up our customers and our own sales help and we would be losing face if we put Negroes in sales jobs any time soon.”47 The 1958 movement adopted the boycott strategy of “gently” pushing store officials to integrate its sales force. Unlike the CCEAD’s campaign, this movement did not utilize black store workers, build an interracial coalition, or aggressively attack discriminating department stores on multiple fronts over a prolonged period of time. Organizers of the stay-away demonstration hoped to leverage the power of the Negro market. And because the campaign lasted only twenty-four hours, it failed to significantly weaken store profits or convince officials that white consumers would patronize integrated establishments. True to their word, department store executives did little more than hire a few token African American sales workers until the protracted boycotts of the 1960s. Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), these boycotts threatened to do much more damage than a one-day shopping ban. In December 1961, three years after learning that Lansburgh’s downtown store on 7th and E Streets, N.W., employed only twenty-seven black sales and clerical workers out of a total workforce of 1,000, CORE launched a picket line. A few months later, in February 1962, CORE and Lansburgh reached an agreement on the store’s merit hiring policy and picketing ceased.48 The same year that CORE targeted Lansburgh, it also launched a merit hiring campaign against Hecht’s flagship store on 7th and F Streets, N.W. CORE charged that Hecht’s “engaged in token hiring, placing its few black employees in strategic positions to suggest that there were others.”49 A survey “by teams of observers”—some of whom were black store employees—revealed that African Americans made up 44 percent of the shoppers on weekdays and 47 percent on Saturdays. Yet the store employed only 5 black salesclerks out of a total of 270 in the downtown store, and all of its janitors, maids, lunch-counter waitresses and cooks, and parking-lot attendants were African Americans. All of the twenty store managers, all of the eight office clerks, and every parking-lot cashier was white.50 CORE eventually persuaded Hecht’s to hire thirty-five African American salesclerks and one assistant buyer, although the exact reasons are not detailed in extant historical records. Perhaps the store made these hires because of picketing, the prospect of picketing, or the fear of alienating blacks, who, as a result of their increased urbanization and white suburbanization, composed over 50 percent of the city’s population and a substantial share of the Hecht’s customer base.51 In February 1964, Hecht’s was once again charged with violating fair employment practices. Few African American women held permanent sales jobs, no African American sales personnel were assigned to “prestige” or commission departments, and blacks with seniority and experience were not being

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promoted to supervisory positions. Unable to quietly convince store officials to even acknowledge that a problem existed, CORE organized pickets at the downtown and Parkington (in Arlington, Virginia) branches of Hecht’s.52 Not long after picketing began, in March 1964, Hecht’s and CORE reached an agreement whereby “the company promise[d] to increase the opportunities for Negroes by a considerable measure.” Store officials assured CORE “that fair employment policies will be supervised and vigorously enforced.”53 From 1950 to 1970, these campaigns helped increase the number of nonwhite sales workers in D.C.’s retail industry by approximately 300 percent, from 1,314 sales workers to 4,027.54 African American employees proved indispensable to this achievement. As previously noted, they were members of the 1962 team of observers who completed a survey of the black presence in Hecht’s department store. Along with CORE members, these workers counted the number of black workers and their positions in the store. African American employees reported on their working conditions, including their day-to-day interactions with white coworkers and customers, and the process for and prospect of promotion. Following the implementation of fair employment policies, these workers supervised the enforcement of store’s fair employment policies and informed CORE of its successes and failures. Essentially, black employees became CORE’s “eyes and ears.” Regularly these workers informed CORE when African Americans were overlooked for promotions or mistreated on the basis of their race, whether or not they were provided job training, and even when they observed that the fair employment policies were being upheld. While the integration of sales work and dining facilities in Washington, D.C., appears to have been the product of separate campaigns run by different organizations, these movements were overlapping and interrelated. United by racial solidarity, the desegregation of public accommodations and white-collar employment in the retail industry relied on worker-consumer alliances. Black consumers and workers embraced the politics of respectability to project an image of African Americans as conservatively dressed and well-behaved citizens. In addition, black shoppers mobilized their power as consumers to damage store profits and reputations, while workers used their unique position to observe, resist, and report incidents of racial discrimination and merchants’ plans to retaliate against protesters. These alliances proved so effective that African Americans expanded their efforts to raise black retail workers’ wages, living standards, and working conditions and contributed to long-term structural changes in the department store industry.

The Charlotte Sit-In Movement Just as protesters in Washington, D.C., turned their attention to fair employment, the sit-in movement commenced in Charlotte, North Carolina—a racially

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moderate, burgeoning southern city that was home to nearly 210,000 people, 28 percent of whom were nonwhite.55 However, unlike the Washington campaign, which focused on consumer rights and then on fair employment, the Charlotte sit-in movement tackled these issues simultaneously. On February 9, 1960, moved by the Greensboro demonstration, Johnson C. Smith University students staged sit-ins to protest stores’ prohibition of blacks at their eating facilities, although they welcomed African Americans at all other store counters. The sit-in began at S. H. Kress Company and F. W. Woolworth. Within a few days, approximately 200 students expanded their presence to W. T. Grant Company, McLellan’s, Liggetts Drug, Belk’s, Ivey’s, and Sears, Roebuck and Company. W. T. Grant, like the other targeted retailers, immediately closed its lunch counters, hoping to suppress the demonstration. Despite these efforts, well-dressed and mannerly protesters, whose numbers steadily increased in subsequent days and months, occupied lunch counter seats reserved for white patrons and waited for service. Others picketed the storefront and stopped shopping at the establishment. Protesters withstood verbal and physical assaults. After several contentious months and facing diminishing profits, W. T. Grant capitulated and became the “only integrated, the only lunch counter where blacks could eat in downtown Charlotte.” By July 1960, six of the remaining stores targeted by protesters had followed suit; and, on July 9, fifteen African American students, in accordance with a prearranged plan, were served at seven Charlotte lunch counters for the first time. Sears, the eighth and final store, announced that its dining room had been integrated for two months on October 28, 1960.56 News of the lunch counters’ desegregation was delayed in an effort to avoid additional conflict. In addition, news coverage ignored the integration of W. T. Grant’s sales force. Doretha Davis, who had worked at W. T. Grant for nearly eight years, was promoted from waitress to saleswoman, becoming Charlotte’s first African American saleswoman. Although her promotion did not make for an integrated sales force, it set in motion the gradual transformation of the selling floor. After that, more black sales workers were employed and even more African American consumers were recognized as citizens deserving of equal access to stores and equal treatment in the retail industry. The lunch counter was central to the success of the Charlotte sit-in. Initially, students only wanted “to come in and place my order and be served and leave a tip if I feel like it.”57 But after connecting with black store workers, student protesters realized that to secure first-class citizenship in the marketplace they would need to negotiate the promotion and advancement of both consumers and workers. In stores with black-only counters, this process began before the protest. Black lunch counters had long served as sites of black middle-class formation and engagement. For example, black teachers often held meetings at W. T. Grant’s black lunch counter. Before their scheduled meetings, they would contact Davis and ask her to “make it nice, like they wanted it really first-class.”

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Figure 4.2. Woman carrying picket sign, “Equality Is Right, Give It to Us,” during W. T.

Grant protest, 1960. (Courtesy of the Charlotte Observer and Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room-Charlotte-Mecklenberg Library.)

Davis would then meet with the cook to design a menu with “some hot food and vegetables” (in spite of the fact that store rules dictated that the black counter serve cold food or hot-dog stand–type foods only; the kitchen was located upstairs to ensure that white patrons were always served a hot meal). On the day of the event, Davis “would bring all this food down” to the black lunch counter in the basement, without the assistance of an elevator, and serve the meals on fine china. The special treatment Davis extended to these teachers points to the significance of worker-consumer alliances in the construction of a modern black middle class. Black teachers qualified as middle class because they fulfilled the clean work, education, and respectability requirements that defined this class in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But their low income, seasonal work, and unequal position in the public sphere also situated them among the lower or working class. Being served at the lunch counter in a manner resembling the service provided to white customers tempered the restraints that thwarted their full membership in the middle class and American democracy. It also was testimony to black and white customers and the store (management and workers included)

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that respectable blacks were a discerning clientele that belonged and should be valued in all departments. During protests, lunch counters were locations where black customers and store workers strategized. Students congregated at the black lunch counter in W. T. Grant and inquired “about situations in the store . . . [and] salespeople and their attitudes.” Davis and other lunch counter employees provided protesters with inside information about how to organize the sit-in. On several occasions, she helped students determine the best time to protest at the lunch counter in order to attract participants and onlookers: “And I would say, ‘Come in about 12:00 or 1:00 [p.m.].’ Walk in. The counter’s full.” Davis informed students of anything she heard about the store’s intentions and plans for handling protesters and shifting attitudes among management, workers, and customers. This inside information and the bond forged between workers and protesters led to the desegregation of W. T. Grant’s lunch counters.58 This alliance also proved particularly important to the integration of sales work. Selling was a major economic activity in the city of Charlotte, yet blacks held only a negligible portion of sales jobs. At the height of protests, as pressure mounted and profits plunged, W. T. Grant management approached Davis about being a saleslady in the lamp department—a department that had long been extinct. Initially Davis was reluctant to be a pioneer. But demonstrators vehemently encouraged her to accept the position. One gentleman, a certified public accountant, advised, “You go ahead. . . . Write down what you need to know [about sales work and] give it to me and I’ll work out a plan.”59 Once she received her promotion, black customers flooded into W. T. Grant to show their support for the desegregation of the selling floor and for Davis. She recalled, We black people, we [had] to stick together. I had no white clientele, because they would come in and if they walked in they would not let you help them. They wouldn’t let me help them. And word went out that I was out there. They had hired a black sales person in retail and to support them. And all my support came from . . . my people, and they spread the word around that Mrs. Davis was in sales now. No other store had black sales people. And that’s why it really meant a lot for us to stick together as black people.60

Black customers not only purchased merchandise from her department, they even brought in items from other departments so she could record the sales. Others simply visited Davis’s department to provide moral support. Because of their patronage, Davis became one of the store’s highest-selling sales workers and was eventually promoted to the jewelry department—a bigticket department typically staffed by experienced, white saleswomen. Years later, when Davis left W. T. Grant to work at Lucielle Vogue, a local women’s clothing boutique, her customers followed her. Davis was assigned to the

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sportswear department, but few African American women desired sportswear. According to Davis, “back then people dressed, they didn’t wear sportswear much. Everybody dressed. The teachers looked just like you look when you go to church on Sunday.” Davis asked the store manager to be reassigned “upstairs,” where more elegant clothing was sold. He refused, insisting that “those old [white] ladies have been up there for years and they just don’t want nobody up there, no competition and so forth.” Subsequently, Davis solicited her loyal customers to “start asking for me and if they tell you that I cannot go upstairs, you walk out.” They did exactly as she instructed. The outcome of this workerconsumer cooperation is unclear in extant records. But one can imagine that it eventually convinced management to reassign Davis to the upstairs department and boosted store profits.61 As black customers supported black workers, salespeople such as Davis empowered consumers of all classes by enabling them to perform and embody a middle-class lifestyle, if only in the confines of the store’s four walls. Harkening back to the days of skilled, interpersonal selling, early black sales workers provided customers of color with shopping experiences that were traditionally extended only to wealthy whites: they remembered names and previous purchases and acted as personal stylists and servants. And when her department did not have merchandise that met customers’ liking, Davis researched, ordered, and showcased items that she knew would appeal to her black clientele. In newly integrated stores, many black customers celebrated the difference. No longer treated as second-class citizens or forced to locate and purchase an item on their own, many testified that they were now greeted warmly, given advice about what to purchase, and gently coaxed into buying complementary items by a highly skilled salesperson of color. African American sales workers also went above and beyond their job description to safeguard racial fairness. Some bent or broke store rules that they deemed unfair or discriminatory. For example, when one worker in the customer service department of an upscale New York department store learned that “black customers’ files were flagged with a special code to indicate race,” they “messed it all up,” ensuring that the store would “never [be] able to get those files back together again.”62 Others protected customers from being scammed by retailers and violated by store security. The effectiveness of these worker-consumer alliances inspired other retail campaigns in Charlotte. In early December 1961, Johnson C. Smith University students began picketing Ivey’s and Belk department stores. Both stores had integrated their lunch counters in 1960 but refused to open their store restaurants to African Americans. Not long after picketing commenced, Mayor Stanford Brookshire’s Committee on Community Relations, a biracial group charged with looking for solutions to racial problems, intervened. It persuaded Ivey’s and Belk to desegregate their restaurants in exchange for a promise from

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students that they would bring all future complaints to the mayor’s committee before resorting to public demonstrations. In 1962, two years after Davis became the city’s first black sales clerk, Brookshire set out to persuade local store executives to hire African American sales personnel.63 Sharing the opinion of black workers and consumers, Brookshire held that opening not only public accommodations but also employment to African Americans made good economic sense. Integration enabled blacks to make a stronger contribution to the economic health of the community. Early the next year, in February 1963, the mayor’s committee celebrated the employment of African Americans in positions of responsibility at Seymour’s, S. H. Kress and Co., Woolworth’s, Grant’s, and A&P stores. In March, Mellon’s department store and West Side pharmacy each hired three African American sales clerks.64 By the end of the year, additional hires had been made and were praised in the national press. The Baltimore Afro-American, for example, lauded that the “employment of colored persons rose sharply in [Charlotte] department stores.”65 Worker-consumer alliances were the crux of southern retail campaigns. Focusing on strengthening black economic power, these alliances empowered black workers and consumers to freely act and perform in the consumer republic and subsequently nurtured a modern black middle class. These alliances engendered feelings of superiority, confidence, human dignity, prestige, and status. They provided blacks with a sense of belonging in American consumer culture and democracy, although these feelings were often fleeting and unstable because of the continuous metamorphosis and persistence of race discrimination. Individual ambition is difficult to separate from the collective or communal interest in these worker-consumer campaigns. Arguably this is the brilliance of alliances rooted in linked fate. Individuals such as Davis wanted rewarding, quality jobs; the freedom to eat and rest in the space of downtown; and the status and prestige that accompanied being served. In a way, these desires were self-serving. They were about survival, convenience, and belonging. Simultaneously, these desires suited and were similar to those of the collective. As a whole, the black community wanted jobs and access to the consumer republic that would challenge white supremacy and notions of black inferiority and improve the condition of its members. Further, the black community believed that realizing social and political equality required their economic empowerment. As the Washington, D.C., and Charlotte retail campaigns, among others, made progress, activists in the North took notice and revived movements to end economic discrimination, inspiring the creation of Selective Patronage campaigns and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Operation Breadbasket. Southern campaigns reminded northerners—many of whom had traveled south to occupy lunch-counter seats—that retail institutions throughout the country were beset with their own set of discriminatory practices.

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The “Don’t Buy” campaign, persuasion, meritocracy, and unionisms had increased blacks’ presence and improved their position in northern retail establishments in the previous decades. Yet they had failed to fully integrate the region’s industry. By the 1960s, activists revitalized consumer boycotts to advance black employment. This time, however, they demanded the hiring of a specific number of African Americans. They pushed for quotas, affirmative action programs, and equal pay for equal work initiatives, with the goal of shrinking the wealth disparities between blacks and whites. But their efforts were thwarted as suburbanization and urban decay pushed white retailers away from downtown centers, which were rapidly being abandoned by middle-class whites and blacks and left in the care of lower-class blacks. Even worse, these movements—in both the North and South—contributed to the devastation of a separate black economy that had thrived because of racial segregation and had long provided freedom and dignity to its workers and consumers. The loss of black-owned businesses reinforced white commercial enterprises and “the legitimacy of the capitalist order as a way of organizing economic life.”66 Yet despite these significant drawbacks, which demanded attention and required mobilization, retail campaigns succeeded in dismantling major racial barriers in employment, consumption, and urban landscapes and enabled countless black workers and consumers in the twentieth century to achieve the status of middle-class citizens. These worker-consumer movements not only illustrate the dynamism of the civil rights movement but also may be useful in guiding the future direction of African Americans’ unfinished struggle for economic freedom.

Notes 1. Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967), 298. 2. Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 188. See also Robert Weems, Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 56–69. 3. Robert Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, “Opportunities Found and Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of American History 75, no. 3 (1988): 786–811. 4. Risa L. Goluboff, The Lost Promise of Civil Rights (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 12. 5. Robert Rodgers Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth Century South (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 417. 6. Goluboff, The Lost Promise of Civil Rights, 269. 7. Sophia Z. Lee, “Hotspots in a Cold War: The NAACP’s Postwar Workplace Constitutionalism, 1948–1964,” Law and History Review 26 (Summer 2008): 326–377; and

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Nancy MacLean, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 36. For additional work on the economic dimensions of the civil rights movement, see Gavin Wright, Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013); and Michael Ezra, ed., The Economic Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and the Struggle for Economic Power (New York: Routledge, 2013). 8. On the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” movement, see August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, “The Origins of Nonviolent Direct Action in Afro-American Protest: A Note on Historical Discontinuities,” in Along the Color Line: Black Explorations in the Black Experience (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976); Andor Skotnes, “‘Buy Where You Can Work’: Boycotting for Jobs in African American Baltimore, 1933–1934,” Journal of Social History 27, no. 4 (1994): 735–761; Cheryl Greenberg, “Or Does It Explode”: Black Harlem in the Great Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Gary Jerome Hunter, “‘Don’t Buy from Where You Can’t Work’: Black Urban Boycott Movements during the Depression, 1929–1941” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1977); Michele F. Pacifico, “‘Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work’: The New Negro Alliance of Washington,” Washington History 6, no. 1 (1994): 66–88; and Christopher G. Wye, “Merchants of Tomorrow: The Other Side of the ‘Don’t Spend Your Money Where You Can’t Work’ Movement,” Ohio History 93 (WinterSpring 1985): 40–87. On retail unions, see Daniel Opler, For All White-Collar Workers: The Possibilities of Radicalism in New York City’s Department Store Unions, 1934–1935 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007). On merit hiring campaigns, see Patricia Cooper, “The Limits of Persuasion: Race Reformers and the Department Store Campaign in Philadelphia, 1945–1948,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 126 ( January 2002): 97–126. 9. On American department stores and white middle-class formation, see William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1993); Elaine S. Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); and Susan Porter Benson, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890–1940 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986). 10. Lawrence Glickman, Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 264. 11. Susannah Walker, “Black Dollar Power: Assessing African American Consumerism Since 1945,” in Kenneth L. Kusmer and Joe Trotter, eds., African American Urban History Since World War II (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2009), 376–403. 12. Adam Green, Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 132. 13. Michael C. Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 77. 14. On black middle-class formation, see E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie (New York: Free Press, 1957); William Julius Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions (1978; repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012); and Bart Landry, The New Middle Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 15. On the history of gender, race, and respectability, see Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994); Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Anne Meis Knupfer, Toward a Tenderer Humanity and a Nobler Womanhood: African American Women’s Clubs in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago (New York: New York University Press, 1996); Victoria W. Wolcott, Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001);

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Patricia Schechter, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); and E. France White, Dark Continents of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001). 16. “Man to Man,” advertisement, Washington Post, February 19, 1951. 17. The CCEAD was committed to the enforcement of two “lost laws” prohibiting discrimination in Washington public accommodations. The “Lost Law” of 1872 explicitly stated: “Any restaurant keeper, hotel keeper, or keepers of ice-cream saloons or places where soda-water is kept for sale, or keepers of barber shops and bathing houses, refusing to sell or wait upon any respectable, well-behaved persons, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude shall be fined $100, and shall forfeit his or her license . . . until one year shall have elapsed.” Quoted in Dennis Brindell Fradin and Judith Bloom Fradin, Fight On! Mary Church Terrell’s Battle for Integration (New York: Clarion Books, 2003), 126. Because of this, activists intentionally positioned persons who fit the definitions of respectable and well behaved on the movement’s frontlines. 18. Annie Stein to Mrs. Walker Smith, November 24, 1951, Records of the Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws (hereafter RCCEAD), MS 404, Historical Society of Washington, D.C. (hereafter HSW). 19. Meeting Minutes, April 18, 1951, RCCEAD, HSW. 20. This downtown Hecht Company was located at 525 7th Street, N.W., within the boundaries of what is now called the Downtown Historic District. In the 1850s, German immigrants were primary residents of the neighborhood (although Italians, Greeks, and African Americans also resided in this area). In the 1930s, the neighborhood became overwhelmingly Chinese when the federal government displaced the city’s Chinese community from its original home along Pennsylvania Avenue to build the Federal Triangle office complex. 21. Annie Stein to Cynthia Anderson, July 12, 1951, RCCEAD, HSW. 22. CCEAD press release, January 19, 1952, RCCEAD, HSW. 23. Marvin Caplan, Farther Along: A Civil Rights Memoir (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), 109, 119. 24. Alice Trigg to Annie Stein, undated letter, RCCEAD, HSW. 25. Beverly W. Jones, “Before Montgomery and Greensboro: The Desegregation Movement in the District of Columbia, 1950–1953,” Phylon 43, no. 2 (1982): 150. 26. Adolph Schalk, “Negroes, Restaurants, and Washington, D.C.,” Catholic World 174 ( January 1952): 279–283. 27. Jones, “Before Montgomery and Greensboro,” 151. 28. Progress Report, July 1951, RCCEAD, HSW. Protesters were so adamant about keeping African Americans from shopping at Hecht’s that on one occasion when an African American woman and her child were entering the store, Alice Trigg “acidly” said to her, “You have no race pride.” A few moments later, the woman came out of the store and said to Alice, “I wasn’t buying anything[,] I was ducking someone.” Alice Trigg to Annie Stein, letter dated “Friday,” RCCEAD, HSW. 29. Ibid. Annie Stein to Armour J. Blackburn, dean of Student Activities at Howard University, undated letter, RCCEAD, HSW. Stein and Terrell contacted the university, requesting that students support the cause and offering to speak with student organizations about the committee’s efforts to end segregation and discrimination in D.C. restaurants. 30. Alice Trigg to Annie Stein, undated letter, RCCEAD, HSW; “Hecht’s Picket Line Stepped Up,” Afro-American, September 1, 1951. 31. The Coordinating Committee’s “meeting hall was the storefront headquarters of the Laundry Workers Local 471, on M Street, N.W.” Caplan, Farther Along, 116.

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32. Caplan, Farther Along, 121. 33. Fradin and Fradin, Fight On!, 148. 34. Between 1940 and 1950, Washington, D.C.’s, African American population increased from

187,266 to 280,803. By 1960, the city’s black community had expanded to 411,737. It would continue to grow until 1980. The District of Columbia’s white population experienced a different trajectory: between 1940 and 1950, it increased from 474,326 to 517,865, but it declined sharply after that as whites relocated to suburban counties in Maryland and Virginia. See Campbell Gibson and Kay Jung, “Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals by Race, 1790 to 1990, and by Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, for Large Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States,” working paper no. 76, U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, February 2005. 35. Caplan, Farther Along, 121; Alice A. Dunnigan, “Bias Ends Quietly at D.C. Department Store,” Atlanta Daily World, February 1, 1952. 36. Adolph Schalk, “Negroes, Restaurants, and Washington, D.C.,” Catholic World 174 ( January 1952): 279–283. 37. “Hecht Store Fires Two Who Talked to ‘Strikers,’” Afro-American, July 7, 1951; Annie Stein to Mr. G. B. Pettengill, Department of State, July 14, 1951, RCCEAD, HSW. 38. Ibid; Annie Stein to Mme. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, ambassador of India to the United States, July 25, 1951, RCCEAD, HSW. 39. “Negro Boycott Set for Capital Stores,” New York Times, March 17, 1958. 40. “Drive Aims to Increase Negro Jobs,” Washington Post and Times Herald, March 7, 1958. 41. Robert G. Spivack, “Watch on the Potomac,” Chicago Daily Defender, April 1, 1958. “Negro Clergy Urge 1-Day Buying Ban,” Washington Post and Times Herald, March 24, 1958. 42. Paul Sampson, “Shopping Ban Aired at Meeting,” Washington Post and Times Herald, March 20, 1958. 43. “Shopping Ban Sponsors Firm,” Washington Post and Times Herald, March 22, 1958. 44. “Negroes in Boycott of 5 Capital Stores,” New York Times, March 28, 1958. 45. Lester Tanzer, “Negroes Boycott 5 Big Washington Stores for Day; Sales Job Goal May Have Receded,” Wall Street Journal, March 28, 1952. 46. “Pastor Predicts Negro Clerks,” Washington Post and Times Herald, 29 March 1958. 47. Tanzer, “Negroes Boycott 5 Big Washington Stores.” 48. Edward Peeks, “‘Buy Where You Can Work,’” Afro-American, January 13, 1962. Edward Peeks, “Clerics with CORE in Store Boycott,” Afro-American, February 3, 1962. 49. Burt Solomon, The Washington Century: Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation’s Capital (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 124. 50. Edward Peeks, “Group Demands Charge,” Afro-American, May 13, 1961. 51. Solomon, The Washington Century, 124. In 1950, African Americans comprised 35 percent of the city’s population, while whites made up 64.6 percent. 52. “CORE Pickets Hecht’s in Dispute,” Washington Post and Times Herald, February 23, 1964. 53. “CORE, Hecht’s Reach Accord,” Washington Post and Times Herald, March 8, 1964. 54. In 1950, the total number of nonwhite sales workers in the retail industry in Washington, D.C., was 1,314; by 1960, the number had increased to 1,914; and by 1970, the number was 4,027. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population, 1950 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population, 1960 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population, 1970 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972). 55. Charlotte’s white and black populations grew steadily in the postwar era. Between 1940 and 1950, this southern city’s total population increased by 32.8 percent, and between 1950 and 1960, it increased once again by 50.4 percent. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of

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Population: 1950, vol. 2, Characteristics of the Population, Part 33, North Carolina (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952); and U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1960, vol. 1, Characteristics of the Population, Part 35, North Carolina (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963). 56. Oral history interview with Doretha Davis, May 19, 2008, Interview U-0359, Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. See also Roy Covington, “Negroes’ Protests Close Local Diners,” Charlotte Observer, February 10, 1960; “Special Report on Sitdowns, NAACP Staff Activity in the Sitdowns,” Branch Department File, Pamphlets, and Manuals, 1959–1962, 1969, and undated, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Microfilm Part 29, 1966–1972, Series B, Reel 14. 57. Statement by Charles Jones, leader of the Charlotte sit-in. See Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 13. 58. Doretha Davis interview. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. Bruce D. Haynes, Red Lines, Black Spaces: The Politics of Race and Space in a Black MiddleClass Suburb (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), 97. 63. Capus M. Waynick, John C. Brooks, and Elsie W. Pitts, eds., North Carolina and the Negro (Raleigh: North Carolina Mayors’ Co-operating Committee, 1964), 52–53; Alex Coffin, Brookshire & Belk: Businessmen in City Hall (Charlotte: University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1994), 42. 64. Minutes of the Mayor’s Community Relations Committee, February 12, 1963, and March 12, 1963. Quoted in Damarita Etta Brown Leach, “Progress under Pressure: Changes in Charlotte Race Relations, 1955–1965” (MA thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1976), 201. 65. “Terror Breaks Out Anew on Rights Front,” Afro-American, December 21, 1963. 66. Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic, 189.

5 • SERVICING A R ACIAL REGIME Gender, Race, and the Public Space of Department Stores in Baltimore, Maryland, and Johannesburg, South Africa, 1940–1970 BRIDGET KENNY

Department Stores as “Public” Spaces “SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL: Please do not buy in Huzlers, The Hecht-May Company or Stewarts. These stores are not fair to all people,” reads a flyer from March 1960 addressed to Baltimore’s shopping public.1 Rejecting the logic of “separate but equal,” in the spring of 1960, African American students from Morgan State College staged sit-ins at Baltimore department stores that refused to serve black customers at their lunch counters and in their restaurants. The campaign rallied Baltimore’s consumers to put pressure on the retailers to change their policies. Indeed, a mostly white public wrote in to stores and newspapers to voice its opinion about serving the students, expressed through the idioms of American democracy and values. Mrs. W. Ainsworth Parker of Baltimore wrote to Hochschild-Kohn’s department store when it decided to serve the students, “I admire your courageous action in admitting negroes to your lunch counter. . . . We pretend to be a democracy, and tell South Africa how to behave but we have a long way to go ourselves.”2 Others, like Mr. George G. Schafer of White Marsh, Maryland, wrote less favorably of the decision to wait on the African American students: “As a long time customer, I was disgusted to read of your organization’s contribution to race mixing and eventual racial intermarriage” and asked to close his credit line to make clear that he would be withdrawing his custom.3 In Baltimore in 1960 the grand department stores entered public debate about their longtime practice and policy of racially discriminatory service. Political efforts to open

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these spaces to equitable treatment happened because of claims people made as consumers. In this chapter I suggest that such a “consumer’s republic,” as historian Lisabeth Cohen called a politics that advocates participation in the market,4 can be deepened by an understanding of the ways that women’s labor constituted retail arenas as publics. In particular, I argue that the specific relationship of white to black women’s labor in stores offers an important lens for understanding the how retail arenas became politically contested spaces in certain times. I make this argument by thinking about Baltimore’s department stores in the 1960s with reference to the same period in Johannesburg, South Africa, that other space of racial segregation.5 In the late 1960s, department stores in Johannesburg faced a different sort of public debate—whether to keep black women out of service employment. The ruling National Party campaigned for job reservation to protect white women’s work in stores, a policy that retailers and unions fought.6 I suggest that this counterpoint, in which stores became terrains of contestation over employment rather than over access to consumer markets, enables us to understand better the importance of service labor in defining the stakes of public debate over race and retail.7 In short, service labor builds retail arenas into specifically constituted public spaces, and being public ensures that retail arenas remain important sites of the reproduction and transformation of “race.” The department store has been a physical and symbolic reference for women’s engagement with and in the public, an “arena [in which] the relationship of women, gender and class was vividly exposed” as middle-class women ventured into a safe public zone and became shoppers. Shopping demanded the performance of respectability and in return gave middle-class white women an entry into public life.8 This realm of women’s consumption opened up alongside the expansion of women’s jobs in retailing, and retail management used class and gender to sell new desires while controlling both women workers and customers.9 This essay details how race, too, infused these relations. While both Baltimore and Johannesburg had a middle-class and wealthy white consumer market and white working-class women entered retail service jobs in similar time frames and under similar conditions, Baltimore’s white female work force experienced greater recognition of their skill over time, had wider career opportunities, and were integrated into department stores through deeper relations of paternalism than their counterparts in Johannesburg. In contrast, in South Africa, the presence of a union in the service sector that organized women workers and strict occupational segmentation that was legally defined on the basis of gender and job tenure had the ironic effect of maintaining a firmer class division between white service workers and their white clientele for longer. African American women and men worked in department stores as support staff on the shop floor much earlier in Baltimore. In Johannesburg, while black men worked behind the scenes as distributive workers, black women did not enter

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until the 1960s, as cleaners and then as service workers. Thus African Americans were present as an important part of the work force for decades in Baltimore stores before they broke through to customer service jobs in the 1970s. Black women in Johannesburg began entering service jobs in the 1970s as well, but they entered a service sector that was quite different from that in Baltimore, in which the distance between workers and consumers remained greater. Because participation was marked by rights to employment, retail arenas became contested as segregated workplaces in Johannesburg. Department stores are public spaces in two senses: they offer a place where members of a diverse populace relate (or potentially relate) to each other as customers and where they relate to service workers. At particular times, such stores become focus of debate about who can participate as that “public” and under what conditions. Although such debates present claims to the right to participate in retail arenas, they also, I suggest, present claims to larger political imaginaries.10 By juxtaposing these two moments in these two places, this chapter argues that retail spaces can be viewed as important political arenas precisely because they represent the intersection of relations of labor and consumption, which, as sociologist C. Wright Mills noted, was central to a changing American public life in the twentieth century.11

“A Very, Very Fine Clientele”: Customers and Race The graceful department stores of downtown Baltimore, as in Johannesburg, were multi-story buildings located at the center of busy transit routes that defined city shopping districts. They were places where the public could shop and experience elite tastes and imagine elite desires. Yet in both places, who that public was took on a specific character. In Baltimore, the trip downtown on a Saturday was an affair to dress up for: “It was unthinkable . . . to go downtown without a tie, a coat, maybe not a suit, but a sportcoat. Even at the age of maybe 10, 11, 12.”12 And for the women, “In those days when you went downtown, you wore gloves and a hat.”13 Department stores were a primary attraction for the white middle class and wealthy public. For many, they were a “base of operations”14 where friends and family would meet, meals would be taken in the various eating establishments, and days would be planned. Baltimore department stores sold exclusive and imported merchandise that exposed the middle class to the imagination and finery of Europe. According to saleswoman Elaine Layden, who worked at Hutzler’s, “They had the French Room there, which was their courtier room. . . . After World War II they imported a lot of foreign, Italian, and French merchandise, which was also interesting and new. It was all so new to us because we weren’t, I wasn’t so familiar personally with the foreign market, and they had some beautiful things. Just lovely.”15 Saleswomen such as Layden learned what their wealthy customers

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found appealing. But they also felt pride in being able to provide service to their exclusive clientele in a place that sold the best merchandise. As Sonia Schnaper, who worked for Hochschild-Kohn’s, explains: “I had a very, very fine clientele of customers. I had one customer who when she bought her Christmas books, I had to send them out to her in a taxi because after a while she couldn’t come in, she was getting too elderly. A doctor’s wife on Eutaw place. And she always called me. And I selected the books for her . . . and they had to be brand-spanking new, never opened, and I had to wrap them myself, and place them in the taxi so that they would not get torn.”16 The service in Baltimore department stores was noteworthy. They would deliver merchandise; nothing was too small. Some employees joked about customers calling the store to have the smallest item, a “spool of cotton,” delivered. Others recalled rushing a late Christmas gift over to a customer’s house on Christmas Eve after the store closed. And, of course, “what is expected of you, . . . in so far as courtesy was concerned, . . . the customer ALWAYS came first and you had to accommodate and treat people as if they were special, walking into the store. And they were.”17 In Baltimore’s department stores, of course, black customers did not come first. They were treated as second-class citizens. In the border city of Baltimore, some features of Jim Crow differed from what prevailed in the South, but service in restaurants and department stores was more often similar in its exclusions. African Americans were not sold the same products; they were not allowed to try on certain clothes, such as hats or undergarments; they were not allowed to return clothes they had purchased; and if they were at the counter to buy something and a white customer approached, the clerk would wait on the white customer first.18 A 1955 Baltimore survey by the Maryland Commission on Interracial Problems and Relations recorded that 91 percent of 191 businesses, including swimming pools, tennis courts, hotels, restaurants, and department stores, practiced segregation.19 Baltimore’s well-documented racial divisions extended to discrimination in schooling and residential redlining, but as historian Paul Kramer puts it, Baltimore’s department stores “put racism on display like few other institutions.”20 Many African Americans simply shopped in stores that marketed to a broader race and class demographic than the finer department stores. Others fought discrimination by organizing. Baltimore had a strong black middle class that made several attempts to fight the discriminatory rules regulating African American consumers in department stores. From the late 1930s, the NAACP and the Urban League tried to negotiate behind the scenes with department store owners to remove the humiliating restrictions on middle-class buyers. But merchants repeatedly claimed that white Baltimore would not stand for it, arguing that the market dictated the conditions of service.21 Edward Tucker, whose father worked at a well-known downtown Baltimore department store, remembered

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that before the mid-1950s, African Americans “were not allowed” to shop in the store “unless they were in their [maid’s] uniform”: “They weren’t allow to shop there for themselves. They could shop for their mistress, but not for themselves, and certainly not eat there.”22 In Johannesburg, stories of shopping are similar to those of Baltimore residents. The shopping trip “into town” was a well-remembered occasion by white middle-class residents. Mothers and grandmothers dressed up children and took them for Christmas excursions by tram or bus to window shop. They would visit the major department stores on Eloff and Prichard Streets to buy clothes and household goods. Couples would meet in department store tea rooms after visiting the bioscope. As in Baltimore, black customers could sometimes enter and shop, but this was rare and they were made to feel deeply unwelcome. In the words of one commentator, downtown Johannesburg customers had a particular identity: “Upmarket ladies of leisure from the suburbs, complete with matching hats, gloves, seamed stockings and hair newly set (sometimes bluerinsed) whiled away their time, while their maids, gardeners and nannies kept their homes, gardens and offspring in pristine condition.”23 The description maps a social geography of race onto Johannesburg, where black servants remained in private homes while white “madams” luxuriated in the public spaces of department stores. These visions erased the presence of black consumers and reconfigured “the public” as white.24 Historian Bryant Simon argues that Atlantic City, New Jersey, attracted an emerging middle class in the post–World War II period with its exotic architecture and lavish consumption opportunities but most of all through the ways “the public” was defined and regulated as safe for white participants.25 The public spaces of department stores in both Baltimore and Johannesburg, similarly, relied on a fundamental set of exclusions about who composed their audiences, which were defined by class and race. Department stores in Baltimore and Johannesburg in the first half of the twentieth century maintained an order of gentility along central retail corridors that relied on a construction of respectability projected most fundamentally as white and wealthy, and offering access to an emergent middle class. In both cities, women’s labor proved key to the nature of service behind experiences of shopping. Yet as we shall see, the organization of service work through women’s labor differed in important ways in these two cities, and these differences defined the character of their respective public spaces.

At Your Service: White Women’s Skill and Domesticity Historian Susan Porter Benson has shown how U.S. department store owners restructured their stores to become stylish and modern entertainment at the

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turn of the twentieth century.26 According to Benson, the consumer base for early retailers was largely middle class and female, while the work force was predominantly working class and female, and retailers focused on managing what they saw as the unpredictability of both. Social reformers, concerned about the morality of (white) working women in shops, contributed to rules of decorum, such as modest dress, clear etiquette of communication, and limitations on flirting.27 As retailers came to compete by selling rather than through merchandising, they came to see skill and training as necessary disciplining tools for those they hired to work on the shop floor. Despite low pay, tedium, and unpaid overtime, these jobs were often steady and glamorous. They involved working with expensive merchandise and effecting gracious manners, and employees took on the aura of respectability of the shop. The “skill” of selling came to define the work culture. The status attributes of the job became an important mark of appeal for women workers.28 Furthermore, the capacity to invest work relations, work places, and the service relation with emotion and affect emerged during this period and became, in turn, a measure by which employers then assessed workers.29 The position of white women salespeople was critical in constituting these realms of consumption as spaces of emotional encounter between service workers and their customers and racial and class inclusion (and exclusion). What authors describe in general for the United States was true of Baltimore’s imposing stores, including Hutzler’s, Hochschild-Kohn’s, Stewarts, and The Hecht Company. A 1909 survey of thirty-four large department stores in Baltimore reported that (white) women outnumbered (white) men in the work force by two to one.30 The women who entered this kind of work at the turn of the century in Baltimore were young and unmarried and were often assisting families with their income. This work had a higher status than factory work; service occupations in the retail sector were understood as “‘white-handed’ occupations.”31 White women in Baltimore’s department stores were often “American girls” “due to the fact that many customers prefer to be served by Americans,” although native German and many Jewish women also worked in the stores.32 The higher status of retail work continued to define the labor market for women through the postwar period in Baltimore as more married women stayed in the labor force: “Some, like Mrs. N. (a timekeeper in an aircraft plant during the war) . . . considered a salesgirl’s job ‘much higher class’ than her war work and ‘clean, nice, and refined.’”33 This pattern corresponds to white women’s entry into these jobs in Johannesburg. From the early 1900s, young white working-class women entered Johannesburg retail establishments so that they could assist their families.34 Like their counterparts in Baltimore, they were mainly single women who could read and speak English and do basic math, and they were likely to have more education than women entering new factories, such as garment factories.35

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Unlike in Johannesburg, however, Baltimore’s major department stores employed white women in large work forces up to the level of buyer by the 1940s. The stores developed finely tuned managerial systems and offered training in “store background” to women and men. While white men generally served as managers, women could move up a career path and gain a great deal of respect and autonomy. Women buyers went on annual buying trips to New York and Europe with male buyers and merchandise managers. They managed the budgets of their departments. They supervised multiple departments and became great authorities on the trading floor. Charlotte Waldorf got her first job at Hochschild-Kohn’s when she was sixteen, working in the summers. She moved to the position of assistant buyer in 1936 and then to a job as a buyer in the mid-price-range dress department. She said that a buyer’s job “was prestigious.” She later added the better dress department to her responsibilities, where she had eight to ten women working under her.36 She described her job as “a very active job: I was in New York maybe two to three days out of every month. And I was responsible for the advertising [for the department], and I was responsible for working in the department, in a personnel kind of a way. . . . It was up to the buyers really to work with their people, to train them.”37 By the 1940s and 1950s, the degree of autonomy these jobs gave white working women in Baltimore was unusual. For women in sales jobs, too, department stores provided a great many employment benefits, including rooms for workers to rest in, elaborate canteens for lunches, an onsite doctor and visiting dentists, discounts for workers and family members, and paid vacation leave.38 Elaine Layden started as a part-time saleswoman at Hutzler’s in 1947. She was hired without experience to work as a salesperson in the better dress and coat department. She spoke of her experience working there in terms of the respectability she felt the job provided: “I found it to be a prestigious department store and I understood the working conditions were very good, which they were. And the employers seemed to take an interest in their employees. They were very kind. They were very considerate.” The symbolism of prestige translated into two meaningful sets of relations. On the one hand, it conferred respectability through the skill of the job: in the department store, selling well was a company project. It was a team effort that brought recognition to individual employees. On the other hand, prestige derived from the particular realm of paternalism in which the merchant “family” defined store relations.39 Owners and their male family members were present as managers in the stores.40 They regularly toured the floors, and employees consistently remembered their greetings to them and the pageants and festivities designed to bring workers and managers together as family.41 Sonia Schnaper, a saleswoman and then a buyer in the book department at Hochschild Kohn, reflected, “I think what was special about it was the association of the family that ran it with their

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employees. That was a very nice association. They were just the nicest group of men and women that I ever met. . . . It was always, ‘How are you? How do you feel? I hear you are getting married?’ . . . Whatever, they were just the nicest. They never were aloof. They made you feel needed, and you were in with the family. . . . And I never had a problem there that they couldn’t help me with. You could feel comfortable with going up to their offices. There was no question.”42 Being part of the department store conferred a strong sense of belonging. Baltimore department stores regularly held fashion shows for employees to introduce them to latest styles; sometimes employees modeled the clothes. Employees staged musical shows to celebrate store anniversaries or to familiarize staff with upcoming sales campaigns by featuring products, and they held parties at Christmas and on other occasions that often overlapped with departmental theme displays and buyers’ product promotions. These were sociable spaces: I remember for many many many years, carrying in a couple of coffee pots and buying buns and sweet stuff and having a breakfast in the department before the store opened. It was always lots of fun. The girls would draw names for a gift, and all during the day there would be cookies and candy and almost everyone in the store would eat the same thing. . . . It was part of . . . how salespeople felt about the store. . . . It was a very close relationship between salespeople and buyers. At least in my case, but I am sure in many others. It was the kind of thing . . . it was fostered . . . it was there because of the way management was, really.43

Edward Gutman, son of a buyer in the boys’ and men’s department at HochschildKohn’s, remembered how he and his sister used to regularly go down to the store and help his father straighten the socks. For his family, “the store was a focal point, a major part of our lives.” His parents met each other in the store. “The store,” as it was called as if there were only one, itself became a place of belonging for workers’ families.44 In the public tea room at one department store, buyers had their own dining tables. There was a table for male buyers and one for female buyers. At another department store, there was also a table for managers and the executive, who ate there daily. It was a privilege to be able to eat at these tables with white linen tablecloths and polished silverware.45 Charlotte said that as a young buyer, she waited until her status was more firmly established: “The older women, you know, all ate there and you know, d[id] not make the young people feel too welcome.” Once she was admitted to the table, however, it “was a great spot for store talk.”46 White workers experienced the performance of respectability through a sense that they were engaged in a mutual project of selling to a public through professional expertise. Those who were at the level of buyer and at higher ranks gained special inclusion, literally and figuratively, through a seat at the reserved table

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in the exclusive tea rooms. Saleswomen, who ate in the subsidized canteens, nevertheless felt a sense of belonging as they were recognized as individuals. This project blurred class differences between service workers and their clientele. Unions were not present.47 In Johannesburg, white men worked as sales assistants, salesmen, display men, and managers, and white women dominated the selling floor or worked in administrative jobs. Unlike in Baltimore, the sector was unionized. The National Union of Distributive Workers (NUDW) organized shop workers in South African chain and department stores from the late 1930s. It represented white employees and became known in the South African literature as one of the emergent industrial unions because it focused in this period on organizing lower-wage new entrants into the sector, many of whom were women. As shop stewards and outspoken officials, women shaped an active politics in the 1930s and 1940s around recognition, wages, health and safety issues, and shop trading hours. After a historic 1943 strike by white workers, the NUDW gained recognition from many stores and continued to represent white employees in department stores, including substantial numbers of women.48 As I have argued elsewhere, the NUDW’s consolidation of regional unions, originally organizing men in the retail trades, meant that it reproduced some of the hallmarks of professional unionism at the same time that it opened membership to broader skill categories.49 In particular, it maintained strict occupational and tenure grade distinctions that differentiated among junior and senior jobs. While offering status and better pay to women who rose to the senior level, it also, in effect, limited white women’s advancement into buyer and managerial posts until much later than in non-unionized Baltimore. Furthermore, in South Africa, white women in sales were less likely to be integrated into department stores through a paternalism that recognized their skill. Union correspondence shows that from the late 1940s the NUDW worked for basic conditions and correct wage payments for women under conditions of constant conflict between male managers and their female sales force over shop floor authority.50 The divisions between senior and junior became definitive for white women working in department stores rather than advancement to more highly valued professionalized jobs, as occurred in Baltimore. Legally prescribed wage differentials between male and female employees in the same occupation maintained the subordinate position of women workers throughout this period.51 Ultimately, after 1948 with the victory of the National Party through a racebased cross-class alliance of Afrikaner capital and white workers,52 the union fought a public relations battle about the respectability of the jobs of its women members. In the context of a wider critique of working women, including legislated bans on employing married women in many sectors, the union was most successful in garnering public support for its campaigns when it called up an image of “responsible motherhood” to defend white women in the sector.53 The

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NUDW appealed to the white public to support shop workers’ campaigns to protect society’s women, “our mothers, sisters and wives,” from declining conditions and long hours.54 The union won limits to the extension of store trading hours by arguing that it would lead to “a deterioration of home life.”55 Thus, the discursive and legal battles the NUDW waged on behalf of white women shop workers in Johannesburg both reflected and conditioned the character of these women’s experiences: white women were not supposed to need to work under apartheid, which was meant to provide a secure life for (all) whites. When white women did work, they presented the uneasy reality that class differences persisted.56 Instead, an overriding gendered subordination—conveyed through naturalized assumptions about women workers domesticating stores, through persistent gendered divisions of labor, and through a management that infantilized the work force—mapped a more palatable symbolism onto these public spaces. Service workers translated service into familiar (and familial) relations.57 In Baltimore, class distinctions could be used as a productive tension, always negotiated, that valued the service relation as contributing to the business. So for instance, retail employers in the United States won exemptions to maximum hours laws because of the hegemony of “female consumers” who needed to shop. The successful defense of the “shopping time of housewives” won out over limiting working hours in the sector,58 binding expanding consumption to women’s labor market opportunities and social mobility. In Johannesburg, despite an extensive system of black domestic servants in white middle- and working-class households, white women’s roles as mothers, rather than as consumers, remained the dominant trope through which to measure their value to society. White women’s labor in the public spaces of department stores maintained the relationship between racial service and consumption in different ways in the two cities. In Baltimore, these retail spaces projected an arena of freedom and possibility: a white middle-class clientele learned that service meant care in the aid of participation in the market. In Johannesburg, service translated into a disciplinary moment where white women’s labor carefully confirmed gender subordination and assured the public that the domestic order would not be disrupted by consumer bliss. The obliging service women offered to these white publics also relied on the symbolic weight of another set of relations in both contexts: relations with black employees.

“Brass Buttons and All”: The Labor of Black Workers Black workers are all but absent from Benson’s analysis of U.S. department stores, yet African American employees entered employment in Baltimore’s finest department stores from the turn of the twentieth century. Elaine Layden acknowledged the presence of African American workers with a passing

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mention: “And Hutzler’s had a parking garage whereby if you wanted to go down and shop you would drive into the parking garage at no charge and the help there was very courteous.” “The help” were the African American porters, elevator operators, and maids who serviced white customers and white workers.59 The status of the (white) family was clinched with the presence of black servants in the shops. The market defined the terrain of inclusion through dedication to selling, and black workers provided support in this project. Black workers were understood to inhabit the shops just as servants might in a bourgeois family. Black workers were maids, porters, bathroom attendants, doormen, and elevator operators. They also had long careers in jobs in department stores, and department store owners recognized them as part of the “family.” The Hutzler company newsletter, for instance, presented their portraits: “Regina Thomas was a kitchen helper in the Fountain Shop until her promotion to elevator operator. . . . [S]he has three little girls. . . . They’ve been taught to take care of themselves. Regina considers herself very fortunate to be doing what she does. There isn’t anything she’d like better.”60 William Gray, who served as an elevator operator in the store, was highlighted in glowing terms of inclusion in another newsletter: “William Gray decided to give up butlering and get himself a job as porter. That’s just what he did, November 30, 1918. He was a Hutzler’s porter for a year and a half when he was promoted to a doorman. He wore an impressive grey uniform, brass buttons and all, and tended the doors on Clay Street. Then he learned to operate an elevator—that was twenty-one years ago.”61 Historian Beth Kreydatus writes of African American workers in department stores in Virginia: “Managers at [department stores in Richmond] recognized that crisply uniformed and deferential black elevator operators and delivery drivers would foster the impression that the store offered unparalleled and unconditional service to privileged white customers.”62 African American workers had to put up with low-wage employment in categories that replicated broader labor market realities—laboring jobs for men and domestic service for women and the “expectations of ‘servitude’” that went along with these jobs.63 However, these jobs were also often long-lasting, they offered some opportunity for promotion within the limitations of segregation, and they fostered a “positive work culture”64 in which workplace ties of family and friends could provide a measure of collective meaning and support. While generations of mothers and daughters might become maids for a department store and be represented as “part of the family,” the social order placed Baltimore’s African American workers in service jobs that were not sales jobs and that reproduced a hierarchy of servitude.65 White women’s jobs as sales personnel in Baltimore could be defined around their knowledge of merchandise and interpersonal skills. The “skill” was gendered in the sense that it was attributable to white women because of an interest in fashion or their expertise at emotional labor. These women were encouraged to understand themselves as

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engaging in the market. Black women’s service, the extensive backstage work, much of it “invisible,” was viewed as the labor of necessity; it was not of “the market” but was “help.” It kept order and cleanliness. It kept house. It signified personal luxury while white women’s labor translated into “skill” in and for the market.66 In Johannesburg, black men worked as distributive workers making deliveries or packing shelves.67 Black women rarely featured in the work forces of department stores, even as cleaners, until the 1960s.68 White women cleaned the counters and the floors of their departments and served as elevator operators.69 Black men worked as porters, but not as crisply uniformed “servants” securing an experience of luxury in the shops. Servanthood was kept at home, truly in “private.”70 To convey a realm that sold metropolitan modernity to these settler colonists, department stores instead displayed luxury without an attachment to embodied blackness. In Baltimore, African Americans played central roles as support staff for the project of selling the aspiration of participation in the market. And they also became a generation that made spaces in stores accessible to younger blacks entering as both service workers and consumers.71 In Johannesburg, so long as white women provided service in the public spaces in immediate proximity to and exclusive interaction with the white public, these consumer arenas remained defined through racial exclusion. These differences in retail publics signaled different claims for political participation.

Baltimore’s Democracy in the Market In late March 1960, in response to sit-in demonstrations in Baltimore department store restaurants by African American students from Morgan State College, one of Baltimore’s most established department stores, HochschildKohn’s, broke from its competitors and agreed to serve black customers in its tea room. In the words of the firm’s president, Martin Kohn, “We knew that a step of this kind would produce varying reactions, and of course, it has. . . . And we can only hope that the community as a whole will soon accept the situation, so that the issue will cease to exist”72 In March and April of 1960, Hochschild-Kohn’s received hundreds of letters from concerned customers. One Baltimore couple explained, “While we are not opposed to the colored people in any way, we will employ them when there is work to give. . . . [But] just imagine a colored to come in, sit in on your table, then perhaps steal your purse. . . . We won’t be seen in a Hochild-Kohn [sic] dining room, and never again to use our charge account, which we have for 46 years.”73 Ethel Bova wrote, “I have had this account for more than 20 years but I’ll never use it again as long as negroes are served in your restaurant. The white people of Baltimore have built Hochschild Kohn into a big business and I think you should

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have considered them first. . . . We shall never enter your restaurant again, nor shop in the store.”74 Mrs. John D. Englar agreed, “I always ate there but not now if you are serving them or they are buying and trying on your better dresses. I shall deal elsewhere where they are not serving Negroes. I like them but in their place.”75 In letters from objecting customers, the sentiment that the store was undermining an established order of decency prevailed. Leo Robert Willis asserted, “This form of appeasement can only lead to the breakdown of a social order. And your decision on this matter can only lead to the further encroachment on the privacy of the white race.”76 In a telling formulation, Willis construed the battle as centering on the protection of white “privacy” in public accommodations. His vision of the public was limited to whites, but he also implicitly understood the department store to operate as an enclosed and protected space of intimacy and belonging in the market. These dissenters reminded the firm of its indebtedness to its white public: “Remember you built your business and fortunes on the purchases of the white race.” They staked their claim to a segregated space of department stores and tea rooms as a proxy for the political arena by calling on the “rights of the white race.”77 They protested the policy shift by taking their purchasing power to the other stores, settling and closing their charge accounts in many instances.78 While the letters expressing dismay at the opening of the tea room to black customers filled one folder, those congratulating the firm for its decision filled nine overstuffed files. Here too, the terms of customers’ framing focused on how the department store symbolized, as a space of public interaction, a political arena. These customers wrote in with heartfelt thanks and congratulations for the stand Hochschild-Kohn’s had taken. Hattie E. Stowe of the W. Baltimore United Preparative Meeting of Friends wrote, “We warmly commend your courage in practicing democracy in this way.”79 Adelaide Noyes added, “As one of your white customers of long standing, I truly hope you will continue this practice. It is in accord with the democratic principles for which we should stand. I am sure you have many good customers who happen to be Negroes.”80 They defended black customers as middle-class and respectable. “I believe hundreds of us Americans who take our American Bill of Rights seriously are rejoicing in your courage,” wrote one customer, who added: “I don’t believe for a moment that your restaurants will be swamped by crowds of negro customers. Instead, your leadership will help open the eating places to these fellow Americans of ours who can pay for such service throughout this city,— anywhere!”81 And, as their opponents did, their arguments referred to the rationale of the marketplace: “It seems strained, to say the least, that a store which is perfectly willing to sell to Negroes over the counter should refuse to serve them in a restaurant. In either case it is an exchange of services and commodity for cash.”82 They, too, offered the prize of loyalty of their purse pockets: “From now on I will shop first at Hochshild, Kohn’s [sic]!”83

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In other words, these letters clearly affirm Lizabeth Cohen’s concept of a consumer’s republic where identities as citizens and consumers converge and the outlines of the marketplace become the contested arena for democracy, a surrogate for political participation.84 Cohen uses this lens to critique political choices made in the post–World War II period in the United States: “It became easier to integrate black Americans into a shared postwar culture by facilitating their purchasing of the abundant fruits of a growing economy than by tearing down the formidable barriers to job equality put up by employers and unions alike.”85 African Americans gained access to jobs in retail spaces, as historian Nancy MacLean argues, more often through fighting against discrimination.86 In the 1960s, workers’ struggles relied on antidiscrimination legislation and state support via the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to open workplaces instead of using employment legislation. Indeed, decades earlier in 1933–1934, Baltimore’s “Buy Where You Can Work” movement, as was the case in other cities in the 1930s, demanded that African American workers be hired as sales clerks in white-owned shops in black neighborhoods. Historian Andor Skotnes argues that in Baltimore, youth and church groups organized the movement without much input from the labor movement.87 Nevertheless, he maintains that the Baltimore boycotts appealed to working-class residents as well as those in the middle class and “blended labor demands (jobs) with consumer demands.”88 The driving impetuses in this campaign included the fight against employment segregation in a community with high unemployment and the desire to end humiliating service at the hands of white salesclerks. While black workers would not be hired for sales jobs in Baltimore’s department stores until the late 1960s,89 African Americans framed their battle to access these public spaces as consumers as a matter of equal rights, highlighting the terms around which the very idea of “the public” became constituted in stores. In South Africa, the 1960s was a period of unprecedented growth. As the economy boomed, personal credit expanded, the advertising industry became increasingly sophisticated, and conspicuous consumption increased. The period brought new class mobility to some Afrikaners, in particular, and an ambivalence from the National Party, which relied on this group’s political support, about the impact of consumerism on racial solidarity.90 As black women began to enter sales jobs in the context of a white labor shortage, the state moved to try to keep white women in sales and clerical jobs. In 1969, the National Party called for an investigation of job reservation in retail stores and offices. The concerns of the ruling party centered on black women serving white customers, taking white women’s jobs, and working alongside white women in shops.91 Parliamentary debate noted the irony that black women could serve white families in the privacy of their homes as domestic workers but not in the public realm of stores and offices.92 Both employers and the NUDW opposed job reservation. While the campaign for job reservation

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was unsuccessful, the debate over the influx of black workers into service jobs in the late 1960s in South Africa highlights the terms around which white women shopworkers’ respectability was cast. The National Party wanted to protect white women in these jobs precisely because of the affect they reproduced in the service relation with other whites. White women’s labor was required in shops to allay fears that consumption had the potential to disturb the racial order as class divisions became more unstable.

Conclusion From their inception, department stores have been read and contested as cultural symbols, as signs and sites of changing public engagement.93 Historian Evelyn Nakano Glenn shows how important the intersection of racialized and gendered labor has been to notions of citizenship. She suggests that race, class, and gender orders constitute legal and extralegal parameters of daily lives in specific places and makes a strong argument for comparative research.94 In this essay, I argue that department stores were constituted as public spaces in the intersection of white and black women’s service labor to primarily white customers. African American students from Morgan State College staged sit-ins at department store lunch counters to protest racialized exclusions as consumers because service constituted forms of belonging, not just measures of distinction. The debate raised in Baltimore in 1960 confirms that access to department stores was framed in terms of a struggle over a set of relations understood to be the “market.” This market conferred respectability, status, and inclusion through the commodities consumers purchased but, significantly, also through the relations of service offered through specifically gendered and racialized labor. In Johannesburg, service workers constituted different sorts of public spaces than in Baltimore. In Johannesburg, whiteness signified metropolitan luxury and class stratification acted to reinforce access to consumption; there, service work was less linked to the skill of selling. As a result, the realm of consumption remained an ambivalent site of political claims. Black women organized to open up retail arenas for employment. My point is that more than race is reproduced in retail arenas. Because these spaces are located at the intersection of consumption and labor, desire and inclusion, they become particularly emotive places of engagement and debate. Retail arenas become publics through the affective work of servicing a public. In Baltimore, as publics, department stores signified inclusion through participation in the market. In Johannesburg, department stores represented entry into the polity through employment in jobs, partly because consumption could not adequately signify belonging for white service workers in sites where class differences in the service relation were starkly reproduced. In both publics, women’s service labor helps explain how retail arenas became scenes for different claims of participation and struggles against racial segregation.

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Notes 1. 1960 Flyer, August Meier Papers, 1930–1998, MG340, box 64, folder 6, Maryland, Baltimore, Civic Interest Group, 1960, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York. 2. Mrs. W. Ainsworth Parker to Mr. Louis Kohn, March 27, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters For), Hochschild, Kohn Collection, MS2721 (hereafter HKC), Maryland Historical Society (hereafter MHS), Baltimore, Maryland. 3. Mr. George G. Schafer to Hochschild Kohn & Co., April 12, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters Against), HKC, MHS, Baltimore, Maryland. 4. Lizabeth Cohen, Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Vintage Books, 2003). 5. The sit-in protests and the debate over department store discrimination occurred at the same as a historic South African event, to which the references in Baltimore’s debate no doubt allude. On March 21, 1960, South African police shot and killed sixty-nine protesters in a march against the requirement that black South Africans carry passes in Sharpeville, a black segregated residential area south of Johannesburg. This event, which became known as the Sharpeville Massacre, was covered in the Baltimore newspapers. In South Africa, it ushered in a period of “high apartheid” that included severe surveillance and repression of the black freedom movement. 6. The National Party was an Afrikaner nationalist political party that became the ruling party in 1948. Its rule held until democratic elections in 1994. It instituted the vast legal and coercive apparatus of apartheid. Job reservation refers to legal restrictions against black workers working in specified occupational categories and industries. 7. See for discussion of the usefulness of juxtaposition, see Frederick Cooper, “Review: Race, Ideology, and the Perils of Comparative History,” American Historical Review 101, no. 4 (1996): 1135. 8. Elaine S. Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 4; Anne Friedberg, Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Emile Zola, The Ladies’ Paradise (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). 9. Susan Porter Benson, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890–1940 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986). 10. Lauren Berlant, “The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Anita Hill,” American Literature 65, no. 3 (1993): 549–574; see also Nancy Fraser, Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition (New York & London: Routledge, 1997), 82–83, 99–120. 11. C. Wright Mills, White Collar: The American Middle Classes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956). 12. Oral history interview with Edward Tucker, Edward Gutman, and Barbara Gillespie Tucker, March 13, 2001, OH 0459, Edward Braitman Oral History Collection (hereafter EBOHC), Jewish Museum of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland (hereafter JMM). 13. Oral history interview with Elaine Layden, August 23, 2000, OH 0364, EBOHC, JMM. 14. Oral history interview with Tucker, Edward Gutman, and Barbara Gillespie Tucker. 15. Oral history interview with Elaine Layden. 16. Oral history interview with Sonia Schnaper, August 16, 2000, OH 0363, EBOHC, JMM. 17. Oral history interview with Elaine Layden. 18. Paul A. Kramer, “White Sales: The Racial Politics of Baltimore’s Jewish-Owned Department Stores, 1935–1965,” in Enterprising Emporiums: The Jewish Department Stores of Downtown Baltimore, ed. Jewish Museum of Baltimore (Baltimore, Md.: Jewish Museum of Baltimore, 2001), 37–65; Antero Pietila, Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a

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Great American City (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010); Elizabeth Fee, Linda Shopes, and Linda Zeidman, eds., The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993). For broader context for the Jim Crow South, see Anne Valk and Leslie Brown, Living with Jim Crow: African American Women and Memories of the Segregated South (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); and William H. Chafe, Raymond Gavins, and Robert Korstad, Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South (New York: The New Press, 2001). 19. Kramer, “White Sales,” 38. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 43–44. To complaints in the late 1930s and 1940s about Jewish department stores in Baltimore not serving black customers, store owners responded that they “‘might lose some white trade if they stopped discriminating against Negroes.’” Quoted in Cheryl Greenberg, “Political Consumer Action: Some Cautionary Notes from African American History,” in Politics, Products and Markets: Exploring Political Consumerism Past and Present, ed. M. Micheletti, A. Follesdal, and D. Stolle (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2004), 70. For Baltimore’s black middle class see Fee, Shopes, and Zeidman, The Baltimore Book. 22. Oral history interview with Edward Tucker, Edward Gutman, and Barbara Gillespie Tucker. 23. Reflections by Jean Collen, http://jeancollen.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/life-inkensington-johannesburg-fifty-years-ago/ accessed August 25, 2012. 24. On black consumers, see Deborah Posel, “Races to Consume: Revisiting South Africa’s History of Race, Consumption, and the Struggle for Freedom,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33, no. 2 (2010): 157–175. South African urban geography under apartheid was defined by legal “racial” segregation. Laws prohibited black residents from living in the (“white”) city unless they were live-in domestic workers working for white families. Instead, they resided in racially defined “townships” (for “Coloureds,” “Indians,” and “Africans”) on the periphery of the city, often called “dormitory townships” to capture the functionality of these spaces. This segregation was implemented through forced removals, which relocated black South Africans to engineered areas and moved white working-class families to the desirable areas in many instances, including through provision of subsidized housing to whites. Africans were allowed to be in town during specified hours, on the presumption that they were working in town. They had to carry a pass book at all times that listed their employer as proof of any claim to be present in the city. White South Africans lived in numerous leafy suburbs surrounding the city center that were serviced by regular public transportation to and from town. Black South Africans had to sit in separate sections of buses, trains, and trams (or had completely separate vehicles); they had to use separate entrances and separate facilities such as canteens, change rooms, and toilets; and they were excluded from entering some public spaces, such as swimming pools and parks. See Keith Beavon, Johannesburg: The Making and Shaping of the City (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 2004). 25. Bryant Simon, Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 26. Benson, Counter Cultures; see also William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1993). 27. Val Marie Johnson, “‘The Rest Can Go to the Devil’: Macy’s Workers Negotiate Gender, Sex and Class in the Progressive Era,” Journal of Women’s History 19, no. 1 (2007): 32–57. 28. Benson, Counter Cultures; see also Daniel Opler, For All White-Collar Workers: The Possibilities of Radicalism in New York City’s Department Store Unions, 1934–53 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007).

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29. Numerous scholars define emotional or affective labor as the set of effects produced by service workers when they manage their performative, bodily, and facial comportment and relationship to customers in order to generate feelings in customers. The key dynamic is that emotional labor itself becomes part of the commodity sold in service work. Thus, the smile becomes part of what is purchased in the service exchange. See Arlie Hochschild, The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Eva Illouz, Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism (London: Polity, 2007); C. W. Mills, White Collar; Michael Hardt, “Affective Labor”, Boundary 2 26, no. 2 (1999): 89–100. 30. Elizabeth Beardsley Butler, Saleswomen in Mercantile Stores, Baltimore, 1909 (New York: Survey Associates, 1912), 57, Table 3. Men accounted for 31 percent of the department store work force and women 68.57 percent in 1909. 31. Ibid., 121. 32. Ibid., 144. 33. Women’s Bureau, Baltimore Women War Workers in the Postwar Period (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Labor, 1948), 45. 34. Bridget Kenny, “Servicing Modernity: White Women Shop Workers and Changing Gendered Respectabilities, 1940s–1970s,” African Studies 67, no. 3 (2008): 365–396. See also Iris Berger, Threads of Solidarity: Women in South African Industry 1900–1980 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992). 35. Kenny, “Servicing Modernity”; Berger, Threads of Solidarity. 36. Oral history interview with Roy and Charlotte Waldorf, September 21, 2000, OH 0433, EBOHC, JMM. 37. Ibid. 38. Butler, Saleswomen in Mercantile Stores, 40; Hutzler Bros. Co. Papers, MS 2691, Maryland Historical Society; Hochschild-Kohn Papers, MS 2721, Maryland Historical Society; oral history interview with Sonia Schnaper. 39. On paternalism, see Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Lisa M. Fine, “‘Our Big Factory Family’: Masculinity and Paternalism at the Reo Motor Car Company of Lansing, Michigan,” Labor History 34, nos. 2–3 (1993): 274–291. 40. Butler, Saleswomen in Mercantile Stores, 45. 41. Oral history interview with Elaine Layden; Dean Krimmel, “Merchant Princes and Their Palaces: The Emergence of Department Stores in Baltimore,” in Enterprising Emporiums: The Jewish Department Stores of Downtown Baltimore, ed. Jewish Museum of Baltimore (Baltimore, Md.: The Jewish Museum of Baltimore, 2001), 13–36. 42. Oral history interview with Sonia Schnaper. 43. Oral history interview with Roy and Charlotte Waldorf; oral history interview with Sonia Schnaper. 44. Oral history interview with Edward Tucker, Edward Gutman, and Barbara Gillespie Tucker. 45. Oral history interview with Sonia Schnaper; oral history interview with Elaine Layden. 46. Oral history interview with Roy and Charlotte Waldorf. 47. But see Opler, For All White-Collar Workers, for unionization in department stores in New York City. 48. Kenny, “Servicing Modernity”; Berger, Threads of Solidarity; Norman Herd, Counter Attack: The Story of the South African Shopworkers (Cape Town: National Union of Distributive Workers, 1974). 49. Kenny, “Servicing Modernity.”

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50. Ibid.; B. Roberts to R. Altman, March 9, 1969, Ua 41.2.1, National Union of Distributive Workers (Witswatersrand Branch) Records (hereafter NUDWR-W), AH 1601, Library, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; “Union Member Gets Her Job Back, But Says, ‘No Thank You,’” New Day, July 1972, 26, Ua 41.1.3, AH 1601, NUDWR-W; D. Hartwell to Mr. J. Rose, October 9, 1968, Ua 41.2.3, AH 1601, NUDWR-W; “Minutes of Meeting of OK Bazaars, Orange Grove, 19 June 1962”, Ua 41.3; AH 1601, NUDWR-W; B. Robarts to Mr. L. Miller, Managing Director, OK Bazaars, March 1, 1957, Ua 41.2.1, AH 1601, NUDWR-W; Union Members Protest Against Longer Shop Hours, n.d., NUDW pamphlet, Qa1, AH 1601, NUDWR-W. 51. Author’s oral history interview with “CW,” March 6, 2007, Johannesburg; New Day, July 1949, 25, in National Union of Distributive Workers (Natal Branch) Records (hereafter NUDWR-NB), AH 1202/G1, Library, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; New Day, September 1949, 28, and June 1949, 33, AH 1202/G1, NUDWR-NB. 52. Dan O’Meara, Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital, and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934–1948 ( Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983); For the centrality of white women’s femininity to Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid, see Jonathan Hylsop, “White WorkingClass Women and the Invention of Apartheid: ‘Purified’ Afrikaner Nationalist Agitation for Legislation Against ‘Mixed’ Marriages, 1934–9,” Journal of African History 36, no. 1 (1995): 57–81; Isabel Hofmeyer, “Building a Nation from Words: Afrikaans Language, Literature, and Ethnic Identity, 1902–1924,” in The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa, ed. Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido (London and New York: Longman, 1987), 95–123; Marijke Du Toit, “The Domesticity of Afrikaner Nationalism: Volksmoeders and the ACVV, 1904–1929,” Journal of Southern African Studies 29, no. 1 (2003): 155–176; On the state’s interest in disciplining poor whites, see Charles van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand 1886–1914, vol. 1, New Babylon ( Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982); Neil Roos, “Work Colonies and South African Historiography,” Social History 36, no. 1 (February, 2011): 54–76; Irma Du Plessis, “Afrikaner Nationalism, Print Culture, and the ‘Capacity to Aspire’: The Imaginative Powers of Popular Fiction for Young Readers,” African Identities 8, no. 1 (2010): 3–20. 53. Kenny, “Servicing Modernity.” For debate around “juvenile delinquency” linked to women’s entry into the labor market, see Katie Mooney, “‘Die Eendstert Euwel’ and Societal Responses to White Youth Subcultural Identities on the Witwatersrand, 1930–1964” (PhD diss., University of the Witwatersrand, 2006). 54. Herd, Counter Attack, 51, 53, 104. For a broader discussion, see Kenny, “Servicing Modernity.” 55. Draft response of NUDW to newspaper article “Trial Plan to Suspend Shop Hours Ordinance” in Rand Daily Mail, 11 November 1961, File D, Morris Kagan Papers, A2452, Library, University of the Witwatersrand. For more discussion on extended trading hours, see Kenny, “Servicing Modernity.” 56. An extensive South African literature documents the project of reforming “poor whites”; see Rob Morrell, White but Poor: Essays on the History of Poor Whites in Southern Africa, 1880–1940 (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 1992); Saul Dubow, Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). For specific relations between working-class and middle-class white women, see Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, “‘I’ll Give You Something to Cry About’: The Intraracial Violence of Uplift Feminism in the Carnegie Poor White Study Volume, The Mother and Daughter of the Poor Family,” South African Review of Sociology 41, no. 1 (2010): 78–104. 57. See Kenny, “Servicing Modernity”; Irma du Plessis, “Nation, Family, Intimacy: The Domain of the Domestic in the Social Imaginary,” South African Review of Sociology 42, no. 2 (2011): 45–65.

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58. Evan Roberts, “Gender in Store: Salespeople’s Working Hours and Union Organisation in New Zealand and the United States, 1930–60,” Labour History 83 (2002): 107–130. 59. For domestic service and African American employment, see Rebecca Sharpless, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Tera W. Hunter, To ’Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997). 60. Tips and Taps, January 1943, JMM; Kramer, “White Sales.” 61. Tips and Taps, July 1943, JMM. 62. Beth Kreydatus, “‘You Are a Part of All of Us’: Black Department Store Employees in Jim Crow Richmond,” Journal of Historical Research in Marketing 2, no. 1 (2010): 110. 63. Ibid., 112. 64. Ibid., 111. 65. Ibid.. See also Patricia Cooper, “The Limits of Persuasion: Race Reformers and the Department Store Campaign in Philadelphia, 1945–1948,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 126, no. 1 (2002): 97–126. 66. See Simon, Boardwalk of Dreams, 224n14, for how the labor of African Americans in the public space of the boardwalk in Atlantic City as cleaners and sweepers, musicians and dancers, and, most symbolically, as push-chair operators, convinced white middle-class holidaymakers of its newfound respectability. 67. Black male distributive workers organized as the African Commercial and Distributive Workers Union in the 1940s, until apartheid law put an end to their union. See Baruch Hirson, Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggles in South Africa ( Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1990). 68. Author’s analysis of government censuses of the retail sector: Census of Distribution and Service Establishments—Department Stores (Pretoria: Republic of South Africa, 1947); Census of Distribution and Service Establishments—Department Stores (Pretoria: Republic of South Africa, 1952); Census of Distribution and Service Establishments—Department Stores (Pretoria: Republic of South Africa, 1961). 69. Oral history interview with “CW.” 70. See Ann Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 71. See Traci Parker’s chapter in this volume. 72. Mr. Martin B. Kohn to Mr. August Meier, April 8, 1960, August Meier Papers, 1930–1998, MG340, box 64, folder 1, Maryland, Baltimore, Civic Interest Group, 1960, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York. 73. Helen and Henry Thoms to Hochild, Kohn & Co [sic], March 27, 1960, box 6, March– June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters Against), HKC, MHS. 74. Ethel Bova to “Dear Sirs,” April 5, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters Against), HKC, MHS. 75. Mrs. John D. Englar to Hochschild, Kohn and Company, n.d., box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters Against), HKC, MHS. 76. Leo Robert Willis to Hochschild Kohn & Company, March 30, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters Against), HKC, MHS. 77. Hilda T. Hofferbert and family to Hochschild, Kohn and Company, April 18, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters Against), HKC, MHS; unsigned letter to Hochschild, Kohn and Company, April 3, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters Against), HKC, MHS. 78. Postcard dated March 27, 1960, from charge plate customer, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters Against), HKC, MHS.

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79. Hattie E. Stowe to Mr. Louis Kohn, March 27, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters For), HKC, MHS. 80. Adelaide N. Noyes to Mr. Sondheim, March 27, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters For), HKC, MHS. 81. Eleanor Richardson to Mr. Louis Kohn, March 27, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters For), HKC, MHS. 82. Frances Kraus to Hochschild, Kohn and Co., March 27, 1960, box 6, March–June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters For), HKC, MHS. 83. Mary Jane Simpson to Hochschild, Kohn and Company, March 27, 1960, box 6, March– June 1960, folder Tea Room Integration (Letters For), HKC, MHS. 84. Cohen, Consumer’s Republic. 85. Ibid. 86. Nancy MacLean, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008). 87. Andor Skotnes, “‘Buy Where you Can Work’: Boycotting for Jobs in African-American Baltimore, 1933–1934,” Journal of Social History 27, no. 4 (1994): 736. 88. Ibid., 753. Also see Andor Skotnes, A New Deal for All? Race and Class Struggles in Depression-Era Baltimore (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2013). 89. Black workers were not generally hired for sales jobs before 1960s civil rights activism opened up department stores; see Kreydatus, “You Are a Part of All of Us.” 90. Albert Grundlingh, “‘Are We Afrikaners Getting Too Rich?’: Cornucopia and Change in Afrikanerdom in the 1960s,” Journal of Historical Sociology 21, nos. 2–3 (2008). 91. H. Van Vuuren quoted in Debates from the House of Assembly (Hansard), Fifth SessionThird Parliament, Republic of South Africa, January 30–February 27, vol. 28, (Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, 1970), 1587. 92. Helen Suzman quoted in ibid., 1584; see also Kenny, “Servicing Modernity.” 93. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999). 94. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002).

6 • ATHABASC AN VILL AGE STORES Subsistence Shopping in Interior Alaska in the 1940s J O H N W. H E ATO N

For Alaskans, 1971 represents a pivotal moment in the state’s history. In that year, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) extinguished Native land title, created Native corporations, and set the stage for the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980, which established a “rural preference” for the subsistence use of resources on public lands. In an effort to protect Native Alaskan resource needs without reference to ethnicity, federal legislation defined subsistence use as “customary and traditional” and users as rural Alaskans.1 But this definition placed ANILCA at odds with a state law that granted all Alaskans a subsistence-use priority over commercial and recreational uses. In 1990 and then again in 1999, the legal inconsistency led to a controversial federal takeover of subsistence management on federal lands and over navigable waters in Alaska. Bureaucrats based the federal effort to institutionalize Native access to traditional resources on ahistoric views of cultural change. Moreover, in their application of the rural subsistence preference, federal officials arbitrarily used 1971 as the year that demarcated “customary and traditional” land use from newer adaptations. This perspective perpetuates an old and overly simplistic dichotomy between market activity and hunting-gathering economies.2 This dichotomy has also influenced scholars’ initial interest in the impact of ANCSA on Native communities and Athabascans’ interest in defending their subsistence access. Alaskan Athabascans were rarely studied prior to 1971. However, interest in the group exploded afterward. A new generation of scholars viewed Athabascan village communities as relatively isolated and traditional in their subsistence lifestyles and suggested that they had been drawn into market 123

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activity through the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971 and the construction of the Alaska pipeline.3 More recent scholars, however, have challenged such notions by examining strategies Natives used to respond to market capitalism through economic adaptations and innovations or their flexibility in embracing certain aspects of capitalism and their roles in the wagelabor economy. Meanwhile, Athabascans have emphasized continuity over adaptation in public discussions of their “traditional subsistence lifestyle,” playing up the dichotomy between subsistence and market strategies with an idealized view of the pre-ANCSA past.4 Although shopping has not been seen as part of traditional Indian subsistence, Athabascan shoppers on the Tanana River have used purchased goods to supply a sizable and increasing portion of their needs and wants in Alaska for about 150 years. Trading posts and, later, village stores provided staple and luxury items and served as a capitalist institution that significantly influenced Athabascan culture long before the passage of ANCSA. This study examines the emergence of Athabascan village stores along the Tanana River in the 1940s as a snapshot moment in the long process of market integration. The emergence of village stores challenges scholarship that questions Indians’ willingness to work in a market context and uses Indian wage employment to measure resource loss and dependency. Such measures tell us little about the Athabascans, who have long worked for wages in the fur trade in regions so remote that even government policy makers generally considered them an afterthought. Their story is not one of resources lost and dependence. Non-Indian encroachment and loss of resources influenced Athabascan adaptations, but engagement in the market helped preserve rather than destroy their distinct cultural identity. Subsistence and shopping intertwined as the Athabascan family economy and way of life increasingly depended on the market production of furs, wage work, and access to western foods and credit, all of which expanded as the demand for luxury goods surpassed practical material needs. The term subsistence shopping thus serves as a metaphor that emphasizes a harmonic and evolving rather than a dichotomous relationship among Athabascan culture, work, consumption, ancestral land, and the market.5 In addition, the history of village stores challenges the assumption that Athabascans used cash and credit mainly to perpetuate traditional subsistence patterns. Instead, evidence from these stores suggests that conscious subsistence shopping also drew these Indians into an emerging American consumer culture as early as the 1940s.6 Lacking treaty status, tribal recognition, reservations, and title to their lands, Athabascans remained outside the scope of key policy formulations during the late nineteenth century. When Congress passed the Dawes Act in 1887 to promote Native property ownership as the path to self-sufficiency and total assimilation of Indians as equals in American society, few non-Indians had ever been in the Alaskan interior. Interior Athabascans had been making a living in

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Figure 6.1. Map of Alaska. (Map by Dixon Jones.)

this challenging location for perhaps two millennia before Americanization. The interior’s widely scattered resources forced the Athabascans to develop a tradition of individualism. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, interior Athabascans adjusted their subsistence patterns to take advantage of new economic opportunities that resulted from contact and trade with Europeans. These adaptations included living in fishing camps during the summer and log cabin villages near traplines and trading posts during the frozen months. From the 1867 Alaska Purchase to the Klondike gold rush of 1897, the economy of the Alaskan interior focused almost exclusively on Athabascan fur production and a nascent mining economy. In fact, the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) and its rival, the Western Fur and Trade Company, were virtually the only American institutional presence on the Yukon.7 By the time the first Episcopal contract schools opened in the interior in the late 1890s, the reformers’ policy goals of total assimilation had shifted to one of partial assimilation. As Alaska’s gold economy boomed and Americans began to conceive the Far North as the last frontier, Congress signaled the beginning of a new era for the district when it passed the Nelson Act in 1905, the Alaska

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Native Allotment Act (ANAA) in 1906, and the Second Organic Act in 1912. These acts provided for the establishment of schools in any “civilized” Native community with at least twenty school-age children, allowed Natives to acquire homesteads of up to 160 acres, made Alaska a territory, and gave the president authority to establish a federal railroad from Seward to Fairbanks. While many Athabascans in the Tanana Valley embraced formal education for their children, few accepted taking allotments or creating a reservation. When a booster from nearby Fairbanks hosted a conference with the Tanana chiefs to convince the Indians to either take allotments or create a reservation, Athabascan leaders told the boosters that they wanted an industrial boarding school, a doctor, a hospital, and equal access to government contracts for fish, cordwood, and railroad jobs.8 By the 1920s the economic patterns of Athabascans had changed, but there were also signs of cultural resilience. The market economy encouraged individualism and a strong regard for—and accumulation of—personal wealth in local communities, but people also continued to share resources. Hunters still lit signal fires after making a kill to alert others to share the meat. And the potlatch remained an important cultural institution. Residence patterns in the 1920s revealed a similar connection. Although the ANAA was designed to protect Native land interests at a minimal level, encourage assimilation, and facilitate non-Native development, it had little impact because the expected land rush never occurred.9 Instead, Athabascan custom and individual choice influenced settlement patterns along the Tanana. Most Athabascans lived in small villages with access to both subsistence resources and trading posts. In the 1920s, hunting, trapping, and wage work provided a good living in the interior, but by the 1930s, the ability of Athabascans to follow a mixed subsistence/market economy eroded due to degradation of local resources such as caribou; federal cuts to the territorial budget for the military, railroads, and education; and the impact of the Great Depression on fur markets. By the late 1930s, Athabascan communities along the Tanana River, facing hardship and struggling to regain local economic control, attempted to open village stores. Engagement in the market economy resulted in deepening debt to and dependency on the traders. These traders charged higher prices for goods purchased on credit or through barter and held Athabascans in an “economic strangle hold.”10 Tetlin, for example, a village located on the Tetlin River about ten miles above its confluence with the Tanana, had a population of approximately seventy people in the late 1930s. President Herbert Hoover issued an executive order temporarily withdrawing the public purpose reserve of 786,000 acres at Tetlin in 1930 to “promote the interests of the natives by appropriate vocational training to encourage and assist them” in the protection of fur resources. While the reserve allowed Tetlin to keep non-Natives from hunting on these lands, it could not restore markets for the furs villagers produced there. Villagers had purchased

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most of their goods for decades from a trader named John Hajdukovich and were deeply in his debt. Working with Alaska Indian Service (AIS) bureaucrats, Tetlin organized under the ARA and opened its own cooperative store with a $19,000 government loan in 1941.11 It posted a net profit of $6,873 from October 10, 1941, to June 10, 1942, $5,731 of which went to dividends for patrons. The rest paid for improvements to buildings. Speaking in council on November 12, 1941, about the importance of cooperation, Big John, a Tetlin elder, said, “This New Store and New Way I like, I wish I was a young man so that I could help Tetlin grow.”12 As his comment suggested, the Tetlin village store symbolized a renewed sense of community power and control. The store’s initial operation went so well that Tetlin cooperated with Tanacross (population 131 in 1940), located about fifty miles downstream, to open and operate a branch store there. Tanacross had not organized under the ARA and thus could not get a government loan. The Tetlin branch store, which was controlled by the village council, opened at Tanacross in 1941. Tetlin submitted and funded purchase orders from the branch store, organized freight transport, set the prices of goods, received furs from Tanacross producers as payment for merchandise, marketed these furs, and kept the profits. Indeed, Indian Service field agent Louis Peters reported that the Tanacross store was in the “position of working entirely for the financial interest of Tetlin.”13 Tanacross residents resented their inferior position. A council member told Peters, “Before the store our Chief was just like the brother with Tetlin Chief, now they are not like brothers anymore—we want them to be brothers again.”14 Bad feelings resulting from the store issue negatively affected relations between the two communities, and the Tetlin council soon severed the connection with the branch store. Tanacross negotiated a payment schedule with Tetlin and took over management of the store while it sought ARA organization in 1942. By 1944, Tanacross residents were operating their own store with a government loan.15 A third Tanana village store opened at Minto in 1941 as a stock company. Each adult member of the village received a share of common stock valued at $10, and each holder was eligible to cast one vote on store matters. Two years later, the store inventory was expanded on a credit basis through national emergency relief merchandise valued at more than $8,000. Then, in 1944, the community received a contract to cut 1,060 cords of wood to fuel steamboats and invested the money from their collective labor in the store. Later that year, the village council held a meeting to discuss the store’s relative merits and affiliation with the consolidated purchasing service of the AIS (soon to be renamed the Alaska Native Service [ANS]). It voted to continue the store’s affiliation with the ANS, despite concluding that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages. Although the council did not like the fact that there was only one annual shipment and did not care for some of the brands the AIS carried, they appreciated assistance from the Indian Service teacher who watched the store’s books, took inventory, and

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forwarded proceeds for deposit in Juneau; the lower cost of goods; the simplicity and economy of one annual order; and the availability of credit.16 Determination of the economic conditions in Tanana, Tanacross, and Minto during this period remains imprecise. Although income figures for these three communities are not available, in 1948 a report listed “average family income[s]” at the nearby villages of Tanana and Fort Yukon as $3,850 and $3,255, respectively. Residents in these two villages also relied heavily on trapping, fishing, woodcutting, and seasonal wage labor. If these figures are representative, it means that the Athabascan families on the Tanana made about half as much as the $6,462 that the average family of four lived on in Oregon and Washington during the same year. Census data from 1940 revealed that most residents of Minto, Tanana, and Tanacross lived in log homes they owned, although some lived in tents, especially in Tetlin. A typical family also owned “Furniture,” “Household Equipment,” “Personal Effects,” and traps, dogs, sleds, and guns. For example, Harry and Grace Riley and their three children under ten years of age lived in a 20-by-22-foot log cabin valued at $200. They also owned household equipment, furniture, and personal effects worth $485, 2 boats ($25), 190 traps ($150), 7 dogs ($175), and other property—“snowshoes, motors, cables, stoves, sewing machine, iron roofing, etc.”—valued at $455, for a total value of $1,490.17 The picture remains incomplete, but growing store inventories and annual purchases suggest that local economic development spurred an increase in consumer spending during the 1940s. While village stores helped Tanana communities establish more economic control, they also contributed to economic growth, expanded access to luxury goods, and further integrated the subsistence lifestyle with the market. Subsistence shoppers enjoyed a wider selection in these three village stores, and their choices exceeded utilitarian considerations.18 Norbert Bellavance, the ANS teacher in Tetlin, described shoppers as picky in their selection of clothing colors: “They are quite peacockish when it comes to clothes: blue denim overalls aren’t dressy enough . . . and laceless underwear or drab-colored garments are not worthy of covering their . . . bodies.”19 Development of preferences came with experience, variety, considerations of convenience, and a disposable income. Discriminating Athabascan women and girls selected from several brands and styles of undergarments, including Lady Romance and Smiling Lady slips; Ballerina, Mannequin, and Nazareth underwear; cotton hose; union suits; wool and cotton socks; and bloomers. Building their wardrobes on this foundation, they could choose from among women’s suits, dresses in solids and prints, vests, sweaters, and pants. Women who disliked the styles available sewed clothing on machines for themselves and their families with fabrics such as green felt or bleached muslin that they purchased at the village store. Outerwear selections for women and girls included wool jackets and coats, rain jackets, boots and “snow packs” (boots used in subzero conditions), snowsuits, bandanas, handkerchiefs,

Figure 6.2. Inventory of store merchandise, Minto Village Store, September 16, 1949. (Folder Minto Native Store, box 92, Records of the Juneau Area Office, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–63, Record Group 75, National Archives at Anchorage, AK-Pacific Alaska Region.)

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and wool mittens and gloves. Parents shopping for babies purchased bird’s-eye cotton for diapers, bottles, nipples, sweaters, flannel gowns, infant hosiery, pants, and diaper liners. Health and beauty aids included toilet paper, sanitary napkins, bobby pins, safety pins, several brands of soap, shampoo, powder puffs, perfume, permanent wave clips, toothbrushes, and toothpaste. Males used some of these products along with shaving cream, razors, and hair tonic. Men and boys also found a wide choice of clothing such as union suits; brand-name underwear from Black Brothers, Bassett Walker, and Hanes; wool and Rockford Red Heel socks; work boots, snow packs, and hip boots; gloves and mittens; wool and whipcord pants; coveralls; work and dress pants; sport and polo shirts; sweaters and jackets; wool coats and raincoats; and even leather coats. Subsistence shoppers slept in store-bought sheets, blankets, beds, and sleeping bags and used Turkish towels to dry themselves after a hot bath. And if their village store did not stock a particular item, it could place an order for customers through the Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog.20 Purchases in the categories of “Hardware” and “Gasoline, Oil, & Grease” emphasized the kind of work community members performed and the incorporation of new technology. The stores sold canvas tents, steel traps and snares of various sizes, and rifles, shotguns, and tens of thousands of rounds of shot and cartridges. Coleman lamps, flashlight batteries, fishing line, dog chains and collars, kettles, rope, axes, bug repellant, stovepipes, large saw blades, saw shafts, heavy canvas belts, outboard motors, and oil, gasoline, grease, and kerosene all attested to the impact of technology and the ongoing importance of trapping, hunting, fishing and woodcutting for personal use and market production. Finished lumber, nails, paints, carpet tacks, and tar paper, to mention a few construction items, also underscored the housing choices of these community members.21 If the hardware purchases revealed the nature of work and housing in the villages, inventory items such as ice skates and toys remind us that children and hardworking Athabascans also enjoyed moments of leisure and play through consumption of village store products. Parents purchased toy stove sets, ironing boards, and cleaning sets; dolls; circus toy and Erector sets; toy cars and dogs; and storybooks. One luxury item in particular, tobacco, appeared to be in high demand. Men and women chose from a variety of brands and products, including Camel, Raleigh, Chesterfield, and Lucky Strike cigarettes; cigars; Black Bull leaf chewing tobacco; Velvet Pipe tobacco; and rolling papers.22 Athabascan subsistence shoppers also developed a taste and preference for certain proteins, as Everett Wilde, the new ANS teacher in Tetlin, discovered when he submitted the annual store purchase order in 1949. Wilde realized too late that “these people have their own peculiarities which vary from those of the Eskimo in many cases.” Wilde made a supplemental order to emphasize the “need” for meats, especially for the “pensioners” who could not hunt and “for

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those who do not hunt.”23 His statement suggested a decline in communal sharing and an increased dependence on the store for meat. In addition to granulated sugar, those who enjoyed sweets chose from honey, maple syrup, and corn syrup; Baby Ruth and Milky Way candy bars; gum; and assorted candies. When the Western diet got the better of those who ate it, Tanana villagers turned to a variety of medicines such as Alka-Seltzer and Ex-Lax to soothe stomach problems. Aspirin, castor oil, Vicks Va-tro-nol, Listerine, Hills cold tablets, Midol, and Mentholatum offered relief from other ailments.24 The Western diet has been blamed for a host of health problems among contemporary Alaskan Natives, including high and growing rates of obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes.25 That Athabascan subsistence shoppers had grown accustomed to this diet as early as the 1940s challenges current views of Alaska Native eating patterns, but the dependence of village parents on canned milk to feed infants reveals significant change. At Tanacross, a store inventory noted that forty-nine cases of canned milk had frozen. Residents refused to buy it because the milk was worthless for use in cereal, coffee, pudding, or gravy or for baby food. It curdled, separated, or would not flow through a plastic nipple. This last problem was notable because there were “quite a few” babies in Tanacross that year. According to Jensen, parents drove twenty-four miles “round trip to Tok Junction or 80 miles round trip to Dot Lake to get it [canned milk] for them.” Cow’s milk contains insufficient vitamin E, iron, and essential fatty acids plus excessive protein and potassium that can strain infants’ kidneys. And babies have more difficulty absorbing the proteins and fats in cow’s milk compared to breast milk. In addition to this negative nutritional exchange, the time and resources required to replace or supplement breast milk with canned milk represented a significant investment in resources and a consequential adaptation.26 Subsistence shopping involved trade-offs. Each purchase represented a choice that had consequences that accumulated over time to change the Athabascan subsistence lifestyle and connect individuals and villages to the market economy and the consumer lifestyle in an ever-tightening embrace. The growing selection on store shelves surely motivated some individuals to increase their incomes and thus their ability to make purchases. An Upper Tanana River Indian’s social position was based in part on material possessions.27 “Keeping up with the Joneses” must have influenced Tanana village communities and led to rising sales at the store and the expansion of store inventories and selections in the 1940s. In this way, village stores also played a key role in drawing subsistence shoppers deeper into the American consumer society. Expanded access to consumer goods not only influenced the material culture of the subsistence lifestyle, it also bound subsistence shoppers to a credit system established by traders several generations earlier. As Edward H. Hosley noted, early nineteenth-century European traders sought to monopolize Athabascan pelt production by binding individuals in debt peonage. Martha C. Knack

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describes this dynamic as a “cultural process whereby non-Indian Americans gained control over Indians.” She examines the Stewart Ranch near Las Vegas, which hired Southern Paiute laborers, and compares it to trading posts and other credit institutions. Trading posts such as those established in the Yukon Basin resembled ranches as cultural institutions because both peacefully drew Indians into a white-dominated market economy, created demand for European goods, established a class of Native workers, used credit to tie hunters or laborers to specific posts or employers, regulated Native economic activity, and ensured Native productivity. Knack concludes that the degree of Indian dependence “reflected the penetration of the market system and white American control of resources.” She asserts that credit served as a “measure of the white American control.”28 The Athabascan village store offers another institutional comparison when considering the impact of credit on a Native community. Tanana River village stores all relied on government credit through the ARA to operate. New Deal bureaucrats wanted to help Indian communities with local economic development, but in the Alaska interior, ARA credit meant deeper, more formalized relations with an external and dominant political economy. To qualify for loans, Minto, Tetlin, and Tanacross organized village councils, which selected store managers. The Juneau ANS office held power of attorney as “a bank and depository, as well as purchasing agent.”29 Officials hoped to break the debt cycle and expected each village to quickly retire its debt and each individual to shop with cash. The fact that stores stocked billfolds indicated that a cash economy existed, but a shortage of hard currency in these communities often forced store managers to sell on credit. Managers collected the seasonal harvest of furs or other commodities deposited at the store for credit in individual accounts. Subsistence shoppers also purchased on the basis of expected payments from woodcutting and other contracts and from leather products, arts and crafts, and curios. Occasionally, individuals even drew on their accounts to make purchases elsewhere. For example, Matthew Titus of Minto used his store account, credited on the basis of an expected payment from the Alaska Railroad, to fly his wife, Dorothy, to Tanana for medical treatment.30 The official policy of withholding credit without collateral undermined village support for the store in Tanacross, and managers in Tetlin and Minto covertly ignored it. Historian Lendol Calder has noted that in the 1920s and 1930s, “‘consumptive credit’ came under heavy attack . . . for debauching the nation’s morals” and “for ruining the nation’s economy.”31 The government’s policy reflected this widespread negative view of credit. The government asserted its influence based on its interest in recovering ARA loans to these communities. This view from Washington, D.C., however, did not appreciate the perspectives of local Athabascans. Chief Walter of Tanacross rejected the policy and claimed that the village store was “supposed to be our store.” Community members resented the ANS teacher because he adhered strictly to the no-credit policy. “He spoil

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the store,” Chief Walter said, “so everybody mad and go over to N.C. [Northern Commercial Company] store at Tok.”32 Others took their furs to the highway to sell, even when the store offered them better prices. People from Tetlin bragged in Tanacross, “They run their own business as they see fit. No white man is going to tell them what to do.” The Tanacross Village Council argued that credit “was necessary as some Natives’ families will starve.” Hunters needed credit so they could hunt muskrats. ARA officials responded by informing the council that the experience of forty Alaskan village stores had shown “without exception” that stores that gave credit “go broke.” But the effort to free Athabascans from a cycle of debt disrupted a seasonal economic rhythm. For generations, they based their subsistence patterns on the grubstake credit system. Julius Paul, the Tetlin store manager, maintained this practice when he gave credit to community members, kept a separate book for such transactions, and hid the practice from the local teacher.33 Louis Jensen complained in 1949 that the Tanacross storekeepers had been keeping more than one credit sales book “for some time I guess.”34 That village councils subverted credit policies by directing managers to extend credit suggested that the needs of community members and custom took precedence over store profits. Athabascan complaints about the government’s efforts to restrict credit can be viewed in yet another context. In her study of working-class family economies in the 1920s and 1930s, historian Susan Porter Benson concluded that while access to credit could be viewed as a marker of success for affluent members of the middle class, many working-class families viewed it as a potentially dangerous thing that worked against their economic interests. These families tended to reject it not on moral grounds but rather because they saw it as a force that ultimately taxed their already meager economic resources. As Benson noted, “Resorting to it was not a choice so much as a necessity, a way of maintaining the usual activities of life in the face of what was typically a roller coaster of good and bad times, or even worse, a steady slide downward.” For working-class families during the interwar years, credit was generally another economic tactic that was used in tougher times as a means of survival rather than consumption for “personal fulfillment.” In many ways, this strategy mirrored the seasonal subsistence strategy.35 The disastrous shipping season of 1941 underscored the connections among Athabascan seasonal patterns, credit, and subsistence shopping. Tetlin and Tanacross village store orders for the fall of 1941 did not arrive completely until the summer of 1942. The catastrophe started in September when Valdez dockworkers scattered and misplaced cargo destined for the stores. Weather and human folly complicated the transportation of more than 100 tons of freight over more than 200 miles from the dock to Tetlin and Tanacross. By early October, only part of the order had been delivered to Tetlin. The rest of it remained strewn from Valdez to Tanacross in various warehouses or stuck on the frozen Tanana

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River. Government officials tried repeatedly to have the cargo trucked, flown, or mushed to the two villages, but plane mishaps, human error, weather, and the impact of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor frustrated these efforts.36 The situation in the villages became “acute” when an epidemic broke out, the temperature plunged to minus-fifty degrees, and a fire burned the trader’s store at Tanacross.37 Villagers were without medical supplies and were short on food and clothing.38 Fred Dimler, the Tetlin teacher, wrote to the Juneau office to ask if the people of Tetlin were “going to be allowed to suffer indefinitely due to the lack of freighters who are not interested in the success of this program.” The question highlighted key issues regarding the village store as an agent of change. Athabascans and government officials hoped that stores would strengthen local economies by providing the “best quality articles at the cheapest possible price.”39 Dimler believed that the goal had largely been accomplished. Village stores pressured local traders to drop their prices, in some cases by as much as 100 percent, at a time when prices in the United States were rising. The delayed cargo delivery not only threatened the physical well-being of two communities, it also disrupted seasonal economic patterns. The shipping fiasco delayed the expected delivery of ammunition, rifles, clothing, and snow packs for the spring muskrat hunt at Tetlin.40 Dimler wired Juneau to inform Claude M. Hirst that “immediate delivery of ammunition and packs Valdez essentinl [sic] to success of rat catch . . . natives leaving help trapping with wet feets.” The situation threatened more than Tetlin’s muskrat hunt. The village depended on the hunt to finance the village store and individual purchases. Without the freight shipment, hunters could not purchase equipment necessary for a productive hunt; without a successful hunt, they could not pay their accounts; without paid-up accounts, the store could not make an annual purchase order. Dimler worked feverishly to secure delivery of a special order, but by late April, Tetlin hunters had called off the hunt “for lack of ammunition.” Although the missing cargo shipment, ten months overdue, finally arrived at Tetlin and Tanacross in July, the unsuccessful muskrat hunt left Tetlin’s store short of cash. The manager made the annual order for the following year (worth $17,500) based on the hope that the men of the village would find summer wage employment at one of the airfields being constructed in the region by the military that year.41 The shipping disaster and World War II ultimately led federal officials in Juneau and Seattle to respond to the problem of remoteness Alaska village stores faced. They turned their suggestions over to Louis Peters, the ANS employee in Juneau who had coordinated efforts to resolve the shipping crisis. Peters drafted a plan for the Alaska Native Industries Cooperative Association (ANICA). The purpose of ANICA was “to improve economic conditions in Native Villages, and to place more authority and responsibility upon the Natives for management of their own affairs.”42 Organized in 1947 as an unincorporated association

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of thirty-three villages, including Tetlin and Tanacross, ANICA emerged in the mid-1950s as a key Alaskan economic institution.43 Prior to the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1971, scholars and federal and state officials were relatively uninformed about interior Alaskan Athabascan history and culture. They viewed these people generally as isolated and culturally and economically static. Development of oil resources in the 1960s, which were required to invigorate a stagnant economy and support a new state government, could not proceed until the federal government extinguished Alaska Native land titles. Concerns were raised about the impact of resource development and the creation of Native corporations based on traditional Athabascan culture and subsistence. What grounded the “rural preference” subsistence policy that emerged from these two major pieces of legislation—which emphasized “customary and traditional use” and identified 1971 as the year that demarcated traditional and new practices—was the incompatibility of market-based activities with the practices of traditional hunting and gathering societies. Although scholars now recognize the problems inherent in models associated with this dichotomy, the policy remains unchanged, and Alaska continues to grapple with a seemingly unending controversy over subsistence that pits urban and rural interests against each other and the state against the federal government. The cultural misconceptions and idealized historical characterizations that inform the ideological poles are partly a legacy of the legal understanding that has emerged as a consequence of this policy. They also reflect the dearth of research on the economic history of Athabascan and other Native Alaskan communities during the era preceding ANCSA. By placing the integration of Tanana River Athabascans into the market economy in a broader historical context, the story of subsistence shopping challenges the bases of subsistence policy and complicates the view that passage of ANCSA and ANILCA and the creation of Native corporations forced hunter-gatherers to integrate into the market. The story reveals both the role the federal government played through policies and legislation designed to draw Athabascans into the mainstream economy and how Athabascan subsistence shoppers responded to changing conditions in a way that reproduced cultural identity. As this study has demonstrated, Athabascans have used new technologies, produced raw materials, and furnished wage labor for the market since the nineteenth century. They used their proceeds to purchase food and other commodities from outside Alaska. This study also asserts that the emergence of village stores in Tanana River Athabascan communities drew Indians into a consumer-oriented economy, offered individuals choices, and encouraged greater consumption of staple and luxury commodities. Residents in these villages thus participated in the rise of an American consumer culture that began in earnest during the 1920s and has generally expanded ever since. Athabascans, too, gave up some control

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over their economic lives to the government in order to acquire credit and economies of scale as they were drawn deeper into a relationship with the market. Still, they embraced the consumption made possible by village stores and saw in this institution a means to assert local ownership of the main outlet of consumer culture in their communities. Moreover, Athabascans found ways, such as the potlatch and reproduction of seasonal economic patterns, to maintain a distinctive identity in response to consumer culture. Like other Americans, they expressed ambivalence about the changes brought by the consumer culture. But they did so in their own way.

Notes 1. “Title VIII—Subsistence Management and Use Findings,” Public Law 96-487, December 2, 1980, http://dnr.alaska.gov/commis/opmp/anilca/pdf/PublicLaw-96-487.pdf, §§803– 804; and Thomas F. Thornton, “Subsistence in Northern Communities: Lessons from Alaska,” Northern Review 23 (Summer 2001): 83–85. See also Mary Kancewick and Eric Smith, “Subsistence in Alaska: Towards a Native Priority,” UMKC Law Review 59, no. 3 (1991): 645; and Thomas F. Thornton, “Alaska Native Subsistence: A Matter of Cultural Survival,” Cultural Survival Quarterly 22 (Fall 1998): 1–2. 2. Stephen W. Haycox, Frigid Embrace: Politics, Economics, and Environment in Alaska (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2002), 17, 156; Philip A. Loring and S. Craig Gerlach, “Outpost Gardening in Interior Alaska: Food System Innovation and the Alaska Native Gardens of the 1930s through the 1970s,” Ethnohistory 57 (Spring 2010): 193; Norman A. Chance, “Subsistence Research in Alaska: Premises, Practices and Prospects,” Human Organization 46 (Spring 1987): 85–89; Edwin S. Hall Jr., S. Craig Gerlach, and Margaret B. Blackman, In the National Interest: A Geographically Based Study of Anaktuvuk Pass Inupiat Subsistence through Time (Barrow, Ala.: North Slope Borough, 1985), 9–14; Polly Wheeler and Tom Thornton, “Subsistence Research in Alaska: A Thirty Year Retrospective,” Alaska Journal of Anthropology 3, no. 1 (2005): 69–103; Robert F. Murphy and Julian H. Steward, “Tappers and Trappers: Parallel Processes in Acculturation,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 4 ( July 1956): 335–353; and Priscilla Carvill Wheeler, “The Role of Cash in Northern Economies: A Case Study of Four Alaskan Athabascan Villages” (PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1998), 16–19. 3. Wheeler and Thornton, “Subsistence Research in Alaska,” 69–70. The most important anthropological studies are Robert McKennan, The Upper Tanana Indians (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1959); Cornelius Osgood, The Distribution of Northern Athapaskan Indians (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1936); and Cornelius Osgood, Ingalik Social Culture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958). For an overview of the key pre-ANCSA anthropological studies, see Nancy Yaw Davis, “History of Research in Subarctic Alaska,” in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 6, Subarctic, ed. June Helm (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1981), 43–48. For historical treatments that suggest little change in Indian life prior to 1971, see Henry W. Clark, History of Alaska (New York: Macmillan, 1930), 25, 28, 30–31, 152; and Stuart Ramsey Tompkins, Alaska: Promyshlennik and Sourdough (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1945), 13. 4. Alexandra Harmon, “American Indian Economic History and Academic Tribalism,” unpublished manuscript, in author’s possession; Jeffrey Ostler, “‘The Last Buffalo Hunt’ and Beyond: Plains Sioux Economic Strategies in the Early Reservation Period,” Great Plains

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Quarterly 21 (Spring 2001): 115–130; Marjane Ambler, Breaking the Iron Bonds: Indian Control of Energy Development (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990); Brian C. Hosmer, American Indians in the Marketplace: Persistence and Innovation among the Menominees and Metlakatlans, 1870–1920 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999); Eric V. Meeks, “The Tohono O’odham, Wage Labor, and Resistant Adaptation, 1900–1930,” Western Historical Quarterly 34 (Winter 2003): 469–489; Colleen O’Neill, Working the Navajo Way: Labor and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005); Steven C. Dinero, “Analysis of a ‘Mixed Economy’ in an Alaskan Native Settlement: The Case of Arctic Village,” Canadian Journal of Native Studies 23, no. 1 (2003): 135–139; and Linda J. Ellanna and Polly C. Wheeler, Arctic and Alpine Research 21 (November 1989): 331–332. For a critique of the mixed-economy view, see Wheeler, “The Role of Cash in Northern Economies,” 35–38. The title was bestowed by the Tanana Chiefs Conference in 1992. See “Chief Peter John,” Tanana Chiefs Conference, http://www.tananachiefs.org/about/our-leadership/traditional-chiefs/ chief-peter-john/. 5. Ethnohistorians have established the role of trading posts in this story, but none examine the emergence of village stores. See James W. VanStone, Athapaskan Adaptations: Hunters and Fishermen of the Subarctic Forests (Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1974), 96–101; Robert A. McKennan, “Tanana,” in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 6, Subarctic, ed. June Helm (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1981), 567–569; Marie Françoise Guédon, People of Tetlin, Why Are You Singing? (Ottawa: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, 1974), 10–11; Edward H. Hosley, “Intercultural Relations and Cultural Change in the Alaska Plateau,” in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 6, Subarctic, ed. June Helm (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1981), 547–554; and Martha C. Knack and Alice Littlefield, “Native American Labor: Retrieving History, Rethinking Theory,” in Native Americans and Wage Labor: Ethnohistorical Perspectives, ed. Alice Littlefield and Martha C. Knack (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1996), 41–42. See also William E. Simeone, Rifles, Blankets, and Beads: Identity, History, and the Northern Athapaskan Potlatch (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 162–165; and Frederick B. Drane, “A Circuit Rider on the Yukon; or, Life among the Sourdoughs and Indians of Sub-Arctic Alaska: A Narrative of Ten Years Experience and Travel,” 259, unpublished manuscript, Alaska Mission of the Episcopal Church, box 7, Frederick B. Drane Collection, 1915–1925, Alaska & Polar Regions Collection, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. 6. On the new consumer culture, see Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang 1995), 57. 7. Stephen Haycox, Alaska: An American Colony (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 190–191; David S. Case, Alaska Natives and American Laws (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1984), 6–7; Ted C. Hinckley, The Americanization of Alaska, 1867–1897 (Redwood City, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1972), 160; and Roxanne Willis, Alaska’s Place in the West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 6–7. 8. Frederick E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 152–153, 187; Willis, Alaska’s Place in the West, 14–5, 49; Case, Alaska Natives and American Laws, 9, 199; and Haycox, Alaska, 223–225. 9. McKennan, The Upper Tanana Indians, 129; William E. Simeone, Rifles, Blankets, and Beads: Identity, History, and the Northern Athapaskan Potlatch (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 162–165; and Drane, “A Circuit Rider on the Yukon,” 259. 10. Lewis Meriam, The Problem of Indian Administration: Report of a Survey made at the Request of Honorable Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior, and Submitted to Him, February 21, 1928 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press 1928); Haycox, Alaska, 246–247; William Samuel Schneider, “On the Back Slough: Ethnohistory of Interior Alaska,” in Interior Alaska: A Journey

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through Time, ed. Robert M. Thorson and Jean S. Aignar (Anchorage: Alaska Geographic Society, 1986), 179; Kenneth R. Philp, “The New Deal and Alaska Natives, 1936–1945,” Pacific Historical Review 50 (August 1981): 309–327; and Don C. Foster to Henry Deacon, February 11, 1954, box 93, folder Tanacross Cooperative Store, Records of the Juneau, Alaska, Area Office, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963 (hereafter GSC), Record Group 75 (hereafter RG75), Records of Area and District Offices, 1868–1989, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1793–1989, National Archives at Anchorage, AK–Pacific Alaska Region (hereafter NAA). See also Ellen Frank, K’okhethden De’On: Moving Around in the Old Days (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1983), 23; Report of Supervisor’s Visit to Tanana, April 10, 1939, box 2, folder Tanana Supervisory Reports, 1945–63, Records of the Juneau Area Office, Mission Correspondence, Education, RG75, NAA; C. Michael Brown, “John K. Hajdukovich and the Tetlin Indians, 1924–1941,” Alaska History 14 (Spring/Fall 1999): 7–9; and Guédon, People of Tetlin, Why Are You Singing?, 14. 11. Herbert Hoover quoted in Case, Alaska Natives, 97, italics in original; Brown, “John K. Hajdukovich,” 7, 14, 20, 22; and Claude M. Hirst to J. R. Ummel, June 23, 1941, box 45, folder Village of Tetlin Purchase Orders, Records of the Juneau Area Office, Native Stores, Mixed Files, 1941–1950, RG75, NAA. 12. Operating Statement, Tetlin Native Store, October 10, 1941, to June 10, 1942, box 89, folder Budget, Records of the Juneau Area Office, Native Stores, Correspondence, 1940–55; and Tetlin Council Minutes, December 26, 1941, box 19, folder Tetlin Minutes of Meeting, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963. Both in RG 75, NAA. 13. Elizabeth B. Dellinger to Fred R. Geeslin, July 7, 1942, box 89, folder Tetlin Native Village Correspondence, Native Stores Correspondence, 1940–55; box 39, folder Tanacross, p. 34, Records of the Juneau Area Office, Village Census Rolls, 1935–1972; and Louis C. Peters to Claude M. Hirst, February 6, 1942, box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files. All in RG 75, NAA. 14. Peters added that he thought it was “poor policy to place one group of Natives under obligation to another.” Peters to Hirst, February 6, 1942. 15. Fred A. Dimler to Office of the General Superintendent, Office of Indian Affairs, n.d.; Fred R. Geeslin to Elizabeth B. Dellinger, July 27, 1942; Peters to Hirst, February 6, 1942, all in box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA; and Resolution of the Governing Body of the Native Village of Tanacross, July 28, 1942, box 89, folder Tetlin Native Village Correspondence, Native Stores Correspondence, 1940–55, RG75, NAA. 16. Don C. Foster to Harold L. Sinclair, August 2, 1949, box 92, folder Minto Native Store, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963; and Minutes of Special Council Meeting— Native Village of Minto, December 18, 1944, box 18, folder Minto Minutes of Meeting, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963. Both in RG 75, NAA. 17. Bob Druxmen, “Special Survey of Alaska Native Service Activities,” special report, December 14, 1948, box 21, folder Organization of Villages—General Correspondence, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963, RG 75, NAA; Gerald D. Nash, The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 221; and box 26, folder Minto; box 39, folder Tanana; box 40, folder Tetlin, all in Village Census Rolls, 1935–1972, RG 75, NAA. The example used in the text is found on p. 29, 1940, box 26, folder Minto. 18. Tanacross’s order from the summer of 1941 weighed 85 tons for about 130 village residents, or nearly 1,300 pounds per person. Between October 1941 and June 1942, Tetlin’s store made $1,223 in cash sales and $14,468 in charge sales for a total of $15,691 (in a village of 81 people in 1940). Operating Statement Tetlin Native Store, October 10, 1941, to June 10, 1942, box 89, folder Tetlin Native Village Correspondence, Native Stores Correspondence, 1940–55, RG75,

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NAA. See also 1940 Censuses in box 39, folder Tanacross, and box 40, folder Tetlin, both in Village Census Rolls, 1935–1972, RG 75, NAA. 19. Norbert Bellavance to General Superintendent, Office of Indian Affairs, April 24, 1947, box 45, folder Tetlin Billing, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA. 20. Inventory of Store Merchandise, September 16, 1949, box 92, folder Minto Native Store, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963; box 45, folder Village of Tetlin Purchase Orders, Records of the Juneau Area Office, Native Stores, Mixed Files, 1941–1950; and Inventory of Store Merchandise, November 19, 1949, box 93, folder Tanacross Native Store Inventory, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963. All in RG75, NAA. 21. Tetlin Purchase Order, 1948–1949, box 45, folder Village of Tetlin Purchase Orders, Records of the Juneau Area Office, Native Stores, Mixed Files, 1941–1950, RG75, NAA. 22. Inventory of Store Merchandise, September 16, 1949, box 92, folder Minto Native Store, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963; box 45, folder Village of Tetlin Purchase Orders, Records of the Juneau Area Office, Native Stores, Mixed Files, 1941–1950; Inventory of Store Merchandise, November 19, 1949, box 93, folder Tanacross Native Store Inventory, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963; and Tetlin Purchase Order, 1948–1949, box 45, folder Village of Tetlin Purchase Orders, Records of the Juneau Area Office, Native Stores, Mixed Files, 1941–1950. All in RG75, NAA. 23. Bellavance to General Superintendent, Office of Indian Affairs, April 24, 1947, and Everett J. Wilde to Alaska Native Industries Co-Op Ass’n, April 9, 1949, box 93, folder Tetlin Native Store, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963, RG75, NAA. 24. Inventory of Store Merchandise, September 16, 1949, box 92, folder Minto Native Store, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963. See also Tetlin Order, September 10, 1940, box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files; Inventory of Store Merchandise, November 19, 1949, box 93, folder Tanacross Native Store Inventory, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963; and Tetlin Native Store Inventory, April 24, 1947, box 45, folder Tetlin Billing, Native Stores Mixed Files. All in RG 75, NAA. 25. Health Promotion Unit, The Burden of Overweight & Obesity in Alaska (Anchorage: Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, 2003), 21; Brenda A. Broussard et al., “Prevalence of Obesity in American Indians and Alaska Natives,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 53, no. 6 supplement ( June 1991): 1535S–1542S; Nilka Ríos Burrows, Linda S. Geiss, Michael M. Engelau, and Kelly J. Acton, “Prevalence of Diabetes among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, 1990–1997,” Diabetes Care 23 (December 2000): 1786–1790; C. Johnson and S. McConnell, “Troth Yeddha’ Nutrition Education and Extension Project,” Research, Economics & Education Information System, U.S. Department of Agriculture (2010), http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/212895.html; Melissa Devaughn, “Saving Subsistence,” Alaska 75 (June 2009): 39; Philip A. Loring and S. C. Gerlach, “Food, Culture, and Human Health in Alaska: An Integrative Health Approach to Food Security,” Environmental Science & Policy 12, no. 4 (2009): 473; Loring and Gerlach, “Outpost Gardening in Interior Alaska,” 194; and Philip A. Loring, “Coming Out of the Foodshed: Change and Innovation in Rural Alaskan Food Systems” (MA thesis, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2007), 82–84. 26. Louis W. Jensen to H. W. Starling, November 21, 1949, box 93, Tanacross Cooperative Store, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963, RG75, NAA. See also “Cow’s Milk for Infants and Children,” Medline Plus, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/ 002448.htm. 27. McKennan, The Upper Tanana Indians, 129. 28. Hosley, “Intercultural Relations and Cultural Change in the Alaska Plateau,” 549; and Martha C. Knack, “The Role of Credit in Native Adaptation to the Great Basin Ranching Economy,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 11, no. 1 (1987): 58–62.

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29. Fred R. Geeslin to Carlos W. Holland, February 5, 1944; Carlos W. Holland to General Superintendent, Alaska Indian Service, January 13, 1944; and Fred R. Geeslin to Holland, March 29, 1944, all in box 88, folder Minto Native Store Correspondence, Native Stores, Correspondence, 1940–55, RG75, NAA. See also Brown, “John K. Hajdukovich,” 20–21 and Kenneth R. Philp, “The New Deal and Alaskan Natives, 1936–1945,” Pacific Historical Review 50 (August 1981): 309–327. 30. Carlos W. Holland to General Superintendent, Alaska Indian Service, February 25, 1944, and April 25, 1945, both in box 88, folder Minto Native Store Correspondence, Native Stores, Correspondence, 1940–55, RG75, NAA. 31. Lendol Calder, Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 32. 32. Don C. Foster to Ada Boyd, October 10, 1946, box 89, folder Tanacross Native Village Correspondence, Native Stores, Correspondence, 1940–55, RG75, NAA. 33. Starling to Dale, “Report of Field Trip,” October 17, 1945, folder Tanacross Supervisory Reports, box 2, MC Education, RG 75, NAA. 34. Louis W. Jensen to C. Reed Dunn, October 25, 1949, box 93, Tanacross Cooperative Store, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963, RG75, NAA. 35. Susan Porter Benson, Household Accounts: Working–Class Family Economies in the Interwar United States (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2007), 159, 170. Also see Seth Rockman, Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore (Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins University Press, 2009), 185. 36. See correspondence in box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA. 37. Fred R. Geeslin to C. E. Gordon, November 23, 1941; Fred R. Geeslin to Rayburn Wien, Alaska Airlines, November 22, 1941; and Fred A. Dimler to Fred R. Geeslin, December 8, 1941, all box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA. 38. Walter W. Phippeny to Fred A. Dimler, November 26, 1941, and Fred A. Dimler to Walter W. Phippeny, December 9, 1941, both in box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA. 39. Fred A. Dimler to Hirst, December 11, 1941 and Fred A. Dimler to Walter W. Phippeny, December 9, 1941, both in box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA. 40. See correspondence in box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA. 41. Fred A. Dimler to Hirst, April 15, 1942; Fred R. Geeslin to J. R. Ummel, April 23, 1942; J. R. Ummel to Fred R. Geeslin, April 23, 1942; Fred A. Dimler to Hirst, April 25, 1942, all in box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA; Fred R. Geeslin to J. R. Ummel, April 25, 1942, box 88, folder Minto Native Store Correspondence, Native Stores, Correspondence, 1940–55; and Fred R. Geeslin to J. R. Ummel, May 6, 1942, box 45, folder Tetlin Arts and Crafts Correspondence, Native Stores Mixed Files, RG 75, NAA. 42. Don C. Foster to Henry Deacon, February 11, 1954 and Glenn L. Emmons to Edward M. Seidenverg, February 5, 1954, both in box 101, folder ANICA Washington Office Letters to Senators, General Subject Correspondence, 1933–1963, RG75, NAA. 43. John W. Heaton, “Power and Cooperatives in Alaska: Native Workers and Village Economies in Alaska, 1940–1960,” paper presented at the Western History Association Conference, Incline Village, Nevada, October 2010.

7 • DEGHETTOIZING CHINATOWN Race and Space in Postwar America E L L E N D. W U

“Orientals”—Chinese and Japanese Americans in particular— underwent an extraordinary racial makeover in the mid-twentieth-century United States. Widely thought to be the “yellow peril” and “aliens ineligible to citizenship” since the late nineteenth century, Asian Americans came to be regarded as “model minorities”—peoples distinct from the white majority but lauded as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values—by the end of the civil rights era.1 It is difficult to track this turnabout without taking into account the crucial role that the commercialization of Chinatown played in transforming the collective image of U.S. Chinese from definitively not-white to definitively not-black at a time when many people increasingly associated African American communities with urban blight. This chapter explores how ethnic entrepreneurs and spokespersons worked to attach novel associations to the Chinese enclave between World War II and the 1960s. Alongside social scientists, policy makers, and ordinary Americans, these stakeholders effectively deghettoized Chinatown through discourses and deeds intended to reconfigure popular impressions of its residents and their surroundings.2 By the mid-1960s, their words and actions would generate a new racial common sense about Chinese Americans as exceptional people of color. In the early decades of the twentieth century, racial ghettos posed a problem for liberals who saw the assimilation of minority groups as the key to eliminating racism in the United States. As black areas solidified in the urban North and West—a direct consequence of African Americans’ Great Migration out of the South—intellectuals and policy makers worried that these areas functioned as incubators for cultural “pathologies” that trapped indigent residents in poverty through the generations. These thinkers increasingly agreed on the need 141

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to eliminate any such barriers that impeded the integration of blacks and other minorities into the white middle class.3 Mobilization for World War II fostered widespread acceptance of this liberal vision. As the nation fought against Nazis and fascists—and, soon thereafter, the communist Soviets—in the name of democracy, white supremacy became a liability. The United States could not claim to be the leader of the free world without attending to its race problems at home. Liberals thus had a strong incentive and a convincing reason for dismantling the laws and practices of Asian exclusion: bars to immigration and naturalization, segregation, prohibitions on interracial marriage, and the like.4 For some, this meant abolishing Chinatowns. But Chinatowns could not be easily obliterated. Precisely because Chinese faced severely limited opportunities in the primary U.S. labor market before the 1940s, the vast majority depended on the ethnic enclave for their livelihoods. Local tourism was a bread-and-butter enterprise for many. This was especially true in San Francisco, home to the nation’s largest Chinatown. There, the tourist trade dated back to the 1860s and 1870s, when whites began “slumming” in “heathen Chinee” quarters, enticed by opium dens, gambling houses, and brothels.5 Recognizing the enormous retail potential of Chinatown’s peculiar sights, sounds, and smells—yet fearful of perpetuating associations between Chinese and iniquity—San Francisco’s immigrant planners rallied to promote their neighborhood as a strange yet innocuous place of leisure after the turn of the century. They produced a guidebook emphasizing the neighborhood’s tranquility and cleanliness with the hope of drawing patrons to its restaurants, temples, shops, galleries, and theaters instead of to its vice industries. They also partnered with municipal officials to subdue the violent quarrels between political factions (“tong wars”), wipe out prostitution, and modernize facilities.6 Unexpectedly, San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake served as the springboard for their plan to capitalize on Chinatown’s “authenticity.” In the decades after the devastation, influential merchants purposefully redeveloped the area to appear more “Chinese.” Instead of replicating the low, nondescript, nineteenthcentury brick structures that had been destroyed, they constructed buildings with “oriental style” façades to “boost business.” Pagodas, curved rooflines, and dazzling red, green, and gold exteriors became common; many buildings in Chinatown offered some combination of these trappings. The Oriental School annex sported dragon motifs at its entryway; the balustrades of the balcony terrace of the Chinese YMCA echoed Beijing’s Temple of Heaven; and the Chinese Hospital recalled China’s Western-style infirmaries with its spires and sloped eaves. Commercial neon signage took on the “Sinocized” look with specialized fonts and silhouettes. Chinoiserie street lamps made to look like Chinese lanterns were installed as part of the city’s Diamond Jubilee celebration in 1925. These endeavors, combined with plentiful vendors, restaurants, and nightclubs,

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solidified Chinatown’s status as an obligatory sightseeing stop for the thrillseeking masses.7 Selling Chinatown as an exotic (if harmless) experience nonetheless risked inflaming long-standing assumptions that Chinese were suspiciously alien, inferior, and untrustworthy. Through the 1930s and 1940s, the gamble was relatively low stakes because Americans considered Chinese to be sympathetic allies in the Pacific conflict with Japan. After China’s Communist Revolution (1949), however, the dangers of assumed foreignness became immeasurably greater. To avoid being lumped with the “bad” Chinese with the founding of “Red” China, certain Chinese American leaders marketed San Francisco’s Chinatown to prospective visitors in ways that they hoped would shield its residents from the chilly political climate. By signaling the colony’s patriotism, anticommunism, cosmopolitanism, and conservative “family values” to the public, they effectively neutralized Chinatown’s potentially negative associations and bolstered its economy. More than that, their efforts laid the groundwork for recasting Chinese Americans into definitively not-black model minorities by the 1960s. But they did so at the cost of generating their own discontents and masking continuing hardships. It was no accident that this refashioning coincided with the rise of what historian Thomas Sugrue has dubbed “the origins of the urban crisis,” the hardening of race and class segregation in the years after World War II.8 The glut of midcentury “ghettoization” studies that accompanied and analyzed this consolidation, which emphasized the spatial dimensions of race, reinforced blackness as the overriding problem of American race relations. U.S. historiography and American studies literature continues to comprehend the postwar black ghetto as the figurative opposite of white suburbia and vice versa.9 But shifting the framework to bring other foils into view—especially the contrast between Asian American and African American geographies—enriches our understanding of the historically specific ways that the association between blackness and the ghetto rigidified at the same time that Chineseness and slum life became decoupled. The widespread consideration of urban poverty as a natural condition of blackness after World War II, in other words, cannot be fully grasped without paying attention to concurrent reinscriptions of “Chinese” space—on the ground, in national culture, and in social science—as antighettos. New conceptions of Chinatowns as charming commercial districts reinforced popular thinking that black ghettoization “seemed an inevitable natural consequence of profound racial differences.”10 At the broadest level, Chinatown’s career underscores the analytical payoff of incorporating transnational dynamics into the history of race and the built environment in the United States. As Christina Klein has astutely argued, U.S. foreign relations at the outset of the Cold War impelled the nation’s middlebrow cultural producers to manufacture a “global imaginary of integration” to encourage ordinary Americans to forge affective and mental bonds with Asia and its peoples

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(including diasporic communities in the United States). In literature, narrative nonfiction, theater, and cinema, they retooled American Orientalism—the creation and circulation of knowledge about the “Orient”—to shore up support for U.S. military, political, and economic expansion in the Pacific region after 1945. Charlotte Brooks, Greg Umbach, Dan Wishnoff, Cindy Cheng, and Meredith Oda have deftly demonstrated Cold War Orientalism’s material reach in postwar suburbs and cities. Inspired by these scholars, this essay places three distinct bodies of inquiry in conversation: diplomatic history, urban history, and Asian American history. Bringing them together deepens our sense of the ways the evolving racial order in the mid-twentieth-century United States fundamentally hinged not just on the black-white divide but also on black-Asian juxtapositions and geopolitical realignments—in other words, on a multiracial, globally informed social reality.11

The Disappearance of Chinatown Perhaps no one in postwar America was more vocal about the need for the dissolution of Chinatown than sociologist Rose Hum Lee, the most visible Chinese American behavioral scientist of her day. Deeply influenced by her mentors at the University of Chicago, Lee’s intellectual output reflected the Chicago School’s famous theoretical framework for understanding social interaction. Pioneered by sociologist Robert E. Park, the “interaction cycle” posited competition, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation as the four stages of encounter between two distinct groups—immigrant Asians and native-born whites, for instance. To subscribers of the interaction cycle, those who were unable to move beyond the “conflict” stage—such as the Chinese in America—presented a grave sociological dilemma. Rose Hum Lee made it her mission to address this methodological inadequacy in her research and writing.12 Lee found much to cheer about in the late 1940s. The need to fortify the U.S.-China trans-Pacific alliance during World War II had provided a compelling rationale for Americans to begin dismantling the legal and social apparatuses of Chinese exclusion. Chinese Americans began to find acceptance in the military and defense industries. Although Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Acts in 1943, the new policy allowed only 105 Chinese to enter the country each year, severely stanching the flow of new arrivals who would likely prolong the “conflict” stage of the assimilation trajectory. The 1949 Chinese revolution removed another important impediment to full integration. For decades, U.S.-born Chinese had clung to the possibility of “returning” to China as an alternative to the harshness of American racial discrimination. With the severing of diplomatic relations between the embryonic People’s Republic and the United States, living in China was no longer an option. The stakes for “becom[ing] an integral part of the American society” were now higher than ever, Lee argued. Chinese

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Americans had to accept their responsibility for dismantling discriminatory barriers in employment by adopting a flexible approach to job hunting and by cooperating with fellow workers of “all races and creeds.” From Lee’s perspective, this was a Cold War diplomatic crisis turned opportunity for Chinese in the United States: the time was ripe to expedite their completion of the interaction cycle.13 But the biggest barrier of all, in Lee’s mind, was the continuing existence of Chinatowns. If race was the ultimate hurdle blocking the imperative of “complete integration,” only wholehearted commitment to the erasure of any cultural and ultimately physical differences between Chinese and whites would be the solution. Nothing symbolized and reified “racial distinctiveness” more than these residentially segregated communities, and Lee wanted desperately for Chinatowns to disappear from the nation’s urban landscape.14 History offered hopeful lessons. In a March 1949 American Journal of Sociology article, Lee traced how numerous Chinatowns in the United States had “developed, flourished, and declined.” Zooming in on dying “Rocky Mountain” enclaves (Denver, Boise, Salt Lake City, Rock Springs, Wyoming, and her hometown of Butte, Montana), Lee identified a number of factors that determined the longevity of Chinatowns: economic sustainability, the demographics of local Chinese, and broader societal changes. Her case studies illuminated these points. All six frontier settlements had emerged during the mid to late nineteenth century as offshoots of the Gold Rush, the boom in other extractive industries, and railroad construction. Chinese had provided labor as well as services (laundries, restaurants) for other workers. From 1880 to 1910, however, the Rocky Mountain Chinatowns began to shrink as the western economy decelerated and Chinese Exclusion laws curtailed population replenishment. Moreover, Chinese already in the United States gravitated toward larger urban centers in the East, where job prospects were better. Some were drawn, too, by the greater odds of finding suitable marital partners. In the rural pockets, the overwhelming gender imbalance (with men greatly outnumbering women) also contributed to the negative trend; low birthrates meant that local populations could not reproduce themselves. The exodus continued from 1910 to 1940. Depression and war put further pressure on remaining individuals to leave for other U.S. metropolitan areas or return to China. Most revealingly, Lee wondered if the remaining Chinese “ghettoes” in twenty-eight cities (as of 1940) would also follow this arc.15 Her answer was a resounding yes, encapsulating both her predictions and her wishes. “It appears that the number of Chinatowns in this country will decrease almost to the vanishing point,” save for the few of “historical or commercial importance,” she argued. Furthermore, “all available evidence points to the fact that no new Chinatowns will be created.” New immigration, she suggested, was practically at zero, and Chinese departures were offsetting the tiny number of annual entries. Thus, she reasoned, glossing over slowly but surely increasing birthrates since 1930, most Chinatowns could not conceivably expand as the

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domestic population continued to dwindle. The U.S.-born cohort would persist in seeking out not only urban Chinatowns but also areas not dominated by Chinese as they “become acculturated and strive for higher status through education and enter professions or become employed by American industries.” She offered encouraging anecdotes of “marooned families” in Erie, Pennsylvania, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that had found social acceptance living and working among non-Chinese; the citizens of Arizona had even elected a Chinese to their state legislature. “With acculturation and settlement among the members of the larger society, amalgamation will increase, and in time assimilation will be attained,” she concluded. Within a few decades, Chinese would be able to push beyond the “conflict” step in the interaction cycle and bid farewell to Chinatown once and for all.16 Changes in midcentury cities corroborated Lee’s forecast. Many Chinese Americans left their old homes to seize new opportunities to move into racially mixed urban neighborhoods and suburban areas after World War II.17 Urban renewal reduced or obliterated several enclaves throughout the continent: Fresno, Portland, Boston, Walla Walla, Newcastle, Detroit, St. Louis, and Toronto. As “victim[s] of progress,” Chinatowns were dying, observed San Francisco’s Chinese World with ambivalence. The newspaper noted the applause of those who were anxious to “get rid of the ghettoes” in order to speed assimilation and upward mobility, but it also lamented the “social disintegration” and loss of tradition that accompanied the demise.18

The Cold War Resignification of Chinatown Yet Chinatowns did not disappear, even against these odds. In various locations, in fact, populations surged in the 1940s and 1950s. Postwar immigration legislation opened the doors for new residents. Congress’s 1943 repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Acts marked the first in a series of laws permitting the entry of Chinese nationals. From 1945 to 1952, a total of 11,058 Chinese immigrated to the United States, many as spouses of American citizens—not an insignificant number considering that the total ethnic Chinese population in 1940 was only 77,504. These new faces rejuvenated a shrinking Chinese American population and, by extension, major Chinatowns such as New York City’s.19 But perhaps even more crucially, Chinese American visionaries threw themselves into the task of resignifying—rather than dismantling—Chinatown, particularly as Cold War tensions ratcheted up the stakes for claiming membership in the nation. Chinese in the United States had long understood that Americans generally failed to distinguish between stateside Chinese—even those who were birthright U.S. citizens—and Chinese in China and other diasporic locations. They tended to believe that the ethnic Chinese in their midst were indelibly foreign and always politically loyal to their “motherland.”

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This blurring became especially worrisome after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) entered the Korean War in October 1950. Thinking back to the recent Japanese American internment, Chinese Americans rightly feared that they, too, would face mass incarceration and other hostilities. In Chicago, for instance, vandals targeted Chinatown storefronts, restaurant owners reported slowdowns in sales, and Chinese American job-seekers found themselves in the uncomfortable position of being refused for openings at area defense factories.20 So the task of proving themselves to be staunch anticommunists— the reigning measure of good Americanism—became intensely urgent in the ensuing decade. They recognized, too, a second key slippage in American culture: the interchangeability of Chinese America with Chinatown. With this double conflation in operation—Chinese Americans/Sino-Chinese and Chinese America/Chinatown—many ethnic leaders concluded that one of the best ways to protect their collective well-being would be to continue updating the idea of Chinatown from “celestial cesspool” and bizarre playground to one that emphasized its utility as a both a cultural and political asset for the nation.21 In the immediate aftermath of the PRC’s intervention in the Korean conflict, Chinatown spokespersons launched a nationwide crusade against communism. To state and society, they wanted to accentuate the community’s Americanness and its patriotism toward the United States and toward “Free” or Nationalist China, governed by the Kuomintang (KMT) that had been exiled to Taiwan. (Notably, such messages papered over the community’s internal political diversity and allowed the conservative merchant elite to strengthen its power against its leftist opponents by fortifying the hegemony of anticommunism in U.S. politics.22) The campaign’s orchestrators used Chinatown spectacles as important proselytizing tools for reaching big audiences. One of the first major events was the February 1951 torchlight parade staged by the Anti-Communist League arm of San Francisco’s Chinese Six Companies (a.k.a. the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, or CCBA), founded in late 1950 to show that “99.7%” of Chinatown was on the right side of the Cold War.23 Some 10,000 people turned out to witness the group’s members marching alongside drum corps and drill teams from local schools. Participants hoisted placards bearing such slogans as, “May the Republic of China Live Ten Thousand Years [Zhong Hua Ming Guo Wan Sui],” “Chinese-Americans Are Loyal Citizens,” and “Help Free China.” The sponsors distributed thousands of pamphlets to onlookers summarizing the Anti-Communist League’s mission, reminding San Franciscans not only of Chinese Americans’ patriotism to the United States but also their “industriousness and thrift [and] their public and law-abiding spirit.” Their determination paid off. The San Francisco Chronicle approvingly concluded, “Their gist is that Chinatown is an American town—at America’s service.”24

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This auspicious beginning inspired more like events. For instance, many Chinese Americans chose to commemorate Double Ten Day, the anniversary marking the birth of the Republic of China, rather than October 1, the founding date of the PRC.25 New York City Chinatown’s “Free China Day” in November 1951 vividly showcased Chinese American patriotism in the streets of Manhattan. The New York Times reported that more than 200 Chinese children, “led by a noticeably under-age dragon” sporting denim and gym shoes beneath its “resplendent oriental silks” marched down Mott Street with bundles of clothing donations for Korean War victims. The ceremonies featured Korean consul general David Y. Namkoong along with actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., chair of American Relief for Korea; Nationalist Chinese consul general P. H. Chang; and New York CCBA president Woodrow Chan.26 Ethnic leaders clearly intended such pageantry to serve as impressive mechanisms of racial recoding—that is, to move the general public to view Chinatowns (and therefore Chinese in the United States) as loyal, patriotic, and anticommunist. Chinese New Year celebrations became the most prominent of the anticommunist movement’s public relations gestures. Washington D.C.’s Chinatown welcomed the Year of the Rabbit (1951) by combining holiday festivities with a commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China.27 San Francisco’s Chinatown rolled out its first publicly oriented New Year’s gala in February 1953. Local entrepreneur H. K. Wong concocted the event to display a carefully constructed image of Chinese American citizenship for the city to see. Festival planners selected as the parade’s grand marshal U.S. Army corporal Joe Wong, a Korean War veteran who had been blinded in the line of fire. Corporal Wong swept down Grant Avenue flanked by Air Force enlistees Jessie Lee and Anna Tome and trailed by veterans and musicians from various branches of the military. Completing the lineup were San Francisco’s mayor, the CCBA, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Anti-Communist League, St. Mary’s Chinese Drum and Bugle Corps and other Chinatown school delegations, dragon dancers, and Miss Chinatown. With over 100,000 people in attendance, the affair was a resounding success.28 In San Francisco, the rejiggered Chinese New Year celebration aimed not only to perform anticommunism and Americanism but also to anchor a larger project to boost the enclave’s flagging economy. The twin objectives were not unrelated. When the PRC jumped into the Korean fray in 1950, the United States imposed an embargo on mainland Chinese imports.29 The prohibition hurt the many Chinatown businesses that depended on selling Chinese sundries and foodstuffs as the tourism industry boomed in the United States after World War II. Worried about their financial future, members of San Francisco’s Chinese Chamber of Commerce sponsored a bilingual essay contest around the theme “A Blueprint for the Improvement of Chinatown Business” in 1953. Its stated purpose was to “stimulate community interest in the promotion of Chinatown business.”30

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First-place English-division winner Charles L. Leong, a journalist and publicist, advocated the need to advertise Chinatown’s businesses and services by plugging into existing public relations channels. But, he stressed, the physical surroundings of Chinatown had to be attractive and enticing in order to “bring outside money” on a continuing basis. Chinatown’s “somewhat tarnished reputation” necessitated rehabilitation on this front. As the competition guidelines required, Leong outlined several “practical” suggestions, such as mandating that all architecture adhere to “characteristic Chinese designs,” erecting an “authentic” archway at the intersection of Bush Street and Grant Avenue, and encouraging tourist-oriented restaurants to dress their wait staff in “Chinese-style jacket[s] for atmospheric effect.” In addition to Sinocizing the built environment and the people themselves, Leong raised the point of sanitation: “Clean up the rest-rooms in restaurants. A small point, but a big one to customers.”31 Second-place winner Honey Quan, a Saks Fifth Avenue executive, concurred. “Renegade,” “untidy,” and “down at the heel” shops and restaurants—not to mention a shortage of parking—were severe liabilities in the fight for the tourist dollar.32 Chinatown elders and other interested parties took these propositions very seriously. (Leong’s essay even inspired residents of Oakland and Los Angeles to reconsider their plans for developing the Chinatowns of their respective cities.33) In 1954, neighborhood entrepreneurs organized as the nonprofit Portsmouth Plaza Parking Corporation to rally support for an 800 car garage under Portsmouth Square, San Francisco Chinatown’s main plaza. Although city officials responded positively, opponents concerned with preserving the site’s historical heritage objected loudly and filed a lawsuit (one that eventually failed), slowing the venture. Bureaucratic snafus also hindered the momentum of the project. But Chinatown’s leaders persisted, raising $3.2 million from the sale of bonds to bankroll the structure. They broke ground on November 15, 1960, amid a ceremony of traditional rites that included Chinese lion dancers and firecrackers. In August 1962, the facility was finally completed—“the culmination of a dream . . . thanks to the strong and stalwart citizens of Chinatown,” praised Mayor George Christopher.34 If the road to the Portsmouth garage seemed frustratingly drawn out to local boosters, it was still a relatively fast one compared to the even more tortured path to realizing the archway. The ten members of San Francisco’s first-ever Chinatown Improvement Committee, appointed by Christopher in February 1956 (no doubt with tourism in mind), made the archway its top priority.35 The advisory board’s first set of resolutions urged the city to fund the construction of a pair of ornamental gateways, study the possible effects of the structures on traffic flows, and invite architects to serve as consultants on the project.36 The mayor himself was receptive to their proposal and to other recommendations from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, including plans to incorporate the “Oriental

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motif ” on future buildings, an expansion of the Chinese New Year Festival, and a “clean up, paint up and spruce up campaign” to attract more visitors.37 This initial burst of enthusiasm soon deflated, however, as building plans stalled. In August, Chinese World editor Dai-Ming Lee expressed frustration with the committee’s “inactivity” and “lack of results.”38 San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors rejected Christopher’s initial request for money to erect a pair of arches but eventually approved a $35,000 budget allotment in 1959—a substantial sum but not enough to cover the entire cost of construction.39 Chinatown representatives expressed a willingness to embark on a fund-raising campaign to cover the full costs.40 By November 1960, however, the groundbreaking had yet to happen and discontentment was again bubbling. Chinatown merchants and residents inquired daily with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce about the status of the gate.41 Lee penned a sharp editorial for Chinese World, criticizing the advisory committee chair, Rev. T. T. Taam, for failing to bring the project to fruition and for providing little information on the deferral, stressing that “further delay might mean no archway at all.”42 Lee also repeated his recurring concern about the structure’s design, adamant that its appearance must be “truly Chinese in style.” The current architect, he suggested, had “fail[ed] to give sufficient details as to [its] ‘authenticity.’” Furthermore, Lee raised the question of how the designer had been chosen to carry out this “important” task, faulting Taam for a lack of transparency. The end result might be a “great calamity,” he added, “if a mediocre or possibly an unsuitable design were to be the result of so many years of effort and consideration.”43 Taam defended his choices before briefly resigning as head of the committee.44 When Taam returned, he endorsed a more cost-effective alternative: installing a single miniaturized archway in the middle of Grant Avenue. The smaller structure would necessitate a narrowing of the roadway between Clay and Washington Streets. The San Francisco Chronicle dubbed the scheme “rather ingenious.” In contrast, Chinese World blasted Taam in two editorials, charging that such a “makeshift” arrangement would “degrade” Chinatown. The “retrograde” proposal was a throwback to the crowded mazes of the nineteenth-century ghetto, averred the World. Chinatown needed to modernize by widening, not narrowing, its streets to accommodate pedestrians and cars. Why not just plunk down a “paper-and-bamboo dragon” and drop the archway concept altogether? it asked sarcastically. “Such statuary would be cheap, block just as much traffic, and still receive attention from visitors and residents alike.” More seriously, the newspaper emphasized that it would be far preferable for Chinatown to skip the archway altogether than be “saddled with an eyesore that would make the community look permanently ridiculous.”45 The dispute spoke not only to intracommunity disagreements but also to the larger issue of community control vis-à-vis the city. Chinatown leaders

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recognized the symbolic and material importance of the archway and asserted the community’s right to control the process in the face of external pressures. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce, for instance, circulated a protest petition in 1959 after municipal officials floated the idea for an archway shorn of Chinese motifs because the Chinatown area might eventually develop into a “non-Oriental” space.46 Maybe Chamber of Commerce members feared the same disappearance that had befallen other Chinatowns. Just as likely, San Francisco’s Chinese Americans felt increasingly emboldened to assert their citizenship entitlements in this post-exclusion period. As Dai-Ming Lee put it, “We feel an archway would improve the appearance of the Chinatown district and should be an obligation of the city. The people and businesses of Chinatown pay their share of taxes and should be able to enjoy some of the direct benefits.”47 Others believed the same. The multiracial Chinatown–North Beach Improvement Association wrote a letter to the mayor’s office in support of the archway in August 1962.48 Still, the shortage of funds, the uncertain availability of building materials, “and the normal chop suey of aesthetics, citizen bickering, and bureaucracy” threatened to halt the process completely, as the San Francisco Chronicle ruefully observed.49 Although San Francisco’s Art Commission had approved the original plans by Eugene F. Chin in May 1961, the budgetary shortfall forced the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to reevaluate the drawings.50 Nevertheless, the elusive structure remained on the city’s radar. Mayor Christopher’s successor, John F. Shelley, also championed the project, heartening community members.51 The year 1967 proved to be the turning point. In the spring, Shelley’s office sponsored a new design competition. The winner, San Mateo’s Clayton Lee, described his triptych pagoda entry as “traditional Chinese architecture using modern building materials, such as steel, concrete, and ceramics.” Merrill Jew, one of the project’s advisors, underlined the importance of the contest: “A Chinatown Gateway has long been desired, not only for its potential impact upon the thousands of visitors annually but for its representation of the achievements and progress of the Chinese in the United States.”52 The city’s Board of Supervisors assented; in May, it allocated an additional $36,000 to underwrite the archway.53 Groundbreaking ceremonies took place on October 4, with Shelley proclaiming, “At a time of racial strife in our big cities, this Gateway is a symbol of peace between the Chinese people who live in San Francisco and their neighbors.”54 Not coincidentally, the same Cold War geopolitical dynamics that had necessitated the renovation of Chinatown made possible the final greenlighting of the gateway. As early as 1960, Republic of China officials (the Nationalists in Taiwan) had expressed an interest in helping to defray the construction costs. Chinatown’s leaders continued to pursue this option. The courtship paid off in the form of a gift of 120 artisanal ochre tiles from the Taiwan government to San Francisco. Valued at $45,000, each one depicted an episode in Chinese history.55 The ribbon-cutting ceremony, held on October 18, 1970, plainly communicated

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the gateway’s Cold War scaffolding. The national anthems of Taiwan and the United States played as the flags of both countries were raised on Grant Avenue. Recently elected mayor Joseph Alioto presented Republican Chinese vice president Yen Chia-ken with a key to the city, expressing his gratitude for Taiwan’s donations. Both dignitaries emphasized the archway’s role in fortifying SinoAmerican friendship—a point likely grasped most perceptively by Chinese American donors who had dedicated years to shepherding the venture.56

Figure 7.1. The newly erected San Francisco Chinatown gate, as pictured on the cover of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce’s tourist guide to Chinatown, 1970. (Courtesy of Him Mark Lai Papers, Asian American Studies Collection, Ethnic Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley.)

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Making Chinatown Family-Friendly The Cold War framed not only the material refurbishing of Chinatown but also the rhetorical overhaul of lingering conceptualizations of the enclave as dodgy and aberrant. Since the late nineteenth century, Chinatown had been the spatial counterpart to the common attitude that Chinese were rat-eating, opiumsmoking, sexually depraved, deceitful subhumans—the racial logic that justified exclusion. U.S. Chinese and their partisans tried mightily to reverse the degradation of Chinatown as a morally suspect “bachelor society” by claiming cultural compatibility with middle-class Anglo-Saxon Protestants. They keenly understood the resilient linkages between virtuous conduct, normative domesticity, and access to entitlements of citizenship. But they fought an uphill battle until the eve of World War II.57 Their luck changed in the late 1930s, when support for racial tolerance and cultural diversity began to take hold in popular culture in anticipation of impending war. Recognizing the need for national unity and a trans-Pacific alliance with China against Japan, Americans finally began to be more receptive to positive portrayals of Chinese Americans and Chinatowns. An influential Reader’s Digest article in 1938 championed the model Chinese American household built on solid foundations of “filial piety” instilled from infancy. In Chinese culture, fear of losing face motivated parents to raise their offspring under strict watch. For their part, children simply had no time to get into mischief. Their waking hours were spent at both “American” and Chinese schools; the latter was where they learned their ancestral history, mother tongue, and Confucian precepts reinforcing the “respect for parent and the law” that was emphasized at home. With all these factors complementing one another, juvenile delinquency was “practically nonexistent.”58 During World War II, liberal whites who were invested in the coast-to-coast campaign to strike down the Chinese exclusion laws made use of the fledgling thesis of Chinese American “nondelinquency.” They purposefully recast Chinese in their promotional materials and congressional testimonies as “lawabiding, peace-loving, courteous people living quietly among us.” Chinatowns, they stressed, knew little of wayward youth and crime. They calculated wisely. National, regional, and niche newspapers and magazines opined in favor of the crusade. Mass-market periodicals featured celebratory profiles of patriotic, respectable Chinese American citizens. Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Acts in December 1943. The discourse of Chinese American “nondelinquency” peaked in the 1950s. Amid the country’s panic over juvenile delinquency, scores of journalists, scholars, and policymakers recycled the notion of the well-behaved Chinese. They lauded Chinatown households for raising exceptionally dutiful and studious children. The New York Times Magazine emphasized that Chinese youth

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displayed “unquestioned obedience” toward their elders, while Look magazine marveled that “troublemaking” among Chinatown youths was “so low that the police don’t even bother to keep figures on it.” U.S. Representative Arthur Klein praised his Manhattan constituents for their “respect for parents and teachers,” “stable and loving home life,” and thirst for education.59 This meme gained traction because it upheld two dominant lines of Cold War–era thinking. The first was the valorization of the nuclear family. Popular portrayals of Chinese American households that attributed their orderliness to Confucian tradition resonated with contemporary conservative mores. The second was anticommunism. Observers who extolled stateside Chinese for their “venerable” Confucianism effectively drew contrasts between U.S. Chinatowns and Mao Zedong’s China to suggest the superiority of the American way of life over communist oppression. Significantly, Chinese Americans themselves helped spread the nondelinquency concept as both a political defense mechanism and a means to strengthen their economic muscle. After the federal government instigated a crackdown on illegal Chinese immigration in 1956 under the pretense that communist Chinese spies were sneaking into the country using false papers, many Chinese Americans experienced the terrors of mass subpoenas, private torment, public shame, prosecution, and deportation. Savvy Chinatown leaders moved to upgrade the community’s reputation by pushing the family values angle in a coordinated public relations campaign. For example, they assisted with a flattering feature in Reader’s Digest on the Chinese in the United States that spotlit their “amazingly low delinquency rate” for the magazine’s millions of subscribers.60 San Francisco entrepreneurs recognized the retail potential of the model family concept as well. Chinatown Handy Guide (1959) lured sightseers with a predictable dim sum glossary, the origin story of chop suey, and a tutorial on how to hold chopsticks. In an innovative twist on Orientalist sensationalism, the booklet also hawked “Chinatown’s Pride: No Juvenile Delinquency Problem” and “San Francisco Hail [sic] Chinese as Law-Abiding.” Unlike other areas in the city, bragged the Handy Guide, “Chinatown is not concerned with finding a cure for juvenile delinquency. It has a preventive in its exemplary family life.”61

Chinatown: The Anti-Ghetto The Cold War pushed Chinese American visionaries and other liberals to begin deghettoizing Chinatown, but the domestic racial upheaval at midcentury completed the process. Academic investigators’ fascination with the enclave’s seemingly unique characteristics were central to this transformation. Writing for Economic Geography in 1952, Rhoads Murphey observed that the inhabitants of Boston’s Chinese quarter were neither “lazy” nor “sloppy” but simply overcrowded. Despite their cramped conditions, however, they virtually never

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appeared on police blotters or relief rolls, unlike the residents of the South End, the “rooming-house district” that “le[d] the city in crime and juvenile delinquency rates.”62 In a pair of studies for Phylon, sociologist D. Y. Yuan posited that New York’s Chinatown was a place of “voluntary segregation” that was qualitatively different from the “involuntary segregation” of northern and southern blacks. Chinatown was “not a slum” despite its poverty, he argued, because urban planners and social scientists did not regard it as a “problem community” racked with crime and delinquency.63 Richard T. Sollenberger made similar claims in the Journal of Social Psychology based on the child-rearing practices of New York Chinatown mothers. He concluded that individual families and the community as a whole provided “good models of behavior” for Chinese American children despite their impoverished surroundings.64 The Chinatown examples stood in marked contrast to the body of “ghettoization” studies that focused on the morass of putatively intractable problems plaguing the black poor, scholarship that took on increasing poignancy in the context of the urban rebellions of the mid- to late 1960s.65 As historian Gilbert Osofsky memorably lamented, “The essential structure and nature of the Negro ghetto have remained remarkably durable since the demise of slavery in the North. There has been an unending and tragic sameness about Negro life in the metropolis over the two centuries.”66 Gravely concerned about the unraveling of families in America’s cities and the need to maintain “law and order,” reformers and critics looked to Chinatowns as pockets of safety and tranquility, hoping to draw lessons for the nation at large. The controversy surrounding Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s explosive paper “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” made the comparison between Chinese and African Americans explicit. Drawing on the extensive body of midcentury poverty knowledge, Moynihan synthesized familiar culture-of-poverty arguments to claim that the “deterioration of the Negro family”—epitomized first and foremost by black matriarchy— was the root cause of the “deterioration of the fabric of Negro society.” The intent of his diagnosis was to mobilize support for structural interventions to establish “stable” black families (i.e., households that conformed to white middleclass standards of domesticity) as a crucial means of alleviating their wretched circumstances. Moynihan’s convictions were molded in significant part by his reading of Chinese American history. He raved about the progress Chinese immigrants had made since their arrival in the nineteenth century. “No people came to our shores poorer than the Chinese,” he avowed, yet their descendants had gone on to remarkable heights of educational attainment despite continued concentration in urban centers. Their “singularly stable, cohesive, and enlightened family life” had paved the way for socioeconomic mobility. Chinese, he further suggested, had “ceased to be colored”—they did not behave or live like other racial minorities, particularly African Americans.67

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Thus, the Cold War imperatives to resignify Chinatown yielded both intended and unintended consequences. Chinatown was no longer a ghetto; it had been remade into an anti-ghetto in the double crucible of Cold War geopolitics and the African American freedom movement. U.S. News and World Report pointedly captured this transformation in its December 1966 feature entitled “Success Story of One Minority Group in U.S.” Underlining the low rates of crime, delinquency, and welfare usage in the Chinatowns of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, U.S. News observed, “At a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent to uplift Negroes and other minorities, the nation’s 300,000 Chinese-Americans are moving ahead on their own—with no help from anyone else.” The editors commended Chinatown’s residents for depending on their “traditional values of hard work, thrift, and morality,” rather than welfare checks, to overcome their difficulties. “What you find . . . [with] this remarkable group of Americans is a story of adversity and prejudice that would shock those now complaining about the hardships endured by today’s Negroes,” they declared, gesturing to the festering civil rights backlash.68 Chinatown, in short, was unlike Harlem or Watts. Chinese Americans had become definitively not-black.

The Gilded Ghetto This new racial common sense, though formidable, was not a completely hegemonic one. Not a few detractors denounced the efforts to deghettoize the nation’s Chinatowns. In April 1967, San Francisco Chinatown’s progressive East West newspaper dubbed the district’s impending archway “less-thantriumphant.” The $70,000 earmarked by the city for its construction could be better spent on recreational outlets and educational opportunities for recent immigrants or for relieving the area’s housing shortage. Instead—in an ironic turn—the editors asserted that the gate “will only serve to deepen the impression of Chinatown as a ghettoized area of town.”69 One reader wrote to East West to concur, remarking that “the Gateway only substantiates the feeling of many of our residents that the ‘leaders’ of our Community and the Board of Supervisors do not begin to understand what our Community needs.”70 He was not alone, as some fifty protesters made clear on the day of the ribbon cutting in October 1970. Jeering and catcalling while the ceremonies took place, members of the Asian People’s Coalition waved signs reading “Housing for the People, Not Moon Gates for Tourists.”71 Grassroots community activists, academics, and journalists worked to draw attention to Chinatown’s myriad social problems that tourism boosters glossed over. Their pushback against the deghettoization impulse revealed a competing representation of the enclave as a “gilded ghetto” that was suffering what National Geographic called “the usual ghetto aches and pains” beneath its exotic veneer, including substandard living accommodations, high unemployment, violence, and tuberculosis.72

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Ultimately, such challenges were important for highlighting more realistic understandings of U.S. Chinatowns and their inhabitants. Yet by portraying Chinese Americans’ problems in the politically fraught language of the “ghetto,” these critics reproduced the deep associations between blackness and the inner city. And in doing so, they imperiled the opportunity to help move the nation past its long-standing and pernicious assumptions about race and space and toward new possibilities for dignity and equality.

Notes 1. Ellen D. Wu, The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2014). 2. Kay Anderson’s theorization of Chinatown as both an idea and a set of practices informs my approach. See Anderson, “The Idea of Chinatown: The Power of Place and Institutional Practice in the Making of a Racial Category,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77, no. 44 (1987): 580–598. 3. On racial liberalism, see Walter Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal and America’s Conscience: Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938–1987 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); Gary Gerstle, “The Protean Character of American Liberalism,” American Historical Review 99, no. 4 (1994): 1043–1073; Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York: Vintage, 1996); Nikhil Pal Singh, “Culture/Wars: Recoding Empire in an Age of Democracy,” American Quarterly 50, no. 3 (1998): 471–522; Ruth Feldstein, Motherhood in Black and White: Race and Sex in American Liberalism, 1930–1965 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000); Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002); Alice O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001); Nikhil Pal Singh, Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004); Carol A. Horton, Race and the Making of American Liberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008); Daniel Martinez Hosang, Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010); Mark Brilliant, The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941–1978 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Wu, The Color of Success. 4. On the global dimensions of racial liberalism, see Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Penny M. Von Eschen, Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997); Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000); Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001); Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945–1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Penny M. Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004); Singh, Black Is a Country; Charlotte Brooks, Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends: Asian Americans, Housing, and the Transformation of Urban California (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Wu, The Color of Success.

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5. Ivan Light, “From Vice District to Tourist Attraction: The Moral Career of American Chinatowns, 1880–1940,” Pacific Historical Review 43, no. 3 (1974): 367–394; Raymond W. Rast, “The Cultural Politics of Tourism in San Francisco’s Chinatown, 1882–1917,” Pacific Historical Review 76, no. 1 (2007): 29–60. 6. Light, “From Vice District to Tourist Attraction”; Rast, “The Cultural Politics of Tourism”; Charlotte Brooks, “The War on Grant Avenue: Business Competition and Ethnic Rivalry in San Francisco’s Chinatown, 1937–1942,” Journal of Urban History 37, no. 3 (2011): 311–330. 7. Christopher Lee Yip, “San Francisco’s Chinatown: An Architectural and Urban History” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1985), 114, 193–293. 8. Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995). 9. Brooks, Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends and Wendy Cheng, The Changs Next Door to the Díazes: Remapping Race in Suburban California (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), are important exceptions. 10. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis, 9. As Sugrue reminds us, “In the postwar city, blackness and whiteness assumed a spatial definition. The physical state of African American neighborhoods and white neighborhoods in Detroit reinforced perceptions of race. The completeness of racial segregation made ghettoization seem an inevitable natural consequence of profound racial differences” (9). 11. Klein, Cold War Orientalism; Brooks, Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends; Greg Umbach and Dan Wishnoff, “Strategic Self-Orientalism: Urban Planning Policies and the Shaping of New York City’s Chinatown, 1950–2005,” Journal of Planning History 7, no. 3 (2008): 214–238; Cindy I-Fen Cheng, Citizens of Asian America: Democracy and Race during the Cold War (New York: New York University Press, 2013); Wu, The Color of Success; Meredith Oda, “Rebuilding Japantown: Japanese Americans in Transpacific San Francisco during the Cold War,” Pacific Historical Review 83, no. 1 (2014): 57–91. A. K. Sandoval-Strausz’s “Latino Landscapes: Postwar Cities and the Transnational Origins of a New Urban America,” Journal of American History 101, no. 3 (2014): 804–831, posits a persuasive call to “transnationalize” the field of U.S. urban history. 12. On Rose Hum Lee, see Henry Yu, Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 125–129, 181–182; Katharine Ng, “Fear and Loathing of Chinatown: The 1950s and Rose Hum Lee’s Desire for Assimilation” (BA honors thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 2002). Lee (1904–1964) was raised in the town of her birth, Butte, Montana. She earned a PhD from the University of Chicago (1947) and in 1956 became the first woman and first Chinese American chairperson of a sociology department (Roosevelt University) in the United States. 13. Rose Hum Lee, “Vocational Adjustment: Your Chances For a Job,” Chinese Press, August 18, 1950, 4; Rose Hum Lee, “Your Job and You,” Chinese Press, August 11, 1950, 4. See also Rose Hum Lee, “Chinese Dilemma,” Phylon 10, no. 2 (1949): 137–140. 14. Yu, Thinking Orientals, 178–182; Ng, “Fear and Loathing.” 15. Rose Hum Lee, “The Decline of Chinatowns in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 54, no. 5 (1949): 422–432. 16. Ibid. 17. Cindy I-Fen Cheng, “Out of Chinatown and into the Suburbs: Chinese Americans and the Politics of Cultural Citizenship in Early Cold War America,” American Quarterly 58, no. 4 (2006): 1067–1090; Brooks, Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends; Wendy Cheng, “The Changs Next Door to the Díazes: Suburban Racial Formation in Los Angeles’s San Gabriel Valley,” Journal of Urban History 39, no. 15 (2013): 1–35. 18. “Chinatown—A Victim of Progress,” Chinese World, March 4, 1965, 1; “Boule Noir Strikes Again, St. Louis Chinatown Next,” Chinese World, March 4, 1965, 1; Huping Ling, Chinese

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St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 128–131. 19. Roger Daniels, Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 199; Xiaolan Bao, “When Women Arrived: The Transformation of New York’s Chinatown,” in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 19–39; Xiaojian Zhao, Remaking Chinese America: Immigration, Family, and Community, 1940–1965 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002). 20. “U.S. Chinese Start the New Year with Foreboding,” Scene: The Pictorial Magazine, February 1951, 26–29. 21. Kay Anderson, “The Idea of Chinatown”; Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Mary Ting Yi Lui, The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005). 22. On the range of midcentury Chinese American politics, see Victor G. Nee and Brett de Bary Nee, Longtime Californ’: A Documentary Study of an American Chinatown (Redwood City, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1986); Him Mark Lai, “A Historical Survey of the Chinese Left in America,” in Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America, ed. Emma Gee (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976), 63–80; Renqiu Yu, To Save China, to Save Ourselves: The Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance of New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992); Peter Kwong, Chinatown, New York: Labor and Politics, 1930–1950 (New York: The New Press, 2001); Zhao, Remaking Chinese America; Josephine Fowler, Japanese and Chinese Immigrant Activists: Organizing in American and International Communist Movements, 1919–1933 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2007); Him Mark Lai, Chinese American Transnational Politics, ed. Madeline Y. Hsu (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010); Charlotte Brooks, Between Mao and McCarthy: Chinese American Politics in the Cold War Years (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). 23. Lai, Chinese American Transnational Politics, 29; “Anti Red Chinese Meet Here,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 15, 1951, 9. Lai notes the absence of open opposition to the League’s formation. The Chinese Six Companies (also known as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association) was the umbrella coalition of immigrants’ fraternal/welfare organizations dominated by the merchant elite. The Six Companies was most powerful during the exclusion era. 24. “Anti-Red League Schedules Parade,” Chinese Press, February 9, 1951, 1; “Torchlight Parade Rallies S.F. Chinese against Reds,” Chinese Press, February 16, 1951, 1, 2; “The Year of the Hare—With No Dragon,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 13, 1951, 3. 25. See, for instance, “Sacto Chinese Prepare Gala ‘10–10’ Rites,” Chinese World, October 9, 1953, 2; “Oakland Group to Hold Rally Oct 10,” Chinese World, October 9, 1953, 2; “SF Chinese Observe ‘10–10’; Vow Opposition to Red Chinese Regime,” Chinese World, October 10, 1953, 2; “LA Chinese Consul to Hold ‘10–10’ Reception,” Chinese World, October 10, 1953, 2. 26. “Clothing for Korea Gathered,” New York Times, November 28, 1951, 8; “Chinese Here Give Clothes to Korea,” New York Times, November 30, 1951, 22. 27. “Chinese New Year in U.S. Capital,” Chinese Press, February 16, 1951, 1, 2; “Chinatown Less Noisy Than Usual in Greeting Year of Golden Rabbit,” New York Times, February 7, 1951, 31. 28. Nee and Nee, Longtime Californ’, 244–249; Chiou-Ling Yeh, Making an American Festival: Chinese New Year in San Francisco’s Chinatown (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 32–55; “S.F. and Chinese Chambers Give $1000 for Festival,” Chinese World, February 12, 1953, 2; Dai-Ming Lee, “Chinese New Year Fete as a City-Wide Project,” Chinese World, February 27, 1953, 1.

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29. Yeh, Making an American Festival, 12. 30. “Chinese Chamber of Commerce Essay Contest Date Extended,” Chinese World, August

25, 1953, 2. 31. Charles L. Leong, “A Blueprint for the Improvement of Chinatown Business,” manuscript, July 6, 1953, carton 4, folder 25, Charles Leong Papers, Ethnic Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter CLP). 32. Honey Quan, “Text of Essay Winning Second Prize in Chinese Chamber of Commerce Contest,” Chinese World, December 11, 1953, 1–2. 33. Edward W. Chew, “Front Line Dispatch,” Chinese World, December 17, 1953, 2. For an illuminating comparison of San Francisco and New York Chinatowns in the 1950s, see Umbach and Wishnoff, “Strategic Self-Orientalism.” Manhattan Chinatown elites failed to realize their plans to boost tourism by erecting an Orientalist-themed “China Village” of restaurants, cafés, shops, and apartments. 34. H. K. Wong, “Ground-Breaking for Portsmouth Parking Project,” Chinese World, November 16, 1960, 2; “Honor to These Men of Foresight,” Chinese World, June 4, 1962, 1; “We Honor These Pioneers,” Chinese World, July 13, 1962; Lee Wei-Tun, “Thanks to Chinatown for Big Garage Says Mayor Christopher,” Chinese World, August 8, 1962. 35. “Chinatown Maintenance Group Named,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 10, 1956, 2; Dai-Ming Lee, “A New Look for Chinatown,” Chinese World, February 15, 1956, 1; “Chinatown Improvement Group, Mayor Meet,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 26, 1956, 5; “Chinatown Improvement Committee in Initial Meet at Mayor’s Office,” Chinese World, February 17, 1956, 2. There are some discrepancies between the sources in terms of the total number of committee members. 36. Dai-Ming Lee, “Archways for Chinatown,” Chinese World, May 12, 1956, 1. 37. “Chinatown Improvement Group, Mayor Meet,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 26, 1956, 5; press release, office of Mayor George Christopher, March 2, 1965, box 4, file 10 Districts: Chinatown, 1956–1961, George Christopher Papers, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco (hereafter GCP). 38. Dai-Ming Lee, “Time for Action on Chinatown Archways,” Chinese World, August 29, 1956, 1. 39. There are discrepancies in the sources about the amount of funding Christopher proposed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Dai-Ming Lee, “An Archway for Chinatown,” Chinese World, January 10, 1959, 1, reported $50,000, as did Dai-Ming Lee, “An Archway at the Gateway to Chinatown,” Chinese World, March 11, 1959, 1. But “Mayor Backs Chinatown Archway,” Chinese World, March 30, 1959, a reprint of a telegram from Christopher to Lee, and Dai-Ming Lee, “An Archway for Chinatown,” Chinese World, May 5, 1959, 1, reported $55,000. Ultimately, the Board approved $35,000 for the archway. See “SF Chinatown Archway Gets City’s Approval,” Chinese World, May 12, 1959, 1; Dai-Ming Lee, “Delay in the Construction of Chinatown Archway,” Chinese World, March 25, 1960; T. T. Tam to George Christopher, December 5, 1960, box 4, file 10, Districts: Chinatown, 1956–1961, GCP. 40. T. T. Taam to George Christopher, November 4, 1960, box 4, file 10, Districts: Chinatown, 1956–1961, GCP; Dai-Ming Lee, “Delay in Construction of Chinatown Archway,” Chinese World, March 25, 1960, 1. 41. T. Kong to George Christopher, December 5, 1960, box 4, file 10, Districts: Chinatown, 1956–1961, GCP. 42. Dai-Ming Lee, “Construction of Chinatown Archway Should Be Started,” Chinese World, November 3, 1960, 1. 43. Ibid.; Dai-Ming Lee, “Rev. Tamm Reports on Archway Project,” Chinese World, November 7, 1960, 1.

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44. T. Kong Lee to George Christopher, December 5, 1960, box 4, file 10, Districts: Chinatown, 1956–1961, GCP. 45. “A Problem Cut Down to Size,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 1962, 23; “Makeshift Archway Degrading to Chinatown,” Chinese World, April 23, 1962, 1; “Chinatown Does Not Want a ‘Miniature’ Archway,” Chinese World, April 25, 1962, 1. 46. Dai-Ming Lee, “An Archway at the Gateway to Chinatown,” Chinese World, March 11, 1959, 1. 47. Ibid. 48. “Chinatown, N.B. Association Approves Arch Gateway,” Chinese World, August 22, 1962, 1. 49. Mel Wax, “The Chinatown Arch Impasse,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 27, 1962, 4. 50. “Chinatown Arch Gets Go Signal,” Chinese World, May 15, 1961, 2; “Chinatown Arch Delayed Again,” Chinese World, May 23, 1961, 2. 51. “Gateway to Chinatown,” Chinese World, February 25, 1966, 1; “The Construction of a Chinatown Archway,” Chinese World, March 21, 1966, 1. 52. “Chinatown Gateway Selected: Designed by Architect Lee,” San Francisco Examiner, March 26, 1967, 26; “Chinatown Gateway design—Something Old, Something New,” East West, April 1, 1967, 1, 6. 53. “$36,000 More for Chinatown Gateway Project,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 1, 1967, 5. 54. “Chinatown Gateway Ceremonies,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 4, 1967, 6. 55. T. Kong Lee to George Christopher, December 5, 1960, box 4, file 10, Districts: Chinatown, 1956–1961, GCP; “Chinatown Archway Delayed Again,” Chinese World, May 23, 1961, 2; “Gift of Tiles for Gate to Chinatown,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 3, 1968, 5. 56. “Jiujinshan huaqiao jiang reliehuanying fuzongtong” [San Francisco overseas Chinese to welcome vice president enthusiastically], Lianhebao (United Daily News, Taipei), October 16, 1970, 2; Drew McKillips, “Police, Protests: Opening a Gate to Chinatown,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 19, 1970, 2; Li Jiansan, “Jiujinshan huabu pailou luocheng: fuzongtong qinlin jiancai” [San Francisco Chinatown commemorative arch completed: Vice president attends and cuts the ribbon], Lianhebao, October 20, 1970, 6. 57. Erika Lee, At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 165–73; Anderson, “The Idea of Chinatown”; Shah, Contagious Divides, 29. 58. Carl Glick, “As the Chinese Twig Is Bent,” Reader’s Digest, April 1938, 63–64 (originally published in the New York Herald Tribune’s This Week column); Citizens Committee to Repeal Chinese Exclusion (CCRCE), “Our Chinese Wall,” 1943, box 1, Carl Glick Papers, University of Iowa Special Collections, Iowa City. As an executive committee member of the CCRCE, Glick likely authored “Our Chinese Wall.” 59. William McIntyre, “Chinatown Offers Us a Lesson,” New York Time Magazine, October 6, 1957, 49, 51, 54, 56, 59; “Americans without a Delinquency Problem,” Look, April 29, 1958, 75–81; “Why Chinese Kids Don’t Go Bad,” 84th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 101 (August 2, 1955), A5668–A5672 (originally cited in Betty Lee Sung, Mountain of Gold: The Story of the Chinese in America [New York: Macmillan, 1967]). 60. Howard Freeman to Joseph A. Quan, June 11, 1956, carton 3, folder 30, CLP; Albert Q. Maisel, “The Chinese among Us,” Reader’s Digest, February 1959, 203–204, 206, 208–210, 212. 61. John T. C. Fang, “Chinatown Handy Guide: San Francisco,” 1959, PAM 4620, California Historical Society North Baker Research Library, San Francisco. Emphasis in original. 62. Rhoads Murphey, “Boston’s Chinatown,” Economic Geography 28, no. 3 ( July 1952): 244–255. 63. D. Y. Yuan, “Voluntary Segregation: A Study of New Chinatown,” Phylon 24, no. 3 (1963): 255–265; D. Y. Yuan, “Chinatown and Beyond: The Chinese Population in Metropolitan New York,” Phylon 27, no. 4 (1966): 321–332.

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64. Richard T. Sollenberger, “Chinese-American Child-Rearing Practices and Juvenile Delinquency,” Journal of Social Psychology 74, no. 1 (1968): 13–23. 65. See, for example, Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, 1890–1930 (New York: Harper and Row, 1963); Allan H. Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, 1890–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967); David M. Katzman, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973); Kenneth Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1976); Thomas Philpott, The Slum and the Ghetto: Neighborhood Deterioration and Middle-Class Reform, Chicago, 1880–1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). 66. Gilbert Osofsky, “The Enduring Ghetto,” Journal of American History 55, no. 2 (September 1968): 243–255. 67. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “A Family Policy for the Nation,” America: The National Catholic Weekly Review, September 18, 1965, reprinted in Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancey, The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 385–394; Thomas Meehan, “Moynihan of the Moynihan Report,” New York Times Magazine, July 31, 1966, 48; “Transcript of the American Academy Conference on the Negro American—May 14–15, 1965,” Daedalus 95, no. 1 (Winter 1966): 287–441. 68. “Success Story of One Minority Group in U.S.,” U.S. News and World Report, December 26, 1966, 73–76. 69. “Our Less-Than-Triumphant Chinatown Gateway,” East West, April 1, 1967, 2, cited in Yeh, Making an American Festival, 234–257. 70. Franklin Fung Chow, “Anti-Gateway,” East West, April 11, 1967, 2. 71. McKillips, “Opening a Gate to Chinatown,” cited in Yeh, Making an American Festival, 85. 72. William Albert Allard, “Chinatown, the Gilded Ghetto,” National Geographic Magazine, November 1975, 627–643; Ivan Light, “Protest or Work: Dilemmas of the Tourist Industry in American Chinatowns,” American Journal of Sociology 80, no. 6 (May 1975): 1342–1368; Paul Takagi and Tony Platt, “Behind the Gilded Ghetto: An Analysis of Race, Class, and Crime in Chinatown,” Crime and Social Justice 9 (Spring-Summer 1978): 2–25.

8 • M ARKETING IDENTIT Y, NEGOTIATING BOUNDARIES Ethnic Entrepreneurship in the Coffeehouses and Narghile Lounges of Paterson, New Jersey N E I S E T B AYO U T H

Smoking narghile has long been a common practice in the Middle East and is embedded in the region’s cultural rituals. It first emerged as a communal practice during the Ottoman Empire at places to rest and exchange goods along the trade routes between Europe and Asia. These predominantly male spaces became commonly known as “coffeehouses” or “kahvehane.” Although these traditional lounges continue to exist in the Middle East, in recent years, new kinds of lounges have also emerged in the region: they are commonly known as “coffee shops.”1 These lounges are very modern spaces where both men and women publicly smoke narghile. In recent years, both traditional and modern narghile lounges have multiplied across the United States. While the traditional narghile lounges are found in Arab and Turkish American communities and cater to Arab and Turkish ethnics, modern lounges commonly known as “hookah bars” or restaurants serving hookah, catering to non-ethnics, are becoming more common. Given that ethnic businesses play an important role in immigrant community building in the United States, narghile lounges are worth studying. This chapter examines narghile lounges by drawing on the case study of Paterson, New Jersey. My research uses qualitative methods, including participant observation and seventy-five informal and semi-structured interviews, to examine the roles that narghile lounges play in Paterson’s Middle Eastern community and how these places are understood by different actors within the community. The research was conducted between 2011 and 2012 and consisted of interviews in coffeehouses, restaurants, narghile lounges, retail stores, and 163

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mosques in Paterson and surrounding areas. I also attended the local Arab and Turkish festivals. New Jersey has an Arab population of over 80,000, most of whom are clustered in the densely populated northeastern portion of the state.2 Many are residents of former mill towns such as Paterson, which has long been New Jersey’s most well known Arab enclave and continues to attract Arab migrants. Located primarily in South Paterson, the city’s Middle Eastern community has been described as both thriving and struggling. Like most such communities, it is home to several narghile lounges. As this chapter will show, these lounges are not identical; rather, they have differences that can help us better understand the community where they are located. There are several kinds of narghile lounges in Paterson, which can be distinguished by their different social and cultural meanings, different customer bases, and different economic contributions to the community. Taken together, these places suggest that the city’s Middle Eastern community is not a single entity but a group of communities that share similar challenges and goals for the future. Paterson’s different types of narghile lounges make equally crucial social, cultural, and economic contributions to New Jersey’s Arab community. These contributions cannot be measured solely in terms of profit but should rather be measured by the sense of belonging and cultural identity they provide to the region’s Middle Eastern population. In Paterson, as elsewhere, major differences distinguish traditional and modern lounges. The hookah industry has been able to break racial and ethnic boundaries to some extent by engaging groups other than Arabs in the consumption of hookah products; however, it has generally done so by playing into Orientalist images of the Middle East. Such images are used by modern lounges, which typically attract the most diverse clientele. In traditional lounges, which are closely identified with Middle Eastern culture, customers are often divided by nationality, class, income level, and gender. The patrons of traditional lounges are predominantly male and tend to cluster at the establishments most closely associated with their country of origin. In addition to these distinctions, there are also other noticeable variations among the narghile lounges of Paterson. Their varying economic contributions, patronage, marketing strategies, connections to the ethnic community’s sense of culture, and even décor illuminate the complexities within Paterson’s Middle Eastern enclave.

The Different Meanings of Smoking Narghile Before delving into the different meanings associated with the different types of narghile lounges identified in this study, I would like to offer an overview of the different meanings of smoking narghile. It is important to emphasize that studying smoking narghile and its meanings is different from studying the meanings of the places where narghile is served and/or the retail shops that sell

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narghile supplies. The act of smoking narghile is interpreted in many different ways. Most people date its origins to the times of the Ottoman Empire around the beginning of the sixteenth century, but there is no consensus on whether it is part of Arab culture or identity. Some respondents, members of the Arab diaspora, argue that it is, and talk about it with nostalgia as something that reminds them of home. Other respondents do not think it is part of the culture or identity at all. For example, among religious Islamic community members, some consider smoking narghile haram (sinful) and argue that people should not use it or make profit from something that harms the body. Other respondents maintain that regardless of religion, smoking narghile is simply not good for health and smoking it in public places “is not clean, like using a straw for many people to drink over and over.” By contrast, some maintain that smoking narghile is less harmful than smoking cigarettes. Other respondents suggest that it would be more acceptable for a young man to smoke narghile than cigarettes in front of his father. In more conservative families, however, young men are afraid to smoke either narghile or cigarettes in front of their parents, which is one reason they smoke in narghile lounges. The lounges also enable parents to avoid smoking in front of their children. As one respondent explained, “They know it is bad to smoke and they don’t want their children to do it so they go to the hookah place.” I found it interesting that when I asked one respondent whether he considered smoking narghile to be part of his culture or identity, he told me, “Of course not; if you smoke cigarettes, would you consider it part of yours? No, right . . . smoking hookah is something we do not who we are.” Meanwhile, other narghile lounge patrons were very proud to call this practice something of their own. One respondent mentioned, “When you see hookahs for sale in the places you least expect it, like the Jersey Shore, you feel excited knowing ‘that’ is ours, it’s from back home.” When asked about whether smoking hookah is part of the culture, one respondent explained that in the past it could have been but now it is not. He explained: “Now smoking hookah is part of the popular culture, it is a trend that is temporary and will eventually pass, and the more it becomes immersed in the popular culture, the more it loses its meaning. If you want to see what I am talking about, walk a little further down the street and see the hookahs on display from the hookah store, and you will see hookahs in the shape of skulls, Ed Hardy and even topless women. For sure that is not part of our culture.” Interestingly, when I asked the owner of the retail shop mentioned by the respondent whether smoking hookah was part of the culture, his reply was: “I don’t know what culture it is part of, I only know how to sell it so you might as well go and ask someone else,” refusing to participate in the research. His example shows that when the narghile becomes commodified and is catered to non-ethnics, social meaning is trumped by financial gain.

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Another respondent argued that “smoking hookah is part of our culture back home, but not here, here it is different, it’s a business.” The more conservative respondent argued that the meaning of smoking hookah in the United States was changing because most people think of narghile lounges as alcohol bars, when “back home it’s something clean, like going for a picnic, you take a blanket, sit outdoors and smoke, no need to get drunk, just smoke and relax with friends.” Clearly, then, what it means to smoke hookah varies from person to person and the meanings attributed to the places where people smoke hookah also vary. The more traditional outlets (kahve coffeehouses and hookah cafés) typically offer both the business owners and patrons a space where they can both practice their culture and establish social and business networks. Meanwhile, some feel that the more modern lounges play an important role in bridging gaps between the Middle Eastern community and their host society. In both traditional and modern lounges, the meanings attributed to the place do not rely on the meanings patrons or business owners confer to the narghile or to smoking narghile but on the social purposes and meanings of these ethnic businesses for the Middle Eastern community.

Culture, Identity, and the Social and Economic Meanings of Narghile Lounges Both traditional and modern narghile lounges abound in the city of Paterson and its surrounding areas. But they serve different social and economic functions. While exploring the relationship of coffeehouses and narghile lounges to culture and identity, I asked respondents whether they considered these places sites of the expression of their culture and whether they thought these places embodied their identity. If we look at the coffeehouses and narghile lounges as relational spaces where identity is not only performed but transformed, we can see how in a particular place discourses of tradition, culture, gender, and religion get mobilized among different actors. These types of relational spaces are common in all immigrant communities as traditional conceptions of space and place interact with the situational reality of the norms of the new society. Thus, place not only creates identity; identity also creates and shapes place. Whether respondents felt that narghile lounges were part of their culture and identity greatly varied among the different types of lounges. The first type of lounge I identified through my research is the kahve coffeehouse, a lounge where both owners and customers are primarily Turkish. The word kahve comes from kahvehane, which in Turkish means “house of coffee.” Business owners and customers of kahve coffeehouses agreed that these places were part of their culture. Many of the respondents traced with pride the existence of such places to the days of the Ottoman Empire and emphasized that they are very important in providing a space of social interaction. The kahve coffeehouses provide

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a site where men can interact on a daily basis, exchange news, hold conversations, and establish social and business networks. It is common for patrons to play backgammon or a Turkish tile–based game called “okey.” It is customary that the team who loses the game pays the bill. In the diaspora, these places play a very important role in community building. They serve as a point of encounter where recent migrants can find employment and support as they become settled in the United States. Although no formal membership is required, the kahve coffeehouses operate much like social clubs, where regular patrons develop a sense of belonging to that establishment. The doors are open to others who are not members, but typically the customers will be those who consider themselves members of a particular kahve coffeehouse. The kahve coffeehouse also functions as a hub that mobilizes camaraderie. In times of need, members will show their support for each other. For example, if a relative dies, the members of the kahve coffeehouse collect money to help the family cover the expenses of returning the body back home. As one patron expressed, “These places allow the social life, and without the social life, we are nothing. There is no day that goes by without us coming here and spending time with the friends.” The kahve coffeehouse provides an important source of both economic and moral support among Turkish community members. Although some food is served in the kahve coffeehouses, tea is the main product. Narghile was not available in any of the kahve coffeehouses I visited. As I conducted interviews, my presence in the kahve coffeehouse was noticeable, as I was the only woman present. Patrons were alerted by the owner about the purpose of my presence as a researcher. The business owner and customers emphasized that there was no problem with my presence but that there could be trouble if somebody walking by told the wife of one of the patrons that there was a woman in a place that is for men. Thus, these all-male spaces are not interpreted as excluding women in a negative way. Instead, they are seen as a place where men can “hang out” with each other without invading the privacy of the home. “It gives women comfort,” one customer noted, “to know that no alcohol is served in the kahvehane and no women will be here.” This sense of integrity of the place as a predominantly male space is also characteristic of the second type of lounge I identified in my research, the Arab hookah cafés, to the extent that I interviewed patrons outside those venues. The patrons I interviewed noted that it would not be appropriate for me to enter. Some of the hookah cafés are visibly located on corner sites along Paterson’s Main Street. Thus, at the end of several blocks, it is hard to avoid noticing the presence of male customers and all the tables full of men smoking hookah and playing cards. Others smoke cigarettes outside, occupying most of the sidewalk around the building. Patrons expressed that the hookah cafés allow them to practice their culture in the United States, not just smoking hookah, but also having a place to listen to their music, watch sports, play traditional games (backgammon

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and cards), and gather with friends. A customer explained, “These places make us feel [like] we have something of our own,” emphasizing that the place helps them secure a presence in the United States. Patrons explained that these places also provide an important source of economic and moral support and even serve as a space where family relationships can be nurtured. In the hookah cafés, conversations are held about potential marriage arrangements as men identify and meet potential suitors for family members. One hookah café patron emphasized that in the United States, as in the Middle East, the owners of such establishments help maintain community ties. They are well informed about all activities and affairs in their town because a great deal of information is exchanged at their cafés. The third type of lounges identified in this research are hookah restaurants. Owners and patrons of hookah restaurants considered them to be part of the culture. The owner of a prominent hookah restaurant stated that food is perhaps one of the most important elements of the culture and that it is very important for Arab migrants to be able to have their traditional food in the United States. At upscale restaurants in the Middle East, it is common to smoke hookah after dinner. In contrast to the hookah cafés, the hookah restaurant provides a setting where patrons and their guests can talk privately during dinner and/or smoke hookah. Another business owner stated that unlike the hookah café, which is only for men, the hookah restaurants are as much for women as they are for men. He laughed as he commented while smoking hookah that “men talk about business and women gossip.” Hookah restaurant owners explained that their customers are usually a mix of Arab and non-Arab, although there is a consistent Arab customer base. Dining out is not common in traditional Arab culture, but the practice has become more popular among the newer generations. For example, it is commonplace for local Christian Arab families to dine out for lunch or dinner following church services. Another example is young male professionals who migrate to the United States and look for comfort and a memory of “back home” in food that they might not know how to cook. Whenever an Arabic restaurant has the continuous support of its compatriots, the establishment takes pride in the quality of their food. A business owner explained that Arab customers were more demanding than American customers and that it was important to keep a good mix of Arab and non-Arab customers so that the latter would not feel intimidated upon arriving at the restaurant and would feel welcome. Beyond providing a meeting place for members of the Arab community, the owners of one of the hookah restaurants proudly described their establishment as a place that was bringing the Arab community together and also bridging the Arab community and the host American society. This particular restaurant, owned by a Palestinian Muslim and a Lebanese Christian, hosted activities where both religious groups came together and shared customs and traditions to gain a better understanding and an appreciation for each other’s culture. For example,

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one of the owners explained that one time there was a religious Christian celebration on the second level of the restaurant at the same time that Muslim guests waited to break their fast on the first level during Ramadan. Through their joint economic venture, these two owners strove to set an example of collaboration between different nationalities and religions, something they think the community needs very much. The restaurant also hosts special events where customers enjoy narghile and Arabic music. Many customers at these events are college students. One of the owners said, “It is very exciting to see young Americans, Italians, Hispanics, and people from many other nationalities dancing to Arabic music and asking about the Arab culture and learning about the things we have in common.” Hookah restaurants bring benefits to the community because they hire more kitchen staff and servers. They perhaps generate the most jobs of all types of lounges. These restaurants also host special events that attract customers from outside the community and generate more revenue for the locality. For example, when a beauty pageant was held in one of the local hookah restaurants, customers came from all over the state to support relatives who were participating in the contest. Ultimately these patrons dined and shopped in the area. The fourth and last type of lounge identified through this research is the hookah bar. Hookah bars are perhaps the most controversial type of venue in terms of their cultural and social meanings within the local community. At the heart of the controversy is the provision of alcoholic beverages and complaints about loud music and noise because of the large crowds drawn to these places. Hookah bars are mostly owned by Arab entrepreneurs who market them to nonArab customers. Because of the presence of Dominican, Peruvian, and other Latin American groups in Paterson, many customers at these hookah bars are Hispanic. Some business owners argue that their establishments are primarily economic ventures, not places aimed at promoting culture. One business owner contended, “Some think my place has no meaning, but to me it has [significance], it means my [economic] independence.” Thus, business owners see their businesses as a means of economic success that provide an avenue for upward mobility and opportunities for their families. They see their personal gains as eventually transferring to the collective level. But this view can be countered: these venues generally have a very limited number of employees—usually one or two—and thus they make a nominal contribution to job creation. Further, as business owners become wealthier, they tend to migrate to adjacent suburbs, thus making less of a contribution to their old communities.

Marketing Culture and Identity Considering the prevailing negative stereotypes of the Middle East, especially after the events of 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems

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paradoxical that a practice that has its roots in the Middle East is becoming so popular in the United States. The increased popularity of narghile lounges gives the impression that some aspects of Middle Eastern culture are entering mainstream popular culture. Whether or not this cultural incursion is taking place, at a minimum a degree of cultural exchange is happening in narghile lounges; customers in these establishments experience some aspects of Middle Eastern culture. Thus, it is important to understand the extent to which Arab identity is used to market narghile lounges. But the concept of Arab identity is fluid and multidimensional, negotiated, and contested through space and time. Arabs in the United States offer a plurality of identities. As a result, ethnicity, nationalism, and religion are situated as main forces that constitute not only individual identities but also a communal identity. National identity is commonly displayed in some coffeehouses and narghile lounges. It is not unusual for national flags or symbols to be displayed in front of or inside these establishments. Sometimes this will have an influence on the customer base, as some patrons might choose to sponsor the establishments owned by those of their own national origin or avoid establishments owned by people of particular nationalities. In some instances, business owners display symbols of religious identity to inform potential customers about the general norms of conduct in the establishment. For example, no alcoholic beverages are served in some establishments that display religious Islamic symbols. However there are venues where Islamic symbols are displayed and alcohol is still served. The general norms of conduct are not dictated entirely by the interior design elements or the symbols displayed; the values and standards of the owners and the people who frequent these places shape such norms. Further, it is not clear to what degree non-Arabs are able to navigate symbols that they might have no understanding of. For them, a simple sign indicating whether alcohol is served and the atmosphere or décor plays a larger role in choice of venue than displays of Islamic symbols. Although different national or religious identity symbols might influence patrons’ decisions to sponsor one establishment over another, interestingly, business owners did not consider this to be a “marketing strategy.” In fact, some argued that because of the post-9/11 stigma against those of Middle Eastern origin living in the United States, they worry that displaying identity symbols might lead to increased discrimination against them. This fear is perhaps one of the reasons why we have yet to see an Arabtown or Little Arabia becoming a prominent tourist destination in the way that Chinatowns or Little Havana have. It seems difficult for business owners to consider elements of their identity as marketable when that identity has become stigmatized. Many resort to using “Western versions” of Arab identity to market their establishments, despite the fact that most Arabs feel that those “Orientalized” images are “inauthentic” and detached from their real identity and culture. For this reason, images that in the past might

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have been considered part of Arab identity and culture become rejected and are no longer considered authentic when they are appropriated into Orientalized frameworks. Whether business owners appeal to culture or identity as a marketing strategy depends on the type of venue they are operating and their respective target markets. In the kahve coffeehouses and hookah cafés, the customer base is members of the same ethnic group. Customer sponsorship is not based on a marketing strategy but on the reputation of the business owner as honest, reserved, and trustworthy and on the reputation of the establishment as a safe harbor for the free enjoyment of its customers. This provides the owner with the freedom to depart from “Oriental” stereotypes and rely on word of mouth within the community for patronage. In contrast, business owners whose target market includes non-ethnic customers use a wide set of Middle Eastern imagery in marketing their venues. Modern lounges usually have Oriental elements in their décor. The color red is abundant in many. Images of the desert, camels, Egyptian tombs, veiled women, Arabian horses, or Bedouins are not uncommon. Oriental rugs and traditional pillows are laid on the floor to serve as a seating arrangement, and customers take their shoes off to “experience” Middle Eastern culture. Wood carvings, tile mosaics, rustic Middle Eastern pottery, and fancy decorative hookahs are sometimes on display. In some outlets, performances by belly dancers accompany the rhythm of Arabic music. In spite of the presence of all these elements of Arab imagery, business owners do not consider this to be an example of using “identity” as a marketing strategy. In the words of one business owner, “Arab décor is not Arabic identity.” Arab décor plays to the images that have been commonly associated in the West as part of Arabic identity, and business owners do not consider such Orientalized décor and imagery to be part of their authentic identity. The “exotic” is helpful for attracting non-Arab customers, but it also creates a sense of “othering” whereby differences with the host society are accentuated. Thus, business owners who attempt to attract a non-Arab clientele face the challenge of portraying an image of the Arab world and the Middle East that is “exotic enough” to attract customers while at the same time attempting to emphasize the commonalities of their culture with the host society.

Meaning, Identity, and Class The social meaning of coffeehouses and hookah lounges and their connections to identity are contingent on many different factors. Sometimes the economic benefits derived from these business ventures are translated into social benefits. At other times, economic success leads to upward mobility for business owners, but does not necessarily translate into benefits for the members of

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the community, ultimately creating tensions between those who move out and those who are left behind. One critique of the narghile lounges of all types is that most of the owners do not live within the community. Yet business owners argue that they buy their supplies from community members and attract customers from outside areas, thus giving more exposure to local businesses. They also argue that their businesses are important to their families, not only by providing their main form of income but also by providing a sense of achievement for them and creating a means of apprenticeship for generations to follow. In purely economic terms, narghile businesses create revenue, provide employment, and offer the potential of upward mobility. Yet this can be a double-edged sword if the mobility afforded to owners removes social capital from the community or creates a gap between them and other community members. For business owners who accumulate capital and move outside of Paterson to areas with better schools and less crime, upward mobility is a positive thing. However, there is potential for negative impact related to their success: if they move on and their ties to the community fade, social capital could be lost and Paterson could become seen as a mere stepping-stone for migrants, not a permanent community where all members work together toward its betterment. Perhaps the most important contribution narghile lounges make to promote the economic development of the communities they serve is to provide a space where ethnic business networks take shape. This fosters ethnic solidarity, which could be interpreted as a form of community building. The lounges can also become a source of support for those experiencing economic duress. The business networks give narghile lounge patrons access to financial support such as personal loans, which can sometimes be more easily attained through immigrant networks than through banks and other formal financial institutions. Even though the hookah industry has been able to break through racial and ethnic boundaries to some extent by bringing in groups other than Arabs and Turkish as consumers of narghile products, at the same time, boundaries pertaining to nationality, class, income level, and gender remain visible, depending on the dynamics of the different types of lounges, their public image, and the success or challenges they face. Boundaries related to social class and income levels are still visible among the different types of venues. The more traditional lounges provide an inexpensive form of leisure, and many patrons argued that there is no other place where they can spend time for such a nominal amount of money (five dollars or less). One patron pointed out that it was far more expensive to go to the movies or even to Starbucks than it was to go to the hookah place. Other patrons noted that the customer base of most of the traditional lounges is working class. If these places ceased to exist, these patrons would not have access to a similar form of leisure because it would simply be unaffordable. The more modern lounges, on the

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other hand, are usually more expensive than the traditional lounges and attract a more affluent (and non-ethnic) clientele. Thus, income boundaries often coincide with ethnic boundaries. These boundaries have created some tensions related to perceptions about the different kinds of lounges. In spite of their advocates claiming modern lounges are bridging the Middle Eastern community with other ethnic groups, hookah bars are perceived as detached from the ethnic economy because they cater to non-ethnics. Meanwhile, advocates of the traditional lounges take pride in being “by the community and for the community.” These tensions and resentment about hookah bars could also stem from the social/religious stigmas attached to the use and sale of alcohol. But more to the point, the resentment speaks to the growing gap between the upwardly mobile business owners who move outside Paterson and their often less prosperous co-ethnics who remain there. From the perspective of those who decide to stay in the city, business owners who move out of urban areas themselves leave behind problems such as complaints from neighbors about noise and alcohol consumption yet continue to profit from their businesses. This brings up an interesting question about the concept of ethnic solidarity and how connected to the ethnic economy community members perceive a business to be. Even highly profitable ethnic businesses cannot be vital to their communities if they benefit only the business owner, and the owners of such businesses will get little credit for ethnic solidarity.

Conclusion This study demonstrates the cultural complexity of ethnic economies and the extent to which ethnicity, nationality, religion, and social status influence the meanings and perceived benefits of ethnic businesses. This research has revealed distinctions among the coffeehouses and narghile lounges of Paterson. Each type of venue has its own social and cultural meanings and a distinctive customer base, and each makes different economic contributions to Paterson’s Middle Eastern community. Perhaps the most remarkable differences are between the traditional and modern lounges. Traditional lounges remain predominantly male spaces, representative of the ethnic enclave’s role in providing a supportive environment for newcomers who often have to negotiate language barriers as they attempt to establish an economic base in the United States. They serve as a space where social and business networks are established and where patrons can practice their culture in the diaspora. Community members can sometimes also gain access to alternative financial resources within the business networks that are established in narghile lounges. However, some consider these spaces to perpetuate gender roles that promote inequality. Meanwhile, some more modern lounges have been able to break down ethnic boundaries by engaging groups other than Arabs and Turkish

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as consumers of narghile products. Paterson’s Hispanic community, for example, now includes hookah bars and narghile retail shops, illustrating how these establishments now bridge two ethnic communities. However, these modern lounges tend to attract non-ethnics with Orientalist images of the Middle East. Modern lounges could make a major contribution by generating jobs and revenues, but their contributions might be questioned if business owners move outside the enclave, envisioning it as a mere stepping-stone instead of staying and developing the community. Another remarkable distinction between the different types of venues is the national boundaries evidenced in how patrons choose to sponsor one establishment over another. Such boundaries are as much cultural as political. For example, Turkish customers sponsor kahve coffeehouses while Arab customers patronize hookah cafés. Neither group expresses animosity toward the other, but even if the places play similar roles for both groups, respondents stated each community has its own language and culture and people go where they feel most comfortable. From the outside, people might think that Paterson is a homogeneous community, and indeed there are many commonalities between community members such as Arabs and Turks. Yet there are also many differences within the community that can be read in the landscape of the ethnic economy. These differences help explain why the Arab community in the area has until recently been unable to translate its numbers into any meaningful political unity. The President of the American Arab Forum, Aref Assaf, notes that “while Paterson may rightfully claim to have the most Arab-owned business in NJ, . . . until Paterson is perceived as not only a place to visit for fresh falafel and flavorful hookah, but also a place in which to live and raise families, the potential for realizing the American dream will elude the community which thus far remains politically marginalized and truly transitional.”3 But the situation is changing as more Arab Americans begin taking part in the political process. Andre Sayegh, the current president of the Paterson City Council, was elected with substantial Arab American support and identifies with the Arab community. He says, “We’re Arab, we’re American, and we matter.”4 Few sweeping generalizations can be made about coffeehouses or narghile lounges. Rather, this chapter explores and describes the complexities and diversity present in these ethnic businesses and examines the different social and cultural meanings their patrons attribute to them. Overall, the differences in ethnic businesses as exemplified in coffeehouses and narghile lounges show us that within Paterson’s Middle Eastern enclave there is no single community but rather a group of communities living together and sharing similar challenges and goals for the future.

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Notes 1. In this chapter, the word “lounge” follows the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition: “a room in a private home or public building for leisure activities; a room in a usually public building or vehicle often combining lounging, smoking, and toilet facilities.” The meaning is not restricted to the American usage of the word to refer to lounges where alcohol is served or live entertainment be provided. It is used in the broad definition of the word. 2. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated a total of 1.2 million persons of Arab ancestry in the United States. In 2010, the American Community Survey (ACS) estimated that that number had increased to 1,399,809. Both reveal that almost 50 percent of all persons of Arab ancestry live in just five states: California, Michigan, New York, Florida, and New Jersey. The ACS of 2010 revealed that New Jersey’s total estimated Arab population for 2010 was 84,558, an estimated growth of 16.6 percent since the 2000 Census. The ACS of 2010 also reported that almost half of New Jersey’s Arab population lives in three counties, Passaic, Hudson, and Bergen, which are all located in the northeast part of the state. The city of Paterson is located in Passaic County. Just a few years ago, the ACS of 2008 listed Passaic as the county with the largest percentage of the state’s Arab population. That percentage has decreased from 19 percent in 2008 to 15.7 percent in 2010. While the percentage in Hudson County decreased from 18 percent in 2008 to 15.1 percent in 2010, the percentage in Bergen County increased from 12 percent to 16.7 percent. The Census Bureau ACS for 2010 shows Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, and Lebanese as the predominant nationalities among Paterson’s people of Arab ancestry. 3. A. Assaf, commentary on Milton Vorst’s article, “A New Jersey Few Know: Paterson’s Thriving Arab Community,” Arab American Forum, 2007, http://aafusa.org/a_new_jersey_ few_know.htm, accessed October 2, 2010. 4. Matt Haugen, “Andre Sayegh, Paterson’s New City Council President,” Arab American Institute, August 5, 2013. http://www.aaiusa.org/blog/entry/andre-sayegh-patersons-newcity-council-president/, accessed January 14, 2014.

9 • THE CHANGING POLITICS OF L ATINO CONSUMPTION Debates Related to Downtown Santa Ana’s New Urbanist and Creative City Redevelopment J O H A N A LO N D O Ñ O A N D ERUALDO R. GONZ ÁLEZ

For over half a century, downtown Santa Ana, California, has been a magnet for poor, working-class, and immigrant Mexican culture and consumption in Orange County. From the 1950s onward, Mexicans flocked to Fourth Street, downtown’s main drag, in search of entertainment, shopping, and eating establishments. In the late 1980s, the opening of Fiesta Marketplace, one of the earliest Mexican-themed, public-private commercial redevelopment projects in the United States,1 on the east side of Fourth Street, seemed to officially recognize the significance of Mexican downtown commerce to the economic wellbeing of the city. But despite these signs of cultural inclusion, major commercial redevelopment projects on Fourth Street and its surroundings have been exclusive, leaving out downtown business owners that cater to local poor, workingclass, and immigrant Mexicans (and Latinos overall)2 in favor of the business interests of developers. The city’s latest attempt to implement New Urbanism and creative city strategies of urban redevelopment exacerbates this exclusion. While New Urbanism, a design-focused model of development, and creative city, a strategy that emphasizes creative industries and urban cultural life and amenities, both extol diversity and inclusiveness, they are consistently linked to gentrification and the displacement of marginalized people from cities.3 Latino consumers, activists, and business owners have long been engaged in shaping the city’s urbanism, but in 2006, when Santa Ana became the first major city to have an all-Latino city council, the role of Latinos became much more 176

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visible in urban policy. Though having an all-Latino city council would ordinarily suggest more Latino representation, these city council members largely favor New Urbanist and creative city redevelopment that intensifies the marginalization of Latino culture and consumer tastes that have long appealed to poor, working-class, and immigrant people. Indeed, Latino political representation in Santa Ana does not equate with Latino representation in consumer spaces, revealing how socioeconomic class positions shape the ethnic identity of cities. This chapter explores the intra-Latino, ethnic, and class debates that have arisen as urban elites have justified recent redevelopment in downtown Santa Ana and the consequences for the long-established consumer presence of poor, workingclass, and immigrant Latinos in the area. The deepening and sometimes contradictory exclusion of Mexican culture and Latino people in the downtown area over the past decades is encapsulated in the history of the Yost Theater, a cultural and performing arts center that has showcased Mexican musical legends and made downtown “the happening place” for generations of Mexicans in Santa Ana and Orange County. In the mid1980s, when plans for Fiesta Marketplace were under way, Louie Olivos Sr., the owner of Yost Theater, was one prominent Mexican merchant on Fourth Street who was unable to participate in the city’s new venture. Though the Yost had done much to consolidate the Mexican commerce on Fourth Street that Fiesta’s Mexican-themed development was betting on, the new developers bought out the Yost Theater in what many suspect was an ethically dubious transaction and gradually scheduled fewer and fewer Mexican/Latino events at the theater. By the early 2000s, New Urbanist and creative city redevelopment had arrived in the downtown area and further diminished the pretense that Mexican poor, working-class, and immigrant consumers are included in urban planning decisions. The developers of Fiesta Marketplace and a supportive all-Latino city council now have a new target demographic for downtown commerce: a hip and middle-class consumer, a type most commonly found among a white population in the Santa Ana metro area. Fiesta has now been renamed the nonethnic-specific “East End,” and the Yost increasingly hosts non-Latino musicians and events, such as electronic dance music concerts and clubs. It showcases Latino music and performances only intermittently. Meanwhile, the local poor, working-class, and immigrant Latino community and the businesses that sell to them struggle to be represented in these spaces. The effects of redevelopment on today’s Latino community extend beyond the Yost and its supporters and include the entire downtown area, where the cultural and demographic stakes of development are perceptible across downtown’s major and busiest landscape of consumption, Fourth Street (or La Cuatro, as Spanish speakers know it) and its surroundings. The rise in popularity of New Urbanist and creative city redevelopment goes beyond Santa Ana. In the past decade, U.S. cities have turned to these two

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strategies to redevelop urban cores and attract upwardly mobile and wealthy populations lost to mid-century suburbanization—a population that is often tied to gentrification processes that displace poor and working-class people. While a growing body of literature examines New Urbanist and creative city redevelopment and their gentrification effects,4 scholars have just begun to examine the roles that race and ethnicity play in this urban redevelopment in the United States. This research still needs more empirical work on how and why redevelopment policies in places, such as Santa Ana, that once embraced lowincome, immigrant Latino consumers now cater to middle-class and creativetype consumers, including those from the Latino population. This case study draws from each author’s respective research on Santa Ana’s downtown. We reviewed documents related to Santa Ana’s downtown core, Fiesta Marketplace, and East End for the period 1970–2012. Our data includes city Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and related grants, urban and redevelopment plans (e.g., the Draft Renaissance Plan), resolutions, marketing and strategic plans of the city’s public-private downtown business organization, and newspaper and other Web-based coverage of the redevelopment projects. We also conducted seventeen semi-structured individual interviews during the period 2008–2012 with ethnically diverse government officials, including the city planner, the city manager, commissioners, urban developers, urban planners, multigenerational Mexican business owners and former retail employees of the downtown, multigenerational Mexican community activists, and residents. We also attended city council meetings, community meetings in two neighborhoods in the downtown area, and organizational meetings of nonprofit groups involved with downtown redevelopment, such as El Centro Cultural de México and Los Amigos de Orange County. The authors bridged their respective “insider” and “outsider” research roles: González spent a lot of his youth on Fourth Street during the late 1970s and early 1990s, has been involved in the Santa Ana Collaborative for Responsible Development (SACReD), and routinely visits the downtown area to volunteer at a local nonprofit, consume at local shops, and attend Mexican cultural events; Londoño began her ethnographic, interview-based, and archival research on Fiesta Marketplace in 2008 while pursuing a PhD at New York University, and has since returned to Santa Ana for weeklong research periods. In this chapter we ask: What are the roles of ethnicity and class in citywide debates about redevelopment in a Latino commercial district? Our goal is to better understand how Latino involvement in Santa Ana’s urban development exposes social and cultural differences in the local Latino population and explains the recent turn to New Urbanist and creative city redevelopment. Our work points to power relations affecting downtown Santa Ana, an analysis with lessons to offer other studies of Latino-majority cities where diverse Latinos may divide their support among competing ideas about urban redevelopment.

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New Urbanist and Creative City Redevelopment in Latino-Majority Places New Urbanist design includes a mixed use of retail and housing and pedestrianoriented street design. Proponents of the model emphasize social diversity and lifestyles and aim to respect local history, culture, and regional character.5 As of 2010, there are an estimated 450 such projects in the United States, making it among the most influential design movements of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in American cities.6 In cities across the United States and abroad, culture-led urbanism, sometimes referred to as creative city or creative class development, also sways policy makers and developers. Though Charles Landry coined the term creative city to indicate unique, outside-the-box approaches to city redevelopment, the scholarship and high-priced consultant work of Richard Florida has further developed creative city ideas. In particular, Florida’s well-known concept of the “creative class” undergirds what in this chapter we call the creative city. The creative class includes urban residents, consumers, and entrepreneurs, specifically skilled, innovative, bohemian, and/or mobile individuals such as artists, designers, musicians, engineers, and software developers, who can benefit from urban redevelopment in inner-city property markets that feature older buildings, lower prices, and mixed uses.7 Florida argues that this “class” has a preference for living and spending time in areas with rich cultural programming, festivals, artist districts, and technological development and is tolerant of ethnic and cultural diversity. In the past decade, cities as varied as Tampa, Florida, and Buffalo and Elmira, New York, have employed Florida’s ideas to attract upwardly mobile consumers and city dwellers. Planners and policy makers credit New Urbanism and creative city redevelopment for bringing people back to the city, particularly to downtown areas, to work, live, and consume, a reversal from the historic pattern of white residents moving to suburbs, often labeled white flight. However, critics of New Urbanism claim that it suburbanizes cities, sanitizes the very urban cultures it celebrates, and dislocates poverty instead of living up to its principle of diversity.8 Likewise, critics of the creative city model point to its elitist evasion of nonprofessionals in urban growth and discredit the ways that, under this strategy, the creative class becomes the savior of so-called blighted areas.9 Critics argue that both redevelopment strategies foster gentrification by attracting middle-class residents and consumers who are fond of mid-twentieth-century white American architecture and homogenized trendiness.10 Because many current Latino-majority places are located in large and medium-sized cities, it is likely, as is the case in Santa Ana, that future creative city and New Urbanist redevelopment will encounter existing Latino culture and commerce.11 Though the growth of the Latino population in cities has

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generated several publications, within this Latino-focused research the complex intra-Latino, ethnic, and class dimensions evident on both sides of redevelopment debates—the policy-maker side and the community side—remain underexamined. Instead, what we find in this body of work is academic and urban planning discourse that celebrates the Latinization of cities from the bottom up12 and boosters that point to data to show how Latino commercial activity in cities may benefit the national economy.13 Santa Ana is a suitable site for critically examining how social differences within a Latino-majority city in fact generate gentrification and ethnic displacement, especially from New Urbanist and creative city redevelopment.

Santa Ana’s Downtown Context Santa Ana has been the county seat of Orange County for over a century. Located between Los Angeles and San Diego and about 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexican border, Santa Ana has gone from being a historic urban center in wealthy, white, and conservative Orange County to a large city with a Mexican poor, working-class, and immigrant identity. World War II was instrumental in the transformation of the region and Santa Ana. During the 1940s, growth in the defense industry created thousands of jobs and ushered in a housing boom in Santa Ana and the surrounding region. In addition to attracting a largely white population, this era also brought the first wave of Mexican migrants. Many worked in military production and agricultural fields and lived in Logan and Artesia, the first segregated barrio neighborhoods in Santa Ana.14 At the end of the 1960s, industry was still pulling great numbers of Mexican migrants into the city, while white Santa Anans were moving to and shopping in outlying suburbs. Santa Ana began to experience the same white migration phenomenon that was characteristic of midcentury American cities facing a growing population of people of color. Planned communities were developing in nearby suburban areas, where racial steering and mortgage-lending practices especially benefited Anglo and middle-class homebuyers and new shopping in commercial centers in the suburbs lured a white population away from cities. During this period, Santa Ana’s downtown confronted commercial and residential vacancies. White-collar businesses such as law firms and accounting firms and retailers such as Montgomery Ward and J. C. Penney moved out of downtown Santa Ana and (according to civic officials), took Anglo and middle-class consumers with them. Fourth Street became “a ghost town.”15 In the mid-1970s, Santa Ana’s Mexican population began to cement its Latino cultural identity in the retail and social spaces of the downtown area, slowly occupying the commercial spaces that once marketed to Anglos. New businesses increasingly began to market to the growing Latino population in Santa Ana. From 1970 to 1980, the immigrant population in the city increased from

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9 to 31 percent16 and the Spanish-surname population in the city increased from 26 to 44 percent.17 During this decade, the city’s Latino population increased by 47,112.18 Since before this demographic shift, Mexican residents seeking entertainment had come to the downtown area, especially Fourth Street. By the mid-1970s, Mexicans had transformed this major street from a symbol of white culture and commerce to a predominantly Mexican district: La Cuatro. The previously mentioned Yost Theater and West Coast Theatre, owned by the local Mexican Olivos family since the 1950s, and Calzado Canadá, the largest shoe store chain in Mexico, were two primary attractions in this commercial area. The Yost was once a theater that discriminated against Mexicans and persons of color, but under the Olivoses’ ownership, it attracted an audience hungry for Spanish-language films from Mexico’s Golden Age and legendary Mexican musicians such as Lucha Villa, Vicente Fernandez, Antonio Aguilar, and Juan Gabriel.19 In 1973, Calzado Canadá opened on La Cuatro and helped anchor the subsequent arrival of local stores that catered to Mexican immigrants. In 1978, the city government recognized the surge in Mexican population in the downtown area and the city at large and hosted the first annual Fiestas Patrias (to celebrate Mexican Independence), which along with Cinco de Mayo and Dia de los Muertos continues to attract over 250,000 people yearly to La Cuatro.20 By the mid-1980s, Santa Ana was clearly known for its Mexican identity. This trend continues today. In 2005, La Opinion, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States, noted that “downtown Santa Ana emulates many cities in Mexico. Fourth Street, between Main and Broadway, is the largest commercial area of this Orange metropolis . . . and where the slogan is: Made in Mexico.”21 For decades, Latino shoppers have visited La Cuatro to buy quinceañera dresses, wedding dresses, jewelry, religious goods, and discount clothing and to eat and attend entertainment venues and bars. A populous Latino and Mexican concentration sustains a continued consumer interest in downtown, even as income levels in the city stagnate. In 2010, 78.2 percent of the city’s 324,528 residents identified as Latino on the census form; 72.5 percent of those are of Mexican descent. Latinos of Central American descent are the second most visible group. Twenty-first-century Santa Ana is majority Latino, and many of its residents are also poor and/or working-class. In 2004, Santa Ana ranked number one in the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government’s national Urban Hardship Index for unemployment, number of dependents, education, income, crowded housing, and poverty.22 The 2009–2013 American Community Survey estimates that 21.5 percent of persons in Santa Ana live below the poverty level and the per capita income is $16,374, less than half of that of Orange County as a whole.23 In recent years, modest socioeconomic and political gains among the Latino population in the city and across the nation have begun to influence debates on

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downtown development in Santa Ana. In light of the role of Latinos in recent presidential elections, growing Latino political representation in local government, and the formation of a Latino middle class in the city,24 some Santa Ana activists hope that the all Latino city council members will vote to allocate resources to benefit the city’s poor, working-class, and immigrant residents who live and shop in and around the downtown area. However, the assumption of ethnic political representation has been called into question in the context of the prominence of a Mexican and Latino urban elite and the rise of New Urbanist and creative city redevelopment in Santa Ana. We now turn to the recent history of Mexican and Latino inclusion and exclusion in downtown Santa Ana that informs today’s redevelopment debates.

Fiesta Marketplace: The Pretense of Mexican Consumer Inclusion in Downtown Santa Ana Although in the mid-1970s downtown Santa Ana’s La Cuatro was a prominent commercial destination for Latinos, in the following decade city elites with a stake in a more profitable commercial district began to characterize the downtown area as blighted and increasingly fixed their attention on the economic obstacles tied to the growth of the Mexican population in Santa Ana. City documents described Santa Ana as facing many of “the conditions which plague older urban areas in the United States,” such as a “massive influx of both legal and illegal immigrants,” high unemployment, and low per capita income.25 Several business and property owners and city officials argued that the downtown area lacked major retail/service providers and that its planning framework was limiting opportunities for the city to partner with new investors and was failing to attract well-heeled customers. Conservative council member Gordon Bricken declared in an interview with a member of the city’s historic preservation society that new plans for downtown business development were necessary: “Economically, [Santa Ana’s downtown] has not been successful. The government center has simply not materialized the numbers we had anticipated. We had a consultant hired by CD [Community Development] to determine what the market was for downtown, and he came back and said that the market was all Mexican and had a median income of $13,000. I didn’t need a $30,000 consultant to tell me that. So what does it mean? Do we try to bring people here who earn more money or hang to the people here now?”26 Bricken’s last question echoed the redevelopment issue policy makers and businesspeople grappled with as they came to terms with the city’s demographic change. Finally, in the late 1980s, city elites settled on a compromise to the dichotomy Bricken outlined and decided on Fiesta Marketplace, an open-mall Mexican shopping center in the historic downtown business district and on the already active La Cuatro that they believed would satisfy the consumer desires

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of government workers and Mexican residents (see figure 9.1). This type of Mexican-themed downtown redevelopment had precedent in early twentiethcentury San Antonio’s Riverwalk and the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District. By the 1980s, downtown marketplaces were popular in U.S. cities seeking economic uplift; notable among such markets were Faneuil Hall in Boston, Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, and South Street Seaport in New York City.27 Santa Ana politicians worked alongside businesspeople to try to establish a project similar to these forerunners. But it took the insistence of local Mexican entrepreneurs for the city council to agree on Fiesta Marketplace; government officials were not initially keen on the ethnic-specific project and instead pondered a complete makeover of La Cuatro that would threaten the sustainability of stores that served Mexican immigrants. Three business and property owners active in the downtown were particularly successful in pushing forth a Mexican-themed project: Raymond A. Rangel, who owns R&R Sportswear; Robert Escalante, who owns Custom Auto Service (Packard’s International Motor); and Jose Ceballos, who owns Libreria y Discoteca Mexico. Aware of the pre–civil rights history of Mexican exclusion on Fourth Street, these business owners saw Fiesta as a worthy alternative to the city’s initial plan to raze businesses on La Cuatro.

Figure 9.1. Fiesta Marketplace in downtown Santa Ana. (Courtesy of E. Gonzalez.)

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Escalante turned for political support to Irv Chase, a Jewish developer with S&A Properties who was willing to provide the capital needed to propose an ethnic-specific project to the municipality. According to Dave Ream, Santa Ana’s city manager from 1980 to 2011, the backing of Chase (and his father-in-law) compelled politicians and developers to change their minds about downtown redevelopment.28 In addition, the city was able to procure a $689,000 HUD grant by emphasizing downtown blight, and it paid $7.5 million for several downtown properties that it then collectively sold to the these property owners for almost a million. In 1989, the $10 million four-block redevelopment on La Cuatro between French and Bush Streets that featured architecture inspired by a Mexican village opened to the acclaim of many. The press lauded it as a cross-cultural shopping destination that was equally attractive to government workers in the nearby county offices and Latinos living in the surrounding area.29 According to city documents, Fiesta Marketplace “continues and complements the City’s ongoing efforts to redevelop its downtown core. This project creates a major effort to create a cultural and entertainment center to serve Santa Ana and the surrounding Orange County area as well as to provide a major shopping district for the minority residents living in the areas immediately adjacent to this district.”30 In addition, the city hoped that Fiesta would serve a “massive influx of both legal and illegal immigrants from Central and Latin America” and create and retain local jobs.31 While to some Fiesta offered Latinos in the city and Orange County a symbol of the Mexican presence, to others it unfairly benefited from the commercial environment created by the rest of La Cuatro, which had not received the same government support for Mexican-themed development. The previously mentioned Yost Theater is a case in point. Yost’s owner, Louie Olivos Sr., was told by the city that in order to remain at the site he would have to bring the theater up to seismic code. To do so, Olivos took out a high-interest loan, but he was unable to make his final payments, and the bank threatened to foreclose. The city then bought the theater for $600,000, less than the value of Olivos’s loan, and sold it in 1985 to the Fiesta Partnership for $50,000 even though, as the Olivoses maintain, the family offered to buy back the theater from the city for the selling price of $600,000.32 Supporters of the Olivoses argue that city officials were in cahoots with Fiesta developers. While we are unable to corroborate this, what is clear is that Fiesta Marketplace grew out of a desire to appeal to a growing poor, working-class, and immigrant Mexican consumer base in Santa Ana just as the city lost hope of drawing back its white residents from the suburbs. Fiesta Partnership leveraged a slice of downtown Mexican commerce to benefit a few business people, including Mexicans, a fact that points to the diverse intraethnic interests at play in Latino representation in the city’s development. In an attempt to bring back revenue to Santa Ana, city and business actors joined forces to build Fiesta. The combined efforts of a mostly white city

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council,33 a Jewish developer, and local Mexican entrepreneurs to create Fiesta reveal an example of top-down, multiethnic Latino cultural politics that sought to represent a Mexican community while taking advantage of a politics of public-private urban development that would help preserve and strengthen their businesses at the expense of other long-established Mexican businesses on La Cuatro.34

New Urbanist and Creative City Redevelopment in Downtown Santa Ana The dilemma currently confronting redevelopment stakeholders is in many ways the same dilemma city officials and Fiesta developers faced: should poor, working-class, and immigrant Mexican culture and people be represented and catered to in the downtown area or should upwardly mobile consumers and residents be targeted? What is different today is how easily Mexican culture and poor, working-class, and immigrant Latinos are falling out of favor in redevelopment projects that attempt to resolve this issue, while Latinos are gaining more electoral power and a Latino middle class is gaining visibility. City officials, some business elites, and the Chases no longer feel that they have to market to the “massive influx of both legal and illegal immigrants” in Santa Ana. Instead, they privilege increased profits and an upwardly mobile demographic, which in this city largely means non-Mexicans. On the other hand, those in favor of responsible development that includes poor, working-class, and immigrant Latino representation contend that the majority Latino population in the city still matters and should have some bearing on development decisions.35 Both sides of the debate discuss recent population changes to support their stance. For instance, as of 2013, immigration to Santa Ana has declined a bit, showing signs of a demographic shift. The 2010 census data reveal a 4 percent population decline for Santa Ana. The same census documents that the downtown area’s two census tracts lost an average of 13.65 percent of their residents from 2000 to 2010, shifting the area’s racial composition so that on average whites increased by 17.4 percent and Latinos decreased by 16.33 percent. City advocates of New Urbanism and creative city redevelopment distance themselves from any complicity they might have in the gentrification that results from these forms of redevelopment and contributes to the demographic changes such as the recent ones in downtown Santa Ana. Instead, they suggest that these data point to changes in consumer desires and residential patterns. National and local political and economic conditions, such as high rates of foreclosure and the Obama administration’s draconian immigration laws, have clearly influenced the population decline in Santa Ana, but local anti-gentrification advocates and many Latino longtime business owners conclude that downtown redevelopment is overwhelmingly responsible for these demographic changes.36 Advocates and

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business owners that wish to keep businesses that cater to Latino working-class and immigrant populations insist that a minor drop in the population and the national recession do not justify redevelopment projects that dismiss the city’s majority Latino community in favor of a reimagined consumer base. To make sense of these contrasting explanations for demographic and commercial changes in Santa Ana, it is useful to note that in the mid-1990s the city’s population was more than 50 percent Mexican and La Cuatro was thriving economically; by 2007, it was the city’s second-highest tax generator. Despite this, since the 1990s downtown developers and the city have implemented New Urbanist and creative city redevelopment principles in Santa Ana’s 421-acre and 124-block downtown core in order to draw in a non-Latino-specific, more diverse consumer population.37 One example of this is the Artists Village, which was built in the mid-1990s adjacent to La Cuatro. This cultural-art redevelopment project was approved after one person lobbied City Hall to encourage artists, in part through subsidies, to live and work downtown.38 Today the Artists Village consists of historic buildings, about 100 live/work loft units, apartments, fine dining, a café, bars, art galleries, artists studios, shopping, and a monthly Art Walk.39 Some of these art galleries and shops are Latino-owned and sell mediumto high-priced Latino multigenerational culture-themed artwork, but overall the Artists Village has attracted newcomers to downtown and influenced the move away from a low-income commercial landscape. The Santiago Street Lofts is another redevelopment that opened in 2006 and has lured more affluent newcomers to the downtown area. The lofts are a New Urbanist transit-oriented project sandwiched in among Logan, one of Santa Ana’s first segregated barrios; the Lacy neighborhood; and the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center, where commuter trains to San Diego and Los Angeles stop. This so-called gateway to downtown had a slow start; in 2008 there were still vacancies and little socializing took place on the streets. Since then, the Santiago Street Lofts has tried to remedy this by merging together New Urbanism and creative city ideas and morphing into the Santiago Art District, which hosts art walks. During this time, the city also launched a marketing campaign to rebrand its downtown image by changing its slogan from “Education First” to “A Place for Art” and “Downtown Orange County.”40 The young, diverse, and “hip” demographic that pro-redevelopment actors now prioritize in their discourse enjoys shopping in higher-end stores and has expendable income for eating at trendy restaurants, perusing galleries, and patronizing coffee shops, bars, and cocktail lounges. These idealized consumers come from Santa Ana and surrounding areas. They include Latinos and non-Latinos, such as whites and Asian Pacific Islanders, and the children of immigrants and immigrants who arrived at a young age. To support their diversity hopes, some redevelopment advocates take care to identify Santa Ana’s small concentration of middle-class Latinos, including the 5.6 percent of

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city government workers and others who work in related services, as possible consumers of new redeveloped spaces. But in drawing so much attention to upwardly mobile and young consumers, these advocates reveal the class aspirations that drive New Urbanism and creative city redevelopment plans and their racial and ethnic implications. Given the general socioeconomic characteristics of whites and racialized groups in the metro area, it is likely that attracting wealthier people from the metro area New Urbanism and creative city redevelopment will make downtown increasingly white, a reversal to the pre-1960s era. This demographic shift would be a significant divergence from Fiesta’s ethnicbased development and a serious affront to community activists interested in maintaining downtown spaces for poor, working-class, and immigrant Latino populations. Community activists have contested the Artists Village and the Santiago Street Lofts and the East End—parts of a more ambitious New Urbanist redevelopment vision for downtown called the Renaissance Plan—because of its increasing erasure of Mexican culture and the poor, working-class, and Latino immigrant residents who live and shop in these spaces. In late 2007, the city released a draft of the Renaissance Plan, the largest redevelopment project in Santa Ana history.41 In their study of the Renaissance Plan, Erualdo González and Raul Lejano found that the plan largely erases the existing La Cuatro from its 150 pages by using the word Hispanic only once and the words Mexican, Latino, and immigrant not at all (the plan’s language for “immigrant” is “born outside of the United States”).42 SACReD, a group of local residents, nonprofit organizations, grassroots groups, and a few local business owners, formed in late 2007 to oppose the plan and offer alternative policy recommendations. SACReD opposed the development of middle-class lofts and amenities, considering them a mismatch for the predominant and existing residents and urban realities of the area. The Renaissance Plan initially failed largely because of the activism of SACReD. Still, in 2012 the city broke ground on the Station District, a 94-acre redevelopment project component of the Renaissance Plan.43 SACReD opposed the Station District and organized to halt it, anticipating its displacement of workingclass Latinos in the area.44 As González and colleagues note, some of the coalition activists recognized that their activism was about preserving ethnic identity in the area as much as it was about allocating resources to poor and workingclass community members.45 With this thought, a number of coalition members began to wear pins with the slogan “Stop Ethnic Cleansing! In Downtown Santa Ana” to protest ongoing New Urbanist development. While many may question the slogan’s metaphor, a point of the slogan was to help ensure that local discussions debate the extent to which profit seeking will gentrify majority Latino and immigrant neighborhoods and commercial spaces, such as Barrio Logan, the Lacy neighborhood, and La Cuatro.

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Following the struggles against large New Urbanist projects, a group of business owners and activists opposed the change from Fiesta Marketplace to the East End in 2011. The developers of the “East End,” as changes to the programming at the Yost Theater indicate, have used creative city ideas to reimagine the area and attract the same population the Artists Village and the Santiago Lofts cater to (see figure 9.2). The Community Management District, established in 2008 and known locally as the Property Based Improvement District (PBID), which occupies sixty-six blocks of downtown including part of the East End, is the main economic engine and decision-making body behind these creative city efforts. The district designation allows property and business owners to establish an assessment/property tax that generates funds to support enhanced services over and above those provided by government, including maintenance, security, marketing, promotions, and economic development. In 2008 Downtown Inc., a private nonprofit, was formed in Santa Ana to oversee the PBID and redevelopment.46 While those in favor of the PBID argue that revenue is well spent on intermediary services, especially at a moment when city governments are facing deficits, other property owners and business owners oppose the PBID and argue that its marketing funds are heavily steered toward promoting creative city–type commercial and cultural activities and attracting consumers who would be drawn to

Figure 9.2. Storefronts in the Artists Village in downtown Santa Ana. (Courtesy of E. Gonzalez.)

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such activities, but not working-class Latino immigrant businesses and consumers. Many of the protesting business owners displayed storefront signs proclaiming “Stop PBID.” In contrast to the organized activism surrounding the Station District, however, the transition from Fiesta Marketplace to the East End saw only sporadic public protests, such as a flash mob and public remarks by activists and community leaders. Though community responses to New Urbanism and creative city models have varied over the years, the primary issue at stake in the redevelopment debates has always been the role that public-private redevelopment plays in the displacement of poor, working-class, and immigrant people and the erasure of Mexican culture in downtown Santa Ana.

Santa Ana’s All-Latino City Council and Its Role in Gentrification Santa Ana’s all-Latino city council is in the middle of these New Urbanism and creative city redevelopment debates. In 2006, Santa Ana was the first major U.S. city to have an all-Latino council,47 and this council is a change from the city councils of the 1980s, when a majority of white men occupied those seats. The ability to gain representation in city councils was and largely remains an important objective of local and national Latino politics. In Santa Ana, many local advocates were hopeful that the council would end a history of racism and policy discrimination by past city council administrations and other public officials in downtown housing and commercial development.48 Yet in Santa Ana it has become obvious that ethnic identity does not evenly translate to socioeconomic interests that could support the needs of the large poor and working-class Latino population in the city. As member Albert Castillo stated during a SACReD meeting, grassroots campaigns to support a Latino candidate are no longer enough; nowadays “it’s getting in the right Latino.”49 In Santa Ana, the ethnic and class affinities of city council members sometimes coincide with support for the city’s large poor and working-class Latino population, but at other times the economic interests of city council members parallel those of white developers in the area, leading some community activists, residents, and business stakeholders to challenge these local power brokers. Several debates stemming from the city council also highlight the ethnic and class dynamics at play in the city’s development projects. For example, Councilmember Michele Martinez, a fourth-generation Mexican American who represents the downtown area, spoke on behalf of the city council and enthusiastically endorsed an Urban Land Institute presentation before a full audience at the Yost Theater in November 2010. The presentation, “Diagnosing Place: The Hidden Epidemic,” was designed to convince the public and private sectors that Orange County lacks a central place identity—a downtown—and should join a movement to create one.50 The presentation included numerous images

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of downtown Santa Ana, though these were digitized and made generic to avoid directly targeting La Cuatro. One audience member asked how the council’s redevelopment ideas and placemaking strategies, which were heavily inspired by New Urbanist and creative city principles, could work in and around La Cuatro. Urban Land Institute representatives avoided gentrification concerns in Santa Ana and simply told the audience member that one way is to “embrace it.” Martinez’s subtle development stance has taken a more explicit turn, and she now justifies gentrification. In remarks to the Los Angeles Times, Martinez pointed out that the redevelopment in downtown should not be equated with an absence of Mexican cultural pride: “It is just that not all Latinos are immigrants.”51 She notes “I have nothing against 50 quinceañera shops, but I don’t shop there. Many of my friends don’t shop there. Parents and grandparents may shop there, but young kids are not going to shop there, unless they’re immigrants.”52 She stopped short of advocating the complete removal of businesses that target Mexican immigrants and the poor and working class. Nevertheless, Martinez and other council members feel that redevelopment should expand beyond La Cuatro’s Latino immigrant, poor, and working-class niche and target middle-class, nonimmigrant people of multiple-generation Mexican ancestry and government workers, a process that involves prioritizing resources and redevelopment decisions that favor businesses that can draw in this desired demographic. Councilman Bustamante, who was born and raised in Santa Ana and is the son of Mexican immigrants, is also an avid supporter of recent downtown redevelopment. In spring 2011, southern California public radio station KPCC’s daily talk show AirTalk set up a panel in Santa Ana to debate the pros and cons of the city’s redevelopment. The panel consisted mainly of SACReD members and Bustamante and Martinez. Bustamante responded to charges of gentrification by asking “Who are they [SACReD panelists and anti-gentrification advocates in general] trying to keep out?” He affirmed that “I really think it’s [downtown Santa Ana] experiencing a rebirth, a renaissance” and said if you do not redevelop, “you either move with it or die in line.”53 Bustamante feels that La Cuatro should broaden its market to include a higher socioeconomic strata, not a different ethnic base: “There should be options for everybody here. The city is not changing ethnically; it’s changing socioeconomically.” This appeal is personal. He noted that he does not “want to go someplace else to buy my suits.”54 Martinez’s and Bustamante’s thoughts are reflected in arguments made by other development stakeholders who commonly point out that downtown has been “deteriorated” for far too long and is no longer meeting its commercial potential. But unlike these other proponents of redevelopment, Martinez and Bustamante are careful not to make the argument that the entire ethnic identity of La Cuatro should change. Instead, they primarily craft their objection to the current consumer options around class difference and immigration status. They argue that downtown will not survive with a concentration of bridal and

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quinceañera shops and discount stores and must attract a market beyond poor and working-class Latino immigrants to “improve” its image with creative consumers and thus increase the area’s tax revenue.55 While a desire for increased revenue is part of urban policy, Martinez and Bustamante invoke this desire to support policies that will further undermine the presence of the poor and working-class immigrants whom city elites once perceived to be so pivotal to the area. Not all Latino city council members, however, favor new downtown redevelopment. Claudia Alvarez, a council member since 2000 for the ward that includes east Fourth Street, a deputy district attorney, an immigrant and long-time resident, and an active community volunteer, opposes some of the redevelopment even though most of the council support the Chases, the developers of Fiesta (now East End). In August of 2010, when protests against the PBID were mounting, Alvarez added fuel to the fire by saying at a city council meeting that the Chases were kicking out long-term tenants in favor of hipster people.56 Evoking the activist slogan of SACReD, she claimed that “Ryan and Irv Chase are very much interested in continuing the ethnic cleansing that is going on downtown.”57 In an effort to reveal the PBID’s bias against Latino businesses, Alvarez announced at the meeting that when she asked why Downtown Inc. has its offices in a building owned by Chase, she was told the organization had gotten “a great deal” on the rent. She then stated: “So if Hitler rents you a place, he’s giving us a great deal, so who cares what he stands for?”58 The Chases understood the statement as a personal attack, as did city councilor Bustamante and many other Santa Ana community members who called for Alvarez’s resignation. Soon the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was pressuring Alvarez to apologize, but she remained unrepentant and simply skirted apologetic statements claiming: “I’m not calling him Hitler. . . . I used it as an example. Maybe an extreme example, but if the shoe fits . . .”59 As a way to make up for the anti-Semitic remark, and at the behest of Councilmember Vince Sarmiento, Alvarez and the City of Santa Ana hosted a Community Forum on Cultural Diversity and Conflict Resolution a few weeks later. The forum was described as a community event meant to “focus on the Jewish-Latino experience as it relates to their shared history and common desire to promote social justice and economic prosperity.”60 Though the forum discussed the intersection of Latino and Jewish interests and the discrimination suffered by both groups, the PBID plan that inspired the anti-Semitic remark was left unexamined, even after several audience members tried to draw the conversation to it. One invitee, Shawn Makhani, a Jewish immigrant from Iran and a downtown merchant, noted: I have been living in Latino communities for 21 years. . . . I have never seen any conflict between Jewish and Latino communities until the last couple of years that the PBID came up. . . . It doesn’t benefit us. It always surprised us, ADL, your office is on 4th street. . . . We believe that the policy of Downtown Inc is

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discriminating against Latinos. . . . Why didn’t you [ADL] ever research that or come to help us? We are looking at the wrong subject. Our subject is not conflict between Jews and Latinos . . . our problem is something that has been illegally established in downtown Santa Ana and is discriminating against Latinos.61

But Rabbi Frank Stern, another invitee, successfully changed the topic by emphasizing the economic import of the PBID over its ethnic import, saying: “My hope is that the challenge of working through the problems of downtown Santa Ana area doesn’t become a fight between Jews and Hispanics. I don’t think that is the issue. If it’s a real estate problem or a taxation problem, it oughta be couched in that language.”62 The forum succeeded in deflecting attention from the PBID’s impact on the Latino community in part because its organizers and presenters were not as diverse as its title seemed to suggest. The presenters were lawyers, clergy, and members of conservative and mainstream organizations. Moreover, because the guest list for the event was kept private, the forum had little immediate impact on the larger community. The issues left undiscussed at the forum were those community activists were already heatedly debating on the ground. Discussions about the PBID soon took a legal turn. In 2012, the Orange County Grand Jury released a report that confirmed just how out of sync the city council was with the needs of property owners in downtown Santa Ana and the local poor, working-class, and immigrant consumers that have long gravitated to the area. The study found “irregularities” in the establishment of the PBID, namely that council members ignored a petition that some property owners lying within the district made to disestablish the PBID.63 The varied involvement of council members, business owners, and community leaders in redevelopment debates reveals a differentiated Latino population in Santa Ana with diverse consumer needs and development interests that may contradict the interests of poor, working-class, and immigrant Latinos.64 Those who seem to attend to the interests of the latter population invoke ethnicity as a pressing issue in current redevelopment and believe that the underlying political economic logic of gentrification is a threat to ethnic community sustainability. The urban elites who are most interested in underscoring class and immigration differences in consumer preferences see little wrong with the current downtown redevelopment. In our concluding remarks we analyze why class and ethnicity are divided along these lines of development discourse in Santa Ana.

Conclusion: Class Aspirations Trump Ethnicity in Downtown Santa Ana’s Redevelopment Plans In this chapter, we show the ways in which ethnicity and class shapes the urban development discourses of policy makers, business owners, and other

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community members in Santa Ana. We also discuss the varied impact the city’s recent urban development has had on poor, working-class, and immigrant Latino consumers in the city. Whereas Fiesta Marketplace brought a themed Mexicanidad and the pretense of cultural acceptance and recognition of Santa Ana’s growing poor, working-class, and immigrant population as an important component of the city’s commercial environment, the latest redevelopment devalues Mexican culture and low-income consumer tastes and renders preexisting businesses unable to attract consumers to the city. In this latter stage of urban development we see a growing disregard for lowincome immigrant consumers by developers and Mexican American urban elites. Councilwoman Martinez’s statement that “not all Latinos are immigrants” exemplifies the phenomenon. She implies that the current business structure of Santa Ana’s downtown does not work because it attracts immigrants and workingclass consumers. Though Martinez claims to be against driving the Mexican population out of the coveted downtown area and attempts to demonstrate cultural sensitivity toward poor and working-class Mexican consumer tastes, she assumes, like Councilman Bustamante, that her middle-class personal consumer preferences should be a priority for redevelopment. Her logic echoes that of developers and points to an individualistic and top-down approach to commercial redevelopment. Her views say little, if anything, about how such visions may contradict the needs and aspirations of the consumer and business demographic that has sustained the area for almost half a century. The New Urbanism and creative city-led gentrification of downtown Santa Ana’s ethnic shopping area that urban elites, including council members, favor promotes the upwardly mobile aspirations and consumer tastes of middle-class Latinos and non-Latinos and increasingly excludes the culture and consumer preferences of the long-resident working-class Latino population from downtown. This redevelopment logic highlights class fissures in the city’s multigenerational Mexican and Latino community,65 suggesting that class will be more prominent than ethnic representation in shaping future plans for La Cuatro. Although ethnicity is no longer visible in Santa Ana’s official development plans, as it was when the Fiesta Marketplace was developed, ethnicity continues to be an issue for community activists, who emphasize its role in how current redevelopment-led gentrification in the city works. In part, the Fiesta Marketplace and its representation of Mexicanidad (albeit diluted) set a precedent for this ethnic-based, anti-gentrification discourse and claims to downtown space. After all, Fiesta proved that Mexican-themed development that catered to poor and working-class Latinos could be legitimate in the eyes of developers and city government. Consequently, activists can logically ask: Why is Mexican workingclass culture now targeted as undesirable and unprofitable? Also contributing to this ethnic-based discourse is the historic “us versus them” dichotomy that emerges in Councilwoman Alvarez’s anti-Semitic remark and the impassioned

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protests of “stop ethnic cleansing” activists. Like early simplistic strands of Latino nationalist movements in which poor and working-class brown struggles were juxtaposed against the agendas of more powerful whites, these exchanges draw narrow ethnic lines around the issue of downtown development and run the risk of deemphasizing the class dimensions of current redevelopment. Arguments against gentrification based on ethnicity are important because they are a reminder of decades-long forms of discrimination that have marginalized Mexican communities in southern California. However, they lose potency when they are incendiary, fail to recognize class differences within the Latino community, and do not hold Latino elected officials responsible for ensuring that redevelopment does not drive out low-income people from downtown. Why is it that New Urbanism and creative city advocates avoid pointing to change in the ethnicity of the downtown demographic, in this case the return of a whiter population caused by attracting consumers with more disposable income, when they present their justifications for redevelopment, while those opposed to gentrification (at least those cases we include here) highlight the diminishing presence of Latinos and Mexicans and the businesses that cater to them? There is the obvious reason: once redevelopment is couched in language that favors a white dominant group it becomes discriminatory language. The U.S. legacy of civil rights means that it is easier for development discourse to marginalize the poor than to marginalize an ethnic or racial group. The claims of advocates of New Urbanism and creative city models about diversity and inclusion are abstract enough to sidestep the actual gentrification by white and wealthy people that results from these models, especially in low-income Latinomajority cities where a call for diversification marks whites as the minority that awaits inclusion. Moreover, an explicit ethnic logic were to be revealed, the Latino city council members who favored redevelopment might change their minds and align their interests with those of their co-ethnic population. Favoring a non-Mexican, white-centric rationale for New Urbanism and creative city is obviously undesirable and unacceptable in U.S. society; that is why people who oppose gentrification use ethnicity to challenge the underlying intentions of this redevelopment. As Santa Ana shows, fighting gentrification by furthering ethnic solidarity across class can be tricky. The power position of Latino businesspeople and elected officials affects how they identify ethnically and the extent to which they want to represent this ethnic identity in urban space. Thus, it is important for antigentrification activists (community members and their government representatives) to stress how class and ethnicity intersect in gentrification struggles. As we demonstrate in this chapter, in recent years Santa Ana’s downtown redevelopment has increasingly excluded the area’s poor, working-class, and immigrant Latinos. Given what we have learned about the tensions among Latino stakeholders in Santa Ana’s development, we are cautious about simplistic

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celebrations of commercial Latino culture or creative city and New Urbanist cultural diversity that does not consider how intra-Latino socioeconomic class hierarchies play out in development decisions. The power of a few individuals— whether they are Latino or not—to make decisions over resources can support redevelopment strategies that exclude many consumers and residents, even when such plans are purportedly based on issues of cultural recognition and diversity. The complexity of Latino representation in urban development seen in Santa Ana’s move from the Fiesta Marketplace to New Urbanism and creative city redevelopment points to a regularity amid the changes in consumer landscapes at the turn of the twenty-first century: Latino cultural or political involvement in redevelopment does not mean that the majority of Latinos, especially marginalized Latinos, will be represented in the built environment or in consumer spaces. The stakes of this process, in Santa Ana and beyond, are best analyzed through the perspective of class and ethnicity.

Notes 1. The term “redevelopment” in this paper includes and is not limited to the efforts of city agents and/or a city-private partnership to eliminate (perceived) blight, collect special taxes, make infrastructure improvements, and build or rehabilitate housing and commercial properties in the downtown core. Our use of the term “redevelopment” incorporates “revitalization,” which is frequently used when a project modifies existing construction instead of building anew. “Revitalization” is also used as spin language to make redevelopment less controversial. Here we put aside “revitalization” and its more appealing connotations and limit terminology to “redevelopment.” 2. In this chapter we use “Latino” when the topic at hand involves a general mix of Mexicans and Latin Americans living in the United States and their U.S.-born descendants. In Santa Ana, “Latino” encompasses primarily people who were born in Mexico and various Central American countries and their descendants, especially when we are referring to a post-1980s Latino immigration period. We use “Mexican” to refer to people who were born in Mexico and their descendants, irrespective of national citizenship and length of U.S. residency. Though “Mexican American” is less desirable because it insinuates that this population leans toward a politics of propriety and assimilation, we use Mexican American on a few occasions to emphasize generational differences. 3. Erualdo R. González and R. P. Lejano, “New Urbanism and the Barrio,” Environment and Planning 41, no. 12 (2009): 2946–2963; Jamie Peck, “Struggling with the Creative Class,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29, no. 4 (2005): 740–770. 4. For the gentrification effects of New Urbanism, see Emily Talen, New Urbanism and American Planning: the Conflict of Cultures (New York: Routledge 2005). For the racial and ethnic dimensions of New Urbanism, see Susan Fainstein, “New Directions in Planning Theory,” Urban Affairs Review 35, no. 4 (2000): 451–478. For the racial and ethnic dimensions of the creative city, see Arlene Davila, Culture Works: Space, Value, and Mobility across the Neoliberal Americas (New York: New York University Press, 2012); and E. R. González and L. Guadiana, “Culture-Led Downtown Revitalization or Creative Gentrification?” in Companion to Urban Regeneration, ed. M. E. Leary and J. McCarthy (Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2013). 5. “Charter of the New Urbanism,” 2001, http://www.cnu.org/charter.

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6. Emily Talen, “Affordability in New Urbanist Development: Principle, Practice, and

Strategy,” Journal of Urban Affairs 32, no. 4 (2010): 489–510. 7. Richard Florida, Cities and the Creative Class (New York: Routledge, 2005). For an over-

view of the creative city planning paradigm, see Charles Landry, The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators (New York: Routledge, 2008). 8. Kristen Day, “New Urbanism and the Challenges of Designing for Diversity,” Journal of Planning Education and Research 23, no. 1 (2003): 83–95. This is also evident in critiques of mixed-income Hope VI housing, an example of New Urbanism. See James DeFilippis and Jim Fraser, “Why Do We Want Mixed-Income Housing and Neighborhoods?” in Critical Urban Studies: New Directions, ed. Jonathan S. Davies and David L. Imbroscio (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010), 135–148. 9. Stefan Kratke, “‘Creative Cities’ and the Rise of the Dealer Class,” in Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City, ed. Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and Margit Mayer (New York: Routledge, 2012), 138–149; Tom Slater, “Missing Marcuse: On Gentrification and Displacement,” in Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City, ed. Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and Margit Mayer (New York: Routledge, 2012), 171–196; Peck, “Struggling with the Creative Class.” 10. Paul L. Knox, Metroburbia USA (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2008). 11. For ideas about how the creative class affects Latino-majority places and/or Latina/ os, see González and Guadiana, “Culture-Led Downtown Revitalization or Creative Gentrification?”; and Davila, Culture Works. For examples of New Urbanist design in Latinomajority places, see Erualdo R. González, Carolina S. Sarmiento, Ana Siria Urzua, and Susan C. Lueváno, “The Grassroots and New Urbanism: A Case from a Southern California Latino Community,” Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability 5, nos. 2–3 (2012): 219–239; González and Lejano, “New Urbanism and the Barrio”; and Johana Londoño, “Aesthetic Belonging: The Latinization of Cities, Urban Design, and the Limits of the Barrio” (PhD diss., New York University, 2012). 12. Mike Davis, Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. City (New York: Verso, 2001). 13. For an example, see Alejandro Becerra, “State of Hispanic Homeownership Report, 2012,” National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, http://nahrep.org/downloads/ state-of-homeownership.pdf. 14. Mary Garcia, Santa Ana’s Logan Barrio: Its History, Stories, and Families (Santa Ana, Calif.: Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society, 2007). 15. City of Santa Ana, “Urban Development Action Grant: Site a-8 Project,” 1985 grant proposal in authors’ possession; Jan Norman, “Fifty Years on Fourth St.,” Orange County Register, March 17, 2005, http://hispanicretail.blogspot.com/2007/12/fifty-years-on-fourth-st.html, accessed August 25, 2012. 16. Stacy Harwood and Dowell Myers, “The Dynamics of Immigration and Local Governance in Santa Ana: Neighborhood Activism, Overcrowding, and Land-Use Policy,” Policy Study Journal 30, no. 1 (2002): 70–91. 17. Lisbeth Hass, “Grass-Roots Protest and the Politics of a Fragmented Region,” in Postsuburban California: The Transformation of Orange County Since World War II, ed. Rob Kling, Spencer Olin, and Mark Poster (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), 257. 18. Ibid, 256. 19. Jennifer Delson, “An Old Theater Is Cast in a New Role,” Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2007, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/16/local/me-yost16. 20. “City of Santa Ana Major Downtown Street Festivals and Events,” City of Santa Ana, http:// www.ci.santa-ana.ca.us/parks/CityofSanta AnaMajorDowntownStreetFestivalsandEvents .asp, accessed August 25, 2012.

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21. “El centro de la ciudad de Santa Ana emula a muchas ciudades de Mexico. La Calle Cuarta [La Cuatro], entre la Main y Broadway, es el area mas comercial de esta urbe de Orange . . . y donde la marca es: Hecho en Mexico.” Jorge Morales Almada, “Santa Ana Tiene Sabor a México,” La Opinion, December 12, 2005, accessed July 25, 2014. 22. Lisa M. Montiel, Richard P. Nathan, and David J. Wright, “An Update on Urban Hardship,” The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, State University of New York, Albany, New York, 2004. 23. U.S. Census Bureau, 2009–2013 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, http:// www.census.gov/acs/www/. 24. Jody Vallejo, Barrio to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican American Middle Class (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2012). 25. City of Santa Ana, “Urban Development Action Grant,” 4. 26. Rob Richardson, “Report from Meeting with Councilman Dan Griset,” interview with Councilman Dan Griset, 1984, Santa Ana History Room Archive. Santa Ana Public Library, Santa Ana, California. 27. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1991), 92. 28. Londoño, “Aesthetic Belonging”; Haas “Grass-Roots Protest and the Politics of a Fragmented Region,” 187. 29. City of Santa Ana, “Urban Development Action Grant”; Andy Rose, “Santa Ana: Federal Grant Completes Financing for Center,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1985, http://articles .latimes.com/1985-10-02/local/me-16095_1_shopping-center. 30. Karen Newell Young, “Fiesta Marketplace in Santa Ana Offers Cross-Cultural Shopping,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1989, http://articles.latimes.com/1989-04-21/news/ li-2434_1_fiesta-marketplace-ice-cream-shop-custom-auto-service. 31. City of Santa Ana, “Urban Development Action Grant,” 3. 32. Ibid., 4; Dennis McLellan, “The Show Must Go On,” Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1999, http://articles.latimes.com/print/1999/jan/03/news/cl-59846. 33. By 1986, Santa Ana’s city council had at least one self-identified Mexican member, Miguel Pulido, who later became mayor of the city. From 1975 to 1979, Dave Ortiz served as council member and from 1970 to 1981 Harry Yamamoto served as council member. 34. Londoño, “Aesthetic Belonging.” 35. Borrowing from González et al., we define responsible development as “the inclusion of local residents, local community-based organizations, and businesses as equal partners and decision makers in development negotiations.” González et al., “The Grassroots and New Urbanism,” 229. 36. Cindy Carcamo, “Immigrants’ Return to Mexico Alters Santa Ana,” Orange County Register, November 11, 2011, http://www.ocregister.com/articles/mexico-326587-santa-family .html; Andrew Galvin, “Vacant Homes a Clue to Santa Ana’s Census Drop,” Orange County Register, March 28, 2011, http://www.ocregister.com/articles/census-293890-city-santa.html. 37. González et al., “The Grassroots and New Urbanism”; González and Guadiana, “CultureLed Downtown Revitalization or Creative Gentrification?” 38. Agustín Gurza, “The Resurrection of Santa Ana,” Orange Coast Magazine, 2009, 83–89. 39. “Artists Village,” http://www.artistsvillageapartments.com, accessed December 26, 2014; “OC Loft Guide,” accessed December 26, 2014, http://ocloftguide.com/loft-guide/lofts-insanta-ana/artists-village.html. 40. Jennifer Delson, “Plan Seeks to Make Santa Ana the Heart of Orange County,” Los Angeles Times, January 20, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/20/local/me-downtown20, accessed August 20, 2014.

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41. The Renaissance Plan was prepared by Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Planners. One of this firm’s owners is the co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism. For this reason we refer to it as a New Urbanist project, but it clearly also includes creative city ideals. Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Planners, Santa Ana Renaissance Specific Plan: Draft, City of Santa Ana, 2007, http://www.ci.santaana.ca.us/pba/planning/Renaissance_Specific_Plan.asp. 42. González and Lejano, “New Urbanism and the Barrio.” 43. City of Santa Ana, “The Station District,” http://www.santa-ana.org/cda/stationdistrict .asp, accessed August 14, 2012. 44. González et al., “The Grassroots and New Urbanism.” 45. Ibid. 46. Downtown Santa Ana, “Annual Report 2009–2010,” http://www.downtown-santaana. com/reports/2010_annual.pdf. 47. All, except for Councilman Vince Sarmiento, who is of Bolivian descent, are Mexican and or Mexican American. 48. Erualdo R. González, Latino City: Urban Planning, Politics, and the Grassroots (Routledge, forthcoming). 49. Personal communication. 50. “Diagnosing Place: The Hidden Epidemic,” forum presented by Urban Land Institute Orange County/Inland Empire, Yost Theater, Santa Ana, California, November 17, 2010. 51. Hector Becerra, “Latino, Yes, but with New Tastes: Cities Are Rejecting New ‘Amigo’ Stores as More Mexican Americans Go Mainstream,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2008, http:// articles.latimes.com/2008/may/28/local/me-amigostores28. 52. Ibid. 53. Adam Elmahrek, “Debating Santa Ana’s Downtown Facelift,” Voice of OC, July 19, 2011, http://www.voiceofoc.org/oc_central/article_66e73eb8-5a7e-11e0-a3f1-001cc4c002e0.html; Larry Mantle and Derrick Taruc, “Santa Ana’s Gentrification Sparks Debate,” 89.3 KPCC, March 29, 2010, http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/03/29/25430/santa-anas-gentrificationwars-discussed-airtalk/, accessed August 24, 2012; Leslie Berenstein Rojas, “Will Latino-Led Redevelopment in Santa Ana Ultimately Rob It of Its Latino-Ness?” March 29, 2011, http:// www.scpr.org/blogs/multiamerican/2011/03/29/7979/will-latino-led-redevelopment-insanta-ana-ultimat/, accessed April 10, 2011. 54. Jennifer Medina, “New Faces and a Contentious Revival,” New York Times, October 30, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/us/in-santa-ana-new-faces-and-a-contentiousrevival.html?pagewanted=all, accessed October 31, 2011. 55. Delson, “Santa Ana Aims to Be O.C.’S Heart”; Mantle and Taruc, “Santa Ana’s Gentrification Sparks Debate”; Becerra, “Latino, Yes, but with New Tastes.” 56. Gustavo Arellano, “Claudia Alvarez, Santa Ana Councilwoman/Deputy District Attorney, Goes on Anti-Semitic Rant,” OCWeekly Blogs, August 28, 2011, http://blogs.ocweekly.com/ navelgazing/2011/08/claudia_alvarez_anti-semitic.php. 57. Andrew Galvin, “Hitler, ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Invoked by Councilwoman,” The Orange County Register, August 25, 2011. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. City of Santa Ana, Downtown Orange County, “Community Forum on Cultural Diversity and Conflict Resolution,” http://www.santa-ana.org/communityforum/, video recording, accessed July 27, 2012; “Agent of Change,” Community Forum on Cultural Diversity, City of Santa Ana, video recording, accessed July 27, 2012, October 27, 2011, http://www.santa-ana .org/communityforum/. 61. “Agent of Change.”

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62. Ibid. 63. Furthermore, the Orange County Grand Jury, which was composed of nineteen mem-

bers who lived in the county’s five supervisorial districts, concluded in an official report that the city of Santa Ana “appears to be in violation of California State law in the formation of this Improvement District.” Alarmingly, though not surprising to community activists, the grand jury found that “monies collected from the improvement district appear to have only benefited a few and have not resulted in a direct benefit to the assessed property as required by California law” and that “an appearance of impropriety exists in the relationship between the developer and the City of Santa Ana.” The grand jury report ends with a recommendation that Santa Ana’s city attorney and the Orange County district attorney further investigate the formation of the Improvement District. See 2011-2012 Orange County Grand Jury Report, “Santa Ana’s Property Based Improvement District: City of Santa Ana Special Assessment District,” www.ocgrandjury.org/reports.asp. 64. Some council members have maintained a relatively low profile and avoided making public comments about their position on downtown redevelopment, largely to prevent their private businesses from being embroiled in the debate. Councilmember Sarmiento’s family business, Festival Hall, a Latino nightclub and banquet hall, was recently removed from the original Renaissance Plan’s boundaries so it could escape regulations and standards. According to the city, the move was made to avoid a conflict of interest, thereby allowing Sarmiento to vote on the plan. Likewise, Ace Muffler & Brakes in the downtown area, owned by Mayor Miguel Pulido’s father, was excluded from the Renaissance Plan boundaries to enable the mayor to vote on the project without violating conflict-of-interest laws. See Gustavo Arellano, “The Renaissance Blob in Santa Ana’s Redevelopment Plan,” OC Weekly Blogs, December 28, 2007, http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2007/12/the_ renaissance_blob_in_santa.php. 65. Several scholars have discussed the role of black and Latino middle-class people in the gentrification of central cities. See Mary Patillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); Monique Taylor, Harlem: Between Heaven and Hell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002); Arlene Davila, Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.)

10 • THE SPATIAL POLITICS OF BL ACK BUSINESS CLOSURE IN CENTR AL BROOKLYN S TA C E Y A . S U T TO N

City planners, policy makers, and community advocates are often at loggerheads over how to balance inner-city neighborhood revitalization, preservation, and development. Despite the conundrum, there is general agreement that neighborhood retail corridors are important gateways into communities because retail diversity and corridor stability reflect the economic, social, and cultural life of the neighborhood. However, what constitutes the appropriate mix of commercial establishments and how best to manage incessant cycles of storefront occupancy and vacancy remains unclear. In gentrifying neighborhoods across New York City, longtime residents frequently lament the growing proliferation of upscale restaurants, trendy bars, and fair trade coffeehouses and the dearth of affordable grocery stores and everyday service establishments such as shoe repair shops and old-style community diners. At the root of community residents’ dissatisfaction is often the erosion of community character, manifest through the replacement of venerable family-owned businesses and iconic storefronts with sterile national chain stores and trendy shops. Conversely, other inner-city residents extol the emergence of new retail establishments, both small and large, independent and chain. After decades of public- and private-sector disinvestment in many predominately black or Latino inner-city neighborhoods, it is not so surprising that some residents and civic leaders uncritically praise new retail establishments for improving access to varied amenities and for symbolizing neighborhood modernization. In this chapter I am less concerned with neighborhood residents’ perceptions about changing neighborhood retail landscapes and more interested in the process of retail change—specifically, how city rules, wittingly and unwittingly, influence the retail ecology of a neighborhood and shape community character. 200

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Business closure is an inevitable dimension of the small business life cycle. Some neighborhood retailers operate for decades and generations and others survive just months or a couple of years, but most are somewhere in between. The average life expectancy is five to seven years. Most business owners plan for and announce anticipated dates of closure, but others close suddenly with no explanation or announcement. When a succession of small shops on a neighborhood retail strip close over a short period of time, it is important to look beyond the decisions of individual business owners for local and extra-local contextual factors. Previous studies have explained how racism and racial discrimination through lending institutions, contracting, and other institutional mechanisms have adversely affected black-owned businesses, both historically and today.1 Sociologists have also explained how racism in mainstream markets motivates racial and ethnic solidarity and collective action in ways that have led to the emergence of new and stronger minority-owned businesses and industry sectors, such as Chicago’s ethnic beauty-aid industry and black manufacturers and New York City’s Korean greengrocers.2 This chapter offers a slightly different perspective on the interplay of race and retail by inserting spatial factors into the business survival calculus. More specifically, I examine how arbitrary enforcement of esoteric land-use rules and building codes in the interest of neighborhood upgrading and gentrification and/or the production of local “hot spots” create untenable conditions for some neighborhood retailers in gentrifying neighborhoods in New York City, which tend to be predominately black or Latino and relatively low income. My in-depth examination of neighborhoods in Central Brooklyn suggests that concerns about city policies and survival are more often articulated by pregentrification retailers. These retailers are more likely to be ethnic and racial minorities. I begin with the case of a tire shop in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, because it illustrates the impact of local spatial factors on shop closure. The case of the tire shop shows how the city’s enforcement of regulations, laws, and codes in a gentrifying neighborhood undermines the spatial legitimacy of an otherwise solvent and lawful small business and hastens shop closure. Through the tire shop we learn how small business closure is not necessarily a function of capitalization, managerial experience, or human capital, as is often purported in the literature. In gentrifying neighborhoods, longtime neighborhood retailers must negotiate new or newly enforced place-based policies and city rules that are intended to reorganize public spaces, direct commercial investment, and regulate social and economic behavior. I refer to this as the spatial politics of survival. Stringent and arbitrary practices of spatial ordering by city agents may assist processes of gentrification, but they also weaken the existing commercial ecosystem and community culture.

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The Closure of F&S Tires The Josephs’ American dream began in 1985. After emigrating from Haiti to New York City, the Joseph brothers started a family-owned business, F&S Tires, in a storefront on Fulton Street. When the Josephs arrived in the Central Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene, it was typified by social disorder, physical blight, storefront vacancies, deindustrialization, public-sector malaise, and what a Daily News journalist described as “illegal and nefarious storefront businesses brazenly operating without threat of eviction.”3 Despite widespread disparaging perceptions of Fort Greene as a “black ghetto,” the Josephs dutifully rolled up the security gates on the corner shop early every morning, swept trash from the sidewalk, and decorated the frontage with stacks of car tires and automotive accoutrements, signaling that they were open for business. Residents lauded the Josephs for maintaining an impeccable work ethic, keeping an eye out for neighborhood children, participating in community events, and fostering community cohesion. Auto-reliant Brooklynites were drawn to the modest yet reliable tire shop’s diverse inventory of car and truck tires and speedy curbside services, such as fixing flats, balancing wheels, and replacing car batteries. Even non-auto-dependent Fort Greene residents exalted the Josephs for stabilizing the otherwise transient commercial corridor during the 1980s and 1990s, which was tenanted by a glut of (dis)amenities such as liquor stores, bars, check-cashing spots, and fastfood take-out establishments. Nearly a decade after arriving on Fulton Street, the Josephs purchased the low-slung mixed-use building that housed the tire shop on the ground level and contained six residential units above. Though friends and associates initially dissuaded the Josephs from investing in ghettoized Fort Greene, by the second decade of the twenty-first century Fort Greene had become one of the most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods in the country.4 The market value of the Josephs’ building on bustling Fulton Street increased nearly fivefold.5 Artisanal eateries, bespoke apparel, and other markers of gentrification replaced the hodgepodge of fast-food joints, beauty salons, and bodegas. Amid turnover and transience along the corridor, the Josephs remained steadfast. The family business was ostensibly insulated from capricious landlords, unregulated commercial rents, and other common threats to survival. For more than twenty-six years the Josephs sustained the tire shop in the same ground-level storefront without major incident or interruption. Yet on the inauspicious afternoon of March 31, 2011, the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) turned the Josephs’ dream into a nightmare. Building inspectors and fire marshals abruptly closed the shop. City agents claimed that the Josephs had violated zoning and building codes. Inspectors affixed an ominous red-and-white sign to the storefront door that stated in no uncertain terms that conditions on the premises were “imminently perilous to life” and prohibited

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operations “until such conditions have been eliminated to the satisfaction of the department.” A spokesperson for the DOB explained the decision: “Even though a tire shop could be allowed in that zoning district, this building, as it is right now, cannot be used as a tire shop. . . . To bring the site into compliance he [Mr. Joseph] would have to hire a licensed architect or engineer and do an analysis to determine if a tire shop could be there.”6 In other words, according to New York City’s zoning resolution, retailing tires was permitted in the Josephs’ storefront, but a new certificate of occupancy was apparently needed to rectify ambiguity in existing building records and to certify legal use and occupancy of the building. In addition to the shock of unforeseen closure, the Josephs were informed that a new certificate of occupancy could cost upward of $500,000. On top of the vacate order and the requirement of a new certificate of occupancy, the city slapped the Josephs with an additional $24,000 in summonses for safety violations of sundry building codes. Mr. Joseph balked. “No one has ever said anything about the zoning of the building. . . . I don’t see why they did this. I pay my taxes, I pay my bills—I don’t have any problems with anybody!” He added, “I could try to fight it, but I’m fighting City Hall. . . . There are two agencies against me—Buildings and the Fire Department. If I fight these two, then they’ll bring Sanitation and the Department of Health.”7 The Josephs were understandably astonished by city agents’ hasty decision. So were thousands of neighborhood residents, local business owners, and civic leaders, who rallied in support of the brothers. The local councilwoman, Letitia James, sounded the alarm on behalf of the Josephs. Councilwoman James said, “Whoever was involved in the closure of the tire shop underestimated the power of community and our commitment to this tire shop.” She added, “It’s really our commitment to this family and what they represent. Individuals who came to this country seeking opportunity! Individuals who came to this country and recognized the importance of hard work!”8 The DOB’s violations and compliance reports classify the Josephs’ infractions as “immediately hazardous” and “major.” Yet the summonses were dismissed as “administrative errors” after being held up in court for nine weeks. A new certificate of occupancy was no longer required and the building code violations were settled for just $250. But as a concession for allowing the business to reopen, the DOB imposed an arcane rule restricting the shop’s inventory to no more than 100 tires, just 10 percent of the Josephs typical inventory before closure. That meant that when potential customers attempted to support the shop’s reopening, the Josephs rarely had sufficient inventory to service spontaneous customers. As a result sales quickly declined, employees were laid off, and within eighteen months the Josephs had closed the tire shop for good. An upscale coffeehouse opened in the Josephs’ ground-level corner storefront. The Josephs’ experience may exceed the typical array of fines, fees, and summonses that contribute to New York City’s reputation as a “Kafka-esque

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regulatory environment for small businesses,” but it is hardly an isolated case of involuntary closure.9 The punitive climate for small businesses in New York City is entrenched in the culture of the city’s regulatory institutions, particularly institutions that regulate urban space. The Bloomberg administration was faulted for an increasingly punitive climate. Small business owners complained incessantly about the exorbitant cost of doing business in the city as a result of a bombardment of unreasonable fines and improperly issued tickets and the time it took to fight summonses.10 But in all fairness, New York City’s punitive climate precedes Bloomberg’s tenure, which began in 2002. What is more, a Regulatory Review Panel was eventually established at the end of Bloomberg’s second term to help improve how rules are made and implemented for small business and mitigate the culture of code enforcement.11 The Regulatory Review Panel ostensibly signaled a more benevolent climate for the city’s small businesses. But paradoxically, the panel coincided with precipitous growth in the number of inspections, violations, and fines, particularly for small businesses in Brooklyn and the Bronx.12 Voluntary closure of the tire shop after months of lost revenue and subsequent operating constraints may be interpreted as the result of insufficient consumer demand or inapt management. However, the case of the Joseph brothers’ tire shop forces us to examine the myriad ways that complex and opaque placebased policies, formal laws, and city rules hinder survival. City agencies, such as the Departments of Sanitation, Health, Consumer Affairs, and Transportation, employ complex and often opaque land-use rules and laws that regulate urban space and support desirable uses. Enforcement of such laws is just one way that solvent and lawful businesses experience threats to spatial legitimacy. Business survival, especially for small neighborhood retailers, is structured by an inspector’s interpretation of city rules. In gentrifying neighborhoods, building code enforcers, preservation commissions, zoning boards, and other city agents have used punitive practices against existing tenants while making localities more amenable to investment and habitation by the new middle class.13 The historical significance of black urban neighborhoods for black-owned (and other minorityowned) businesses should not be underemphasized. Regulatory enforcement in gentrifying neighborhoods is likely to prevent the incubation of and threaten the stability of minority-owned businesses. It is important to state up front that generally speaking, city rules and regulations are important safeguards of the public’s health and well-being. That said, this chapter challenges the disciplinary logic that thwarts small business resilience and sustainability because these practices ultimately eliminate, rather than catalyze and nourish, community cohesion. Data for this study come from a larger study of neighborhood retail startup, survival, and shuttering in the Fort Greene and Clinton Hill neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Primary data was collected from over sixty black retailers who

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established neighborhood businesses in Fort Greene during the 1950s through 2008. Interviews and participant observation were done during two periods, 2003–2005 and 2008–2011. But I had been drawn to the neighborhood since the mid-1990s when friends resigned from investment banking and opened a restaurant in Fort Greene. They had the human and financial capital to locate in an upscale neighborhood, but their racial ideology and desire to invest in the black community motivated them to start in Fort Greene. I was fascinated by the striking incongruence between negative outside perceptions of the neighborhood as a “ghetto” and a place to fear and flee and my experiences and those of numerous black business owners and residents of it as a vibrant economic and cultural enclave. Collecting firsthand accounts of the impact of city rules on the performance and closure of neighborhood businesses is challenging. It is not always possible to secure information about shopkeepers who are no longer in place or obtain reliable accounts of the problems that closed their businesses down. To increase the internal validity of this study, I have combined merchant narratives with archival data from the national and local press and publicly available businesslevel data from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on health inspections and restaurant violation. I have used this data to visualize the spatial distribution of violations in Central Brooklyn and the location of African, Caribbean, and soul food restaurants, which I label “black-owned.” The next section summarizes theories of small business closure that tend to be aspatial, thus overlooking how local factors impact the small business life cycle. It would be equally appropriate to review gentrification literature in this section and contribute to the small but growing literature on retail gentrification.14 However, given space constraints, I chose to focus on conventional arguments in the minority entrepreneurship literature regarding closure and insert the importance of place. I then introduce Fort Greene with specific attention to how black small business owners and the clustering of their shops were instrumental in the revitalization of the neighborhood and the production of an economic and cultural enclave. In this section I also describe gentrification in Fort Greene in the period 2000–2010 and the city’s role in the process of change that invariably exacerbates closure and increases the vulnerability of longtime small businesses.

What Happened to Neighborhood Shops? Small businesses have traditionally been a strong source of economic growth and prosperity in the United States. According to the latest U.S. economic census, small firms employ about half of all private-sector workers. From 1992 to 2009, small firms accounted for 65 percent of all new jobs and small business births outpaced closures each year.15 In 2006, for instance, 670,058 small businesses

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were birthed nationwide and only 599,333 closed. The net growth of small businesses is arguably emblematic of America’s “entrepreneurial spirit,” grounded in values of meritocracy, upward mobility, and rugged individualism. Yet the rate of business closure hovers around 50 percent within the first five years of startup, reflecting the insecurity of self-employment. According to the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration, closure is two to four times more likely for minority-owned firms than for non-minority-owned firms.16 Theories of minority entrepreneurship explore how federal laws and entitlement programs (e.g., empowerment zones or the Small Business Administration’s direct and guaranteed loans), formal institutions (e.g., commercial banks, microfinance organizations, procurement practices), and cultural group dynamics (e.g., ethnic solidarity or collectivism) intersect with the political-economic structure to influence the business life cycle.17 The axiom “location, location, location” that is so popular among management and marketing experts underscores spatial location as a critical dimension of business success. Beyond that, the entrepreneurship literature generally overlooks how political, social, and economic practices manifest locally and directly impact the birth, growth, and survival of small businesses.18 In other words, the myriad ways that local government action (or inaction) affects small business development and sustainability—beyond procurement programs, regulating financial lending practices, and supporting human capital development—are strikingly apparent at the scales of the neighborhood and the city block. Yet much of the literature looks at extra-local scales; many studies offer analysis at the national or the transnational level. Thus, conventional explanations for business closure fail to adequately consider local actors. Before unpacking these factors, the remainder of this section describes the five common explanations for minority business closure (or survival). First, perhaps the most popular determinant of market entry and survival is access to financial capital, which is highly correlated with the owners’ net worth and income. Simply put, resources beget resources. Numerous studies convincingly argue that insufficient capitalization early on in a small businesses life course is perhaps the largest single explanatory factor for high rates of closure among black entrepreneurs.19 Early access to financial capital allows business owners to access equity or debt capital when it is necessary later on to contend with market irregularities and capitalize growth. It also serves as a positive signal of business health and viability, which is particularly important for attracting potential investors. The second most common determinant is human capital, or the knowledge and skill of owners that comes from formal education, small business training, or previous experience working in a small business, often family-owned.20 As with access to financial assets, few dispute the importance of human capital and its positive impact on the rate of small business entry and survival. However,

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human capital is not monolithic. Different types of human capital explain racial differences in rates of business entry and survival. For instance, beyond formal education, intergenerational transference of both general and specific business know-how is a critical determinant of business success. Because fewer blacks are self-employed, fewer black employees learn the knowledge and skill that is transferred in working in family-owned businesses. This factor helps explain racially disparate rates of business startup and performance. Since white businessowners are more likely to have self-employed family members, they are more likely to transfer business knowledge across generations.21 Third, numerous studies use cultural arguments to explain ethno-racial differences in firm performance.22 In which case, differences in the rate of business entry and survival are presumed to be a function of the values, traditions, and orientation toward collectivism of a social group. Within minority entrepreneurship scholarship there is a long tradition of drawing on ethno-racial comparative studies to make arguments about the marginal success of black entrepreneurs compared to most immigrant entrepreneurs. Generally speaking, black entrepreneurs are pathologized as culturally inept when it comes to creating and sustaining viable enterprises that contribute to upward mobility or neighborhood development.23 John Silbey Butler critiques the pernicious stereotypes of black entrepreneurs that are endemic in the “cultural hypothesis” and its omission of the effects of racial discrimination. Similarly, Vicki Bogan and William Darity critique previous studies of entrepreneurship that “concentrate on African American culture as the primary reason for the paucity of black entrepreneurs” and offer instead a cogent analysis of how social, economic, and political factors adversely affect black business development.24 Sociologists and economists such as Butler, Bogan, and Darity are part of the fourth body of literature that challenges the cultural hypothesis by taking seriously how historical and contemporary discrimination impacts ethno-racial differences in the performance of black-owned businesses. These studies explain how racially disparate access to mainstream markets, supply chains, distribution channels, professional networks and human capital development hinder small business performance. Moreover, Timothy Bates finds that the majority of white-owned small firms in large urban minority and nonminority areas fail to employ black or minority workers. In contrast, black-owned businesses disproportionately employ black and minority workers.25 Based on these findings the argument can be made that the underrepresentation of black-owned small businesses both inhibits employment opportunities for black job seekers and hinders the success of the next generation of black-owned small businesses. Lastly, ethno-racial institutions play an important role in small business survival (or closure). For example, the early twentieth-century growth of black businesses is commonly attributed to racial segregation and other discriminatory practices. Such practices strengthened the civic infrastructure of the black

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community and the racial solidarity exemplified by groups such as the National Negro Business League, a vocal business community. They also led to the upsurge in the “buy black” movement and “double-duty dollar” rhetoric popularized by black clergy, civic leaders, and media who stressed the virtues of the double bottom line of supporting black-owned businesses and advancing the race.26 Likewise, the decline of black-owned financial institutions, barriers to market entry, and the opportunity cost of wage employment are blamed for the mid-twentieth-century decline in the rate of black self-employment.27 Many of these arguments have gone out of fashion in the literature as attention to midtwentieth-century ideas associated with “black capitalism,” or a belief that long-run benefits—economic, political, and cultural—accrue from solidarity, has also declined.28

Fort Greene: “Black Belt,” “Black Bohemia,” and Black Capitalism During the mid- to late nineteenth century, Fort Greene became the “black belt” of Brooklyn. It was the location of a plethora of black religious institutions and black businesses and Public School No. 1, Brooklyn’s first school for African Americans.29 At that time black southerners and transplants from other parts of New York City joined kin and co-racials in what was widely seen as the fashionable neighborhood of Fort Greene. According to a New York Times article, it is where “most of the wealthy negroes live. . . . As soon as Negro men amass a comfortable fortune they move from this city across the East River because they can find in Brooklyn more economical and satisfactory investments.”30 “Negros of wealth” occupied well-appointed nineteenth-century Italianate-style brownstones on charming leafy blocks, and low-income, working-class, and entrepreneurial black families typically occupied modest wood-frame homes and four-story red-brick apartment buildings near Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue in the southern section of Fort Greene and toward what is now Clinton Hill. The neighborhood is shown in figure 10.1. By the turn of the twentieth century, the proportion of blacks in Fort Greene was 14 percent, exceeding other New York City neighborhoods, including Central Harlem (with 9 percent), which became the cultural and political black mecca by the mid-twentieth century.31 Part of Fort Greene’s allure was its promise of economic opportunity through manufacturing and the skilled and semi-skilled jobs manufacturers offered. Fort Greene was home to a thriving defense industry at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, located along the northern edge of the neighborhood.32 The northern Brooklyn waterfront was one of the greatest bastions of industrial production in the United States. Fort Greene and northern Brooklyn became a magnet for members of the working class who were trying to get a foothold in American society. For black men and women excluded from wage labor, the population density of

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Figure 10.1. Map of the Fort Greene and Clinton Hill neighborhoods in Brooklyn. (Map by

Stacey A. Sutton.)

blacks in Fort Greene provided novel opportunities for entrepreneurship, particularly in racial niche sectors such as beauty and hair care, funeral services, and professional services and in the food service and hospitality industries, such as restaurants and catering halls, which drew both black and white patrons.33 Like neighborhoods in industrial cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit,

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Fort Greene became a bastion for black business incubation and development despite, or perhaps in response to, the structural racism, institutional discrimination, and individual bias that circumscribed black-owned businesses. It is worth noting that in addition to the typical small-scale community-serving operations in Fort Greene, numerous prosperous black enterprises had been incubated in the “black belt” by the turn of the twentieth century. For example, An Introduction to the Black Contribution to the Development of Brooklyn shows dozens of black-owned professional and retail service enterprises that were capitalized in the “black belt” with more than $100,000 in 1905 (the equivalent of $2,500,000 in 2012).34 Mid-twentieth-century white flight, suburbanization, and public and private disinvestment precipitated Fort Greene’s decline from its “silk stocking past” and its status as “one of the city’s most elegant” neighborhoods to what Barbara Habenstreit describes as a “typical urban poor ghetto disproportionately tenanted by Negro and Puerto Rican families.”35 Yet the neighborhood continued to attract and incubate black-owned businesses. By the 1980s and 1990s, the moniker “black belt” had faded from the popular lexicon but Fort Greene had become a cultural enclave that was colloquially referred to as “black bohemia.”36 Journalists and documentarians likened the concentration of black musicians, artists, and entertainers during the 1980s and 1990s to the Harlem Renaissance and the neighborhood was referred to as “the African-American equivalent of Greenwich Village.”37 A Daily News journalist put it this way: “If ever there were a headquarters for spiritual heirs of Coltrane and Billie, of Baldwin and Zora, the restaurants, clubs and coffeehouses of Brooklyn’s Fort Greene would be the place. It is the heart of New York’s ‘black bohemia.’”38 Essence, a popular black periodical, simply described Fort Greene as a “Happening ’Hood.” Mixed in with the black-owned bookstore, home furnishings stores, bakery, and restaurants were a plethora of venerable enterprises, such as the hardware store that had been there for many years, designer clothing stores, cafés, antique shops, and art galleries. The composition and character of Fort Greene’s retail landscape began changing markedly during the first decade of the twenty-first century. A New York Times article titled “Diversity, Culture and Brownstones, Too” with the subtitle “Spike Lee is gone, but the area has acquired cachet in Paris” captured the imminent changes.39 The journalist fused selected elements of Fort Greene’s past with a fresh vision of a future in which the few new (nonblack) French-owned “bistros, food shops and sidewalk cafés,” scattered around the neighborhood, would grow in number. These new shops are juxtaposed to the closure of the well-known black filmmaker Spike Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, one of the principal signifiers of the black cultural renaissance (Lee was a native of Fort Greene). By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, approximately 75 percent of “black bohemia” merchants had closed and Fort Greene’s

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identity as a black economic and cultural enclave had largely faded. The social and economic processes of gentrification are most commonly blamed for stark changes in Fort Greene, but gentrification has not been examined critically in order to understand the city’s role and what might have been done differently to help preserve a vibrant enclave.

Gentrification in Fort Greene For inner-city neighborhoods such as Fort Greene that have suffered from decades of systematic public and private disinvestment, the social and economic processes of gentrification inflate property values, increase rents and the cost of living, and remake localities into destinations for middle-class consumption.40 Neighborhood revaluation not only directly displaces some low-income residents and shopkeepers but also creates an environment of “exclusionary displacement” that prevents other low-income people status from locating in the neighborhood in the future.41 Since the production of local hot-spots like Fort Greene, through social and economic processes of gentrification, involves more than individual consumer preferences about where to live, invest, or hang out, it is arguably more important to examine the structural and institutional factors that enable gentrification, such as land-use laws, enforcement procedures, urban development instruments, real estate and investment incentives, and preservation practices.42 As I mentioned previously, Fort Greene appears at the top of a national list of gentrifying neighborhoods based solely on growth in the proportion of white residents between the years 2000 and 2010. It is also one of the top five fastest gentrifying neighborhoods in New York City during the same period, based on a set of conventional measures such as median income, rent and housing prices, proportion of college-educated residents, and the increase in the proportion of white residents and decline in the proportion of black and Latino residents. Table 10.1 shows socioeconomic and demographic trends for Fort Greene, two nearby gentrifying neighborhoods (Clinton Hill and Williamsburg), the borough of Brooklyn, and New York City overall. In Fort Greene, the proportion of white residents increased 55 percent, from 15 percent in 2000 to 33 percent in 2010. At the same time, the black and Latino population declined 35 percent and 20 percent, respectively, in Fort Greene compared to declines of just 4 percent and 3 percent throughout the borough. The stark change in Fort Greene’s racial composition over one decade is striking. For decades the neighborhood was disproportionately black (and Latino), approximately 80 percent combined. Average family income in Fort Greene increased more than five times more than the increase in the borough and sixteen times more than income growth throughout the city. The proportion of college-educated residents increased much faster in Fort Greene than in the borough and the city, as did median

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rents. However, the number of rental housing units declined at a rate that was nearly twice that in the borough, suggesting that more of the neighborhood’s brownstones, townhouses, condominiums, and cooperative housing structures are owner-occupied. In addition to socioeconomic shifts, change is also evident along Fulton Street and the other neighborhood retail corridors. During the second half of the twentieth century, Fort Greene’s retail landscape was repeatedly characterized as bleak, stagnant, and undesirable in popular and political discourses. It was typified by archetypical personal service establishments (e.g., beauty salons, barbershops, and funeral homes), unsavory storefront aesthetics, and (dis)amenities (e.g. liquor stores, check-cashing shops, and fast-food take-out places). But longtime black merchants recall a more diverse commercial corridor where blacks owned florist shops, furniture stores, restaurants, real estate agents, a bookstore, apparel shops, and more. Small business owners such as the Josephs recall “problematic pockets” in Fort Greene during the 1970s and 1980s, but they also praise the neighborhood as an avant-garde “happening ’hood.” By the twenty-first century, the number of restaurants, bars, cafés, and clothing stores and other retail establishments that provided necessary goods and services were growing faster in Fort Greene than in the borough or in New York City overall (see table 10.2). But the number of black-owned establishments was declining. One black retailer said he thought that “we are going to be steamrolled if we don’t circle our wagons,” meaning that although Fort Greene had not yet become a conventionally hip neighborhood, he saw signs that real estate investors, developers, and others were starting to lay claim to the neighborhood by quietly purchasing properties and proposing large-scale change to the commercial landscape. If merchants did not collectively develop an alternative plan, “black bohemia,” as it was called, would no longer exist as an economic and cultural enclave. Many residents and new retailers blame inflated rents, real estate speculation, shifting consumer demand, inordinate competition, and the opening of Barclays Center (the new home of the NBA Nets) for the successive closures of the black-owned independent bookstore, bakery, clothing boutiques, restaurants, and other small businesses along Fulton Street. While these factors are surely partially culpable, it is important to also examine how changes in land-use rules, building regulations, and other place-based policies and institutional practices hasten small business closures.

Culture of Enforcement in the City Only 5 percent of the black merchants that I spoke with own their buildings. Unlike the Josephs, most small business owners faced commercial space insecurity. They were forced to negotiate commercial leases with speculative landlords who offered unfavorable terms and unaffordable rents that worsened

64.21

$1,149

81.75

$854

$878

74.50

33.71

$55,609

4.24

15.93

63.99

33,292 15.33

2000

$1,225

57.28

49.80

$64,721

6.36

14.34

45.64

34,192 36.98

2010

Clinton Hill

$834

91.07

22.04

$42,988

3.47

57.16

3.02

40,106 35.87

2000

$1,195

79.31

43.06

$51,220

4.39

40.58

5.35

43,620 78.70

2010

Northside-Southside (Williamsburg)

$872

72.67

22.75

$55,557

8.21

19.67

32.30

2,288,334 39.12

2000

2010

$1,088

63.22

30.30

$57,232

9.92

18.96

30.87

2,453,262 48.18

Brooklyn

$958

58.31

29.47

$77,531

13.86

19.53

18.88

7,067,142 47.01

2000

$1,162

50.29

35.77

$77,594

16.90

21.32

18.50

8,062,540 52.52

2010

New York City

Source: Author’s analysis of 1990 and 2000 U.S. decennial census and five-year estimates of the American Community Survey, 2006–2010.

49.42

7.50

16.96

33.23

4.44

Asian (%)

$72,154

20.36

Latino (%)

44.13

25,393 33.10

2010

$60,061

59.72

Black (%)

Average family income College education (%) Rental housing units (%) Median rent

26,802 14.88

2000

Fort Greene

Socioeconomic and Demographic Trends in Three Brooklyn Neighborhoods, in Brooklyn, and in New York City, 2000 and 2010

Population White (%)

 

Table 10.1

Home furnishings Building supply Food and beverage stores Health and personal care Clothing and accessories Sports/books/music/hobby General merchandise Misc. retail Amusement and recreation Food and drinking places Personal services

442 444 445 446 448 451 452 453 713 722 812

10 7 65 24 46 19 17 45 7 89 126

2000

26 20 134 32 97 41 23 57 26 153 201

2008

Fort Greene

160 186 106 33 111 116 35 27 271 72 60

% growth

Source: Author’s analysis of National Establishment Time Series Data.

Industry

742 477 3,273 1,043 2,355 712 534 1,534 267 2,547 3,892

2000

1,108 746 5,481 1,583 3,749 1,156 780 2,545 587 4,170 6,294

2008

Brooklyn

49 56 67 52 59 62 46 66 120 64 62

% growth

2,499 1,487 10,314 3,784 10,614 3,127 1,599 7,443 1,430 13,190 14,851

2000

3,679 2,623 17,348 5,457 16,178 4,794 2,363 10,434 2,803 18,764 23,892

2008

New York City

47 76 68 44 52 53 48 40 96 42 61

% growth

Number of Establishments and Rate of Growth in the Fort Greene Neighborhood; Brooklyn, New York; and New York City, 2000 and 2008

NAICS

Table 10.2

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215

with gentrification. However, the shuttering of the tire shop illustrates how, more than capricious landlords, regulatory ambiguity threatens the spatial security and legitimacy of venerable businesses even when the proprietors own their buildings. Fort Greene merchants regularly complained about punitive city agents from the Departments of Sanitation, Health, Consumer Affairs, and Transportation. According to a black female co-owner of an apparel shop on Fulton Street, “When we first opened [in 2005], I don’t remember all of these damn tickets. But within a couple of years it was like every day someone got a ticket.” The owner of one of the few enduring multigenerational black-owned businesses concurred. He said: “I’ve seen this area go through all kinds of changes. . . . When Fulton started getting more fancy that’s when they [city agents] started handing out more tickets, for everything.” Fulton Street merchants typically complained about the Department of Sanitation. Another clothing boutique owner described the sanitation inspector as enforcing “Nazi-like” ticketing. He was particularly frustrated by a ticket that he received “in the middle of the afternoon.” He explained: “I swept in front in the morning like always. Later, I guess, paper from the garbage, like the kind from pizza, blew in front of my store. The damn guy gave me a ticket! . . . How can I run my business and be outside every other minute picking up every piece of paper. This city is disgusting; garbage blows.” Another apparel shop owner shared her disgruntlement with the Department of Sanitation inspector: He would give us tickets for the smallest thing. He would come into the store and yell and try to intimidate me. It would be a weekly thing, sometimes daily. It got so bad that I went to all my neighbors to see if they had problems with him. . . . I’m not trying to say it was racial but the [black] women across from me who owns Hot Toddies and New Orleans had the same problem. The guy next door [non-Black] who owns the yogurt shop, sushi, and greengrocer said he had no problems and he didn’t want to get involved. It got so bad that I went to the Department of Sanitation to report him.

The city’s small business ticket blitz is a form of harassment. The regularity with which tickets were issued fueled beliefs that inspectors systematically targeted businesses and intentionally intimidated some owners. In Fort Greene, as in other parts of the city, shopkeepers complained that the culture of enforcement and ticketing was a strategy for meeting quotas and generating city revenue.43 According to a report published by Bill De Blasio, then public advocate of the City of New York, between fiscal years 2010 and 2012 the Department of Consumer Affairs increased inspections by 66 percent, increased the number of violations issued by 153 percent, and increased revenue from fines by 102 percent. Businesses located in Brooklyn and the Bronx were disproportionately inspected, issued summons, and fined.44 The spatial concentration of the

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regulatory burden indicates that regulation likely disproportionately affects black-owned businesses, since more than half of all black-owned firms in New York City are located in Brooklyn and the Bronx. According to the latest available U.S. economic census, in 2007 approximately 34 percent of black-owned businesses in New York City were located in Brooklyn and another 25 percent were located in the Bronx.45

A Hot Spot for Black-Owned Restaurants The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) conducts unannounced inspections of the city’s 24,000 food establishments at least once a year to monitor compliance with city and state food safety regulations and reduce food-related public health concerns. Since July 2010, DOHMH has required all eateries to post the letter grade they receive on the restaurant frontage for public view. Restaurant owners have criticized the program as a form of public shaming for restaurants displaying anything other than the grade of A. Unlike Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, restaurateurs display their establishments’ A with honor in front windows and on doors, whereas restaurants that earn lesser grades of B or C prefer concealment. Restaurateurs across the city complain that health inspectors intrude on daily operations, the grading protocol disallows cultural nuances and differences in food preparation, and ultimately that public presentation of grades may severely hurt establishments with grades of B or C, especially if numerous food options in a neighborhood or along a corridor means consumers can easily turn to a nearby restaurant with an A grade. Whether the policy yields better health outcomes remains to be determined. The public advocate’s report shows that from the beginning of the program through fiscal year 2012, the number of DOHMH violations increased more than 50 percent and revenue generated from fines grew from $32.7 million in 2010 to $52 million in 2012.46 Similar to complaints about consumer affairs violations, the report argues that violations and fines are inequitably distributed: eateries in Brooklyn and Queens bear a disproportionate burden. None of the Fort Greene restaurateurs that I spoke with had personally experienced egregious or otherwise unfair treatment by DOHMH inspectors, a stark contrast to small business owners’ experiences with the DOB, Department of Sanitation, and Department of Consumer Affairs. Restaurateurs’ negative perceptions of the letter-grade system were instead informed by hearsay and general distrust of the city. According to publicly available restaurant violation data from the DOHMH that includes the date, the time, and the restaurant violation numeric score for all restaurants, it seems that Fort Greene restaurateurs may have legitimate concerns. A hot-spot analysis of Brooklyn eateries conducted using ArcGIS revealed that restaurants with the highest average violation scores

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217

in 2012 were clustered in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. Since high scores are correlated with high fines and potential closure, the clustering of high scores in rapidly gentrifying areas arguably represents a mechanism the city is using to promote upgrading of commercial corridors. The shuttering of restaurants because of exorbitant fines related to violations seems, on its face, more justifiable that than closing of the tire shop. The former is likely an issue of public health and well-being and inspection protocols are detailed but transparent. When health inspectors issue summonses or close restaurants, the public presumes probable cause. According to the DOHMH, high scores do not necessarily mean a restaurant is immediately shuttered. In fact, hasty closures as a result of egregious unsanitary conditions occur infrequently. The majority of eateries across the city receive grades of A, if not on the initial inspection then at the next inspection (which takes place within a month) and after owners pay fines that typically range from $500 to $3,500. Though the public generally favors the DOHMH restaurant violation program as a public health protection, the city’s fine structure, the variability among health inspectors, and the discretion of the hearing officer in setting fines exacerbates the city’s “Kafka-esque environment,” particularly for small restaurants, and disadvantages businesses with fewer resources for resolving violations through adjudication or for paying steep fines. Consequently, small eateries are more likely to close because of infractions of regulations.

Implications The enforcement of formal codes, city rules, and place-based policies through discretionary decisions of city agents are mechanisms for regulating public space, enhancing the aesthetic value of a neighborhood, and fortifying newly desirable destinations for upper-income consumers. However, problems arise when these tools are deployed or perceived to be strategically deployed in localities in ways that establish legitimacy and security for some retailers and displace others. Matters are worsened when beliefs about the spatial patterning of unrelenting enforcement are coupled with media coverage of the city’s exorbitant fines that resulted in a record number of bankruptcies during the Bloomberg administration and the untold hours shopkeepers spend in court challenging summonses.47 Though the city’s punitive practices are by no means limited to racially and economically marginalized neighborhoods, merchants in gentrifying neighborhoods are particularly vulnerable, and overarching environmental and demographic changes in gentrifying neighborhoods exacerbate perceptions of exclusion. In an effort to maintain New York City’s status as a “world-class city,” city agents may be eroding the diversity of commercial life and community character that contribute to the city’s allure. The erasure of the predominately black

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cultural and economic enclave in Fort Greene is just one example. For more than a century, black-owned businesses have clustered in Fort Greene, and in the last few decades, they have contributed to its identity as a cultural enclave. In contrast to disparaging representations of Fort Greene, black merchants who arrived during the 1970s through the early 2000s created an aesthetic that accentuated Fort Greene’s artistic ethos, cohered with the historic integrity of buildings, and invoked a new vision for the neighborhood. As one such merchant stated, they made “the community more beautiful than when we first got here.” Voluntary and involuntary closure of old establishments in Fort Greene could have created space for new a black enclave to emerge. That did not happen. City policies that intensify small business closures and thwart enclaves are at least partially culpable. Central Brooklyn, including Fort Greene, remains my favorite part of the city. But it is unfortunate that its propulsion into the status of one of New York City’s “hot spots” threatens to obfuscate its rich history as a black enclave.

Notes 1. Timothy Bates, “Minority Business Access to Mainstream Markets,” Journal of Urban Affairs 23, no. 1 (2001): 41–56; Timothy Bates, William E. Jackson, and James H. Johnson, “Introduction: Advancing Research on Minority Entrepreneurship,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 613 (September 2007): 10–17. 2. Robert Mark Silverman, “The Effects of Racism and Racial Discrimination on Minority Business Development: The Case of Black Manufacturers in Chicago’s Ethnic Beauty Aids Industry,” Journal of Social History 31, no. 3 (1998): 571–597; Pyong Gap Min, Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival: Korean Green Grocers in New York City (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008). 3. Suzanne Golubski, “Blight Seeing Tour,” Daily News, 1983, k3. 4. Michael Petrilli created a list of the top twenty-five “fastest gentrifying neighborhoods in the United States” (2000–2010) using zip codes as a proxy for neighborhood and growth in white population as an admittedly imprecise gentrification metric. Five New York City neighborhoods are in the top twenty-five. Petrilli, “The Fastest-Gentrifying Neighborhoods in the United States,” Thomas Fordham Institute, June 11, 2012, http://edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/2012/the-fastest-gentrifying-neighborhoods-in-theunited-states.html. 5. The change in property value is estimated from the purchase price of approximately $450,000, according to Liz Robbins. See Robbins, “A Shop, Humble but Beloved, Hangs On,” New York Times, June 8, 2011, A18. Estimates of $2,250,000–$3,000,000 for comparable buildings in the vicinity were available through propertyshark.com, accessed July 9, 2013. 6. Stephen Brown, “F + S Tire Shop Shut Down by City,” Fort Greene Clinton Hill Patch, April 2, 2011. 7. Ibid. 8. Stephen Brown, “Tish Defends F + S Tires,” Fort Greene Clinton Hill Patch, April 7, 2011. 9. “The War on Small Business,” Crain’s New York Business, August 8, 2010, http://www .crainsnewyork.com/article/20100808/SMALLBIZ/308089993/the-war-on-small-business. 10. Steve Garmhausen, “Are All These Fines Fair?,” Crain’s New York Business, August 8, 2010, http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100808/SMALLBIZ/308089994.

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11. Office of Communications, Council of the City of New York, “Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn Announce 14 Measures to Make It Easier for Small Businesses to Influence and Comply with City Regulations,” , press release 047–2010, April 27, 2010, http://council .nyc.gov/html/pr/biz_regulations_4_27_10.shtml. 12. Bill De Blasio, “Borough Bias: How the Bloomberg Administration Drains Outer Borough Businesses,” February 2013, http://advocate.nyc.gov/files/deBlasio-Borough-BiasReport.pdf. 13. Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchanist City (New York: Routledge, 1996); Christopher Mele, Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000); Linda Goode Bryant, “‘Law Is Life!’: Flag Wars, Local Government Law, and the Gentrification of Olde Towne East,” Fordham Intellectual Property Media & Entertainment Law Journal 16, no. 3 (2006): 715–723; Jason Hackworth, The Neoliberal City: Governance, Ideology, and Development in American Urbanism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2007). 14. Daniel Monroe Sullivan and Samuel C. Shaw, “Retail Gentrification and Race: The Case of Alberta Street in Portland, Oregon,” Urban Affairs Review 47, no. 3 (2011): 413–432; Andrew Deener, “Commerce as the Structure and Symbol of Neighborhood Life: Reshaping the Meaning of Community in Venice, California,” City & Community 6, no. 4 (2007): 291–314; Sharon Zukin, Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); S. Zukin, V. Trujillo, P. Frase, D. Jackson, T. Recuber, and A. Walker, “New Retail Capital and Neighborhood Change: Boutiques and Gentrification in New York City,” City & Community 8, no. 1 (2009): 47–64; Stacey A. Sutton, “Rethinking Commercial Revitalization: A Neighborhood Small Business Perspective,” Economic Development Quarterly 24, no. 4 (2010): 352–371. 15. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, “Frequently Asked Questions,” Advocacy: The Voice of Small Business in Government, September 2012, https://www.sba.gov/ sites/default/files/FAQ_Sept_2012.pdf. 16. U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, “Small Business Profile,” February 2013, http://www.mbda.gov/sites/default/files/allprofiles12.pdf. 17. Timothy Bates, “The Urban Development Potential of Black-Owned Businesses,” Journal of American Planning Association 72, no. 2 (2006): 227–237; John Sibley Butler, Entrepreneurship and Self-Help among Black Americans: A Reconsideration of Race and Economics (1991; repr., Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005); Michael Hodge and Joe R. Feagin, “African American Entrepreneurship and Racial Discrimination: A Southern Metropolitan Case,” in The Bubbling Cauldron: Race, Ethnicity, and the Urban Crisis, ed. Michael Peter Smith and Joe R. Feagin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). 18. Chris Steyaert and Jerome Katz, “Reclaiming the Space of Entrepreneurship in Society: Geographical, Discursive, and Social Dimensions,” Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 16, no. 3 (2004): 180. 19. Robert W. Fairlie, “Minority Entrepreneurship,” in U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, The Small Business Economy 2005: A Report to the President (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2005), https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/ sb_econ2005.pdf; Robert W. Fairlie and Alicia M. Robb, “Why Are Black-Owned Businesses Less Successful Than White-Owned Businesses: The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital,” September 2004, discussion paper 1292, Institute for the Study of Labor, http://ftp.iza.org/dp1292.pdf. 20. Robert W. Fairlie and Alicia M. Robb, Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black- Asian- and White-Owned Businesses in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2010).

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21. Timothy Bates, “Entrepreneur Human Capital Inputs and Small Business Longevity,” Review of Economics and Statistics 72, no. 4 (1990): 551–559; Robert W. Fairlie, “Entrepreneurship among Disadvantaged Groups: Women, Minorities and the Less Educated,” in The Life Cycle of Entrepreneurial Ventures, ed. Simon C. Parker (New York: Springer, 2007), 437–475; Vicki Bogan and William Darity Jr., “Culture and Entrepreneurship?: African American and Immigrant Self-Employment in the United States,” Journal of Socio-Economics 37 (2008): 1999–2019; Robert W. Fairlie, “The Absence of the African-American Owned Business: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Self-Employment,” Journal of Labor Economics 17, no. 1 (1999): 80–108; Michael Hout and Harvey S. Rosen, “Self-Employment, Family Background, and Race,” Journal of Human Resources 35, no. 4 (2000): 670–692. Similarly, E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1957) popularized the assertion that lack of Black business tradition is responsible for the dearth of entrepreneurial success; see Margaret Levenstein, “African American Entrepreneurship: The View from the 1910 Census,” Business and Economic History 24, no. 1 (1995): 106–122. 22. Edna Bonacich, “A Theory of Middleman Minorities,” American Sociological Review 38, no. 5 (1973): 583–594. Ivan Light and Carolyn Rosenstein, Race, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship in Urban America (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1995). 23. See Andrew Brimmer, “The Negro in the National Economy,” in American Negro Reference Book, ed. John P. Davis, ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966); Dinesh D’Souza, “Work and the African American,” American Enterprise, 6, no. 5 (1995): 33–34; Frank Fratoe, “A Sociological Analysis of Minority Business,” Review of Black Political Economy 15, no. 2 (1986): 5–29; Ivan Light, Ethnic Enterprise in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972); Ivan Light and Carolyn Rosenstein, Race, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship in Urban America (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1995). 24. Bogan and Darity, “Culture and Entrepreneurship?” 2000 25. Timothy Bates, “Utilization of Minority Employees in Small Business: A Comparison of Nonminority and Black-Owned Urban Enterprises,” Review of Black Political Economy 23, no. 1 (1994): 115–121; Timothy Bates, “The Urban Development Potential of Black-Owned Businesses,” Journal of the American Planning Association 72, no. 2 (2006): 227–237. 26. Drake St. Clair and Horance R. Cayton, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (1945; repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). 27. Robert Fairlie and Bruce Meyer show that the rate of black self-employment declined from a high of 6.1 percent in 1940 to a low of 3.3 percent by 1980, then grew to 4.1 percent by 1990; Fairlie and Meyer, , “Trends in Self-Employment among Black and White Men: 1910–1990,” Journal of Human Resources 35, no. 4 (2000): 643–669. Bogan and Darity show a rate of black self-employment of 2.1 percent in 1940; see Bogan and Darity, “Culture and Entrepreneurship?” 28. Michael Zweig, “Dialectics of Black Capitalism,” Review of Black Political Economy 2, no. 3 (1972): 25–37. 29. Harold X. Connolly, A Ghetto Grows in Brooklyn (New York: New York University Press, 1977); An Introduction to the Black Contribution to the Development of Brooklyn, exhibition catalog (New York: New Muse Community Museum of Brooklyn, 1977); Jan Rosenberg, “Fort Greene, New York,” Cityscape: Journal of Policy Development and Research 4, no. 2 (1998): 179–195. 30. “Wealthy Negro Citizens: Several Residing in This City and Brooklyn,” New York Times, July 14, 1895, 17. 31. According to Andrew Beveridge, by 1930, Central Harlem was over 70 percent black and Greater Harlem was about 35 percent black, but the rest of New York City was still less than 2 percent black. Beveridge “An Affluent, White Harlem?” Gotham Gazette, August 27, 2008, http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/demographics/20080827/5/2620.

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32. The federally funded Brooklyn Navy Yard, located along the northern border of Fort Greene, was the largest defense manufacturing facility in the country. The defense plant kept the Brooklyn economy bustling. By the end of World War II, 96,090 people were working at the Brooklyn Yards. Employment declined with post wartime production until the Navy Yard was decommissioned in 1966. Craig Steven Wilder, A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). By the mid-twentieth century, there were over 200 food processing and production plants, manufacturing firms, and various factories in the Fort Greene area, some of which were amenable to hiring black job seekers for semiskilled and clerical positions. Francis Morrone, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill: Neighborhood & Architectural History Guide (New York: Brooklyn Historical Society, 2010). 33. Connolly, A Ghetto Grows in Brooklyn; Craig Stevens Wilder, A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); An Introduction to the Black Contribution to the Development of Brooklyn. 34. New Muse Community Museum of Brooklyn, An Introduction to the Black Contribution to the Development of Brooklyn (New York: New Muse Community Museum of Brooklyn, 1977). 35. Joseph Fried, “A Historic Area Seeks to Survive: Once-Fashionable Brooklyn Section Fights Decay,” New York Times, February 6, 1966, R1. 36. Denene Millner, “A Scene Grows in Brooklyn: Fort Greene Has Become a Magnet for the Young, Gifted and Black,” Daily News, March 9, 1997, 16. 37. E. R. Shipp, “Fort Greene’s Black Renaissance,” American Visions 5, no. 1 (1990): 30–34; Brooklyn Boheme, documentary by Diane Paragas and Nelson George (New York: Blackapino Productions, 2011). 38. Millner, “A Scene Grows in Brooklyn.” 39. Nancy Beth Jackson, “Diversity Culture and Brownstones, Too,” New York Times, September 1, 2002. 40. R. Atkinson, Does Gentrification Help or Harm Urban Neighbourhoods?: An Assessment of the Evidence-Base in the Context of New Urban Agenda (Bristol: ESRC Centre for Neighbourhood Research, 2002); Smith, The New Urban Frontier; Elvin K. Wyly and Daniel J. Hammel, “Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and the Resurgence of Gentrification,” Housing Policy Debate 10, no. 4 (1999): 711–771; Maureen Kennedy and Paul Leonard, Dealing with Neighborhood Change: A Primer on Gentrification and Policy Choices (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001). 41. Peter Marcuse, “To Control Gentrification: Anti-Displacement Zoning and Planning for Stable Residential Districts,” NYU Review of Law & Social Change 13, no. 4 (1984): 931. 42. Bryant, “‘Law Is Life!’” 43. Albur Ruiz, “Little Guy Squeezed by City’s Ticket Blitz,” Daily News, November 23, 2004; Garmhausen, “Are All These Fines Fair?” 44. De Blasio, “Borough Bias.” 45. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Survey of Business Owners, 2007, https://www.census.gov/ econ/sbo/07menu.html. 46. Ibid. 47. Ruiz, “Little Guy Squeezed by City’s Ticket Blitz”; Garmhausen, “Are All These Fines Fair?”

11 • SELLING VOODOO IN MIGR ATION METROPOLISES M ELISSA L. COOPER

In March 1937, moviegoers who were gathered in New York City’s Radio City Music Hall saw a short film titled Harlem’s Black Magic. The short film, a segment in a newsreel produced by the docudrama series The March of Time!, announced that more than 100,000 New York City blacks were engaged in secret voodoo rites and worship.1 As was customary in the 1930s, newsreels dramatizing current events were included on theater bills featuring full-length films such as The Soldier and the Lady and Off for the Races.2 While Harlem’s Black Magic was a sideshow to the main attraction that brought patrons to the theater, the weird rites it depicted—acted out by “black voodooists”—undoubtedly captured the attention of its audiences.3 By 1937, Americans who read newspapers published in major cities such as New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., and those who followed theatrical productions, films, and popular literature had been fascinated by the allure of black voodooism for more than a decade. So when the film’s narrator announced that “Harlem’s people have a childlike faith in spirits and spiritualism” and invited audiences to observe secret meetings of an “exotic barbaric” voodoo cult whose roots “go back to the darkest Africa,” audiences were not encountering something new.4 The images and scenes depicted in Harlem’s Black Magic were familiar. Black actors beating drums and dancing wildly around altars decorated with candles, bones, and human skulls and scenes that portrayed “racketeers” with names such as “Prof. Payanga Devasso” who preyed on superstitious blacks were all common themes in American popular culture.5 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other groups that championed interracial cooperation protested Harlem’s Black Magic and called for March of Time! to pull it from theaters. But the fact that voodoo had become a popular and lucrative entertainment commodity

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ensured that the film would remain on theater bills. To some extent, protests against the film can be interpreted as a response to the larger “voodoo craze” that swept the nation, often casting African-black spiritual primitivism as evidence of black racial inferiority while also exploiting the commercial potential of fantastical voodoo tales. Black newspapers called the film “a dangerous libel on an entire race” that reduced Harlem to a “voodoo heaven” and “veritable jungle” occupied by “a group of primitive, ignorant savages, devoid of any knowledge of the civilization surrounding them.”6 The Pittsburgh Courier bashed the film, writing, “Rather strange, isn’t it, that these people can find little to describe about Negroes except dancing and voodooism.”7 The film’s critics levied strong arguments condemning the piece, but their protest against the commercialization of tales about black spiritual primitivism came too late. In the 1920s, “voodoo” had emerged as both a source of horror and commercial entertainment in American society. In that decade and the next, the voodoo retail industry included voodoo reports in leading newspapers; voodoo-themed films, books, and stage works; and mail-order mojo men and newspaper display ads promoting their otherworldly services. While the creators of Harlem’s Black Magic may have recklessly employed racial stereotypes, the abundance of voodoo-themed retail during the period makes clear that they were not out of step with trends. This chapter explores voodoo-themed retail in migration metropolises during the 1920s and 1930s and connects the popularity of the imaginative voodoo industry to the racial tensions and racial anxieties of the interwar decades. The preponderance of white “slummers” crossing racial boundaries, the mass exodus of black southerners to cities in the North and West, New Negroes’ iterations of equality, the intensification of racialized violence and white supremacy rhetoric, and U.S. imperial projects all contributed to heightened racial anxieties in the 1920s and 1930s. Two distinct types of voodoo retail and voodoo sellers emerged out of the racial anxieties of this turbulent period: voodoo arts entertainment and voodoo practitioners who tapped into the burgeoning consumer culture to market and sell their services.8 Using newspaper reports, advertisements, editorials, and reviews published in newspapers based in cities that black migrants and immigrants flocked to such as New York and Chicago, this study uncovers the mixed responses to the craze and the voodoo industry. The chapter charts how journalists, writers, and supernaturalists used notions of racial authenticity in the commercialization and marketing of voodoo-themed products, entertainment, and services and grapples with larger racial phenomenon during the period. This important yet unexplored moment in America’s race-making history reveals how the same stories about race that were used to justify black oppression and discrimination were refashioned and used as capital in the marketing and creation of voodoo entertainment and other commodities.

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Conjurin’ the Craze Although stories about African spiritual primitivism and black voodooists were well rooted in Americans’ racial consciousness before the 1920s and 1930s, Americans’ fascination with voodoo during the interwar years was grounded in cultural responses to U.S. imperial projects. U.S. interventions in and occupations of tropical islands such as Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Haiti inspired a renewed fascination with black voodooists on the American mainland.9 For some white Americans, encounters between white troops and black and brown natives in these locales symbolized the epic contest between “white civilization” and “black savagery” that earlier generations of white Victorian thinkers had contrived to justify their position in the racial hierarchy.10 These imperial ventures also fostered the circulation of tales about voodoo and African-born spiritual primitivism that were ultimately echoed in American newspapers. From 1915 to 1935, more than forty-three articles were published in newspapers in northern cities where black migrants had settled that chronicled the dangers black voodooists posed in occupied territories. For example, in 1915, the Washington Post ran an article reporting that in Haiti, “superstition flourishes with politics” and explained that “voodooism with all its horrible rites still flourishes among the people and its priests.”11 Other headlines announced that Haitian voodooists regularly engaged in human sacrifice: “Voodooism in Haiti, Admiral Says: Kill Humans, Drink Blood, Knapp Reports.”12 Voodoo horrors in Cuba, Trinidad, Panama, and Brazil and the danger that the practice posed to whites were also captured in headlines: “White Child Voodoo Victim: Body Found in Cuba with Heart Torn Out by Witch Doctors,” “Death for Three Voodooists: Two Cuban Men and a Woman Killed Aged White Man for His Blood,” and “Voodoo Plot to Slay Baby Foiled in Cuba” were among the numerous voodoo-related headlines published in leading newspapers.13 Fantasies about black voodooists that were reenergized by U.S. imperial projects were so loosely defined that American journalists easily applied them to American blacks. Stories about black voodooists in the New World grew up with chattel slavery, and black southerners had long since been identified as the North American custodians of the “dark” tradition. As early as 1922, one New York Times article on voodoo in Haiti claimed that “traces of voodooism are likely to be found in Negro rural communities in any part of the world.”14 The white journalists and travel writers who described “voodoo” for the nation tended to simply characterize voodoo as a black practice that was used to work magic spells by appeasing African spirits with blood sacrifices and drum rhythms. Their voodoo tales generally characterized African-black spiritual practices according to popular stories about black savagery in the black diaspora and emerging narratives about black criminality in urban spaces.15

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This rudimentary assessment of “voodoo” was readily applied to American blacks and more specifically to the rural migrants who moved to northern cities from the South during the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. The very presence of the one million blacks who migrated to northern cities during these years fueled the imaginations of white and black northerners who believed that all “rural Negroes” were connected to folk practices such as voodoo, and the nation’s newspapers reconfirmed that the South was home to masses of black voodooists. A 1936 New York Times report titled “‘Voodoo’ Rites in the South” argued that “the spread of schools and other cultural influences” for blacks “made little headway in combating superstition” and declared that “voodoo” flourished in southern states.16 Assuming that black migrants had trailed remnants of an exotic, authentic rural southern voodoo culture to the North, black and white newspapers in migration metropolises looked to migrants for evidence of African spiritual primitivism. This obsession developed at the very moment when black southerners and black migrants entered the growing consumer economy as consumers, producers, and objects of consumption. “Southern voodoo” quickly became part of the commercialization of “authentic” southern black commodities such as southern food and blues and gospel race records.17 At the same time that American newspapers were achieving record circulation, voodoo stories appeared in their pages with increased intensity. From 1920 to 1955, daily newspaper circulation in the United States doubled.18 In 1920, the Chicago Defender boasted that it had a circulation of 230,000.19 Migration metropolis newspapers were the first site of mass commercialization and commodification of voodoo tales during the 1920s and 1930s voodoo craze. White newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Daily Tribune and black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, the New York Amsterdam News, and the Pittsburgh Courier all featured sensational voodoo reports during the 1920s and 1930s. Headlines such as “Human Bones Found in Voodoo Man’s Cave,” “Girl Believed Third Victim of Voodoo Killers,” “Boy’s Torturer Jailed: May Be Voodoo Fanatic,” “Voodooism Hinted in Fort Murders,” “‘Voodoo’ Slaying Stuns East Harlem,” and “Commits Murder to Escape Voodoo Spell” announced voodoo horrors that took place on American soil.20 These reports and the more than fifty-two headlines that announced voodoo-related murders from 1915 to 1935 declared the dark dangers of black voodoo and chronicled sensational tales of a type of criminal behavior that was unique to blacks.21 But black newspapers also published articles or reported stories in ways that made clear that their editors and writers rejected the commercialization of the association between blacks and spiritual savagery. For example, the Pittsburgh Courier published an editorial in 1928 in which the author railed against “writers and travelers” who profited from voodoo stories and who “love to hold forth on the affection of Negroes for Voodooism. . . . The Negro is supposed to take to black magic like a fish to water or a bear to a beehive.”22 Black journalists were

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also quick to point out instances when white newspapers hastily linked crimes committed by blacks to voodoo that actually had nothing to do with the practice.23 And they covered African American protests decrying the depiction of black people in works such as Harlem’s Black Magic. But ultimately black newspapers found themselves featuring a contradictory mix of voodoo coverage that included articles that condemned backwardness and superstitions in the black community and refuted racial fantasies about primitive blackness as well as sensational voodoo reports designed to entice readers. If voodoo reports published in migration metropolises newspapers piqued the nation’s interest in the dark world of black voodooists, other 1920s and 1930s phenomena guaranteed that “voodoo” would take on greater significance in American culture and produce viable voodoo consumer industries. Black culture was in vogue during these years, and black music was popular among young whites in rebellion against the strictures of Victorian culture. During the 1920s and 1930s, white Modernist artists and writers turned to the blacks their Victorian predecessors had categorized as “savages” for inspiration. And the New Negro intelligentsia who orchestrated the Harlem Renaissance called on black artists, writers, and intellectuals to reclaim the African roots and folk past in their works.24 In addition, scholars in the ivory tower maintained a fiery debate about the degree to which African culture had survived slavery. Anthropologist Melville Herskovits insisted that African survivals were readily observable in black communities, while sociologist E. Franklin Frazier argued against the notion. But the voodoo craze only strengthened Herskovits’s resolve. Herskovits and his close colleague, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, both claimed that “voodoo” was among the most prominent African survivals in the New World.25 Together, these cultural and scholarly influences created a space in which the link between Africa and black folk life and culture took on new meaning. Voodoo emerged as a topic of interest among Americans of all races, who had become enthralled by the primitivist fantasies and tales that connected New World blacks to their African ancestors. And voodoo sellers quickly figured out how to transform the nation’s voodoo lust into marketable products that could be sold for profit.

Voodoo Retail The thrill and dangers associated with black voodooists that newspapers communicated and the popularity of black culture ensured that voodoo would become a popular theme in American entertainment. A host of travel guides and books, films, and stage works featured voodoo and black voodooists during the 1920s and 1930s. Typically set in black communities in the rural South or on tropical islands, stories about black voodooists were transformed into entertainment products that were sold to Americans of all races who were simultaneously

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attracted to and repulsed by the practice. Long-held white American beliefs about inherently childlike, savage and primitive, irrational and superstitious blacks found new expression in the voodoo tales marketed to American audiences at the very moment when the New Negro intelligentsia was consciously attempting to craft a new image of modern blackness for the nation. Firsthand accounts that described encounters with voodoo and black voodooists took center stage in voodoo retail during the craze. They figured prominently in the travel books that proliferated as journeys to exotic locales arose as a new middle-class pastime. William Seabrook’s best-selling account of Haitian voodoo, The Magic Island (1929), was one such book. Seabrook was a white journalist and travel writer who captivated literary audiences with his descriptions of voodoo rituals in which gods and goddesses possessed their devotees, the dead were reanimated and forced to work in fields, and children and goats exchanged souls. The Magic Island’s readers paid $3.50 for the travel memoir, which supplied exactly the sort of titillating descriptions of secretive and sexualized voodoo rituals that had become so intriguing in newspaper reports.26 The Magic Island’s reviewers included sensational passages from the book, which undoubtedly helped Seabrook sell nearly 100,000 copies in the first year it was published.27 One reviewer quoted Seabrook’s description of a ritual sacrifice: “I, a white man, knelt there among these swaying blacks who would presently become blood frenzied. . . . It was terror of something blacker and more implacable than they—a terror of the dark, all engulfing womb.”28 His descriptions of ritual scenes where “black bodies, bloodmaddened, god-maddened, drunken, whirled and danced” convinced reviewers that he had actually penetrated the secret world of Haitian voodooists.29 White and black reviewers praised The Magic Island and declared that it was “no ordinary travel book.”30 Even though Haitian voodoo had been the topic of dozens of news reports since the island was first occupied in 1915, reviewers contended that Seabrook’s writings reflected pure, untainted observations: “Even when he describes the blood rites of voodoo, you feel that he is reporting things as he found them without exaggeration or self-glorification.”31 Others applauded his descriptions of the “ecstasies of voodoo” and “the ceremonies of necromancers without seeming melodramatic or sensational.”32 The New York Amsterdam News—a black newspaper—went even further in its endorsement of Seabrook’s book, praising him for suspending his racial prejudices in order to “achieve a moral balance” that freed him from the need to collect “propaganda either for or against the Negroes,” and for clarifying that “voodooism is not mere superstition or diabolism, . . . it is as much a religion as Christianity.”33 According to the reviewer, Seabrook had avoided the race trap often encountered by other “white fictioneers on the Negro,” who produce works that “are no more than catchpenny tinsel.”34 While readers, reviewers, and book clubs embraced Seabrook’s book, Haitian government officials disputed the legitimacy of voodoo tales such as those

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told in The Magic Island. On June 29, 1929, the Chicago Defender published an article titled “Haitians Angered by Voodoo Tales,” which reported that Haitian officials denounced stories about voodooism and “voodooistic cannibalism” as “mere fantasy.” The article explained that Haitian representatives stated that “voodooism,” “exists in only remote villages.”35 But the Haitian officials’ claims did nothing to slow the growing popularity of Haitian voodoo tales as an entertainment commodity. Just two years after Seabrook’s book appeared, Hollywood filmmakers, inspired by his voodoo tales and the commercial success of his book, started planning the production of a horror film about Haitian voodoo and zombies.36 During the summer of 1932, Edward and Victor Hugo Haperin’s film White Zombie offered filmgoers across the nation a chance to have their own encounters with Haitian voodoo magic in the first zombie film shown in theaters. Moviegoers paid from $.35 to $.55 to watch Bela Lugosi (the star of Dracula), Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Johnny Harron, and Robert Frazer act out a voodoo-zombie plot filmed on location in Haiti.37 The New York Times said that the film was inspired by stories about voodoo that had “been trickling back to these shores for years.”38 Other reviewers made clear that the film’s subject— voodoo and African spiritual primitivism—was in and of itself attractive and highly marketable to audiences. As one reviewer wrote, “Voodoo ceremonies of Haiti, harking back to the primitive savages of Africa, are fascinating to everyone.”39 Two years after White Zombie was released, Clement Ripley’s fiction series Haiti Moon (1933) was translated into a motion picture titled Black Moon that starred Jack Holt and Fay Wray. White Zombie and Black Moon shared several elements. The plots of both films centered on white damsels in distress who needed to be saved from the clutches of voodoo. More to the point, both films depicted and commodified the horrors and dangers whites encountered when confronted with African-born black savagery and sold this story to American audiences. Despite the fact that voodoo films such as White Zombie and Black Moon played to racial stereotypes and reinforced notions of black inferiority, selling voodoo tales created unprecedented opportunities for black actors. At a time when few black actors appeared in films, White Zombie used black Haitians as extras and as extensions of the island’s tropical background, although all of the film’s featured actors and most of its zombies were white. And Black Moon used black actors to create a more authentic portrayal of voodoo’s terrors. The New York Amsterdam News complained that White Zombie’s creators had given black actor Clarence Muse only an insignificant speaking role: “Negro actors in the piece are but incidental.”40 Even though the black press seemed to vacillate between being frustrated by the voodoo craze and the negative racial stereotypes it was rooted in, newspapers praised Columbia Studios for offering a record number of black actors the opportunity to present their talents on the big

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screen alongside the film’s white stars.41 The Chicago Defender noted that Black Moon featured the “largest number of Race people at one time when 256 worked on location and sound stages” during the production of scenes where Haitian villagers attempted a ritual human sacrifice and then a riot.42 Presumably black filmgoers hungry for representation in Hollywood were happy to see black actor Clarence Muse take on a more significant role as Holt’s companion in Black Moon than he did in White Zombie. Likewise, seeing black actors Billy McClain, Madame Sul-te-wan, Ada Penn, Anna Lee Johnson, and John Manning in “bits and parts” of the film may have been equally gratifying.43 But for these actors the opportunity to be featured in a major motion picture involved portraying black African savagery for audiences and participating in the commodification of a racist fantasy. Movie theaters were not the only place where American consumers could pay to experience thrills derived from voodoo tales during the 1920s and 1930s. The voodoo craze also made a strong impression on white and black writers, directors, and composers who created stage plays and musicals. In 1926, Columbia University–educated and classically trained black baritone Julius Bledsoe took up a leading role as a “Voodoo King” in the opera Deep River, which was written by white writer.44 Two years later, a black composer, H. Lawrence Freeman, embraced the popular appeal of black African voodoo and produced a groundbreaking black opera titled Voodoo (1928). After working for two years to bring the black opera about voodoo in antebellum New Orleans to the Palm Garden Theatre’s stage, Freeman’s dreams of mainstream success were dashed when white patrons and reviewers shunned his attempt to fuse a European performance style with jazz and voodoo themes.45 The failure of Freeman’s opera clarifies that while voodoo tales were highly marketable commodities in the 1920s and 1930s, their commercial success hinged on how closely these tales adhered to the racial “script.” Deviations from the script guaranteed failure. While white audiences rejected Freeman’s voodoo opera, voodoo plays and musicals written and produced by white artists continued to pop up in theater districts in New York and Chicago and won the praise of audiences and reviewers alike. In 1932, the play Zombie opened in Chicago and was praised for being “several cuts above the shrieking pieces of hocus-pocus with which it is allied.”46 Reviewers applauded Savage Rhythm, a voodoo musical set in Mississippi that featured an all-black cast. It told the story of a black migrant who left Harlem and returned home to find her “granny” and “mammy still practicing the voodoo arts handed down to them . . . from their African ancestors.”47 The New York Times commended Savage Rhythm’s white creators for bringing forth an “intelligent drama of Negro sorcery.”48 Two more plays, Louisiana (1933) and Dance with Your Gods (1934), followed the formula set by the theatrical voodoo works that preceded them and used a combination of black actors, wild drumbeats, and voodoo chants to attract audiences and profits.

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At the same time that voodoo-themed entertainment captivated American audiences and proved profitable for arts and entertainment voodoo sellers, black voodoo sellers hoping to profit from voodoo’s commercial appeal found themselves facing criminal charges and incarceration. A host of newspaper reports recounted stories about black voodoo sellers whose magical services and spiritual products landed them in the clutches of the law. These voodoo sellers were caught in legal traps designed to protect American consumers from “medical quackery.” The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, a key piece of legislation that shaped twentieth-century consumer culture, instituted product inspections to prevent the sale and circulation of adulterated or mislabeled food and drugs. This law created problems for voodoo sellers hoping to peddle magical healing powders and potions. Even after the act was passed, scores of New York City whites and blacks continued to be the victims of medical fraud until 1926, when the state legislature passed the Medical Practice Act, which forced fake doctors to remove the prefix “Dr.” from signs and advertisements.49 Although some of the laws established to guard the nation’s most vulnerable consumers (people who were generally poor, sick, and desperate) from the remedies and cures of fake doctors were enacted long before the voodoo craze, voodoo sellers were always prime targets for those who enforced anti–medical quackery codes.50 For example, as early as 1894, Louisiana passed a Medical Practice Act that was specifically designed to curtail the activities of voodoo sellers.51 Despite the fact that many of the companies that mass-produced and distributed voodoo supplies during the 1920s and 1930s were owned by whites, newspaper reports from the period suggest that black voodoo sellers were usually the targets of serious litigation.52 The increasing racialization of criminal behavior in twentieth-century America guaranteed that black voodoo sellers would attract scrutiny. Local police frequently investigated their businesses in response to customer complaints. When voodoo practitioners sold their wares by mail, Post Office officials probed their activities and they were charged with fraud, mail fraud, or practicing medicine without a license. Black newspapers took the lead in reporting the arrests of voodoo sellers. More than a dozen reports that announced the incarceration of black voodoo sellers were printed in the New York Amsterdam News and the Chicago Defender from 1915 to 1935, but such stories were less common in white newspapers.53 The tension between northern blacks and southern migrants was clearly articulated in the way black newspapers reported stories about fraudulent voodoo doctors and the naive people who contracted their services. At a time when New Negro intelligentsia were taking a marked interest in black people’s folk past and championing the representation of blacks in art and literature and in social scientific and historical studies, many black journalists rejected what appeared to be the persistence of primitive folk superstitions in modern black communities. Black journalists despised the black voodoo sellers who had turned “superstitions”

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into businesses designed to con poor, uneducated blacks out of their hardearned wages. Yet black newspapers were conscious of the fact that to some extent, identifying black superstition as a “problem” in black communities made them ideological allies with prejudiced whites who asserted that irrationality and childlike superstitions were inherent “Negro traits.” The first sentence of an article published in the New York Amsterdam News in 1927 titled “Harlem—The Mecca of Fakers” speaks directly to this conflict: “The tradition of superstition among colored people is both factual and factitious.”54 The author of the article, a West Indian–born journalist named Edgar M. Grey, tried to present a balanced discussion about superstitious blacks, the charlatan voodoo sellers who courted them, and the anti-black prejudice that led whites to conclude that black superstition was a by-product of black irrationality. He began by explaining that the very idea that blacks were simple-minded and superstitious “grew out of the mind of the white man,” who could not understand the “Oriental’s concept of life.”55 Grey clarified that blacks originated from societies that had conceived of a physical and metaphysical existence that could be manipulated because it was constantly changing, while in the white understanding of the universe, “high spiritual development is permanence.”56 Grey argued, “With this tradition as an inheritance of the mind we can understand really how easy it is to influence the mind of the average Negro in superstitious practices.”57 But for all of Grey’s defensive logic, he concluded “from New Orleans with its ‘voodooism’ to Virginia with its ‘herb doctors,’ the colored person is immersed in a mental solution of the rankest kind of superstition.”58 Although he was a former Garveyite, by 1927, Grey had become disillusioned with the movement and lumped Garveyites, “Mohammedians,” and black Jews in with voodoo doctors, white tarot readers, and spiritualists on his list of “Harlem fakers” who preyed on superstitious blacks.59 According to Grey, all of these groups profited from the naiveté of foolish blacks who sought mystical solutions for the problems that they faced in big cities. Even though black and white newspapers implicated black superstition and black African voodooism as a factor in negative phenomena in the black community ranging from murders to high mortality rates, it is difficult to determine the accuracy of these claims.60 Did black migrants seek out supernatural solutions to the problems they encountered in cities because these solutions were reminiscent of traditional remedies used in the rural communities they had migrated from? Did the voodoo craze and all of the alleged truths it unearthed about voodoo’s power make voodoo cures and charms more attractive? Was the voodoo craze responsible for creating a market in which selling voodoo could emerge as a viable economic enterprise? During the 1930s, scholars such as anthropologists Herskovits and Hurston contended that black Americans’ interest in voodoo cures, charms, and potions could be attributed to the persistence of African survivals in black communities. But Herskovits and Hurston’s conceptualization of

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African survivals and interest in voodoo as a research topic was at least in part a product of the cultural climate of the 1920s and 1930s, which pushed voodoo to the forefront of the nation’s imagination. Vestiges of African spiritual traditions certainly survived in black communities across the nation, but the explosion of voodoo doctors and voodoo clients that appeared in newspapers reflect a cultural force that was more powerful than survival of such traditions. The widespread commercialization of voodoo during these years was the dominant force responsible for the increased visibility of voodoo sellers and voodoo customers in the media. Although black newspapers such as the New York Amsterdam News, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Chicago Defender condemned voodoo sellers, they readily accepted the advertising dollars they received from them. Ultimately, these nationally circulated newspapers were important marketing venues for voodoo sellers hoping to attract customers from around the country. And the voodoo sellers who broadcast their powers in black newspapers carefully marketed themselves so that they appeared to be authentic practitioners. Largely male, these voodoo sellers assigned the prefix “Prof.” to their names to communicate knowledge, expertise, and authority. These men also took on African names and identities to bolster their claims of mystical power. Prof. Mormordo, Prof. Salindukee, Prof. Akpandac, and Prof. Edet Effiong each described their “African” origins in their advertisements. Prof. Salindukee’s advertisement explained that he “just arrived from South Africa, Native of Zulu” and Prof. Mormordo claimed to be “from East Africa.”61 Prof. Akpandac and Prof. Edet Effiong both claimed African origins but did not identify a specific region.62 However, Prof. Edet Effiong identified himself as a “Mohammadean” who had special knowledge of Nigerian herbs.63 Every discussion of voodoo in newspapers ranked its roots in “African jungle rites” high on the list of vague characteristics commonly used to describe the practice, so it makes sense that these men would adopt (or highlight) African heritages. Edgar M. Grey wrote in his article about “Harlem Fakers” that “West Indians and Southerners” changed “their birthplaces and tangled their tongues enough to deceive the black Harlemite” and “assumed high-sounding names and titles: the terms doctor and professor.”64 The advertisements black “professors” of mystical arts published in black newspapers promised potential customers remedies for all sorts of problems. Professor Domingo, who claimed to hail from Karo, West Africa, told potential clients that he possessed a “gift from God” that aided him in bringing “Peace, Love and Happiness to your Home.” He sold “African Secret Incense” that could be purchased at his Harlem office on West 128th Street or by mail.65 Like other black “professors” who posted advertisements in black newspapers, Professor Effiong’s advertisement announced that he could help customers find loved ones and lost friends, stolen articles, love, and money. He also proclaimed that he had the ability to cure diseases and even rid clients of alcoholism. Effiong warned

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potential clients that “delays are always dangerous” and encouraged them to seek a consultation immediately. He instructed costumers to “send $2.00 in your letter” and promised that he would “astonish” his customers “with the marvels of African Science.”66 Effiong offered a variety of ritual implements and herbal remedies. His customers could buy an Oriental Lucky Ring or an Eagle Eye wisdom stone and purchase Nigeria Herb Incense, Nigeria Stomach Bitters, Nigeria Body Tonic, and Nigeria Liniment out of his St. Nicholas Avenue office for prices that ranged from $2.00 to $5.00.67 Professors such as Effiong and Domingo were careful to avoid directly calling themselves voodooists in advertisements, but at the same time they used language to attract customers whose interests in otherworldly solutions had been piqued by the voodoo craze. These men referred to themselves as “healers,” “occultists,” “magicians,” and “spiritual magicians” and emphasized the scientific aspects of metaphysical arts to elevate their practices above those described in works such as Seabrook’s Magic Island. They also referred to “Hindu” traditions and “Oriental Science” to further distinguish their services and link them to non-Christian spiritual practices from the East.68 Yet they described their products and services in ways that pointed to popular stories about voodoo. For example, Professor Akpandac listed “white and black magic” among his specialties.69 Inherent in professors’ claims that they could provide charms and incenses that “will influence your enemies” was the popular belief that ritual objects and potions from Africa contained a power that could affect people and change the course of events when they were ritualistically activated.70 While most “professors” avoided much of the language used in newspapers that demonized black voodooists in their advertisements, voodoo sellers who exclusively and semi-anonymously sold services through the mail appealed to customers using terms that were frequently associated with the practice. Readers of the Pittsburgh Courier, the Chicago Defender, and the New York Amsterdam News readers could easily find advertisements for mail-order voodoo products in the 1920s and 1930s. “Dream books” that promised to decrypt hidden supernatural messages and reveal lucky numbers concealed in dreams had been marketed to “superstitious” blacks since the late 1880s, and it is likely that these mail-order publications attracted more customers during the voodoo craze.71 Black newspapers consistently ran ads for dream books such as the one written by “Celebrated Psychic” Robert L. Niles, and featured ads for Plough Chemical Company’s “Black and White” skin-lightening solution promised customers a free copy of Plough’s Black and White Birthday and Dream Book.72 Other voodoo products were regularly advertised in black newspapers. For just $1.00 and the price of postage, customers could get “original and genuine” New Orleans Luck Powder through the mail.73 A Harlem-based “African Art and Handicrafts” dealer sold “Voodoo Charms” alongside African baskets, masks, woodcarvings, and textiles.74 A voodoo seller who conducted transactions

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through a post office box in Chicago regularly announced the sale of “Voodoo Bag No. 5” in an advertisement that began with the title “SACRED VOODOO SECRETS.”75 The advertisement claimed that the voodoo bag had been used to ensure the success of gamblers in making bets and winning card and dice games. “Voodoo Bag No. 5” also promised to avert “evil influences” and provide luck in business and romance.76 In a series of separate advertisements, the R. S. Wester Company announced the sale of voodoo ritual objects such as “Roots, Candles, Incense, Bones,” special voodoo charms called “Hands,” and “Guffo Dust,” an alternate term for cemetery dirt.77 The advertisement also sold direct help to costumers: “No matter what your troubles may be, I know I can help you. My terms are $15 for two years of service; $3 down and balance in two monthly payments after being benefitted.”78 Costumers interested in purchasing help were instructed to “write, explaining your troubles, inclosing $5, or pay postman $5 on delivery.”79 Selling voodoo through the mail may have promised to be a lucrative business venture, but anti–medical quackery legislation made it an extremely dangerous enterprise. In 1872, postal statutes were revised in response to widespread mail fraud. The new laws gave postmasters the power to issue warrants and initiate investigations of suspicious patterns of communications.80 Several news reports about mail-order voodoo fraud appeared in migration metropolis newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s, and blacks were often the culprits. In 1924, the New York Times reported that a Mississippi voodoo doctor who called himself “Prince Hough” was charged with fraud for “obtaining money through the mails by false pretenses.”81 Postal inspectors gathered the evidence they used to convict Hough through a sting operation; an inspector wrote to him and solicited the voodoo doctor’s cure for an illness. Hough replied and instructed the inspector to “spit on a white cloth” and send it back to him with $25 so that he could create a cure. After negotiating with Hough on the price of his cure, inspectors sent the voodoo doctor $5 and a white rag smeared with egg white. Days later, Hough sent the inspector a powdered potion and a set of instructions.82 The New York Times article highlighted the idea that Hough courted “ignorant patients” and also gave evidence of Hough’s “ignorance” by printing the unintelligible instructions that Hough sent to the inspector with the cure in the article. “Dr. Sir Yos Receved Listen Emty contents in a Pint Bot fil it with clen Water take a table Spoon 3 times A Day.”83 Even though the report noted that Hough received “an average of ten letters a day” seeking his services, it attributed the size of his client base to black ignorance and superstition rather than to a savvy marketing strategy.84 Prince Hough’s fraud case did not attract as much attention as a case against “Doctor” Samuel Kojo Pearce. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Amsterdam News, and the Chicago Defender all reported the arrest and conviction of the 70-year-old man in July 1927.85 Like Hough, Pearce was charged with mail fraud and was accused of victimizing hundreds and possibly thousands

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of “negroes” in several states by “selling them ‘Voodoo’ charms by mail.”86 At the time of his arrest, Pearce’s practice was based in St. Louis, but he had previously had offices in New York City and Detroit and operated his voodoo-selling business under the names “West African Remedy Company,” the “Pearce Health Institute,” the “Oriental Institute of Science,” and the “Africa-American Institute of Science.”87 Like the “professors” who advertised their remedies in black newspapers during the period, Pearce claimed African origins (he professed to be a native of Nigeria) and did not call himself a “voodoo doctor” or directly associate his business with voodoo. But the fact that he sold powders that were supposed keep “wandering” husbands at home and banish evil spirits from dwellings and cat bones that purportedly could attract luck and success marked him as a voodooist in the press. And the fact that he had collected between $8 and $500 from each client significantly strengthened the fraud case against him.88 While the white newspapers maintained a serious tone when reporting on Pearce’s case, the black press used their reports to poke fun at voodoo sellers and at those naive enough to seek their services. The New York Amsterdam News teased Pearce for calling himself a “doctor” when it wrote that “the distinguished ‘Doctor’ Samuel Kojoe Pearce . . . was indicted Wednesday of last week.”89 The tongue-in-cheek introduction to Pearce was clearly intended to dismiss the authority claims of all of voodoo sellers who called themselves “professors” and “doctors” in order to attract clients. Similarly, the Chicago Defender used Pearce’s case to refute the notion that voodoo sellers had real powers. It pointed out that “‘Doctor’ Samuel Kodjoe Pearse” was “unable to furnish bond despite the fact that he” had “a black cat’s wishbone in his pocket.”90 When Pearce was sentenced to four years in jail, the newspaper again highlighted the fact that he was in fact powerless: “Pearce . . . was led away to prison bemoaning the fact that he failed to compound a herb to keep him out of jail.”91 The only power that the black and white news reporters conceded to black voodoo sellers was the power to trick and hurt their patrons, and when their customers died because they sought voodoo cures, both black and white presses reported the incidents seriously. When voodoo doctor “King” William Carpenter killed a patient whom he tied to a fence to rid her of evil spirits in Mobile, Alabama, in August 1927, he was charged with practicing medicine without a license and his incarceration was widely reported.92 Similarly, the death of three-year-old LeRoy Samuels, a Harlem boy whose mother hired a voodoo seller to save him from tetanus, made the front page of the New York Amsterdam News twice.93 “Doctor” Alphonso Rojansen, a man the paper described as a “British West African,” charged Samuels’s mother $180 to cure her dying son. In exchange for the money, Rojansen came to the Samuels home and “rubbed the limbs of her son while muttering in an unintelligible manner,” which was reported to possibly be a “West African dialect.”94 At first, Rojansen was charged with homicide, but the autopsy of the child’s body did not yield evidence of his guilt.

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Still detectives were determine to punish the 26-year-old for taking advantage of Samuels’s mother, so they charged him with practicing medicine without a license.95 “Medical quackery” was an ill that crossed race lines in the 1920s and 1930s, but when black voodoo sellers and customers were involved, their “ignorance,” superstitions, and naiveté were linked to racial trait. The pervasive sensational representations and commercialization of black voodooists in popular culture portrayed black “voodoo-doctors” and “professors” and their clients as undesirable consequences of black people’s inferiority. Even though black newspapers often claimed that whites sought out black voodoo sellers (“Few Negro fortune tellers and voodoo doctors would be able to make a living if it were not for their white patrons!”) black ignorance and superstition was used to explain the prevalence of voodoo doctors during the period.96 While one article in the New York Amsterdam News complained that “superstitions about diseases” led poor blacks to rely on “fake patent medicines, herbs, voodooism and liquor” to cure them, Edgar M. Grey contended that voodoo sellers were part of a larger predatory business culture that targeted and victimized poor blacks. He explained that the “fake lots vendor” and the “fake employment agent” were similarly poised to take advantage of Harlem’s most vulnerable black residents.97 From this perspective, voodoo selling was one among many rackets that simultaneously victimized blacks and created illicit economic opportunities in black communities. Voodoo companies such as “Luck Goods” that sold “Lucky Mo-Jo” incense and other voodoo-themed products ran several want ads in the Pittsburgh Courier seeking sales agents to sell their goods and baiting potential employees with a salary of $25 a week.98 But in the end, Grey’s discussion of voodoo sellers in the larger context of black poverty and limited professional opportunities had no place in the racialized story about black savagery and inferiority that gave birth to the voodoo craze.

Conclusion The two distinct strands of voodoo retail that emerged during the 1920s and 1930s tell an interesting story about race and consumer culture in America. The public embraced the writers and artists who sold “authentic” stories about African spiritual primitivism to American audiences. Writers and artists used black bodies and common voodoo accessories such as magic powders, altars littered with bones and candles, and tom-toms beating out dark scores to cast spells on audiences. And their audiences, hungry for virtual and safe encounters with the dark world of black savagery, paid for, and applauded, the stories they told. These voodoo sellers, who were mostly white, enjoyed praise and fame because they had expertly characterized the dark side and primitive impulses of “the Negroes.” Tapping into a power that generations of whites before them had

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used to craft stories about blacks, these voodoo sellers reiterated the dichotomy between “savage” blacks and “civilized” whites in their imaginative works. In the fictional world of black voodooists that whites created, the racial hierarchy and black oppression made perfect sense. Their race fantasies became products— stories that were sold as entertainment for profit. The blacks who populated their fantasies were wild, vengeful, and dangerously superstitious and needed to be controlled and dominated. Surely white audiences who consumed these images and paid for these simulated encounters experienced a renewed sense that the segregated and white-dominated world they lived in was the natural order of things. On the other side of the voodoo craze were the black voodoo sellers. Like the white writers and artists who sold authentic voodoo tales, black voodoo sellers carefully packaged and remade many of the fictions about black voodooists that were rooted in American racism. But their customers were different: they sold their services to vulnerable poor people searching for solutions to the problems they faced. This strand of the voodoo industry relied on trickery to produce profits. These voodoo sellers also served as examples—for both blacks and whites—of negative racial traits that needed to be criminalized, contained, or eradicated. Black presses posted their advertisements and articles condemning their illicit business almost simultaneously, a practice that made their newspapers instruments in the very voodoo industry they proclaimed to despise. Black voodoo sellers threatened New Negroes’ “modern” identities and were vilified for exploiting other blacks. Even though tensions between black voodoo sellers and modern, learned blacks were high, it is undeniable that black voodoo sellers filled a need created by the poverty and strife blacks disproportionately experienced. While these divergent strands of the voodoo industry targeted different consumers and sold different products, they were all equally dependent on the same set of racial fantasies to attract customers, a fact that underscores the pervasiveness of anti-African, anti-black stereotypes during these years. And even though the American voodoo craze is largely absent from the historical record, a close look at the voodoo industry of the 1920s and 1930s reveals that the racialized tales that inspired the nation’s obsession with voodoo produced profits for publishers, writers, filmmakers, and voodoo entrepreneurs. The attempts of Melville Herskovits and Zora Neale Hurston to elevate “voodoo” from a weird set of savage blood rites to a philosophically and spiritually relevant tradition did nothing to change its image. In 1935, Herskovits told a reporter for the Chicago Tribune that the voodoo stories that had been circulated and sold to Americans were terribly inaccurate. Herskovits explained that “as pictured in fiction and the movies . . . voodooism includes blood rites and terrors. In reality the religion is most peaceful” and “human sacrifice is unknown.”99 But by the time Harlem’s Black Magic hit theaters, the voodoo industry had played an important part in permanently

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casting voodoo as a source of trickery, dangerous superstition, horror, and terror—yet another evil and undesirable contribution that blacks offered the world.

Notes 1. Harlem’s Black Magic, March of Time Newsreels, volume 3, episode 8, March 19, 1937, HBO Archives, http://www.hboarchives.com/apps/searchlibrary/ctl/marchoftime. 2. “Latest ‘March of Time’ on Keith-Memorial Bill,” Daily Boston Globe, March 17, 1937, 29. 3. Raymond Fielding emphasized that the March of Time newsreels had been viewed by at least 20 million Americans and more than one million people around the world by 1938. See Fielding, The March of Time, 1935–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). 4. Harlem’s Black Magic. 5. Ibid. 6. “Picture Draws Angry Protest,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 25, 1937; “Harlem ‘Black Magic’ Film Arouses Storm,” New York Amsterdam News, March 27, 1937; “‘Voodoo’ Film Brings Protest,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 27, 1937. 7. “The ‘March of Time’ Slander,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 27, 1937, 10. 8. Lynn Dumenil examines the impact and emergence of consumer culture in The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 56–97. 9. Mary Renda explores the cultural responses that U.S. imperial projects inspired on the mainland in Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 10–22. 10. Gail Bederman explores the Victorian era contest between “white civilization” and “black savagery” in Manliness and Civilization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). 11. “Haiti, Land of Voodoos and Many Revolutions,” Washington Post, August 8, 1915, ES5. 12. “Voodooism in Haiti, Admiral Says: Kill Humans, Drink Blood, Knapp Reports,” Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1920, 5. 13. “Death For Three Voodooists: Two Cuban Men and a Woman Killed Aged White Man for His Blood,” Washington Post, May 14, 1916, ES18; “Cuban Soldiers Kill 5 Voodoo Worshippers,” New York Times, June 30, 1919, 12; “Cubans Kill Voodoos: Avenge Sacrifice of Children in Cannibalistic Rites,” Washington Post, August 10, 1919, ES13; “White Child Voodoo Victim: Body Found in Cuba with Heart Torn Out by Witch Doctors,” Washington Post, November 17, 1922, 1; “Voodoo Plot to Slay Baby Foiled in Cuba,” New York Times, September 10, 1929, 16; “Voodoo Plot to ‘Sacrifice’ Baby Nipped in Cuba,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 10,1929, 21; “3 Seized in Voodoo Lot,” New York Times, March 2, 1930, 29; “Held As Witch in Killing: Aged Woman Arrested in Cuba as ‘Voodoo’ Doctor,” New York Times, March 30, 1930, section N9; “Unbidden Attendant Dies in Voodoo Meeting,” Washington Post, June 7, 1930, 2; “Cuban Boy, 8, Killed As Voodoo Sacrifice,” New York Times, January 4, 1931, 21. Voodoo reports from Trinidad, Panama, and Brazil also circulated around Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.: “Commits Murder to Escape Voodoo Spell,” Chicago Defender, March 2, 1928, 13; “Letters to Voodooist Cause Brazil Scandal,” Washington Post, June 22, 1930, A4; “Voodoo Magician Arrested in Trinidad,” New York Times, May 24, 1931, 11; “Girl Is Slain in Jungle at a Voodoo Ceremony,” New York Times, August 8, 1933, 12. 14. “Voodooism in Haiti: Ritualistic Dance and Pig with Ruffled Collar Part of One Ceremony,” New York Times, February 12, 1922, 92. 15. For a nuanced discussion of burgeoning notions of black criminality during these years, see Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010).

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16. “‘Voodoo’ Rites in the South” New York Times, February 2, 1936, XX10. 17. Tracy N. Poe explores the relationship between the Great Migration and “soul food” in

“The Origins of Soul Food in Black Urban Identity: Chicago, 1915–1947,” American Studies International 37, no. 1 (1999): 4–33. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham explores the commercialization of black religion and race records in “Re-thinking Vernacular Culture: Black Religion and Race Records in the 1920s and 1930s,” in American Studies: An Anthology, ed. Janice A. Radway, Kevin K. Gaines, Barry Shank, and Penny Von Eschen (Blackwell Publishing, 2009), 225–232; and John Giggie explores this phenomenon relative to black southerners in “Buying and Selling with God: African American Religion, Race Records, and the Emerging Culture of Mass Consumption in the South,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890–1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 190–212. 18. Michael Stamm, Sound Business: Newspapers, Radio, and the Politics of New Media (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 4. 19. James Gregory, Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 126. 20. “Human Bones Found in Voodoo Man’s Cave,” New York Times, April 10, 1925, 21; “Girl Believed Third Victim of Voodoo Killers,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 2, 1928, 8; “Boy’s Torturer Jailed; May Be Voodoo Fanatic,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 7, 1921, 9; “Voodooism Hinted in Fort Murders,” Washington Post, January 12, 1933, 1; “‘Voodoo’ Slaying Stuns East Harlem,” New York Amsterdam News, February 27, 1929, 1; “Commits Murder to Escape Voodoo Spell,” Chicago Defender, March 3, 1928, 13. 21. Melissa Cooper, “‘They Made Gullah’: Modernist Primitivists and the Discovery and Creation of Sapelo Island, Georgia’s Gullah Community, 1915–1991” (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2012). 22. “Nordic Voodoo,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 15, 1928, B8. 23. Several examples of this tendency can be found in black newspapers published in New York and Chicago from 1915 to 1935, but here are a couple of examples: “Voodoo Tale Shown to Be Absurd,” New York Amsterdam News, May 9, 1923, 1; and “Voodoo Played No Part in Changing Man to White, Haitians Contend,” New York Amsterdam News, June 28, 1933, 9. 24. Ann Douglas, Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995); Clare Corbould, Becoming African Americans: Black Public Life in Harlem, 1919– 1939 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009); Nathan Huggin, The Harlem Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); David L. Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979); Kevin Mumford, Interzones: Black White Sex Districts in Chicago and New York in the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Sieglinde Lemke, Primitivist Modernism: Black Culture and the Origins of Transatlantic Modernism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 25. In a review of Newbell Niles Puckette’s book Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (1926), Melville Herskovits wrote: “Voodoo has, from its inception, been under the ban, and has been practiced in great secrecy. Is it strange, that here the purest form of African customs, those which have been tampered with least by the white man, should survive?” Herskovits’s review appeared in Journal of American Folklore 40, no. 157 (1927): 310. Similarly, Hurston argued in 1931 that “shreds of hoodoo beliefs and practices are found wherever any number of Negroes is found in America.” See also Herskovits, “Hoodoo in America,” Journal of American Folklore 44, no. 174 (1931): 318. 26. Mary Renda explores the sexual nature of Seabrook’s book in Taking Haiti. 27. Seabrook’s book was listed among the list of top-selling books in “Bestsellers of the Year Reported by Publishers,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 21, 1929. It sold just under 100,000 copies.

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28. Lyle Saxon, “Voodoo in Haiti,” The Bookman: A Review of Books and Life 68 (February 1929): 712. 29. Ibid. 30. Perry Gitbens, “The New Books,” Life, January 18, 1929, 33. 31. Ibid. 32. “Travel Books,” The Living Age, March 1929, 72. 33. Aubrey Bowser, “Book Review: Long Live King Voodoo,” New York Amsterdam News, March 20, 1929, 16. 34. Ibid. 35. “Haitians Angered by Voodoo Tales,” Chicago Defender, June 29, 1929, A1. 36. “Movie Gossip from Hollywood,” Chicago Tribune, August 11, 1931, 15. 37. Ibid. 38. “Projection Jottings: A Picture with Haiti as the Background Has Been Finished—Other Items,” New York Times, July 17, 1932, X3. 39. “New Films Reviewed,” Daily Boston Globe, August 6, 1932, 6. 40. “My Observations,” New York Amsterdam News, September 21, 1932, 8. 41. “‘Black Moon’ Gives Many Good Roles,” Atlanta Daily Word, May 6, 1934, 7. 42. “Coast Codgings,” Chicago Defender, May 12, 1934, 9; “Supported by Big Negro Cast,” Atlanta Daily World, September 21, 1934, 2. 43. “Coast Codgings.” 44. “Bledsoe to Appear in Opera ‘Deep River’ as Voodoo King,” New York Amsterdam News, July 28, 1926, 9. 45. Alfred Frankenstein, “New York Hears First Negro Opera Company Sing ‘First Opera by Colored Composer,’” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 16, 1928, G4. 46. “‘Zombie’ Play of Thrills and Voodoo Rites,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 14, 1932, 19. 47. Burns Mantle, “Negro Opus of Deep South Stirs New Yorkers,” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 10, 1932, C1. 48. J. Brooks Atkins, “The Play: ‘Way Down South,” New York Times, January 1, 1932, 30. 49. “State Law Removes Quack Doctor Signs,” New York Times, December 11, 1930, 23. 50. For more information about the American government’s long battle against “medical quackery,” see James Harvey Young’s The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967). 51. Danielle N. Boaz, “Dividing Stereotype and Religion: The Legal Implications of the Ambiguous References to Voodoo in U.S. Court Proceedings,” The Scholar 12, no. 251 (2011): 268. 52. Jeffrey E. Anderson points out that the majority of voodoo supply businesses were whiteowned in Conjure in African American Society (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), 119. Carolyn Morrow Long covers similar ground and traces the rise of largescale voodoo selling in the United States in Spiritual Merchants: Religion Magic and Commerce (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001). 53. “Two Voodoos Meet Their One ‘Hoodoo’—Jail,” Chicago Defender, November 29, 1924, 2; “Fortune Teller and Voodoo in Toils Law,” Chicago Defender, January 24, 1925, 2; “Gets Award for $179 Paid to Remove Evil Spirit,” Amsterdam News, February 4, 1925, 1; “Alleged Voodoo Doctor, Clairvoyant, Palmist, Preacher, Undertaker, Nabbed,” Amsterdam News, April 15, 1925, 1; “Federal Agents Raid Voodoo Doctor’s Office,” Chicago Defender, July 9, 1927, 1; “‘Doctor’ Sentenced for Selling Voodoo Charms,” Chicago Defender, July 16, 1927, A8; “Corks Gilded by Voodoo Man to Represent Gold,” Chicago Defender, September 24, 1927, 3; “Voodoo Trick Charged: Held Woman for Police,” Chicago Defender, October 1, 1927, 6; “Nab Voodoo Doctor for Misuse of Mail,” Amsterdam News, July 6, 1927, 4; “Police Arrest

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Voodoo Doctor,” Amsterdam News, August 10, 1927, 4;”Jail Voodoo Doctor When Potions Fail,” Chicago Defender, April 21, 1928, A1; “African Voodoo Man Dealt ‘Pen’ Term on Bogus Charge,” Amsterdam News, September 26, 1928, 1; “Voodoo Doctor Gets Fine Loitering,” Chicago Defender, December 19, 1931, 3. 54. Edgar M. Grey, “Harlem—The Mecca of Fakers: Oriental Fakers, Gypsies, and Obeah-Men Find Harlem Good Camping Ground,” New York Amsterdam News, March 30, 1927, 16. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. John A. Diaz, “High Negro Mortality,” New York Amsterdam News, August 31, 1927, 19. 61. “Prof. Salindukee-Display Ad. 13,” New York Amsterdam News, March 28, 1923, 3; “Prof. Mormordo,” display ad 57, Chicago Defender, May 10, 1924, A4. 62. “Prof. Akpandac,” display ad 3, New York Amsterdam News, May 9, 1923, 2; “Prof. Edet Effiong,” display ad 73, Chicago Defender, February 21, 1925, A4. 63. Ibid. 64. Grey, “Harlem—The Mecca of Fakers.” 65. “Prof. Domingo,” display ad 73, Chicago Defender, February 21, 1925, A4. 66. “Prof. Edet Effiong.” 67. Ibid. 68. “Prof. Salindukee”; “Prof. Mormordo”; “Prof. Akpandac”; “Prof. Edet Effiong”; “Prof. Domingo.” 69. “Prof. Akpandac.” 70. “Prof. Edet Effiong.” 71. Jeffrey Anderson discusses the prominence of “dream books” and instructional voodoo publications and points to Aunt Sally’s Policy Players’ Dream Book (1889) as one of the earliest publications of its kind; Anderson, Conjure in African American Society, 120. 72. Advertisements for “dream books” were regularly published in black papers. See, for example, advertisements for Robert L. Niles’ “Deastro” Dream Book, display ad 27, New York Amsterdam News, October 19, 1932; and Black and White Birthday and Dream Book, display ad 31, Chicago Defender, August 20, 1921. 73. “Display Ad 12,” Chicago Defender, September 22, 1928, 4. 74. Display ad 30, Pittsburgh Courier, November 10, 1934, A3. 75. Display ad 30, Pittsburgh Courier, August 16, 1924, 5. 76. Ibid. 77. “Lucky Hand,” display ad 27, Chicago Defender, May 18, 1929, A4. 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid. 80. Young, The Medical Messiahs, 66–87. 81. “Post Office Stops Voodoo Practice,” New York Times, November 21, 1924, 4. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid. 84. Ibid. 85. “‘Voodoo Doctor’ Indicted: Negro Charged with Using Mails to Sell ‘Charms,’” New York Times, July 1, 1927, 8;“‘Voodoo’ Charms Sold by Mail,” Washington Post, July 1, 1927, 8; “Nab Voodoo Doctor for Misuse of Mail,” New York Amsterdam News, July 6, 1927, 6; “Federal Agents Raid Voodoo Doctor’s Office,” Chicago Defender, July 9, 1927, 1; “‘Doctor’ Sentenced for Selling Voodoo Charms,’” Chicago Defender, July 16, 1927, A8.

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“‘Voodoo Doctor’ Indicted.” Ibid. Ibid. “Nab Voodoo Doctor for Misuse of Mail.” “Federal Agents Raid Voodoo Doctor’s Office.” “‘Doctor’ Sentenced for Selling Voodoo Charms.’” “Voodoo Doctor Jailed with 4 ‘High Priests,’” New York Times, August 22, 1927, 5; “Voodoo Doctor Chains Patients Say Police,” Washington Post, August 22, 1927, 2; “Voodoo Doctor and Four Priests Taken in South,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 22, 1927, 11; “Voodoo Doctor Jailed after Patient Dies,” New York Amsterdam News, August 22, 1927, 1. 93. “‘Doctor Freed in Child’s Death,” New York Amsterdam News, September 12, 1928, 1; “African Voodoo Man Dealt ‘Pen’ Term on Bogus Doctor Charge.” 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid. 96. “The ‘March of Time’ Slander.” 97. Grey, “Harlem—The Mecca of Fakers”; Diaz, “High Negro Mortality.” 98. Display ad 10, Pittsburgh Courier, January 23, 1932, 4. 99. “Voodoo Terror Tales Refuted by Herskovits,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 18, 1935, 9. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

12 • “A FANTASY IN FASHION” Luxury Dressing and African American Lifestyle Magazines in the 1980s S I O B H A N C A RT E R- D AV I D

“The Gentleman whose clothing makes the proper impression, especially in formal settings, need not announce his arrival—his attire speaks eloquently on his behalf.” —“Formal Eloquence,” Modern Black Men, October 1986

In the inaugural issue of Modern Black Men, an African American lifestyle magazine founded in 1984, editor and publisher George C. Pryce informed the readers he hoped to attract that Modern Black Men was “the first bi-monthly lifestyle magazine created expressly for you, the educated, serious, professionalmanagerial black man.”1 When the elitist tone of his inaugural message and perhaps the content of the magazine itself proved controversial, Pryce only strengthened his stance, insisting, “MODERN BLACK MEN are elite.”2 His defensive rebuttal to “critics of this [elite] lifestyle” suggested the publication’s fairly narrow target audience. “If a man works hard all year,” he wrote, “saves his money, sacrifices, and decides to take a vacation to a far-away exotic place, reside in a fashionable hotel, dine upon the finest of cuisines and consume the best of beverages, he would be considered elite by some.”3 Ebony Man, which began publishing in 1984, was seemingly more egalitarian, positioning itself as a periodical for “the security guard, the day laborer, the small businessman, the corporate executive, the artist, the athlete, the factory worker—the every man.”4 Similarly, Essence, which was founded in 1970, promised to be “relevant to the full spectrum of the Essence audience regardless of political and philosophical stance, socio-economic levels and educational background.”5 While other African American magazines published in the 1980s claimed to have inclusive readerships, Pryce aimed to market his magazine to the nation’s growing black middle class. 246

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As historian Robert Weems argues, the growth of the black middle class in the 1970s opened the way for publications such as Black Enterprise, Black Family, and Black Collegian, which catered to those with the incomes, education, occupations, and economic security to imagine buying the products and services the magazines advertised.6 From 1978 to 1988, the “aggregate black income increased from $183 million to $242 billion,” and during the 1960s and 1970s, the proportion of African Americans with a college education tripled, increasing from 7 to 20 percent. Most impressively, during the 1970s, the number of black professional and technical workers increased by 55 percent (as compared to 34 percent for whites) and the number of black managers and administrators grew by 69 percent (as compared to 34 percent for whites).7 These developments fostered the creation of new lifestyle and special interest magazines offering advice to African American students seeking information on careers, graduate and/or professional schools, and internships. They also advised African American wage earners on wealth creation and provided firstgeneration middle-class black families with advice designed to help them navigate their newfound status and wealth. The proliferation of such publications was also a product of new developments in computer software that made the production of magazines simpler and cheaper and increased the number of periodicals available to the American public.8 The combination of these new patterns in publishing and the increased buying power of the African American community in the 1970s and 1980s opened up a new space for magazines with advertising and editorial content that promoted “consumerist messages . . . personalized with the specific cultural heritage of minority groups.”9 Glossy magazines celebrating luxury, excess, and self-indulgence were especially popular during this period.10 The fashions advertised in such magazines reflected what historians have seen as the decade’s climate of material opulence. Fashion historian Valerie Steele argues that while the trickle-down benefits of the economic boom of the 1980s were “more theoretical than real,” advertisers were pleased to peddle luxury goods to a young, childless, urban class of workers who preferred spending money to saving it. Their spending habits have left a portrait of a decade centered on “themes such as money culture, the glamour of investment banking, the booming art market, the status rituals of the nouveau rich—and, eventually, the stock market crash of 1987.” While most middle-class American families could not afford to buy Armani suits, both “yuppies” and “buppies”—as black urban professionals were known—enjoyed a “sustained and substantial increase in disposable income that would allow them to.”11 But the politics of conspicuous consumption were especially complicated for middle-class African Americans. Both black cultural nationalism and new visions of black affluence and assimilation were prominent in African American culture during the 1970s and 1980s. Blaxploitation movies; the Roots phenomenon; the “Black Is Beautiful” movement; television sitcoms such as The Jeffersons,

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The Cosby Show, and A Different World; and other prominent developments in black culture during this period celebrated a variety of very different images of blacks that had little in common other than an emphasis on black pride. The black racial uplift ideology of the period also stressed pride, usually by combining the somewhat contradictory themes of assimilation and black cultural nationalism. This trend is especially prominent in the upscale African American magazines that proliferated during this period, which often used black nationalist imagery to promote the luxurious clothing and other accoutrements of upper-middle-class life. Fantasies of consumption played a central role in the editorials, features, pictorials, and advertisements of these magazines. Like the mainstream publications aimed at white yuppie readers, black lifestyle magazines celebrated conspicuous consumption, but their celebrations contained cultural cues specifically addressed to African American readers. They used black models and African American and African cultural iconography in fashion features and advertisements and promoted African American designers. As a result, the luxury goods depicted on their pages spoke specifically to a particular kind of race pride. The magazines blended representations of African American success with a vibrant black consciousness flavored by the cultural politics of the 1970s and 1980s. Readers sustained the dual nature of the racial uplift project; they responded with both unease and enthusiasm to messages in the magazines they wrote to. Their correspondence, featured in “Letters to the Editor” sections of lifestyle magazines, captures a sense of sometimes contradictory ideas about sartorial indulgence. Their letters also reveal intracultural attitudes about the relationship between African Americans and the publications that claim to represent their interests. This chapter explores the cultural politics of black lifestyle magazines and their readers. Focused on images of black affluence, it documents the ways African American lifestyle magazines that were published in the 1980s drew on the long-standing politics of racial uplift in order to sell luxury clothing to an upwardly mobile and newly wealthy readership.

Luxury Dressing and Real and Utopian “Elsewheres” Luxury garments are those that are not necessary for covering the body but are deemed highly desirable because of their comfort and extravagance. Sociologist Ruth Rubinstein suggests that luxury garments are clothing symbols their wearers use to advertise their wealth, enhance their sense of social significance, and attest to their social superiority and entitlement.12 Fashion features and advertisements portraying extravagantly dressed models likewise create an atmosphere of luxury, leisure, exclusivity and excess, but their symbolic effect is somewhat different: they invite access to that world.

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Employing a philosophical theory of Roland Barthes, Ellen McCracken argues that fashion magazines provide “momentary utopian visions of self,” often by evoking festive moments that promise to transport readers to an imagined “elsewhere.”13 For African Americans, such visions were facilitated by black publications that used black models and African American cultural imagery to advertise luxury goods that had previously been associated with whites.14 Features on fashion for travel, holidays, and entertaining all took on aspects of an aspirational blackness that helps us understand the complexities of race and consumer culture in the 1980s. Varying according to the season, magazines sold readers on fashions for trips to exotic locales. Travel, of course, meant finding the right clothes to wear, and magazines wove fashion and travel together into stories of aspiration and uplift. In the mid-1970s, Essence averaged five travel advertisements and editorials per issue, and though that number decreased in the 1980s, its features selling fashions for holidays abroad continued to increase. The magazine ran stories on Caribbean beaches, European hotspots, and African and South American locations where visitors could relax but also expand their African diasporic consciousness, while dressed up in the latest fashions.15 These stories assumed that readers were able to afford vacations and that they would shop for them, though clothing for vacations did not necessarily denote high expense or high glamour. The opulence was instead in the vacations themselves and the idea that new clothes had to be purchased for them. Editors combined culturally significant travel recommendations with advice about buying clothes, offering purchase suggestions largely dictated by the climate and activities available at the locale being visited. Their stories addressed ambitious black Americans’ desire for exotic travel, pan-African cultural awareness, and conspicuous consumption. Meanwhile, they also reinforced their racial uplift mission by combining ideals of race consciousness with visions of affluence that were both informational and aspirational for readers. Fashion features and editorials created expressly for evenings out helped define the glamour and opulence that was key to the aspirational lifestyle of the 1980s that let African American readers be rich and black at the same time. Stories covered travel and fashion, but they also picked up black threads closer to home. In the 1970s, the popularity of disco gave rise to a clothing market specifically geared toward items that could be worn while dancing in nightclubs. Disco clothes were flexible, easy to wash, and often made out of new blends of synthetic materials. Although it is easy to look down on disco fashion as seventies kitsch, in the 1980s, dance-club clothing set the standard for glamour on the pages of lifestyle magazines. Ads and stories featured models dressed in flashy clothing and accessories but gave them a black accent. African American magazines followed the trend toward over-the-top, elaborate evening wear with spreads featuring bedazzled and bejeweled looks for women. But 1980s magazines also tamed disco’s exuberance and featured high-end conservative styles for both sexes—tuxedoes and evening dresses for subdued occasions.

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In its opening issue in May 1970, Essence presented itself as “a fashion and beauty authority, presenting the clothes, cosmetics, and hairstyles that are adaptable to our particular good looks, taste, and many varied skin tones.” Almost every December issue published during its first ten years featured holiday fashions that became touchstones of luxury dressing for dedicated subscribers. Holiday looks took on a new meaning amid the opulence of the 1980s and provided a platform for the latest fashions of the era. Exquisitely dressed black women models, for example, posed alone in spacious mansions, and in the most lavish layouts, the glamour of the clothing was often enhanced through sets created to look like nighttime parties packed with well-dressed guests.16 In many ways, these holiday scenes served as fantasies of consumption, scenes of holiday fun set in plush, inviting surroundings. Stories invited readers to imagine themselves as part of the well-dressed, nicely accessorized group. Fashion spreads displayed prices, named designers, and listed boutiques and department stores where readers could find featured items. CLASS magazine (for “Caribbean, Latin, African American Sight and Sounds”), a popular New York–based digest founded in 1979, catered to blacks of U.S. and Caribbean descent, offering many consumption fantasies in its fashion features and advertisements. Consider a feature sponsored by Pro-Line hair products (the second largest manufacturer of ethnic beauty care products in the world). The story, “Dramatic Holiday Fashions for Head-to-Toe Glamour,” pictured men dressed in black suits or tuxedoes mingling with women in glittering, heavily beaded or sequined chiffon, silk, and satin evening gowns decorated with elaborate bows, flowers, and ruffles. In one scene, a woman and man walk hand in hand as they leave the party and prepare to enter his car. The caption reads: “Get together with your best beau, and know that your evening of holiday fun is just about to begin. Your slinky silver, backless gown, trimmed at the tail with hand-sewn sequins and beads, is the perfect complement to him and his RollsRoyce. And don’t forget your fox fur draped across your shoulder, in case you feel a draft.”17 CLASS never indicated a target socioeconomic audience in its mission, which was to serve the African diasporic community with leisure, fashion, and celebrity news. Still, its use of black models, gratuitous description of the expensive hand-beaded gown and fox fur stole, and inclusion of the Rolls-Royce as a backdrop to the fashion opulence provides a visual ideal of black progress that could be obtained through the purchase of luxury items, which its readers could acquire using the information provided in the photo spread. Modern Black Men embraced a more conservative vision of luxury that courted the most successful members of the black middle class. Unlike CLASS and other African American lifestyle magazines that published in the 1980s, which addressed more general audiences, Modern Black Men targeted “elite” readers, a mission that left little opportunity for flamboyance. The magazine avoided featuring flashy fashions in favor of helping its readers adhere to formal

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dress codes by promoting conventional garment choices, including a selection of luxurious evening wear, and validating the high expenses associated with obtaining quality garments. Its premier issue featured a column that instructed men on how to choose clothes for the holiday season—choices included a $500 wool tuxedo jacket, a $210 tuxedo shirt, and a $1,000 silk robe.18 One of Modern Black Men’s most noteworthy presentations of luxury holiday evening wear featured a fourteen-page spread stylized as a ball. The woman model in the spread played the part of a young heiress and debutante whose “coming out” was displayed in a series of images that moved the reader through the courtship process and featured exchanges between the heiress and six different suitors. Set amid luxurious surroundings and aptly titled “A Fantasy in Fashion,” the feature’s exclusive allure began on the first page with the image of an elegantly printed invitation that assigned titles drawn from European royalty to the party’s hosts: His Royal Highness Lord Ulric Grover Kavendish Master of Blackamore Manor Requests the Pleasure of Your Company For a Holiday Fortnight And the Presentation of His Daughter Her Ladyship Kristina Ever Kavendish On the First Day of Christmas Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five19

The language and style of the invitation underscored the “tasteful” formality of the fashions presented in the feature, which included men dressed in black or white tuxedoes and formal suits or, in more casual moments, designer slacks, sweaters, collared shirts, and bow ties. On each page the men contended for the affections of the heiress, who was shown three times: once in a gold-shimmery evening gown, once in expensive lingerie, and finally in a man’s Andrew Fezza collared shirt. The invitation referenced a history of black middle-class exclusivity and refinement by evoking the cotillions that elite blacks in mid-twentiethcentury urban centers staged to launch their daughters into polite society. The editor’s choice of a debutante ball as the setting for the feature was no coincidence. It drew on a cultural staple for showcasing luxury fashions that was familiar to the magazine’s target audience while it also reinforced the magazine’s uplift mission. Modern Black Men encouraged its readers to “support [our] self-esteem by revealing that many of us are descendants of royal households of African dynasties,” a statement that demonstrates the dual nature of its uplift project.20

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The magazine merged conventional middle-class sensibilities with black cultural consciousness by suggesting that an adherence to mainstream social norms could help African Americans achieve collective racial aspirations that, according to contemporary Afrocentric rhetoric, were the birthright of all African Americans. Members of the new black middle class need not feel out of place at fancy functions, the magazine’s editorials and advertising suggested; they were African royalty. Modern Black Men also engaged the social aspirations of the black elite with a steady stream of information on the rules of decorum for dressing for formal events. One article, for example, described the custom-made tuxedos and the formal wear needed to dine with diplomats, heads of state, and ambassadors. It also instructed readers about what to wear to the weddings of high-ranking officials and about the colors and cuts permissible in the summer season. Others stressed the importance of propriety and making a favorable impression on those whose respect a person wished to gain. “The Gentleman whose clothing makes the proper impression,” a 1986 article in Modern Black Men noted, “need not announce his arrival—his attire speaks eloquently on his behalf.”21 By implication, the writer suggested, a man whose clothing does not make the proper impression does not succeed in uplifting himself or his race. Although the articles and advertisements in Modern Black Men and other similar magazines sometimes trafficked in elaborate fantasies, they anchored those fantasies in a language of racial uplift that was familiar to both wealthy and upwardly mobile black readers. In addition to offering information about the appropriate evening fashions for the holidays and how to dress properly for formal occasions, these magazines also published spreads of the latest in luxury fashions for all occasions and advice about how to give such clothing an African American perspective. In a 1986 Essence editorial, for example, an African American wedding consultant lectured readers about how to infuse the high glamour of the moment into their own wedding fashions, offering a variety of looks, including those for Afrocentric couples.22 Another feature mixed contemporary glamour with African-inspired fashions through the use of elegant head wraps that matched evening gowns and shiny gold arm cuffs paired with equally glittery sleeveless gold lamé cocktail dresses.23 Such combinations were particularly prominent in Upscale, an African American luxury lifestyle magazine founded in 1989. Since its founding, the magazine regularly published articles that included photographs and commentary from Bronner Brothers fashion shows. Bronner Brothers is a family-owned company that has been involved in creative styling and products for African American hair for over sixty years. Their fashion shows coupled elaborate hair fashions and luxury fashions and, as publicized in Upscale, represented the ultimate fusion of high style, black hair culture, and African American runway

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showmanship. In both Essence and Upscale, the cuing of culturally relevant and familiar motifs spoke to an audience of potential customers drawn to both cultural nationalism and high-end fashions.

Furs, Leathers, and Black Designer Profiles In luxury fashion, nothing denotes status, opulence, excess, rarity, and expense like animal furs and leather.24 While African American magazines occasionally presented such fashions as utilitarian, authentic fur was more likely to figure as a marker of exclusivity and wealth on their pages.25 Both Essence and CLASS often highlighted leather, suede, and furs and the exclusivity and glamour tied to wearing them. CLASS used fur coats and capes in its fashion sections and in retrospective articles highlighting vintage fashions and how to translate them into contemporary glamour.26 The magazine’s editors also displayed leather and suede fashions as part of opulent eveningwear by showcasing leather suits for men and women and the leather midi-length A-line skirts popular in the early 1980s.27 Essence tended to present these fashions not just as timeless glamour but also as practical investment pieces.28 In their explorations of the usability of leathers and suede and especially furs, the magazine’s editors often used them to represent the better things in life—a kind of aspirational fashion for their readers. The leather, suede, and fur presented in African American magazines also offer specific examples of how upper-class sartorial sensibilities could be translated into forms of racial uplift. Many articles presented the ownership of fur and leather clothing as fundamental signs of race-based accomplishment, status, and beauty. They also described them as a luxurious way to exhibit cultural pride on the body. Thus, the production of leather and fur garments by African Americans designers can be considered a form of uplift in two ways. The presentation of clothing made of these materials in these magazines was a point of pride for black designers who sought to prove that they could produce luxury garments featuring the same expensive materials mainstream designers and fashion houses used. In addition, African Americans who purchased leather and suede garments created by black designers could participate in status rituals of the wealthy while exercising black economic empowerment. Many publications suggested that fur and leather had special meanings for African Americans. In one instance, CLASS included a runway photograph in an article on a fur fashion show at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City. The writer’s statement assumes a state of elegance that is organic to African American phenotypes and bodily expression: “Many fashion designers agree that no one can carry off a look with more style than a beautifully turned out black model. . . . The radiant skin tones and sophisticated flair of the male and female models set off the exquisite fur creations to perfection.”29 Essence adapted leather to the Afrocentric fashions popular at the time in a 1990 piece featuring rappers

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Queen Latifah, Big Daddy Kane, and singers Christopher Williams and the group “Take 6.”30 In a fashion pictorial replete with African motifs—pillboxstyled African crowns, garments made of Kente cloth and mudcloth, and ethnic jewelry—the leather worn by these celebrity models takes on an Afrocentric gloss and symbolizes luxury, status, and comfort. Using African American celebrities to promote leather fashions with Afrocentric ornamentation linked exclusivity, luxury, and cultural awareness. In the 1980s, many black designers collaborated with magazines such as Modern Black Men and CLASS to use visions of racial uplift to sell luxury garments. Promotional spreads adopted Africaninspired elements to “dress everyone as though they were kings and queens.”31 While the publications reviewed here often included interviews or profiles highlighting African American designers, they were especially proud of the designers who produced luxury goods. In 1986, CLASS asserted that “wellknown fur designers Spencer Flournoy and James McQuay both have proven to the fashion industry that black furriers are steadfastly on the move” and featured photo spreads of black models draped in mink who were described as “successful associates . . . who appreciate the finer things in life.”32 Two years later, Essence published a feature spotlighting Flournoy, McQuay, and African American designers Stephen Burrows and Jeffery Black that explored the work of these black male designers in producing fur creations. The article emphasized McQuay’s designation as the owner/operator of one of the first wholesale fur companies owned by a black man.33 The magazine similarly heralded designer Elaine Baskin-Bey for producing leather goods with African motifs.34 Magazines applauded the ability of African American designers to be successful in the fashion industry through their creation of such iconic luxury fashions. They assessed these accomplishments in the context of racial uplift, focusing on black economic empowerment and attention to black sartorial expressive culture.

Advertising Like the advertisements in their mainstream counterparts, ads in African American magazines in the 1980s varied greatly. The most prominent predecessor of these magazines had successfully persuaded advertisers to invest a portion of their marketing budgets in African American publications. Through the personal connection of one of its executives with Ebony founder John H. Johnson, media giant Zenith became the magazine’s first big marketing account. Johnson and his team then bargained for more valuable advertising income. In 1970 the New York Times reported that the monthly was “Fat on Ads,” having received $10 million in advertising revenue in 1969 alone.35 This was only, of course, after Ebony had proved that there was an intelligent black population with the desire and financial wherewithal to purchase what was being sold.36

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In 1989, American Demographics published an article titled “In the Black,” which historian Robert Weems describes as one of the “most illuminating profiles of African American economic achievement” published during that decade.37 That article, like many of the African American magazines published during that time period, “vouched for the existence of the upscale black consumer.”38 However, it is clear that despite John H. Johnson’s success, as late as the 1970s and 1980s many potential advertisers still questioned the existence of this consumer group. While demographic changes took place in these decades related to white flight and integration that increased the placements of advertisements in African American periodicals, most still had to hustle for advertising dollars.39 For example, Marcia Ann Gillespie, Essence’s editor in chief in the mid1970s, always had a tough time convincing advertisers that black women had serious buying power.40 And black men’s magazines such as Modern Black Men, Main Man (a short-lived fashion and lifestyle quarterly published in the early 1980s), and Ebony Man had similar difficulties. Indeed, only Ebony Man was able to keep its advertisers for the long haul.41 Advertisements for luxury goods sold in lifestyle magazines were often associated with fashion pictorials produced by the editorial staff. There, editors, writers, designers and advertising associates created fantasies of consumption built on a story that offered illusions of real and utopian “elsewheres,” included black cultural elements, or celebrated African American achievement by promoting the opulent creations of black designers. However, most of the advertisements for luxury garments and accessories in African American magazines in the 1980s simply placed African American models in the spaces where white models may have been in mainstream magazines. In its first issue in May 1970, for example, Essence printed an ad from high-end luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman. The spread featured an abstract drawing of two young women—one white, one black—dressed in the season’s latest fashions. The magazine continued to publish similar Bergdorf advertisements in the next several issues. Beginning in 1979, companies and brands such as Napier, Monet, J. C. Penney, Majorica, Zales, the Franklin Mint, Bloomingdales, and Diane von Fürstenberg also purchased full-page ads in Essence that featured photographs of black models. Several promoted jewelry, but usually alongside pricey clothes. Smaller companies such as Royal Silk and Longines took out quarter-page ads for watches and expensive silk and angora garments. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Furs by Dimitrios, Plymouth, Davellin Ballencia, Blackglama, Spiegel, and the Fur Information Council of America also began to target black consumers. Featured in Essence, their ads sometimes used little-known black models but also used celebrities to promote fur ownership. They encouraged black readers to “make a beautiful investment,” “reach for the stars,” and consider purchasing “fox, lynx, beaver, fitch . . . and minks from $2,000.00 to $15,000.00” because of “the way it empowers.”42 Hair care

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companies such as Posner, Care Free Curl, and Pro-Line Soft and Beautiful capitalized on the popularity of luxury goods as vehicles of empowerment and uplift among black readers by featuring carefully coiffed men and women draped in furs. These advertisements combined personal grooming products for African Americans with materialist aspirations by drawing on what writers have called black hair politics, a mixture of cultural pride and respectability.43 A few of the advertisements that sold luxury goods to black consumers were overtly political advertisements. These usually appealed to their audience’s black nationalist sentiments. CLASS magazine’s December/January 1980/1981 issue included an ad by James McQuay that described him as “The Black Furrier.”44 Buying from a black furrier, the advertisement implied, would enable black consumers to both indulge a wish for luxury and support the community. More often, though, company ownership was beside the point. Companies that made no reference to the ethnicity of the owner used discernible coded cultural cues that drew upon African pride in their efforts to persuade readers to purchase luxury items. They included the Franklin Mint (which offered the “Cleopatra” necklace), the Africa Collection (which provided elegant jewelry of the “motherland” that, however, was made exclusively in France), the Black Cameo Collection (which sold expensive brooches made with the iconic carving and engraving method that uses an African rather than a European silhouette), and smaller outlets, peddling what they called “authentic” and “regal” cummerbunds, bow ties, pocket squares, and stoles made of hand-woven Kente cloth as formalwear imported from Ghana.

Reader Responses Fashion-focused magazines sparked controversy in the black community. Black writer-activists criticized Essence magazine for offering “cosmetics, the desire for the latest everything, and plain nonsense.”45 The publishers were “hustling ‘blackness’ for profit,” Askia Muhammad Toure claimed.46 Ellen McCracken describes Essence as “the contradictory constellation of black nationalism and consumerism,” a phrase that captures the complex politics of racial uplift that mingled elements of late twentieth-century consumerism with culturally specific messages of black empowerment. The magazine skillfully paired conspicuous consumption with race pride.47 John H. Johnson, the publisher of Ebony and Jet, had long employed the tactic of producing a range of publications to appeal to diverse African American readers. Yet the limited range of African American publications also forced many individual publications to attempt to appeal to broad segments of the population.48 The diversity in the African American readership and differing attitudes about luxury fashions in magazine content can be found in opinions printed in letters to the editors of a variety of lifestyle magazines.

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Reader responses are complicated sources to use when trying to gauge what people thought about what they read in a magazine or newspaper. Those who wrote in to magazine editors were a self-selected group of people, and the choices editors made about what letters to publish further narrows this group. Thus, there are inherent biases in using reader responses to gauge audience opinion. Still, published letters offer some insight into the extent to which the magazines in this study were effective in their racial uplift mission. Their ability to actually sell luxury items to their readership is less clear. From its inception, Essence magazine sought to engage black women in ways that would provide an assortment of beauty standards that complemented the nature of the African-descended woman.49 It also hoped to appeal to black women from all socioeconomic backgrounds. However, it is clear that Essence wanted to cultivate an upwardly mobile readership that was as interested in fashion as it was in politics. In letters appearing as early as the sixth issue and continuing throughout the 1970s, Essence readers criticized the high costs of products advertised in the magazine. Several readers asked for more fashion tips for the “low-income woman,” “the average black working female,” and “people who live on a tight budget and have a family to support.” They wanted to see fashions that “consider every aspect of the Black experience” and were not “beyond the average [black] woman’s reach.” In short, as one writer put it, they wanted “‘down to earth’ fashions which most black women wear and can afford.” One reader sent the following letter: I enjoy reading Essence, but the fashion department is a letdown. Unfortunately, I am only a housewife who takes care of two children, but does not have a high-paying job that allows me to buy your $23-a-pair shoes and $48 jumpsuits [“Knitty Gritties & Footgears,” August 1970]. I’m also sure that the average Black working female doesn’t have that kind of money, either. It would be nice to see the fashion department contain patterns and fabrics that are within my budget instead of models in expensive clothes that we could never afford. Either your editors get good pay, or they still want us to walk around with our tongues hanging out, dreaming the impossible dream, and wishing we could have this-or-that! Besides, I think homemade clothes fit much better and look nicer than those A&S originals with their manufactured mistakes.50

A few months later, another reader chided the editors. She urged them to stay true to their mission to serve the black woman and that doing so did not include “showing clothes that cost fifty and sixty dollars.”51 Though Essence often included features on economical “budget dressing,” the racial language readers used in their conversations about affordable fashions revealed their expectations. They hoped that magazines would not merely replicate mainstream fashion magazines that catered to financially secure white women; they believed that

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“our magazines” needed to take all of the black experience into account. Not all readers felt this way. Some wrote that they saw no reason for the financially secure to be deprived of access to designer fashions simply because other readers could not afford them. Others believed that the publication did a great job of balancing both high-priced and budget fashions.52 When readers wrote to Essence about their expectations that the magazine would publish material related to meeting the budgetary needs of African American women, they also made it clear that they wanted the magazine to consider the sources of the fashions they promoted. Ms. Barbara Washington, for example, encouraged the magazine to focus on black designers: “I think that Essence is the best thing that’s happened to black women since the Afro, but . . . if this magazine is supposed to be designed with the black women in mind, then why not have some clothes that relate more to them? I think Yves Saint Laurent is a great designer but there must be some black designers with as much creativity. Why not give them a play? You’re the only magazine I would rely on for that. Keep up the good work, you’re looking good.”53 The magazine had always featured black designers, but the interest of readers in supporting these artists is telling. They were keenly aware of the necessity of celebrating black designers whose impact extended beyond the African American community and even the United States. In 1987, for example, readers enthusiastically welcomed a tribute to the late African American designer Willi Smith; they saw his life’s work as an important component of the American contribution to fashion.54 Readers who wrote to other publications similarly expressed a desire to have black designers and models serve as emblems of African American progress. Their success, their talent and creativity, put them on par with white counterparts.55 By the 1980s, Essence readers had become more tolerant of editorials and advertisements displaying luxury fashions, or so their letters seem to suggest. The change may have been rooted in an increased sense of financial security among the magazine’s readership and the magazine’s greater focus on budget fashions, or it might reflect decisions made by the editors not to include letters of complaint. Whatever the reason, in the 1980s, readers who expressed disappointment with the magazine’s presentation of opulent garments and accessories focused more on social responsibility than on cost. Reader Betty Miles, who wrote to the magazine in January 1989, said that she found it “distressing to see all the animal skins” used in the set of a spread by African American fashion journalist Andre Leon Tally. African Americans, she argued, needed to be more concerned about animal rights and environmental issues. Likewise, the Rev. Masada from Lincoln Acres, California, questioned the magazine’s social commitments in a complaint about one of the magazine’s luxurious lingerie spreads. “I am dismayed that you would relegate four of the greatest women in African-American history [Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Amy Jacques Garvey, and Septima Clark] to a mere page and yet give seven full pages to half-naked

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women in sexy underwear,” he or she wrote. “Don’t you think your priorities are reversed?”56 Men writing to Modern Black Men were generally supportive of the luxury fashion choices of the publication. Unlike Ebony Man and Essence, Modern Black Men had made it clear from its inaugural issue that it catered to a certain type of black readership—one that was “white-collar.” However, according to one reader whose letter was published in the “Kudos” section in 1986, the magazine fell short of becoming a counterpart to Essence. He argued that it focused too much on fashion and too little on social and political issues impacting the black community: “I’ve browsed through other Modern Black Men issues and there again, a lot of handsome men wearing fancy, pretty clothes. . . . When I read that magazines would be coming out for black men about black men, I really looked forward to it and hoped that Modern Black Men would dare to be profound or at least thought-provoking; say like a male Essence. But not so for this reader.”57 This letter prompted a lengthy response in which the editor argued that the focus on fashion in the magazine offered one of many strategies for counteracting the negative images of African American men in the media. Like Modern Black Men’s editor, most readers who wrote about the publication’s fashions believed that the magazine’s presentation of high-quality, expensive fashions and accessories was a practical racial uplift strategy. In one case, the chair of the Attica Inner City Black Awareness Project wrote to acknowledge the magazine’s potential to help prisoners “cultivate and . . . rebuild [their] character, dignity, credibility, and overall manhood” through many means, the dignified presentation of black men in luxury clothing among them.58 Thanks to Modern Black Men, another reader claimed, he had bought products he would have never considered purchasing and gone places he had never dreamed of going. Modern Black Men broadened his horizons and inspired confidence through the “believability” of a black publication.59 Another reader suggested that the editors should continue on their chosen path even when readers accused the magazine of being “too ‘middle-class’” or “not black enough.”60 He felt that the fashions and models were professional, fashionable, distinguished, and clean cut, “just what young black men needed to boost their morale.”61 In general, readers affirmed that the magazine offered them what they had longed for in GQ (formerly Gentlemen’s Quarterly, a premier fashion and lifestyle magazine for men) but with a perspective on fashion and grooming tailored to the particular needs of the black aspirational class.62 Luxury fashions were prominent in the pages of African American periodicals in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Their editors’ assumption that a certain level of material comfort and access to wealth and leisure were important in the lives of their readers was sometimes debated in the “Letters to the Editor” sections of these publications, but readers seemed to grow more comfortable with such assumptions over time. Working with advertisers and designers to

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sell clothing by crafting fantasies of consumption that were inflected with carefully constructed ideas about blackness, magazine editors successfully presented luxury fashions as an integral part of the lifestyle of upwardly mobile African Americans. The proliferation of these fashions in African American magazines was facilitated by editors and advertisers who linked expensive clothing to both African-inspired fantasies and cultural motifs and community support for black designers and black businesses. The publications encouraged black designers to create innovative fashions and supported black expressive culture. They featured fashions in ways that were unique to the African American experience and thereby suggested that the acquisition of these fashions could serve as a vehicle for racial uplift.

Notes 1. George C. Pryce, “Within” (editor’s note), Modern Black Men, Premier 1984, 6. 2. The complete editor’s note in the September 1985 issue suggests that Pryce was responding

to critics of his inaugural message, though it was not clear precisely who he was addressing. He began, “I promised to clarify a statement which I have widely made (and will continue to make) in regard to MBM.” 3. George C. Pryce, “Within” (editor’s note), Modern Black Men, September 1985, 4. 4. Alfred Fornay, “Introducing . . . Ebony Man,” Ebony Man, November 1985, 6. 5. Editor-in-Chief, “Dig It,” Essence, May 1970, 5. 6. Essence, like the magazines mentioned, was also founded in 1970. 7. Robert Weems, Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 100. 8. David E. Sumner, The Magazine Century: American Magazines since 1900 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2010), 177–178. 9. Ellen McCracken, Decoding Women’s Magazines: From Mademoiselle to Ms. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992), 223. 10. Ibid., 157. The 1970s had been labeled the “‘Me Decade” by writers who have noted the move toward individualism and away from communal thought and action since the 1960s. The 1980s are often viewed as an extension of that individualism. 11. Valerie Steele, Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 109–111, 118. 12. See Ruth P. Rubinstein, Dress Codes: Meaning and Message in American Culture (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2001). Historian Noliwe Rooks argues that for black women, clothing from Reconstruction through the mid-twentieth century was meant to project an image of wealth and to serve as armor against those who did not believe that the wearer was worthy of respect, thus protecting black womanhood. See Noliwe Rooks, Ladies’ Pages: African American Women’s Magazines and the Culture That Made Them (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004). 13. McCracken, Decoding Women’s Magazines, 164. See also Roland Barthes, The Fashion System (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990). 14. William H. Taft, American Magazines for the 1980s (New York: Hasting House, 1982), 241. 15. Most of these explored the comfort level that black Americans would experience upon visiting such locales, for example, the locals’ interest in African American culture, visiting African American historical sites and predominately black countries with strong African influences, and drifting through Europe visiting African markets.

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16. “Holiday Nights,” Essence, December 1987, 63. 17. Yvonne Rose, “Dramatic Holiday Fashions for Head-to-Toe Glamour,” CLASS,

November 1985, 56. 18. “Informal Formalwear,” Modern Black Men, Premier 1984, 31. 19. “A Fantasy in Fashion,” Modern Black Men, December 1985, 49. 20. George C. Pryce, “Within” (editor’s note), Modern Black Men, September 1985, 4. 21. “Formal Eloquence: A Fashionable R.S.V.P. to a Black Tie Invitation,” Modern Black Men, October 1986, 52–56. 22. Hilton Als, “Fashion Sense—Wedding News: Celebrate!” Essence, February 1986. 23. “Dressing for Cocktails,” CLASS, January 1984, 57–61; and “Fashion,” CLASS, October 1989. 24. R. Turner Wilcox, The Mode in Furs: A Historical Survey with 680 Illustrations (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2010). 25. “Fashion Sense: Fabulous Fakes,” Essence, January 1988, 35. 26. “Classic Look,” CLASS, January 1987, 16; “Fall into Winter,” CLASS, September– October–November 1982, 54–55; and “Antique Boutique: Vintage Style,” CLASS, January 1983 or 1986, 60–61. 27. “Leather and Suede,” CLASS, January 1983, 58–59 and “Fall into Winter,” CLASS, September–October–November 1982, 53. 28. “Fur Accents: Cozy Little Number to Warm You All Over,” Essence, November 1982, 96–97; and “It’s Leather Weather,” Essence, September 1983, 67, 76. 29. “Fashions at the Whitney M. Young Classic,” CLASS, November 1986, 24. 30. Elise B. Washington, “Gimme Some Skin!,” Essence, October 1990, 72–79. 31. Carol Mongo, “Relax—You’re in Style!,” Modern Black Men, January 1987, 42. Other example is Kathy Rodrigues-Taylor, “Haute Couture Africaine,” Black Elegance, October– November 1990, 38–39. 32. Yvonne Rose, “‘Beyond the Basics’ with Fabulous Furs,” CLASS, December 1986, 44–45. 33. “Dream Makers: Four Designing Men Who Create Splendor in Fur,” Essence, November 1982, 88–94. 34. “Fashion Sense: Designs on Leather,” Essence, November 1989, 40. 35. Philip H. Dougherty, “Ebony, Near 25th Birthday, Is Fat on Ads,” New York Times, April 26, 1970, F24. See also Roland E. Wolseley, The Black Press, U.S.A, 2nd ed. (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990), 87–88. 36. Rooks, Ladies’ Pages, 133. 37. Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 103. 38. Ibid., 106. 39. Inner-city department stores, needing to find a way to cater to the remaining population, considerably increased the placement of their ads in black periodicals. As more African Americans moved from city centers to the suburbs, the audience for black newspapers declined. In addition, as newsrooms desegregated and the news outlets broadened their agendas, more blacks became interested in following mainstream press coverage. By the 1970s and 1980s, purchasing nationally and internationally circulating black magazines had become a political act that expressed solidarity with the civil rights movement, and this increased subscriptions and circulation. See David Abrahamson and Carol Polsgrove, “The Right Niche: Consumer Magazines and Advertisers”; James L. Baughman, “Wounded but Not Slain: The Orderly Retreat of the American Newspaper”; and Jane Rhodes, “The Black Press and Radical Print Culture,” all in A History of the Book in America, vol. 5, The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America, ed. David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, and Michael Schudson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 114, 126, and 292, respectively.

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40. Taft, American Magazines for the 1980s, 245. 41. Wolseley, The Black Press, 152. Ebony Man’s relative success in securing advertisers might

be largely attributable to the fact that it was part of the well-established Johnson publishing empire. 42. See American Fur Industry advertisement, Essence, November 1979 and 1980; Davellin Balencia advertisement, Essence, December 1986; and Fur Information Council of American advertisement, Essence, November 1993. 43. During the 1980s and early 1990s many editorials were published in Essence and other popular African American magazines that fueled an ongoing and productive discourse concerning the many options available for styling black women’s hair and their relative appropriateness in a range of environments. 44. James McQuay Furs advertisement, CLASS, December–January 1980–1981, 4. 45. Joe Goncalves, “Some Notes,” editorial, Journal of Black Poetry 1 (Summer 1972): 3 46. Askia Muhammad Toure (Rolland Snellings), “Report on the ‘Essence’ Magazine Affair,” Journal of Black Poetry 1 (Winter–Spring 1970): 108. 47. McCracken, Decoding Women’s Magazines, 224. 48. For example, Ebony was considered to be a magazine for the older black middle class, Black Stars was seen as a publication for the younger middle class, Jet catered to the “busy, new-hungry, mostly professional and insider workers,” and Black World was geared toward the “militant and literary-artistic.” Wolseley, The Changing Magazine, 106. 49. Editor-in-Chief, “Dig It,” Essence, May 1970, 5. 50. Raine Young, “‘Write On!’—‘Put Down,’” Essence, October 1970, 12. 51. Diane Wilson, “‘Write On!—‘Please Keep Your Promises!,’” Essence, January 1971, 59. 52. See Chris Williams, “Write On!’—‘Back Pats,’” Essence, October 1974, 4. 53. Barbara Washington, “‘Write On!’—Request for Black Designers,” Essence, January 1971, 4. 54. See “In Memory of Willi Smith,” Essence, September 1987, 6. 55. For example, see Valina Mendez, “BE Letters,” BE, April 1990, 10. 56. “Write On,” Essence, April 1990, 116. 57. Roy Lott, “Kudos,” Modern Black Men, December 1986, 4. 58. Norman Cooley, “Kudos,” Modern Black Men, November 1985, 6. 59. William Long, “Kudos,” Modern Black Men, February 1987, 6. 60. Jeffrey King, “Kudos,” Modern Black Men, August 1986, 6. 61. Richard A. Sparks, “Kudos,” Modern Black Men, October 1986, 4. 62. See Eddie Johnson Jr., “Kudos,” Modern Black Men, December 1985, 6; Tyrone Jackson, “Kudos,” Modern Black Men, September 1985, 8; and Audrey Durieux, “Kudos,” Modern Black Men, January 1987, 6.

13 • R ACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN RETAIL SETTINGS A Liberation Psychology Perspective J E R O M E D. W I L L I A M S, G E R A L D I N E R O S A H E N D E R S O N , S O P H I A R . E V E T T, A N D A N N E-M A RI E G. H A KSTI A N

“There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me,” noted President Barack Obama in a speech he made after hearing that George Zimmerman had been acquitted of the slaying of Trayvon Martin.1 Even though Trayvon Martin was killed by the neighborhood watch volunteer in a gated community,2 parallels exist in marketplace venues where people of color have been followed, assaulted, or even killed by retail security guards who suspected them of shoplifting.3 Obama’s remark underscores the fact that retail security guards can be (and have been) as fatally hostile to young people of color as George Zimmerman was to Trayvon Martin. Arguably, although these documented tragedies are extreme, such confrontations illustrate the overall issue of racial bias in retail settings. Historically, retailers have often failed to provide a welcoming shopping environment for consumers of color.4 Evidence of this bias has come from selfreports of consumers who have not felt welcome over the years. For example, Jerome Williams and Thelma Snuggs conducted a mail survey of 1,000 households and found that 86 percent of African Americans felt that they were treated differently in retail stores based on their race, compared to 34 percent of whites.5 Also, according to a Gallup Poll Social Audit on Black/White Relations in the United States, 35 percent of blacks say they are treated less fairly than whites in neighborhood shops, 46 percent say they are treated less fairly in downtown stores or in malls, and 39 percent say they are treated unfairly in restaurants, bars, and theaters.6 This poll also indicated that 27 percent of all black respondents, 263

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and 41 percent of black males between the ages of 18 and 34 felt that they had been treated unfairly in the previous thirty days in a store where they shop. According to the reality show What Would You Do?, 54 percent of African Americans reported that they were not treated equally in retail stores, whereas only 15 percent of white respondents said they felt that way.7 A number of other academic studies point to the same conclusions. For example, two recent studies of consumer racial profiling—a form of consumer discrimination that frequently occurs in retail settings in which people are suspected of criminal activity because of their race—have shown that black respondents were much more likely than whites to report having experienced racial profiling.8 Likewise, Kareem Jordan, Shaun Gabbidon, and George Higgins found that blacks were significantly more likely than whites to believe that profiling of customers based on their race is widespread.9 In addition, empirical research provides evidence of continued discrimination against black consumers. In one study, the researchers analyzed negotiations for more than 300 new car sales at dealerships in Chicago. Using identical scripted bargaining strategies, black testers were quoted significantly higher prices than white testers.10 More specifically, dealers made higher offers to black and female testers than to the white males with whom they were paired. Other research has shown that black customers wait significantly longer than white customers at retail customer service counters.11 Further, they are treated worse when shopping in predominantly white neighborhoods.12 For example, Thomas Ainscough and Carol Motley analyzed the wait time of four testers who attempted to return unopened compact disks (without receipts) to eight stores from which they were purchased. The stores included both regional and national specialty and department stores. The testers, a black female, a black male, a white female, and a white male, were chosen for their similarities in age (22–25), educational level, body build and height, and attractiveness. Results showed that the black testers waited twice as long for service as the white testers (139.53 seconds and 69.97 seconds, respectively).13 In their examination of eighty-one federal court decisions made between 1990 and 2002 involving customers’ allegations of racial and/or ethnic discrimination, Anne-Marie G. Harris, Geraldine Rosa Henderson, and Jerome D. Williams demonstrated that real and perceived consumer discrimination remains a problem in the U.S. marketplace and concluded that further research is necessary for marketers to address the issue effectively.14 Recent court cases suggest that retail racism is still widely practiced in 2014. In an employment discrimination lawsuit filed against celebrity chef Paula Deen and her brother Bubba Hiers for their Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House Restaurant, a white employee testified about the company’s policies: “Bubba Hiers didn’t even want black customers using the front bathrooms or in the restaurant PERIOD, but there wasn’t too much he could LEGALLY do about it. This was also a PAULA DEEN APPROVED POLICY.”15

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Likewise, a pair of former “perfumistas” at the high-end Bond No. 9 perfume shop claimed in a federal lawsuit that their shop’s owner used a code phrase to alert security when dark-skinned customers came into the store. “We need the light bulbs changed,” was the signal for an unwelcome customer, according to the lawsuit.16 A similar race code was used to identify unwanted patrons at Baur’s Opera House; the owner would tell the disc jockeys that it was “too dark in here” when he thought there were too many blacks. Plaintiffs who have sued Dillard’s department stores have alleged that the presence of black customers was signaled over the public address system.17 The fact that lawsuits such as these are still filed and sometimes won provides further evidence that racism and discrimination continue to prevail in retail settings and affect both customers and employees. Beyond anecdotes and evidence from court cases, a variety of scholarly studies provide empirical evidence of economic inequality and continued discrimination in retail settings. Such research suggests that further steps are needed to eliminate discrimination in retail settings. In this chapter, we explore how racial discrimination in retail settings is differentially perceived across racial and ethnic groups by seeking to understand the feelings and reflections of consumers about their interactions in the marketplace.18 We used the theoretical perspective of liberation psychology to gain insight into the effects of discrimination in retail settings.

A Liberation Psychology Perspective In the field of consumer research, it is customary to examine the theoretical framework that emerges from the data that is collected. We believe that the emergent themes from our data are best captured by the theoretical framework of liberation psychology.19 In 2005, Clark McKown noted that at its core, liberation psychology concerns the interactions between individuals and society.20 Rather than targeting social structures, liberation psychology interventions focus on individual members of oppressed groups, seeking to change individuals’ understanding of the social context in order to promote the capacity for selfdetermination. A central assumption of liberation psychology is that oppression often includes a tacit acceptance of inequities by both oppressors and oppressed. From this perspective, oppression reflects a lack of awareness of the social conditions that maintain oppression. The key to overcoming oppression is thus the development of critical consciousness on the part of oppressed people or an awareness of social and economic contradictions, particularly the conditions of social inequality. Glenn Adams, Laurie O’Brien, and Jessica Nelson have focused on three central tenets of liberation psychology analysis: recovering historical memory, de-ideologizing everyday experiences, and adopting the perspective of the oppressed.21 These three principles are reflected in various aspects of the stories

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provided in our interviews with participants about their experiences of discrimination in the marketplace and other related experiences. Furthermore, we argue that these principles can serve as guides for researchers trying to understand marketplace interactions and for retailers trying to improve relations with diverse clientele. Although we did not interview service providers directly, we used reports from informants about their exchanges with service providers. Our goal was twofold: to understand the experience of targets of marketplace discrimination and to understand their reactions to discrimination. This deeper understanding may provide retailers with insight that will enable them to better serve their customers. Methodology To answer our research questions, we carried out a phenomenological study by conducting 124 in-depth interviews of consumers representing various ethnoracial backgrounds. The coauthors and 53 student collaborators interviewed 124 people who were identified in multiple ways: some were personal contacts (friends and/or family members) of the interviewers, others were fellow students and/or co-workers, and a few were identified through the Internet. The informants represented a variety of ethnoracial groups, countries, and ages (ranging from 18 to 75 years old). The ethnoracial groups included Asians, white Americans, black Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and those of mixed heritage. We recognize that individuals from the Hispanic ethnic group may belong to different racial groups and may experience varying levels of discrimination based on phenotype. Informants identified the ethnoracial group or groups that were most important to their self-identity. The informants were asked to recount experiences of marketplace discrimination. We did not define marketplace discrimination so that informants could tell us how they characterized and perceived such occurrences. Interviewers were trained to use a standardized discussion guide.22 They were also trained about probing techniques to determine individual meanings and perceptions and about the appropriate depth of discussions. The interviews were conducted face to face, over the telephone, or via the Internet (e.g., Skype). Each interview was audiotaped and/or videotaped. The average length of the interviews was sixty minutes; the range was from forty minutes to ninety minutes, depending on the extent of the informant’s experiences with marketplace discrimination and the level of detail they shared. Informants provided basic demographic data and contact information for subsequent verification of accuracy. Pseudonyms protect the anonymity of our respondents. We also examined extant literature on discrimination and oppression from numerous disciplines (e.g., sociology, psychology, political science, history) to help us understand the issues the respondents raised. We analyzed articles containing qualitative and quantitative data on the meaning of, perception of,

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or responses to marketplace discrimination using Craig Thompson’s approach, which draws on the philosophical concept of the hermeneutical circle to explore the cultural viewpoints that underlie the meanings consumers express.23 Findings In presenting our findings, we rely on the liberation psychology perspective to increase our understanding of racial discrimination in retail settings. We begin with Alvin, who described an experience he had when trying to get into a club, and then we discuss the first tenet of liberation psychology, namely recovering historical memory. I even had my social security card with me and he had assumed that wasn’t mine either or somehow that was set up to help me get in unfairly. So I stood out there and argued with him and was trying to get people to back me up. [People] who were already in the club came out to talk to him and they were saying, “Come on this is just one person,” but he stood ground and it was really unsatisfying because I knew and it’s not politically right to just say that you know without proof but you get a feeling that it’s not about the rules there. It’s about a certain type of discrimination going on. (Alvin, twenties, Asian male)

Alvin could sense that he was being discriminated against even if such a feeling would not hold up in a court of law. He might not be able to prove it, but he “knew.” Indeed, the feeling that they just “knew” what was happening or was about to happen to them was an extremely common theme across our respondents. According to liberation psychology, this heightened awareness of discrimination comes out of the knowledge people from marginalized groups have about historical oppression. In contrast, many white Americans are less familiar with historically documented episodes of racism in U.S. history. For example, one study demonstrated that members of oppressed groups are much more sensitive than dominant group members in their ability to identify certain retailer behavior as discriminatory.24 In addition, the findings of Jordan, Gabbidon, and Higgins have shown that members of a marginalized group (blacks) were more likely than members of the dominant group (whites) to believe that marketplace discrimination was widespread.25 It is possible that collective memory has informed the participants’ perceptions. Collective memory is shared across members of a group even if they have never met one another.26 In their investigation of autobiographical recollections, Carol M. Motely, Geraldine R Henderson, and Stacey Menzel Baker interviewed a black female informant who explained that she associated many retail products with racism. I grew up in part of my life in South Carolina so I had to look black memorabilia and racist advertisements in the face given that it was all around me. Like on the

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side of Route 15 north to south the Bull Durham tobacco ads, which depicted African Americans with exaggerated lips, exaggerated buttocks, tattered and torn clothes, very dark skin, “pickaninny” hair. And they were always shown as being shiftless, lazy, fishing, making physical sexual contact, and if there were words, they were speaking in black dialect “broken English” or “Ebonics” as they call it now. Even our children were the butt of those negative ads; for example, they would make postcards showing little naked black babies and underneath it would say “alligator bait.” (African American female, early fifties)27

Many Arab Americans report being singled out, detained, and discriminated against in the United States, particularly since the atrocities at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.28 Definitely because it just matters about what is going on with the current events in the world I think. At the time there was a time of turmoil with the Middle East. The events of 9/11 were still in the forefronts of people’s minds and the fact [is] that all this reflected horribly on Arab Americans. I think it had a pretty big effect. The thing is that nobody in my family looks Arab. My mom has a slight accent. (Saeed, twenty-one-year-old Arab American male)

The second tenet of liberation psychology cautions against mainstream thinking. De-ideologizing everyday experience requires a critical examination of the perceptions of dominant-group members who may perceive behavior differently than people of color because of different motivational pressures. White Americans may be motivated to ease feelings of collective guilt about racism by denying the extent to which it continues to occur. Accusing African Americans of “playing the race card” may alleviate some of the guilt because it allows whites to deny that a racist act took place. Recognizing incidents of racism may feel threatening to whites because such incidents imply that the social order is unjust or illegitimate. On the other hand, African Americans may be motivated to deflect feelings of shame for unsavory personal or group outcomes by noticing incidents of racism. David Crockett, Sonya A. Grier, and Jakki A. Williams have suggested that African American men’s perceptions of discrimination served a self-protective function.29 Furthermore, for African Americans, the explanation that racism may be at play in a given situation is plausible—and even likely—because they have the historical memory that many whites do not share. Like the woman above, our informants also reported feeling hurt after being ridiculed, describing how the hurt they felt was sometimes triggered with subtle cues. Their fear of not being able to order their meal, service, or product or not having the server or salesperson treat them with respect made them raw with sensitivity. These experiences can invoke feelings of stigma and shame because they arise in the context of a shared history of generations of abuse.

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So my mom was really upset because she felt like they were treating us differently just because we were minorities in the sense that maybe [the salesclerk] didn’t think that my mom could afford everything that I was trying on and I was just wasting her time and trying them on and just ending up buying one thing. My mom was really upset about that and she actually went as far as to tell me that “if you want, just buy everything, even if you don’t like it because I am sick of them treating us this way.” (Indian female, 21)

This statement illustrates the dual interpretations of the racist salesclerk (who stereotypes them as poor) and the customers who want to overcome the stereotype and prove her wrong. It also highlights the shame that arises from being negatively stereotyped. The third tenet of liberation psychology involves taking the perspective of the oppressed. Adams, O’Brien, and Nelson suggest that members of the dominant group (white Americans) tend to view racial inequality as a result of the personal or cultural attributes of the oppressed that contributes to inequality, or they tend to see it as a localized problem of biased individuals engaging in intentional acts of differential treatment. In contrast, people from oppressed groups are more likely to explain inequality and racial discrimination in systemic terms.30 One reason for these different perspectives is that most whites conceive of racists as people who harbor ill will toward nonwhites and do “bad things” to them.31 These “bad things” tend to be overt behaviors, such as marketplace practices in retail environments that preceded passage of Civil Rights laws, for example not being able to sit at a lunch counter in a department store. In contrast, members of oppressed groups conceive of racism as more pervasive and inclusive of subtle behaviors that may not be necessarily illegal but reflect implicit or even explicit attitudes of ill will toward them, for example being more suspicious of retail shoppers from oppressed groups because of an assumption that they might be more likely to engage in shoplifting. Note the personal experience of one of the co-authors of this chapter, a distinguished African American professor at a major research university who lived in a college town with a small ethnic minority population: My wife and I were shopping at a local mall with our children. Three of our sons went off to shop on their own. When we were ready to leave, we couldn’t find them. So we stopped by the mall’s central administration to check with management to see if they could assist us in finding them. To our surprise, we found our sons in the office. They were being detained for suspicion of shoplifting. When we inquired about what they had shoplifted, we were further surprised to find that the security guard actually had detained them based solely on the fact that all three were wearing new shirts—shirts that my wife had just purchased for them the day before and which they were wearing for the first time.

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Although this matter was resolved with the mall management and an apology was issued, what ensued when this professor discussed the situation with his colleagues and fellow faculty members, all of whom were white, illustrates the third tenet of liberation psychology. His colleagues all agreed that this was an isolated incident and that there was no basis for claiming that the mistreatment was based on the race of the professor’s children. Some indicated that such an incident could have happened to their own children. Others defended the actions of the security guard by claiming that he was only “doing his job” and that being alert to potential shoplifting behavior was what he was paid to do. They all failed to even consider the possibility that the mistreatment of their colleague’s children in this retail setting was based on their race. The professor had a different perspective. Because of his historical memory based on incidents in his own life, he concluded that the behavior of the security guard was race-based and was left wondering if every teenager coming into the mall wearing a new shirt was stopped for suspicion of shoplifting, as his children were. In addition, the failure of his colleagues to take the perspective of the oppressed was damaging to his perception and that of his family about the climate in this community regarding members of racial minority groups, and the incident frayed his relationship with some of his colleagues. This tenet of liberation psychology advances the premise we subscribe to, namely, that members of groups that have not traditionally been oppressed, such as whites who do not have the collective memory of historical discrimination, also must be able to adopt this perspective if discrimination in retail settings is to end.

The Importance of Multicultural Consumers to Retailers It can be argued that racial and ethnic minority groups have come a long way since the days of lunch-counter sit-ins to protest against segregation policies in department stores. The growth and size of the purchasing power of groups that historically have been invisible in the marketplace is frequently touted as evidence of racial progress in the scholarly literature, in the trade press, and in the popular press. However, it could also be said that these data point to the irrationality of the discriminatory behavior retailers exhibit toward certain customer groups; offending a significant segment of the market is never rational economic behavior. First, we highlight macrolevel evidence about the purchasing power of multicultural consumers by drawing on Selig Center data and then draw attention specifically to the retail context and the importance of multicultural consumers. The Selig Center’s projections of buying power for 2013 showed that the combined buying power of African Americans, Asians, and Native Americans would

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exceed $2 trillion. In addition, the $1.2 trillion Hispanic market is larger than the entire economies (2010 gross domestic product measured in U.S. dollars) of all but thirteen countries in the world.32 Jerome D. Williams, May O. Lwin, Anne-Marie G. Hakstian, and Velma A. Gooding noted that demographic changes and growth in multicultural purchasing power are particularly important for retailers.33 According to a 2003 National Shopping Behavior Study, ethnic minority consumers are increasingly important to department store retailers. In that study, 11 percent of Caucasians, 15 percent of Hispanics, and 18 percent of African Americans reported spending more at department stores than at other retail channels, including catalogs, the Internet, and other types of retail outlets (e.g., home furnishing stores, warehouses). Data from the study also indicated that African American and Hispanic consumer groups accounted for 25 to 30 percent of department store sales. These retail purchasing trends are important not only for retailers serving today’s multicultural segment but also for retailers who wish to attract younger multicultural shoppers. In fact, the National Shopping Behavior Study shows that fewer consumers overall are naming department stores as the place they spend the most, whereas the percentage of Hispanics and African Americans who identify department stores as the place where they spend the most money continues to outpace the percentage of whites.34 Changes in the shopping behavior of these consumer groups and their purchasing motivations will require department store management to make meaningful changes to their strategies in order to effectively serve these customers. Jerome D. Williams and his colleagues have observed that retail discrimination research may be more important for brick and mortar stores than it is for online retailers.35 According to the Bureau of the Census, Internet usage has historically varied across demographics such as race and ethnicity, and disparities continue to exist.36 For example, in 2011, 76.2 percent of non-Hispanic white households and 82.7 percent of Asian households reported Internet use at home, compared with 58.3 percent of Hispanic households and 56.9 percent of black households. However, these disparities in Internet use are shrinking as household use among blacks and Hispanics continues to grow. One of the main differences between in-store and online retailing for consumers of color is that online shopping allows consumers to maintain a certain degree of anonymity in terms of their racial/ethnic background. When a consumer is in a brick and mortar establishment and is interacting with sales and other store personnel, the consumer’s race/ethnicity is generally apparent. In one study, May O. Lwin and Jerome Williams suggested that multicultural consumers might find it useful to alter their identities and certain demographic or descriptive information to conceal their racial or ethnic background and thus shield themselves from the type of discriminatory behavior they might encounter in brick and mortar retail environments.37 For example, online consumers

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might use the address of a relative who lives in a more ethnically diverse zip code or use a name that sounds less ethnic. In one case, an online job searcher’s decision to change one letter in his name, from “Jose” to “Joe,” had a significant effect on responses to his job applications.38 This lack of racial anonymity and the fact that a significant percentage of consumers of color feel that they are treated unfairly in stores because of their race underscores the need for brick and mortar retailers to address the problem of marketplace discrimination.

The Psychological Harm of Racism in Retail Settings In addition to the economic consequences of racial discrimination in the marketplace, including its impact on the retailer, such discrimination also causes psychological harm for shoppers. Several studies have focused on the psychological aspects of discrimination. Robert T. Carter, J. M. Forsyth, S. L. Mazzula, and B. Williams explored the psychological and emotional effects of racism for people of color.39 Although their study did not focus primarily on retail settings, they included situations where subjects reported being followed around in stores. The authors found that racial discrimination and harassment resulted in stress reactions. A person may feel emotional pain after encountering various forms of racial harassment or discrimination.40 Robert Carter and his colleagues contend that targets of racism suffer physical and psychological harm in the form of stress and other symptoms as a consequence of chronic and persistent racism. The frequency with which the participants reported experiences of racial discrimination and harassment across numerous settings (including retail) may compound the stress they experience in other areas of life.41 The results of this study are consistent with the U.S. surgeon general’s report of 2001 and other empirical research that shows that racism is stressful and compromises the mental health of persons of color.42 Social scientists now understand the deleterious effect of repeated exposure to discriminatory microaggressions, defined as “brief everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racial minority group . . . [that] are often unconsciously delivered in the form of subtle snubs or dismissive looks, gestures, and tones.”43 These daily incidents have a cumulative, debilitating effect over the course of a person’s lifetime, resulting in an erosion of self-confidence and physical consequences such as stress-related illnesses.44 Research suggests that the perception of being a victim of discrimination has important implications for self-esteem.45 It can foster feelings such as anger, anxiety, confusion, helplessness, shame, and lack of self-worth.46 Self-esteem, or a person’s global orientation toward the self, is perhaps the most critical factor underlying a person’s psychological well-being.47 There are contradictory viewpoints on how self-esteem may be affected after rejection. According to one

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view, self-esteem may decrease if targets internalize their social devaluation. Alternatively, targets may protect their self-esteem by attributing rejection to the prejudice of others. Further investigation is needed to fully assess how racism and discrimination in retail settings impact self-esteem. It may be that there are differential impacts of self-esteem based on race—that is, the impact on consumers from population groups that historically have been subjected to discrimination in American society, such as African Americans and Hispanics, compared to the impact on consumers from population groups that have not, such as whites.

Conclusion As we know, space (particularly the marketplace) is not just the background where things happen; it is a medium that shapes interactions and relationships in ways that can either liberate or constrain.48 We know that the marketplace can provide spaces where consumers operate freely or it can exclude consumers by restricting their ability to get their needs met. Whether one sits at the back of the bus, comes from the wrong side of town, or lives in a neighborhood where retailers are absent, social spaces are contested sites in which different actors (customers, retail employees, and marketers) seek to exert power to maximize different goals.49 Struggles for control over one’s psychological well-being can be waged through a fight for access to amenities as small as the seat on a bus or a place at a lunch counter or they may involve access to marketplaces that span neighborhoods, workplaces, and entire communities.50 Liberation psychology’s three tenets of recovering historical memory, de-ideologizing everyday experience, and adopting the perspective of the oppressed may help marketers develop the ability to create and promote inclusive marketplaces. Marketplace inclusion involves both access to social spaces and fair treatment within those spaces. In inclusive retail marketplaces, people of color will not need to anticipate discriminatory treatment because store personnel will interact with all customers based on their ability to purchase rather than on their appearance.

Notes 1. “Full Text of Obama’s Impromptu Remarks on Trayvon Martin,” The Blaze, July 19, 2013,

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/07/19/full-text-of-obamas-impromptu-remarks-ontrayvon-martin/. 2. A gated neighborhood operates as a marketplace that offers products such as houses and varied amenities and services such as residents’ control of access (and sometimes security guards). 3. “Since 1994, at least six people have died in Dillard’s after arguments with security officers. Four of the deaths have been in Texas: Houston, El Paso, San Antonio, and Arlington. Two others occurred in Cleveland, Ohio, and Memphis, Tennessee. In all cases but one the

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victims were minorities. None of the victims had weapons.” Margaret Downing, “A Closer Look at Dillard’s,” Houston Press, January 8, 2004; see also Dave Newbart, “Dillard’s—A Store That Just Doesn’t Get It,” Phoenix New Times News, July 14, 1993. 4. Anne-Marie G. Harris, Geraldine Rosa Henderson, and Jerome D. Williams, “Courting Consumers: Assessing Consumer Racial Profiling and Other Marketplace Discrimination,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 24, no. 1 (2005): 163–171; and Jerome D. Williams, Geraldine R. Henderson, and Anne-Marie G. Harris, “Consumer Racial Profiling: Bigotry Goes to Market,” The New Crisis 108 (November/December 2001): 22–24. 5. Jerome D. Williams and Thelma Snuggs, “Survey of Attitudes toward Customer Ethnocentrism and Shopping in Retail Store: The Role of Race,” in Proceedings of the Society for Consumer Psychology, Winter 1997 Conference, ed. C. Pechmann and S. Ratneshwar (Potsdam, N.Y.: Society for Consumer Psychology, 1997). 6. Timothy P. Henderson, “Perception that Some Merchants Practice Racial Profiling Generates Debate,” Stores 83, no. 6 (2001): 26–32. 7. Michelle Smawley and Mary Healy, “‘What Would You Do?’: Shopping While Black,” ABCNews, May 5, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/WhatWouldYouDo/shopping-black-racialprofiling-store/story?id=10416960. 8. See, for example, Shaun L. Gabbidon and George E. Higgins, “Consumer Racial Profiling and Perceived Victimization: A Phone Survey of Philadelphia Area Residents,” American Journal of Criminal Justice 32 (2007): 1–11; Shaun L. Gabbidon, R. Craig, Nonso Okafo, Laleisha N. Marzette, and Steven A. Peterson, “The Consumer Racial Profiling Experiences of Black Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Exploratory Study,” Journal of Criminal Justice 36, no. 4 (2008): 354–361. 9. Kareem Jordan, Shaun L. Gabbidon, and George. E. Higgins, “Exploring the Perceived Extent of and Citizens’ Support for Consumer Racial Profiling: Results from a National Poll,” Journal of Criminal Justice 37 no. 4 (2009): 353–359. 10. Ian Ayres and Peter Siegelman, “Race and Gender Discrimination in Bargaining for a New Car,” American Economic Review 85, no. 3 (1995): 304–321. 11. Thomas L. Ainscough and Carol M. Motley, “Will You Help Me Please? The Effects of Race, Gender, and Manner of Dress on Retail Service,” Marketing Letters 11, no. 2 (2000): 129–136. 12. Jennifer Lee, “The Salience of Race in Everyday Life: Black Customers’ Shopping Experiences in Black and White Neighborhood,” Work and Occupations 27, no. 3 (2000): 353–376. 13. Ainscough and Motley, “Will You Help Me Please?” 14. Harris, Henderson, and Williams, “Courting Consumers.” 15. Lisa T. Jackson v. Paula Deen, et al., 4:12-CV0139 (S.D.Ga., March 1, 2013), http:// www.scribd.com/doc/149360282/Deposition-of-plaintiff-Lisa-T-Jackson-vs-Paula-DeenEnterprises-etc, accessed January 7, 2015. 16. Michael J. Feeney and Barbara Ross, “Former Workers at Bond No. 9 Perfume Shop Suing Owner Laurice Rahme in $3 Million Race Bias Lawsuit,” New York Daily News, August 14, 2012, http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/workers-bond-no-9-perfume-shopsuing-owner-laurice-rahme-3-million-race-bias-lawsuit-article-1.1135781. 17. Deseriee A. Kennedy, “Consumer Discrimination: The Limitations of Federal Civil Rights Protection,” Missouri Law Review 66, no. 2 (2001): 275–339; Hampton v. Dillard Department Stores, Inc., 247 F.3d 1091 (10th Cir. 2001). 18. While our focus is on race and ethnicity, we recognize that retail discrimination may extend beyond these groups. For example, Jerome Williams and Geraldine Henderson discuss retail discrimination among oppressed groups, marginalized groups, and subordinate

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groups, which may include groups beyond race and ethnicity, such as those set apart on the basis of religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, etc. Jerome D. Williams and Geraldine R. Henderson, “Discrimination and Injustice in the Marketplace: They Come in All Sizes, Shapes, and Colors,” in Transformative Consumer Research for Personal and Collective WellBeing, ed. David Mick, Simone Pettigrew, Connie Pechmann, and Julie Ozanne (Boca Raton, Fla.: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012), 171–189. This is also a good source for an in-depth discussion of discrimination in retail settings as it relates to social class, gender, and subordinate groups other than ethnoracial groups. While most researchers naturally turn to race and ethnicity when focusing on marketplace discrimination, Williams and Henderson demonstrate that the same dimensions of discrimination for ethnoracial groups may apply to other groups who have experienced discrimination and injustice in the marketplace. These marketplace groups include those who have received unequal treatment and have had less power over their lives, such as low-income consumers; those who have distinguishing physical or cultural traits that the dominant group holds in low regard, such as consumers with disabilities; those who have involuntary membership or ascribed status, such as gender, etc. While these groups also have experienced injustice, discrimination, prejudice, and bias in retail settings, in this chapter, we highlight the experiences faced by ethnoracial groups, as these have been the most salient cases identified and most lawsuits involving retail discrimination have been based on race and ethnicity, such as those analyzed by Harris, Henderson, and Williams, “Courting Consumers.” 19. Ignacio Martın-Baro, Writings for a Liberation Psychology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 30. 20. Clark McKown, “Applying Ecological Theory to Advance the Science and Practice of School-Based Prejudice Reduction Interventions,” Educational Psychologist 40, no. 3 (2005): 177–189. 21. G. Adams, L. T. O’Brien, and J. C. Nelson, “Perceptions of Racism in Hurricane Katrina: A Liberation Psychology Analysis,” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 6, no. 1 (2006): 215–235. 22. Carol M. Motley and Geraldine Rosa Henderson, “The Global Hip-Hop Diaspora: Understanding the Culture,” Journal of Business Research 61 no. 3 (2008): 243–253; and Carol M. Motley, Geraldine R Henderson, and Stacey Menzel Baker, “Exploring Collective Memories Associated with African-American Advertising Memorabilia—The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” Journal of Advertising 32, no. 1 (2003): 47–57; S. Spiggle, “Analysis and interpretation of qualitative data in consumer research,” Journal of Consumer Research 21, no. 3 (1994): 491–503. 23. Craig Thompson, “Interpreting Consumers: A Hermeneutical Framework for Deriving Marketing Insights from the Texts of Consumers’ Consumption Stories,” Journal of Marketing Research 34 (November 1997): 438–455. 24. Anne-Marie G. Hakstian and Sophia R. Evett, “Race Discrimination or Unlawful Detention? Results of a Mock Jury Study on Consumer Discrimination,” in Proceedings of the 14th Cross-Cultural Research Conference, ed. Kristie Seawright and Scott Smith (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2009). See also Adams, O’Brien, and Nelson, “Perceptions of Racism in Hurricane Katrina.” 25. Jordan, Gabbidon, and Higgins, “Exploring the Perceived Extent of and Citizens’ Support for Consumer Racial Profiling.” 26. Motley, Henderson, and Baker, “Exploring Collective Memories Associated with African-American Advertising Memorabilia.” 27. Ibid., 52. 28. Williams, Henderson, and Harris, “Consumer Racial Profiling.”

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29. David Crockett, Sonya A. Grier and Jakki A. Williams, “Coping with Marketplace Discrimination: An Exploration of the Experiences of Black Men,” Academy of Marketing Science Review 4 (2003):1–21. 30. Adams, O’Brien, and Nelson, “Perceptions of Racism in Hurricane Katrina.” 31. Nancy DiTomaso, The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality without Racism (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013). 32. Jeffrey Humphreys, The Multicultural Economy 2013 (N.p.: Selig Center for Economic Growth, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, 2013). 33. Jerome D. Williams, May O. Lwin, Anne-Marie G. Harris, and Velma A. Gooding, “Developing a Power-Responsibility Equilibrium Model to Assess ‘Brick and Mortar’ Retail Discrimination: Balancing Consumer, Corporate, and Government Interests,” in Brick & Mortar Shopping in the 21st Century, ed. Tina M. Lowrey (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007), 171–196. 34. Timothy P. Henderson, “Another Potential Solution,” 2004, http://www.stores.org/ archives/chief.asp, accessed June 22, 2005. 35. Williams, Lwin, Harris, and Gooding, “Developing a Power-Responsibility Equilibrium Model to Assess ‘Brick and Mortar’ Retail Discrimination.” 36. Thom File, “Computer and Internet Use in the United States: Population Characteristics,” U.S. Census Bureau fact sheet, May 2013, http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf. 37. May O. Lwin and Jerome D. Williams, “A Model Integrating the Multidimensional Developmental Theory of Privacy and Theory of Planned Behavior to Examine Fabrication of Information Online,” Marketing Letters 14, no. 4 (2004): 257–272; Cate Matthews, “He Dropped One Letter in His Name While Applying for Jobs, and the Responses Rolled In,” Huffington Post, September, 2, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/02/jose-joejob-discrimination_n_5753880.html. 38. Matthews, “He Dropped One Letter in His Name.” 39. Robert T. Carter, J. M. Forsyth, S. L. Mazzula, and B. Williams, “Racial Discrimination and Race-Based Traumatic Stress: An Exploratory Investigation,” in Handbook of RacialCultural Psychology and Counseling: Training and Practice, ed. Robert T. Carter (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2005), 447–476. 40. Robert T. Carter, “Race-Based Traumatic Stress,” Psychiatric Times 23, no. 14 (2006): 37–38. 41. Carter et al., “Racial Discrimination and Race-Based Traumatic Stress.” 42. Office of the Surgeon General, Center for Mental Health Services, and National Institute of Mental Health, Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity: A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General (Rockville, Md.: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2001). 43. Derald W. Sue, Christina M. Capodilupo, Gina C. Torino, Jennifer M. Bucceri, A. M. B. Holder, Kevin L. Nadal, and Marta Esquilin, “Racial Micro-Aggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice,” American Psychologist 62, no. 4 (2007): 273. 44. Debra J. Barksdale, Eugene R. Farrug, and Kimberly Harkness, “Racial Discrimination and Blood Pressure: Perceptions, Emotions, and Behaviors of Black American Adults,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing 30, no. 2 (2009): 104–111. 45. Jennifer Crocker, Beth Cornwell, and Brenda Major, “The Stigma of Overweight: Affective Consequences of Attributional Ambiguity,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64, no. 1 (1993): 60–70; and Brenda Major, Cheryl R. Kaiser, Laurie T. O’Brien, and Shannon K. McCoy, “Perceived Discrimination as Worldview Threat or Worldview Confirmation: Implications for Self-Esteem,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, no. 6 (2007): 1068–1086.

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46. See Jean-Charles Chebat and Witold Slusarczyk, “How Emotions Mediate the Effects of Perceived Justice on Loyalty in Service Recovery Situations: An Empirical Study,” Journal of Business Research 58, no. 5 (2005): 664–673; Loraine. A. Friend, Carolyn L. Costley, and Charis Brown, “Spirals of Distrust vs. Spirals of Trust in Retail Customer Service: Consumers as Victims or Allies,” Journal of Services Marketing 24, no. 6 (2010): 458–467; Jordan, Gabbidon, and Higgins, “Exploring the Perceived Extent of and Citizens’ Support for Consumer Racial Profiling”; and Gabbidon and Higgins, “Consumer Racial Profiling.” 47. Jonathon D. Brown and Tracie A. Mankowski, “Self-Esteem, Mood, and Self-Evaluation: Changes in Mood and the Way You See You,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64, no. 3 (1993): 421–430; Kenneth J. Gergen, The Concept of Self (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971). 48. Luca M. Visconti, John F. Sherry, Stefania Borghini, and Laurel Anderson, “Street Art, Sweet Art? Reclaiming the ‘Public’ in Public Places,” Journal of Consumer Research 37 (October 2010): 511–529; Ronald Paul Hill and Mark Stamey, “The Homeless in America: An Examination of Possessions and Consumption Behaviors,” Journal of Consumer Research 17, no. 3 (1990): 303–321. 49. Bige Saatcioglu and Julie Ozanne, “A Critical Spatial Approach to Marketplace Exclusion and Inclusion,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 32, Special Issue (2013): 32–37. 50. Williams and Henderson, “Discrimination and Injustice in the Marketplace.”

14 • DOES THE RETAIL ENVIRONMENT AFFECT MENTAL HE ALTH? Satisfaction with Neighborhood Retail and Social Well-Being among African Americans in New York City A Z U R E B. T H O M P S O N A N D S H A R E S E N . P O RT E R

We don’t believe in the concept of a food desert. Deserts occur naturally. We believe in food apartheid. Apartheid happens because people make decisions. Human beings decide that some people are going to get the best quality and that other people aren’t going to get anything at all. —Marqueece Harris-Dawson, president of the South Los Angeles–based Community Coalition

Environmental justice mandates that no population, because of policies or economic disempowerment, is forced to bear a disproportionate exposure to and burden of harmful environmental conditions. While the concept of environmental justice often connotes addressing conditions such as air pollution, it also extends to the retail environment.1 As noted in the quotation opening this essay, predominantly black neighborhoods often endure conditions that resemble a form of apartheid. Under retail apartheid, the landscapes of many black neighborhoods throughout the United States often create risk environments that contribute to racial inequities in health. The types of retail densely clustered in racially segregated black neighborhoods, regardless of the income of its residents, too often stock goods and provide services that are deleterious to health, such as liquor stores, fast-food restaurants, and convenience stores that 278

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sell tobacco products, malt liquor, and junk food. Rarely is there an abundance of supermarkets with fresh meat and produce, healthy dining options, or quality pharmacies or medical facilities in African American neighborhoods. By some accounts, white neighborhoods have four times as many supermarkets as black neighborhoods do.2 The relationship between consumers and retail environments—the structure, type, density, and proximity of retail outlets—is complex. On the one hand, consumers can influence the type of retail establishments that are introduced in their neighborhoods. Neighborhood retail options then influence people’s choices about what to consume. For predominantly black urban neighborhoods, a history of racialized prejudice, discrimination, segregation, and disenfranchisement suggests that residents of these neighborhoods are relegated to the role of passive recipient of retail environments rather than promoter. The influence of race on the retail landscape of urban black neighborhoods even transcends the income of its residents, most notably due to the process of retail redlining whereby retailers make decisions about where to locate their stores based on the racial composition of the neighborhood and not on whether residents can afford the product.3 For the most part, social scientists and public health researchers who investigate the effects of neighborhood retail such as liquor stores, fast-food restaurants, and convenience stores on African American health tend to focus on physical health. Studies have shown a relationship between the density of fast-food restaurants and the prevalence of obesity as well as the prevalence of alcohol consumption and the spatial proximity to liquor stores and outlets that sell tobacco products. The findings of such studies conclude a clear link between neighborhood retail environment and health behaviors and outcomes. Neighborhood retail shape patterns of consumption of goods (i.e., cigarettes, French fries) and services (i.e., pharmacies, medical facilities) associated with physical health. The effects of neighborhood retail on mental health are not often taken into consideration. Perhaps researchers are steered to study the more obvious link between consumption of goods like cigarettes and physical health outcomes like cancer. Or the dearth of attention to neighborhood retail effects on mental health can be attributed to the subjective and varied nature of its assessment. Unlike mental health, clear and objective measures have been constructed and accepted in order to define and identify physical health behaviors and outcomes. There is a growing literature on the effects of neighborhood environment on mental health outcomes such as depression, stress, and anxiety.4 Retail is one aspect of neighborhood environment shown to be associated with a number of social dynamics related to mental health. For example, retail can cultivate social connections by facilitating opportunities for casual interactions with others who are making similar buying decisions.5 Retail can also spoil social connections. Individuals will spend less time in their retail environment if they feel

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marginalized because of poor interactions with store attendants or threatened by social interactions such as fights outside liquor stores.6 Added to the role of retail environment, individuals actively use the symbolic meaning of goods and services to communicate a sense of self and social position in society,7 particularly in societies rooted in capitalism like the United States. Although African Americans contribute $1 trillion annually to the economy,8 this buying power has not been enough to fully express the actualization of power, autonomy, or sense of belonging. Institutionalized racism such as retail redlining and more recently gentrification—transformation of an existing urban area linked to an increase in rents and property values and changes in the neighborhoods character and culture—has contributed to an ever-increasing challenge for African Americans to assert a sense of self through retailing. In this chapter we examine the contours of neighborhood environment more specifically retail and its association with one aspect of mental health social wellbeing. The concept of social well-being as developed by Corey Keyes is the appraisal of one’s own circumstances and functioning in society, emphasizing the fit between individuals and their social world. Social well-being is a component of optimal functioning necessary to achieve positive mental and physical health.9 We argue that for African Americans residing in racially segregated neighborhoods, retail reinforces their excluded and marginalized social status and thus is a threat to social well-being. We provide the foundation for our argument by first describing retail in black urban neighborhoods and its association with mental health and then present findings from a study conducted by the authors on the association between dissatisfaction with retail environment and social well-being among African Americans residing in racially segregated neighborhoods in New York City.

Retail in Racially Segregated Black Neighborhoods In order to understand the connection between mental health and the retail environment, we must first trace the history of how racially segregated black neighborhoods were formed in the United States. For the most part, today’s black urban neighborhoods and their retail environment represent the end result of gross disinvestment from both the geographic area and the people who resided within those boundaries, most notably through the practice of redlining.10 The practice of redlining began during the 1930s when the US Congress created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). For the first time, the government insured mortgage loans made by banks and other private lenders. Decisions on whether to insure mortgages were based on a real-estate investment security rating system. On “Residential Security Maps” areas within geographical boundaries were demarcated by lines, areas were generally considered less secure because of the racial composition of the residents.11

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As a consequence of redlining, for well over three decades African Americans had limited or were denied legitimate real estate opportunities. In his 2014 essay, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic magazine writer Ta-Nehisi Coates details the predatory real-estate practices that emerged as a result of African Americans not being able to obtain legitimate mortgages. He explains the practice of redlining and its impact on African American participation in the homemortgage market: On the maps, green areas, rated “A,” indicated “in demand” neighborhoods that, as one appraiser put it, lacked “a single foreigner or Negro.” These neighborhoods were considered excellent prospects for insurance. Neighborhoods where black people lived were rated “D” and were usually considered ineligible for FHA backing. They were colored in red. Neither the percentage of black people living there nor their social class mattered. Black people were viewed as a contagion. Redlining went beyond FHA-backed loans and spread to the entire mortgage industry, which was already rife with racism, excluding black people from most legitimate means of obtaining a mortgage.12

Redlining was a major cause of urban disinvestment and suburban ascent. In the New York Metropolitan Area, the Federal Housing Authority invested eleven times more financial resources in Nassau County, a largely white suburban area, than in Brooklyn, a largely minority urban area,13 which illustrates the degree of inequity of these practices. Redlining also limited the continuance of black-owned businesses, which left a void for new immigrant entrepreneurs and corporate retail to fill. Similar to real estate redlining, retailers practiced a form of spatial discrimination. Retail redlining is when retailers, particularly chain stores, do not serve neighborhoods or target neighborhoods for unfavorable treatment based on the racial composition of the customers. Racialized risk environments in black urban neighborhoods are a result of both disinvestment and retail redlining practices.14 Today, blacks end up living closer to unhealthy than health-promoting retail outlets. For example, throughout the United States the percentage of blacks in a neighborhood is associated with living closer to a fast-food restaurant.15 Even black neighborhoods with a high concentration of middle- and high-income residents have a relatively high level of access to fast-food restaurants. For example, a study conducted in New York City found that black neighborhoods had the highest concentration of fast-food restaurants and that high-income black neighborhoods had a similar level of exposure to fast-food restaurants as low-income black neighborhoods.16 Black neighborhoods also have fewer and less diverse retail options such as supermarkets, gyms, drugstores, and financial services.17 In New York City, neighborhoods with a predominantly white racial composition have twice as

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many food stores that are classified as supermarkets as neighborhoods with a predominantly black population.18 Only about 25 percent of food stores in Central Harlem and 20 percent in Central Brooklyn are supermarkets, compared to 66 percent of food stores in the Upper East Side neighborhood, a neighborhood with predominantly white residents.19 As a consequence, residents of black neighborhoods have limited purchasing options and power. For example, supermarkets typically have a larger selection of goods and services, a higher turnover rate of products, and a lower price point for items, which makes prices competitive. In contrast, the small grocery stores or convenience stores that are more accessible in predominantly black neighborhoods have less inventory, older inventory, and noncompetitive pricing. A study of food stores in nearby Newark, New Jersey, observed a merchant practice of raising prices of items in alignment with the time of the month that food stamps were distributed, thereby exploiting consumers who receive public assistance. As a result of these and other practices, purchasing power in black neighborhoods is significantly diminished.20 The connection between neighborhood environment, particularly neighborhood retail, and mental health is an important addition to the factors that contribute to and explain the disparate health outcomes African Americans experience. Neighborhood environment is thought to negatively affect mental health through the degree of its disorder. Neighborhood disorder is the disintegration of social structures that maintain order, civility, and safety. Perceptions of disorder trigger psychological distress by cultivating a sense that other people in the neighborhood cannot be trusted to protect public order.21 Retail can also contribute to generalized feelings and perceptions of a disorder. Common indicators of disorder are abandoned and decaying buildings, graffiti and broken liquor bottles, cigarettes butts and garbage on the street. The withdrawal of certain types of retail is also an indicator of disorder and can cultivate a sense of withdrawal of the “outside world” from the neighborhood. The consequences of this loss and isolation are increased distress, hopelessness, and hostility.22 In their qualitative research in Philadelphia, Cannuscio and colleagues observed that for blacks residing in racially segregated neighborhoods the retail environment evoked a troubled social history and feelings of despair related to the exodus of black businesses.23 One respondent stated: It causes disparity [sic]. It causes a depth of disparity and . . . this is one example . . . I remember the store, Mr. Cook. Mr. Cook was this big-bellied African American guy. He knew all the kids in the community. You would come in there and buy our bubble gums and our pretzel sticks and things like that before and after school sometimes. And sometimes his laugh, you know, it rings in my head even now. . . . The smell of his cigar, you know. . . . And when I left for college the store was still there. When I came back, you were looking to see, you know—“Hey, Mr. Cook . . .” and he wasn’t there.

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In other scenarios, store managers and employees heightened monitoring of customers based on race or aesthetic characteristics because they perceived individuals with these characteristics to be potential threats to store security. For example, interpersonal exchanges between merchant and consumer vary. The exchanges can be completely nonverbal and somewhat mechanical or they can be very interactive and pleasant in situations where the merchant is welcoming or helpful to the consumer. Somewhere on this spectrum of dynamics between merchant and consumer is a subtle but tenuous relationship where the exchange can easily turn into a heated disagreement. The latter type of exchange is rooted in feelings of disrespect, frustration about having to depend on a given retail outlet because there are few or no other options, or miscommunication on the part of the merchant who is meeting the need of the consumer. For example, Cannuscio and colleagues reported an incident when one respondent was given incorrect change, which she perceived as an intentional, race-based slight. When she described challenging the proprietor directly, this was the response: . . . then I get “Get out of here, get out, you’re no good, you’re no good.” What are [you] saying, I’m no good because I’m aware of what you’re trying to do? It’s very hurtful. It’s extremely hurtful to me. It’s extremely degrading as a person, just as a human being, simple humanity. For you to think that everyone who comes in here is a certain type of way but also to watch you come into our neighborhoods and strip our communities like that and have such low regard. . . . You know it’s awful.

Some consumers who are dissatisfied with their retail experience explain their complaints very clearly. Others are not as vocal about their level of disappointment, but the feelings they describe tell the story and are related to social well-being.

Dissatisfaction with Neighborhood Retail and Social Well-Being The neighborhood environment, on the whole, is ideal for examining the milieu in which social well-being is developed. Social well-being is the appraisal of one’s own circumstances and functioning in society, emphasizing the fit between individuals and their social world.24 Keyes proposes five dimensions of social well-being: social contribution, social acceptance (i.e., character and quality of society, the social counterpart of personal acceptance), social integration, social coherence, and social actualization (i.e., a society’s potential for growth).25 The symbolic meaning that is generated by the presence or absence of certain types of neighborhood retail and the social interactions that occur in those retail

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spaces can influence these dimensions by influencing an individual’s sense that he or she is socially accepted and valued by institutions and members of the community (social acceptance, social integration), perceptions about how well the community in which an individual is embedded is beneficial to the development of identity and personal growth (social coherence, social actualization), and the degree to which the individual can make meaningful contributions to the community (social contribution). We postulate that African American residents of racially segregated neighborhoods internalize their retail environments and that that internalization negatively affects social well-being. Our study examined the relationship between retail environment and social well-being among African American residents of racially segregated neighborhoods in New York City. Despite its diversity, New York City is also one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States. In order for each neighborhood in New York City to achieve parity with the city’s overall racial composition and distribution, 81 percent of black residents would have to move into another neighborhood.26 Blacks in New York City generally live in large, clustered, isolated, and racially concentrated areas. We used data from Project Understanding Residents’ Beliefs about Neighborhoods (Project URBAN). The purpose of the project was to study under what circumstances segregation acts as a negative health determinant for African Americans in New York City. From 2006 to 2008, we surveyed 163 African Americans from Harlem, Manhattan; Jamaica, Queens and BedfordStuyvesant, Brooklyn (the largest black neighborhoods in New York City) at a variety of retail sites (i.e., laundromats, grocery stores, hair salons) and public spaces (i.e., parks, streets, shopping malls). The neighborhoods of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant are more urban in nature (i.e., apartment buildings), while Jamaica is more suburban (i.e., single family homes) and has a higher median income. More than half of the survey respondents were women (53 percent). The average age of participants was 35. Nearly half (46 percent) had some college or vocational training beyond high school and an annual household income of more than $40,000 (28 percent). However, 15 percent of the respondents were unemployed, and most felt their annual income was not enough to support a comfortable lifestyle (66 percent) (see table 14.1). The demographic characteristics of the sample population are more similar to the demographics of lower-income areas as compared to the demographics of higher-income or more racially/ ethnically diverse neighborhoods in New York City.27 During our recruitment process, we noted several features of the retail environment of our study neighborhoods. They displayed tell-tale signs of disinvestment, exploitive capitalistic ventures, and a limited presence of black business owners in formal economies. For example, when we asked our study participants how close they lived to a variety of retail types, we found that while two-thirds

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Table 14.1

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Sociodemographics of Respondents: Project URBAN, New York City, 2006–2008 Entire sample (n ⴝ 163)

Mean age (years) Women (%) Education (%) Less than high school High school More than high school Unemployed (%) Household composition (%) Single adult Adult with child(ren) Adults* with no children Adults* with child(ren) Annual household income (%) Less than $19,999 $20,000–$39,999 More than $40,000 Not enough income (%)

35 53 18 36 46 15 40 44 3 13

39 33 28 66

Source: Data from the Project Understanding Residents’ Beliefs About Neighborhoods (Project URBAN) study. *Married or lifetime partnership.

(69 percent) lived within three blocks of a supermarket, more (80 percent) lived within three blocks of a liquor store. Nearly all (86 percent) of our study participants reported being dissatisfied with access to supermarkets. A number of establishments were noticeably fortified for security reasons. Countertops were encased in bulletproof Plexiglas, and access to checkout counters was limited by turnstiles or portals from which goods and money were exchanged. All of these things placed distance between the consumer and the retailer. Respondents evaluated their overall retail environment by indicating on a scale from 1 (very satisfied) to 4 (very dissatisfied) how satisfied they were with retail in their neighborhood as it relates specifically to meeting everyday needs (e.g., banks, hardware stores, laundromats, pharmacies) and providing specialized goods (e.g., clothes, bookstores, home electronics). Nearly all were dissatisfied with neighborhood retail that sold everyday items (83 percent), and more than half were dissatisfied with the stores that sold specialized goods (63 percent). More than half were dissatisfied with the quality of supermarkets

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Table 14.2

Dissatisfaction with Neighborhood Retail and Each Retail Type: Project URBAN, New York City, 2006–2008

Neighborhood retail Everyday needs Supermarkets Specialty stores Restaurants

%

Average score

87 83 64 63 52

2.8 3.0 2.7 2.7 2.5

Source: Data from the Project Understanding Residents’ Beliefs About Neighborhoods (Project URBAN) study. Note: Participants were asked how satisfied (1  very satisfied, 2  satisfied, 3  dissatisfied, and 4  very dissatisfied) they were with neighborhood restaurants and with the quality of supermarkets and stores that sell everyday needs (e.g., drugstores) and specialty items (e.g., clothing). The higher the score, the more dissatisfied the participant was with neighborhood retail.

(64 percent) and with the quality of dining options (51 percent) in their neighborhood. We also calculated an overall retail environment dissatisfaction score by taking the average of these responses. Results indicate that overall, respondents were dissatisfied with their overall retail environment (table 14.2). We assessed the social well-being of our survey respondents by asking how much they agreed on a scale of 1 (strongly disagreed) to 6 (strongly agreed) with fifteen statements. These included items such as the following: “I believe that people are kind” (social acceptance), “I have something valuable to give the world” (social contribution), “I feel like I am an important part of my community” (social integration), “The world is becoming a better place for everyone” (social actualization), and “I cannot make sense of what’s going on in the world” (social coherence). We calculated an overall social well-being score and a score for each dimension. The average social well-being score among survey respondents was 3.9 on a scale of 6; it was slightly lower than other adult populations.28 On average, respondents scored highest on perceptions of social contribution (4.9), meaning that respondents felt they had a stronger sense of being a valuable member of society. However, respondents did not feel highly accepted or trusting of others (3.2). We used multiple linear regression analysis to examine the association between social well-being and retail environment because we assumed that there would be a negative relationship between dissatisfaction with retail environment and social well-being. In other words, we assumed that for every unit increase in the neighborhood retail satisfaction score there would be a corresponding

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Table 14.3

287

Estimated Coefficients from Linear Regression Models of Social Well-Being by Dissatisfaction with Neighborhood Retail and Each Retail Type: Project URBAN, New York City, 2006–2008

Everyday needs Supermarkets Specialty stores Restaurants

β

t

P

0.22 0.13 0.06 0.19

3.30 2.31 1.25 3.63

0.001 0.022 ns 0.001

Source: Data from the Project Understanding Residents’ Beliefs About Neighborhoods (Project URBAN) study. Note: N  148. Fifteen cases were dropped from the analysis due to missing data on the social well-being scale. The β (beta) represents the amount of increase in the social well-being score in relation to increase in the average dissatisfaction with retail score.

decrease in the social well-being score. We were also able to take into account other characteristics that are said to be associated with social well-being, such as age and income. We hypothesized that dissatisfaction with neighborhood retail would negatively affect social well-being. In other words, we theorized that neighborhood retail in racially segregated black neighborhoods would be symbolic of residents’ marginalized social status and thus a threat to social well-being. However, we found that the more dissatisfied participants were with retail in their neighborhood, the higher their social well-being scores were (β  .26, p  .001). In addition to perceptions about retail environment and social well-being, we looked at how each retail type influenced social well-being. For example, would perceptions of stores that sell everyday items such as milk have a greater effect on social well-being than restaurants? We found that dissatisfaction with supermarkets, restaurants, and stores that sell everyday items positively affected social well-being and that stores that sell everyday items had a slightly greater effect on social well-being than restaurants. There was no relationship between social well-being and dissatisfaction with specialty stores (table 14.3).

Conclusion There is a growing body of research on the effects of retail environment in black neighborhoods on outcomes and behaviors related to physical health, but the effect of retail environment on mental health has not been sufficiently examined. This essay sought to address this gap. The retail environment is one of the major

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social and economic spheres with which individuals engage on a daily basis. Black neighborhoods throughout the United States bear a disproportionate burden of strategically placed or inherited unhealthy retail. Black neighborhoods have a relatively high concentration of retail outlets that sell goods and services that are deleterious to health. We explored the effects of retail environments by first reviewing the literature on retail in racially segregated black neighborhoods and the association of such retail environments with mental health. Retail environments cultivate social connections by facilitating opportunities for casual interactions with others who are making similar buying decisions. In addition, the range of goods and services a retailer offers is an indication of the social position of its customer base. However, the range of choices is often limited in black urban neighborhoods because of systemic and intentional marginalization and exploitation of groups that are based on race. We then presented findings from a study on the relationship between satisfaction with retail environment and social well-being among African Americans residing in racially segregated neighborhoods in New York City. We hypothesized that the retail environment in black neighborhoods reinforces the excluded and marginalized social status of the residents of such neighborhoods and thus is a threat to their social well-being. However, although we found that most were dissatisfied with their retail environment, this was not a threat to social wellbeing. In fact, we found that those who reported being dissatisfied with supermarkets, restaurants, and retail outlets that sell everyday items, had better social well-being than those who reported being satisfied with retail. We found no relationship between social well-being and dissatisfaction with specialty stores. Our findings on the relationship between dissatisfaction with retail and social well-being may be analogous to findings about the association between denial of racism and poor health outcomes. For example, one study found that African Americans who denied experiencing discrimination had higher blood pressure than those who reported discrimination.29 These paradoxical findings may indicate that individuals who can talk about their feelings about their experiences with racism face lower health risks than individuals who internalize such experiences.30 Similarly, African Americans who report dissatisfaction with the retail environment in their neighborhoods and at the same time maintain higher levels of social well-being than those who do not report such dissatisfaction may be counteracting social marginalization. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argued that objects are symbolic of a social hierarchy that is determined and maintained by the socially dominant group so that group can enforce its distance from other classes of society.31 Instead of internalizing their ascribed social position as an inherent attribute of who they are, those who have a healthy understanding of the macrolevel dynamics of external forces such as interpersonal and institutional discrimination may have a buffer

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against the poor social well-being that the negative symbolism of goods and services within the scope of retail apartheid may foster. African Americans who report dissatisfaction with their neighborhood retail environment might resist internalizing the symbolism that the goods and services these retail types offer represents and instead may attribute the composition of those retail types to external forces such as interpersonal and institutional discrimination. The lack of relationship we found between specialty stores and social well-being might be attributable to the fact that retailers such as those that sell clothing are more attuned to the tastes of their customer base. Although findings from our relatively small study are not consistent with what we hypothesized, the exploration of the association between retail environment and social well-being is valuable to the discourse on neighborhood environment and mental health. We suggest other venues for exploration such as whether chronic stress is linked to the day-to-day shopping experiences of residents of black neighborhoods, whether feelings of marginalization emerge from awareness of the racial incongruence between the retail landscape and the neighborhood populace. More specifically, we are interested in learning more about how it feels to be a middle- or high-income African American who lives in a racially segregated neighborhood where the retail environment is not congruent with his or her purchasing power. Regardless of the degree of dissatisfaction with their neighborhood retail environment, residents in the racially segregated neighborhoods we surveyed maintained the belief that they have something valuable to contribute to society. One strategy toward mitigating retail environments that are not satisfactory or are deleterious to health is to mobilize people’s sense of the worth of their contributions to society. Voicing dissatisfaction through community organizing can be empowering and may facilitate change in the environment by increasing retailers’ awareness of neighborhood needs. Organizations such as West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. or Sustainable South Bronx, whose mission is to build healthy neighborhoods by assuring that environmental health and protection policies and practices are safe and fair, can tap into residents’ relatively high sense of social contribution. Other opportunities to take advantage of residents’ sense of contribution include supporting initiatives such as the Healthy Bodega Initiative in New York City, which aims to promote healthy eating by increasing the availability of quality of food and the variety of healthy food in corner stores in neighborhoods such as Central Harlem. The Adopt-a-Bodega program, also in New York City, facilitates collaborations in which store owners agree to stock healthy foods and neighborhood residents agree to purchase and promote the adopted store. Perhaps programs that seek to beautify neighborhoods and cooperatively work with residents, merchants, and various segments of the community may be a way to forge better relationships in similar urban areas. For example, the Philadelphia

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Mural Arts Program engaged retail store owners, residents, and artists to develop and install a public art project in a major business corridor in a blighted area of the city. While it is important to leverage people’s sense of their contribution to society, translating this feeling into civic participation is important for promoting policies that address retail inequities such as limiting or capping the total number of licenses for certain types of retail outlet such as fast-food restaurants, restricting retailers such as liquor stores in areas of high population density, or prohibiting the sale of products at certain establishments, for example prohibiting the sale of malt liquor at convenience stores. However, civic participation was low among the residents of the racially segregated neighborhoods who participated in our study. More than two-thirds (70 percent) of study participants reported that they had never or had rarely belonged to a civic or political group and few (10 percent) ever attended community board meetings in their neighborhoods. Increased civic participation among residents of neighborhoods affected by retail inequity might require redress or at least acknowledgment of the systematic damage done to black neighborhoods. Civic myths and other symbols such as the retail environment in black neighborhoods are abstract signs and symbols of African Americans’ persistent estranged citizenships, a reminder of their nonbelonging. Salamishah Tillet argues that African Americans of the post–civil rights era are simultaneously citizens and noncitizens who experience feelings of disillusionment and melancholia related to a sense of nonbelonging and a yearning for civic engagement.32 Even acknowledging this damage is a fraught endeavor. In his essay “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates argues that the U.S. Congress should seriously investigate the systematic damage or “plunder” African Americans have experienced. He explains: “We stand to discover much about ourselves in such a discussion— and that is perhaps what scares us. The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper—America’s heritage, history, and standing in the world.”33 Christopher Boone and colleagues argue that this type of recognition is in fact what needs to be done in order to achieve environmental justice. They suggest that all environmental justice efforts must include an investigation of systematic or “procedural” injustice.34 Thus, an environmental justice approach to retail equity within this framework would include an assessment of the structures and institutions that contribute to the inequitable distribution of unhealthy retail in black neighborhoods. Only through this understanding can we begin to address root causes and seek structural solutions.35 The retail environment of any neighborhood is associated with the mental health of neighborhood residents. More specifically, the retail environment in black neighborhoods likely effects aspects of mental health linked to the marginalized social position of residents. The discourse about racial disparities in

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health and ways to mitigate the effects of a deleterious retail environment on African Americans in racially segregated neighborhoods is multifaceted. Social and economic structures impact the lives of residents simultaneously through individual-level interactions and the ways that communities are either engaged in or disenfranchised from the civic process. Beyond neighbors mobilizing to work with existing retailers, support for sustainable retail models that include owners and operators who reflect the culture, expectations, and interests of consumers in black neighborhoods is essential.

Notes 1. J. A. Romley, D. Cohen, J. Ringel, and R. Sturm, “Alcohol and Environmental Justice: The Density of Liquor Stores and Bars in Urban Neighborhoods in the United States,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 68, no. 1 (2007): 48–55. 2. K. Morland, S. Wing, A. Diez-Roux, and C. Poole, “Neighborhood Characteristics Associated with the Location of Food Stores and Food Service Places,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 22, no. 1 (2002): 23–29. 3. Denver D’Rozario and Jerome D. Williams, “Retail Redlining: Definition, Theory, Typology, and Measurement,” Journal of Macromarketing 25, no. 2 (2005): 175–186. 4. K. D. Truong and S. Ma, “A Systematic Review of Relations between Neighborhoods and Mental Health,” Journal of Mental Health Policy Economics 9, no. 3 (September 2006): 137–154. 5. Jacinta Francis, Billie Giles-Corti, Lisa Wood, and Matthew Knuiman, “Creating Sense of Community: The Role of Public Space,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 32, no. 4 (December 2012): 401–409; Katherine Chalmers, Mary Gessner, Linda Venturoni, and Stephan Weiler, “Stemming Retail Leakage with a Sense of Community: Leveraging the Links between Communal Ties and Shopping Decisions,” Social Science Journal 49, no. 1 (March 2012): 108–113; Jonathan Everts, “Consuming and Living the Corner Shop: Belonging, Remembering, Socialising,” Social & Cultural Geography 11, no. 8 (2010): 847–863. 6. Carolyn C. Cannuscio, Eve E. Weiss, and David A. Asch, “The Contribution of Urban Foodways to Health Disparities,” Journal of Urban Health—Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 87, no. 3 (May 2010): 381–393. 7. Francis, Giles-Corti, Wood, and Knuiman, “Creating Sense of Community”; Chalmers, Gessner, Venturoni, and Weiler, “Stemming Retail Leakage with a Sense of Community”; Everts, “Consuming and Living the Corner Shop.” 8. Nielson Company, “Resilient, Receptive and Relevant: The African American Consumer: 2013 Report,” http://nnpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/African-American-ConsumerReport-2013.pdf, accessed January 4, 2015. 9. Corey L. M. Keyes, “Social Well-Being,” Social Psychology Quarterly 61, no. 2 (1998): 121–140. 10. John Iceland, Daniel H. Weinberg, and Erika Steinmetz, Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States: 1980–2000, Census 2000 Special Reports (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002); Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); David R. Williams and Chiquita Collins, “Racial Residential Segregation: A Fundamental Cause of Racial Disparities in Health,” Public Health Reports 116, no. 5 (2001): 404–416; Elizabeth Eisenhauer, “In Poor Health: Supermarket Redlining and Urban Nutrition,” GeoJournal 53 (2001): 125–133; D’Rozario and Williams, “Retail Redlining.” 11. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid.

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12. Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, May 21, 2014. 13. Kenneth T Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). 14. D’Rozario and Williams, “Retail Redlining”; H. L. Cooper, B. H. Bossak, B. Tempalski, S. R. Friedman, and D. C. Des Jarlais, “Temporal Trends in Spatial Access to Pharmacies That Sell over-the-Counter Syringes in New York City Health Districts: Relationship to Local Racial/Ethnic Composition and Need,” Journal of Urban Health 86, no. 6 (2009): 929–945. 15. Peter James, Miriana C. Arcaya, Devin M. Parker, Reginald D. Tucker-Seeley, and S. V. Subramanian, “Do Minority and Poor Neighborhoods Have Higher Access to Fast-Food Restaurants in the United States?,” Health and Place 29 (September 2014): 10–17. 16. N. O. Kwate, C. Y. Yau, J. M. Loh, and D. Williams, “Inequality in Obesigenic Environments: Fast Food Density in New York City,” Health and Place 15, no. 1 (2009): 364–373. 17. Rachel Meltzer and Jenny Schuetz, “Bodegas or Bagel Shops? Neighborhood Differences in Retail and Household Services,” Economic Development Quarterly 26, no. 1 (2012): 73–94. 18. C. Gordon, N. Ghai, M. Purciel, A. Talwalkar, and A. Goodman, Eating Well in Harlem: How Available Is Healthy Food? (New York: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2007); R. Graham, L. Kaufman, Z Novoa, and A. Karpati, Eating In, Eating Out, Eating Well: Access to Healthy Food in North and Central Brooklyn (New York: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2006). 19. C. Gordon, N. Ghai, M. Purciel, A. Talwalkar and A. Goodman, Eating Well in Harlem: How Available is Health Food (New York: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2007). 20. Hanaa Hamdi, Karen Frank, M. Johnson, and S. Mehta, “Yes, the Poor Pay More for Food: ‘When, Where, and What They Shop for Matters,’” paper presented at the American Public Health Association, San Francisco, October 29, 2012. 21. R. J. Sampson and S. W. Raudenbush, “Systematic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods,” American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 3 (November 1999): 603–651; Stephen W. Raudenbush and Robert J. Sampson, “Ecometrics: Toward a Science of Assessing Ecological Settings, with Application to the Systematic Social Observation of Neighborhoods,” Sociological Methodology 29, no. 1 (1999): 1–41; Robert J. Sampson, “Disparity and Diversity in the Contemporary City: Social (Dis)Order Revisited,” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 1–31. 22. Elizabeth Eisenhauer, “In Poor Health: Supermarket Redlining and Urban Nutrition,” GeoJournal 53, no. 2 (2001): 125–133. 23. Connuscio, Weiss, and Asch, “The Contribution of Urban Foodways to Health Disparities.” 24. Keyes, “Social Well-Being.” 25. Corey L. M. Keyes, “Subjective Well-Being in Mental Health and Human Development Research Worldwide: An Introduction,” Social Indicators Research 77, no. 1 (May 2006): 1–10. 26. Iceland, Weinberg, and Steinmetz, Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States. 27. A. Karpati, B. Kerker, F. Mostashari, T. Singh, A. Hajat, L. Thorpe, M. Bassett, K. Henning, and T. Frieden, Health Disparities in New York City (New York: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2004). 28. Elvira Cicognani, Claudia Pirini, Corey Keyes, Mohsen Joshanloo, Reza Rostami, and Masoud Nosratabadi, “Social Participation, Sense of Community and Social Well Being: A Study on American, Italian and Iranian University Students,” Social Indicators Research 89, no. 1 (2008): 97–112.

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29. N. Krieger and S. Sidney, “Racial Discrimination and Blood Pressure: The CARDIA Study of Young Black and White Adults,” American Journal of Public Health 86, no. 10 (October 1996): 1370–1378; Nancy Krieger, Dana Carney, Katie Lancaster, Pamela D. Waterman, Anna Kosheleva, and Mahzarin Banaji, “Combining Explicit and Implicit Measures of Racial Discrimination in Health Research,” American Journal of Public Health 100, no. 8 (August 2010): 1485–1492. 30. Naa Oyo A. Kwate and Ilan H. Meyer, “The Myth of Meritocracy and African American Health,” American Journal of Public Health 100, no. 10 (October 2010): 1831–1834. 31. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984). 32. Salamishah Tillet, Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post–Civil Rights Imagination (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2012). 33. Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations.” 34. Christopher Boone, Geoffrey L. Buckley, J. Morgan Grove, and Chona Siste, “Parks and People: An Environmental Justice Inquiry in Baltimore, Maryland,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99, no. 4 (2009): 767–787. 35. Elizabeth Eisenhauer, “In Poor Health: Supermarket Redlining and Urban Nutrition,” GeoJournal 53, no. 2 (2001): 125–133.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Mia Bay is a professor of history at Rutgers University and the director of the

Rutgers Center for Race and Ethnicity. Her publications include the textbook Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, with Documents (2013), which she coauthored with Deborah Gray White and Waldo Martin, and two other books: To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells (2009) and The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830–1925 (2000). Neiset Bayouth is a PhD candidate in the Geography Department at Rutgers University. Her research interests include immigration, identity politics, ethnic entrepreneurship, and geography education. She has a background in economics, urban planning, cultural and urban geography, and education. She is coauthor of Geografía Humana: Conceptos y Aplicaciones (2012). Ger aldo L . C adava teaches Latina/o, borderlands, and immigration history at Northwestern University. He is the author of Standing on Common Ground: The Making of a Sunbelt Borderland (2013), and “Borderlands of Modernity and Abandonment: The Lines within Ambos Nogales and the Tohono O’odham Nation” (Journal of American History 2011). Siobhan C arter-David is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Southern Connecticut State University. She works on African American, urban, and contemporary U.S. history with a particular interest in fashion and beauty culture. Carter-David has written on hip-hop, magazines, and urban style. She has worked with museum curators on projects involving various facets of African American cultural history and is currently working on a book manuscript, “Issuing the Black Wardrobe: Fashion and Anti-Fashion in Post-Soul Publications.” Melissa L. Cooper is a research assistant professor in the Institute for Southern

Studies at the University of South Carolina. She specializes in African American intellectual and cultural history. Her current book project examines the emergence of “the Gullah” in scholarly and popular works during the 1920s and the 1930s. Sophia R . Evett is a professor of social psychology at Salem State University

in Salem, Massachusetts. Her research interests include the dynamics of intergroup interactions, the psychological impact of marketplace discrimination, and perceptions of incidences of marketplace discrimination. Dr. Evett is involved 295

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in facilitating opportunities for faculty and staff to create a welcoming campus climate and to bring issues of diversity and multiculturalism into the classroom. Ann Fabian is Distinguished Professor in the History Department at Rutgers University. Her publications include Card Sharps, Dream Books, and Bucket Shops: Gambling in 19th-Century America; The Unvarnished Truth, a history of personal narratives; and The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America’s Unburied Dead. In 2012–2013, she and Mia Bay codirected a Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on “Race, Place & Space in the Americas,” which launched some of the conversations that appear in this book. Erualdo R . Gonz ález is an associate professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at California State University Fullerton. Dr. González’s research interests include community development, commercial revitalization, participatory community planning, and urban politics and governance with an emphasis on race, ethnicity, class, and immigration and on Chicana/o-Latina/o communities. He is the author of Planning the Latino City: Urban Revitalization, Politics, and the Grassroots (2015). Anne-Marie G. Hakstian is an associate professor in the Management Department in the Bertolon School of Business at Salem State University. Ms. Hakstian has published a number of articles on consumer racial profiling, retailing, and the law. She serves on the Editorial Board of the Business Law Review. Prior to joining academia, Ms. Hakstian worked as a consultant to federal government agencies on all aspects of Equal Employment Opportunity law and policy. She is a coauthor of the forthcoming book Consumer Equality: Race and the American Marketplace. John W. Heaton is the Arthur T. Fathauer Chair of History at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the executive director of the Western History Association. He is also the author of The Shoshone-Bannocks: Culture and Commerce at Fort Hall, 1870–1940 (2005). His research on Athabascans in Alaska, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, has been published in the Pacific Northwest Quarterly and the Western Historical Quarterly. Ger aldine Rosa Henderson is an associate professor in the Department

of Marketing at the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University Chicago. Her research is on global marketplace diversity and inclusion and consumer well-being. She is a coauthor of the forthcoming book Consumer Equality: Race and the American Marketplace. Bridget Kenny is an associate professor of sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. She works on labor, gender, and consumption with a specific focus on service work, precarious employment, and political subjectivity. She has published in such journals as International

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Labour and Working Class History, International Review of Social History, Labour, Capital  & Society, Qualitative Sociology, and Journal of Southern African Studies and has published widely in South African publications. Na a Oyo A . Kwate is associate professor in the departments of Human

Ecology and Africana Studies at Rutgers. A clinical psychologist by training, she studies the social determinants of African American health and is particularly interested in the material and social context of black neighborhoods. Her work appears in a number of social science and public health journals and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Johana Londoño is a Mellon Fellow in Architecture, Urbanism, and Human-

ities at Princeton University and an assistant professor in the Department of Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies at the University at Albany– SUNY. Her book manuscript, “Abstract Barrios: The Latinization of Cities, Urban Design, and Representations of Poverty,” draws on scholarship at the intersection of cultural studies, urban studies, and Latina/o studies. She has previously written on Latino design and urbanism and on Union City, New Jersey. Tr aci Parker is an assistant professor in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of

Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a Provost Career Enhancement Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of History at the University of Chicago. She is currently working on a book that examines the campaign to dismantle racially discriminatory labor and consumption practices in American department stores and its significance for the development of a modern black middle class in the twentieth century. Sharese N. Porter is a senior program coordinator and health educator in the Department of Family and Community Health Sciences of Rutgers Cooperative Extension. Her research examines the social determinants of health as they relate to African Americans and immigrants of African descent in urban contexts. Stacey A . Sutton is an assistant professor of urban planning in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. She specializes in local economic development, community planning, and the study of race, urban neighborhood dynamics, and public policy. Research on retail, race, and neighborhood change is the subject of her forthcoming book. She has also covered these topics in articles published in Economic Development Quarterly and the Journal of Planning Education Research. A zure B. Thompson is a research scientist at the National Center on Addiction

and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASAColumbia®). Thompson served as associate research scientist in psychiatry at Yale University, where she conducted research on life course factors associated with cigarette smoking

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among racial/ethnic minority women and the intersection of these factors with neighborhood environment. Her research focuses on the social determinants of substance use and related psychiatric problems with a particular emphasis on racial/ethnic minority women in urban settings. Jerome D. Willia ms is Distinguished Professor and the Prudential Chair

in Business in the Department of Marketing at the Rutgers Business School Newark and New Brunswick (RBS). He also is the director of the RBS PhD program and a fellow at the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development in the RBS Management and Global Business Department. He has conducted research on consumer racial profiling in retail environments, marketing and communication strategies targeting multicultural market segments, and consumer behavior of multicultural market segments related to public health communication issues. He is a coauthor of the forthcoming book Consumer Equality: Race and the American Marketplace. Ellen D. Wu is an associate professor of history at Indiana University Bloomington.

Her research and teaching interests include Asian Pacific America, migration, and race in the United States. She is the author of The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of Model Minority (2014).

INDEX

Abel, Elizabeth, 52–53 Adams, Glenn, 265, 269 Adopt-a-Bodega program, 289 advertising, 25, 81; in black lifestyle magazines, 247–249, 250, 254–256, 258, 260n15, 261n39, 262n43; in black newspapers, 43, 235–238; featuring black celebrities, 4; general market (GMA), 44; geodemographic segmentation and, 42, 43–44; for hair care products, 255–256, 262n43; for inner-city department stores, 261n39; in Mexican borderlands, 61; multicultural (MCA), 44–45; political, 256; in subways, 47–48; for voodoo sellers, 235–238 African Americans. See entries beginning with black Afro-American (newspaper), 93 Ainscough, Thomas, 264 airplane travel segregation, 15–16, 26–29. See also segregation-era travel AirTalk (radio program), 190 Akpandac, Prof., 235, 236 Alaska, 8, 125–126. See also Athabascan village stores Alaska Commercial Company (ACC), 125 Alaska Indian Service (AIS) (later Alaska Native Service [ANS]), 127, 134 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA, 1980), 123, 135 Alaska Native Allotment Act (ANAA, 1906), 125–126 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA, 1971), 123–124, 135 Alaska Native Industries Cooperative Association (ANICA), 134–135 Alaska Native Service (ANS), 127, 134 Alaska pipeline construction, 124 alcohol, 169, 170, 173. See also liquor stores Alemán, Joe, 65 Alexander, Maurice, 66 Alioto, Joseph, 152 Allen, Theodore, 27

Allston, Wendell P., 25 Alvarez, Claudia, 191, 193–194 American Airlines, 27, 28 American Community Survey, 181 American Demographics, 255 American Journal of Sociology, 145 animal furs and leather, 253–254, 255, 258 anticommunism, 147–148, 154 Anti-Communist League of Chinese Six Companies, 147 Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 191 apartheid, 108, 114nn5,6, 115n24, 118n67 Applied Geographic System’s Mosaic system, 38 Arab Americans, 8, 164, 168–171, 174, 175n2, 268 ArcGIS software, 36, 216 art: in Fort Greene, 218; Santa Ana redevelopment and, 186, 187, 188 Art Commission (San Francisco), 151 Artists Village (Santa Ana), 186, 187, 188 Asian Americans, 141, 144, 147; population, in NYC neighborhoods, 213. See also Chinese Americans Asian People’s Coalition, 156 Assaf, Aref, 174 assimilation, 141–142, 144–146, 248 Athabascans, 8, 123–136; diet of, 131; economic conditions for, 128; education of, 125–126; fur trade economy of, 125, 126–127; government policy and, 124–125, 135; hunting and, 130, 134; infant feeding habits of, 131; market engagement of, 124; materialism of, 131, 135 Athabascan village stores, 124–136; credit and debt in, 131–134, 136; goods sold in, 128–131, 134; in Minto village, 127–128, 129, 132; shipping season of 1941 in, 133–134; in Tanacross village, 127, 131, 132–134; in Tetlin village, 126–127, 128, 132–134 Atlantic City, N.J., 103 Atlantic City Mall (Brooklyn), 50–51 The Atlantic magazine, 281 Automobile Green Book (Automobile Legal Association), 25

299

300

Index

Baker, Ella, 30 Baker, Josephine, 81 Baker, Stacey Menzel, 267–268 Baltimore, Md., 8; black employment in, 100–101, 108–110, 112; demographics of, 96n20; department store descriptions, 101–102; department store sit-ins, 99, 110, 113; desegregation in, 100–101, 110–112; prevalence of segregation in, 102; white women’s employment in, 100–101, 103–108, 109–110. See also department stores banking and currency exchange, 63, 67–68, 70 Barclays Center (Brooklyn), 212 Barneys department store, 1, 4–5 Barthes, Roland, 249 Baskin-Bey, Elaine, 254 Bates, Timothy, 207 Baur’s Opera House, 265 Bay, Mia, 6–7 Bayouth, Neiset, 8 Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, 284 Bellamy, Madge, 231 Bellavance, Norbert, 128 Benson, Susan Porter, 103–104, 108, 133 Bentsen, Lloyd, 57 Bergdorf Goodman department store, 255 Black, Jeffery, 254 black actors, 225, 231–232 black capitalism, 208 Black Collegian magazine, 247 black consumers, 7; codes alerting employees to presence of, 265; criminality assumptions about, 1–2, 4, 48–52, 53, 263, 269–270; department store experiences of, 1, 4–5, 8, 79, 102–103; discrimination perception of, 263–264, 267–268; dissatisfaction of, with retail environment, 285–287; Esri and, 36–42; ghetto-belt data about, 38–43; labeled as disengaged from market, 43–46; liberation psychology perspective of discrimination against, 10, 265–270; messages about, 35–46, 53; messages to, 46–53; purchasing power of, 16, 43, 44–45, 270–271, 280, 282; racial profiling of, 1, 4–5, 10, 263–265; social well-being of, 10, 280, 286–287, 288; unsophisticated tastes of, assumptions about, 38–42, 45, 46–48; in white neighborhoods, 264. See also magazines, black lifestyle; segregation-era travel

black employment: in department stores, 87, 89–92, 93, 100–101, 108–110, 112; as domestic servants, 103, 108, 109, 110, 115n24. See also black women’s employment; jobs/employment Black Enterprise magazine, 247 Black Family magazine, 247 black fashion designers, 253, 254, 258, 260 black journalists, 233–234 black lifestyle magazines. See magazines, black lifestyle black matriarchy, 155 black middle class, 80, 89, 90, 93, 102; black lifestyle magazines and, 246–248, 250, 251, 252, 262n48 Black Moon (film), 231–232 black nationalism, 247, 248, 253, 256 black neighborhoods, 141; advertising in, 47–48; black-owned businesses in, 204–205, 284; in Chicago, 39, 40–41, 41–42; civic participation in, 290–291; demographics of, 284–285; in Detroit, 39, 40–41, 42, 158n10; dissatisfaction with retail environment in, 285–287; Esri and, 7, 36–39, 40–42; food apartheid in, 4, 278–279; food unavailability in, 3, 4, 5, 10, 278–279, 281, 282, 285–286; Fort Greene, 9, 208–218; Harlem, 10, 208, 220n31, 282, 284; history of formation of, 280–281; involuntary segregation of, 155; mental health in, 10, 279–280, 280, 282–291; MPI measures of, 45–46; in Philadelphia, 39, 40–41, 42; purchasing power in, 282; redlining in, 3, 7, 281; retail options in, 35, 46, 281–282, 285–286, 290; retail physical infrastructure in, 51, 52–53; social well-being in, 10, 280, 286–287, 288; study participants and, 284–285. See also gentrification; New York City, N.Y.; white neighborhoods black newspapers, 261n39; advertising of voodoo sellers in, 235–238; advertising of white businesses in, 43; Harlem’s Black Magic and, 226; segregation-era travel and, 22; voodoo reports in, 228–229, 230, 232, 233–234, 235, 239. See also newspapers black-owned businesses, 201; in black urban neighborhoods, 204–205, 284; building ownership and, 212; closures of, 9, 203, 206–207, 210–211, 212, 215, 217, 282; in Fort Greene, 205, 209–211, 212, 218; F&S

Index Tires, 9, 201, 202–204, 215, 217; insecurity of owners of, 212–213, 215; punitive code enforcement and, 215–217, 218; redlining and, 281; restaurants, 216–217; segregation-era travel guides to, 25; stereotypes of, 207; suburbanization and, 94; support for, by blacks, 207–208. See also small businesses; white-owned businesses black pilots, 26 black population in NYC neighborhoods, 211, 213 black pride, 247–248 “black savagery,” 227, 240 black spiritual primitivism. See under voodoo black teenagers, 49–51 black travelers. See segregation-era travel black women, 262n43; clothing for, 82, 91–92, 250, 257–258, 260n12; purchasing power of, 255; rail travel and, 17 black women’s employment, 85, 87; in department stores, 91–92, 100–101, 109–110, 112–113; in domestic service, 103, 108, 109, 110, 112, 115n24. See also jobs/employment; white women’s employment Bledsoe, Julius, 232 Bloomberg, Michael, administration, 204, 217 boarding houses, 24 Bogan, Vicki, 207 Bond No. 9 perfume, 265 Boone, Christopher, 290 Bourdieu, Pierre, 288 Bowler, Joseph K., 15, 23 boycotts: of Baltimore department stores, 99, 112; effectiveness of, 86–87, 94; of Hecht’s, 81, 83, 85–87; of Montgomery bus system, 78. See also protests Brazil, 227 brick and mortar stores, 271–272 Bricken, Gordon, 182 Bronner Brothers, 252–253 Brooklyn, N.Y., 9, 209, 211, 213, 214. See also Fort Greene, Brooklyn Brooklyn Navy Yard, 221n32 Brooks, Charlotte, 144 Brookshire, Stanford, 92–93 Brown, Robert, 1, 4 Burrell (advertising agency), 44 Burrows, Stephen, 254 Bush, George H. W., 69

301

business closure, 9, 201, 205–208, 210–211, 212, 282; peso devaluation and, 58, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70 Bustamante, Carlos, 190–191, 193 Bustamante, Jorge, 67 bus travel, 51, 78 bus travel segregation, 15–16, 20–21, 29. See also segregation-era travel Butler, John Sibley, 207 buyer position, 105, 106 Cadava, Geraldo L., 7 Calder, Lendol, 132 Calzado Canadá (shoe store chain), 181 Cannuscio, Carolyn, 282, 283 capital access: financial, 206; human, 206–207 car dealerships, 264 Carpenter, William, 238 Carter, Robert T., 272 Carter-David, Siobhan, 9–10 car travel in segregation era, 15–16, 21–26, 29. See also segregation-era travel “The Case for Reparations” (Coates), 281, 290 cash purchases, 52, 83; Athabascan village stores and, 124, 132 Castillo, Albert, 189 Cawthorn, Joseph, 231 Ceballos, Jose, 183 Central Harlem, Manhattan, 10 chain stores, 71, 200; retail redlining and, 35, 281 Chan, Woodrow, 148 Chang, P. H., 148 Charlotte, N.C., sit-in movement, 88–94; effectiveness of, 92–94; lunch counters and, 89–91; sales work integration and, 91–92. See also worker-consumer alliances Chase, Irv, 184, 185, 191 Chase, Ryan, 191 Chavez, Leo, 59 Cheng, Cindy, 144 Chia-ken, Yen, 152 Chicago, Ill., 39, 40–41, 41–42 Chicago and Southern Airline, 27 Chicago Defender (newspaper), 15, 21, 228; voodoo advertising in, 235, 236; voodoo articles in, 232, 233, 237, 238 Chicago Tribune, 63, 228, 240 Chief Walter (Tanacross village), 132–133

302

Index

child-rearing, 131, 155 Chin, Elizabeth, 48 Chin, Eugene F., 151 Chinatown (Boston), 154–155 Chinatown (New York City), 148, 155, 160n33 Chinatown (San Francisco), 8, 141–157, 157n2; archway construction in, 149–152, 156, 160n39; Chamber of Commerce essay contest in, 148–149; Chinese New Year in, 148; as “gilded ghetto,” 156–157; marketing of as exotic/harmless, 142–143; “oriental style” redevelopment of, 142–143, 149; parking in, 149; sanitation in, 149; torchlight parade in (1951), 147; tourism and, 142–143, 148–149, 156–157, 160n33 Chinatown (Washington, D.C.), 148 Chinatown Handy Guide (1959), 154 Chinatown Improvement Committee (San Francisco), 149–150, 160n35 Chinatown–North Beach Improvement Association, 151 Chinatowns: absence of criminality in, 153–154, 154–155; anticommunism campaigns in, 147–148, 154; compared to ghettos, 155–156; critics of deghettoization movement of, 156–157; desires to eliminate, 142, 145; impact of Chinese imports embargo on, 148–149; population of, 145–146, 154–155; resignifying of, as family-friendly, 153–154, 156; resignifying of, as U.S. patriotic, 146–148; Rocky Mountain, 145 Chinese Americans, 8; assimilation of, 144–146; Chinatown as economic livelihood for, 142; as definitively not-black, 141, 143, 155, 156; education of, 153–154; family values of, 141, 143, 153–154; ghettos of, 145–146; immigration of, 146, 154; “nondeliquency” of, 153–154, 154–155; political affinity of, 146–148, 153; racial makeover of, 141; stereotypes about, 143, 153; upward mobility of, 155 Chinese Chamber of Commerce, 148–149, 150, 151, 152 Chinese Exclusion Acts, 144, 145, 146, 153 Chinese New Year celebrations, 148 Chinese Six Companies (Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, CCBA), 147, 159n23 Chinese World (newspaper), 146, 150 Christian, Trayon, 4–5

Christian Arabs, 168–169 Christopher, George, 149, 151 church groups, 81, 85–86, 112 Cinco de Mayo celebrations, 181 citizenship, 113 city codes, 201; F&S tire shop and, 202–203; as gentrification aid, 204, 211; interpretation of, 204; as punitive, 215–217, 218; spatial patterning of, 217; ticketing and, 215–216 Civil Rights Act (1964), 29, 78 Civil War, U.S., 60 class: consumption and, 79, 80, 113; “creative class,” 179; divisions of, in Johannesburg, 100–101, 108, 113; ethnicity intersection with, 194; Latino middle class, 182, 185, 186–187, 193; respectability and, 26, 80, 81–83, 100, 101, 103; service worker/consumer interactions and, 100, 107; women’s work and, 108; working class, 177. See also black middle class; upward mobility CLASS magazine, 250, 253, 254, 256 Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, 213 clothing, 249; animal furs and leather, 253–254, 255, 258; in Athabascan village stores, 128–130, 134; of black women, 82, 91–92, 250, 257–258, 260n12. See also fashion Coates, Ta-Nehisi, 281, 290 codes of conduct, 50–51. See also respectability coffeehouses, 8, 163–175; hookah bars, 169, 173; hookah cafés, 167–168, 171, 174; hookah restaurants, 168, 169; kahve, 166–167, 171. See also narghile (hookah) lounges Cohen, Lizabeth, 100, 112 Cold War, 146 Colosio, Luis Donaldo, 71 Columbia Studios, 231–232 Commission on Human Rights (NYC), 1 Committee on Equal Opportunity Employment (Washington, D.C.), 85, 86 Committee on Ways and Means (House of Representatives), 68 Communist Revolution (China, 1949), 143, 144 Community Forum on Cultural Diversity and Conflict Resolution (Santa Ana), 191–192 Community Management District (Santa Ana), 188–189 Community Tapestry Handbook (Esri), 37

Index Community Tapestry market ratings, 36, 39–41, 45–46 Confucian tradition, 154 Congress, U.S., 18; Alaska and, 125–126; Chinese Exclusion Acts repeal by, 144, 146, 153; FHA and, 280–281; immigration reform and, 59 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 87, 88 conspicuous consumption, 247–248, 249, 256 Constitution, U.S., 18 consumer racial profiling, 1–2, 4–5, 10, 264 consumption: conspicuous, 247–248, 249, 256; economic freedom and, 80; middle-class citizenship and, 79, 80, 113; racial solidarity and, 112 Continental Airlines, 28 convenience stores, 4, 278, 279, 282, 290 Cooper, Melissa L., 9 Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws (CCEAD), 81, 83, 84, 85, 96n17 CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), 87, 88 coyotes (black market currency traders), 67 Crawford, George, 24 Crawley, Wilton, 26–27 creative city development, 9, 185–190, 193–195; all-Latino city council favoring, 177, 179–180, 185; gentrification and, 176, 178, 185, 193, 194; popularity of, 177–178; public opinion of, 179; Renaissance Plan and, 187, 198n41. See also Santa Ana redevelopment “creative class” concept, 179 credit and debt, 47; Athabascans and, 131–134, 136 criminality: absence of, in Chinatowns, 153–154, 154–155; black consumers and, 1–2, 4, 48–52, 53, 263, 269–270; shoplifting, suspicion of, 1–2, 263, 269–270; voodoo and, 227, 228, 229, 234, 237–239, 240 Crockett, David, 268 La Cuatro (Santa Ana district): economic viability of, 186; Fiesta Marketplace plans and, 182–185; Renaissance Plan and, 187; Urban Land Institute presentation and, 190; white flight from, 180 Cuba, 227 cultural capital, 42 Custom Auto Service, 183 Customers’ Bill of Rights, 1–2, 4

303

Daily News (New York), 210 Dance with Your Gods (play), 232 Darity, William, 207 Davis, Corneal, 23 Davis, Doretha, 7, 89–92 Dawson, Michael, 80 De Blasio, Bill, 215 Deen, Paula, 264 Deep River (opera), 232 Delta Airlines, 27 demographics: of Baltimore, 96n20; of black neighborhoods, 284–285; of Charlotte, 89, 97n55; of Chicago, 35, 38–42; of consumers, 36–38, 270–271, 279; of Detroit, 39–42; of Fort Greene, 208–209, 211, 213; of New York City, 39–42, 211, 213; of Philadelphia, 39–42; of sales workers, 85, 97n54, 104; of Santa Ana, 185–186, 187; of Washington, D.C., 84, 87, 97nn34,54. See also Esri; geodemographic market segments Denton, Nancy, 35 department stores, 99–113, 261n39; Barneys, 1, 4–5; black consumer experiences in, 1, 4–5, 8, 79, 102–103; black employment in, 87, 89–92, 93, 100–101, 108–110, 112; black women’s employment in, 91–92, 100–101, 109–110, 112–113; demographics of consumers in, 271; Dillard’s, 264, 273n3; familial atmosphere of, 105–106, 109; Hecht’s, 81–87; Hochschild-Kohn’s, 102, 105–106, 110–111; Hutzler’s, 101–102, 105, 109; importance of, 78–79; Ivey’s and Belk, 92–94; Julius Garfinckel & Company, 86; Lansburgh’s, 86, 87; Macy’s, 1, 4–5; peso devaluation and, 64; as political arenas, 99–100, 101, 110, 111, 113; as public spaces, 99–101, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114; Sears, 89; S. Kann Sons & Co., 86; white women’s employment in, 100–101, 103–108, 109–110, 112–113. See also Baltimore, Md.; desegregation; Hecht’s; Washington, D.C., Department Store Campaigns desegregation, 28–29; of Baltimore department stores, 100–101, 110–112; black responses to, 91–92; of Charlotte department stores, 89, 91, 92–93; economic effects of, 93, 111–112, 113; of Johannesburg department stores, 100–101, 113; in northern U.S., 94; white responses to, 99, 110–111. See also segregation

304

Index

despair, 282–283 Detroit, Mich., 158n10; demographics of, 39–42; income level in, 42; LifeMode groups in, 40–41 Dia de los Muertos celebrations, 181 Diggs, Charles C., 28 Dillard’s department stores, 264, 273n3 Dimler, Fred, 134 discrimination, definition of, 53. See also marketplace discrimination “Diversity, Culture, and Brownstones, Too” ( Jackson), 210 Diversity Affluence (MCA firm), 44–45 domestic service, 103, 108, 109, 110, 112, 115n24 Domingo, Prof., 235, 236 Double Ten Day, 148 Downtown, Inc., 188, 191 D’Rozario, Denver, 35 drug trafficking, 58–59, 60 Du Bois, W. E. B., 24 East End (Santa Ana), 177, 178, 187, 188, 189, 191 East West (newspaper), 156 Ebony magazine, 43, 79, 254, 256, 262n48 Ebony Man magazine, 246, 255, 259 economic concerns, 5, 79, 128, 186; banking and currency exchange and, 63, 67–68, 70; effects of boycotts/picketing/etc., 84, 86–87, 91, 92–93; roadside accommodations and, 22–23; segregation/desegregation and, 29–30, 77, 93, 102, 111–112, 113. See also consumption; purchasing power; upward mobility Economic Geography, 154–155 Edet Effiong, Prof., 235–236 education: of Athabascans, 125–126; of Chinese American youth, 153–154; collegeeducated residents as gentrification marker, 211; level attained, by blacks, 247; level attained, in NYC neighborhoods, 213; level attained, in racially segregated neighborhoods, 285; small business performance and, 206–207 Ellis, William, 26 El Paso, Tex., 64, 65 Emanuel, Rahm, 52 employment. See jobs/employment environmental justice, 278, 290

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 112 Erikson, Erik, 37 Escalante, Robert, 183–184 Esri, 7, 36–42; Business Analyst Online data, 38–42; MPI of, 45–46 Essence magazine, 210, 246; advertising in, 255, 258, 262n43; animal furs and leather in, 253–254, 255, 258; opening issue of, 250, 255; reader responses to, 256, 257–259; travel advertising and editorials in, 249, 260n15; wedding fashion and, 252. See also magazines, black lifestyle Esso gas station chain, 25 ethnicity, class intersection with, 194 ethno-racial institutions, 207–208 Fairbanks, Douglas, Jr., 148 Family Portrait (LifeMode group), 40, 41 family values, 141, 143, 153–154, 156 Farmers Home Administration, 68–69 fashion, 246–260; African motifs in, 254, 256; animal furs and leather and, 253–254, 255, 258; black designers and, 253, 254, 258, 260; Bronner Brothers and, 252–253; dance-club clothing, 249; hair care and, 250, 255–256, 262n43; holiday, 250, 251; magazine production and, 247; social responsibility and, 258–259; wedding, 252. See also magazines, black lifestyle fast-food restaurants, 35–36, 278, 279, 281 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 280–281 Fiesta Marketplace (Santa Ana), 176, 177, 178, 193, 195; as East End, 188, 189, 191; plans for, 182–185 Fiestas Patrias celebrations, 181 Fitzgerald, Ella, 27 Fleming, Thomas, 19 Florida, Richard, 179 Flournoy, Spencer, 254 food: in Athabascan village stores, 131, 134; in convenience stores, 4, 278, 279, 282, 290; fast-food restaurants, 35–36, 278, 279, 281; lunch counters, 81–85, 89–91, 99, 110, 113; supermarkets, 3–4, 278–279, 281–282, 285–286; unavailability of fresh, in black neighborhoods, 3, 4, 5, 10, 278–279, 281, 282, 285–286

Index food apartheid, 4, 278–279 Forsyth, J. M., 272 Fort Greene, Brooklyn, 9, 208–218, 221n32; as “black belt,” 209–210; as “black bohemia,” 210–211, 212; city codes and, 202–203, 204, 211, 215–216; demographics of, 208–209, 211, 213; gentrification in, 202, 205, 210–212, 218n4; retail landscape in, 212, 214 Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 210 Fourteenth Amendment, 18 Fourth Street (Santa Ana). See La Cuatro (Santa Ana district) Franklin, Aurelia, 23–24 Franklin, John Hope, 23–24 Frazer, Robert, 231 Frazier, E. Franklin, 229 “Free China Day” (Chinatown, NYC), 148 Freeman, H. Lawrence, 232 free-trade zones, 60 F&S Tires (Fort Greene, Brooklyn), 9, 201, 202–204; closure of, 203, 215, 217 Fulton Mall (Brooklyn), 48–49 fur trading by Athabascans, 125, 126–127 Gabbidon, Shaun, 264, 267 gas stations, 22–23 gender, 6; car dealerships and, 264; in narghile lounges/coffeehouses, 167, 168, 173–174; sales and, 109. See also black women; black women’s employment; white women’s employment; women gentrification, 280; city codes as aid to, 204, 211; creative city/New Urbanism development and, 176, 178, 185, 193, 194; erosion of community character through, 200, 204, 217–218; in Fort Greene, 202, 205, 210–212, 218n4; measures of, 211–212; property values and, 202, 211, 218n5; restaurant inspections as mechanism for, 217; in Santa Ana, 190–191, 194; small business closure and, 201. See also black neighborhoods geodemographic market segments, 3–4, 35–38, 279; advertising and, 42, 43–44 ghetto belt, 35, 36, 47; Esri data on, 38–43 ghettos, 141–142; black ghettoization, 143, 158n10; Chinatown as “gilded ghetto,” 156–157; Chinese American, 145–146; compared to Chinatowns, 155–156; definition of, 35; Fort Greene perceived as, 202, 205

305

Gillespie, Marcia Ann, 255 GIS mapping software, 216; Esri, 7, 36–42, 45–46 Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 113 Global Roots (LifeMode group), 40, 41 The Go Guide to Pleasant Motoring, 24 Goluboff, Risa, 78 González, Erualdo R., 9, 178, 187 Gooding, Velma A., 271 Goodyear Tires (Brownsville, Brooklyn), 64 GQ magazine, 259 Grayson’s Guide, 24 Great Depression, 20 Great Migration, 141 Green, Marlon, 26 Green, Victor, 24–25 Grey, Edgar M., 234, 235, 239 Greyhound Bus Corporation, 20 Grier, Sonya A., 268 Habenstreit, Barbara, 210 Hackley, Edwin Henry, 24 Hackley and Harrison’s Hotel and Apartment Guide for Colored Travelers (Hackley and Harrison), 24 hair care products, 250, 255–256, 262n43 Haiti, 227, 230–231 “Haitians Angered by Voodoo Tales” (article), 231 Haiti Moon (Ripley), 231 Hajdukovich, John, 127 Hakstian, Anne-Marie G., 271 Haperin, Edward, 231 Haperin, Victor Hugo, 231 Harlem, Manhattan, 10, 208, 220n31, 282, 284 Harlem Renaissance, 210, 229 Harlem’s Black Magic (short film), 225–226, 229, 240 “Harlem—The Mecca of Fakers” (Grey), 234, 235 Harris, Anne-Marie G., 264 Harris-Dawson, Marqueece, 278 Harrison, Sarah D., 24 Harron, Johnny, 231 health. See mental health; physical health Healthy Bodega Initiative, 289 Heaton, John W., 8

306

Index

Hecht’s department store, 81–87, 88; advertising by, 81; boycotts of, 81, 83, 85–87; lunch counters at, 81–85; press coverage of, 84; sit-ins at, 81, 85. See also Washington, D.C., Department Store Campaigns Henderson, Geraldine Rosa, 10, 264, 267–268 Herskovits, Melville, 229, 235, 240, 242n25 Hiers, Bubba, 264 Higgins, George, 264, 267 Hill, Herbert, 78 Hirst, Claude M., 134 Hispanic consumers, purchasing power of, 271. See also Latinos Hispanic voters, 69 historical memory, 267–268, 270 Hochschild-Kohn’s department store, 102, 105–106, 110–111 Holt, Jack, 231, 232 hookah bars, 169, 173 hookah cafés, 167–168, 171, 174 hookah restaurants, 168, 169. See also narghile (hookah) lounges Hoover, Herbert, 126 Hosley, Edward H., 131 hotels, 24, 61 Hough, Prince, 237 House of Representatives, U.S., 68 Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of, 68–69, 178, 184 hunting/fishing/trapping supplies, in Athabascan village stores, 130, 134 Hurston, Zora Neale, 229, 234–235, 240 Hutchinson, Earl, 25 Hutzler’s department store, 101–102, 105, 109 imaginaries, 101 immigrants, 3; Chinese American, 146, 154; entrepreneurship of, 207; population in Santa Ana, 187, 190, 193 immigration laws, 59–60, 68, 72, 146, 185 Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986), 59 imperialism, U.S., 226, 227 incarceration, 51 income, from sales tax, 65–66 income level: of blacks, 247; Esri data on, 39, 41–42; as gentrification measure, 211; ghetto definition and, 35; market

segmentation and, 36, 279; in NYC neighborhoods, 41–42, 213; in racially segregated neighborhoods, 284–285; of sales workers, 104, 107, 109 The Independent (newspaper), 22 “interaction cycle” framework, 144–145 Internet shopping, 271–272 Inter-State Bus Company, 21 Interstate Commerce Commission, 29 interstate commerce laws, 18 “In the Black” (article), 255 An Introduction to the Black Contribution to the Development of Brooklyn (New Muse Community Museum of Brooklyn), 210 Islamic community members, 165, 168–169 Islamic culture, alcohol and, 170 Ivey’s and Belk department stores, 92–94 Jacaman, Emilio “Curly,” 66 Jackson, Franklin E., 85, 86 Jackson, James A., 25 Jamaica, Queens, N.Y., 284 Jamaica Food and Liquor, 52 James, Letitia, 203 Japanese Americans, 141, 147 J. C. Penney department store (El Paso), 64 Jensen, Louis W., 131, 133 Jet magazine, 256, 262n48 Jew, Merrill, 151 Jewish population of Santa Ana, 191–192 Jim Crow: civil rights movement and, 78, 80; department stores and, 84, 102. See also segregation; segregation-era travel “Jim Crow traveling kit,” 15, 23 job reservation, 100, 112–113, 114n6 jobs/employment: at Brooklyn Navy Yard, 221n32; creation of, 69, 184, 207; in Fort Greene, 208–210, 221n32; increase in black professional, 247; Mexican borderlands retailers and, 58, 62, 63, 64, 65; wages for, 104, 107, 109. See also black employment; black women’s employment; white women’s employment Johannesburg, South Africa, 8; black labor in, 110, 112–113; class divisions in, 100–101, 108, 113; department store customers in, 103; desegregation of department stores in, 100–101, 113; domestic servants in, 103, 108, 110; Sharpeville Massacre, 114n5; unions in,

Index 107–108; white men’s employment in, 107; white women’s employment in, 100, 104, 107–108. See also department stores Johnson, Anna Lee, 232 Johnson, John H., 43, 44, 254, 256 Johnson C. Smith University, 89, 92 Jones, Beverly, 83 Jonson, Charles, 22 Jordan, Kareem, 264, 267 Joseph brothers, 202–203, 212 Journal of Social Psychology, 155 Julius Garfinckel & Company department store, 86 kahve coffeehouses, 166–167, 171. See also narghile (hookah) lounges Kenny, Bridget, 8, 99 Keyes, Corey, 280, 283 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 20 Klein, Arthur, 154 Klein, Christina, 143 Knack, Martha C., 131–132 Korean War, 147, 148 Korstad, Robert, 78 Kosher Food Guide (Organized Kasruth Laboratories), 25 KPCC (radio station), 190 Kramer, Paul, 102 Kreydatus, Beth, 109 Kuomintang (KMT), 147 Kwate, Naa Oyo A., 7 ladies’ cars (rail travel), 17 Landry, Charles, 179 Lansburgh’s department store, 86, 87 Latino nationalist movements, 194 Latinos, 195n2; middle class, 182, 185, 186–187, 193; New Urbanism and creative city redevelopment and, 177, 179–180, 185; political representation of in Santa Ana, 176–177, 180–182, 185, 187, 189–192, 197n33, 198n47, 199n64; population in Fort Greene, 211, 213; population in NYC neighborhoods, 213; population in Santa Ana, 180–181, 185, 187, 191–192 Latino threat narrative, 59 law/legislation, 29–30; airport desegregation and, 29; Alaskan, 123–124, 125–126, 127, 134–135; antidiscrimination, 78, 81, 96n17,

307

112; apartheid and, 108, 114nn5,6, 115n24, 118n67; Chinese Exclusion Acts, 144, 145, 146, 153; consumers’ allegations of discrimination and, 1, 4–5, 17, 27, 264–265; department stores and, 107–108; immigration and, 59–60, 68, 72, 146, 185; Plessy v. Ferguson, 17–18; for voodoo sales/practicing, 233, 237–239 Lee, Clayton, 151 Lee, Dai-Ming, 150, 151 Lee, Jessie, 148 Lee, Rose Hum, 144–145, 158n12 Lee, Sophia, 78 Lee, Spike, 210 Lejano, Raul, 187 Leong, Charles L., 149 Lewis, John, 22 Libby, Albert, 21 liberation psychology, 10, 265–270; and mainstream thinking, 268; recovering historical memory, 267–268, 270; taking on perspective of oppressed, 268–270 Libreria y Discoteca Mexico (Santa Ana), 183 Lichtenstein, Nelson, 78 LifeMode groupings, 40–41, 46 linked fate, 80, 93. See also worker-consumer alliances liquor stores: in Fort Greene, 202, 212; protests against, 52; racialized retail geography and, 7, 35–36, 278, 279, 285, 290 Lizarraga, Oscar, 65 Logan, John, 35 Londoño, Johana, 9, 178 Look magazine, 154 Los Angeles Times, 63 Louisiana (play), 232 Loury, Glenn, 53 Lucielle Vogue (clothing boutique), 91–92 Lugosi, Bela, 231 lunch counters: at Baltimore department stores, 99, 110, 113; at Hecht’s, 81–85; importance of, during Charlotte sit-in, 89–91 Lwin, May O., 271 MacLaughlin, Robert E., 86 MacLean, Nancy, 78, 112 Macmillan, Neil R., 22 Macy’s department store, 1, 4–5

308

Index

magazine production, 247 magazines, black lifestyle, 9–10; advertising in, 247–249, 250, 254–256, 258, 260n15, 261n39, 262n43; animal furs and leather in, 253–254; black middle class and, 246–248, 250, 251, 252, 262n48; CLASS, 250, 253, 254, 256; criticism of, 257; dance-club fashion in, 249; Ebony, 43, 254, 256, 262n48; Ebony Man, 246, 259; hair care products in, 255–256, 262n43; holiday fashion in, 250, 251; Modern Black Men, 246, 250–251, 251–252, 254, 255, 259; reader responses to, 248, 256–260; Upscale, 252–253. See also Essence magazine; Jet magazine The Magic Island (Seabrook), 230–231, 242n27 Main Man magazine, 255 mainstream thinking, 268 Makhani, Shawn, 191–192 management, 85, 105–106, 107, 108 Manning, John, 232 Mao Zedong, 154 maquiladoras (factories), 60, 67, 70, 71 marches, 114n5. See also protests The March of Time! (newsreel series), 225–226, 241n3 marketing/advertising campaigns. See advertising marketplace discrimination, 1, 4–5, 274n18; black consumers’ perception of, 263–264, 267–268; in brick and mortar vs. online stores, 271–272; consumer racial profiling, 10, 263–265; design for interviews of, 266; minority groups’ sensitivity to, 268–269; psychological harm of, 272–273 Market Potential Index (MPI, Esri), 45–46 market segmentation. See geodemographic market segments Martin, Treyvon, 263 Martinez, Michele, 189–191, 193 Masada, the Rev., 258 Massey, Douglass, 3, 35 materialism, 131, 135, 247–248, 249, 256 Mazzula, S. L., 272 McClain, Billy, 232 McCracken, Ellen, 249, 256 McKown, Clark, 265 McQuay, James, 254, 256 Medical Practice Act (1926), 233 medical quackery, 237–239

medicine in Athabascan village stores, 131, 134 mental health, effects of neighborhood environment on, 10, 279–280, 282–291. See also social well-being merchant-consumer exchanges, 265, 283; distance between, 51, 285. See also workerconsumer alliances Metropolis (LifeMode group), 40, 41 Metropolitan Transit Authority SubTalk ads (NYC), 47–48 Mexican Americans, 59–60, 62; high-end real estate and, 67 Mexican borderlands, 7, 57–72; advertising in, 61; border crossers and, 58–59, 72; drug trafficking and, 72; NAFTA and, 60, 70–72; physical violence in, 66. See also peso devaluation Mexican borderlands retailers: crisis capitalization by, 66–67; reliance of, on Mexican consumers, 57–59, 60–66; unemployment of, 58, 62, 63, 64, 65. See also peso devaluation Mexican consumers, 7; banking and currency exchange and, 67–68, 70; borderlands retailers’ reliance on, 57–59, 60–66; invisibility of, 58–59; purchasing power of, 64, 72. See also peso devaluation Mexican culture, Santa Ana redevelopment and, 185 Mexican population in Santa Ana, 176, 177, 180, 193; La Cuatro and, 181; political representation of, 189–192, 198n47; Renaissance Plan and, 187 Mexico. See peso devaluation middle class: consumption by, 79, 80, 113; gentrification and, 211; ghetto-belt residents and, 47; Latino, 182, 185, 186–187, 193; in Mexico, 57; as Santa Ana redevelopment target, 190; white, 142. See also black middle class Middle East, 163 Miles, Betty, 258 Mills, C. Wright, 101 Minto village, Alaska, 127–128, 129, 132 Modern Black Men magazine, 246, 250–251, 251–252; advertising in, 255; black designers collaborating with, 254; opening issue of, 251; reader responses to, 259 modernization, 200

Index Montgomery bus boycott, 78 Morgan State College, 99, 110, 113 Motley, Carol, 264, 267–268 Movado advertisements, 4 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 155 MPI (Market Potential Index), 45–46 Murphey, Rhoades, 154–155 Muse, Clarence, 232 Muslim Arabs, 168–169 Namkoong, David Y., 148 narghile (hookah) lounges, 8, 163–175; Arab identity as marketing for, 169–171; boundaries of nationality/class/income level/gender in, 172–173; business owners of, 171–172, 173, 174; décor of, 171; differences among, 164, 174; ethnic solidarity in, 171–172, 173; gender in, 167, 168, 173–174; Hispanic customers in, 169, 174; hookah bars, 169, 173; hookah cafés, 167–168, 171, 174; hookah restaurants, 168, 169; impact of, on community, 171–172, 173; jobs generated by, 174; modern, 164, 166, 171, 172–173, 173–174; national identity of customers in, 170, 174; popularity of, 169–170; religious identity of customers in, 170; smoking away from family in, 165; traditional, 164, 172, 173 narghile smoking, 164–166, 167 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 78, 102, 225 National Party (South Africa), 100, 107, 112–113, 114n6 National Shopping Behavior Study, 271 National Trailways Company, 20 National Union of Distributive Workers (NUDW), 107–108 “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” (Moynihan report), 155 The Negro Motorist’s Green Book (Green), 24–25 Negro Travelers Greenbook, 24 neighborhood demographics, 2–4; Esri and, 36–38; market divisions based on, 3–4. See also black neighborhoods neighborhood environment, 10, 279–280, 282–291 Nelson, Jessica, 265, 269 Nelson Act (1905), 125–126

309

New Deal, 78 New Jersey, 164 New Negro intelligentsia, 229, 230, 233 newspapers: articles on voodoo in, 227, 228–229, 230, 232, 233–234, 235, 239; black journalists writing for, 233–234. See also black newspapers; specific newspapers newsreels, 225 New Urbanism development, 9, 185–190, 193–195; all-Latino city council favoring, 177, 179–180, 185; gentrification and, 176, 178, 185, 193, 194; popularity of, 177–178; public opinion of, 179, 196n8; Renaissance Plan and, 187, 198n41 New York Amsterdam News, 228, 230; voodoo advertising in, 235, 236, 239; voodoo articles in, 231, 233, 234, 237, 238 New York City, N.Y., 214; demographics of, 39–42, 211, 213; Department of Buildings, 202–203, 216; Department of Consumer Affairs, 215, 216; Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), 205, 216, 217; Department of Sanitation, 215, 216; gentrification in, 211; income level in, 41–42, 213; LifeMode groups in, 40–41; MPI values in, 45–46; redlining in, 281–282; social well-being in racially segregated neighborhoods of, 284; supermarkets in, 281–282 New York Times, 60, 64, 148, 208, 254; voodoo articles in, 227, 228, 231, 237 New York Times Magazine, 153–154 Niles, Robert L., 236 Ni-Sun Bus Company, 21 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 60, 70–72 NUDW (National Union of Distributive Workers), 107–108 Obama, Barack, 263 Obama administration, 185 obesity, 131, 279 O’Brien, Laurie, 265, 269 Oda, Meredith, 144 oil resources, 135 Olivos, Louie Sr., 177, 184 Olivos family, 181 Omi, Michael, 34 Omnibus Reconciliation Act (1981), 68

310

Index

La Opinion (newspaper), 181 Orange County, Calif., Grand Jury, 192, 199n63 Orientalism, Cold War, 143–144 Osofsky, Gilbert, 155 Packard, Jerome, 22 Panama, 227 Pan American Airlines, 27 Park, Robert E., 144 Parker, Traci, 7, 77 paternalism, 100, 105–106 Paterson, N.J., 8, 163–164, 174, 175n2. See also narghile (hookah) lounges Paul, Julius, 133 Pearce, Samuel Kojo, 237–238 Pearl Harbor attack (1941), 23–24, 134 Penn, Ada, 232 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 147, 148 peso devaluation, 57–58, 60–72; banking and currency exchange and, 62, 63, 64, 67–68, 70; business closures caused by, 58, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70; capitalization on, 66–67; coyotes and, 67; increasing exports after, 57; inflation and, 70; investment in Mexico after, 70–71; investment out of Mexico after, 57, 67; Mexican border cities’ growth after, 67; NAFTA and, 60, 70–72; real estate and, 66, 67; retail unemployment caused by, 58, 62, 63, 65; sales tax and, 58, 62, 65–66; SBA loans and, 68; social services requests after, 66; U.S. economic aid to border region after, 68–69; U.S. retailers’ concessions to mitigate effects of, 61, 64, 71 Peters, Louis, 127, 134, 138n14 Philadelphia, Pa., 39, 40–41, 42 Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, 289–290 Phylon (journal), 155 physical health, 131, 287; race and, 278, 279; racialized retail geography and, 279 Pickens, William, 19–20 picketing: in Charlotte, 89, 90, 92–93; effectiveness of, 84, 91, 92–93; goals of, 77; in Washington, D.C., 81–84, 87, 88 Pittsburgh Courier, 226, 228, 235, 236, 239 Plessy, Homer, 17–18 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 17–18 Ploughs Black and White Birthday and Dream Book, 236

Porter, Sharese N., 10 Portsmouth Plaza Parking Corporation, 149 poverty: in Chinatowns, 154–155; ghettos and, 141–142; in Santa Ana, 181 press coverage: of Charlotte sit-in movement, 89; of Hecht’s picket, 84; of Sharpeville Massacre, 114n5. See also newspapers Project Understanding Residents’ Beliefs about Neighborhoods (Project URBAN), 284 Pro-Line hair products, 250 Property Based Improvement District (PBID, Santa Ana), 188–189, 191–192, 199n63 protests: boycotts, 78, 81, 83, 85–87, 99, 112; effectiveness of, 84, 86–87, 94; marches, 114n5; sit-ins, 77, 81, 85, 99, 110, 113; strikes, 107. See also Charlotte, N.C., sit-in movement; Washington, D.C., Department Store Campaigns Pryce, George C., 246, 260n2 public housing, 51 public space: access to, 77; department stores as, 99–101, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114; as white space, 79, 103, 111 purchasing power, 5, 255; of black consumers, 16, 43, 44–45, 79, 270–271, 280, 282; of Mexican consumers, 64, 72; retail redlining and, 282 Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), 233 Purple Swan-Greyhound-Oriole Bus line, 21 Quan, Honey, 149 racial coding, 34–35 racialized geographies, 2–3, 278–279; fast-food restaurants and, 35–36, 278, 279, 281; liquor stores and, 7, 35–36, 278, 279, 285, 290 racial profiling, 10, 264; Customers’ Bill of Rights and, 1–2; in Macy’s and Barneys, 1, 4–5. See also marketplace discrimination racial projects, 34–35 racial reproduction and transformation, 100 racial uplift ideology, 9, 248, 260; animal furs and leather and, 253, 254; Modern Black Men and, 251–252; reader responses to black lifestyle magazines and, 256, 259; travel fashion and, 249 racism: different groups’ perception of, 267, 268; geodemographic segmentation and,

Index 35–38, 42; ghetto elimination as key to eradicating, 141–142; Latino city council in Santa Ana and, 189; personalized vs. systemic, 201, 269; psychological harm of, 272–273; whites’ denial of, 268 rail travel segregation, 15, 17–20, 29–30. See also segregation-era travel Rainey, Ma, 20 Rangel, Raymond A., 183 Raper, Arthur, 22 Reader’s Digest, 153, 154 Reagan, Ronald, 68–69 real estate investment, 280–281; in Mexican borderlands, 66, 67; property values and, 202, 211, 218n5. See also gentrification Ream, Dave, 184 redevelopment. See Chinatown (San Francisco); Santa Ana redevelopment redlining, 3, 7, 280–281; retail, 3, 7, 35, 279, 280–281, 282 regulatory ambiguity, 215–216. See also city codes Regulatory Review Panel (NYC), 203–204 religious identity, 165, 168–169, 170 Renaissance Plan (Santa Ana), 187, 198n41, 199n64 rents: and commercial leases, 212–213; as gentrification measure, 211–212; in NYC neighborhoods, 213 Republic of China, 147–148, 151–152 respectability: antidiscrimination laws and, 96n17; black service work and, 118n66; black teachers and, 90–91; class and, 26, 80, 81–83, 100, 101, 103; lunch counters and, 89–90; middle-class citizenship and, 80, 81–83; sales work and, 104, 105, 106–107, 113; shopping and, 100, 101, 103; whiteness as requirement for, 111; worker-consumer alliances and, 84, 88 responsible development, 185, 197n35 restaurants: dissatisfaction with, in racially segregated neighborhoods, 286, 287; inspection regulations for, 216–217; segregation laws and, 18–20, 22 retail options, 35, 46, 281–282, 285–286, 290 retail redlining, 3, 7, 35, 279, 280–281 Richmond, Va., 109 Ripley, Clement, 231 roadside accommodations. See segregation-era travel

311

Robinson, Jackie, 28 Rocky Mountain Chinatowns, 145 Rojansen, Alphonso, 238–239 Rowan, Carl, 28 R&R Sportswear, 183 R. S. Wester Company, 237 Rubinstein, Ruth, 248 Rutgers Business School, 10 Saint Laurent, Yves, 258 sales tax, 58, 62, 65–66 sales work/workers: demographics of, 85, 97n54, 104; as emotional labor, 116n29; income level of, 104, 107, 109; as liberatory, 79, 80; management of, 105–106; respectability and, 104, 105, 106–107, 113; as skilled labor, 92, 109–110; as white labor, 109–110; worker-consumer alliances and, 91–92 Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 70 Samuels, LeRoy, 238–239 San Francisco, Calif., 8, 142. See also Chinatown (San Francisco) San Francisco Chronicle, 147, 150, 151 Santa Ana, Calif., 9; demographics in, 185–186, 187; Latino political representation in, 176–177, 180–182, 185, 187, 189–192, 197n33, 198n47, 199n64; Mexican political representation in, 189–192, 198n47 Santa Ana Collaborative for Responsible Development (SACReD), 178, 187, 189, 190 Santa Ana redevelopment, 176–180, 182–195; La Cuatro and, 176, 177; effects of, on working-class Latino community, 177; ethnicity and class in debates about, 178, 189–196; Fiesta Marketplace plans, 182–185; gentrification and, 190–191, 194; opposition to, 187, 188–189, 191; and Orange County, Calif., Grand Jury, 192, 199n63; PBID and, 188–189; “redevelopment” terminology, 195n1; Renaissance Plan and, 187, 198n41, 199n64; tax revenue and, 190–191; topdown approach to, 185, 193; and Urban Land Institute presentation (2010), 189–190; Yost Theater and, 177 Santiago Street Lofts (Santa Ana), 186, 187, 188 S&A Properties, 184 Sarmiento, Vince, 191, 199n64 Satterthwaite, Ann, 47

312

Index

Savage Rhythm (musical), 232 Sayegh, Andre, 174 Schuyler, George, 26 Seabrook, William, 230–231, 242n27 Sears, Roebuck and Company, 89, 130 Second Organic Act (1912), 126 security guards, 263 segregation, 3, 78, 80, 155; advertising and, 43; architectural language indicating, 51, 52–53; black experiences of, 84–85; economic justifications for, 102, 113; prevalence of, in Baltimore, 102; white experiences of, 83, 99, 110–111; white justifications for, 86, 102, 111. See also desegregation segregation-era travel, 6–7, 15–31; by air, 15–16, 26–29; by bus, 15–16, 20–21, 29; by car, 15–16, 21–26, 29; by rail, 15, 17–20, 29–30; segregation as marketing tool, 30 Seinfeld (television show), 34 self-esteem, 272–273 Selig Center data, 270–272 “separate but equal” doctrine, 18, 19, 99 Separate Car Act (Louisiana), 17 September 11, 2001, 268 Sharpeville Massacre (South Africa, 1960), 114n5 Shelley, John F., 151 Shell Oil, 23 shoplifting, suspicion of, 1–2, 263, 269–270 Shoreline Bus Company, 21 Simon, Bryant, 103 sit-ins: at Baltimore department stores, 99, 110, 113; goals of, 77, 113; at Hecht’s, 81, 85. See also Charlotte, N.C., sit-in movement; protests S. Kann Sons & Co. department store, 86 Skotnes, Andor, 112 slavery, 229 Small Business Administration (SBA): loans, 68; Office of Advocacy, 206 small businesses: aspatial theories of closures of, 205–208; cultural hypothesis of, 207; financial capital access for, 206; F&S Tires, 9, 201, 202–204, 215, 217; human capital access for, 206–207; and inspections/ summonses/fines, 215–216; life expectancy of, 201; loans to, 68; regulatory environment for in NYC, 203–204; stereotypes of black entrepreneurship and, 207. See also black-owned businesses

Smith, Willi, 258 Snuggs, Thelma, 263 social services in Mexico, 66 social well-being, 10, 280–291; dimensions of, 283–284, 286–287; retail dissatisfaction and, 283–287 Sollenberger, Richard T., 155 southern retail campaigns, 77–79, 93–94. See also Charlotte, N.C., sit-in movement; Washington, D.C., Department Store Campaigns Southwest Border Action Group, 69 specialty stores, 286, 287, 288 spiritual primitivism. See voodoo Standard Oil, 23, 25 Station District (Santa Ana), 187, 189 Steele, Valerie, 247 Stein, Annie, 81, 84, 96n29 Stern, Frank, 192 stewardesses, 27 St. Jean, Peter, 52 streetcar travel, 20 Stults, John, 35 suburbanization, 79, 87, 94, 97n34 “Success Story of One Minority Group in U.S.” (U.S. News and World Report), 156 Sugrue, Thomas, 143, 158n10 Sul-te-wan, Madame, 232 summonses, 203–204, 215, 217 Sunoco, 23 supermarkets, 3–4, 278–279, 281–282, 285–286 Supreme Court, U.S., 17–18, 26 Sutton, Stacey A., 9 Taam, T. T., 150 Taiwan, 151–152 Tally, Andre Leon, 258 Tanacross village, Alaska, 127, 128, 131, 132–134 Tanana village, Alaska, 128 taxes, 58, 62, 65–66, 190–191 teachers, 89–90 television watching, 38, 40, 47 Terrell, Mary Church, 81, 96n29 Tetlin village, Alaska, 126–127, 128, 132–134 Texaco, 23; “White Patrol,” 23 Thompson, Azure B., 10 Thompson, Craig, 267 Tillet, Salamishah, 290 Titus, Matthew and Dorothy, 132

Index Tome, Anna, 148 Torrez, Oscar, 64 Toure, Askia Muhammad, 256 Tourgée, Albion, 17–18 tourism in Chinatown, 142–143, 148–149, 156–157, 160n33 Traditional Living (LifeMode group), 40, 41 travel, 6–7; fashion and, 249, 260n15; segregation-era guides for, 24, 25–26; voodoo-themed travel books, 230–231. See also segregation-era travel The Traveler’s Guide (Harrison), 24 Travelguide, 24, 25–26 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), 60 Treme (television show), 1 Trigg, Alice, 83, 96n28 Trinidad, 227 Truman, Harry, 29 Turkish coffeehouses (kahve coffeehouses), 166–167, 174 Umbach, Greg, 144 Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House Restaurant, 264 undocumented workers, 58–59, 60 unemployment, 58, 62, 63, 65 unions: department stores and, 85, 107; in South Africa, 100, 107–108, 118n67; urbanization and, 78 U.S. military support, 144 U.S. News and World Report, 156 Upper East Side, Manhattan, 282 Upscale magazine, 252–253 upward mobility, 112, 141–142; black lifestyle magazine readership and, 257; of Chinese Americans, 155; of coffeehouse owners, 169, 172; “creative class” and, 179; racial uplift ideology and, 252; Santa Ana redevelopment and, 185, 187 urban decay, 94 Urban Hardship Index (Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government), 181 urbanization, 78, 79–80, 87, 97n34 Urban League, 102 Vergara, Camilo José, 48 vice products: drug trafficking, 58–59, 60; fast-food restaurants, 35–36, 278, 279, 281. See also liquor stores

313

voodoo, 9, 225–241; American black migrants and, 227–228; “black savagery” vs. “white civilization” and, 227, 240; black superstition and, 225, 227–230, 233–234, 236, 237, 239, 240; Harlem’s Black Magic and, 225–226, 229, 240; Herskovits and Hurston on, 240; imperialism and, 226, 227; newspaper articles on, 227, 228–229, 230, 232, 233–234, 235, 239 Voodoo (opera), 232 voodoo sellers, 233–239; advertisements for, 235–238; charged with mail fraud, 237–238; deaths caused by, 238–239; “dream books” of, 236, 244nn71,72; mail-order products and services from, 236–238; white-owned businesses and, 233, 243n52 voodoo-themed retail, 229–241; “authenticity” of, 228; film and, 231–232; stage plays and musicals and, 232; travel books and, 230–231; voodoo arts entertainment and, 226, 229–232, 240; voodoo practitioners and, 226, 233–239, 240 Wacquant, Loïc, 51 wages, 104, 107, 109 Walker, Susannah, 44 Wall Street Journal, 62, 64, 70 Washington, Barbara, 258 Washington, D.C., Department Store Campaigns, 81–88; CORE boycotts, 87–88; effectiveness of, 88; and Hecht’s, 81–84, 87–88; one-day mass boycott, 85–87; worker-consumer alliances in, 84–85, 87. See also department stores; Hecht’s department store Washington Post: U.S.-Mexico border relations and, 60, 66, 68, 70, 71; voodoo articles in, 227, 228, 237 Weems, Robert, 247, 255 West Coast Theater (Santa Ana), 181 Western Fur and Trade Company, 125 What Would You Do? (television show), 264 White, Mark, 69 “white civilization,” 227, 240 white flight, 179, 180 white men’s employment, 107 white middle class, 142

314

Index

white neighborhoods, 264; Esri and, 36–38; food availability in, 279, 281–282; retail options in, 281–282. See also black neighborhoods whiteness, 113 white-owned businesses, 5, 43; black support for black employees of, 80, 84–85, 87, 88, 89–94; minority workers employed at, 207; voodoo sellers, 233, 243n52; welcoming to black customers, 25 white population: as gentrification marker, 211; in New York City, 213; in Santa Ana, 185, 187 white teenagers, 49–51 white women’s employment: demographics of, 104; in department stores, 100–101, 103– 108, 109–110, 112–113. See also black women’s employment; jobs/employment White Zombie (film), 231, 232 Wilde, Everett, 130–131 Williams, B., 272 Williams, Jakki A., 268 Williams, Jerome D., 10, 35, 263, 264, 271 Williams, John, 25–26 Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 213 Winant, Howard, 34 Wishnoff, Dan, 144 women: as consumers, 108; employment in Baltimore, 100, 100–101, 103–108, 109–110, 112–113; employment in Johannesburg, 100,

104, 107–108; as mothers, 108; public spaces and, 100. See also black women; black women’s employment; white women’s employment Wong, H. K., 148 Wong, Joe, 148 Woodward, C. Vann, 21 Woodward & Lothrop department store, 86 worker-consumer alliances: during Charlotte, N.C., sit-in movement, 89–94; linked fate and, 80, 93; during Washington, D.C., retail campaigns, 84–85, 87, 88 working class, 177 World Brotherhood Week, 81 World War II, 142; Brooklyn Navy Yard employment and, 221n32; Santa Ana and, 180; U.S.-China relations during, 144 Wray, Fay, 231 Wright, Gavin, 29 W. T. Grant’s (variety store), 7, 89–91 Wu, Ellen D., 8 Yost Theater (Santa Ana), 177, 181, 184, 188, 189 youth groups, 112 Yuan, D. Y., 155 Zenith, 254 Zimmerman, George, 263 Zombie (play), 232 zombie films, 231