Customer Reviews

Under The Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See

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This interesting work on San Diego, one of the few Republican cities in the United States, basically consists of three works in one, of varying quality. The third consists of a series of accounts of people from the other San Diego, overseen and edited by Kelly Mayhew. We here from a founder of CORE, a teacher at San Diego college, a Vietnamese refugee who has now become a peace activist, some environmental activists and trade unionists, as well as several surfers who are trying to stop environmental degradation. These accounts are interesting, but they're not footnoted and they show only parts of the picture of San Diego without revealing the whole. The second book consists of an account by Jim Miller that demonstrates the conservative elite's contempt for free speech. The value of this section depends on what you already know about California history. If you have read "City of Quartz" and other works by Mike Davis, you will not learn much. If you haven't, you will learn about how vigilantes supported by the city elite used strong-arm measures to keep the IWW off the streets of San Diego. The "respectable" conservative press smirked at beatings, tortures, sexual assaults, while calling for lynch law. You will also learn how powerful farmers used fascist methods in the thirties to keep Mexican immigrants in line. This included using actual fascists of the KKK and the Silvershirts while assaulting the Communists who tried to help and threatening their lawyers. We also learn of the city campaign against Herbert Marcuse, easily the most distinguished teacher the University of California at San Diego ever had, and the University administration's mealy-mouthed failure to assist him. (They decided to rehire him, then instituted a mandatory retirement policy that only applied to him). We also learn of threats against the small anti-Vietnam movement and the small alternate press, as well as the city's racist past.

It is the first book, by Mike Davis, which is the most valuable as it gives a history of the San Diego ruling class. Like California Republicans in general, the San Diego elite is fiercely anti-Liberal and anti-Democratic, even though San Diego's prosperity depends on copious government spending (the military). Also not unlike Republicans elsewhere, the San Diego elite affects a high moral tone, even though they are also the main supporters of Tijuana's free spirited economy and the beneficiaries of the investments of Hoffa's Teamsters and the Midwest mob. There is also a steady stream of corruption in San Diego's history, from the unscrupulous transactions of John D. Spreckels in the beginning decades of the last century, to the elaborate ponzi schemes of C. Arnholt Smith in the sixties and seventies. One mayor in the eighties had to resign because of massive campaign fraud. Another mayor in the seventies barely escaped conviction. Powerful friends assisted them in many ways. Nixon probably assured one mayor's acquittal by preventing a key witness from testifying. A Nixon appointed judge fined Smith $30,000, to be paid over 25 years with no interest, for a bank collapse that had cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation more than all the other bank failures up to that time since 1933. Davis notes how the San Diego elite wines and dines the military brass, while the army rank and file has to struggle to get decent jobs and affordable housing. (The military subculture also encourages a docile and uncritical population, though Davis could have expanded this point more). Davis also notes the selfish, short-sighted city planning, designed to benefit various real estate lobbies. The result has been beautiful land marred by freeways and "concrete commercial sprawl," with residential areas built with no schools or libraries and until relatively lately no supermarkets. We also learn of the false dawn around Pete Wilson, who appeared to offer an environmentally friendly form of "clean" government, but who instead engaged in cosmetic reforms, encouraged converting rental apartments to condominiums and sold city land at below-market prices, regardless of possible conflicts of interests. Although the City elite has changed over the years, the essentially conservative regime and one-party press still continue, with special favours to San Diego's greedy sports teams being the hallmark of the nineties.

This is an excellent, in-depth San Diego history. Davis, Miller, and Mayhew offer well-researched, hard-hitting indictments of this city's dark past, yet at the same time inspire hope in readers and San Diego citizens in their recognition of dedicated activists, and regular folks. Having lived in the city since 1989 and having been frustrated at not finding any history but "sunny" vacation-land tales, I was intrigued with these perspectives--labor, racial politics, the shady manipulation of land development.

I have lived in San Diego for many years, and as of this moment one of the authors (Kelly Mayhew) is my professor at San Diego City College. So I write this not only to address the topic but one of the three authors.

San Diego is an incredible city, but the history gets lost. When we go to the harbor, how many people know these things: (a) That Chinese labor was one of the most important ingredients to creating our lovely city, and yet the only major indication of that is "China Camp" next to Denny's on Harbor Drive? (b) Seaport Village is a joke; created to whitewash our city and pretend that our harbor's roots don't rest in Portuguese and Chinese immigrants. (c) The harbor itself went up to what is now Front St, and a plaque on the sidewalk discusses this very thing. (d) Broadway, before known as D street, as it is wedged between C & E, was changed because the mayor bought a house on D, and thought that having his own address on "Broadway" instead of "D" sounded more elegant.

I wont even get into all of the other elements of this book, and the amazing things that I learned from it. It has not only helped me to see the history of San Diego, but also to truly understand its present and future. I can assure you that if you read this book, you can really appreciate the fact that things haven't changed very much. The motivation and model that San Diego's boosters have designed over one hundred years ago is still alive and kicking today.

Kelly Mayhew is an extremely knowledgeable and competent author. It is true that this book is rather biased, but the foreword says so right to that point. Furthermore, anyone with an even cursory understanding of journalism knows that objectivity is not attainable, and you're left with two options. One, is pretending that you are being objectionable and completely free of bias, and telling your audience to believe you because you're somehow the pinnacle of equity. Or, you can announce your bias right off the bat, letting the reader know where you're coming from, and be honest about your intentions. Mayhew et all have chosen that path, and I applaud them for it.

One other aspect of this book that I found very refreshing is that it is written by three authors, all of which "took a stab" at nearly the whole subject of San Diego history. True, they focused on different events and from different lenses, but the outlines are roughly the same. This allows you to get three slightly different versions (all three are easily in the realm of "left leaning"), but more importantly three different writing styles. The first author, to me, was quite informative, but a bit like reading stereo instructions; not that engaging. The other two authors (including Kelly Mayhew) were much more engaging for me, and I felt like I had three books in one sometimes.

In short, this is an excellent book. The authors do not attempt to hide their positions when discussing topics. Again, having lived in San Diego for well over a decade now, this book is far and away the single greatest source of history for my town that I have discovered.

I moved to San Diego just over two years ago from Boston, and since living here, have found it to be strangely void of any substance - just a place with sunshine, pretty beaches and palm trees, but not much else. And frankly, there isn't as much sunshine as one is led to believe, but the selling of the city on its sunshine is part of the lure along with other such illusions as you will discover in this book. The book also claims in many respects, that the hidden truth of San Diego's dirty past and present is helped by the San Diego Union Tribune, the only major newspaper in town. I no longer subscribe to that paper because even before reading this book, it was obvious the paper was pure PR for the military and the selling of a perfect San Diego, a city that is everything but. All kinds of neighborhood crime occurs in this city but you will never read about it in the San Diego Union Tribune. But the bigger disappointment I've felt since moving here is the anti-Mexican sentiment that is still quite rampant. For a city that is right on the border of Mexico, you would think there would be more celebratory venues to reflect that fact. But no, you must go all the way to Los Angeles, or even San Francisco to discover the wonderful art and culture of the Mexican people, because San Diego's goal is to be white and stay white. There is a wonderful park here called Chicano Park, that the Mexican Americans or "Chicanos" fought for and finally won, that consists of the largest concentration of murals in the world. This park has been written about in books by Jim Prigoff and others, but the City of San Diego rarely promotes the park as a tourist attraction or anything else, despite the City designating it a historic site back in 1980. I actually only learned about it after living here for a year because it was vandalized with anti-Mexican graffiti. But as the book emphasizes, although these occurrences are rather common, the SD Union Tribune writes as though such happenings are a rare occurrence in such a perfect city. Chicano Park is one of the last venues the Chicanos can still claim as their own, having the Centro Cultural de la Raza taken away from them a few years ago, as well as other struggles.

Ah, but Italian festivals are big here, despite the relatively small community of Italians that live here, especially in comparison to Mexicans. No, Cinco de Mayo done American style (one big drunk-fest) doesn't qualify. An extremely small section of the city was dubbed Little Italy, complete with a large Little Italy sign that spans the main street that houses a handful of some of the worst Italian restaurants you've ever eaten at. No, this isn't the North End of Boston, or Little Italy in New York. This is Minute Italy, made large to encourage more white folk to come to San Diego and feel like they're in a major European influenced metropolis. But you're not, and it doesn't take long before you realize that everything here is fake. Everything is pretend-land - pretend you're in Spain while in the Spanish bedecked Balboa Park (a park with no actual Spanish history), or pretend you're in Italy while in Little Italy, just steer clear of the Mexican barrio where you actually will find the real type of neighborhood that ordinarily precedes the making of a neighborhood dubbed "Little <country>".

The San Diego Union Tribune's review wasn't terribly favorable, as one would expect, but the reviewers argument is that "All major cities suffer from sleaze and graft" - why should San Diego be considered exceptional? Well, I can only answer that by saying that the difference between San Diego and other major cities is that those cities don't hide their pasts, they embrace their pasts, write about them, learn about them, and work to improve upon them, for the most part. San Diego on the other hand, wants to continue to hide its past, because it hasn't left it behind. It's still racist here, and this city wants to remain as white and plastic as is criminally possible.

A purposeful and very well-researched history of the relationship between working people and business, government and monied interests in San Diego. I'm old enough to have seen some of it with my own eyes, and I'm grateful to the authors for having explored that which preceded me in great depth. If you've ever been underpaid, overworked, intimidated or taken advantage of by an employer or a landlord in San Diego, this is a book which though it will require your time, will definitely interest you.

I found this an interesting and useful book on San Diego and its history. A discussion of this book and critiques of it can be found in the Journal of San Diego History. San Diego needs more critical and relevant histories such as this one provides but there are so many other areas that need analysis and linking up of events and characters in this city from a critical perspective that I do wish it had led to more complete and in depth work. However, this is a good place to start.

This book offers an informative and insightful glimpse into an obscure side of San Diego's history.

Davis, Miller and Mayhew take the air out of San Diego's myth balloon. If you like Howard Zinn, you'll love this.

Compelling and well researched analysis of San Diego. Gripping and engaging. This book is an important corrective to the conservative myths that San Diego has embraced and made its own.

Not only tourists, but civically-lazy locals, don't see or don't care about the power-brokers and their schemes. I lived in nearby Poway from 1969 to 1982, age 9 to 22, and would have loved to be better informed. Thanks to the authors for filling this hole.