East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte

by Romeo Guzmán (Contributor), Carribean Fragoza (Editor), Alex Sayf Cummings (Editor)

East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte is an edited collection of thirty-one essays that trace the experience of a California community over three centuries, from eighteenth-century Spanish colonization to twenty-first century globalization. Employing traditional historical scholarship, oral history, creative nonfiction and original art, the book provides a radical new history of El Monte and South El Monte, showing how interdisciplinary and community-engaged scholarship can break new ground in public history. East of East tells stories that have been excluded from dominant historical narratives—stories that long survived only in the popular memory of residents, as well as narratives that have been almost completely buried and all but forgotten. Its cast of characters includes white vigilantes, Mexican anarchists, Japanese farmers, labor organizers, civil rights pioneers, and punk rockers, as well as the ordinary and unnamed youth who generated a vibrant local culture at dances and dive bars. 
 
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction

362 pages, Paperback

Published February 14, 2020

Reviews

[Diane Velez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was special to me, growing up between El Monte and Baldwin Park and not knowing too much of the history of so many places that hold cultural memories for me, made me feel seen. I appreciate that while it is a historical text with an abundance of research, the short essays made it easy to understand. I wish I had this book 10 or 15 years ago so that I could have a better understanding of the place I came from.

[Susan Eubank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here are the questions discussed at the Reading the Western Landscape Community Book Discussion on Zoom on February 24, 2021:

Questions discussed on Wednesday,
• Icebreaker: Tell a brief story about a place you are from or currently live that can give us a little flavor of the place.
• What does the editors’ approach do for this history of this place?
o Do you think this technique is applicable to other towns or is El Monte so different it wouldn’t work elsewhere? Why? Why not?
• What is your favorite place in greater El Monte and why?
• Who is/are your favorite character/s in the book and why?
• What is the greatest strength of the book? Flaw? Why?
• Does this book change how you think about history? Why? Why not?
• Does this book change how you think about the El Monte area? Why? Why not?
• If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• Any other questions you have for the group?
• Favorite line, image, or passage?

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

East of East is a collection of approximately 30 essays by the South El Monte Arts Posse, a group of writers, scholars, and journalists from the city of South El Monte in the San Gabriel Valley, eastern Los Angeles County. Taken together, these fascinating little gems of prose span a good three hundred years of social and cultural history, many of them, especially the later, more present-day essays, told from first-person points of view.

Ostensibly, these essays concern the twin cities of El Monte and South El Monte, but from my reading of it, the essays, and their nominal topics, provided a wider lens to the San Gabriel Valley as a whole, as well as nearby East Los Angeles, especially as East L.A.'s cultural and social correspondence with the San Gabriel Valley relates to the Chicano movement of the mid-twentieth century.

Starting with the tale of the Tongva people, the true L.A. Natives, and the inspiring true story of the Tongva medicine woman-warrior, Toypurina, in the eighteenth century, and progressing forward chronologically from there into the twenty-first century, these essays each serve as a primer or intro to their topics. At the end of each essay, for those so inclined, is a list of references for deeper dives into those topics.

It's an understatement to say I learned a lot about the San Gabriel Valley, and its twin central cities of El Monte and South El Monte specifically, by reading this book. Whenever I venture over there now, I look at it with a whole new set of hopefully more discerning eyes, looking for the history behind the sun-splashed facades, pondering the stories lurking behind and beneath and between the cracks.

Anyone who's from the San Gabriel Valley owes it to themselves to read these essays, as I can pretty much guarantee you'll learn something about a place you thought you knew. And if you're a transplant like me, and you plan on making your home in or near the San Gabriel Valley, and are interested in truly getting to know the cultural-social backstory of the place you now inhabit, then please do yourself a favor and savor this tome. You'll be all the more enriched for it.

[Kristopher Fortin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hugged the book immediately after finishing it. This is essential reading for all SGV residents. In honing in on the Greater El Monte area, this book of essays and stories tells the story of the region and the complexities of a suburban, multiethnic, non-white space, and places these memories and present at the forefront of the region's discourse.

[Valzreadz · Rating 5 out of 5]

My prof wrote this book and I was so fortunate to read it and work with the material in this book for our class. A more accurate narrative of the complex history of Greater El Monte.