LALACS Prof. Matt Garcia together with three Dartmouth students Grace Dean-Saadati, Giselle Curiel, and Melissa Reyes were featured in Inland on Sun. July 21, 2024, about their research work of Claremont's Padua Hills Theatre.
Matt Garcia did for the Pomona and San Gabriel valleys what Mike Davis did for L.A., which was to write a kind of alternate history focusing on race, labor and class. Like Davis' "City of Quartz," Garcia's "A World of Its Own" is a great read, with chapters not only on the unromantic side of the citrus era but also on places where races mixed, like the teen dances at Pomona's Rainbow Gardens and El Monte's American Legion Stadium.
Another such cross-cultural meeting ground was Claremont's Padua Hills Theatre.
Its productions by the Mexican Players, begun as an experiment by the theater's White owners to fill seats during the Depression, became a surprise hit, drawing visitors from around Southern California from 1931 to 1974. Garcia devoted a chapter to the theater in "A World of Its Own," exploring its unique status and complex dynamics.