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→Matt Garcia
===Matt Garcia===
[[File:A_Worlds_of_Its_Own.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|<I>A World of its Own</I> by Matt Garcia]] Cultural historians like Matt Garcia built upon the foundations of the New Western history in attempts to uncover more about the experiences and contributions of Mexican-Americans within American history. In his 2001 book, <I>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807849839/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0807849839&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=05eba8caa5c7f5d3835f42ec4254623d A World of its Own: Race, Labor and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900-1970]</I>, Garcia specifically investigated the political culture of Mexican-American citrus-workers.<ref>Matt Garcia, <I>A World of its Own: Race Citrus, and Labor in the Making of Greater Los Angeles</I> (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001). </ref> By merging analyses of Chicano cultural and community development, in a way that struck an “appropriate balance between space, time, and social being,” Garcia sought to answer certain questions about the history of the Chicano population of the suburbs around Los Angeles.<ref>Garcia, pg 5.</ref> Garcia’s main query was the explanation for the lack of labor activism within Chicano communities of the San Gabriel-San Bernardino Valley. Garcia characterized Mexican-American laborers in Los Angeles as active agents engaged in less obvious forms of resistance, which they expressed through their popular culture and community cohesion. Garcia tapped into the work of social historians, like Camarillo, to show the material conditions of Chicano laborers, the racism that manifested in a dual-wage system, sub-standard living conditions, and second class status, and the “barrioization” movement that consolidated the Chicano population within enclaves.<ref>Camarillo, pg 53.</ref>
Garcia used the frameworks of theorists like Edward Soja and Antonio Gramsci in order to uncover other forms of political activity within Chicano communities, and the ways geographic and cultural choices allowed Chicanos to engage in counter-hegemonic activity in response to the discrimination they faced in Los Angeles. Garcia connected theatre and dancehall culture to political activism and intercultural exchange, recognizing alternative ways Chicanos had to critique and change Los Angeles society. Garcia’s book was the product of his own extensive scholarship and oral interviews, but was also a part of the growing scholarship that was re-examining the history of the West, the experiences of the inhabitants of western communities and the relationship different groups of western inhabitants had to dominant Anglo-American culture and their own natural environment. While part of the growing scholarship on cultural history, Garcia’s book also signified the dynamic potential of New Western history, once released from the ethnocentric constraints of the Turner Thesis.
