Zarsadiaz’ book focuses on six communities, five in the San Gabriel Valley (Walnut, Diamond Bar, Rowland Heights, and Heights, and a community in the city of Pomona known as Phillips Ranch) and Chino Hills in San Bernardino. The six communities have a similar development pattern and history where a large incoming community of immigrants from Asia changed neighborhoods and created discomfort for their existing, mostly white, new neighbors.
“And so I talked a great length about the ways in which there was peacemaking. But of course, there was still a bit of hurt feelings from both sides. And a lot of the criticism was generated around concerns and of immigrants and nativism; but some of it also was based on just kind of discomfort with change,” Zarsadiaz says in the interview.
“Broadly speaking, I think for a lot of white residents, who were critical believed that it wasn’t necessarily always rooted in nativism or xenophobia. For them, it was just kind of seeing their world changed before their eyes and trying to grapple with that change.”
To read the rest of the interview, click here or listen in at SGV Connect, below.
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Chris is the San Gabriel Valley Reporter for Streetsblog LA and co-host for SGV Connect. He's been a La Puente native since 1991, and a radio journalist since 2014. He hosts the podcast SGV Weekly.