Power and Control in the Imperial Valley examines the evolution of irrigated farming in the Imperial-Mexicali Valley, an arid desert straddling the California–Baja California border. Bisected by the international boundary line, the valley drew American investors determined to harness the nearby Colorado River to irrigate a million acres on both sides of the border. The “conquest” of the environment was a central theme in the history of the valley. Colonization in the valley began with the construction of a sixty-mile aqueduct from the Colorado River in California through Mexico. Initially, Mexico held authority over water delivery until settlers persuaded Congress to construct the All-American Canal. Control over land and water formed the basis of commercial agriculture and in turn enabled growers to use the state to procure inexpensive, plentiful immigrant workers.
From the author of Europe Central, winner of the National Book Award, a journalistic tour de force along the Mexican-American border – a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award For generations of migrant workers, Imperial Country has held the promise of paradise and the reality of hell. It sprawls across a stirring accidental sea, across the deserts, date groves and labor camps of Southeastern California, right across the border into Mexico. In this eye-opening book, William T. Vollmann takes us deep into the heart of this haunted region, exploring polluted rivers and guarded factories and talking with everyone from Mexican migrant workers to border patrolmen. Teeming with patterns, facts, stories, people and hope, this is an epic study of an emblematic region.
The Salton Sea was an accident of man created when heavy rainfall caused the Rio Colorado to swell and breach an Imperial Valley dike in 1905. For two years, water flowed into the Salton Sink and ancient Lake Cahuilla. Today, the sea is 227 feet below sea level, covers approximately 376 square miles, and is California's largest lake. During the early 1900s, it became an important bird and waterfowl refuge. When many species of fish were introduced, the Salton Sea also became popular for boating, fishing, hunting, and camping activities. Motels, yacht clubs, and marinas developed around Salton City and North Shore. During recent decades, the sea has become polluted from agricultural runoff, creating a doubtful future for the Salton Sea. However, it remains a sanctuary for anyone who enjoys bird watching, desert landscapes, or beautiful farmlands.
"In How the Incas Built Their Heartland R. Alan Covey supplements an archaeological approach with the tools of a historian, forming an interdisciplinary study of how the Incas became sufficiently powerful to embark on an unprecedented campaign of territorial expansion and how such developments related to earlier patterns of Andean statecraft."--BOOK JACKET.
The History of Imperial County, California by Finis C. Farr, first published in 1918, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.
Almost Eleven is the documentation of the January 7, 1965 abduction, rape and murder of ten year-old Brenda Sue Sayers in the small town of Brawley, California. Imperial Valley’s biggest crime is detailed through volumes of official records and interviews with witnesses, relatives and investigators. Serial killer Robert Eugene Pennington not only murdered Sayers, but was a suspect in killing Dorothy Minor-Hindman in Fresno and possibly fifteen other innocent victims from coast to coast including one victim attributed to the Boston Strangler. Extensive research provides the reader with details of Pennington’s life before and after his encounter with Brenda.
In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, Gilded Age economics, and American empire. It is a far-reaching transnational history, chronicling how Los Angeles boosters transformed the borderlands through urban and imperial capitalism at the end of the nineteenth century and how the Mexican Revolution redefined those same capitalist networks into the twentieth. Kim draws on archives in the United States and Mexico to argue that financial networks emerging from Los Angeles drove economic transformations in the borderlands, reshaped social relations across wide swaths of territory, and deployed racial hierarchies to advance investment projects across the border. However, the Mexican Revolution, with its implicit critique of imperialism, disrupted the networks of investment and exploitation that had structured the borderlands for sixty years, and reconfigured transnational systems of infrastructure and trade. Kim provides the first history to connect Los Angeles's urban expansionism with more continental and global currents, and what results is a rich account of real and imagined geographies of city, race, and empire.
These days everyone has something to say (or declaim!) about the U.S.–Mexico border. Whether it’s immigration, resource management, educational policy, or drugs, the borderlands are either the epicenter or the emblem of a current crisis facing the nation. At a time when the region has been co-opted for every possible rhetorical use, what endures is a resilient and vibrant local culture that resists easy characterization. For an honest picture of life on the border, what remains is to listen to voices that are too often drowned out: the people who actually live and work there, who make their homes and livings amid a confluence of cultures and loyalties. For many of these people, the border is less a hyphenated place than a meeting place, a merging. This aspect of the border is epitomized in the names of two cities that straddle the line: Calexico and Mexicali. A “sleepy crossroads that exists at a global flashpoint,” Calexico serves as the reference point for veteran journalist Peter Laufer’s chronicle of day-to-day life on the border. This wide-ranging, interview-driven book finds Laufer and travel companion/photographer on a weeklong road trip through the Imperial Valley and other border locales, engaging in earnest and revealing conversations with the people they meet along the way. Laufer talks to secretaries and politicians, restaurateurs and salsa dancers, poets and real estate agents about the issues that matter to them the most. What draws them to border towns? How do they feel about border security and the fences that may someday run through their backyards? Is “English-only” a realistic policy? Why have some towns flourished and others declined? What does it mean to be Mexican or American in such a place? Waitress Bonnie Peterson banters with customers in Spanish and English. Mayor Lewis Pacheco laments the role that globalization has played in his city’s labor market. Some of their anecdotes are humorous, others grim. Moreover, not everyone agrees. But this very diversity is part of the fabric of the borderlands, and these stories demand to be heard.
"Audacious . . . Reddi has produced a social novel in the broadest sense, leading us to make connections beyond the page. Such connections stretch beyond California, requiring us to think about—to reimagine—the history of immigration in the United States." — David L. Ulin, Alta “Reddi is a talented writer with a gift for pacing — she knows how to employ suspense to keep readers turning pages.” — Los Angeles Times “In Passage West, Reddi expertly navigates decades of rich history through the eyes of multiple characters. . . Passage West lays out the foundation for American society today.” — WBUR “Rishi Reddi takes ‘epic’ to the next level with this untold PoC history of California. Passage West is a novel of California, of the U.S.-Mexico border, and of America, that you probably had no idea you needed in your life. . . . Reddi’s prose, measured and with exquisite attention to sonics of accents and multiple languages, [is] a pleasure.” — Electric Literature “Reddi takes up the lives of Punjabi farmers in California . . . Passage West is also a story of the pull of old ties; the urgency and desperation to seek love, make connections and prove oneself, so as to belong in this different world that has, inadvertently or otherwise, become home. . . . Reddi's novel is visual and resounds with vibrant pulsating drama.” — PopMatters "Vibrant. . . . This wise and wonderfully written novel, reminiscent of John Steinbeck’s best, shines a light on a little-known facet of American history. . . . It speaks to the question of what it means to be American, of who belongs, and, most importantly, how we can do better as a nation at guaranteeing the basic human rights and dignities of everyone who lives and works on this soil. . . . Ms. Reddi is a tremendous talent." — Criminal Element “Riveting . . . . An enthralling and dramatic story . . . Passage West informs the reader at great depth about the history of Indian, Japanese, and Mexican immigrants in California without breaking the spell of the narrative.” — High Country News “A richly layered historical novel that tells the stories of ordinary people living in extraordinary times . . . Reddi is a meticulous researcher, history buff and, like her character Ram, a fascinating storyteller. She skillfully embeds the ubiquitous bigotry of the time in her narrative. Although the novel provides readers with a detailed view of our nation’s past indignities, the book’s themes of racism, discrimination and anti-immigration, disconcertingly resemble the divisiveness of the United States today.” — BookTrib "Reddi’s engrossing first novel (after the collection Karma) explores the immigrant experience of Indian-Americans in early 20th-century California.... Reddi vividly evokes the landscape and the characters’ place in it, making the conclusion all the more wrenching. Reddi’s Steinbeck-ian tale adds a valuable contribution to the stories of immigrants in California." — Publishers Weekly “A debut novel recounts the struggles and triumphs of immigrants in California's Imperial Valley a century ago…. The sweeping narrative is deeply researched and offers a fascinating look at a historic era from a fresh perspective…. The lives of two Indian immigrants are scarred by forces still alive a century later.” — Kirkus Reviews “Reddi’s richly imagined, character-driven novel sheds light on a little-known history of Indians in the U.S. and surprisingly echoes current events. A wonderful historical saga for fans of Jane Smiley’s Some Luck.” — Booklist
