Carol Lynn McKibben is a lecturer at Stanford University. She is director of the Salinas History Project and the author of two previous books on the history of Monterey County: Beyond Cannery Row: Sicilian Women, Immigration, and Community in Monterey, 1915-1999 (2006) and Racial Beachhead: Diversity and Democracy in a Military Town (2012).
"Salinas is a sensitive yet critical history of how a unique
urban-rural place in California navigated its growth as a farming
empire and increasingly multiracial community. Long-established and
impassioned community historian Carol Lynn McKibben has created a
chronicle of Steinbeck Country that inspires fascination, respect,
debate, and reflection."—Lori A. Flores, author of Grounds for
Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the California
Farmworker Movement
"This important and engaging study of Salinas tells a vital story
of racial divides—of how they have at times been exacerbated, but
also often crossed, and sometimes even dissolved. A major
contribution to California history, the history of race relations,
urban history, agricultural history, and oral history."—David
Wrobel, author of America's West: A History, 1890-1950
"I can see [Salinas] being studied by scholars and teachers in a
variety of disciplines for years to come, both for the story it
tells and for how to conduct the research that made it
possible."—Phuong Nguyen, Southern California Quarterly
"As someone who grew up near Salinas, I appreciate McKibben's lucid
and thoughtful history of the area. Her use of interviews and oral
histories is especially strong and fits seamlessly into the
narrative. The book also possesses a very strong sense of Salinas's
various neighborhoods and its outlying fields."—Michael Weeks,
H-Environment
"Historians familiar with Salinas are likely to think of it as
either the setting for several novels by John Steinbeck or as a
site where the United Farm Workers merged civil and labor rights in
agricultural fields during the 1970s. As I grew up in the Bay Area
during the 1980s, Salinas came up in conversations when talking
about crime and gang activity. In her recent book on the history of
Salinas, Carol Lynn McKibben engages each of these subjects while
asking us to rethink what we know of this central California
city."—Daniella McCahey, H-Environment
"Although this book is largely a local history, it ripples outward
to include the economy and demographics of the greater
central-California region, statewide immigration (and migration)
developments, and evolving federal immigration policy... With this
layered approach,Salinascontributes to our understanding of cities
embedded in rural regions with agricultural economies, and of
city-building processes in the context of race relations during
periods of rapid demographic change."—Philip Garone, The Journal of
Interdisciplinary History
"McKibben persuaded me that over the course of Salinas's history,
city leaders have developed the capacity to reach out and involve
Hispanics and members of multiple Asian groups, no small
achievement. The book should be of interest to academics and
practitioners and would be a suitable supplementary text for
courses in urban history, urban politics, race/ethnic relations,
and city planning."—David P. Varady, Journal of Urban Affairs
"Recommended."—M. Gonzalez, CHOICE
"I expect that this book will stand as the definitive reference on
the history of Salinas."—Tamara Venit Shelton, California
History
"McKibben has written a first-rate urban biography. Centered on
cultural communities rather than civic elites, it provides an
accessible chronological account that simultaneously engages
scholarly literature on the intersection between race, ethnicity,
labor, and political power. As her fine-grained portrait suggests,
McKibben has consulted a wealth of archival material, some of it
not previously examined by historians.... Scholars preparing their
own urban social histories will find this an excellent model."—Mark
Wild, American Historical Review
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