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Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller make no bones about the ideology of their new book, "Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See." Written in the introduction and included on the tome's press materials is the assertion, "This is a partisan book, dedicated to the San Diego left, past and present, and it is meant to sting." Mayhew and Miller, along with the book's third author, Mike Davis, will be at D. G. Wills Bookstore on Friday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m. to discuss it and other issues in San Diego. But for all its references to San Diego's rich history of the labor movement, its bastardization of the city's "booster" demographic and for all its oral history of activist and labor leaders today, one of Mayhew and Miller's primary goals for the book was not muckraking. Rather, the book was meant to be a rallying call for authors, educators and activists to dig a little deeper into San Diego's history. "We see it as a tool for activists," said Mayhew, a professor of english, philosophy and humanities at San Diego City College. "It's our opinion that is important for people to know the history ... to do the work of the present." Miller, also a City College professor continues, "Perhaps somebody can write a whole book on the Wobblies free speech fight in San Diego. There is none. Somebody can write the whole book on the NASSCO strike. There is none. Somebody can write the whole book about San Diego in the '30s. There is none." Mayhew continued,"Somebody can write a book on the environmental movement, the anti-globalization movement that is springing up." The book's sting comes in the form of its three related sections, each written by a separate author, that combine to create an ad hoc people's history of San Diego. The first part tells of the early development of big business and its ties to city government. Written by author and historian Davis, the section covers the corporate interests of our city and their effect on its development. Miller's section concerns the history of unrest in San Diego that the book claims has been hidden from public view whenever possible. The Wobblies labor movement in what would later become the Gaslamp Quarter during the 1930s and the city's civil rights protests in the 1960s are included. To provide a more human and personal side to the book, Mayhew interviews modern San Diegans who are currently struggling to bring their particular causes to light. The section is told from a mostly first-person style through the stories of people like La Jollans Iris Blanco, a bilingual educator and mentor and her husband, UCSD professor of literature Carlos Blanco. The threads of Mayhew's section are designed to provide an oral history to complement its other two-thirds. To the inevitable criticisms of the book, Miller feels that it all depends on a person's frame of reference and ability to grasp critical thought. "The book tells a lot of heroic stories about the heroism of everyday life," he said, "about people who don't get a lot of attention. I think people say it's a negative book because we take on the Copleys or it's this terrible picture of San Diego because we show the city as not always livable. Really, there is an ideological assumption that belies that (which) says only a booster's picture of the city is worth telling." Mayhew, Miller and Davis will be at D.G. Wills bookstore
on Friday at 7 p.m. Call (858) 456-1800 for information. |
