Globalization from the Bottom Up

Globalization from the Bottom Up: Irvine, California, and the Birth of Suburban Cosmopolitanism
Author(s): William Benjamin Piggot

Globalization from the Bottom Up
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Source: Pacific Historical Review , Vol. 81, No. 1 (February 2012), pp. 60-91
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2012.81.1.60
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Globalization from the Bottom Up: Irvine, California, and the Birth of Suburban Cosmopolitanism
WILLIAM BENJAMIN PIGGOT
The author received his doctorate from the University of Washington, Seattle.
Using the city of Irvine, California, as its case study, this article connects modern globalization to the rise of a post-industrial knowledge economy, demonstrating how immigration and transnational capital flows have worked to transform metropolitan America, particularly in western states like California. In the Irvine context, Asian immigration and Asian corporate investment were particularly important in trans- forming the citys institutional and commercial life. Yet Irvines Asians were not the only important transformative agents. The communitys white residents were just as instrumental, facilitating and generally embracing the changes the Asian newcomers brought. The article thus demonstrates that the contemporary era of globalization has been directed and given its meaning at a localized, grass-roots level as much as it has been by national and international elites.
Key words: globalization, high-tech, Asian Americans, immigration, Orange County, California
The term globalization has become one of the most used (and abused) terms in contemporary political discourse. From best-selling authors like Thomas Friedman to radical scholars like David Harvey, globalization has become a convenient, if now hackneyed, signifier, linking together phenomena such as trans- national migration, industrial outsourcing, the digital revolution, and the financialization of the global economy.1 Yet, despite the
Special thanks go to John Findlay and Margaret OMara, who both provided valuable commentary on earlier drafts of this article. Thanks also go to the four anonymous referees at the Pacific Historical Review, whose suggestions have been incorporated into the final article.
1. For examples, see Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York, 1999); Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century (New York, 2005); David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (London, 1989); Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York, 2005). Other well-known works include Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How the Planet is Both Falling Apart and Coming Together and What This Means for Democracy (New York, 1995); Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Com- manding Heights: The Battle between Business and Government and the Marketplace That is
60
Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 81, No. 1, pages 6091. ISSN 0030-8684 2012 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals. com/reprintinfo.asp DOI: phr.2012.81.1.60.
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centrality of the term to so much of todays public intellectual dis- course, American historians have yet to invest themselves fully in this conversation. Partly, this reluctance reflects the fact that glo- balization, as the term is most commonly used and understood today, refers to the transformation of the world economy since the 1960s; as such, much of the era to which the term refers has only recently entered historical purview. Yet this explanation is not wholly satisfactory. By now, a substantial body of historical scholar- ship focused on the United States during the 1970s and 1980s has appeared, but little examines how the nations increased global ties have affected the United States domestically.2 Those works that do are still generally focused on explaining globalization either as an elite phenomenon primarily concerning political and business leaders, or as a process whereby only American cultural values are exported.3
This article seeks to redress this gap. Examining the city of Irvine, it argues that the community emerged during the 1970s and 1980s as an important conduit for forces of economic and cultural globalization. By doing so, this article demonstrates that globalization was not simply an abstract process, foisted on aver- age citizens by the actions of economic and political elites oper- ating on Wall Street or in Washington, D.C., nor a unidirectional process, controlled entirely by an all-powerful American hegemon. To be sure, national and international power brokers did much to frame the possible trajectories of the citys economic development, but only to a degree. Rather, globalization in the United States
Remaking the Modern World (New York, 1998); Naomi Klein, No Logo (New York, 2000); Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (New York, 2002); Martin Wolf, Why Glo- balization Works (New Haven, Conn., 2005); and Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defense of Global- ization (New York, 2006).
2. For examples of such recent scholarship, see Bruce J. Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (New York, 2001); Gil Troy, Morn- ing in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s (Princeton, N.J., 2005); Philip Jenkins, Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America (New York, 2006); Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer, eds., Rightward Bound: Mak- ing America Conservative in the 1970s (Cambridge, Mass., 2008); Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 19742008 (New York, 2008); and Jefferson Cowie, Stayin Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the American Working Class (New York, 2010).
3. For an example of the former, see Niall Ferguson, Charles S. Maier, Erez Manela, and Daniel J. Sargent, eds., The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge, Mass., 2010). For an example of the latter, see Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal- Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass., 2009), chapters 1113.
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was a more organic, diffuse, and multidirectional process, de- pending on, shaped, and given meaning by the actions of a more localized set of actors. Irvines political and business leadership combined with the citys residents to forge a new kind of American community. The process began during the early 1970s, when Ir- vine drew in a large amount of foreign investment, much of it from Japan. But it really took off during the 1980s, when an even greater influx of migrants and capital from throughout the Asia Pacific region built upon the earlier Japanese presence. Together, these economic and demographic changes bred a new cosmopolitan cul- ture, shaped by the educated, affluent, and multicultural residents the city would ultimately attract.
Irvines story illustrates the historical roots of suburban Amer- icas emergence as a gateway for the nations post-1965 immigrant populations and shows how this emergence has connected to the growth of a suburbanized high-tech economy.4 While Irvines story speaks generally to the transformation of American suburbia since the 1960s, the wealth and education levels of both Irvines natives and its newcomers also demonstrate that these demographic and eco- nomic changes have not affected all suburban communities in the same way. In addition to the fact that the city was still physically grow- ing as Asians and Asian Americans moved in (meaning that compe- tition with the pre-existing white community for housing and other infrastructural resources was fairly relaxed), the class similarities the two groups shared allowed the city to experience significant demo- graphic transformation with little accompanying strife or controversy. As such, Irvine represents a marked contrast to other locations in North America that have experienced significant Asian in-migration.5
Still, the citys class exclusivity also meant Irvines diversity was quite circumscribed, particularly when viewed in a regional (Orange County, Southern California) context. Indeed, while Asians moved into the city, Latinos generally have not (in 2010 the
4. On immigration to suburban areas, see Richard Alba, John R. Logan, Brian J. Stults, Gilbert Marzan, and Wenquan Zhang, Immigrant Groups in the Suburbs: A Reexamination of Suburbanization and Spatial Assimilation, American Socio- logical Review, 64 (1999), 446460; Audrey Singer, Susan W. Hardwick, and Caroline B. Brettell, eds., Twenty-First Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America (Washington, D.C., 2008).
5. For examples of conflict, see Timothy Fong, The First Suburban Chinatown: The Remaking of Monterey Park, California (Philadelphia, 1994); Katharyne Mitchell, Crossing the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis (Philadelphia, 2004).
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population was 9.2 percent Latino, only up from 5.75 percent in 1980).6 These statistics are striking in comparison to many other Orange County communities. For example, Orange Countys poorest city, Santa Ana, which borders Irvine, is 78.2 percent La- tino. More economically middling communities, such as Garden Grove, Fullerton, Costa Mesa, and Anaheim, have populations that are at least 30 percent Latino (and in Anaheims case, more than 50 percent).7 In other words, the varying levels of cultural and eco- nomic capital that different immigrant groups have brought with them to the United States have melded with pre-existing class dis- tinctions, a point sociologist Kristen Maher made in her discussion of white Irvine residents distrust of Latino immigrants.8 Accord- ingly, Irvines example demonstrates how the combination of eco- nomic globalization and post-1965 immigration patterns have, on the one hand, made the United States a more tolerant, multi- cultural society, while, on the other hand, these influences have worked to spatially inscribe new racial and class divisions.
Of course, the Irvine community into which this new Asian population moved was itself quite new. During the early 1960s, in response to the Los Angeles metropolitan areas inexorable south- ward sprawl, the Irvine Company began to transform its 90,000- acre ranchlands into a city of several hundred thousand. Central to this transformation was the arrival of the University of Califor- nia at Irvine (UC Irvine) campus in 1965 as part of Californias massive postwar expansion of its system of higher education, a de- velopment emblematic of the broader political climate of the state at the time. From Earl Warrens inauguration as governor in 1943 to Pat Browns two-term administration (19591967), Californias political leaders shared, for the most part, an expansive, optimis- tic vision of the states role in creating a fairer, more prosperous society. During this era the state government massively expanded its reach, devoting $10.5 billion toward new highways, $1.75 bil- lion toward the California Water Project (a system of sixteen dams,
6. See http://www.cityofirvine.org/about/demographics.asp. 7. Garden Grove is 36.9 percent Latino; Fullerton, 34.4 percent; Costa Mesa, 35.8
percent; Anaheim, 52.8 percent. Data are derived from: http://factfinder2.census.gov/ main.html#none.
8. For a good discussion of the intersection of race, class, and immigration in an Orange County context, see Kristen Hill Maher, Borders and Social Distinction in the Global Suburb, American Quarterly, 56 (2004), 781806.
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eighteen pumping stations, nine power-generating plants, and hun- dreds of miles of aqueducts, canals, and levees), and, of course, funding post-secondary education at unprecedented levels.9
Reflecting this ambition, University of California [UC] Presi- dent Clark Kerr noted at the Irvine campuss inauguration in June 1964 that,
In the years to come, a University of truly monumental proportions will arise here. It will be the focus of a new center of population which will number, by 1980, more than 100,000 persons. This [will] add new dimen- sions to the creation of a new campus. It [will be] symbolic of the central role of the University in modern life, touching and influencing almost every part of the society it serves.10
On another occasion, Kerr stated: [These UC Irvine] pioneers will have an opportunity to share in the exciting beginning of a great new University campus, located in a part of the State that is growing rapidly in population and economic importance. The Irvine campus will be the focus for this region, serving many of its needs, and influencing its development.11 In line with the goals Kerr outlined in his famous 1963 Edwin L. Godkin lectures, the new Irvine campus was envisioned as much more than simply a place for young adults to further their education.12 Rather, it was to serve as a broader institutional lever, designed to remake the region of which it was a part.
Along these lines, as planning documents from the early 1960s suggest, the city of Irvine was envisioned as a college town similar to Ann Arbor, Madison, or Berkeley.13 Of course, the Or- ange County of the early 1960s was a famously conservative place,
9. Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost: Californias Experience, Americas Future (Berkeley, 1998), 3335. See also Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 19501963 (New York, 2009).
10. Remarks of President Clark Kerr, University of California, Dedication of Irvine Campus, June 20, 1964, Central Records Unit records, AS-004, box 56, Special Collections, University of California, Irvine Libraries (hereafter Special Collections).
11. Preliminary Announcement University of California, Irvine Academic Program 1965 1966 (Irvine, Calif., 1965).
12. The Godkin Lectures were subsequently published as The Uses of the Univer- sity, arguably the most famous theoretical work examining American higher educa- tion ever published. See Clark Kerr, The Uses of the University (Cambridge, Mass., 1963).
13. William L. Pereira and Associates, Second Phase Report for a University- Community Development in Orange County, prepared for the Irvine Company by William Pereira & Associates (Los Angeles, 1960), Special Collections.
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making the development of such a community a challenging prop- osition. As founding English department chair Hazard Adams sum- marized, there was a general resistance for quite some time to the university coming there at all. It was regarded as coming into a community that didnt want it, didnt need it, and they were suspi- cious of it politically.14
Indeed, since its settlement by European Americans in the late nineteenth century, Orange County had proved itself congenial to conservative politics. Its economy, dominated by agribusiness and particularly hostile to trade unionism, resisted most forms of gov- ernment regulation. Further, many of the Anglo migrants to the re- gion brought with them a strict Protestant moralism that nurtured cultural traditionalism as well as a belief in the importance of self- help.15 After World War II, Orange Countys pre-existing conser- vative tendencies were reinforced by the context of the Cold War, particularly the meteoric growth of the regions military-industrial complex. By the 1960s, as Lisa McGirr has described, area conser- vatives championed a politics that was virulent[ly] anticommunist, celebrated laissez-faire capitalism, evoked staunch nationalism, and supported the use of the state to uphold law and order.16 This culture came to dominate the regions political life, and Orange County became one of the key incubators for the conservatism that launched the careers of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. The nature of this political culture, particularly the degree to which it was well organized, would cause UC Irvines administrators diffi- culty in the years to come and thus make its role as the institutional centerpiece of a large master-planned city tenuous.
Nevertheless, the universitys presence provided part of the machinery that, over time, worked to undermine this cultures regional hegemony. Although the goal of developing Irvine into a college town was largely abandoned and the community be- came a fairly conventional suburb, Kerrs vision of UC Irvine as a transformative agent was still prescient. Indeed, the university proved particularly influential as a catalyst for the city of Irvines
14. Hazard Adams, interview by William Benjamin Piggot, March 19, 2009, tran- script and recording in authors possession.
15. Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, N.J., 2001), 2937. See also Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Reli- gion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York, 2010).
16. McGirr, Suburban Warriors, 11.
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emergence as a knowledge economy hotspot and, concomitantly, a destination for globalized capital and well-educated immigrants. Here, the Irvine Companys larger economic development strategy for the new city was of particular importance. Starting in the early 1960s, the Irvine Company worked to leverage the presence of the new campus to create a high-technology district similar to that de- veloping near Stanford University. To achieve this goal, the com- pany zoned 4,556 acres of its new city for what it termed industry, creating a series of more or less contiguous industrial parks in an area bounded by Orange County Airport (today, John Wayne Airport), UC Irvines campus, and the city of Irvines border with Santa Ana.17 This strategy quickly began to bear fruit, in a way that suggested Irvines economic foundationand, consequently, its cultural and demographic characterrepresented something of a departure in the context of 1960s Orange County.
Before World War II Orange Countys economy had been dominated by agriculture, but it was radically transformed in the af- termath of the war. The growth generated by the regional military- industrial complex spilled over from Los Angeles County, and by the 1950s Orange County had been fully incorporated into the burgeoning Southern California megalopolis. While Irvine bene- fited from the countys well-developed aerospace/defense economy, the community demonstrated strengths in economic areas such as civilian electronics, computing, and pharmaceuticals traditionally not well represented in the area. As early as 1966, of the twenty- eight companies that Irvine Company promotional material chose to highlight as evidence of the communitys economic vibrancy, six- teen could be fairly classified as belonging to the informational/ high-tech sector. These included firms already familiar to Or- ange County and its military-industrial complex, like Astropower Laboratories (a technology research division of Douglas Aircraft), the aeronautic division of the Philco Corporation (a Ford Motor Company subsidiary), Bertrea Products (aircraft components), and Edler Industries (missile components). However, more than a few of the firms sited in the Irvine Industrial Complex represented
17. Pereira and Associates, Second Phase Report; The Irvine Company, General Plan for the Southern Sector of the Irvine Ranch (The Irvine Company, 1963), Special Col- lections; Progress Report: Development of the University Community, Irvine Cam- pus, University of California, Irvine Office of Physical Planning and Construction, Sept. 1, 1970, Special Collections.
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high-tech sectors not then common in the rest of Orange County. For example, firms specializing in computing (Troy Engraving, Delta Semiconductors), fiber optics (Poly Optic Systems), analyti- cal research (Stanford Research Institute), and communications systems (Collins Radio) suggested that the employment node being constructed in the new Irvine community represented a departure from the aerospace/defense focus elsewhere in Orange County.18
Surveys taken during the 1970s and 1980s demonstrated the de- gree to which Irvines economic development continued down this path. A 1976 survey conducted by Orange County Business revealed that, besides UC Irvine, the citys largest employers included McGaw Laboratories (medical technology, with 1,600 employees), Parker Hannifan (aerospace, with 1,500 employees), Bertrea Corpora- tion (formerly Bertrea Products, aerospace, with 1,000 employees), Varian Data Machines (computing, with 800 employees), Allegran Pharmaceuticals (biotechnology, with 620 employees), Xerox (con- sumer electronics, with over 500 employees), and Computer Auto- mation, Inc. (computing, with 450 employees).19 A more extensive survey conduced in 1981 further demonstrated the trend. Of the top twenty-five employers in Irvine surveyed that year, six were firms involved in computing: Mircrodata Corp. (with 2,500 employ- ees), Sperry Univac (with 1,700 employees), Computer Automation, Inc. (with 1,250 employees), Printronix, Inc. (with 840 employees), Pertec Computer Corp. (with 750 employees), and Plessy Peripheral Systems (with 500 employees). Seven firms were involved in medical technology: American Hospital Supply (with 2,000 employees), Mc- Gaw Laboratories (with 1,700 employees), Shiley Incorporated (with 1,100 employees), Allegran Pharmaceuticals (with 1,000 employees), Bentley Laboratories, Inc. (with 850 employees), Del Mar Avionics (with 600 employees), and Beckman Instruments (with 500 employ- ees). And, of course, the largest of employer of all in the city was UC Irvine itself, which by 1981 had 6,132 individuals on its payroll. 20
By leveraging the presence of the university, the development strategy that shaped the city into a center for computing and the
18. Irvine Ranch Newsletter, 1 (Sept. 1966); ibid., 4 (Jan. 1969), both in folder 18, box 45, Don Meadows Papers, 19241994, MS-R001, Special Collections.. See also Al- len J. Scott, Technopolis: From the Division of Labor to Urban Form (Berkeley, 1988).
19. Orange Countys Top 100 Industrial Employers, Orange County Business, First Quarter, 1976.
20. Orange Countys Leading Employers, in ibid., April/May 1981.
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pharmaceutical industry also worked to draw in significant invest- ment from across the Pacific. Irvine first felt the effects of these changes when dozens of Japanese corporations began to establish a presence in the community during the 1970s. Regional observers attributed the inward flow of Japanese capital to the Japanese gov- ernments July 1971 decision to eliminate outward investment con- trols on the nations corporations. Japanese companies possessed a large and growing store of U.S. dollars and needed an outlet for them, and, because of its location on the Pacific Coast, Irvine rep- resented a geographically and historically logical outlet for Japa- nese capital.21
Understood more broadly, however, the Japanese govern- ments decision and the changes that ensued from it were parts of a much larger transformative process. As Jeffery Frieden has sum- marized in his comprehensive history of twentieth-century global capitalism, the 1970s marked a crucial inflection point in the de- velopment of the world economy. Frieden noted that, even though the global economy was in many ways quite troubled during this era, international finance and trade both grew at an unprece- dented rate. Between 1973 and 1979, as commentators bemoaned stagflation and oil shocks, world trade tripled, new foreign invest- ment by multinational corporations soared from $15 billion to nearly $100 billion, and international lending rose from approx- imately $25 billion a year to about $300 billion a year. Likewise, between 1973 and 1985, international financial markets greatly expanded, totaling $160 billion in 1973 but $3 trillion in 1985. According to Frieden, The availability of unimaginable sums of money with hundreds of billions of dollars lent out every year, held most countries interest in the benefits of economic openness.22
The increased size, scope, and liquidity of international capital markets was facilitated and reinforced by several important tech- nological changes. One was the containerization of trans-oceanic shipping, which greatly facilitated the flow of global trade by allow- ing goods to be more efficiently transferred from ocean-going ves- sels to trains and trucks, thus eliminating what had previously been a laborious, inefficient loading and unloading process. Globally, as
21. Leonard Sargeant, Whos Who in Countys Japanese Industrial Family in ibid., Jan./Feb. 1978.
22. Jeffrey A. Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century (New York, 2006), 397.
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an industry history noted, containerization grew dramatically dur- ing the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1973 and 1983 the number of containers shipped annually rose from 4 million to 12 million.23 The transformations in the speed and volume at which both capi- tal and goods moved across the globe were, of course, facilitated by the eras digital revolution, which dramatically expanded the speed at which information could be conveyed. As Manuel Castells has described, the invention of the microprocessor in 1971 set in motion the commercialization of computer technology as well as its widespread diffusion in the corporate world. While mainly based on previously existing knowledge, the decades innovations repre- sented a qualitative leap forward in the massive diffusion of tech- nology in commercial and civilian applications because of their accessibility and their decreasing cost with increasing quality.24
Although many parts of the nations economy suffered as a re- sult of this new era of global economic mobility, for the most part, knowledge economy regions like Irvine benefited greatly. Indeed, considering the communitys relative youth, the size of the Japa- nese entry into the city was remarkable. A 1977 report distributed by the Irvine Industrial Complex noted that twenty-three Japanese firms had already set up shop in the city, including companies like Mazda, TDK, Ricoh, Suzuki Motors, and Canon.25 While some of the companies simply established distribution outlets for products created in Japan, others suggested an affinity between Irvines emergence as a knowledge economy region and its attractiveness to foreign capital. Companies like TDK, Ricoh, and Canon all re- searched and produced high-tech consumer electronics in the city. Mazdas Irvine headquarters, for instance, housed a large part of the companys broader research and development capabilities (auto engine research and testing, as the 1977 report described).
23. Robert Reich, Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life (New York, 2007), 6061; http://www.worldshipping.org/about-the- industry/history-of-containerization/industry-globalization.
24. For more, see Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Malden, Mass., 1996), 4147. See also Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (Boulder, Colo., 2004), 207280, and Bruce Cumings, Domin- ion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power (New Haven, Conn., 2009), 424470.
25. Irvine Industrial Complex, Untitled Document, May 1977, Orange County Non-Governmental Collection, University of California, Irvine Libraries; Irvine In- dustrial Complex, An International Community of Industries, Sept. 1978, in ibid.
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Other, smaller Japanese businesses listed by the 1977 report also emphasized this association, such as Frontier, Inc. (consumer elec- tronics), Horiba Institute, Inc. (analytical instruments), and Hycom Incorporated (data communications equipment).26
As the Japanese economy reached overdrive during the 1980s and its investment in the United States likewise expanded, the pattern became even clearer. The development of Irvines second major industrial park, the 2,600-acre Irvine Spectrum, had by the end of the 1980s attracted numerous Asian corpora- tions, the majority of which were Japanese. Important examples included Konica Medical (a major manufacturer of medical im- aging technology), Centon Electronics (a distributor of high-tech and computer-related components), and Toshiba America, Inc. (a subsidiary of the larger Toshiba Corporation, maker of X-ray di- agnostic systems, computer tomography, and telephone systems). According to Jun Kobayashi, president of Toshiba America, Irvine was an appropriate place for high-tech industry, providing sup- port for city council member Dave Bakers claim that the decision of Toshiba America to build its new West Coast facilities in the Ir- vine Spectrum greatly strengthens the City of Irvines reputation as the new place in Southern California for high technology and medical technology.27 Irvine was also a primary site for the rapid influx of Japanese real estate investment that flowed into South- ern California during the height of the 1980s Japanese economic boom. Investors purchased significant chunks of the Irvine Indus- trial Complex, such as the nine-story Douglas Tower and the Taco Bell Building.28
Notably, new Japanese immigrants accompanied the inflow of corporate investment. To a degree, the reception of these newcom- ers at least partially recapitulated an assimilationist model mi- nority discourse characterizing white Americas reactions toward Asians during the early Cold War years, but evidence also existed
26. Irvine Industrial Complex, Untitled Document, May 1977; Richard Jenks, Its a Small World: Many Nations Fly Their Flags in the Irvine Industrial Complex, New Worlds, 7 (Feb./March 1976), Special Collections.
27. Irvine Office & Industrial Company, Spectrum, Fall 1986, folder 4, box 591, Central Records Unit, AS-004, Special Collections.
28. Joanne Reynolds, Foreign Investment: Companies Buy, Develop Orange County Properties, Orange County Businesweek, July 13, 1987. On the Japanese real es- tate investment boom, see Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York, 1990), 101149.
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that cultural influence was beginning to flow in more than one direction.29 For example, a 1975 article from Irvines bi-monthly New Worlds emphasized the desire of Japanese newcomers to learn English and American folkways, but it also noted the effect the newcomers had on the host culture as well. With six Japanese stu- dents in her kindergarten class at Culverdale Elementary School, teacher Sandra Rushing set up a cultural exchange. We can count to ten now in Japanese, Rushing noted; We know all the color words, as well as all the greetings. We celebrate all the Japanese holidays. . . . We learn songs in Japanese. In fact, we sang Old Mc- Donald in Japanese today! Rushings cultural exchange was part of a broader bilingual program in Japanese and Spanish in Irvine schools. Wendy Motoike, an American-born woman of Japanese ethnicity, directed the program. She rhapsodized, Its beauti- ful, because the children are constantly interacting, and both the Americans and the Japanese have an instant resourceanother childfor vocabulary.30
Besides school programs, the communitys consumption pat- terns also showed where the influence of the Japanese newcom- ers was felt. Asian cuisine of all stripes would ultimately become ubiquitous in Orange County, but the appearance of Japanese res- taurants was quite novel in the Orange County of the 1970s. A res- taurant row of up-scale eateries in the Irvine Industrial Complex had developed in the community by the early 1970s, with some in- ternational cuisine. Still, restaurants like the Red Onion only went as far as offering Mexican food.31 But in 1973 Mingei arrived near restaurant rowan exotic new Japanese restaurant with orien- tal waitresses and Japanese chefs, authentic Japanese food chosen, a place where one would enjoy [a] trip to Japan without even tak- ing off.32 By 1975 Koto had also opened, promising Japanese style
29. On this earlier model minority discourse, see Charlotte Brooks, Alien Neigh- bors, Foreign Friends: Asian Americans, Housing, and the Transformation of Urban California (Chicago, 2009); Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Ameri- cans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles (Princeton, N.J., 2008); Nayan Shah, Conta- gious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Franciscos Chinatown (Berkeley, 2001); and Ron- ald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Boston, 1998).
30. Beverley Bush Smith, Discovering America: Cultures of East and West Meet in Irvine, New Worlds, 6 (June/July 1975), Special Collections.
31. Frosty Morgan, Irvine Gets a Restaurant Row, New Worlds, 2 (May/June 1971), in ibid.
32. AdvertisementMingei, Irvine World News, Dec. 6, 1973.
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and pan-Asian cuisine. Koto is totally different from any other Japanese restaurant, general manager Ken Koyama remarked. In- deed, Koto resembled a mini theme-park, designed to replicate an ancient Japanese village. A brook and potted trees bordered a flag- stone entryway, imitating the Koji mall found in many Japanese vil- lages. Flanking the mall were the Teppan Yaki Room, a sushi bar, the Wine Cellar Mediterranean Lounge, and a small gift shop. As a review of Koto described, the mystery of the Orient, the culi- nary attractions of Japan, China, Polynesia, and America, and the charms of an ancient city have been combined into Newport/Ir- vines newest restaurant.33 By 1983 Irvines Japanese community was large enough to support Arbor Village Shopping Center as es- sentially a Japanese shopping center. In addition to Taiko, a sushi restaurant, the mall included a Japanese grocery store, gift shop, and bookstore. Unsurprisingly, much of the shopping centers clientele was Japanese, but a lot of it was not. According to Max Ojima, co-owner of Eiko grocery store, American people used to eat American food, but now Im getting more American people buying sushi than Japanese.34
The influence of the Japanese migration of the 1970s was only a beginning. Irvines population rapidly diversified as the 1980s progressed, with significant Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, South Asian, and Iranian populations settling in the community. The 1980 census revealed Irvines population was already 8 per- cent Asian; by 1990 the number had jumped to 19 percent. More- over, the Asian population the 1990 census described was itself remarkably diverse. Of the 19,935 residents of Asian descent in Ir- vine, those of Chinese ethnicity made up, at 6,130 (then, approxi- mately 5.5 percent of the citys population), the largest single Asian community. However, strong Korean (3,882), Japanese (3,355), Vietnamese (2,455), Asian Indian (1,648), and Filipino (1,559) communities were present as well.35 As was the case with the Japa- nese during the 1970s, the arrival of other Asian ethnicities during
33. New Koto Restaurant Features International Menu, in ibid., Jan. 2, 1975. 34. Art Barrett, Japanese Shops Give Oriental Flavor to Arbor Village, in ibid.,
March 17, 1983. 35. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, County and City
Data Book, 1983: A Statistical Abstract Supplement (Washington, D.C., 1983), 680; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census of Population: Social and Economic Characteristics: California, Section 1 (Washington, D.C., 1993), 67.
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the 1980s coincided with the flow of capital across the Pacific. Like the 1971 decision by the Japanese government to eliminate out- ward investment controls, both the Taiwanese and South Korean governments made similar moves during the 1980s. The South Korean government began loosening restrictions during the early 1980s, with tariffs and other regulations reduced or eliminated on hundreds of goods a year. By 1987 South Korean firms were spend- ing $2.6 billion investing in and purchasing American products. Orange County was a key site for these broadened trade relation- ships, in good measure due to its relatively large Korean popula- tion.36 Likewise, in 1987 the Taiwanese government removed the requirement that its exporters sell their foreign currency earnings to the nations central bank, which had effectively prohibited Taiwan- ese investment in foreign countries. As in the case of South Korea and Japan, Taiwanese businesses looked favorably on Southern California as an investment site. Indeed, Orange County was one of the first locations of a visit planned by a government-sponsored delegation of Taiwanese businessmen sent to scope out investment opportunities.37
Furthermore, as in the case of the Japanese, the broader pan- ethnic in-migration of the 1980s reflected Irvines status as an im- portant center of high-tech industry. A strong metaphor for the linkages between immigration, globalized capital, higher education, and high-tech during the 1980s was the story of AST Research Inc., formed in 1980 by electrical engineers and UC Irvine graduates Safi Qureshey, Thomas Yuen, and Albert Wong. Initially, the company focused on producing add-on memory boards for personal comput- ers. By 1986 the company had an annual revenue of $170 million and began to diversify its operations. The firm began to manufac- ture its own personal computers in the second half of the 1980s. AST put particular emphasis on breaking into the newly emergent Chinese market, opening an East Asian headquarters in Hong Kong in 1985, and by the 1990s the company produced one out of every three personal computers sold in China.38 Besides China,
36. Michelle Vranizan, Koreans to go on a Shopping Spree, Orange County Busi- nessweek, July 20, 1987.
37. Jonathan Jackel, Taiwan Unleashes Investors on Local Turf to Sniff Out Deals, in ibid., July 13, 1987.
38. AST Plant in Hong Kong Opening Far East Market, Irvine World News, March 21, 1985; Michelle Vranizan, One-trick Computer Concern to Diversify, Orange County
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Quresheys South Asian background meant that AST also began to look toward India. Following the 1987 signature of a memorandum of understanding between the California state World Trade Com- mission and Indias Confederation of Engineering Industry, AST moved to set up manufacturing facilities on the subcontinent. We dont want to just export from a point, Qureshey explained: we want to be able to sell to local markets. Even though the Indian government continued to maintain the kind of capital controls Tai- wan and South Korea had removed, ASTs intentions nevertheless demonstrate the scope of the transnational links that Irvine com- panies were developing during the 1980s.39 Although the company later ran into difficulties before being bought out by Samsung in 1996, its success in the 1980s was remarkable and its larger story highly symbolic. Most striking was the fact that AST was founded by a pan-Asian immigrant trio who had come to the area to attend UC Irvine. While successful immigrant entrepreneurship is a deeply rooted American story (and narrative trope), less common is the type of enterprise that would bring together a Pakistani and two Chinese engineers.
AST was perhaps the most notable example of an Irvine-based, minority-owned, high-tech company, but other examples existed. Jim Farooquees CMS Enhancements Inc. provides another illustra- tion. Founded in 1983, the Pakistani Farooquees company manu- factured floppy disk drives for clients like Apple and IBM. By 1987 the company was already generating $100 million in annual sales.40 Even more substantial was Linksys, started by the Taiwanese couple Janie and Victor Tsao in an Irvine garage. Eventually acquired by Silicon Valley giant Cisco Systems, Linksys developed into one of the most important global suppliers of routers, modems, and other computer network devices.41
Beyond economic effects, the larger and more diverse Asian influx of the 1980s had a cultural influence categorically more
Businessweek, Dec. 22, 1986; Martin C. Evans, Asian Advantage: In China, When You Say Computer, Youll Likely Add the Phrase AST Compatible, Orange County Regis- ter, July 10, 1994.
39. Memo Could Bring High Tech Links Between OC and India, Orange County Businessweek, Sept. 21, 1987.
40. Elizabeth Ranney, Upstart Computer Firm Stages Bold Growth Bid, in ibid., Feb. 9, 1987; Jonathan Jackel, Farooquee Finds Work Habit Hard to Break, in ibid., June 20, 1988.
41. Ian Mount, Entrepreneurs of the Year, Inc., Jan. 1, 2004.
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profound than the earlier Japanese in-migration. Increasingly, Irvines schools came to serve as arenas through which a differ- ent kind of narrative about the meaning of immigration and diversity was nurtured. Rather than serving as one-way assimila- tionist factories, schools came to serve as forums for cultural ex- change. Since people were moving to the city from a wide range of national and ethnic backgrounds, many Irvine schools began to hold special days when students and sometimes their parents could present aspects of their national culture.42 Irvine schools also participated in a variety of exchange programs, usually in- volving schools, students, and educators from East Asia. Some involved simple student exchanges, often between Japanese schools and those in Irvine. In this, the community did not differ too much from schools around the country, except perhaps that Irvine schools partnered with schools in Japan rather than schools in France, Spain, or Mexico.43 However, the depth and breadth of the Irvine Unified School Districts (IUSD) international connec- tions went considerably beyond what was typical of most American high schools.
Of particular note was the degree to which Asian business interests facilitated such exchanges. In 1985 the IUSD partnered with the Orange County Japan Business Association (OCJBA) to design a comprehensive study unit on Japan, its economy and culture, and its effects on the high-tech industry of Irvine. Deriv- ing from a set of recommendations delivered to the superinten- dent of the IUSD, the district hoped the program would enable students to view issues and problems as citizens of the planet as well as a city or a nation. The ambition of this program was evi- dent in that parts of this study unit would be taught to Irvine students four times in their school careersin first, third, sixth, and ninth grades. As Kazuo Ohsawa, a spokesman for the OCJBA, summarized, the program was not just a one time thing. In to- tal, the OCJBA would contribute $60,000 to the IUSD in order to get the program up and running.44 Besides the joint OCJBA/IUSD
42. The Report CardLocal Students Nominated for Academy Enrollment, Irvine World News, Dec. 27, 1984; Sampling Cultures, in ibid., Dec. 19, 1985.
43. Amy Starke, Irvine Families Bid Fond Farewell to Japanese Youths, in ibid., April 12, 1984.
44. Dawn Bonker, Executives Helping Students Learn About Japanese, in ibid., Aug. 1, 1985; Japanese Grant Aids IUSD, in ibid., Aug. 14, 1986.
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effort, individual Japanese businesses also created linkages with Ir- vine schools. For example, Nissan Motors offered an ongoing pro- gram sponsoring Irvine high school students to study abroad in Japan.45
Although the IUSDs Japanese partnerships were unusual in their scale when compared to most American school districts, the notion of partnering with Japanese institutions was hardly un- precedented. Indeed, since the end of World War II and especially since the beginning of the Cold War during the late 1940s, Japan had been one of the most important U.S. allies, and the United States made a large effort from the 1940s forwardwhether by government or civil society institutionsto foster connections and understanding between the two nations.46
Thus, perhaps even more intriguing than Irvines schools substantial Japanese ties were connections the schools made with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Some of these connections resulted from personal relationships, like that formed between Ir- vines University High School principal Robert Bruce and Jeng Ze, principal of a middle school attached to the Peoples University in Beijing. As in the case of the various Japanese exchanges, the re- lationship forged by Bruce and Ze rested on expectations about the growth of the transpacific economy. In Bruces words, Asian countries . . . are of particular interest because of their growth as economic powers. For Bruce, forming transpacific relationships provided a greater understanding of other people, which gives us a better chance to have peace. Along these lines, Bruce worked to initiate a Mandarin Chinese program at University High while he himself learned the language.47 Other connections derived from larger institutional activities. For example, in the summer of 1985 UC Irvine organized a delegation of area teachers to travel to China to visit Hangzhou Teachers College. Like Bruce and Zes interaction, the Orange County teacher trip was framed as an exchange between equals, a chance to share teaching ideas and
45. Uni High Student to Study in Japan Courtesy of Nissan Motors, in ibid., June 7, 1984.
46. On the development of this relationship, see John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York, 2000), and Kenneth B. Pyle, Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose (New York, 2007).
47. Chinese Principal Shares His Culture with University, Irvine World News, Nov. 14, 1985.
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methodologies.48 Given the historical U.S. relationship with the PRC and particularly given the reputation of Orange County as an anti-communist hotbed, the forging of such ties was quite remark- able. Especially in the case of the teacher visit to Hangzhou, the notion of sharing ideas and methodologies with educators from an ostensibly totalitarian state would have been unthinkable as re- cently as fifteen years previously.
The connections made by Irvine schools with counterparts in Japan and China served to foster a culture of diversity in the district that began to receive regional attention. Reports in the lo- cal media began to describe schools in the IUSD as mini UNs. Schools like Culverdale Elementary and University High were used as examples of institutions where diversity was not just ac- commodated but celebrated. As Culverdale principal Tom Perrie remarked, Its good for us because diversity is the future, and it helps children learn. We have to recognize that and celebrate it, instead of trying to avoid it. The school aimed to achieve this goal by doing things like offering tabouleh, curry, and eggrolls as regu- lar lunch offerings in the cafeteria, while the curriculum empha- sized topics like the effects of immigration on American society.49 University High emphasized similar aims. As Principal Bruce ar- gued, The ability to understand other cultures and people and enjoy different views is extremely important in this small, small world. Our students see that every day. We are not alike. Thank goodness, huh? As with Culverdale, University Highs curriculum promoted this kind of cosmopolitanism, for example requiring students to take three years of French, German, Chinese, Spanish, or Latin to graduate.50 Partly, this culture of diversity was neces- sitated by the basic fact that Irvines schools were educating the children of the many immigrants who had been drawn to the city as a result of the economic boom of the 1970s and 1980s, but it had to do with more than simple demography. In good measure, the culture of diversity evident in Irvines schools and elsewhere in
48. Tracy Childs, Irvine Educators Travel to China to Exchange Ideas, in ibid., Aug. 15, 1985.
49. John Westcott, Celebrating Cultural Diversity: Culverdale School Repre- sents 30 Nationalities, 27 Languages, Orange County Register, March 3, 1994.
50. Gina DePaola, Its the Difference that Countsand for University High, that may Mean US Honor, in ibid., Feb. 10, 1987; Diana Griego Erwin, Heavy Mental How Did University High get to be a Mill for Super Scholars? in ibid., Oct. 30, 1988.
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the city testified to an emerging cosmopolitan sensibility that sub- tly transformed Orange County during the last three decades of the twentieth century. On the one hand, this cosmopolitan culture derived from the basic fact that people of many different ethnic and national backgrounds had moved into the region during these years; on the other hand, it reflected the generally open recep- tion that people in communities like Irvine gave the newcomers, at least if they possessed the requisite educational and economic qualifications.51
While Irvines public schools became a breeding ground of sorts for a new cosmopolitan culture that began to permeate the region more broadly, the quality of the schools themselves became a reason for Asians to move to Irvine. The city resembled other high-tech suburbs throughout the United States, but particularly elsewhere in California. Wei Li and Edward Park documented a similar phenomenon in Cupertino, home of Apple Computers. As they summarized, the reputation of Cupertino, especially its supe- rior public schools, [has reached] far beyond international bound- aries to people in many Asian countries. Taiwanese in Hsinchu or Taipei, Chinese in Beijing or Shanghai, and Koreans in Seoul know of Cupertinos zip codes and want to move there.52 Min Zhou like- wise documented how quality public school systems have drawn immigrants to particular Southern California communities. She noted that, between 1980 and the mid-1990s, some 40,000 para- chute kids [children sent to live in the United States with a relative, or even alone, to attend American schools] arrived in the United States from Taiwan, and smaller numbers have come from Hong Kong, mainland China, and Southeast Asias Chinese Diaspora.
Without a doubt, Asian migration to Irvine was influenced by the desirability of the IUSD. People like Linda Chen moved from Taiwan specifically so her three children could attend the citys pub- lic schools. Her family had to endure significant hardship to do so, for her husband remained in Taiwan running an import business while Chen and her children moved to Irvine. Likewise, Taiwanese immigrant May Wen and her family chose to settle in Irvine after
51. Maher, Borders and Social Distinction in the Global Suburb. 52. Wei Li and Edward J. W. Park, Asian Americans in Silicon Valley: High-
Technology Industry Development and Community Transformation, in Wei Li, ed., From Urban Enclave to Ethnic Suburb: New Asian Communities in Pacific Rim Countries (Honolulu, 2006), 123.
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her husband was recruited to the area by a chemical engineering firm in 1987. We looked around the area and we liked Irvine a lot, Wen claimed: Nationwide, Irvine has a very good reputation as a safe city. The other reason is the school system is good, and Chinese really care about their childrens education. As Irvine real estate agent Walter Weng summarized, They [Chinese-speaking immi- grants] know Irvine has good weather and security. But they mainly come for the schools. For Asians, schools are always a top priority.53
K-12 public schools were not the only educational institutions transformed by the new waves of immigration. To be sure, most of the University of Californias campuses experienced a dramatic increase in the enrollments of both Asian Americans and Asian immigrants from the 1970s forward. However, UC Irvine estab- lished a reputation as being an Asian campus that surpassed that of UC San Diego, UC Los Angeles, and Berkeley, other UC campuses with large Asian populations. By 1987 UC Irvines enroll- ment was 39 percent Asian and approximately 20 percent foreign- born.54 Increased foreign-born enrollment stemmed in part from the changing needs of American companies, particularly in bur- geoning high-tech regions like Orange County. During the 1980s those companies recruiting engineers and other highly skilled scientific workers found it increasingly hard to obtain what they were looking for in the United States. Some blamed the declin- ing educational standards of American schools and their failure to produce students with both the ability and desire to pursue ca- reers in science and mathematics. This may have been a factor, but likely more important was that the U.S. economy required an in- creasing number of highly skilled technical workersmore than American universities had traditionally supplied. When combined with changes in U.S. immigration law favoring the importation of highly skilled workers, attending American universities became an increasingly inviting opportunity for foreign students, since many hoped to graduate from an American university as a means of more easily procuring employment in the nations high-tech economy. As a result of the confluence of these factors, by 1988
53. Nancy Cleeland, Irvine Grows as Chinese Gateway: Schools, High-Tech Jobs are Magnet Creating a Demographic Shift, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 7, 1998.
54. Elizabeth Aoki, UC Irvinean Asian Haven? California Journal, June 1988; Steven Silberman, Asian Majority at UCI Changes Makeup of Campus, Orange County Register, Oct. 21, 1991.
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40 percent of UC Irvines engineering graduate students were foreign-born.55
Besides increased foreign enrollment, the university began to attract foreign investment. For instance, the Hitachi Chemi- cal Company provided UC Irvine biochemist Masayasu Nomura a $600,000 grant, serving as a precursor to a much more substan- tial multi-million dollar grant to the university several years later.56 Similarly, in 1988 a $600,000 gift by the Korean firm Lucky-Gold Star International created an endowed chair in radiological sci- ence. As Gold Star vice-president Chong-Yum Lim explained, the gift brings us a step closer to future scientific and cultural coop- eration between the two countries, Korea and the United States.57
The universitys importance as a transformative agent went beyond its ability to cultivate technological and economic ties, a point made profoundly clear as a result of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crisis in China. UC Irvine drew a large proportion of its student body from Taiwan and China, which came to have great significance during May and June 1989. Furthermore, activism in response to the crisis demonstrated the way that the ethnic groups transforming Southern California communities like Irvine could, in turn, utilize their new American addresses to transform the coun- tries from whence they came. UC Irvine became an important site in the Orange County region where people came to express their support for Chinas pro-democracy, anti-corruption demonstrators. On Wednesday, June 7, 1989, approximately 1,000 people gathered on campus to protest the Chinese governments actions. Jennifer Wang, an Orange County native, lambasted the Chinese govern- ment, telling those gathered it is abundantly clear that only when this government is overthrown can there be peace, freedom, and happiness for the Chinese people. Following Jennifer Wang, Chuck Wang (no relation), an Orange County resident of Taiwanese heri- tage, broke down in tears just after announcing to the gathered crowd that the Chinese thirst for freedom will not be suppressed
55. Greg Hardesty, Engineers Getting Tougher to Find, Orange County Business First, Feb. 20, 1989.
56. UCI Biochemist Receives $600,000 Research Grant from Japanese, Irvine World News, July 26, 1984; Jonathan Jackel, UCI Wears Developers Hat for Campus R&D Park, Orange County Business First, May 2, 1988.
57. Gary Robbins, South Korean Firm Endows Chair at UCI, Orange County Reg- ister, March 31, 1988.
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any longer. Meanwhile, I-Wei Wayne Wu, president of the Republic of China Student Association, claimed he felt so helpless. I think its very sad that they still dont recognize the students opinions.58
However, those participating were not just American citizens or Taiwanese. At a candlelight vigil attended by 700 that same eve- ning, Moon Zining, a UC Irvine graduate student who had previ- ously attended Beijing University, spoke of the students who had died, claiming they were now sleeping peacefully in Heaven. But their eyes are open because their dreams are not yet fulfilled. Likewise, Yu Zhu, a visiting researcher at UC Irvine in attendance claimed to a reporter that we are very angry and ashamed of the government. It was a very stupid action. Yet, other students and faculty from the PRC were more measured. For example, Haiming Lu argued the students had made their point and should return to their campuses to avoid further bloodshed. Violence was inevi- table in a social movement without control: Its hard to say who is to blame, Lu summarized.59 Beyond the university, other Irvine residents participated in organizing in support of the protesters. Stephen Tang, a thirty-one-year-old engineer, organized a county- wide fundraising drive on their behalf, using his affiliation with the Chinese Baptist Church in Anaheim as a means of generating thousands of dollars.60 Yet, whatever the opinions and actions of Irvines and Orange Countys ethnic Chinese population during the Tiananmen crisis, the very fact of the activism was evidence of just how dramatically the region had changed in under twenty years. Indeed, such protests and transnational linkages would very likely have been impossible before the 1980s, as not enough ethnic Chinese lived in the area to have such an impact. Again, while the reason for the increased Asian presence in the region was at least partially the result of the economic and technological changes de- scribed above, the impact of these migrations influenced far more than the growth of high-tech industries.
As a result of the sense of political instability generated by the student protests and the government crackdown that followed,
58. Thanhha Lai, At UCI: Chinese Students Angered, in ibid., June 4, 1989; Gary Robbins, UC Irvine: Student Factions Unite to Protest Beijing Massacre, in ibid., June 8, 1989.
59. Ibid. 60. Jami Leabow, OC Residents Use Phones, Press to Get Word to China, in
ibid., June 12, 1989.
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investors and individuals from Hong Kong looked across the Pa- cific Ocean with increasing urgency. The incidents surrounding June 4 sparked Hong Kong investors to search for safe havens to park their money before the British colony returned to China in 1997. Orange County, and Irvine in particular, enjoyed a status similar to that of Vancouver in Canada. In the case of Vancouver and the nearby suburban city of Richmond, David Edgington, Michael Goldberg, and Thomas Hutton have described how lev- els of emigration rose sharply . . . after the events of June 1989.61 Likewise, as an August 1989 Orange County Register article noted, Los Angeles-based international trade lawyer Fred Hongs phone had rung off the wall since the June 4 Tiananmen massacre. Ac- cording to Frederick Chen, president of Nu West REI, a Los Ange- les-based real estate firm, Orange County was attractive to Hong Kong residents and investors because it was a very pro-business environment. It is clean. And it has Disneyland.62 In this, Orange County mirrored the appeal of the Vancouver area, as Edgington, Goldberg, and Hutton summarized. Economic and social condi- tions in Vancouver and BC were particularly enticing, . . . the local economy was booming. . . . In addition, there was an overwhelm- ing perception in Hong Kong that Vancouver was a comparatively safe city in which to live, particularly after the devastating events associated with the Tiananmen Square incident.63 When added to the draw offered by pre-existing ethnic Chinese communities in both Vancouver and Orange County, the logic of a move for many Hong Kong investors and residents became quite strong indeed.
Still, while Disneyland might have been the areas most recog- nizable symbol and perhaps even a major draw, the kinds of linkages and opportunities Irvine offered were of considerably greater im- portance. The March 1989 decision by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), Hong Kongs largest bank (and to- day, one of the worlds largest), to set up its second North American office in Irvine exemplifies the reasoning.64 More generally, HSBCs
61. David W. Edgington, Michael A. Goldberg, and Thomas A. Hutton, Hong Kong Business, Money, and Migration in Vancouver, Canada, in Li, ed., From Urban Enclave to Ethnic Suburb, 157.
62. Judith I. Brennan, OC Land Attractive in Light of UnrestHong Kong Buy- ers Seek Money Haven, Orange County Register, Aug. 6, 1989.
63. Edgington, Goldberg, and Hutton, Hong Kong Business, 158. 64. Brennan, OC Land Attractive.
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decision indicated Irvines development into more than just an outlet for foreign investors but an important economic crossroads as well, a place where Americans looking west met Asians coming east. It was thus indicative of Irvines emerging status as arguably the most im- portant center of globalized capitalism in Orange County. A 1987 report issued by the World Trade Center Association acknowledged that five of the countys seven largest exporters were located in Irvine (Allegran, AST Research, Irvine Valencia Growers, Life Fitness, and Western Digital). A more systematic study conducted in 1991 pro- duced similar, if less overwhelming, results, finding that four of Or- ange Countys top ten exporters were Irvine-based (Western Digital, Advanced Logic Research, ICL, and CMS Enhancements).65
Irvines centrality as an economic crossroads was confirmed by the World Trade Center Associations 1990 decision to locate its re- gional headquarters in the city. The organization had first formed in 1976 but had failed to find a permanent home. Despite its inabil- ity to ground itself more firmly, the trade association was neverthe- less a formidable organization. It had 550 different area businesses as members, and its new headquarters required most of a twenty- story building. Ultimately, the trade associations decision to locate in Irvine resulted from a number of factors. Although its constitu- ent businesses were located in communities throughout Orange County, fully one-third of its members were from Irvine, suggesting one of the reasons why a location in the city made sense. Also, be- cause of the Irvine Business Complex, the city was able to offer the organization prime office space, something many other cities in the county could not so readily do.66
But another important factor was Mayor Larry Agrans vi- sion for what kind of city Irvine should become. For Agran, the World Trade Center Associations headquarters offered an insti- tutional manifestation of his belief that Irvine should serve as a model community, promoting the harmonious interaction of and exchange between different cultures. As Agran claimed, the World Trade Center would not just provide jobs and economic growth,
65. World Trade Group Acknowledges County Export Leaders, Orange County Businessweek, Oct. 19, 1987; Book of Lists (Newport Beach, Calif., 1992).
66. Jerry Hirsch, Global Group Gets OC Home: World Trade Center Dedicated in Irvine, Orange County Register, June 27, 1992; Susan T. Lentz, Areas Shaping Up as Hotbed of World Trade Center Action, Orange County Businessweek, April 20, 1987; Candace Siegle, The New Foreign Capital, Orange County Metropolitan, March 1, 1992.
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but it would also lead to an improvement in the prospects for world peace.67 The World Trade Center grew out of Mayor Agrans desire to construct what he termed a municipal foreign policy. As he argued in a 1989 State of the City address, cities had an important role to play in shaping the course of world affairs. A great wartime general, he claimed, President Eisenhower wisely recognized that individual cities and citizensthrough construc- tive international relationscould actually improve the prospects for global peace and prosperity.68
The reference to Dwight Eisenhower was interesting, in that Agran used the example specifically in reference to the thirty-fourth Presidents People-to-People program. Formulated under the ae- gis of the United States Information Agency (USIA), the People- to-People program aimed to cultivate public support on behalf of the nations Cold War internationalist consensus. Specifically, the program consisted of forty-two committees that arranged contacts between Americans and people in other countries who shared a particular interest. Some examples of the types of programs it fa- cilitated included arranging sister city affiliations, promoting letter-writing campaigns by American school children to foreign pen pals, sending reading materials to underprivileged residents of foreign countries, and sponsoring English instruction by U.S. military personnel stationed abroad. As Christina Klein argued in Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 19451961, the People-to-People program integrated certain left-liberal ideas left over from the 1930s into a new, more conservative postwar foreign policy. It embraced some of the Popular Front political ideasinternational solidarity, popular participation in foreign affairsand linked them up with a larger Cold War program of anti-communism and global capitalist integration. Yet, as Klein also noted, as the Cold War waned, the residual left-liberal inter- nationalism that the People-to-People program subsumed during the 1950s re-emerged in ways that often contested the nations of- ficial foreign policy.69
67. Hirsch, Global Group Gets OC Home. 68. Remarks of Mayor Larry Agran on the State of the City, Aug. 22, 1989,
Raymond L. Watson Papers, MS-R120, Special Collections. 69. Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination,
19451961 (Berkeley, 2003), 60.
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Klein observed that the re-emergence of this left-liberal inter- nationalism manifested most clearly in the response many Ameri- cans had to the Reagan administrations policies toward Central America, particularly events in Nicaragua and El Salvador.70 Indeed, as mayor, Agran worked to forge ties with the people of Nicaragua, receiving a Nicaraguan baseball team that had journeyed to the United States to play three exhibition games against local college teams. Interestingly, while Agrans decision generated a good deal of controversy, his political opponents on the Irvine City Council did not object, perhaps indicating how the citys political culture differed from the hard-line conservatism that had traditionally done so much to define the region. My feeling is that sports know no politics, conservative council member Sally Ann Miller claimed, responding to Agrans decision: I think, quite frankly, that we receive all kinds of people all the time.71
Yet the citys internationalism was defined by considerably more than Larry Agrans political vision. To be sure, the citys cosmopolitanism aided his political career, but it was only a part of a broader cultural sensibility. This sensibility pervaded school- ing, consumption patterns, and business practices. But more spe- cifically, Irvines cosmopolitanism manifested itself in the personal narratives of the communitys residents and workers as wellpeople like Janine Asai, who ran a technical business planning and com- munications company that worked to introduce potential American and Japanese corporations to one another. She entered her line of business primarily because of her husband, Shinji Asai, scion of one of feudal Japans last ruling families, whose aristocratic back- ground allowed her entry into the Japanese corporate world. Her work meant that she lived one week every month in Japan, where her marriage is a curiositya reversal of the usual system wherein the American soldier takes a Japanese wife. The nature of her job also necessitated a sophisticated and sympathetic understanding of Japanese culture, indicative of the development of a more equal re- lationship between the two nations in the years following the 1960s. I comfort them, nurture the business relationship, find out more
70. Ibid., 5960. 71. Bob Schwartz, Irvine Mayor to Greet Nicaraguan Baseball Team, Los Ange-
les Times, Sept. 24, 1986; Schwartz, Agran Cites Baseball as a Common Bond, in ibid., Oct. 3, 1986.
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about them as a person, Janine Asai described: Ill take time to go shopping for a special gift for a special clientsomething theyll remember me for. . . . Why shouldnt I pour their tea? I can pour without missing a beat in the conversation.72
Marilyn Loewys story resembled Janine Asais in the central- ity of the global economy to her livelihood. Loewy first moved to Orange County from New Jersey in 1973 but struggled to find a job, as her background as an administrative assistant at a sheet metal company did not qualify her for many posts available dur- ing the 19731974 recession. Loewy eventually secured employ- ment at Microdata Corp. Although she had no prior experience in international business, through necessity she quickly acquired a reputation at Microdata as someone who knew a lot about trading laws. Loewys professional experience made her acutely sensitive to the rapidly changing nature of the world economy. Were multi- national companies, Loewy explained, Whats an American company anymore? Tell me what they are. Likewise, her experi- ence made her sensitive to the value of knowing foreign languages. Loewy herself spoke a passable German and understood some French, Hebrew, and Spanish as well. Despite knowledge of foreign languages well beyond most Americans, Loewy nevertheless re- gretted that she did not know any Asian languages, since she spent so much time on the other side of the Pacific. The worst feeling is when I go over to these other countries, and when they want to talk to each other and they dont want us to understand, they just go off into their language. We dont have that luxury. They under- stand everything we say.73
Patricia Aba-Hussyns story was also similar to Janine Asais, in that her exposure to a world outside the United States came via marriage. Aba-Hussyn met her husband, Mansur, when both were attending the University of Arizona. After graduating, she joined her husband in Saudi Arabia in 1972, where he worked for an agricultural consulting firm in the desert kingdom. In 1981 the Aba-Hussyns decided to relocate to the United States for part of the year, spending the summer months in Irvine. They chose the
72. Karen Morris, Go-between Plays Matchmaker for Asian, Local Firms, Orange County Business First, Aug. 8, 1988.
73. Jonathan Jackel, Export Expert Loewy Helps Set Trade Rules, Orange County Businessweek, March 28, 1988.
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city because we like how its a young, professional community and my husband likes to be near a university. According to Patricia Aba-Hussyn, their lives were genuinely binational and bicultural. Weve made a lot of friends in both countries, and its really the people who make a place home. Their three children spoke flu- ent Arabic and English and had an extensive circle of friends in both countries. The second they arrive in Irvine, they jump on their bikes and go [out].74
The personal histories of people such as Patricia Aba-Hussyn, Marilyn Loewy, and Janine Asai point toward an important develop- ment: that increasing economic globalization and ethnic diversity in Orange County did not mean simply that more minorities lived and worked in the area, but alsoand perhaps even more importantly that the regions white population was transformed as well. The ef- fect was twofold. First, the pre-existing white population had to come to termsboth willingly and unwillinglywith this new cul- tural climate; second, the changed ethnic and cultural composition of the region was bound to influence those white people who chose to stay, those who chose to leave, and those who chose to move in for the first time. This second point has particular significance. That is, ethnic and demographic changes could and to a certain extent did perpetuate a self-reinforcing cycle, because those more comfortable with the changes chose to stay or were attracted to move to Orange County in the first place, while those less comfort- able with the changes became steadily more inclined to leave. As a result, the changes set in motion by the economic and cultural transformations of the 1970s and 1980s had a kind of self-fulfilling quality to them. As Rob Kling, Spencer Olin, and Mark Poster have summarized, highly educated employees of the type drawn to the region by the creation of UC Irvine and the Irvine Industrial Com- plex had developed cosmopolitan tastes before emigrating to Or- ange County. They created a ready clientele for ethnic restaurants, European and Japanese cars, a wide variety of imported goods, and cultural events such as modern theater, foreign films, and classical goods.75 In other words, economic globalization not only
74. Tracy Childs, Family Migrates Between Two Homes, Two Cultures, Irvine World News, July 25, 1985.
75. Rob Kling, Spencer Olin, and Mark Poster, The Emergence of Postsubur- bia, in Rob Kling, Spencer Olin, and Mark Poster, eds., Postsuburban California: The Transformation of Orange County since World War II (Berkeley, 1991), 21.
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brought non-white minorities to the region in unprecedented numbers, but it also worked to rearrange Orange Countys cul- tural underpinnings more generally, transforming what had once been a provincial and strongly conservative region.
Indeed, the increasing cosmopolitanism of Irvine and Orange Countys businesses and public institutions was inevitably reflected in the consumption patterns of the areas residents. While the ear- lier Japanese influx had begun this process, it was during the 1980s that the more profound transformation took place. One example of this transformation can be seen with regard to the countys culinary culture. Writing in 1991, Alladi Venkatesh observed that Orange County had
witnessed a phenomenal growth in ethnic restaurants in the past ten years. . . . The ethnic restaurants that cater to nonethnics are a part of a national gourmet movement that was virtually non-existent in Orange County in the 1970s. This phenomenon is the result of the postsuburban- ization and internationalization of Orange Countys consumer culture. It is not merely that people are after delicious food . . . but they are after delicious life-styles.76
Writing in 1988, Orange County Register food critic Joe Crea con- curred with Venkateshs assessment. Jump back 25 years. . . . Take- out Chinese was something truly exotic. . . . Orange Countys best eateries were places like Knotts Chicken Dinner Restaurant and Belle Islestout meat-and-potatoes places, more family than stylish. But now it was time to kiss [these] notions goodbye, Crea claimed: [T]odays OC is a place loaded with people hungry for something neatand, increasingly, offbeatto eat.77
But, of course, expanding culinary options were just one facet of a more broad-based shift in the cultural sensibility of many of the areas white and non-white residents. As a 1992 report noted, multiculturalism sells. Partly as a result of the early 1990s reces- sion, presenters at the areas arts venues were leery about giving up the proven winners in their subscription series, such as Broad- way shows, for folk dance or Chinese rod puppets . . . afraid that their mostly white, older-than-middle-age audience will balk at such
76. Alladi Venkatesh, Changing Consumption Patterns, in Kling, Olin, and Poster, eds., Postsuburban California, 153.
77. Joe Crea, OC is Cultivating a More Worldly Taste, Orange County Register, Jan. 27, 1988.
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exotic entertainment. Nevertheless, the decision to program such exotic offerings proved to be a shrewd business decision. Not only were white audiences not turned off, but shows such as the Chinese Magic Revue and a performance by Ballet Hispano of New York were able to attract an increased minority audience as well. Dur- ing 19911992, the Irvine Barclay Theater hosted successful perfor- mances by Kababayan (a Filipino performance troupe), the Irvine Chinese School, and the Persian Societys performance of Molires The Doctor in Spite of Himself, while the nearby McKinney Theater at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo hosted Lola Montez and Her Spanish Dancers, Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band, The Late Great Ladies of Blues and Jazz, and the Shanghai Rod Puppet Theater. All of these performances either sold out or played to over 90 percent capacity.78 Further, as the titles of some of these performances suggest, the regions cultural offerings were not sim- ply becoming more diverse but more sophisticated as well. In 1974 local historian Jim Sleeper could joke that the last cultural inno- vation that came to Orange County was indoor plumbing. One thing Orange County has not been accused of being is a center of culture, the newspaper article quoting Sleeper claimed.79 While these statements might once have accurately reflected the region, they were already somewhat misleading even as early as 1974; by the mid-1980s they were clearly no longer applicable. In sum, ethnic transition meant more than simply ethnic diversity.
Intriguingly, just as new migrants helped to recreate the cul- tural fabric of Southern California, community planners on the other side of the Pacific Ocean began to recreate the suburban lifestyle found in cities like Irvine as well. Perhaps the most strik- ing example of this phenomenon has been the creation of the Ju Jun development an hour north of Beijing. In Chinese, Ju Jun translates literally as Orange County. Indeed, Ju Juns developers Weighdoon Yang and Zhang Bo have attempted to replicate the Orange County experience on Beijings exurban frontier faith- fully. Inspired by a 1998 trip to Southern California, Bo contracted Newport Beach architectural firm Bassenian Lagoni to design the
78. Laura Bleiberg, Patrons are Buying Exotic Multicultural Fare, in ibid., Aug. 20, 1992.
79. Kay Bartlett, Orange County, the Right-Wing Cradle: A Fertile Land of Firsts, Its Patriotic Above All, Palm Beach Post-Times, July 7, 1974.
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development. In order to imbue Ju Jun with the necessary authen- ticity, Yang and Bo went so far as to import all of the developments building components and appliances from American firms, a sur- prising inversion of the usual Chinese-American trading pattern.80 Although Ju Jun might seem a curious novelty, it is in reality just one example of a much broader phenomenon. As Chinas urban centers have sprawled outward at a breakneck pace, suburban developments with names such as Rancho Santa Fe, Palm Springs, Napa Valley, Yo- semite, and Longbeach have proliferated, which, visually and archi- tecturally, look as if they belong in San Jose or Orange County.81 Indeed, the influence of the California-style suburb has reached well beyond China, to such unlikely destinations as Indonesia and even Iran, other nations that have established substantial connec- tions to Southern California communities through circuits of capi- tal and migration.82 Perhaps not surprisingly, these communities have proven especially attractive to people who have lived in simi- lar places in the United States, demonstrating how American soci- etys economic and cultural globalization has served to influence the very societies from which so many of its new immigrants have been drawn.83
The California suburban idylls exportability in the age of glo- balization offers yet one more example of how places like Irvine de- serve to be studied as much at both a microscopic and a macroscopic level. To be sure, the economic and policy choices made by global
80. Mike Anton and Henry Chu, Welcome to Orange County, China, Los An- geles Times, March 9, 2002; Elisabeth Rosenthal, North of Beijing, California Dreams Come True, New York Times, Feb. 3, 2003; Daniel Brook, Welcome to the O.C., GOOD, March 22, 2008 (http://www.good.is/post/welcome-to-the-oc/).
81. On the influence of California-style suburbia in China, see Thomas J. Cam- panella, The Concrete Dragon: Chinas Urban Revolution and What It Means for the World (New York, 2008), 188215; Rosenthal, North of Beijing, California Dreams Come True; and Daniel Elsea, Chinas Chichi Suburbs: American-style Sprawl All the Rage in Beijing, San Francisco Chronicle, April 24, 2005.
82. See Robert Crawford and Eric J. Heikkila, Orange County, Java: Hybridity, Social Dualism, and an Imagined West, in Eric J. Heikkila and Rafael Pizarro, eds., Southern California and the World (Westport, Conn., 2002), 195220, and Marina Forti, Arg-e Jadid: A California Oasis in the Iranian Desert, in Mike Davis and Daniel Bertrand Monk, eds., Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism (New York, 2007).
83. An example is Ma Junhai, a graduate of Stanford University and an employee at Sun Microsystems, who has lived in both Silicon Valley and Orange County and now lives in Ju Jun (Orange County) outside of Beijing. Overall, over 20 percent of Ju Juns residents have lived abroad. See Brook, Welcome to the O.C., and Anton and Chu, Welcome to Orange County, China.
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elites conditioned the nature of the transnational linkages estab- lished more locally. But, as this article argues, globalization has real, lived meaning at a more human scale. The decisions of corporate and government officials in the United States, Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and beyond facilitated the development of Irvines cos- mopolitan culture, but the individuals who chose to settle in the community actually created it. Following the influx of Asian corporate investment into the city, Irvines Asian immigrants worked to trans- form the citys institutional and commercial life. Yet they did not do so alone. Also important were the communitys white residents, who in many cases accepted and embraced the changes the newcomers brought. Whether at the University of California at Irvine, in Irvines high-tech companies, its public schools, its shopping centers, or its restaurants, during the 1970s and 1980s the citys residents worked to create a new kind of American culture. Irvine thus represents a valuable case study of how the cultural and demographic aftereffects of the civil rights movements and the immigration reforms of the 1960s combined with forces of economic globalization to create a suburban cosmopolitanism that would come to characterize many of the nations new economy hotspots. Undoubtedly, educational and economic class barriers circumscribed this cosmopolitanism. Never- theless, its development represented an important departure in the history of the nations metropolitan landscape. In this, Irvines story exemplifies a broader phenomenon with manifestations throughout the United States: in Silicon Valley, Seattles Eastside Suburbs, Silicon Hills near Austin, the Boston areas Route 128 Region, the Center for Disease Control/Emory University region near Atlanta, the Illi- nois Research and Technology Corridor near Chicago, the Crystal Lake/NASA area of Houston, and beyond. Its example thus provides a valuable case study explaining the historical development of some of the most important economic, social, and cultural changes the United States has experienced in the last forty years.