Sundown Towns

An oral history interviewee last week indicated that at one time the City of Oxnard was a Sundown Town. To verify this phenomenon I asked another long time Oxnardian of Mexican descent about this and he indicated that he was not aware of such an ordinance. But he did express that by the actions of the Oxnard Police Department that, "we (Mexican Americans and Mexicans) knew that we did not have any business over there (i.e. the White residential area of the city)." When I shared this with my Osher class today at California State University Channel Islands, a student indicated that Burbank was such a city. James Loewen has a book titled Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. This book is next on my reading list.

Con Safos

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