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Most small farmers, he said, obtained their primary income from other sources, and newcomers should not expect to do otherwise, particularly with little agricultural experience or horticultural knowledge. For those who wanted to farm for subsistence rather than as a supplementary pastime, Clements recommended a lot size of at least four acres dedicated primarily to poultry farming with no fewer than two thousand hens, and preferably up to three thousand. He coaxed potential migrants to personally inspect potential lots rather than to trust in the promises of real-estate salespeople and developers, and to make sure that plenty of wa- Creating Whiteness • 41 ter was available.

Some civic leaders tried to rein in the popular misconception among many migrants, cultivated by boosters and real-estate salespersons, that little work would be required of them to enjoy self-sufficient garden homes. While popular promotions generally touted the idea that independence could be had on one acre of land, Clements warned newcomers that land parcels smaller than two acres were rarely self-sustaining, and that “independence on an acre” was a misleading slogan that they should investigate with great care.

Symbolized by the election of the city’s first Mexican American mayor since the late nineteenth century, Antonio Villaraigosa, this demographic shift has propelled new dynamics of engagement with historical processes of rural urbanism, which continue unabated but in more complex and racially ambiguous ways that nonetheless reproduce the key contours of whiteness. To introduction • 21 document these nuanced negotiations, part 3 shifts from archival research to my ethnographic fieldwork in the northeast San Fernando Valley’s rural communities.