AFT is proud to present Beyond the Theme Park: Struggle and Solidarity Under the San Diego Sun, an oral history of local labor, community, and environmental activists as well as elected officials by Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew that chronicles the last twenty years of our city’s social and political transformation.
“Even as the region has undergone a historic political realignment and there have been significant victories for labor, environmental, and community activists, the work of transforming San Diego into not just a Democratic Party stronghold but a city that embodies genuinely humane, egalitarian values remains. This collection of interviews gives a gloss of what it took to start changing San Diego and what it might take to truly address some of our region’s systemic challenges.
The interviews here are with elected officials at the state, county, and city levels, leaders of unions and activist organizations, as well as ordinary San Diegans. Beyond the Theme Park: Struggle and Solidarity Under the San Diego Sun provides a starting place for a picture of San Diego that moves beyond the Chamber of Commerce version of the city to a historic portrait of struggle, failure, victory, and persistent idealism—or how to make fundamental change in an American city with an exceptional aversion to it.”
We offer this book free of charge for all local educators and/or activists as a usable public history.
In solidarity,
American Federation of Teachers Guild, Local 1931
