During the Great Depression, California became a wellspring for some of the era's most inventive and imaginative political movements. In response to the global catastrophe, the multiracial laboring populations who formed the basis of California's economy gave rise to an oppositional culture that challenged the modes of racialism, nationalism, and rationalism that had guided modernization during preceding decades. In Rebel Imaginaries Elizabeth E. Sine tells the story of that oppositional culture's emergence, revealing how aggrieved Californians asserted political visions that embraced difference, fostered a sense of shared vulnerability, and underscored the interconnectedness and interdependence of global struggles for human dignity. From the Imperial Valley's agricultural fields to Hollywood, seemingly disparate communities of African American, Native American, Mexican, Filipinx, Asian, and White working-class people were linked by their myriad struggles against Depression-era capitalism and patterns of inequality and marginalization. In tracing the diverse coalition of those involved in labor strikes, citizenship and immigration reform, and articulating and imagining freedom through artistic practice, Sine demonstrates that the era's social movements were far more heterogeneous, multivalent, and contested than previously understood.

"“A beautifully written and generative book, Rebel Imaginaries provides a new model for doing labor history by embracing the intersectional qualities of working-class life and refusing to relegate economics, social movement mobilization, expressive culture, and electoral politics to hermetically sealed autonomous realms. This landmark work in ethnic studies is certain to exert powerful influence and impact in the years to come.”" - How Racism Takes Place

"“Provocatively arguing that the post-1935 years of the New Deal's reforms in some ways undermined the promise of the social movements that made it possible, Elizabeth E. Sine makes an exciting contribution from which scholars in American studies, ethnic studies, and US history will learn a great deal. Compact and engaging, Rebel Imaginaries will also be of interest to lay readers, organizers, and those in social movements, for whom it holds lessons.”" - Class, Race, and Marxism

"“Sine’s contributions here are numerous and substantial.... It is fitting that a book so invested in recovering historical possibilities should prove so likely to clear new routes for scholars of labour and culture in the twentieth-century US.”" - Journal of American Studies

"... The topics covered are well researched, often exploring little-examined aspects of both regional and national history. Worth reading not only for California history but also for a broader perspective on the Depression years. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals." - Choice

"Sine's creative use of historical events and movements of 1930s California results in a book worthy of deep reflection. . . . This book should be read by those interested in labor and social history, American studies and ethnic studies, and US history more broadly." - International Journal of Social History

""Rebel Imaginaries is a must-read for scholars of California and the West and should be considered even more broadly by anyone seeking to unearth the narratives of laboring classes."" - Western Historical Quarterly

"A startling original history that captures the grassroots energy, organizing, and resistance during this crisis of capitalism in which lines of race, class, and belonging were redrawn. The book deserves a wide readership among undergraduate and graduate students." - Labor