The University of Arizona Press
Date: Monday, December 7, 2026
Time: 5:00 p – 6:15 pm, PST
Where: online, register here
Yvette Saavedra, author of Pasadena Before the Roses: Race, Identity, and Land Use in Southern California, 1771–1890, will speak to the California Book Club on Monday, December 7, 2026. In Pasadena Before the Roses, historian Saavedra examines a period of 120 years to illustrate the interconnectedness of power, ideas of land use, and the negotiation of identity within multiple colonial moments. Her talk centers the San Gabriel Mission lands as the region’s economic, social, and cultural foundation, she shows how Indigenous, Spanish, Mexican, and American groups each have redefined the meanings of land use to build their homes and their lives. These visions have resulted in competing colonialisms that framed the racial, ethnic, gender, and class hierarchies of their respective societies. The online event is free and open to all, register here to receive Zoom link.
Saavedra is author, historian, and Associate Professor in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at University of Oregon, in Eugene. She is also the c0-editor with Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez of the BorderVisions series.
About the book:
Incorporated in 1886 by midwestern settlers known as the Indiana Colony, the City of Pasadena has grown into a world-famous tourist destination recognized for the beauty of its Tournament of Roses Parade, the excitement of the annual Rose Bowl, and the charm of the Old Town District.
But what existed before the roses? Before it was Pasadena, this land was Hahamog’na, the ancestral lands of the Tongva people. Later, it comprised the heart of the San Gabriel Mission lands, and in the Mexican period, it became Rancho San Pascual. The 1771 Spanish conquest of this land set in motion several colonial processes that would continue into the twentieth century and beyond.
