Telling the history of Compton through the experience of growing up there

AirTalk

Albert M. Camarillo grew up in Compton amid segregation. His father had moved there decades prior from Michoacán, Mexico, with Compton being one of the few places where Mexican immigrants were allowed to reside. Camarillo's Compton was characterized by racial strife as Black and Latino families moved in and former white residents moved out, taking with them much of the city's resources. In the 1960s when Camarillo left for college, he became one of only 42 Mexican American students to attend UCLA that year, later becoming the first Mexican American to receive a doctorate in history, founding the specific focus of Chicano/a studies. Now, almost 5 decades later, Camarillo returns to the neighborhood he grew up in his new book Compton In My Soul: A Life in Pursuit of Racial Equality, using his own family history to chronicle Compton's historical record.

Today on AirTalk, Albert M. Camarillo, professor of history at Stanford University and author of Compton In My Soul: A Life In Pursuit of Racial Equality joins Larry to talk about his new book and how his childhood in Compton informed his career as a historian.