Brown Bag Talk: A racial history of arcades in Long Beach
Please join us at the first brown bag talk of the Spring Semester 2025:
Looking for a place to play: A racial history of arcades in Long Beach, CA
The rise of arcades across Los Angeles County in the late 1970s coincided with efforts to revitalize decaying amusement and shopping centers, concerns over rising crime, and the increasing diversity in Long Beach, California. This project explores Long Beach’s popular image as a white Mediterranean paradise of leisure and ease, the origins of the city’s segregationist policies and the ghettoization of its minoritized communities, and examines the racial controls that resulted from these policies over leisure spaces in Long Beach that ultimately led to negative attitudes towards video game arcades by its white residents forcing city leaders to ban arcades in the city and racially police other coin operated gaming spaces in Long Beach.
Speakers: Sean Smith and Jeffrey Lawler, Department of History
