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Abstract
This dissertation explores a genealogy of popular festival performance in Southern California and the relationship between this genealogy and identity formation within the region. Specifically, this work examines two parallel community performance events that developed in the late 1910s-early 1920s and continue annually: "The Ramona Pageant" of Hemet, California and Santa Barbara, California's "Old Spanish Days Fiesta." This dissertation analyzes the myriad "histories" performed and remembered through popular public performance and will explore why certain stories are replayed. The work examines the relationship between regional performance and collective memory and how these performed collective memories shape personal and communal notions of national, socio-economic, and racial identity as such categories resurface in contemporary Native American and Chicano Theater. To trace this genealogy, my analysis includes theater from the 1970s' Chicano Movimiento and American Indian Movement and explores selected contemporary Southern Californian performances. I argue that these bodies of work relate to the Spanish fantasy and the romantic notions of identity and history made popular by early twentieth century Southern Californian performance.
This work draws upon performance theory/cultural studies, historiography/history of Southern California, and critical race theory. Within these fields, I utilize critical theories on memory, presence and community development to work through a range of rich historical material relating to the "The Ramona Pageant" and "Old Spanish Days." Focusing on issues central to the empowerment of the socially disempowered, this work illustrates how the Native American and Chicano communities have "taken back" the contemporary manifestations of these popular annual performances. Chicano teatro and Native American theater artists have recognized the prevalence of romanticized images of colonial history and colonized peoples; this work traces significant performance examples that address, resist and reshape hegemonic notions of identity and history. Such emblematic scenes of cultural resistance establish memory as a viable tool which may be used to explore the past. These public performances of collective and personal memory contain potential for subaltern groups to establish, strengthen and maintain identities useful for building community and creating 'homeplace' within the location of Southern California.
