Multicultural history of Monterey Bay region explored at upcoming conference.

So you think you know your regional history? You''re hip to the Sicilian fishermen who settled Monterey Bay; the dairy farmers from Southern Switzerland who settled southern Monterey County? Ahh, but there''s a million wonderful stories about the Monterey Bay-Santa Cruz region''s early history, and local historian/professor Sandy Lydon will share some of them at a conference entitled "Multicultural America: An Experiment in International Living" that is expected to draw participants from all over the world to the Asilomar Conference Center beginning Tuesday.

Lydon, who teaches at both Cabrillo College in Aptos and Cal State University Monterey Bay, specializes in the cultures of the Monterey Bay region. His talk, "The Cultural History of the Monterey Area," takes place on Wednesday from 8:30am-noon and will include Lydon interviewing locals whose family history are a part of local cultural history. Following the talk, Lydon will lead participants on "cultural excursions" to see first-hand some of the areas highlighted in the talk.

So what are some of the area''s lesser-known stories of immigration? Lydon, who writes a weekly column on local history for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, tells the story of a colony of Spaniards, who came to the area around 1911 from Hawaii, where they had been recruited to work the sugar cane fields. After their two-year contracts in the islands were up, many decided to leave the backbreaking work in the cane fields for work in the Salinas Valley, where sugar baron Claus Spreckels was building an industry based on sugar beets.

Immigrants, says Lydon, often gravitate to areas similar in climate and opportunity to the places they left. Because the Monterey Bay area offered such a diversity of climates and opportunities, the variety of immigrants was virtually endless. "There''s a lot of room for different sets of what I call ''immigrant eyes,''" explains Lydon. Lydon explains that immigrant eyes are "hungry eyes"--eyes that see connections between what was done in the old country and what could be done in a new land. That explanation accounts for much of the migration that took place throughout the region; the Irish from County Cork, who came--sometimes via the crowded, hard-scrabble cities of the Eastern United States--to try their hand at agriculture; the Japanese immigrants, who--suffering under stiff new tax burdens in their native land in the 19th century--arrived here to work the sugar beet and abalone industries. There were Portuguese immigrants, who came, first to whale, and then to farm. There was even a small community of Russian Jews, merchants who came west with the Gold Rush and settled in Santa Cruz County.

Some communities came to the region as a group. According to Lydon, the first sizable community of African-Americans in the region were former slaves from Arkansas, who came as paid farm laborers to the Gabilian mountains of San Benito County at the request of a man named Daniel Gilmore, who ended up abandoning farming altogether. The ex-slaves moved to Hollister, where they lived as a community until well into this century. An even bigger group of African-Americans came to Monterey''s Presidio during the Spanish-American War. The prejudices of the time didn''t permit the all-black mounted unit to be housed at the Presidio, but it was this unit that helped to save Pacific Grove''s Chinatown during a fire in 1906.

Were locals more tolerant of newcomers than they are today? "There was some real heated stuff going on here," says Lydon, "Just like everywhere else, the last person here got hazed. There''s a saying ''Welcome to America--now, we''re going to beat you up."

Lydon also ties anti-immigrant sentiments to economic downturns--a phenomenon that he says hasn''t changed much in 100 years. Just as Californians passed initiatives like Proposition 187 and 209 when they perceived opportunities were being lost to immigrants, so he says they also passed laws in the early part of this century, prohibiting non-citizens from holding land. "On several levels, nothing has changed," says Lydon. "The new guys are still getting beaten." cw

The five and a half-day conference, "Multicultural America, An Experiment in International Living"begins Tuesday at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove. For information on the entire seminar, call 373-7260 after May 9 or (802) 258-3173 before May 9. One day admission is available. Lydon''s talk, "The Cultural History of the Monterey Area," begins Wednesday, May 13 at 8:30am. Admission to this lecture is $48 and may be paid at the door of the center''s chapel building.

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