Before delving into the content of his analysis, Widner’s (2003) article’s title embodies how news media, the people who create it, and other outside forces have influenced the social construction of the ‘other’-American, underlining the self-evident power dynamic of the time. He paraphrases and quotes an African-American scholar in his title and introduction, “Perhaps…the Japanese and Mexicans Are to be Thanked?’, which reflects the acceptance and hint of resentment that minorities had towards each other during the early 1900’s as they face similar prejudices. After mentioning the quote from Arna Bontemps, he also paraphrases another scholar, a sociologist, “whose observations… noted that while blacks, Asians, and Mexicans each sustained a particular form of prejudice, Mexicans and Japanese had received the brunt of organized hostility within the city”. Meaning, as Widner describes later, the forces of social construction not only define the ‘other’-American for ‘real’ Americans, but also defined the ‘other’-American for the ‘other’-Americans. This can be seen in the framing of Bontemps’  perspective, and the observations of the latter.

            Referring back to Disneyland, and its conception of a ‘better reality’ inspired by the Kinley Era (1897-1901), Widner explains how, as ‘other’-Americans, Asian and African slaves were interchangeable worker with the sole purpose of producing biopower for capitalistic gains (Blade Runner), and were used to build the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1885 until it was fully built. This type of narrative is ignored in the phantasmagoria that “Main Street” in Disneyland aspired to be, further supporting the a master narrative of ‘real’ Americans of that time. In addition, during the opening, and a few years prior, schools were still segregated and all of the ‘other’-Americans were fighting for equal opportunity for social mobility that white supremacy seemed to restrict. Widner describes the joint efforts made by these social groups to fight this, “[r]esponding to a challenge by Mexican parents, and assisted by amicus curiae briefs filed by the NAACP and the Japanese Americans Citizens League (JACL), lawyers for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) successfully challenged the constitutionality of school segregation eight years before the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown decision”. Disneyland opened the same year that the Brown v. Board of Education had been argued, so, while Disneyland-goers engaged in a desire for a place where ‘real’ America exists, they could forget about the civil rights movements. The hyperrealism of Disneyland, thus, did function as a concealing mechanism of ‘real’ Angelinos and ‘real’ Americans—not just for capitalistic gain, like Eco suggests, but to serve as a coping mechanism for the cognitive-dissonance that ‘real’ Americans felt about this new paradigm shift. For example,

 

this picture exemplifies the type of media that
‘real’ Americans needed to escape from.

            Throughout this article, Winder (2003) seems to imply that ‘other’-Americans might have
believed to be self-determinant social groups, but, through with the forces of social construction, never have really have been able to do so, even though they have tried. Widner states, In addition to showcasing the tremendous importance of Japanese immigrants to black conceptualizations of self-determination, the complex interaction between people of African and Asian descent in California shows how binary examinations of race, often criticized in Chicano/Latino and Asian American studies, prove equally unsuitable for capturing the historical experience of African Americans”. Finally, writing from the 21^st century, he explains the purpose of the peace which provide a perfect transition, as we jump to current times, when hyperreality is on the verge of a paradigm shift from its traditional for found in Disneyland: “in
a state where the imminent lack of a single ethnic majority[, shadowing the traditional majority (white Americans),] presupposes a complex and shifting political terrain, historical instances of conflict and cooperation seem increasingly salient, not as predictors conjured by a presentist urge, but as reminders that the past reveals complexities which oftentimes persist into the present day”

Los Angeles and the ‘Other’ in Current Post-modern Times

            To put it simply and chronologically, after America won its independence, ‘real’ Americans coupled two binary ‘others’ to define themselves, the ‘immigrant’ (Eastern Europeans and Catholics) and African slaves (seen as 3/5 human). Next, after the Civil War, the base binary to the ‘real’ American (one who can determine their own future due to agency) had been non-white Americans (who were institutionally discriminated against). Even after the Civil Rights Movement, the binary opposite to the ‘real’ American was still defined by ‘otherizing’ social mechanisms, including media, hence the ‘other’-American. Only after 9/11, has the shift of ‘otherizing’ mechanisms that define a ‘real’ American have shifted to the American-immigrant, which have been synonymous with Latin-Americans and Middle Eastern-Americans. Now, there has been a noticeable socio-political-cultural shift, which echoes the ‘complexities’ Widner discussed, and challenges the very notion of the ‘real’ American identity—a fixed notion that has been seen in the various previous examples in this website. Before 2008, every ‘other’-American individually has had difficulties with claiming their ‘American’ identity, which has been constrained by ideology of ‘whiteness’, forcing them to add a hyphen in front of their American identity. Up until the 2008 election, traditional post-modernity has aided in the democratic function of elections, using simulacra to effect election results in the form of ‘polls’, and engendering feelings that hyperreality promotes, such as a desire for a ‘better reality’ (which also promotes a self-justificatory belief system). Presently, ‘real’ Americans (white males) cannot grasp the fact that the ‘real American’ might also be somewhat socially constructed—relying on its binary ‘other’. Voiced in the 2012 election and the wake of its results, ‘other’-Americans have democratically shown their agency as ‘real’ Americans, no just ‘other’-Americans or American-‘immigrants’.
            In Los Angeles, as the ‘reality’ that was defined by Disneyland’s hyperrealism, this hold true: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-arizona-latinos-voting-20121121,0,1066979.story