It is only fitting that on Labor Day that we remember the great purge of in which nearly 400 men, women and children were forced out of their homes in Westwood on July 13, 1938 over a labor dispute, one that lingers to this day. Yet, by the end of that historic day the California Highway Patrol, with the National Guard on standby placed a blockade on the community, sealing it from the world until things could stabilize. According to historian Gerald Rose about the historical significance of the purge he wrote, “Not until the 1941 deportation of Japanese-Americans was there a large forced migration of United States citizens.” To learn more about Westwood’s labor history, read Red River: The Turbulent Thirties.

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