A People’s Guide to Orange County, published by the University of California Press, is an alternative tour guide that documents sites of oppression, resistance, struggle, and transformation in Orange County, California. Mainstream guidebooks focus on Orange County’s amusement parks and wealthy coastal communities, with side trips to palatial shopping malls. These guides skip over Orange County’s most heterogeneous half—the inland space, where most of its oranges were grown alongside oil derricks that kept the orange groves heated. Existing guidebooks render invisible the diverse people who have labored there. A People’s Guide to Orange County questions who gets to claim Orange County’s image, exposing the extraordinary stories embedded in the ordinary landscape.

This event features the book’s authors, Elaine Lewinnek (CSUF), Gustavo Arellano (LA Times), and UCI’s own Thuy Vo Dang (UCI Libraries). Chef Jessica Van Roo will prepare a menu that reflects the culinary riches of the real Orange County.