Isla Vista: A History

Shounak Dharap:

Each and every one of us lives life in Isla Vista to its full potential. We pride ourselves in partying harder than the rest and being a closer community than any other college town in the world. It seems like everyone knows everyone else – from the lovable Pirate to the cashiers at IV Deli Mart. But how many of us have actually looked back at Isla Vista’s history? In all honesty, the question of Isla Vista’s past rarely pops up. Absorbed as we are in our daily routines and the people around us, the notion of Isla Vista history only goes as far back as the oldest Isla Vistan each of us may know; as a result most of us don’t think back to more than four or five years ago. However, Isla Vista has a surprisingly rich history that can be traced back to the 1800’s. And so it is then that our story begins.

The Chumash and The Dens

The major Chumash villages were once located at what is now Cheadle Hall and the entrance to the 217.

Prior to the exchange of land through the hands of white Americans, Anisq’oyo’ was the name this area was given by its natives, the Chumash Indians. Their land was comprised of what is now Isla Vista, UCSB, and parts of Goleta. In fact, the area was an auspicious place for the Chumash; our houses, classrooms, and favorite restaurants happen to be built right on top of the same land shared by a sacred Chumash burial ground. That’s right – Poltergeist 6: Sin City.

A Chumash rock painting.

Franciscan missionaries “convinced” the Chumash to move from the area and to the Santa Barbara mission, so the Chumash left, vacating the area. In 1842, by result of a land grant from the Mexican government, Nicolas Den gained possession of the Isla Vista mesa. The land eventually passed to his sons Augosto and Alfonso; Augusto Den recieved the area that is now UCSB, and Alfonso Den gained Isla Vista.

Alfonso’s land fell into the hands of realtors and developers, and plans were drawn up for urban development and subdivision. While part of the reason for this was the ocean side real estate, the prominent driving force was the possibility of oil nearby. Lo and behold, the Ellwood oil field (which you can see if you look to the ocean from Del Playa) was established about a mile off the coast of Isla Vista.

World War II

During World War II, the land around what is now UCSB and Isla Vista was barren, and water had to be trucked in to irrigate the sparse bean plants that farmers attempted to grow.

The world was in turmoil, undergoing international conflicts the likes of which had not been seen since the Great War. Yet we as a nation sat by the sidelines evaluating the conflict that was taking place in Eurasia. Then on December 7, 1942, a Japanese fighter squadron attacked Pearl Harbor, dragging us into the war, and the rest is – well – history. Wrong. It just so happens that the first attack on America in World War II did not happen at Pearl Harbor. It happened here, in Isla Vista. On February 23, 1942, a submarine surfaced off the coast of Isla Vista. Commander Nishino Kozo of the Japanese Imperial Navy submarine I-17 opened fire on the refineries at the Ellwood Oil Field. Luckily, the shells only did minor damages to an oil derrick and pier. The submarine was reported exiting the Santa Barbara Channel to the south an hour later at approximately 8:30 pm.

The Ellwood Oil Field

While the attack did little damage, it escalated fear along the west coast of a Japanese attack. On June 14th of the same year, the Marine Corps Air Station Santa Barbara was unofficially commissioned with the arrival of troops to the Goleta region; it was built on the property that now houses UCSB and the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport. Throughout the war, this station was at high alert, housing 500 officers, 3100 enlisted men, 450 women marines, and training a total of 24 bomber and fighter squadrons.

During their brief stay, the Marine Corps undertook numerous construction and renovation projects – like filling in the numerous trenches of the Goleta Slough, which had once been deep enough for Spanish explorers to sail as far as present-day Hollister Avenue. Worth noting is that the Goleta Sanitary District is locates on top of what was once a Chumash burial ground. That’s right; the marines bulldozed a sacred Indian burial ground and built a sewage treatment plant on top. That is the metaphorical equivalent to not only kicking a man when he’s down, but kicking a man while he’s down and then proceeding to take a giant dump on top of him.

UCSB

For Californians eager to protect their children from radical influences at Berkeley, the University of California’s branch at Santa Barbara has offered an attractive alternative. Known as “the country club” and “the campus by the sea,” its surfing, suntanned students often seem more concerned with meteorological than political phenomena. –Time Magazine, March 1970

After World War II, the government decommissioned the Marine Corps air station and gave the barracks and land to the University of California. The original plans had UCSB being a relatively small college with Isla Vista serving primarily as low income housing and apartments for the administration.

After UCSB moved to its current location, Isla Vista was primarily resided in by professors and assuredly boasted to be quite a higher brow town than it is now. In fact, in the 1950’s, author Alduous Huxley (A Brave New World) frequently stayed on Del Playa during visits to lecture at UCSB.

Soon after, students grew tired of the rules and restrictions that come with living in the dorms – something that we have at one point or another been all too familiar with. Consequently, zoning and development began to create low-cost student housing. By the end of the 1960’s, Isla Vista was complete with its own “downtown” (much like today). However, even this beach-flanked oasis could not escape a growing feeling of national unrest.

The Isla Vista Riots

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the famous Isla Vista riots.

IV Riot I

The year was 1969 and the Vietnam War was not going well for the United States. Lyndon B. Johnson had expanded the war efforts a few years earlier, but in 1968 American forces were caught off guard by the infamous Tet offensive. This was a turning point in the war – both for our forces overseas and support back at home. As liberal student communities began to speak out in protest against the continued war effort, police and national guardsmen did everything in their power to quell the dissenters. What they did not realize was that these were not small, isolated groups speaking out in anarchy, but an entire generation of Americans who believed strongly against what their government was doing.

In early February, a UCSB anthropology professor named Bill Allen, was denied tenure and subsequently fired because of his anti-war ideals. Over fourteen thousand students demonstrated on campus on his behalf, and 19 of those students were arrested. And so it began. The next day, a Black Student Union leader was arrested in Isla Vista for protesting, which moved mass demonstrations to the streets. Resentment grew as the police resorted to violence to quell demonstrators. We complain about the IV Foot Patrol now, but 40 years ago, the police brutality was actual brutality; the worst part was, there was nothing the students could really do but protest. After all, the police were enforcing a government-backed viewpoint.

Students protesting on campus.

On Wednesday, February 25th, the collective tension finally snapped as over a thousand students took to the streets and gained control over the 3-block “downtown” of Isla Vista. For over seven hours the students held the street. They smashed windows, threw rocks, and did everything in their power to keep the police at bay. It was, for all intents and purposes, the epitome of the very escalation of war that the students had been protesting against in the first place. At about 9 pm, students began throwing rocks at the sheriff’s car, and an hour later they captured it and set it on fire.

The two deputies fled as the flames reached up to thirty feet in height. The Bank of America building’s windows were smashed, and demonstrators poured into the bank. An observer reported that the demonstrators “hurled chairs into windows, overturned desks, created snowfalls of envelopes from an upstairs office and tore up anything they could reach.” Trashcans were set on fire and thrown into the building. Then the demonstration turned from a political stand to a single-minded display of the shrewdness of mob mentality. Seventy sheriff’s deputies barged into the bank in full riot gear after being told there was a manager trapped in the burning building, only to find themselves lured into a clever trap set by hundreds of students who had surrounded them and were now throwing rocks and assaulting the officers.

The Bank of America Building burning through the night.

Over 300 police were driven out of Isla Vista by the students, creating a general feeling of triumph among the student community, one of whom commented that “While the students held the shopping center, there wasn’t an atmosphere of ‘wild in the streets.’ The group was calm and highly political –explicitly anti-capitalist. Targets of window breaking were chosen carefully: the Bank, the real restate offices which gouge students on rents, and the gas stations whose companies pollute Santa Barbara Bay with oil seepages. Small businesses were not touched.”

On the morning of Thursday, February 26th, the Governor of California Ronald Reagan flew out to Santa Barbara. As I mentioned before, the students were forced to violent demonstrations because the government backed the police fully. This was about to be demonstrated by Reagan’s harsh speech, directed at Isla Vistans. During his visit, Reagan called the student demonstrators “cowardly little bums” and declared an “extreme state of emergency” in Isla Vista. Furthermore, he placed National Guard units on alert and threatened that he would declare martial law if necessary. Police were instructed to scatter groups of three or more and prohibit people from loitering on the streets. Furthermore, a 6 am to 6 pm curfew was put in place. However, that did little to stop the students, who seemed more than hell-bent on making their point. Students and police fought for over five hours that evening, ending with the police withdrawing late into the night.

The charred remains of the Bank of America Building.

On Friday, February 27th, after two nights of the police getting their guns handed to them by student demonstrators in Isla Vista, five hundred National Guardsmen were called out and another 2,500 were put on alert. However, students were quiet that night. Rain in addition to no overwhelming resentment towards these non-Isla Vistan law enforcement officers was enough to calm the tumultuous firestorm of violent protest that had gripped the student population in the days preceding.

IV Riot II

April saw another time of civil unrest in the streets of Isla Vista. Student body president Bill James issued a plea over KCSB for students to help maintain the integrity and community of Isla Vista by putting out fires started by extremists. On April 18th, three students, including Kevin P. Moran, proceeded to put out a fire burning in the temporarily erected Bank of America structure. Upon entering the building to put out the fire, a veritable army of police in full riot gear started moving towards the bank. As Kevin Moran stood at the broken door of the building he had just saved from being consumed in an inferno, he was fatally shot by a Santa Barbara police officer. Not only did the police not take responsibility, but they immediately orchestrated a cover-up; they claimed Kevin Moran had been shot by an extremist sniper and proceeded to issue a an all points bulletin for the “suspect” and “getaway car.”

A plaque in rememberance of Kevin Moran.

IV Riot III

A month later, with the death of Kevin Moran fresh on the collective mind of Isla Vista, students were treated to additional angering news on the political front – President Richard Nixon acknowledged that after the deposition of Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the military had initiated Operation Menu, which entailed a slew of widespread, secret bombings in Eastern Cambodia. On May 4th, four students demonstrating at Kent State University were shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard. Students across the country rallied in response to the incident. On May 5th, UCSB students and Isla Vistans rallied on campus and confronted police just outside the ROTC building.

The unfair and brutal treatment of students was not simply restricted to the campus and surrounding streets; they were treated unfairly in court for no other reason than to prove a point. On Tuesday, June 3rd, seventeen students were indicted on charges on burning the Bank of America and faced a total of 609.5 years in prison on 73 counts. One seventeen year old student’s bail was set at $120,000; he had been in the county jail during the time of the burning, but was still indicted regardless of having an airtight alibi proving his innocence.

Peace in response to police brutality.

This of course, incited a heavy response from students, who attempted to set fire to the Bank of America building the following day.  Another fierce battle ensued between police and students, wherein 667 people were arrested and countless others were beaten. The figures showing counts of police brutality are horrific. The fourth amendment was completely disregarded and police smashed locks to break into houses over fifty times. Women were sexually harassed, about a hundred students were victims of unprovoked beatings, and property was vandalized as the police went on the offensive.

Police arrest a young demonstrator.

Students Speak About Police Brutality. Click here to listen.

A week later, close to two thousand Isla Vistans gathered at Perfect Park in a peaceful protest of the police brutalization. However, within minutes of the assembly, police began to fire tear gas canisters into the crowd while a helicopter hovered overhead ordering the crowd to disperse. This would be the last time that students would gather in such a magnitude, having been effectively beaten both mentally and physically by the police.

Students protest the war effort.

Present Day

The California Alcohol & Drug Council estimates that Isla Vista has the highest alcohol consumption per square mile in the nation. Over 9000 kegs are consumed annually.

The Isla Vista Riots of 1970 had far reaching consequences – the outcome of which defined Isla Vista as the party capital of college life. Prior to the riots, many organizations and youth groups were active in Isla Vista, but after the cultural upheaval of the community due to the riots, these activities and groups failed to fall back into place. In their place, an all-encompassing party scene emerged, drawing thousands of students to the street of Del Playa on weekend nights.

Nowadays, students assemble in large numbers to party hard.

As I sit here and write this, staring out into the street, I can almost imagine how this very spot has changed throughout the years. From Chumash land, to a wartime attack on the American front, to riots and beatings, and finally to a humble two-story apartment building. Isla Vista is much more than just a party town. We as a community are the product of past events, and as such, it is important that we do not forget the past; doing so only diminishes the respect Isla Vista deserves. So by all means, continue to live every night as if it is Friday night. Continue to “seem more concerned with meteorological than political phenomena.” Continue to surf, bicycle, and walk this paradise that is Isla Vista. But always allow yourself pause when you withdraw cash from that Bank of America ATM and think back to forty years ago when students were so impassioned by their ideals that they destroyed the very institutions that served them just to get their message across. Next time you walk past Cheadle Hall, think back a couple hundred years ago to a time when the Chumash once hunted, grew crops, and raised children on that very spot. The next time you pass by the building that houses the College of Creative Studies, take a closer look and remember the Marines that were housed there during World War II when it was a military bunker. The next time you go onto the beach to tan or foray into the ocean to catch a couple waves, think back to seventy years ago and you will almost be able to see that Japanese submarine surfacing on the horizon next to the silhouetted oil rigs. Remember that the ground on which where every house, every apartment, and every store stands has a deep back-story – its own personal history that defines Isla Vista. Every action you take – every decision you make – changes what exactly defines Isla Vista until your four years are over, after which you pass into history as another snapshot in the collective memory of our community.

Isla Vista in 1970.

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