'People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.'— James Baldwin
November 30 — Ding, ding, ding—racism, the San Francisco treat! (1906)
Gentlemen don't always prefer blondes, in spite of what the song says. Sometimes they prefer to make unsavory deals to keep the peace.
In the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th, America had not given up its attachment to racism, in spite of having fought a brutal civil war to end chattel slavery. As every school child knows, discrimination was rampant in the South, enshrined into law in the form of Jim Crow laws. The North, the former Union territory, was more subtle, relying on social customs and unwritten conventions to keep blacks, latinos, asians and even 'undesirable' whites (such as Italian immigrants) in their place—meaning at least a few steps down the economic and social ladder.
The West, that distant expanse of orange groves, gold mines and redwood forests, is seldom considered in this context. Far from the traditional battlegrounds, both physical and social, of established American society, it was often considered the last frontier where everyone had an equal opportunity to stake a claim or seek fame and fortune.