The OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano is penning a series on OC pioneer families with ties to the infamous Ku Klux Klan. Here’s the latest installment.
According to the irrepressible Arellano it was Fullerton, not Anaheim that was home to the OCs 20th Century Klan movement – a veritable hot-bed of anti-Mexican sentiment replete with the membership of some well-known names. He has already fingered Herman Hiltscher, after whom a park is named! Now he ads Albert “Pete” Hetebrink as another member of the Invisible Empire.
I knew Pete, and Gustavo is right: he sure seemed like a harmless old codger (he lived to be 100 right there in the family house). If he was a Kluxer in his youth he never let on. I wish Arellano would share his documentation with his readers just so we know for sure he’s got the goods on Fullerton’s notorious past; and I’m pretty confident he does. If so, should Fullerton reconsider renaming Hiltscher Park?