Chapman professor conducts fieldwork among white supremacists

Pete Simi, a Chapman sociology professor, has spent the last 25 years doing fieldwork with many Orange County extremist groups. Photo courtesy of Simi

When Pete Simi, a sociology professor at Chapman, first embarked on what would become a 25-year career of fieldwork — extensively researching some of the nation’s most notorious political extremist organizations — befriending white supremacists wasn’t on his agenda. 

But that’s what it took, according to Simi. He told The Panther that his studies have largely required him to spend personal time with active members of these groups since 1997.

“These guys in Southern California were really involved in neo-Nazi music, so I was going to a lot of music shows and band practices,” Simi said. “I mean, I babysat for people. They let me stay in their homes; I was staying in spare bedrooms and crashing on the couch.”

Simi started his investigations as field researcher, mailing letters to known white supremacy groups in the Southwest. He gradually cultivated relationships with different members of “alt-right” organizations across Southern Utah, Northern Arizona, Northern Idaho and ultimately Southern California, where he was introduced to individuals affiliated with an Orange County branch of the Aryan Nations, a once-powerful white nationalist organization popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. 

Participation in his research is voluntary for active members of these organizations, and Simi confessed that some individuals are more welcoming than others. Those who do agree to be the subject of observation usually possess underlying motives, Simi said. 

“A lot of people like attention and this was an opportunity to have a stranger express interest in their lives and perspectives,” Simi wrote in an email to The Panther. “There is (also) a strong emphasis in that world on recruiting outsiders to the cause. As a white male who presented himself in a nonjudgmental way, some individuals saw their time with me as an opportunity to recruit a new member or at least influence my view of the world in their direction.”

While his initial fieldwork in Southern California was not exclusive to Orange County, Simi said that many of the local extremist groups he has studied and continues to monitor are “right down the street from Chapman University” — a byproduct of Orange County’s long-time reputation as a politically conservative stronghold. 

While some of these active members are forthright with their identities, others conceal tattoos boasting white supremacy insignia under a T-shirt and remain anonymous when not in meeting, Simi said. As a result, he found himself facing threats toward him and his family’s livelihood, should he turn out to be affiliated with law enforcement. Though obligated to maintain his composure on the job, Simi said his fieldwork took a mental toll, specifically when it intersected with his personal values.

“Emotionally, you’re working overtime trying to figure out, ‘What are they thinking,’ ‘Are they suspicious of you,’ ‘Are you presenting yourself in a sympathetic enough way,’” Simi said. “I had to do certain things — or I felt like I did — like laugh at their jokes, which are pretty disgusting oftentimes … It was very difficult. There was a lot of fear, to be honest. I was scared most of the time.”

But as Simi has found firsthand, with the First Amendment loosely regulating the guidelines of hate speech, there is little action to be taken against extremist organizations on a government level until there is evidence of criminal intent. This would usually come in the form of a physical hate crime. For example, the late Wade Page, a former Orange County resident and neo-Nazi who Simi spoke with in 1999 and 2000, was arrested in 2012 for killing six people in a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. From Simi’s observations, Page had no prior history of violence, and Simi said that Page committed suicide almost immediately after executing the murders.

In doing his research over the last two decades, Simi has been funded by the National Institute of Justice, the National Science Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. His fieldwork provides a national framework of understanding for the motives and behavioral tendencies of extremist groups through a firsthand account. The research is public, and has been used by local, state and federal law enforcement, intelligence agencies and civil rights organizations.

“It’s kind of like how journalists embed themselves with a group, or an organization or a community,” Simi said. “You just kind of hang out and informally observe them, try to get to know them on their terms in their natural environment.”