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Competing Visions: A History of California Competing Visions: A History of California

Robert W. Cherny San Francisco State University

Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo Saint Mary's College of California, [email protected]

Richard Griswold de Castillo San Diego State University

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Cherny, Robert W.; Lemke-Santangelo, Gretchen; and de Castillo, Richard Griswold, "Competing Visions: A History of California" (2021). SMC Book Gallery. 1. https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/book-gallery/1

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COMPETING VISIONS

Robert W. Cherny Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo Richard Griswold del Castillo

A History of California

COMPETING VISIONS

COMPETING VISIONS A History of California

Second Edition

Robert W. Cherny San Francisco State University

Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo Saint Mary’s College of California

Richard Griswold del Castillo San Diego State University

The text (including graphs, maps, and charts) of Competing Visions: a History of California, by Robert W. Cherny, Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, and Richard Griswold del Castillo is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. All photographs and artistic renderings in the text are licensed under CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-SA, or CC BY-NC-SA, or are in the public domain and free of any known restrictions/permissions. The cover image, “Coit Tower Mural” by artist Ralph Stackpole, is licensed under CC BY 2.0. by Ed Bierman. The authors wish to thank Margaret Copeland of Terragrafix.com for preparing the digital version of the text, including the design of its charts, maps, and tables, and the Saint Mary’s College Filippi Fund and Office of Faculty Development for their financial support of this project.

Contents Preface xiii

1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement 1

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 3

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 10 The Food Quest 10 Spirituality 14 Rituals 16

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 19 The Gabrielino/Tongva 19 The Chumash 21 The Costanoans 22 The Miwoks and Yokuts 24 The Shastans 25

Significance: The Importance of California Natives and Other North American Native Peoples in Non-Indian History 26

Summary 28

2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821 31

The Spanish Conquest and Empire 34 Spain’s Exploration of the Californias 35 Early Maritime Exploration and Encounters 38 The First California Colony 39

Demographic and Ethnic Growth of California 41 The Missions 42 Neophyte Resistance 46 Evaluation of the California Missions 48

Establishing Presidios and Pueblos 50

Gender Relations in Spanish California 53 Spanish Californian Culture 56

v

Political Developments in Spanish California 57 The Wars of Independence in New Spain 59 Foreign Interest in Spanish California 60

Summary 62

3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846 65

A New Political Order 68 Early Self-Government: Solá and Argüello 68 The Governorship of José María Echeandía 69 Rebellion Against Centralism: Governor Victoria 70 Secularization of the Missions: José Figueroa 72 Rebellion, Revolution, and Home Rule 74 Micheltorena and the Catesby Jones Affair 76

The Rise of the Ranchos 78 Environmental Changes 81

Social Relations in Mexican California 82 The Growth of Town Governments 82 Californianas: Mexican Californian Women 83 Mexican–Indian Relations 85 Immigrants and Foreigners 87

California and the World 93

Summary 94

4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855 96

The War Between the United States and Mexico 99 Manifest Destiny 100 Frémont and the Bear Flaggers 101 Occupation and Resistance 103 California Indians and the War 106 Peace 107 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 107 The Divided Mind of the Californios 109

The Gold Rush 110 Gold! The Discovery of 1848 110 The Argonauts 113 Camp Life 117 Nativism and Racism 120 The Legendary Life of Joaquín Murrieta 121

vi Contents

California Transformed 122 Conquest of the Californios 122 Conquest of the Indians 123 Economic Transformation 124 The Golden State 124

Summary 126

5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870 129

Crisis and Conflict in the 1850s 132 California Statehood and the Compromise of 1850 132 San Francisco’s Crisis of Political Legitimacy: Vigilantism in the 1850s 133 Violence and Displacement: California Indians in the 1850s 136 The Politics of Land and Culture 138

Californians and the Crisis of the Union 141 Fighting Slavery in California 141 Sectional Issues and California Politics 143 California and Civil War 146 Reconstruction and New Understandings of Citizenship 147

Economic Growth in a Time of National Crisis 148 The Transformation of Mining 148 Economic Diversification 149 Transportation 151 Tying Together the Union With Iron 152

New Social and Cultural Patterns 155 Gender Roles and New Social Institutions 155 The Growth of Religious Toleration 157 Writing the Gold Rush 160

Summary 161

6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900 164

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 167 Railroad Expansion 168 Mining and Finance 171 Agriculture 172 Water 174 Rise of Organized Labor 176 San Francisco: Metropolis of the West 177

Contents vii

New Social Patterns 180 Education 180 Changing Gender Roles 181 California Indians 183 Changing Patterns of Ethnicity 184

Politics 188 Political Discontent in the 1870s 189 The Second Constitutional Convention, 1878 191 Politics in the 1880s 192 Political Realignment in the 1890s 193 California and the World: War With Spain and Acquisition of the Philippines 195

Cultural Expression 196

Summary 197

7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920 200

The Origins of California Progressivism 203 The Many Shapes of Progressivism 204 Municipal Reform: Los Angeles 204 Municipal Reform: San Francisco 205 Organized Labor in the Progressive Era 207 Efforts to Reform State Government Before 1910 209

Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era 210 Immigration and Ethnic Relations 210 Economic Changes 214 Earthquake and Fire in 1906 216 Water Wars 218 California in the World Economy 221

California Progressivism, 1910–1920 222 Hiram Johnson and the Victory of the Progressives, 1910–1911 222 California Progressives and the Presidential Election of 1912 224 Radicals in a Progressive Era 225 A Second Flood of Reform, 1913 227 The Progressive Tide Recedes, 1914–1920 229

Californians in a World of Revolutions and War 229 Californians and the Mexican Revolution 230 War in Europe and Conflict at Home 230 Californians Go to War 231 Peace and the Backwash of War 232

The Meaning of Progressivism for Californians 233

Summary 234

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8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941 237

The Rise of Los Angeles: Twentieth-Century Metropolis 241 The Economic Basis for Growth 241 The Automobile and the Growth of Southern California 243

Prosperity Decade: The 1920s 245 Politics in a Time of Prosperity 245 New Economic Patterns 247 New Social Patterns 249 Cultural Expression 252

Depression Decade: The 1930s 254 Impact of the Great Depression 254 Labor Conflict 257 Federal Politics: The Impact of the New Deal 261 State Politics: The Rise of the Democrats 263 Cultural Expression During the Depression Decade 266 California on the Eve of War 268

Summary 269

9 World War II and the Great Transformation 273

Economic Expansion 276 Overview of the War’s Economic Impact 276 The Aircraft Industry 277 Shipbuilding 278 Agriculture 279 Other Industry 280

Japanese Relocation and Internment 282 The Unfolding Tragedy 282 Relocation and Internment 285

Population Growth and Diversity 289 Black Migration 290 New Challenges and Opportunities 294 Shifting Gender Relations 299

Daily Life and Culture 302 Wartime Challenges 302 Entertainment 302

Political Transformation 304 Change from the Grassroots 304 Change at the Top 305

Summary 307

Contents ix

10 Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontent in the Golden State: 1946–1963 310

Unbridled Growth 312 Industrial Growth and Organized Labor 313 Education 316 Population and Suburban Growth 317 Transportation, Energy, Water Resources, and Environmental Pollution 319

Postwar Politics 324 California’s Red Scare 324 Warren and Knight 327 Edmund G. Brown 328 Liberalism at the Municipal Level 331

Social and Cultural Dissent 333 White Flight and Ghettoization 333 Poverty in the Barrios and Fields 335 Asian Pacific Immigration and Activism 339 Opportunities and Challenges for California Indians 340 Student Activism 341 Cultural Developments 343

Summary 345

11 Divided We Stand: Activism and Politics, 1964–1970 348

Seeds of Change 352 From Civil Rights to Civil Unrest 352 Black Power 356 The Grassroots War on Poverty 358 Justice in the Fields 360 The Anti-War Movement 363 The Counterculture 365 Coming Together at People’s Park 367

The Movement Expands 368 The Chicano Movement 368 Taking the Rock 372 Change and Activism Along the Pacific Rim 374 Emerging Feminist and Gay Rights Movements 376

Politics in the Age of Dissent 378 The Decline of Liberalism 378 Reagan as Governor 380

Summary 382

x Contents

12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990 385

The Legacy of the ’60s 389 Feminism 390 Disability Rights 392 Gay Pride 393 Multiethnic Political Gains 395 Ethnicity and Economics 398 Cultural Advances 402

Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints 404 The Economy 404 Environmental Activism and Constraints 407

Politics in the Era of Limits 414 Edmund G. Brown Jr. 414 Deukmejian 418

Summary 420

13 California in Our Times 423

A New Kind of California 426 The Los Angeles Riots, the O.J. Simpson Trial, and After 426 The Rise of Latino California 428 The Ever-Changing Ethnic Mosaic 430

The Economic Roller Coaster 435 Cycles of Bust and Boom 436 Technology 438 Trade: Going Global 439 Growing Wealth, Increasing Poverty, Shrinking Middle Class 441

A Faltering Infrastructure 442 Education 443 Health Care and Housing 445 The Environment 446 Transportation 448 Energy 449

Politics in the New California 449 State Politics, 1990–1998: The Governorship of Pete Wilson 450 State Politics, 1998–2003: The Governorship of Gray Davis 452 State Politics, 2003–2008: The Governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger 454 State Politics Since 2010: The Return of Jerry Brown 456

Religious and Cultural Diversity 458 Spirituality in Contemporary California 458

Contents xi

Cuisine 459 Art, Literature, Film, and Music 459

Competing Visions: The History and Future of California 463

Summary 464

Governors of California: 1767 to Present 467 Glossary of Spanish Terms 469 Index I-1 Image Links I-39

xii Contents

Preface The decision to write this textbook grew out of our experience teaching California history to an increasingly diverse student population. Our class- rooms contain an exciting mix of students from a myriad of ethnic, multieth- nic, international, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Their levels of academic readiness also differ, and nearly all are products of a visual, rather than print-oriented, culture. In light of this diversity, we, as educators, needed a text geared toward varied learning styles and academic skill levels—one that would stress reading comprehension, critical thinking, and the synthesis and integration of knowledge. Just as important, we needed a more inclusive text that reflects the history of all of our students—one designed to foster active identification with the past, civic engagement, an appreciation of diversity, and cross-cultural communication and understanding. Thus, we wrote the text for our students and ourselves, and with the hope that our colleagues would find it equally useful.

Themes

Three major themes, which run throughout the 13 chapters, highlight continuity over time and provide a common, unifying thread for the narrative. They are also crafted to enhance students’ global and cross-cultural awareness. The first, California and its relationship to its region, the nation, and the world, places California within a national, and often global, context. The state, although fre- quently depicted as a trendsetter or “place apart,” has always been influenced by outside demographic, environmental, political, cultural, and economic forces. Its first people came from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and devel- oped complex trade networks that facilitated cultural and economic exchange far beyond the state’s current boundaries.

Later, as part of Spain’s global empire, California and its people were sub- ject to new influences and pressures. In turn, Mexico’s war for independence and America’s war with Mexico profoundly altered the state’s cultural, eco- nomic, political, and environmental landscape. More recently, California’s inte- gration into the Pacific Rim economy has created a new set of challenges and prospects. Once again, the state is in dynamic interaction with other geo- graphic entities.

A second theme is cultural richness and diversity. Here we focus on how demographic diversity has created a broad range of cultural expression.

xiii

Beginning with California’s first people, cultural diversity has been an integral part of the human landscape. Wave after wave of migrants and immigrants, the emergence of ethnic enclaves, and the birth of numerous subcultures have added additional layers of richness, and at times produced interesting cultural fusions. As a consequence, the state’s cuisine, music, art, architecture, folklore, cinema, theater, dance, and public spaces all carry the imprint of its incredibly diverse and increasingly complex mixture of ethnic and national groups.

Such diversity has also led to competing visions of the “California Dream,” the text’s third and final theme. Since at least 1769, Californians have been at odds over the allocation of cultural, economic, and political power. The dream, synonymous with opportunity, not only placed individuals and groups in com- petition, it also carried different meanings for different people. To some, for example, the state’s natural resources represented an opportunity for industrial expansion and monetary advancement. To others, California’s natural endow- ment represented the opportunity to maintain an older, more traditional way of life, a font of physical and spiritual renewal, or a fragile and irreplaceable part of the planet’s life support system. In social terms, many equated opportu- nity with toleration and inclusion, while others saw opportunity in discrimina- tion and exclusion. Politically, many Californians linked opportunity to the progressive or liberal traditions that encouraged a stronger role for government in allocating resources and guiding growth and expansion. Others, however, equated “big government” with the erosion of individual opportunity and initiative.

Consistent with these themes, we have chosen to emphasize some topics more than others. In developing the history of state politics, most chapters stress political challenges from the powerless and disenfranchised, and the com- peting visions of a diverse electorate. The state’s natural resources, and conflicts over their allocation and exploitation, also figure prominently in the text. Finally the experience and contributions of California’s multiethnic and multinational constituents are integral to every chapter.

Approach

To enhance learning among a diverse student population, we crafted a text with a chronological and narrative format. This approach, while offering the advan- tages of clarity and coherence, also reflects a renewed emphasis on synthesis and the big picture among historians and educators. Moreover, the sequential framework helps students follow, connect, and integrate historical knowledge— the foundation of learning to think historically. Within the general narrative we added several other learning aids. Each chapter opens with a vignette about a specific individual whose experience illuminates important developments of the period. This feature, representing the personal side of history, is designed to promote active engagement with the past and a sense of human agency—the

xiv Preface

sense that all Californians shape the state’s history, present, and future. Every chapter also includes a list of significant dates and events, and a series of study questions intended to enhance reader comprehension and promote critical thinking and debate. Similarly, many of the photograph and illustration cap- tions ask students to look critically at what they are seeing. Concise chapter introductions and summaries reinforce reading comprehension, and synthesize and integrate the material. Suggested readings at the end of each chapter encour- age more in-depth research into topics of special interest.

Our individual interests as practicing historians shaped our choices as we constructed the text. Richard Griswold del Castillo, professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at San Diego State University, wrote Chapters 1 through 4. He teaches courses in Chicano history and the Mexican/United States borderlands. His research focuses on the 19th-century Southwest, and Mexican American community history and civil rights struggles. The first chapter, devoted to the history of indigenous people, emphasizes the diversity and com- plexity of California Indian cultures. Subsequent chapters relate the history of the first Euro-Americans and mestizos who came north to colonize California, stressing the influence of Indian peoples on the culture and economy of the missions, presidios, and pueblos. These chapters present new perspectives on the ways in which the Indians resisted colonial subjugation, as well as the cul- tural fusion that took place before the American era. They also emphasize the ways in which the emerging Californio culture was a vital and adaptive response to the new environment. The chapter on the Mexican War and Gold Rush reflects the influence of 30 years of new scholarship that challenges the older “triumphalist” vision of American progress and prosperity. The con- flicts among Indian, Spanish-Mexican and Anglo-American cultures and an assessment of what was gained and lost in the American conquest of California are important features of this chapter.

Robert W. Cherny, professor emeritus of history at San Francisco State University, taught courses on U.S. history between the Civil War and World War II as well as courses on the history of California. His research focuses on American politics between the Civil War and World War I, and politics and labor in California and the West from the Civil War to World War II. His chapters, five through eight, trace the state’s history from about 1850 until World War II. There is a special effort to explain economic cycles and their relation to the state’s economic development and diversification. Other major topics include the experiences of an increasingly diverse population that included not only the descendants of the first peoples and the Californios but also migrants from other parts of North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia; changing gender roles for men and women; political development, includ- ing political responses to ethnic diversity and to economic issues; and the rela- tion of cultural expression to all these other patterns. There is also attention to urbanization, especially the development of San Francisco in the late 19th cen- tury and Los Angeles in the early 20th century.

Preface xv

Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, professor of history at Saint Mary’s College of California and author of Chapters 9 through 12, teaches courses in California and U.S. history, African American history, the history of American women, and U.S. environmental history. Her research focuses on African American migra- tion, 20th century movements for social change, and urban poverty. Her chapters, beginning with World War II and concluding in the late 1980s, cover standard material on population growth, economic expansion, natural resources, environmental degradation, public policy and major political fig- ures and legislation; however, there are many features that depart from the traditional narrative. Racial tensions and discrimination are covered in each chapter, but with an emphasis on civil rights activism and protest. Rather than being portrayed as passive victims, Mexican Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Indians are represented as active agents of social, political, and cultural change. Gender also receives significant atten- tion, including in-depth coverage of women’s status and activism, and the emergence of gay, lesbian, and transgender communities and institutions. Her discussion of politics extends to neglected social movements such as the welfare rights, disability rights, eco-feminist, environmental justice, and AIDS action initiatives, along with more familiar ethnic power, anti-war, New Left, countercultural, gay pride, and women’s movements. Similarly, discussion of economic policy and expansion is balanced with coverage of labor activism, employment and wage discrimination, class tensions and stratification, capital and white flight, access to social services and affordable housing, and compet- ing liberal and conservative economic visions.

Chapter 13, jointly written by all the authors, covers contemporary issues and events—many of which unfolded as we wrote: the impact of 9/11, the recall of Governor Gray Davis and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s escalating fiscal crisis and growing public distrust of both the governor and legislature, and the reelection of Jerry Brown and his proposals for a tax increase. The chapter also covers the state’s increasing integration into the global economy, the erosion of California’s infrastructure (including public schools), the declining affordability of housing and health care, immigration policy and anti-immigrant hostility, increasing demographic diversity, and recent cultural trends.

New To This Edition

Chapter 13 now discusses current events in California to the present day, including the Oakland Mehserle case and its aftermath, immigration and demographic changes, the 2008 economic crisis, the Occupy movement, and ecological and energy challenges. Based on feedback from the first edition, we have also added new chapter-opening vignettes that spotlight people in California’s history, including Mary and Joseph Tape, a Chinese-American

xvi Preface

immigrant couple; Katherine Philips Edson, a groundbreaking state politician; Catherine “Kay” Spaulding, an environmental activist; and Jacqueline Nguyen, the first Asian American to serve as a federal apellate judge. Throughout the book, we have revised sentences, added specific information (often in response to suggestions from the reviewers), and worked to make the text more accessi- ble at the same time we worked to emphasize our three central themes. We have also added a concluding section on the relation between California history and civic engagement, challenging students to put to use what they have learned about the state as they exercise their responsibilities as citizens.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the attentive, insightful, and creative staff at Wadsworth | Cengage. Jeff Greene, ever patient, supportive, and generous with his time, shepherded the first edition through its conceptualization to its actual production. Megan Chrisman has been equally helpful with the prepara- tion of this revised edition. Thank you both for having faith in our vision. Bob Greiner and Susan Holtz did a masterful job with layout, design, and copyedit- ing in the first edition, and Prashanth Kamavarapu and Margaret Bridges have continued that fine work with this edition. Thank you for your creative insights and tact.

Josh Paddison, now of Indiana University, provided crucial assistance with the initial development of Chapter 13. Several of our California history collea- gues carefully read and commented on three separate drafts of the original manuscript. Their knowledge of the subject and attention to detail make it a far more balanced, accessible, and meaningful text. In preparation for the sec- ond edition, several more colleagues reviewed the book and made invaluable suggestions for the revision. We extend our deepest thanks to these “readers:”

Carolle J. Carter, San Jose State University Vanessa Crispin-Peralta, Westmont College Philip Garone, California State University, Stanislaus Anne Hickling, De Anza College Paivi Hoikkala, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona Linda Ivey, California State University, East Bay Jon Kelly, West Valley College Daniel Lewis, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona Joseph A. Pitti, California State University, Sacramento John Putman, San Diego State University Nancy Quam-Wickham, California State University, Long Beach E.A. Schwartz, California State University, San Marcos

Preface xvii

Dian Self, American River College Edie Sparks, University of the Pacific Denise S. Spooner, California State University, Northridge Ernesto S. Sweeney, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles Nancy J. Taniguchi, California State University, Stanislaus

In addition to the formal readers, several individuals and institutions offered invaluable support and assistance as we moved through the writing and revision process. Robert Cherny would like to thank the students in his California history classes for their responses to the first edition and suggestions for improvements; the students who served as research assistants during the development of the first edition; and his family, especially his granddaughters, Cerys and Sabina Cherny, who have not only been a source of joy but also an inspiration for thinking about the importance of learning about history as a vital preparation for planning for the future. Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo would especially like to thank Saint Mary’s College Office of Faculty Develop- ment, Anthony Santangelo, and Anna Marie Daniels.

Robert W. Cherny Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo

Richard Griswold del Castillo

xviii Preface

CH AP

TE R 1

California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

Main Topics

❚ Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples

❚ Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals

❚ A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples

❚ Significance: The Importance of California Natives and Other North American Native Peoples in Non-Indian History

❚ Summary

“In the beginning on the water that was everywhere, a downy feather swirled and swirled upon a tiny fleck of foam.”

If you were a Yuki Indian child living in what is now Mendocino County in 13,000 BCE, you might have listened enraptured as an elder began to tell this story of creation, one version of many that existed among the earliest of North American cultures.

“Listen closely to the feather,” the elder might have intoned, “and you will hear the singing of Taikomol, the creator of the world, whose name means He-who-goes-alone. Swirling and singing, swirling and singing, Taikomol rose up

Yoki Indian Story, from Native Ways: California Indian Stories and Memories, edited by Malcolm Margolin and Yolanda Monijo. Copyright © 1995 by Heyday Books. Reprinted by permission of Heyday Books.

1

from the water and became a man—but he was not alone. Hanging from his body was another god, the god Coyote, the selfish one of death and pain. With Coyote at his side, Taikomol made a basket from parts of his own body. Reaching deep into the basket, he drew forth a ball of mud, which he molded with pine pitch to make the earth. Jealous Coyote clung to Taikomol as he traveled over the new earth four times from north to south, fastening its four corners with a sky made from the skins of four whales. This earth is good, Taikomol thought, and so he wanted to share all he had cre- ated. Reaching deep again into his basket, he found sticks of wood, and placed them in a protected place, a kind of house. Through the night, Taikomol was swirling and singing over this house, with Coyote hovering at his side and peeking sharply into the dwelling with his jealousy growing. When dawn broke the darkness, the sticks walked as people into the morning.

“Taikomol was filled with joy at his creation and wanted people to live forever, but jealous Coyote wanted them to die. When the first son died and was buried, Taikomol offered to bring him back to life, but Coyote said that the dead should remain dead. The other gods agreed, and for that reason peo- ple do not come to life again after they die.”

As the elder finished, your young eyes might have shone as you repeated softly to yourself, “For that reason people do not

CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People,

Before Spanish Settlement

TRIASSIC PERIOD, 250– 200 MILLION YEARS BCE

Creation of the present-day continents by the movement of tectonic plates

CENOZOIC PERIOD, 66 MILLION YEARS BCE

Warm-blooded animals populate North America

MIOCENE PERIOD, 23 MILLION YEARS BCE

Creation of the Sierra Nevada mountains

PLEISTOCENE PERIOD, 2 MILLION YEARS BCE

Cooling and ice age create valleys and present-day coastline of California

30,000 BCE Estimate of first human settlement in California

900 BCE Corn, beans, and squash enter Colorado River region from Mexico

100 BCE–700 CE Introduction of pottery in California

1542 CE Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo explores California coast

1602 CE Sebastián Vizcaíno discovers Monterey Bay

1769 CE First Euro-Americans settle in California

2

come to life again after they die.” Creative stories such as this one, passed on through the generations, reflect the very diversity of California itself, distinctive from its beginnings in its geo- graphic formations, climate, variety and plenitude of flora and fauna, and the multiplicity of its Indian peoples. The earliest human history of this region shows that in California no single generalization could ever capture reality; it has always been an unusual locale where, because of its lush environment, a large population of diverse peoples could live together and thrive.

Questions to Consider

❚ What factors explain California’s distinctiveness as a place, and how did those factors affect the characteristics of its first settlers?

❚ What important characteristics did the first settlers share, and what were some salient differences?

❚ How did the many achievements of the native peoples contribute to the non-Indian history of the North American continent?

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples

The land that the Yukis believe was created by Taikomol was located at that time at about the same latitude as 21st-century Cuba. It later became known as California. For millions of years, a large portion of this land would be slowly pushed north as the tectonic plate west of the present-day Sierra Nevada mountains moved with periodic shudders we call earthquakes. The earth’s sur- face is constantly being propelled by the immense forces of the super-heated radioactive solid iron core and the molten layers below the crust. As this move- ment takes place, the relatively thin rock earth surface has cracked and shifted, forming new land masses and the present continents. These large land masses continued to move. Those places where the crust has broken because of this movement are called the tectonic plates, or earthquake faults, and they have been a significant part of California’s history.

Sixty million years ago, ocean waves lapped the western side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which were then merely well-worn hills. These hills allowed the winds to carry torrential tropical rains eastward, where the ocean’s moisture created a tropical forest with great varieties of exotic plants and ani- mals. In some places, the annual rainfall exceeded 50 inches. This area is now known as the Great Basin and includes the present-day states of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. In Cenozoic California (66 million years ago), the great

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 3

MEXICO

PACIFIC OCEAN

Map 1.1 California’s Principal Geographic Land Forms

dinosaurs that had once ranged over the land had already mysteriously disap- peared and warm-blooded mammals such as lions, giant sloths, and camels roamed the land.

Forty-three million years later, the earth began to move upward, thrust by tremendous volcanic pressures in its crust (Miocene period, 23 million years ago). A series of earthquakes thrust up solid rock formations, including the

4 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

OREGON IDAHO

NEVADA

CALIFO RN

IA

Sierra Nevada range—pushed 10,000 feet up in the air—and the coastal moun- tain ranges. These mountains were massive enough to cut off the flow of rain- storms that had been watering the Great Basin. To the east of these mountains a desert began to develop. Mount Lassen and other now-extinct volcanoes erupted, darkening the skies and layering the earth with a rich ash. Mount Shasta, Mount Whitney, and scores of other enormous peaks reached their present altitudes. Simultaneously the climate began to cool around the world, perhaps because a chain of volcanoes between North and South America filled in the Panama lowlands and stopped water circulation between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, or perhaps because of the uplift of the great Himalayan mountain ranges, which changed airflow patterns.

After the formation of mountain ranges, a cooling continued for the next few million years (the late Pleistocene period). Enormous glaciers crept slowly south, carrying with them billions of tons of rock and earth, leveling mountains and filling in valleys. Death Valley, the lowest spot in North America (282 feet below sea level), was born of the upward and downward movement of the earth’s crust and, between glacier movements, was filled with fresh water. The glaciers cut through the mountains, creating the beautiful Yosemite Valley. As the polar caps grew, the ocean froze and retreated, exposing new land, includ- ing millions of acres of valleys and hills west of the mountains, which are now the San Joaquin Valley and southern California.

The retreating water also created a new coastline. The San Francisco, Monterey, and San Diego harbors appeared. About 100,000 years ago, a narrow land bridge connecting the Asian continent with North America was exposed. Animals began to find their way across: The horse, then merely a few feet tall, and the camel wandered north and west from North America into China, and then Africa, where their evolution and eventual domestication changed human history. From Asia to North America came new animals such as the bison and mammoth, followed by human beings.

Most American scientists believe that these humans came as part of a larger migration of people who crossed the Bering Strait from Asia, followed the big game animals south, and reached the southern tip of South America within 10,000 years—perhaps in some cases using oceangoing canoes to travel down the Pacific Coast. Despite the general agreement among American scientists about the Asian origin of these people, European experts are more skeptical of the certainty of the evidence of a Bering Strait crossing, and native people themselves have different versions of their origins. There is a noticeable absence of accounts of migration from a land of ice and snow in the traditional stories of the American Indian peoples. The Hopis, for example, tell of travel- ing to the north from their warm lands until they reached a land of “perpetual snow.” Some tribes believe that the earth was prepared for them by the gods and that humans did not migrate to their land but were suddenly created there. Still others have no primal origin legend at all but only stories of migration from the east—not the north.

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 5

Although radiocarbon tests of human remains located on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Santa Barbara indicate that these first families arrived 30,000 years ago, these data are also under scrutiny. A number of scholars of Native American history have seriously questioned the dating of human settle- ment, noting unexplained evidence that could mean human beings lived in North America much earlier. Indeed, anthropologists and archeologists are debating the radiocarbon tests that show evidence of humans in the area as far back as 40,000 BCE.

The native peoples in California were scattered and they spoke more than 100 different languages. Nowhere else in North America, outside of central Mexico, did so many Indian groups congregate in such density with so much diversity. After almost 50 years of scientific scholarship and debate, most his- torians and anthropologists concede that perhaps as many as 300,000 people lived in California before the first European settlement.

Anthropologists have generally classified these first inhabitants into six groups, based on their common root languages, with their linguistic origins sug- gesting their movement from different geographic regions. The first, and largest, were the Penutian-speaking peoples, living in numerous bands and clans mostly in central and northern California. They were most closely related to the Indian peoples of the Pacific Northwest and may have arrived by moving down the coast, by boat or on foot. Next were the Hokan-speaking peoples, scattered throughout the state as far north as Shasta County and as far south as San Diego. They appear to have migrated from the Southwest—present-day Arizona and New Mexico. The Uto-Aztecan–speaking people lived along the Kern River and in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts as well as in the Los Angeles basin, and seem to have traveled from the Southwest or perhaps mainland Mexico. Smaller groups included Athabascan-speaking people living in extreme northern Cali- fornia, who probably entered from Alaska, and the Algic-stock peoples, includ- ing the Yiot and Yurok Indians, who lived along the northern coast in Humboldt County. The Algic-stock languages are related to those of the Algon- quians in the eastern part of the United States. A small group of Yukian- speaking peoples lived in northern Mendocino County; their language is unique to California and has no relation to any other in North America. They were split into four groups, geographically separated from each other, and each speaking a different dialect of their language. Their origins are uncertain.

At first these various Indians lived in bands, small groups of two or three extended families, whose membership was voluntary and changing. But as the population increased, they began to form lineages, or larger permanent group- ings of families, who were forbidden to intermarry because they claimed a common ancestor. Clans developed next, formed by amalgamating several bio- logically related lineages. Some of the coastal native peoples eventually created larger social and political systems, organizing what could be called towns. The Chumash people, for example, who lived in what later became Santa Barbara and Ventura and on the coastal islands, had large governments and complex

6 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

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Map 1.2 California Indian Territories

social systems. All of the 100 or so California language groups—which anthro- pologists call tribelets or village communities—had distinct territorial and spir- itual identities, group histories, and destinies.

Politically, the California natives developed two kinds of government, both with a headman assisted by a governing council. The first kind of government

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 7

included a lineage group who all traced their descent from a common ancestor, while the second was a band of individuals who were not all related by blood. The lineage-based governments had more institutionalized forms of political decision making, with a stable council and headman. In the band-based gov- ernment, decisions were made by the headman and council as needs arose. Like the Chumash, the Gabrielino/Tongva people (also in southern California) seem to have evolved complex political governing systems that were able to govern large villages with many different clans and lineages, but anthropologists are not certain as to their exact form of government. Everywhere in California, before the Spanish arrived, Native American government often mixed spiritual with secular authority.

All of these systems grew out of this land of tremendous contrasts: lush valleys and grasslands teeming with game and edible plants; formidable moun- tains whose deep snows made life nearly impossible in the winters; vast deserts with little water and ferocious heat in the summer; and finally, a coastal littoral whose mild climate and multitudes of fish and wildlife invited settlement. Although its first inhabitants found the desert climates cooler and fresh water more plentiful, Californians today share with them the area’s impressive envi- ronmental diversity, unique in the United States. In one day a person can drive from a foggy seashore beach through lush, irrigated valleys, past snow-covered mountains, and into a blistering, arid desert.

In the 21st century, we find that the southwestern part of the state, includ- ing the Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and San Fernando Valleys, has a relatively arid, semi-Mediterranean climate, with large variations in rainfall from the mountains to the coastal plains. The mild climate has attracted millions of resi- dents and, although the southern mountain ranges surrounding the coastal lit- toral are high enough (6000–11,000 feet) to have snow in the winter, providing some natural springs and rivers, this is not enough water for the burgeoning population. Water is imported to the south from northern California’s rivers as well as from the Colorado River, and the large population has caused water and air pollution, not to mention the decimation of native plants and animals.

North of Santa Barbara, along the California coast, the climate changes as the Coast Range, whose hills and mountains are between 1000 and 5000 feet high, trap the offshore breezes and prevent the reduction of inland heat. The north central coastal mountains and valleys have their own unique environ- ment, cooler than southern California, with more precipitation. Summers are generally overcast and foggy, while winter skies are brilliant, with the rainy sea- son beginning sometime after January. Here one can find some of the most beautiful coastal scenery in California. North from Santa Barbara lies Morro Bay, which is guarded by an impressive rock sentry. Further north along the coast is Big Sur, with its breathtaking ocean vistas, waterfalls, and towering red- woods. Just north of Big Sur, Monterey Bay is one of the richest aquatic wildlife

8 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

regions in the world. Inland from here are rolling hills with oak trees, grass- lands, and fertile alluvial valleys, the largest of which is Salinas Valley.

Further north is San Francisco Bay, one of the most impressive natural harbors in the world, covering more than 400 square miles. Its entrance—the Golden Gate—is so narrow that the bay is really more like an inland sea, sur- rounded by low-lying hills rich in vegetation. The extensiveness of the bay and its connection with the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers make water trans- portation of prime importance. Today it is possible for oceangoing cargo ships to dock at Sacramento or Stockton. The bay gives easy access to the fertile Sonoma and Santa Clara Valleys. The climate in this region of California is always cool, and much wetter than southern California. North from here the terrain changes. From the Russian River to the Oregon border, the coast is rug- ged, with steep cliffs that hug the ocean. Frequent storms lash the beaches and there are few harbors, the most notable being Humboldt Bay. This region has redwood and pine forests, interspersed with woodland grass and small valleys.

East of this northern coastal region, a tableland—interspersed with mountain ranges and the majestic snowcapped peaks of Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta— provides evidence of a prehistoric volcanic past. Between forests of pine and fir that cover the mountain ranges are the flatlands—the product of ancient lava flows, with an elevation between 3000 and 5000 feet, covered with sagebrush and junipers. Rain and snow define the seasons; lakes and rivers are plentiful.

The most mountainous region of California is the Sierra Nevada, a range running some 400 miles from Mount Lassen in the north to the Tejon Pass in the south. Mount Whitney (14,494 feet in elevation), one of the tallest moun- tains in the continental United States, resides here with other peaks nearly as high. The Sierra mountains include the awe-inspiring Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, along with breathtaking waterfalls, rapidly flowing mountain streams and rivers, and the largest freshwater lake in the state, Lake Tahoe. The Sierras provide much of the water that the entire state depends upon. On average, more than 50 inches of rain are captured in the mountain snowfall each winter, providing year-round water for the Kern, Yosemite, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Tuolume, Stanislaus, and other rivers. The discovery of gold here in 1848 changed California forever.

South and east of the Sierras lies a vast desert that harbors a rich diversity of plant and animal life. Sage, cacti, and grasses survive the fierce heat of the desert summer, while juniper and piñon trees grow on the higher plateaus. After a brief rainy season in March or April, the desert explodes in wildflowers, some seeds of which can lie dormant for years. The desert region has the low- est point in the United States—Death Valley (282 feet below sea level)—as well as several lakes of historical importance, notably Mono and Owens Lakes. Imperial and Coachella Valleys in the southern desert are of prime importance today as agricultural centers, thanks to irrigation. The huge Salton Sea receives the runoff of excess irrigation water from the Imperial Valley. It was created in

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 9

the early 1900s by a temporary rechanneling of the Colorado River, and today its salinity is greater than that of seawater.

The 450-mile-long Central Valley lies between the Sierra Nevada and the coastal mountains and is on average 50 miles wide. The valley is drained by the San Joaquin River in the south and the Sacramento River in the north, both fed by numerous tributaries flowing from the Sierras. The two great rivers meet near Sacramento and form a delta region. The temperate weather, richness of the soil, and increased availability of irrigation have made this region invaluable farmland. Although this is a major difference from the times of California’s first peoples, they, too, experienced a land of many contrasts— contrasts that have led some to say that there are many Californias.

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals

The Food Quest

Imagine bright sunshine and deep blue skies framing a spry old woman as she leads her granddaughter along the path that winds through the fertile hills of the San Joaquin Valley around 3000 BCE. Spying something in the brush, the elder woman stops and kneels, as does the girl, looking carefully at the delicate, green plant her grandmother is grasping in strong, sure hands. “In digging wild potatoes we never take the mother plant,” the grandmother says. “We just select the babies that have no flowers, just leaves. We are thinning out the area so that more will grow next year.” The girl nods as they set about collect- ing the flowerless young plants. As their baskets fill, her mind drifts to other harvestings the two have shared, of wild onions, tobacco, and various bulbs. She breathes deeply of the clear air, remembering the late summer and early autumn times when it was acrid with the smell of the burnings done annually in the chaparral. Those fires cleared space for the young growth needed for making baskets, and increased the places where edible and medicinal plants could be produced. The girl thinks ahead to when she will help her grand- mother broadcast the seeds of grain-yielding grasses and green annuals between trees so they will be able to survive the drought.

This image, based on a 20th-century Yokut description of how the tribe’s ancestors passed along knowledge of their natural environment, gives us some idea of how the early peoples managed their environment and dealt with the depletion of larger game that accompanied the population increase of those times. As thousands of years of hunting and gathering gave way to a greater dependence on a variety of grass plants, acorns, and marine life as die- tary supplements, the California Indians developed techniques of cultivation, propagation, and preparation to increase their food supply. The burnings this

10 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

young girl recalls are the early incarnations of a tradition described to anthropologist Florence Shipek by elders of the Kumeyaay peoples of San Diego County in the 1960s. The elders also reported planting and hybridizing oak tree cuttings to produce more acorns. More recently M. Kat Anderson, in her study of California Indians’ management of their natural world, concluded that they practiced a wide variety of techniques including “burning, pruning, sowing, weeding, tilling …” –that Indians assert were practices to help nature along. Other scholars point to the fish management traditions of the coastal Indians, particularly those living north of Monterey bay. When the Chinook salmon had their semi-annual runs up the Klamath River, for example, it was tradition to allow some of them to pass on to the spawning grounds. The weirs that they built to trap them were dismantled at key times to allow the fish to pass, thus conserving the future stock of this important food. All these manage- ment techniques were under the spiritual direction of key shamans.

While they worked, these two women might have looked across the hills toward the stand of oak trees near their village, grown from cuttings. Oak trees then, as in the 21st century, could be found throughout California as well as the greater Southwest and northern Mexico. The indigenous peoples of Alta and Baja California developed the techniques that made the highly nutritious fruit of those trees—acorns—into a staple food. Each mature tree of the seven different species of oak could produce up to 500 pounds of acorns annually, but these nuts could only be gathered for a few weeks each year.

To pass the time as they pick greens, the elder reviews with her grandchild how acorns must be leached of their bitter tannic acids to make them edible. She rejects the method of immersing the acorns in mud near a streambed for several months, for there are all sorts of risks involved in leaving anything on its own like that. She prefers to shell the acorns and grind them into a meal, pouring water over it until the acid leaches out through coiled baskets. Stone or sand basins were also used for the leaching process, which was probably an original innovation of the California Indians. The young girl thought of how her mother, taught by her grandmother, organized the long hours of work required by their small family for several weeks to produce the acorn meal. Later, the meal could be boiled into mush or baked into cakes. In a good sea- son, they could gather enough acorns to make meal that would last them until the next gathering. She feels grateful for those bountiful years.

As the sun sinks lower and the sky turns to pinks and purples, the two women might spot the girl’s father and brother near the oak trees, returning from a trade journey to the coast. The pair would be laden with fish and game received in exchange for acorns, trading as the Wiot peoples did near present-day Eureka. Trade patterns revolved around the need for food. One of the most important and pervasive items of trade was obsidian, black volcanic glass stone used to make arrow and spear points. Crystal salt, gathered from the Owens Valley and the Colorado River or distilled from seawater, was also commonly traded. The

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 11

peoples in San Diego traded acorn meal for melons grown by the Yuman (Quechan) Indians. Abalone shells from the Pacific Ocean have been found in middens (refuse heaps) on the eastern side of Baja California, indicating a trade in shells between the western coastal communities and those further inland.

The stories the two men would surely bring back from their trip might well include tales highlighting the religious significance that the mountains, lakes, rivers, and other natural features had for them. They believed that the land was given to them by the gods and their ancestors, with boundaries established through tradition and warfare. They not only traveled for survival, they also made spiritual journeys. Their concept of the land differed from that of the Europeans both in its relation to the spiritual, and in their belief that land was for the use of families and clans as groups—not as individuals.

Almost every native group had occasion to travel within its territory and occasionally outside it to obtain needed foods or implements, just as this imag- inary family did. Given the diversity of California Indian language groups, lineages, bands, clans, and towns, generalizations about them as a whole are difficult to make. We can say that, unlike the peoples living along the Colorado River and further east, they did not develop maize agriculture. Those more eastern tribes cultivated maize, corn, beans, and squash once these plants had spread north from central Mexico after 900 BCE. For the California Indians, however, lush flora and fauna were available to those living near the coast and in the north, so there was no need to develop farming. And in any case, especially in the south, scant rainfall made agriculture without irrigation prob- lematic. Almost all the western groups had territories that crossed two or more ecological food zones, enabling them to draw from different regions in different seasons and thus not remain wholly dependent on any one food source.

California’s various Indians were also similar in that they were perhaps the most omnivorous peoples in the Americas, eating practically everything that was not poisonous. Besides acorns, fish, and game, they ate insects, shellfish, grasses, lizards, snakes, cactus, and scores of species of wild plants. Baskets, pottery vessels, bows and arrows, harpoons, nets, grinding and cutting stones, and other practical implements that line the shelves of California’s museums today are evidence of the importance of food gathering to all of the state’s var- ious historical cultures.

The California Indians actively shaped their natural environment so as to extract its maximum food value. And they passed on their burgeoning environ- mental management techniques through oral transmission—usually through shamans, or spiritual leaders—from generation to generation. The most com- mon management technique was the use of fire to control brush and tree growth, to create a layer of ash that nourished the seed-bearing grasses of the next season, and to drive game into traps. The annual clearing of brush by fire was an important ecological activity, creating places where grasses could grow and where game could forage. Burning the chaparral regions and grasslands promoted the growth of “burn species” of edible plants and grasses

12 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

that normally would not flourish in these areas. Frequent burnings in forested areas also prevented the buildup of dense brush whose accidental burning might have large-scale, disastrous results. Environmental historians believe that land management practices—especially burning—were so significant in maintaining a balance among the land, the flora, and the fauna of pre- conquest California that the decline of the Indian population after European settlement produced a change in the natural environment—a change caused by the unchecked growth of brush and chaparral. As estimated by ethnohistor- ians, perhaps 10 percent of the plants and 30 percent of the animals common in pre-Columbian California have since disappeared, victims of encroaching European plants and animals. Perhaps as much as 90 percent of all flora and fauna present in California today are not native to the region, but have appeared since the arrival of Europeans in North America.

Many native life forms have almost disappeared in 21st-century California. Before the Spanish, the coastal region hosted thousands of acres of American dune grass and Pacific beach grass. Beginning in the American era, these two grasses were gradually replaced by European beach grasses. These grasses trap more sand and create huge sand dunes, which in turn make it harder for other

Many Indian women were accomplished artisans, using local materials to create both utilitarian and ornamental objects.

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 13

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varieties of plants to thrive. Similarly, the coastal prairie regions once contained perennial bunch grasses that have been replaced by varieties of European spreading grasses, including Italian rye grass and wild oats and barley.

Spirituality

Although physical nourishment was a time-consuming enterprise for Indian families like the imaginary Yokuts described earlier, the food quest was bal- anced in their lives with time spent striving to live in harmony with the hidden forces of nature. Spirits inhabited the world of all native peoples in the Amer- icas; communicating with those spirits occupied a good portion of their lives, especially during changes in season and on special occasions such as coming of age, marriage, and death.

Imagine another dawn breaking in the life of another Indian family, among the Cahuilla. The father has spent some weeks instructing his adolescent son in the correct ways to dance, eat, bathe, and participate in one of the most impor- tant spiritual exercises of their community, the toloache ceremony. (In some Indian groups, girls also participated in this ritual.)

Gently, the father shakes his boy to wakefulness. “Come, my son—the elders are ready,” he says, and the boy shakes off his slumber to hurry outside. There, the boy lines up with his friends, all aged 10 to 15, as the shaman inspects them carefully. “You,” he points to one, then another, continuing down the line. “You, and you, and you. Come.” The boys are escorted to a ceremonial enclosure, where they will remain for a week while the old people dance all night and prepare the jimsonweed potion called toloache.

Mixing the crushed roots of the poisonous datura—or jimsonweed—with water created a narcotic potion that produced visions in those who drank it. The Indians believed these visions were a means of communicating with the supernatural. Where the toloache cult originated and how it spread is not cer- tain, though some scholars believe it began among the peoples of southern California and diffused north and east, driven by the dislocations caused by the Spanish occupation.

Death can be caused by ingesting toloache; it was only used with great preparation and supervision by the Indians, and drunk perhaps once in a per- son’s life. The process was supervised by the shaman, or religious leader of the tribe, who was also an expert in folk medicine. The shaman (usually male, but sometimes female) was key to the preservation of such rituals as the toloache ceremony. Shamans had power by virtue of an animal that came to them in dreams or visions—bestowed upon them by the Great Spirit so they could help people connect with each other and the natural world. It was believed the shaman could change shapes and become the guardian spirit animal.

When the boys are called forth from their hut into a moonless night a week later, a hush falls upon the watching crowd. The father looks proudly at his son who is standing tall, unblinking; he can tell the boy is ready to drink

14 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

and become a man. “Tonight and only tonight you taste the toloache that will transport you to the world of the Great Spirit,” the shaman intones, holding high a gourd filled with the sacred potion. Each boy drinks, and the drumming and dancing begin. One by one the boys collapse; as they do, they are carried with great jubilation back into the hut. The father keeps a strong face to squelch any small anxiety he might have as he gently lays down his son, who is muttering now in the throes of his vision. “Go away, Coyote, go away,” the boy cries out suddenly. “I know your tricks and selfish ways.” Later he will tell his father, “Coyote tempted me to jump from the highest cliff into the swirling waters below, saying he would catch me. ‘Drink more toloache,’ he told me, ‘for it will make you powerful like the shaman, look, like me, I am drinking all the time—come, we will fly!’ But I told him no, I know your deceit, for my father told me you are self-destructive and a liar. And Coyote howled as he flew away, hanging his head in shame for his weakness. ‘You are right, wise boy, do not jump, I cannot catch you, I cannot,’ he wailed. Then he faded and I woke up sweating.” The boy’s father nods wisely as his son finishes describing his vision, for everyone knows Coyote is all of these things, both destructive and regretful.

On the next night and the next, the boys are called out of the hut, taught songs, lore, and correct living. They learn the oral myths passed down through generations—stories with many animals, like Coyote, who had human person- alities and magical powers. These stories also explained the meaning of life and recorded the tribe’s own history. Coyote was a nearly universal mythic figure who could be the trickster or hero, depending on local interpretations. Among the Maidu, for example, the Coyote and Earthmaker gods were opposed to each other and struggled in the creation of the earth and people. Coyote appeared in many guises: as messenger, transformer, creator, but most often as the divine deceiver of humankind. Often, myths were related to geographical features of tribal territory, such as a mountain peak, lake, or river. Certainly the boys had heard these tales before, as the telling of them was woven into daily life—how the Great Spirit created the world, why death existed, why human society was organized as it was—but now the boys, too, became responsible for keeping this knowledge alive.

An introduction to medicinal lore might also have been included in their training, again supervised by the shaman, who also preserved the tribe’s vast knowledge of medicine, spiritual incantations, and the uses of various herbs. Similar to the curanderos (herbal faith healers) among the Mexicans, shamans were practitioners of holistic medicine. Using breath and touch in addition to plants and animals, shamans facilitated true cures in the only way thought possible—by bringing the body and the soul into harmony with the natural world. A Chumash Indian, Fernando Librado, told of many cures that he witnessed after the afflicted one had been given a toloache potion to drink. Once, a man who had been severely beaten and was near death was revived and completely cured within a few days of drinking toloache and being

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 15

rubbed over with tobacco. Another who was in great pain from broken bones received almost immediate relief and was eventually healed after drink- ing toloache.

While these specialized cures were needed in serious cases, knowledge of medicinal plants was part of the cultural heritage of all the people. The boys might learn about the many uses of tobacco, grown or traded by almost all the native groups and thought to have curative and spiritual powers when chewed, eaten, or smoked. They might be shown medicinal plants good for treating many common ailments: from sore muscles, headaches, cramps, and nausea, to common colds, rheumatism, cuts, bites, wounds, and sores. Their sisters, in their own coming-of-age rituals, might learn about other plants use- ful for contraception, menstrual problems, and childbirth. When the Spanish began to occupy California, they liberally borrowed from native medicinal lore, using special herbs to treat arrow wounds, as well as wild chamomile and manzanilla for respiratory illnesses. A number of our modern medicines derive from the plants used by the North American Indians.

Once taught the ways of the tribe, the boys eat no meat and drink nothing but cold water for the rest of that month. After this they are men. Sitting by the fire, the young man who saw Coyote in his visions contemplates his future. His father smiles softly, careful that his son does not see his pride as he observes the seriousness on that youthful face. Then he breaks the young man’s reverie. “Tomorrow you will join us on the hunt. Today we prepare ourselves in the temescal. Come, help carry the rocks.”

Together, father and son join the other men of the village placing heated rocks inside the rounded structure made of saplings and covered with grass and hides. This temescal, or sweathouse, was another significant part of their spiritual life. Sprinkling water on the rocks, the men gathered inside the steamy hut to chant, sing, smoke, and pray. An hour or two later, they would emerge and immediately plunge into cold water, purified for success in undertakings such as hunting and war.

Rituals

When the sun rises and the stars and the moon go down, then the old man of the house wakens everyone and begins with breakfast which is to eat meat and tortillas (acorn cakes), for we do not have bread. This done, he takes his bow and arrows and leaves the house with vigorous and quick step…. His old woman staying at home makes the meal. The son, if he is a man, works with the men.

These words of Pablo Tac, a San Luis Rey mission Indian in the 1820s, offer a glimpse of their daily life before the Spanish arrived. Although generalizations about the diverse Indian communities are difficult to make, each had its own regional version of rituals surrounding marriage, morals, and leisure—the acti- vities that gave meaning and purpose to life—all drawn from the sustenance of each of their rich and varied environments.

16 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

Common to many of these activities was song of one form or another. Like the initiation rites of the Cahuilla described earlier, young girls of the Diegueño or Kumeyaay Indians participated in a Wakunish, or womanhood ceremony, at puberty. A bed of hot sand was prepared and the girl placed on top of it, sur- rounded by dancing and singing members of her village. Following this, she returned to her special hut to be instructed in the sacred affairs of the commu- nity. A sand painting was used to show the girl her place in the universe, and marriageable girls were tattooed on their chins after a period of fasting.

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Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 17

In 1854, a U.S. expedition led by Lieutenant Colonel William Emory traveled through the desert regions of California and Arizona to survey the international boundary. Along the way, artists sketched the region’s plants, animals, and inhabitants. Arthur Schott created this picture of a Diegueño family in 1854. Do you see any Spanish or Mexican influence?

Song and dance also figured in marriage rituals. Chumash marriage cele- brations began with a private ceremony for the family, where invited guests brought presents, according to former mission Indian Fernando Librado. Later there was a feast, followed by what he called a Jealousy Dance, in which five figures performed a burlesque of a love affair and temptations of other men. Pablo Tac remembered another ritual dance, of the Luiseño people:

The dancers in this dance can be as many as 30, more or less. Going out of the house, they turn their faces to the singers and begin to give kicks, but not hard ones, because it is not the time, and when the song is finished the captain of the dancers, touching his feet, cries, “Hu,” and all fall silent.

In some groups, boys were married before they were 21, to a suitable bride selected by their parents from outside both the immediate family and the band. The parents gave gifts to the family of the girl, and sometimes the boy went to work for his future in-laws to prove he could provide for the girl. Among some tribelets there was no formal ceremony, merely an agreement among the par- ents. During the first weeks after the marriage, members of the village visited the new couple to confirm that they were part of the group.

Indian and Spanish morality differed, which was a source of great conflict between them. Though marriage and kinship were usually governed among Indians by strict rules, and patriarchal values held sway, most California Indians did not regard virginity as being of great value; consequently, premari- tal sex was rarely forbidden, according to the research of historian Albert Hurtado. Adultery and sexual misconduct by women was sometimes punished by payment of indemnities to wronged husbands and by the whipping of errant wives; however, sexual mores among Indian groups varied as greatly as they did between Indians and Europeans, and sweeping generalizations are perilous. In some groups, women as well as men could divorce their spouse if mis- treated. Prostitution was almost unknown among Indians, Hurtado thinks, because “marital, premarital, and extramarital associations provided sufficient sexual opportunities.”

Along with many other natives in the Americas, the California Indians also valued a berdache tradition, in which homosexual transvestites were thought to have special mystical powers. Many villages regarded them as a third sex, highly valued as marriage partners because of their strength and spiritual gifts. This acceptance of homosexuality as well as the native people’s casual attitudes towards sex was regarded by Christian missionaries as proof of the Indians’ inherent sinfulness.

Many California Indians believed in cremating their dead, another practice that was unacceptable to European Catholics of the time. “Only when everything is burned can his spirit go into the next world and not have to keep coming back after his things,” remembers Delfina Cuero, a Kumeyaay Indian woman born in 1900, in her autobiography. The funeral ceremony of her people, the Kumeyaay, involved cremating the departed along with all their worldly possessions the day after they died. Their bones and ashes were preserved in jars. Gifts were sent from

18 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

other bands to the family of the deceased, along with “shell money.” Tradition dic- tated that the shell money was then returned to the band who sent it, along with more gifts. A year later, the other bands were invited to participate in a mourning ceremony, during which everyone sang songs about the eagle and deer all night long, followed by a great feast in the morning. Figurines made of cattails, repre- senting the dead, were burned and food and baskets were given away. Later, the visitors returned the original gifts along with more food. Such exchanges served to promote communication and good will among the villages.

Singing was also featured in leisure time activities. Songs that kept local legends, myths, and history alive were memorized and sung, often directed toward the Great Spirit. Each band had one singer who knew all the songs and stories and who taught them to the others. One Luiseño story, the legend of Takwish, was told through 1050 songs that were sung from sunset Friday until sunrise on Sunday. There were probably hundreds of such stories among the California peoples, each encapsulating the “soul” of the people, transmitting their identity and heritage to the next generation.

A popular gambling and guessing game called peon was also accompanied by songs. The Indians also participated with great gusto in many other kinds of games that emphasized both competition and community. Men and boys engaged in mock battles with one another using stones instead of arrows, and children played a game of throwing a stick through a rolling hoop. Pablo Tac remembers a ball game resembling modern football that was played with 30 or 40 men and women on each side. The idea was to unearth a hidden ball using sticks and then to carry it to the goal while the other team sought to prevent a score. Each game lasted three or four hours.

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the varied lives of native Californians reflected the diversity of the land they inhabited. A closer examination of six of the many native groups that spread across this land provides greater insight into their similarities as well as their differences. While there were probably more than 500 distinctive tribelets, it is useful to focus on those which were the largest that represent the regional adaptations of these people. From the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples of the south to the Shastans of the north, each group’s development was inseparably woven into the fabric of their environment.

The Gabrielino/Tongva

The Gabrielino/Tongva peoples migrated to southern California from the greater Southwest sometime after 500 BCE. They lived in more than 100 vil- lages scattered throughout the area of present-day Los Angeles and Orange

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 19

Counties, as well as the offshore islands (see Map 1.2). Named for the San Gabriel mission constructed near their villages, or rancherías (as the Spanish called them), they were a Cupan-speaking people. Part of the Uto-Aztecan family of languages, Cupan is linguistically related to languages of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico and the Aztecs of central Mexico.

The Gabrielinos worshiped the god Qua-o-ar, also called Chingichngish. According to what is known through Spanish sources, they believed the earth was created by a divine brother and sister, who formed the first human, Wiyot, a male who was self-generating (he had children without a woman). Wiyot was poisoned by his children, but before he died he vowed to return. As his children were cremating Wiyot, Coyote appeared and said that he wanted to die with his captain. Coyote jumped into the fire, while tearing a piece of meat from Wiyot’s stomach and eating it. Soon after that, Chingichng- ish was born, and he then created a new race of people, giving them a body of laws and proscriptions. The reported practice of Gabrielino shamans eating a piece of the flesh of a dead body just prior to its cremation was supposedly a re-creation of the birth of their “all-powerful” god. Eventually Chingichngish was taken up into the heavens, dancing a sacred dance, and he became the stars.

The worship of Chingichngish evolved into a more formalistic religion with special worship places, elaborate ceremonies, and sacrifices to this god as well as to the Sun and Moon, who also had divine status. The Gabrielinos also venerated animals, especially the Eagle, whom they considered to be the soul of a great leader. Their religion was male-centered; only men were allowed pri- mary access to divine powers. The veneration of Chingichngish may have been influenced by Catholicism in a syncretic way, mixing European and native beliefs, but it is unclear to what degree.

The lengthiest Gabrielino rituals involved deceased tribal members. After a three-day mourning ceremony with dancing and wailing, the dead were cre- mated along with all their possessions. Each year, the family conducted another mourning ceremony in honor of the deceased one, at which the legends of the community were honored. During the eight-day celebration, the longest and most elaborate of the year, newly born children were given their father’s names, any remaining possessions of the deceased were burned, and an eagle was ceremonially sacrificed.

Like many California native groups, the Gabrielinos were patrilineal, trac- ing their descent through the father. Arranged marriages often took place, after which a wife moved into the home of her husband and was then forbidden to visit her family of origin, although they could visit her. Divorce was possible, in which case the families returned the wedding gifts. A wife’s infidelity was pun- ishable by death or beating.

Of the tribe’s three social classes, leaders and their families were at the top, followed by a middle class of respected families and then by common villagers. Upper- and middle-class families controlled land and marked the boundaries

20 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

of their possessions with symbolic figures carved on trees or posts, or painted on rocks. Each village had its own autonomous organization dominated by one lineage and ruled by a male leader who passed on his power through his male heir. If no male heir existed, a related woman might be selected by the family council.

Occasionally, feuds among the various lineages and villages erupted, with villages sometimes allying together to engage in war. Armed and bloody con- flicts arose when other tribes trespassed on ranchería lands, when women were taken, or when enemies invoked evil powers. The Gabrielino warriors used heavy wooden clubs, reed armor, and bows and arrows. The whole village took part in battles, with women and children as helpers. Enemy wounded were killed on the field, while captured male warriors were publicly tortured and scalped.

Most of the time, however, peace reigned, fostered by intermarriages and trade within Gabrielino groups and with the Cahuilla, Chumash, and Luiseño. The Gabrielinos’ main trade item was steatite, a kind of rock from the island of Santa Catalina used to make carvings of sacred animals. They imported acorns, obsidian, and deerskin from the inland territories and exchanged salt, shellfish, and sea otter pelts. They also traded with the Pueblo Indians of what is now Arizona and New Mexico.

The Chumash

The Chumash people settled in villages in central California around 1000 CE, in the area from San Luis Obispo to Malibu, on the coastal Channel Islands— San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Anacapa—and as far inland as the central San Joaquin Valley (see Map 1.2). They became one of the largest lan- guage groups in California and were among the native peoples sighted by the European expedition led by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in October 1542.

Expert craftsmen, especially in woodworking and basketry, they con- structed planked wooden canoes up to 30 feet long that enabled them to fish far out to sea and to visit the offshore islands. Using harpoons with stone points and ropes made out of yucca fiber, they hunted sea otters, seals, sword- fish, and whales. Their large carved oak bowls were the envy of the Europeans; their wooden-handled knives and arrows remain marvels of beauty. California Indian basketry in general is noted for its decoration and workmanship, and Chumash baskets were so tightly woven that when waterproofed with asphal- tum or tar, they could be used to carry and store water, as well as for cooking. The tar came from natural pools, which had oozed into a small lake located in the western region of what is today the Los Angeles basin. The women were responsible for weaving these useful works of art. They also wove fishnets, floor mats, storage baskets, and strainers.

Chumash rock art paintings can be found in caves and on rocks and ledges throughout the Santa Barbara area. Many California native groups drew or

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 21

inscribed designs and mysterious symbols on rocks, but few of these are as col- orful and dramatic as those of the Chumash. The designs are abstract, most probably done in conjunction with the toloache ceremony or with female puberty rites. The drawings may have been meant to sanctify a particularly holy spot—almost all of them are located near water in inaccessible regions, far from the coast.

The permanent villages of the Chumash included well-constructed round homes built of poles and interwoven grass, some up to 50 feet in diameter and able to hold up to 70 persons. Within these homes were beds on wood frames with divisions in between for privacy and a fire pit in the center for cooking. Every village had at least one sweathouse, a number of storehouses, a building used for ceremonies, a cemetery, and a recreation house.

As did many California natives, the Chumash enjoyed a variety of games. A ball game similar to soccer, played with a round wooden ball, was popular with the boys and men; females played a hoop game that involved trying to throw a pole through a rolling hoop. Women also gambled alongside men in various games of chance, especially a dice game using walnut shells filled with tar.

Like the Gabrielinos, this tribe was patrilineal and had a definite class sys- tem. Those who owned the large canoes and were the heads of large families enjoyed high status. Wealthy family members dressed accordingly, adorned with semiprecious stones and rare bird feathers.

The area in which the Chumash lived was blessed with many resources. Still, they had extensive trade relationships with surrounding communities. In exchange for deerskins, acorns, obsidian, and precious stones, they traded aba- lone shells, whalebone, wooden bowls, and asphaltum. They were expert at making fishhooks out of shell and these were valuable trade items. Those who lived on the four offshore islands visited the mainland periodically to obtain food and luxuries, sometimes paddling more than 40 miles in open sea and bringing with them a variety of marine items such as sea lion bristles (used as needles), whalebones, and pelican feathers.

According to early European accounts, the Chumash were a gentle people. In the 1770s, Governor Pedro Fages wrote that they were “of good disposition, affable, liberal, and friendly toward the Spaniard.” Among them, punishment was rare and compensation was the modality of justice. Disputes were settled by referees, and intertribal wars were fought with restraining ritual and little bloodshed. Their friendly and accepting manner made them good candidates for missionization by the Spanish priests. Within a century, however, epidemics, starvation, and displacement reduced the Chumash to near extinction.

The Costanoans

The Costanoan peoples migrated to Monterey Bay and the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area about 500 CE and lived in more than 50 autonomous,

22 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

relatively small, permanent villages (see Map 1.2). By the time of their first contact with Europeans, they had a population of more than 10,000, divided into eight language groups and more than 30 different ethnic populations, each with different names and different dialects. Their name derives from the Spanish costa (coast), but as was the case with many native California peoples, they did not use this name themselves.

One group of Costanoans may have been the first miners in California, excavating a tunnel near present-day New Almaden to mine cinnabar, a com- pound based on mercury and used to make colorful paints. Because this was the only deposit of this particular mineral in California, it was a valuable asset and the Costanoans fought with surrounding tribes for the rights to the mine. Indians from as far away as the Pacific Northwest traveled to Costanoan territory to trade for cinnabar.

Like the Chumash, the Costanoans developed boats, but theirs were made of tule reeds and used for fishing in the bays as well as for transportation and trading expeditions. They bartered the products of the bays with the interior Indian groups for piñon nuts, acorns, and decorative stones and shells. Warfare with other groups seems to have been more pronounced among the Costanoan peoples, usually caused by trespassing into their territory. (Territorial bound- aries of ethnic groups were well delineated and frequently marked.) In battle, the Costanoans killed male captives and took women; afterward, the decapi- tated heads of their enemies adorned their villages. Costanoans shared the common religious tradition that included a creation story involving the destruction of the earth by flooding, followed by the rebirth of people. They believed Coyote taught people to hunt and fish, and was the grandfather of Duck Hawk, a god who helped humans by killing monsters and looking after their welfare. They believed in an afterlife in which they went to another land across the sea. On the day of death, the corpse was cremated. During the mourning ceremony, members of the immediate family covered themselves with ashes and beat themselves in sorrow, a practice which sometimes resulted in their own deaths. It was forbidden to speak a deceased’s name until it had been formally given to another within the tribe.

Grizzly bears were also venerated as representing important animal spir- its and were frequently captured alive and cared for by some tribes. Special shamans dressed in grizzly bear skins and used poisoned claws to kill enemy captives. The Chumash Indian Fernando Librado recalled the ceremonies surrounding the bear medicine man when he was interviewed by anthropol- ogist John P. Harrington in 1914. “To make their bear suits they would first kill a bear and pull its skin off over the head, cutting the paws and skin carefully.” Librado remembered that occasionally other Indians would try to kill the bear medicine man (whom they believed to be an evil spirit). But the bear shamans were believed to be protected by the supernatural powers they possessed (they were protected, too, by the many layers of skins they wore).

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 23

Costanoan tribal organization was similar to that of the Gabrielino/ Tongva and the Chumash. The position of chief was hereditary, but any chief’s authority was circumscribed by a strong sense of individual freedom among community members. Their social world revolved around the family of the father and they had large families, perhaps averaging 15 per household. Wealthier men had more than one wife, which made for complex arrange- ments. Among some Costanoans there were three designations for children, indicating known parentage: man’s son, man’s daughter, and woman’s child (unknown father). Marriage appears to have been rather informal, and divorce was easily accomplished, with the children going with the wife.

The Miwoks and Yokuts

Other Indian groups lived far from the ocean and European settlement. Two of these groups were the Miwoks and Yokuts. The Miwoks inhabited an area run- ning from the north and east of San Francisco Bay to Sacramento and the foot- hills of the Sierras; the Yokuts lived in the San Joaquin Valley south of Sacramento. Like other groups, these two populations settled in scattered inde- pendent villages, the members of each village speaking a different dialect although bound by a probable common ancestry in the ancient past.

In 1769, the Miwok population probably exceeded 25,000. They were noted for their construction of large, round subterranean meetinghouses, some- times 40 to 50 feet in diameter, in which it was possible to assemble the whole village for important ceremonies and crucial discussions. The Sierra Miwoks built conical homes of bark and wood, insulated by several layers to withstand the cold winters. The Miwoks divided all creatures into two types, the water and land descendants, and their social organization and adoption of animal names followed this dualist system. For example, among the Sierra Miwoks,

Hupa man with a ceremonial white deerskin staff and elaborate shell necklace.

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24 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

the grizzly bear represented the land and the coyote the water. Individuals were given a personal name according to their relationship to the land or water moi- eties (sides). The Miwoks had three types of leaders: the chief, who arbitrated disputes and administered punishments; the speaker, who organized everyone for ceremonies and work; and the messengers, who acted as representatives to other groups and as announcers during ritual celebrations. Hunters and gath- erers, the Miwoks developed a variety of technologies, including seed beaters, dip nets and seines for fish, specialized traps and snares for small game, and deer runs (fenced areas that trapped prey).

The Yokuts shared the same linguistic origin as the Miwoks and numbered some 20,000 people who lived in about 40 independent groups. In the south, the Yokuts lived along the banks of the Kern, Tule, King, and San Joaquin Rivers, and along the shore of Tulare Lake. In this era, the San Joaquin Valley was much marshier than it is now and this created a rich aquatic environment. The Yokut way of life, therefore, revolved around the marshes formed by the many rivers in the valley. The ubiquitous tule plant was used for making every- thing from baskets to canoes, and it was also used for food. Because their food source was always in one place, these Yokuts built permanent villages using large tule mats for construction, and they perfected freshwater fishing with spe- cialized nets, floating tule mats, spring traps, and decoys. They ate mussels, turtles, geese, and ducks, along with tule and grass seeds, and supplemented this diet with acorns, which they obtained by trade.

The Yokuts who lived along the river edges also had access to acorns as a staple food. Some built their river villages on mounds to protect against floods and had small tule huts for each family, but they also built larger assembly structures and sweathouses. They raised dogs, primarily, it seems, for their meat, and the puppies were an item of trade as far away as Monterey. They had a dualistic family system like that of the Miwoks, whose territory bounded them on the north. Among the foothill Yokuts, plural marriages and divorce were common, and a woman’s rights were strongly protected by her family.

The Shastans

Finally, in the Klamath and Scott River Valleys of the mountainous regions of northern California and southern Oregon, there lived about 3000 Shastan peo- ples, a collection of groups who shared dialects of the same language. Noted for their many feuds and wars within their own group and with other northern groups such as the Modocs, the Shastans fought in retaliation for past insults and injuries as well as for control of territory. Nevertheless, they maintained trade relations with surrounding rancherías in order to obtain baskets, obsidian, beads, and animal skins in exchange for acorn meal, salt, and wolf skins.

The Shastan peoples, too, were patrilineal, with rule by a headman or chief. Often the wife of the chief was an important political spokesperson in resolving con- flicts. Settlement of disputes usually required payment in clamshell money, deer

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 25

skins, or woodpecker scalps to the aggrieved party. The headman also regulated the ownership of hunting and fishing territory, which could be inherited by families.

Harsh winters impelled the Shastans to build sturdy, warm dwellings, par- tially excavated, with solid wood logs and boards as walls and roofs. During the summer months, the families lived in temporary camps. They also built large assembly halls for ceremonial purposes, for use as a sweathouse, and for lodg- ing during the winter.

Shastan territory was lush with small game, salmon, trout, eels, and turtles. The women were entrusted with fishing, while the men hunted. Deer meat was a primary food source. They also had a gathering culture, with both men and women seeking acorns and pine nuts. Cultivated tobacco was offered up as a sacrifice to ensure good hunting.

Coyote is a major figure in Shastan belief, as a source of both evil and good. The stories used by the Shastans to pass on their beliefs were preoccu- pied with the pervasiveness of evil, which had to be combated by manipulation of the spiritual world through the offices of male shamans and female doctors. They also seem to have been preoccupied with status, prestige, and the order of society, which made insults and loss of face great evils and resentments a major theme of cultural life.

Significance: The Importance of California Natives and Other North American Native Peoples in Non-Indian History

Beginning in 1769, with the first Spanish settlement, and lasting until 1848, when California was transferred to the United States, the California Indians vastly out- numbered the Euro-American population. If history were written emphasizing the most demographically important groups, then, until the discovery of gold, California’s history would be primarily that of its native peoples, with small attention given to the Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo immigrants. But history reflects political and cultural power and is usually written by the conquerors.

Spanish, Mexican, and early Anglo American settlers in California were almost uniformly critical of the native peoples. The Spanish had mixed views about the Indians, whom they considered “child-like,” “indolent,” and given to indulge in “brutal appetites,” while paradoxically seeing them as innocent and naturally God’s children. Some Mexican settlers, or pobladores, viewed the native peoples either as dangerous threats to civilization or as lazy peones who needed strong guidance. The Anglos called the California Indians “digger Indians,” classifying them as the most primitive of all North American Indian peoples for lack of such rudimentary accomplishments of civilization as farm- ing and pottery. Such negative valuation allowed Euro-Americans to justify taking Indian lands and destroying their societies.

26 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

Herbert Howe Bancroft, a famous and influential 19th-century California historian, believed that the California Indians were culturally inferior to the whites. Many modern misconceptions about the level of culture attained by the California Indians can be traced to 19th-century positivist scholars, notably Lewis Henry Morgan, one of those who conceived of all human cultural evolu- tion as progressing through stages of savagery, barbarism, and finally civiliza- tion. These scholars tended to equate “civilization” with the development of agriculture and technology and relegated food-gathering societies to the level of barbarism, not taking into account that human intelligence is also reflected in successful adaptation to an environment. Such beliefs persisted into the 1960s and even later, with historians and anthropologists usually characterizing the California native cultures as “primitive” and “underdeveloped,” thus reflect- ing prejudices that are the product of ignorance as well as ethnocentrism born out of racialist ideologies of the past.

These attitudes make it hard to remember that much of the drama of those years of conquest was played out against a backdrop of the extensive, rich, and diverse native culture that existed across the North American conti- nent. The many groups in California were descendants of natives who had migrated from the east and north, and as such they shared cultural patterns with the larger Indian society. Along with other Indian peoples in North America in 1492, the California Indians developed a culture that fit their nat- ural environment. Few natives in what later became the United States relied entirely on agriculture (those who did were mostly limited to New Mexico and Arizona); most shared an economy based on hunting, gathering, and the selective cultivation of plants. Techniques developed by California Indians for maintaining the ecological balance between the population and the natural world of vegetation and animal life make them the first environmentalists. Their periodic burning of brush areas to stimulate the new growth of food crops, decrease insect pests, manage game, and open new country helped main- tain an equilibrium that was severely disturbed by the Europeans and Americans. Not until the late 20th century would scientists finally realize the wisdom of native management practices.

Until at least the mid-19th century, the most important workforce in California was composed of its native peoples. The foundation of the livestock industry and of agriculture depended on native labor, as did the construction of early public and private buildings and the first towns. The physical monu- ments to the Spanish and Mexican eras, the missions and the ranchos, were built with Indian labor. The native peoples contributed elements of their language to hundreds of place names, such as Shasta, Napa, Tuolomne, Yuba, Tehachapai, Tecate, and Ukiah. They shared their knowledge of the use of medicinal plants with the first Spanish and Mexican settlers, and they helped them defend their small settlements against attacks by other Indians. Elements of Indian culture found their way into the mission system set up by the Spanish. The first vaqueros, or cowboys, in California were Indians employed by the

Significance 27

missions to manage the cattle, sheep, and goats brought by the Spanish. Native cultures, languages, and identities continue to exist within California, making these first people very much part of the history of the state from the earliest times to the present day.

Summary

During the course of millions of years, California evolved into a region of tremendous geographic and natural diversity. The many climates and natural ecosystems helped create the varied ways of life of its hundreds of thousands of first settlers—migrants whose speech derived from six linguistic groups and was expressed in more than 100 dialects. The lush plants and game that flourished in California sustained this large Indian population, who created innovative ways of nurturing their natural resources.

Despite the multiplicity of their origins and languages, the Indian peoples shared certain values, perhaps reflecting their common origin in prehistoric

In 1806, a Russian ship visited San Francisco Bay, and the artist Wilhelm Gottlief Tilesius von Tilenau traveled to Mission in San José, where he sketched a dance that had been arranged for their entertainment. Compare this picture with those shown in the earlier two photos in this chapter. Which ones seem more realistic?

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28 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

time. They all managed their natural environment to produce the maximum amount of food, whether by controlled burns, hunting, or scattering of wild seeds. Almost all of them developed techniques for harvesting and grinding acorns into a staple food, and they all traded with other groups. A rich oral tradition of myths, legends, and stories—especially about the character Coyote and the event of the flood—was common to all groups, as was the veneration of animal spirits. Complex ceremonies, songs, and rituals connected them to their natural environment. They all had shamans who organized their spiritual life, and many used jimsonweed or other psychotropic plants as part of their reli- gion, as well as the temescal or sweathouse. Their complex patterns of lineage, relationship, and status, including class systems in some groups, and their rela- tively small villages, reflected the patterns of all the native peoples on the continent—with the exception of the metropolitan civilizations in central Mexico. Their peaceful and nonwarlike image has some element of truth to it, despite the bloody intertribal warfare that periodically existed. Outside of cen- tral Mexico, native peoples rarely engaged in wars of conquest and territorial aggrandizement. The first Californians were neither more nor less sophisticated or warlike than other peoples in North America before the arrival of the Europeans.

A review of some of the most populous indigenous groups in California illustrates their rich heritage and many accomplishments. Their ability to learn how to live with the incredible diversity and richness of California’s cli- mate and geography and develop cultures that balanced human and natural resources is an important ideal that seems to be regaining value in the new millennium.

Modern anthropologists evaluate cultures on their own merits, not in terms of a universal model of development that favors European culture, such as the models used by 19th-century historians and positivist scholars. Ultimately, the California Indians must be understood on their own terms, not in comparison to other Indians or to European and American notions of civilization. In this regard, we must remind ourselves that the native cultures that existed prior to their contact with Europeans were neither better nor worse than those who would attempt to control them. Then, perhaps, we can better appreciate the true diversity of California’s past and how that diversity may shape the future.

Suggested Readings

❚ Anderson, M. Kat, Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006). An examination of how the native peoples of California managed their natural environment.

Suggested Readings 29

❚ Fages, Pedro, A Historical, Political, and Natural Description of California, trans. by Herbert Ingram Priestley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937). An eyewitness account of the native cultures in California, written in 1772.

❚ Griffin, Paul F., and Young Robert N., California: The New Empire State, a Regional Geography (San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1957). A good intro- duction to the geographic diversity of California.

❚ Heizer, Robert F., ed., “California,” in Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, series ed. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978). The best overall survey of the complexities and diversities of the California Indians.

❚ Kroeber, Alfred L., Handbook of the Indians of California (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 78, 1925). A landmark study of the indigenous people done by the most respected California anthropologist of the 20th century.

❚ Librado, Fernando, Breath of the Sun: Life in Early California As Told by a Chumash Indian, Fernando Librado, to John P. Harrington, edited by Travis Hudson (Banning, Calif.: Malki Museum Press; [S.l.]: Ventura County His- torical Society, 1979). A glimpse into the daily life of the California Indians during the early 1900s.

❚ Margolin, Malcolm, ed., The Way We Lived: California Indian Stories, Songs and Reminiscences (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1981). A good collection of the oral tradition.

❚ Tac, Pablo, Indian Life and Customs at Mission San Luis Rey (Mission San Luis Rey, 1958). A rare account of a mission Indian who wanted to be a priest.

30 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

CH AP

TE R 2

The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

Main Topics

❚ The Spanish Conquest and Empire

❚ Demographic and Ethnic Growth of California

❚ Establishing Presidios and Pueblos

❚ Gender Relations in Spanish California

❚ Political Developments in Spanish California

❚ Summary

Pablo Tac was a Luiseño Indian (Quechnajuichom) born in Mission San Luis Rey in 1822. He came from a family of six children, most of whom had been born at his peo-

ple’s ranchería (small settlement) near the mission. In 1832, Father Antonio Peyri chose Pablo and another boy to travel with him to Mexico City to study for the priesthood. They arrived at the College of San Fernando, where Tac lived until 1834, when Father Peyri took both boys to Spain and then to Rome for further education financed by the church. In Rome, the older boy died but Tac finished his education, studying humanities, philosophy, and rhetoric. He took his preliminary vows in 1839, intending to go back to California as a mission- ary, but he died before he could return.

While in the seminary, Tac was asked to prepare a grammati- cal description of the Luiseño language and a dictionary. In addi- tion to this document he wrote a history of his people and a

31

description of life in the missions, the only account written by a former neophyte. This rare document gives us an interpretation of history through the eyes of a Christianized California Indian, but we should be cautious about relying too much on his memo- ries of his Indian past—they are in the context of his newly found religion and his probable desire to please his European mentors. At the same time, however, some scholars have ana- lyzed the themes of resistance embedded in his narrative.

Tac recalled his people’s history of warfare with the Kumeyaay peoples to the south before the Spaniards arrived. They were always at war with tribes that did not speak their language: “Always strife day and night,” he wrote. He also described their war practices. “They would surprise the enemy either when they were sleeping or when the men were

CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California,

1769–1821

1519 Cortés conquers the Aztecs in central Mexico

1542 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo discovers San Diego Bay, named San Miguel

1579 Francis Drake lands on California’s coast

1602 Sebastián Vizcaíno lands in San Diego Bay and gives it its name

1769 First Spanish expeditions to settle Alta California

1770 Monterey founded by Father Junípero Serra

1775 First major Indian rebellion at Mission San Diego

1775 De Anza expedition brings new settlers to California

1776 Lieutenant José Moraga founds the presidio of San Francisco; Spain actively supports American revolution with money and supplies

1777 Pueblo of San José established

1781 Pueblo of Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles founded

1781 Yuma uprising closes all travel with Arizona

1784 Chumash uprising against the missions

1792 English explorer George Vancouver visits California harbors

1810 Beginning of wars of independence from Spain

1812 Russians build Fort Ross on California coast

1818 Pirate Hippolyte Bouchard sacks Monterey

1822 News of Mexico’s independence arrives in California

32

leaving the house, the women remaining alone; and they would kill the women, old people, and children. This done, they burned the camp, fleeing to their homes.… In this mis- erable state they lived until merciful God freed us of these miseries through Father Antonio Peyri, a Catalan, who arrived in our country in the afternoon with seven Spanish soldiers.”

Tac related stories about the arrival of the first Spanish in his village and their attempts to speak to the Indian leaders. Accord- ing to Tac, they were told, “What is it that you seek here? Get out of our country!” Tac continued, “It was a great mercy that the Indians did not kill the Spanish when they arrived, and very admi- rable, because they have never wanted another people to live with them, and until those days there was always fighting.”

Tac remembered that the priest appointed native alcaldes, who were more proficient in Spanish; each was given a staff of authority. At Mission San Luis Rey there were seven alcaldes. The priest communicated with the Indians through the alcaldes, who in turn carried the news to their villages. The laborers at the mission were accompanied by a Spanish major- domo and the alcaldes, whose purpose was “to hurry them if they are lazy… and to punish the guilty or lazy one who leaves his plow and quits the field.” And, regarding the priests: “In the

This drawing is one of two done by Pablo Tac and used to illustrate his essay “Conversion of the San Luiseños of Alta California” which he wrote while in Rome. It shows two young painted men performing a traditional dance holding rattles and dressed ceremonially in feathered skirts and head dress. They are identified as “San Luiseño” and appear to be enjoying the occasion.

CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821 33

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Mission of San Luis Rey de Francia the Fernandino Father is like a king. He has his pages, alcaldes, majordomos, musicians, sol- diers, gardens, ranchos, livestock, horses by the thousand, cows, bulls by the thousand, oxen, mules, asses, 12,000 lambs, 200 goats, etc.”

Pablo Tac died on December 13, 1841, before he could be ordained a priest; he was not yet 20 years old. His written work is the only account of California mission life written by an Indian, and it is also the first literature published by a California Indian.

Tac’s life story dramatizes the major changes that the Indians experienced as they encountered the Euro-American settlers. The goal of the Spanish priests and soldiers was to convert and pacify thousands of native peoples who lived near the California coast. They hoped to make the natives into loyal Spanish Catholic subjects, with the California mis- sions at the core of the Spanish project to settle California. There were some successes, as evidenced in Tac’s narrative, but by and large the process of Hispanicization resulted in the introduction of new diseases that decimated the Indian population; however, by introducing the Spanish language, culture, and political system the Europeans added new diver- sity to an already heterogeneous society. The mixture of cultures would produce a resilient frontier environment—one that prepared California for new challenges.

Questions to Consider

❚ How and why did the Spanish finally settle Alta California? ❚ What were the characteristics of the society that they sought to create?

❚ How can we evaluate the debate over the modern inter- pretations of the California missions?

❚ What was the status of women in this colonial society? ❚ What was the influence of other Europeans on Califor- nia’s history?

❚ What is the importance of the Spanish era?

The Spanish Conquest and Empire

The Spaniards were the first Europeans to colonize the New World, preceding the English by more than 100 years. From their first settlements in the Caribbean Islands, Hispaniola, and Cuba, they soon began the exploration

34 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

and settlement of the American continents. In 1519 Hernan Cortés led an expedition of soldiers from Cuba to confirm rumors of a powerful and wealthy kingdom on the western mainland of present-day Mexico. Cortés led his men in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire. The epic adventure took two years and was made possible by the assistance of hundreds of thousands of Indians who resented Aztec tyranny, and by the use of new weapons, animals (such as the horse and dog), and most importantly, by the new diseases brought by the Europeans, such as influenza, smallpox, and a more virulent form of syphilis. By 1521, the Spanish had established a foothold in central Mexico. Almost immediately, Cortés began sending out expeditions to find other wealthy kingdoms.

The Spanish consolidation of political, religious, and military power over the former Aztecs, their vassals, and outlying tribes was rapid and quite remarkable. Within 50 years of the conquest—aided by a rapid depopulation of the Indians due to disease and mistreatment—the Spanish constructed an efficient government to exploit the labor and wealth of this land, which they called New Spain. The cultural transformation of this new colony would take hundreds of years, as the Indian population continued to outnumber the Espa- ñoles. Gradually a mestizo, or mixed, culture emerged with various degrees of mixture between ancient Indian and Spanish Catholic life. The complexity of New Spain’s evolution in terms of racial and ethnic identity is a point that scholars are now exploring in great depth.

Political control of this caldron of subjugated people led to the creation of a complex bureaucracy controlled by the Spanish peninsulares and assisted by American-born mestizos and criollos. At the top was the Spanish king’s repre- sentative, the viceroy, who was to implement the royal edicts and endless administrative decrees flowing from the Council of the Indies in Spain. Under the viceroy, the military and the church had their complex administrative orga- nizations for the control and conversion of the Indians. The Spaniards occu- pied all of the positions of power. Soon, converted Indians and the children of the conquest—the mestizos, who were of mixed Indian and Spanish descent—began to serve as lower-level administrators in the army, courts, and town councils. Given the tremendous distances involved, the size and diversity of the indigenous populations, and the relatively small Iberian-born population, the Spanish Empire in the New World was a remarkable achievement—one that lasted more than 300 years.

Spain’s Exploration of the Californias

California was one of the last frontiers to be colonized by the Spanish govern- ment, as a result of a change in the dynastic rulers in Spain as well as the perception of threats from other European powers. Hernan Cortés, the con- queror of the Aztecs, was an important leader in the early exploration of Baja California. His initiatives began the process of conquest that would lead to

The Spanish Conquest and Empire 35

settlement. For almost 10 years, while expanding the empire, Cortés labored to build oceangoing vessels on the west coast of Mexico in order to look for Otro Méjico—another golden kingdom—and perhaps to discover a northwest passage, a sea route around North America. In 1532, he sent two ships north but they never returned. In 1533, two more ships left and landed on the Baja California peninsula at La Paz, where they encountered rumors of fabulous pearl fisheries further north. Cortés himself set out in 1534 and named the Baja California peninsula—which he thought to be an island—“Santa Cruz.” He and his men found some pearls but mostly desert lands and inhospitable Indians. In 1539, he sent Francisco de Ulloa with three vessels to search for new kingdoms further north. Ulloa sailed up the Gulf of California, later renamed the Sea of Cortés, to the mouth of the Colorado River.

The name “California” probably derives from a European adventure novel published in 1500 by the Spaniard Garcí Ordóñez de Montalvo. His book, Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Exploits of Esplandián), tells the story of a mythical island inhabited by Amazons and ruled by Queen Calafia. Literary scholars regard this book as a justification of the triumph of Spanish imperialism. In the book, the Amazons and their queen are dark-skinned women who fight with weapons of gold, the only metal available in their land. To aid in their battles, they trap and domesticate griffins (mythical dragon-like birds) and feed them male captives, as well as their own male children. Queen Calafia, with her Amazons and griffins, appears at the siege of Constantinople and fights on the side of the Muslims. Later on, however, she converts to Christian- ity, marries a man, and returns with him to her native island of California. The island of Queen Calafia is described in the novel as being “at the right hand of the Indes” and the early explorers, including Cortés, expected to find it within 10 days of sailing off the Mexican coast. Thus the name came to be applied to the Baja California peninsula.

While the Spanish explored Baja California before 1540, more than 200 years passed before Alta California became a Spanish colony. It finally became known to the Western world as a result of the international rivalries of the European powers. Initially, the Spanish king hoped that the exploration of the western coast of the continent north of New Spain would lead to the discovery of a northwest passage. This would enable Spain to outmaneuver its rivals in trade with the Orient. In the late 16th century, the Spanish needed a suitable port on the Pacific coast to provision the valuable Manila galleons as they made their way south to Acapulco laden with riches from the Philippines. In the 17th century, the Spanish monarchy anxiously tried to prevent other European powers from settling in the vast territories that Spain had claimed. In the east, French explorers and trappers threatened to encroach on present- day Louisiana and Texas. In the northwest, the Russians and British showed interest in expansion. As a result, the Spanish crown slowly moved to finance the exploration and settlement of its remotest frontier possessions, Texas and Alta California. Other considerations motivated new settlement on the frontier,

36 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

including a desire by the Spanish Catholic church to expand their missionizing endeavors as far north as possible. By the late 18th century, Baja California had already been colonized with missions and military outposts (called presidios) and Alta California seemed to be the next logical step in the conquest of souls.

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Map 2.1 Missions, Presidios, and Pueblos in Alta California During the Spanish Era, 1769–1821

The Spanish Conquest and Empire 37

Early Maritime Exploration and Encounters

In 1542, an expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo set sail from Navidad on the northwest coast of Mexico to explore the northern territories. On September 28, he discovered a “very good harbor,” which he named San Miguel because it was the feast day of that saint. Anchoring near the mouth of the harbor, which was later renamed San Diego by Sebastián Vizcaíno, Cabrillo’s men explored the bay with a small boat. A shore party rowed toward a group of curious Kumeyaay Indians but as the Spanish neared land, most of them ran off. Only three natives remained to inspect the strange newcomers. Cabrillo’s men gave these three some gifts, and through hand motions the Indians communicated that they knew of other strange men like them who had been seen inland. This news may have been related to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s expedition into New Mexico in 1540.

Cabrillo continued north and a group of sailors who went ashore at Cata- lina Island were met by local Gabrielino (Tongva) men. The women fled to the interior. Later, the natives paddled their canoes out to the Spanish ship and received beads and other manufactured items. Leaving Catalina and sailing north along the coast, Cabrillo named prominent geographical features as he went. North of Point Conception, the expedition landed at San Miguel Island (which they named Isla de la Posesión). Cabrillo had an accident and broke his arm, but despite this injury he ordered the crew to continue north. Sailing against the current and the prevailing winds, they reached a point near San Francisco without ever discovering the entrance to the great bay, and finally had to turn back due to bad weather and Cabrillo’s failing health. Cabrillo died as they reached San Miguel Island. After burying Cabrillo on the island, the sailors proceeded as far north as the present southern border of Oregon and then, because of severe storms, returned to their home port of Navidad (located near present-day Puerto Vallarta on the west coast of Mexico).

The next European visitor to California was Francis Drake, an English pirate who was later given a royal commission and knighthood for his war against the Spanish. In 1578, Drake’s ship, The Golden Hind, raided Spanish settlements in Chile and Peru and sailed up the Pacific Coast so heavily laden with treasure that the ship’s seams began to leak. On June 17, 1579, they put into a harbor probably somewhere near the present-day San Francisco and stayed five weeks while they repaired the ship. Drake named the area Nova Albion, or New England, because the white cliffs reminded him of the white cliffs of Dover in his homeland. While on land, the sailors traded with the native people and Drake wrote brief descriptions of the Indians, probably the Coastal Miwoks.

Following Drake, captains of Manila galleons entered the bays along California’s coast seeking fresh water, food, and wood for repairs. The Spanish had begun their conquest of the Philippines in 1564 and immediately began sending treasure ships laden with silks and spices back to Spain via Mexico.

38 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

As the galleons set sail from Manila to New Spain, they followed currents and prevailing winds, traveling north to Japan and then west. The galleons struck the American coast near Mendocino and then sailed south. The first galleon to sight the California coast took 129 days to make the passage, and in the process many of the crew died from scurvy. For the next several hundred years, as reg- ulated by the Spanish crown, a Manila galleon annually passed down the California coast. In 1595, Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño sailed a galleon along the California coast to map it and to search for possible ports. Landing in Drake’s bay, which he named “La Baya de San Francisco,” Cermeño stayed a month and traveled inland to trade with the local Miwok Indians for food and supplies. Unfortunately, his treasure ship was wrecked in a storm and his men had to build a small launch to return down the coast to Mexico. Because of this disaster, the Spanish government forbade galleons from use in further coastal explorations.

An intensification of rivalry over the Asian trade and the need to find ports for the galleons along the Pacific Coast led the king to commission an exploration by Sebastián Vizcaíno, a Basque merchant in Acapulco who had sailed on several galleons but was not a professional sailor. Vizcaíno sailed with three ships from Mexico in 1602 and, because he was sailing against the current and winds, took four months to reach California. He entered the bay named San Miguel by Cabrillo on November 10 and, since the name of his flagship was the San Diego de Alcalá and the feast day of this saint was on November 12, he renamed the harbor San Diego. The expedition stayed 10 days, during which they refitted their ships, buried crew members who had died from scurvy, set up a tent church, and sent an expedition inland to scout the territory.

Vizcaíno’s ships continued north to Catalina Island, and then to a bay he named Monterey, after the Conde de Monterey, Viceroy of Mexico. While anchored in the bay, he noted the ideal conditions for a galleon port. It had tall trees for repairs (unlike San Diego) and plenty of game and fish. His exag- gerated praise of Monterey as a fine harbor later convinced the Spanish author- ities that it should be the main port of a proposed colony. Vizcaíno continued north as far as Cape Mendocino, when storms and the illness of his crew con- vinced him to turn back. Although Vizcaíno described the potential ports he had explored in California, changes in galleon design, allowing more space for supplies, meant that the treasure ships bypassed California for the next 165 years.

The First California Colony

In 1769, alarmed by British and Russian interest in their northern frontier pos- sessions, the Spanish government decided to establish permanent settlements there, in order to secure their claims and block any claims by other powers. The energetic new administrator, the Visitor-General José de Gálvez, was

The Spanish Conquest and Empire 39

determined to reorganize the northwestern frontier and expand it by settling Alta California. He commissioned two land and two sea expeditions to converge on the harbor of San Diego; all were to be under the command of Captain Gaspar de Portolá, while Father Junípero Serra was to be in charge of the founding of missions. The first contingent arrived on April 11, 1769, when the ship San Anto- nio, commanded by Juan Perez, anchored in San Diego bay. That same day, as remembered in Kumeyaay lore but not noted by the Spanish, an earthquake shook the mountains and the sun was partially eclipsed—portentous signs, per- haps, that the world as they knew it was about to pass away.

A few weeks later a second ship arrived, the San Carlos, commanded by Vicente Vila. This early collection of soldiers, sailors, Indians from Baja Cali- fornia, priests, and a doctor brought the colonists to a few more than 100. When they arrived, most of the sailors were sick with typhus, a debilitating disease transmitted by lice and fleas. Within the next few weeks more than half of the men died on shore in a tent camp. On May 14, the first overland expedition of soldiers arrived at San Diego, commanded by Captain Fernando de Rivera y Moncada. Father Juan Crespí and a contingent of Christianized Indians from the southern missions accompanied the soldiers, marching over- land up the Baja California peninsula from Loreto. Soon after their arrival, the commanders decided to abandon the beach and find a more permanent settle- ment. Pedro Fages picked the new location, a hill overlooking the bay and the nearby river. This became the site of the first settlement in California, eventu- ally a fortified presidio with a temporary mission located within the walls.

Finally, on July 1, 1769, the expedition led by Captain Gaspar de Portolá with Father Junípero Serra arrived. Besides a contingent of soldiers, they also brought 44 Christianized natives from Baja California. As Father Serra cele- brated his first mass under an outdoor ramada on July 16, 1769, only 126 of the 219 explorers and settlers who had arrived during the past months remained alive. Those who were left had something to celebrate: A few days before Father Serra’s mass, Portolá took a group of soldiers north to establish a settlement in Monterey and the San Antonio returned to Mexico for supplies, leaving a group of about 40 people in San Diego.

The first report of a Spanish settler’s encounter with the native people was written by Miguel Costansó, an engineer and mapmaker. He described his impressions of the Indians when a Spanish expedition set out to find water:

These Indians (the Kumeyaay) stopped every little while upon some height, watching our men, and showing the fear which the strangers caused them by the very thing they did to hide it. They thrust one point of their bows down in the soil, and grasping it by the other end they danced and whirled about with indescribable velocity. But, as soon as they saw our men draw near, they again withdrew themselves with the same swiftness.

Finally, the Spaniards communicated their peaceful intent by burying their own weapons in the dirt and giving gifts of ribbons, glass, and beads. The

40 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

Kumeyaay then indicated where to find good water, and the Spaniards began walking up the San Diego river valley. They soon reached another Indian vil- lage, where they met with a warm reception. Later, Costansó wrote that the Kumeyaay “are of haughty temper, daring, covetous, great jesters, and brag- garts, although of little valor; they make great boast of their powers and hold the most respect for the most valiant.” This evaluation of the character of the local natives presaged the tortured path that Spanish–Indian relations would follow throughout California.

Demographic and Ethnic Growth of California

The demographic and ethnic growth of the new Spanish outpost shows a soci- ety composed mainly of unmarried males of diverse ethnicity. Historians have had difficulty determining with certainty who these individuals were. For a decade San Diego was a transient presidio with very few of the soldiers remain- ing very long—a foreshadowing, perhaps, of the military future for San Diego. The leaders of the founding expedition, Fathers Serra and Crespi and Captain Portolá, were Spaniards. This has led some to suppose that the whole expedi- tion was composed of fair-skinned Spanish conquistadors. Notwithstanding the practical impossibility of determining the ethnicity of the surviving soldiers, there is evidence to suggest that the majority of them were probably of mixed blood—mestizos and mulattos.

The Spanish developed a complex system of classifying various mixtures of European, African, and Indian parentage. A caste system was used to exclude non-Iberians from higher political and economic posts and to create a stratified society along racial and economic lines. On the far northern frontier, however, ethnic distinctions blurred and became more fluid. In California there was a great division between the gente de razón (literally, people of reason), meaning those who were Catholic Christians and European in culture, and those sin razón (without reason), the nonconverted native people. A great premium was given to those Spaniards who could prove their limpieza de sangre, or “purity of blood,” meaning there was no intermarriage with Jews, Moors, or other non-Christians in their ancestry. Often, people with wealth were able to purchase papers certifying that their bloodlines were pure and European, thus elevating them within the caste system.

Hubert Howe Bancroft, a historian of California’s pioneers, thought that most of the settlers in California were “half-breeds.” Nevertheless, in the late 19th century, Americans came to think of the first Spanish-speaking settlers as Spaniards. Los Angeles’s founding families, however, are an example of the importance of the non-Spanish-born settlers. Of the 11 male heads of house- holds who were among the founders of Los Angeles in 1781, only two were

Demographic and Ethnic Growth of California 41

Iberians; the others were a multiethnic group that was predominantly Indian, mulatto, and mestizo. Historians have found that a large number of Spanish- speaking colonists throughout the Southwest were not Iberian Spaniards at all but rather of mixed blood, castas, and Hispanicized Indians, most of whom had migrated from adjacent Mexican frontier provinces. The first evidence we have of the ethnicity of the surviving colonists in the presidio of San Diego, for example, is the Spanish census taken in 1790, which counted 190 persons. Of the 96 adults, 49 were españoles, but only three of those had been born in Europe. The rest had probably been “whitened” (on the frontier, people could “pass,” depending on their wealth and occupation) to meet Mexico City’s requirements that most of the soldiers be español. The census listed the balance of the soldiers as mulattos and colores quebrados (some African ancestry), mes- tizos and coyotes (degrees of Indian–Spanish mixture), and indios.

Whatever the ethnicity of the settlers and colonists who came to Alta California from Mexico, their numbers grew slowly. Mestizaje, or the mixture of races and cultures, began in Mexico with the conquest and continued on the far northern frontier. Soldiers married local Indian women, and female immi- grants who came to California were mostly mestizo or mulatto. By 1800, some 31 years after the initial settlement in San Diego, the total Spanish-speaking population in California, excluding the mission Indians, priests, and soldiers, was probably about 550 people in about 100 families. This small group lived in three pueblos surrounded by perhaps as many as 30,000 mission Indians. Meanwhile, the vast majority of native peoples remained free of the mission system and never accepted Spanish domination.

The Missions

Without a doubt, the most important Spanish institutions in Alta California were the missions, for they changed the way of life for thousands of native people and formed the economic backbone of the province. The object of the missions was to convert the natives to Christianity as well as to Hispanicize them, instructing them in the rudiments of the Spanish language and culture. After a period of time, specified in the Law of the Indies as 10 years, the mis- sions were to be secularized or disbanded and the mission Indians were to form new towns and be converted into loyal farmers and ranchers. In this way, the Spanish hoped to extend their control over all of California. This was the ideal, but in fact, after the 10 years, the mission fathers concluded that the Indians were not able to make the transition and they postponed free- dom for their charges again and again. The final objective was to turn the Indian people into Christian laborers, who would be loyal to the Spanish crown and capable of defending themselves against intrusions by hostile Indians and foreigners.

Beginning with the first mission at San Diego, Father Junípero Serra labored to found as many missions as possible. Serra was one of a generation

42 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

A depiction of Mission Santa Cruz in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Note what appear to be traditional Indian dwellings to the right of the mission structure.

of frontier priests who combined extremes of asceticism and self-denial with practical political sense and a fighting spirit. He was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca to poor parents who sent him away to a Franciscan school where, because of his intelligence, he was encouraged to become a priest. When he was only 24, he was appointed professor of theology and for five years he taught at distinguished Spanish universities. In 1749, he gave up his prestigious career to travel to Mexico. Arriving in Vera Cruz, he insisted on walking the hundreds of miles to Mexico City, an act of willpower and commitment that he repeated many times in his life. Serra worked among the Indians in Mexico as a mis- sionary and an administrator of the College of San Fernando. In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from the New World and Serra was chosen to administer the missions they had built in Baja California. A few years later, despite being an asthmatic and suffering a chronic leg injury, Serra traveled north to lead the founding of new missions in Alta California. For the rest of his life he suffered from scurvy and from exhaustion due to walking hundreds of miles. He also practiced many mortifications of the flesh, such as wearing shirts with barbs, self-flagellation, and self-burning, in order to purify his spirit.

Father Serra established San Carlos Borromeo, the mission at Monterey, which was later moved to the Carmel River. He also founded the missions of San Antonio de Padua, San Gabriel Arcángel, San Luís Obispo de Tolosa, San Francisco de Asís, San Juan Capistrano, San Buenaventura, and Santa Clara de Asís. After Serra’s death in 1784, Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén labored from 1785 to 1803 to complete the construction of nine more missions. The last one to be established in the Mexican era was founded in 1823, after his death. Together, the missions totaled 21, each one about a day’s ride apart and strategically located near the coast. Father Lasuén was a gentle and refined man who was wholly devoted to the memory of Father Serra. Besides building

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44 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

A group of Indians, possibly Ohlone, playing a game at a mission near San Francisco

new missions, Lasuén expanded and rebuilt older mission buildings, and under his diplomatic guidance the missions system prospered, experiencing less con- flict with the military and government than had been true under Serra.

The conversion of the Indians was not easy. From the beginning, the natives who were to be missionized were not willing participants in this project. At first, the harvest of souls was alarmingly meager. After its founding, a year passed at Mission San Diego before the first convert was made. This was fol- lowed by several revolts against the mission padres (fathers, or priests). At the missions located near a presidio or a pueblo, there were frequent problems between the native people and the soldiers or civilians. The priests often com- plained of the corrupting influence of Spanish ways. Rapes of Indian women were a frequent source of conflict, causing many of them to flee into the back- country to get away from the Spaniards. As a result, Serra moved two missions, San Diego and Monterey, farther away from their nearby presidios.

Conversions occurred nevertheless, because the Spanish priests offered food and goods that the native people found valuable. Ethnohistorians have argued to what degree environmental factors influenced their conversions; peri- odic droughts, along with the destruction of native plants due to grazing of

cattle, pigs, and other livestock, pressured some Indian communities to seek the relative security of mission food stores. There were other complex reasons for their baptism. Often, the natives came to the missions out of curiosity and were converted without fully understanding the import of their actions. Once bap- tized, they were called neophytes and were subject to the authority of the padre, who began to regulate their lives to lead them toward becoming a full member of the Christian community. If they ran away, soldiers were sent to hunt them down, bring them back, and to help in their punishment. Sometimes the soldiers seized any Indians they could find—whether they were runaways or not. Once the mission reached a critical mass, having enough neophytes to farm surpluses and raise cattle, the mission became a magnet for those who needed food, and conversion to Christianity was a way to ensure survival.

In this way, the 21 missions slowly grew in size and economic importance. During the 65 years of their existence, the fathers baptized 79,000 California Indians. The most populous and prosperous of the missions were those in southern California, including San Gabriel and Mission San Luis Rey. The mis- sions produced the bulk of the province’s food used to feed the colonists and soldiers. The natives were taught to grow wheat, corn, barley, and other grain crops, to cultivate grapevines and olive orchards, and to raise cattle and other livestock. The mission fathers trained some neophytes as artisans—shoemakers, gunsmiths, carpenters, blacksmiths, and masons. Others learned to weave tex- tiles, make candles, and tan hides. The fathers taught their charges European instruments and music, and Indian choirs and orchestras performed religious music for special masses and fiestas. The mission Indians were responsible for tending the vineyards, fruit orchards, and wheat fields, and for raising thou- sands of cattle and horses.

The work regime at the California missions followed a strict timetable, including morning and evening prayers and the segregation of workers by sex. Workers were overseen by Indian mayordomos (overseers) and alcaldes (leaders). Neophytes worked six days a week for five to eight hours a day. Roll call was taken at every meal and those shirking their duties were punished by imprison- ment or whippings. As Pablo Tac recalled, the Indian mayordomos were there “to hurry them if they are lazy … and to punish the guilty or lazy one who leaves his plow and quits the field.…” At night, the unmarried women and sometimes the men were locked in dormitories. At some missions, neophytes were allowed to return to their villages for short durations to gather supplemental foods, but they were expected to return for mass and for work when needed.

The padres controlled the allocation of food, rationing it according to their judgment of the economic needs of the mission and those of their charges. An interrogatorio, or questionnaire, sent from Mexico City in the early 1800s asked the mission fathers a series of questions, one about the diet of the mission Indians. The answers—while allowing for the padres’ desire to make conditions appear favorable—reveal the diversity of the missions. Father Martinez at

Demographic and Ethnic Growth of California 45

Mission San Luis Obispo stated that he gave his workers three meals a day: atole (a corn gruel) in the morning, pozole (a soup of wheat, grains, and meat) at noon, and at night another serving of atole. At Mission San Buenaventura, Father José Señán stated that he gave the Indians one meal a day, “inasmuch as when they work they also eat.…” Other missionaries testified that the Indians continued gathering their traditional foods, which supplemented the mission food supply.

Neophyte Resistance

For many native Californians, the missions were not a positive experience. They were coerced into working and staying against their will, fearing punish- ment if they ran away. The most dreadful consequence of their stay was their exposure to European diseases, which often proved fatal. They had no resis- tance to chickenpox, measles, smallpox, and influenza, and deaths mounted with each passing year, even in areas far from Spanish settlements. Venereal disease was especially deadly; thousands of mission neophytes died from syph- ilis and gonorrhea, and the epidemic spread to non-mission Indians as well. The strict regulations, humiliation, punishments for minor offenses, and rapes of women by soldiers engendered a smoldering resentment of the Spaniards. Often, a chief grievance was the lack of food. The strict discipline of the mis- sion fathers and the destruction of the indigenous food sources by cattle, sheep, and horses created levels of starvation at some missions. Conditions were such that the numbers of runaways increased and in some cases there were rebellions.

The first uprising was at Mission San Diego only six years after its found- ing. On November 4, 1775, around midnight, an estimated 1000 Kumeyaay Indians attacked the mission and burned most of it to the ground, killing Fathers Luis Jayme and Vicente Fuster, who became California’s first martyrs. The survivors of the first attack took refuge in an adobe storehouse, where they held off the Indians until dawn. They were finally rescued by a group of loyal neophytes and Baja California Indians. The uprising apparently came at the instigation of two brothers, Carlos and Francisco, both newly baptized neo- phytes who had been punished for stealing a fish from an old woman. Carlos was the chief of the local ranchería. Resenting their treatment by the padres, they ran away from the mission and began to organize an uprising of the sur- rounding rancherías. When they learned that about half the presidio garrison had been sent north to San Juan Capistrano, they saw this as their chance to wipe out the Spaniards once and for all. In the Spanish investigation that fol- lowed, some accused the resident neophytes of helping the attackers, but they denied it, insisting that they had been forced to go along with the uprising.

In the years that followed, there were other rebellions. In 1781, Quechan (Yuman) Indians attacked the two missions that had been built on the Califor- nia side of the Colorado River. The attack occurred when Captain Fernando de

46 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

Rivera y Moncada and a party of colonists bound for California were passing through. Rivera’s troops had abused some of the Quechan peoples, and the distribution of gifts was considered inadequate. The natives attacked, destroy- ing both missions and killing four friars, 30 soldiers, and Rivera himself. The massacre ended all further land travel between Mexico and California during the Spanish period.

In 1785, at Mission San Gabriel, a woman named Toypurina, along with three other native men, planned to lead a group of indios bárbaros (non- mission Indians) from six surrounding villages and join with neophytes to overthrow the Spanish authorities. The soldiers learned of the planned rebel- lion, however, and arrested the leaders. Put on trial, Toypurina explained her motivations saying, “… I am angry with the padres, and all of those of the mission, for living here on my native soil, for trespassing upon the land of my forefathers and despoiling our tribal domains.” Toypurina was banished to Monterey, where she eventually was baptized and married a presidio soldier.

During the Mexican period, a major rebellion took place among the Chu- mash peoples on the eve of the secularization of the missions, in 1824. The cause of this rebellion was the mistreatment of the neophytes by the soldiers and the strict work regime. Thousands of neophytes allied with gentiles (unbap- tized Indians) from the interior and took over La Purísima and Santa Ynez missions for more than a month, and briefly occupied Mission Santa Bárbara. After a battle in which the padres tried to prevent needless slaughter, the rebels fled to the interior. Later, Father Vicente Sarría, accompanied by troops led by Pablo de la Portilla, convinced remnants of the Santa Bárbara rebels to return.

In October of 1828, with the permission of the priest, Padre Duran, an Indian alcalde named Estanislao led scores of his fellow kinsmen away from Mis- sion San José to the interior to help his community harvest acorns, nuts, and other foods. Once there, Estanislao notified the Spanish authorities that they were in rebellion. He was soon joined by hundreds of other runaways from the northern missions. Estanislao’s success in resisting the Spanish government was undoubtedly due partly to the fact that natives from many different groups could now communicate with each other using a lingua franca—Spanish. For a time, Estanislao defeated the expeditions that were sent to subjugate him, until he finally succumbed to Lt. Mariano G. Vallejo’s expedition. Eventually Estanislao escaped, returned to Mission San José, and received a pardon for his rebellion. He died a few years later, working as an auxiliary soldier who hunted runaway neophytes. The Estanislao rebellion created tremendous fear among the Spanish settlers in Alta California. As a result of his movement, a network to assist run- away mission Indians grew up and Indian raids on settlements from San Gabriel to San José increased.

Historian James Sandos has noted that there were a variety of other forms of resistance to the mission system, ranging from graffiti secretly scrawled on mission walls, to reports of sacred visions urging natives to renounce their

Demographic and Ethnic Growth of California 47

Evaluation of the California Missions

In the 1980s, devoted Catholics intensified a campaign to canonize Father Junípero Serra as a saint. Immediately, a debate ensued over the record of the treatment of the natives in the missions. Native American activists, in particu- lar, felt outrage that people wanted to honor the man who, they argued, led in the enslavement, mistreatment, and death of their people. They assembled evi- dence of mistreatment in the form of oral testimony by native peoples. Tribal councils passed resolutions opposing canonization, and academics wrote posi- tion papers buttressed by historical quotes and evidence arguing that Serra should not be honored. The issue of the California Indians’ encounter with the Spanish is heated, provoking spirited and emotional defense of Serra by non-Indian scholars and Catholic leaders. Beatification is a long process, and Serra has advanced through the preliminary steps. The uproar over this issue demonstrates that the mission period is still very controversial in the lives of people today.

Christian baptism. George Harwood Phillips, an expert on California Indian resistance, has noted that the stations of the cross painted by neophytes at Mis- sion San Fernando depicted Indian alcaldes as the tormentors of Christ—a sub- tle message of protest. Other methods of resistance included running away, abortion, and secret retention of traditional customs, such as the use of the temescal. In a few cases, the mission Indians were moved to kill the mission priests, as in the assassination of Father Andrés Quintana at Mission Santa Cruz in 1812.

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48 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

Indian artisans produced the wall and decorative art at Mission San Miguel and other Alta California missions, incorporating their own cultural aesthetic into their creations. Can you find evidence of this in the photograph?

The treatment of native peoples is a major point of debate about the Spanish colonization of the Americas. A wide range of historians and anthro- pologists as well as Indian activists agree that the mission system throughout the Southwest, whatever its rationale at the time, resulted in the deaths—nearly all unintentional—of thousands of native Americans. The mission system in California was perhaps the most extensive, long-lived, and destructive of all those established in the Spanish and Mexican frontier. The missions in Texas were abandoned after a short period. The ones in New Mexico provoked a violent, successful rebellion in 1680 that curtailed missionary activities until the Spanish reconquest in 1692. In Arizona, the missions were few and scat- tered. But in California, the 21 missions and their asistencias (branch missions) significantly changed the economy and lifestyle of those who were mission laborers as well as the way of life of those who lived far from the missions.

The Indian population declined. The natives were concentrated in mis- sions, exposed to new and fatal diseases, and deprived of their traditional foods. The extent of the decimation can only be estimated. In California, the missions grew to include about 20,000 neophytes at their peak. The mission annals from 1769 to 1834 recorded 62,600 deaths but only 29,100 births. Anthropologist Sherburne Cook and historian Albert Hurtado have estimated that the Indian population of California decreased by more than 150,000 dur- ing the mission period. In the region where missions were established, the decline of the population was more noticeable; almost 75 percent of the native peoples died.

Defenders of the missions point out that the mission fathers did not intend to expose their wards to fatal diseases and that their attitudes toward crime and punishment were a product of the age, not especially cruel for that time. Some martyred friars willingly sacrificed themselves rather than kill natives who attacked them. Father Serra and other priests advocated forgiveness and pardons for those who ran away, although the military frequently exacted their own punishments for this offense. The priests, however, were not saints and even Father Serra was willing to admit that “in the infliction of the punish- ment … there may have been inequalities and excesses on the part of some Fathers.” Yet the mission priests’ religious devotion to the task of conversion and the spiritual welfare of their flock was beyond question. Their attitudes and beliefs were a product of their historical culture, in which the soul was consid- ered more important than the body and severe punishments were the norm. Taken as a group, the mission fathers were not vicious for the times in which they lived. The tragedy was that they were helpless to prevent the deaths of the very Indians they sought to save.

The missions accomplished a great deal in developing the first agricultural economy in California. The first citrus trees, grapevines, corn, beans, wheat, barley, and oats came with the mission fathers. They promoted the raising of horses, cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep. The mission economy became the back- bone for the development of large ranchos in the Mexican era and farms in the

Demographic and Ethnic Growth of California 49

American era. The mission fathers trained the Indians to be vaqueros—farmers and skilled workers. As a result, the Indian work force became crucial to the development of California’s economy through much of the 19th century.

Nevertheless, we must also consider the missions from the point of view of the native Californians. The mission records themselves help us appreciate their grievances. Large numbers of neophytes ran away from the restrictive controls of the padres—an obvious indication of their dissatisfaction with the mission. By 1817, Mission San Diego had 316 runaways, the second largest number in the system, topped only by Mission San Gabriel, with 595. Running away was often provoked by hunger and by the corporal punishments that were administered by the mayordomos under the direction of the padres. Despite glowing reports of mission prosperity chronicled by the mission padres, death, disease, and hunger were daily realities of mission life. Deaths from disease were often hastened by malnutrition. Despite the abundance, the neophytes who worked to make it possible were badly fed. The hunger of the Indians was not limited to the missions. The introduction of European live- stock and plants soon took over key hunting and gathering grounds and there were severe punishments for poaching. Hunger drove non-mission Indians to seek employment and food by working for the pueblo dwellers and for the pre- sidio garrisons.

Establishing Presidios and Pueblos

Throughout the western hemisphere, the Spanish king and his advisers laid down the policies and directions that guided conquest and colonization. The underlying premise was that the unsettled lands were the property of the king and that the native peoples were his subjects. Individual Spaniards were not entirely free to explore or settle where they wanted. The settlement of towns and military outposts was subject to approval, planning, and regulation. Guide- lines were articulated in a number of decrees and laws, the most influential being the Recopilación de Leyes de las Indias in 1680. Despite these regula- tions, the frontier settlers often did not follow the laws to the letter.

Captain Gaspar de Portolá, commander of one of the first expeditions sent to colonize California, had specific orders to found a presidio at Monterey Bay. In 1769, he marched north from San Diego into new territory with only 12 soldiers and a contingent of Baja California Indians. The ship San Antonio was to meet them in Monterey with Father Serra and others. As they passed through southern California, the natives were friendly and curious. In July, they experienced a violent earthquake near the Santa Ana River and noted the richness of the grasslands in the Los Angeles basin. Portolá’s land expedition stayed along the coast but had to cross the coastal range north of San Luis Obispo. They finally saw Monterey Bay, but Portolá did not recognize it from

50 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

A lithograph of the San Francisco presidio, made from a watercolor drawing by Louis Choris, an artist who accompanied a Russian voyage around the world. The farthest northern presidio in California, San Francisco had yet to develop as a civilian settlement.

previous descriptions, so he pushed further north. Finally, a group led by Sergeant José Francisco de Ortega, Portolá’s scout, stumbled upon San Francisco Bay, viewing it for the first time from a hill. A few months later, in May, Portolá founded the presidio of Monterey, south of San Francisco, and built a wooden stockade and shelters for the troops. Father Serra, who had arrived in Monterey by ship, organized the construction of a mission called San Carlos Borromeo near the presidio and on June 3, 1770, they formally dedicated both structures.

As was true throughout Latin America, the mission and the presidio were the first undertakings in the Spanish colonization of new territories. These were soon followed by the founding of civil settlements or pueblos, forming a three- pronged strategy for settlement policy. In California’s first settlement in San Diego, the most immediate need was for more provisions and for reinforce- ments. Due to diligent lobbying by Father Serra, who returned to Mexico City after the founding of the presidio at Monterey, the government sent other expeditions to California to strengthen the tiny settlements. The new viceroy, Antonio de Bucareli, was receptive to pleas for more support because he had evidence of Russian and British interest in California. In 1773, he issued a reglamento, a statement of how the new colony should be administered. This document was later slightly modified and reissued by Felipe de Neve, the newly appointed governor of California. Known as the Neve Reglamento, this docu- ment served as the guide for the administration of the colony until the end of the Spanish period (1821). It emphasized the importance of the conversion of the natives and the establishment of missions, of careful planning in laying out

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Establishing Presidios and Pueblos 51

towns, of careful record keeping, and of regular supply ships from Mexico. Bucareli suggested the secularization of the missions and foresaw that they would become the center for towns.

The same year that he issued the Reglamento, Bucareli gave permission for Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, an important frontier soldier and explorer, to open a trail between Spanish settlements in southern Arizona and California and ordered him to establish a presidio on San Francisco Bay. The next year, Anza succeeded in leading an expedition of 20 soldiers and 200 livestock over the desert trails from Tucson to the mission at San Gabriel and then north to Monterey. In 1775, Anza led another expedition with more than 240 colonists making the 1500-mile journey, during which eight babies were born and there was only one death—a woman who died in childbirth. Most of the settlers went on to Monterey and a contingent helped establish a new presidio. Unfortu- nately, due to political conflicts with Lieutenant Governor Fernando Rivera y Moncada, Anza was not able to lead the final expedition to settle San Francisco himself. So, on September 17, 1776, Lieutenant José Moraga and Fathers Fran- cisco Palou and Pedro Cambón founded the presidio and the mission of San Francisco.

The Spanish government decided to found civil towns in California pri- marily as agricultural centers to provide food for their presidios. The mission fathers had resisted having the presidio depend on the mission for supplies. Three official pueblos were eventually founded in California during the Spanish era: San José de Guadalupe (San José), El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula (Los Angeles), and the Villa de Branciforte (Santa Cruz). Following long-established Spanish customs of town planning, the viceroy allowed the settlers certain rights, among them the right to elect a town government to regulate matters of daily life and the right to hold private property or town lots. Each pueblo was given a grant of land to be adminis- tered by the local government for the common good. Usually this grant approximated four square leagues, or nearly 20 square miles, a size that included not only a village but also surrounding agricultural lands.

The civil settlements in California were populated by settlers drawn from the local presidios as well as from special colonizing expeditions. In 1777, the California governor, Felipe Neve, authorized 14 men and their families to leave the presidios of Monterey and San Francisco to found the pueblo of San José. And in 1781, Neve authorized a colonizing expedition of 12 settlers and their families from Sinaloa to settle near Mission San Gabriel in southern California near Yangna, an Indian village. This was the pueblo of Los Angeles, founded on September 4, 1781, by a group composed mostly of mulatto and mestizo families. Branciforte was the last town founded in the Spanish period, and the least successful. In 1796, the government tried to recruit retired soldiers from Mexico to live in the new town, but no one wanted to go north to the forbid- ding lands of Alta California. Finally, the government recruited convicts and their families and forced them to settle the new town, but it did not flourish.

52 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

It may seem strange to us today that more Mexican colonists did not go north to California during the Spanish and Mexican periods. This lack of large- scale movement was attributable to a number of factors. First, there was a cul- tural predisposition to prefer urban life to life in the hinterland. The vast majority of the Mexican population was not free to move about and live where they wanted. Spain and then Mexico tried to control and regulate the movement of people away from the metropolitan center. Second, most people in Mexico had developed deep ties to their extended families and regions and were reluctant to abandon their homes for the dangerous unknown territory to the north. There was widespread ignorance of the resources and climate of the north in addition to stories of Indian attacks, gruesome deaths, and massacres on the northern frontier. Finally, it was not easy to travel to California overland from Mexico. Settlers had to traverse the Sonora and Mojave Deserts, which were controlled by unfriendly Indians. The cost of travel for most Mexicans was prohibitive unless the government subsidized the expedition. Similar bar- riers worked to prevent a large-scale migration of settlers to other regions north of Mexico.

Spain gave fewer than 20 land grants to individuals during its rule of California—all to ex-soldiers, as a reward for their services. Most of the good land was reserved for the missions, and it was not until the Mexican period (after 1821) that private land grants became common.

The civilian settlers in the three Spanish towns relied primarily on agricul- ture and stockraising for their living. To assist them in their labors, they bor- rowed Indian neophytes from the nearby missions and also employed local gentiles, or unbaptized Indians. The government tried through regulation to limit exploitation and corruption, but this was largely ineffective. The employ- ment of mission Indians in the towns was so popular that it seriously threat- ened the mission fathers’ conversion efforts. Without California Indians working in the fields of the town lands, the Spanish pueblos probably would have failed.

Gender Relations in Spanish California

The first expeditions of explorers and settlers to San Diego in 1769 did not include women, but it was evident to Spanish authorities that women would be essential for the long-term success of the colonization effort. Antonia I. Castañeda, Gloria Miranda, Rosaura Sánchez, and others have written about the important role women played in this period of California’s history. In gen- eral, they have reported that Spanish and Mexican women were severely limited by the patriarchal values of their society, but they also retained a degree of prote- ction and autonomy. Indian women, however, were more likely to be victims of

Gender Relations in Spanish California 53

the early male-oriented exploration and conquest of California than Spanish and Mexican women were.

Following their experience in central Mexico, the mission padres sought to eliminate Indian customs and attitudes toward sexuality that conflicted with Catholic doctrine and morals. Accordingly, the priests severely punished women for sexual misconduct. For example, at Mission San Diego, one native woman miscarried, and then was charged with infanticide and forced to endure humiliating punishments. The priests encouraged neophyte women’s fertility, since all children were to be born into the Christian faith. At the same time, however, the priests outlawed Indian dances, ceremonies, and songs that were part of their fertility ritual. Women who refused to comply were sometimes accused of being witches.

Mestizo women washing clothes and carrying water jars on their heads as a well- dressed male stands by watching them. What does this image suggest about the intersection of class/caste and gender roles in Alta California?

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54 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

Males in the secular population, especially the soldiers, often raped Indian women. This became a source of conflict between the Spanish and the native Californians. Rape, as analyzed by historian Antonia Castañeda, was more than a personal act of lust. It also was a means of subjugating the native population and expressing the power of the male colonizer over the colonized, both male and female. It served to humiliate and subjugate the Indian men and families.

A few Spanish colonists settled down and established families with Indian women. Initially, a small number of soldiers married native women at the encouragement of the priests. Castañeda found that, in the 1770s, 37 percent of the Monterey presidio soldiers married local Indian women, but, for the entire period, the intermarriage rate was just 15 percent. In order to reproduce the culture of the mother country, women from Mexico were necessary, and it therefore became a priority to import female colonists.

Non-California Indian women either came with their husbands from Mexico in the various expeditions or alone, as was the case with María Felici- ana Arballo, who traveled to California with her two children in the Anza expedition of 1775. Additionally, in 1800 the government sent a group of 10 girls and nine boys who were orphans to California, where they were distrib- uted among families already there. The girls, with one exception, were married within a few years. Gloria Miranda has studied women in Spanish Los Angeles. She found that almost all the marriages were arranged, and at a tender age—13 was the youngest age at marriage, while the average age in the pueblo was 20. Very few adult women remained single due to the overall scarcity of women. The more affluent families tended to have lots of children as befitting their means. Ignacio Vicente Ferrer Vallejo, an early settler in Monterey, had 13 children. His son, Mariano Vallejo, fathered 16 children, and José María Pico, a soldier in San Diego, fathered 10 children.

Spanish colonial society was patriarchal, with the ethic of honor deeply ingrained. A man’s honor depended on his ability to control others, in particu- lar the women within the family. The church’s doctrines and hierarchy sup- ported notions of male domination and superiority. Yet women were able to carve out niches of respect, in part because, under colonial laws, they had prop- erty rights within marriage. The notion of community property for women was part of the Spanish codes. The idea was to protect the honor of a woman and her family of origin within a marriage.

Rosaura Sánchez has studied the narratives of Mexican California women collected by Hubert Howe Bancroft in the 1870s. Several illustrate the ways in which mestiza women in Spanish California related to male authority. One nar- rative is the story of Apolinaria Lorenzana, a woman who came to California as one of the orphans in 1800. She grew up in San Diego but refused to marry, working instead as a schoolteacher and then as a nurse and teacher at the mis- sion. She earned the nickname “La Beata” (the Pious One) because of her devo- tion to helping Indians. During the Mexican period, she received two rancho land grants from the governor as a reward for her services. She bought a third

Gender Relations in Spanish California 55

rancho and lived an independent life from the revenues. Lorenzana’s life reveals her independence, strength of character, and dedication to her work.

Another account is that of Eulalia Pérez, who worked as a llavera, or keeper of the keys, at mission San Gabriel. Among other things, Eulalia was in charge of making sure that the girls were locked in at night in their dormi- tory. She also supervised and directed many of the routines of mission life: the rationing of food, the training of women as weavers, and the catechizing of the neophytes. Eulalia’s story shows a complete acceptance of the mission as a humane institution whose primary mission was to teach. Neither Pérez nor Lorenzana was critical of the treatment given to mission Indians, but rather they saw themselves as humanizing the process of acculturation.

We also have the story of Eulalia Callis, who was the wife of California governor Pedro Fages. She desperately wanted to leave the desolate California frontier and return to Mexico City. In 1785, she publicly accused her husband of infidelity and filed a petition for legal separation. She refused to accept a compromise mediated by the priests and continued slandering the governor. The authorities arrested her and, because she was a woman, kept her locked up inside Mission San Carlos Borromeo for two months. During that time she began proceedings for a divorce, but before they were completed the couple reconciled. A year later, she persuaded Fages to resign and the family returned to Mexico. Contemporary historians see Eulalia’s story as evidence of female independence and outrage in the face of patriarchy, but it also reveals that women had the right to divorce, even in colonial New Spain.

Spanish Californian Culture

During the Spanish administration of California, the military and the church were the dominant powers enforcing discipline according to the law. Civil cul- ture existed primarily in the towns, where people were freer from authoritarian rules. Because Spain granted very few private ranchos in this period, the haci- enda lifestyle had not yet developed. Spanish society was decidedly male, pri- marily governed by the military and the church.

The culture that the Spanish settlers brought with them from central Mexico and the adjacent northern frontier settlement was one that made family the core of society—a family that was, in theory, strictly governed by the father. Many of the families were related by marriage or by compadrazgo, godparen- tage. Thus the idea of family was not limited to the nuclear one—but to an extensive network of individuals scattered throughout the province. In Hispanic cultures, godparents frequently acted as surrogate parents and they expected the same respect and obligations from their godchildren as they did from their children. Hospitality was also an important value and fact of life, given the scarcity of the population and the common religion, Catholicism.

Despite the many rules governing behavior, challenges to authority were inevitable. Sexual misconduct by both men and women was punished. In the

56 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

1790s, Sebastián Alvitre of Los Angeles and Francisco Ávila of San José were punished with sentences of forced work, prison, and exile for fornicating with Indian and married women. The provincial records are full of warnings from officials about the evils and punishments of adultery and sexual impropriety. Likewise, the authorities tried, with mixed success, to regulate gambling and the consumption of alcohol.

There were no formal schools in Alta California before 1800, when Gover- nor Borica established the first school. The school was in a public granary in San José and was taught by retired sergeant Manuel Vargas. Funding for the school came from a compulsory tax of 31 cents per pupil. Eventually Vargas was lured to teach in San Diego, where the citizens raised 250 dollars for his pay. Several other schools sprang up in San José and Santa Barbara. The pri- mary subject was La Doctrina Cristiana—the catechism and doctrine—followed by reading and writing.

By 1820, there were approximately 3270 Spanish and mestizo settlers in California, many of them children from large families. Most of the population growth until this time had been through natural increase rather than immigra- tion. The kind of culture that evolved was one that was deeply influenced by the native Indians. The missionized Indians did almost all the work in con- structing the presidios, missions, and public works. Most of the Spanish male adult population consisted of soldiers, priests, or administrators. Intermarriage with native women and with women who came north from Mexico produced many children. The spirit of the culture remained that of a frontier outpost whose survival still depended on the authoritarian institutions of the military and the church.

Political Developments in Spanish California

As noted earlier, the first government in California was a military one, headed in 1769 by Governor Pedro Fages. Power was shared with Father Serra, the father-president of the missions in charge of ecclesiastical affairs. From the start and continuing thereafter, conflicts arose between the two authorities. Serra fought with Fages over where to build the missions and over the sexual misconduct of the soldiers toward Indian women. For the next 40 years, clerics occasionally criticized the military government for the lack of protection of the missions or for the misbehavior of soldiers. In 1771, Felipe de Neve became the military governor and he energetically set about founding new pueblos and presidios by recruiting more colonists from Mexico. Accordingly, secular authority within the province became more important. The three pueblos were given forms of self-government, including the right to elect officials and to make local ordinances. Neve ordered that mission Indians be allowed the same rights and that certain prerogatives of the clergy be reduced.

Political Developments in Spanish California 57

The Spanish town government established in California was a type of local democracy. The system underwent some changes in the Mexican era, but its basic character was that of a Spanish institution. Each male head of household of the pueblo was given a small grant of land from the community lands granted by the king. These landholders had the right to vote in elections, which were held yearly. Historian Michael Gonzalez summarized the town gov- ernment in Los Angeles in the 1830s. Although changed slightly in structure in the Mexican era, the town government election system reflected the Spanish traditions. At nine in the morning the property-owning pobladores were sum- moned to the plaza by a drumroll. After hearing nomination speeches for the various offices, they voted by a show of hands for electors, called compromisar- ios. These electors then selected the members of the town council, or ayunta- miento. These included one alcalde, or administrator/judge; two regidores, or councilmen; the sindico, or town attorney; and an escribano, or secretary. Dur- ing the Spanish era, the military governor appointed an additional member, the comisionado, in lieu of an alcalde when no literate person was available. The comisionado had veto power over actions taken by the council. Members of the ayuntamiento were limited to two terms in office. The town council met weekly to hear petitions for land, listen to accusations of domestic strife, rule on violations of public ordinances, and decide on action in times of crisis.

In the Spanish era, the military government had more control in the town councils than was true in the Mexican period. The exact composition and duties of the members varied from pueblo to pueblo. But essentially the ayun- tamiento allowed the Spanish colonists a form of self-government and free expression. Among the missionized Indians, the missionaries allowed the alcaldes to have authority to mediate minor disputes and to exercise some authority as a leader during times of war. The mission fathers relied on the Indian alcaldes as intermediaries whose authority could be countermanded by the padre.

The town records of the pueblos provide a glimpse into the realities of daily life. The pueblo of Los Angeles was the largest of the Spanish towns, with more than 615 settlers in 1820. About a third of the vecinos lived in sur- rounding ranchos and had homes in the pueblo proper. Los Angeles was known as a settlement where there were conflicts between the local officials and the general population. The annals of the Spanish period are full of dis- putes, complaints, petitions, and grievances directed against the government by the vecinos. Pío Pico remembered that upon his arrival in Los Angeles from San Diego, he was ordered by the local alcalde to work on the new aque- duct. But Pico refused because he considered the alcalde a “brutish ignorant man.” José Sánchez complained that an alcalde put him in irons because he refused to copy some documents without pay. The pueblo did not have a church until 1822 and, in order to comply with the law of attending mass, one had to travel to Mission San Gabriel. The pobladores built their homes around the plaza area with streets running roughly in a grid pattern.

58 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

A zanja madre, or main irrigation ditch, ran through the center of the town and was used for washing, bathing, and drinking.

Other small civilian settlements, ruled by military officials from the local presidios, appeared in San Diego, Monterey, and San Francisco. Their growth would increase during the Mexican period. The civilian settlers were dependent on the missions for surplus food and skilled and unskilled workers and on the presidios for protection. The church and military authorities sought to control the settlers’ lives but, with the increase in population and with political changes brought about by independence from Spain, this control diminished.

The Wars of Independence in New Spain

In 1810, the colonists living in New Spain began a lengthy rebellion and civil war that eventually resulted in independence in 1821. The precipitating causes of the rebellion in New Spain, soon to be called Mexico, were the exclusion of many criollos (the children of Spaniards who were born in the New World) from important political and ecclesiastical posts, and the long-term oppression of the Indian population. In a complex series of events—involving the over- throw of the Spanish government by a French revolutionary army in 1809 and a struggle among the Creoles and Spaniards over who would be the caretaker of royal authority in the Americas—millions of Indians, mulattos, and mestizos came to question the legitimacy of the royal government. Eventually, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest in the small town of Dolores, emerged as the leader of an insurrection. Although he was captured and executed a year later, the rebellion continued with new leaders, lasting more than 11 years and ravaging Mexico’s economy and population. In the process, California became even more isolated from the central government of Mexico as resources were used by the king to fight both the rebels in the New World and the French in Europe. This lack of resources created an economic crisis throughout the bor- derlands, which weakened the missions as well as the presidios.

News traveled slowly and the Californians did not learn of the rebellion until 1811. Most clerics were loyal to Spain, since many of them were Spanish peninsulares. The military commanders similarly owed allegiance and their careers to the established monarchy. A few young Californios decided to join the rebellion. In 1811, Francisco María Ruiz, the comandante of the presidio at San Diego, discovered a “seditious” paper being circulated among some of the troops. This was probably propaganda from the Hidalgo rebellion in Mexico. Ruiz found that 60 men had formed a conspiracy to overthrow Spanish author- ity and he promptly arrested five of the ringleaders, including José María Pico, the father of the future Mexican governor of California, Pío Pico. Two of the San Diego conspirators were eventually released, but three others died in irons within the presidio jail.

Years passed without incident until the fall of 1818, when news came that the French pirate, Hippolyte Bouchard, was working his way down the

Political Developments in Spanish California 59

California coast, ravaging Spanish settlements. He raided Monterey and torched the presidio in November, then sailed down the coast and landed a party at Dana Point to get supplies from Mission San Juan Capistrano. News of an impending attack on San Diego made for sleepless nights, but Bouchard bypassed the harbor. The only result of this agitation was to motivate the gov- ernment to send more troops and money to San Diego.

The California garrisons remained loyal to Spain, as did the mission fathers. The idea of a social rebellion of Indians led by Creole liberals was anathema to the Spanish-speaking residents of the pueblos. Everyone knew that in California the natives outnumbered the colonists by more than 10 to one. There would be no revolution in California, at least not yet.

On April 20, 1822, news of the proclamation of Mexico’s independence from Spain arrived by ship in San Diego harbor. Throughout the province, the officers, soldiers, and civilians were required to take oaths of allegiance to the newly independent government. The friars and neophytes were required to take a similar oath. There were no reported protests to this change of allegiance. A few Spanish priests left California, but most stayed. Within a few months the de razón (Spanish and mestizo) male population of the province began involv- ing themselves in the politics of the new government. While Mexico’s indepen- dence seemed to make no apparent immediate difference in the daily lives of the Californios, profound social and economic transformations were on the way that would radically alter the lives of natives and Californios alike.

Foreign Interest in Spanish California

One of the motives for the founding of a Spanish colony in Alta California had been to preempt other European powers from encroaching on the Pacific Coast. During the 52 years of Spanish control, Britain, France, and Russia launched exploration expeditions to the coast of California. These European rivals threatened the Spanish monopoly in the Pacific and were of great con- cern to the Spanish king and his advisers.

In 1786, the French Comte de la Pérouse visited Monterey for 10 days dur- ing a voyage around the world. He surveyed the mission system, pronounced it an abject failure, and made notes about the cultural and military weaknesses of the Spanish settlement. This, of course, was to justify and encourage a possible French takeover of Spanish California. Later, he published his impressions along with some of the first European sketches of the California natives and countryside.

Another explorer who made known the resources of the Pacific Coast was Alexandro Malaspina, an Italian commissioned by the king of Spain to visit his American possessions and search for the Northwest Passage. Malaspina had artists and scientists on board to report on the local environments and cultures. In 1792, his ships visited Monterey, where he stayed for two weeks making observations on the flora and fauna as well as the local inhabitants.

60 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

The English explorer George Vancouver visited California ports three times between 1792 and 1794. He later published his observations about the deficiencies of the Spanish settlements. Secretly, he reported the weaknesses of the Spanish defenses in California to the English king, an indication of England’s interest in acquiring this territory.

In 1796, the first American ship, the Otter, commanded by Ebenezer Dorr, visited California. Dorr’s visit was noticeable mainly because he left behind 11 Australian convicts who had stowed away on his ship. For a year, they worked as skilled artisans in Monterey but then the governor sent them by ship to Spain. Following this first visit, other American otter-hunting ships navigated off the coast and illegally traded manufactured goods with the locals.

One of the most memorable foreign visits to California was made by Nikolai Rezanov, a representative of the Russian-American Fur Company. In 1806, he visited San Francisco ostensibly to obtain supplies for the Russian fur outpost at Sitka, but more probably to investigate the fur-trading prospects in California. The California governor was initially opposed to giving aid to the Russians since that would strengthen their colony, which was in territory claimed by Spain. During his stay, Rezanov met and fell in love with Concep- ción Argüello, the 16-year-old daughter of the comandante of the presidio at San Francisco. The family agreed to the marriage, with Concepción’s approval. The governor also granted permission for a cargo of food to be sent to Sitka. Promising to return after he was granted permission by the czar to marry, Rezanov returned to Russia. Unfortunately, while crossing Siberia on his way to St. Petersburg, he died. Meanwhile, Concepción waited in vain for the return of Count Rezanov; her vigil lasted 35 years until she finally received news of Rezanov’s death. For the rest of her life she refused all suitors and took on the robes of a beata, a holy woman, devoting herself to acts of charity. In later years, this tragic love story became the subject of poems and novels, part of Spanish California’s romantic past.

Following the Rezanov visit, other Russian ships visited California ports seeking sea otter pelts, sealskins, and provisions. In 1812 the Russian- American Fur Company, after negotiating with the Pomo Indians, built a wooden stockade fort 18 miles north of Bodega Bay. They called it Fort Rossiya, an archaic name for Russia. (Americans later called it Fort Ross.) The purpose of Fort Rossiya was to provide a base to grow food for the fur- hunting colonies located farther north in Kodiak and Sitka. Eventually, the col- ony grew to more than 400, a mixture of Aleuts, Russians, and local Indians, and intermarriages between the Aleuts and the local natives promoted peace. The Russian priests were not very active in trying to convert the Indians. Soon the Russians established a seasonal settlement at Bodega Bay as well.

Through the writings of la Pérouse and Vancouver, in addition to the visits of the Russian and American fur hunters, the richness of California’s natural resources became more widely known. The recurring observation that the Spanish authorities were not very successful in exploiting this wealth and that

Political Developments in Spanish California 61

their colony was poorly defended and underpopulated was also of great inter- est. In subsequent decades, after Mexican independence, California’s mythic name, as an island of unknown wealth, magnetized the imaginations of increas- ing numbers of non-Spanish speakers.

Summary

The Spanish colonization of California left its imprint for subsequent genera- tions. Beginning in 1769, the Spanish-speaking colonists struggled to survive in the midst of hundreds of thousands of native Indians. While Spanish in the political sense, the first California settlers were mostly mestizos, various mix- tures of European, Indian, and African ethnicities. They transplanted their cul- ture to this remote corner of empire. To protect themselves and control the Indians, they built military outposts, presidios, and constructed missions. In this they were marginally successful while assimilating tens of thousands of natives. But their colonial strategies also provoked periodic uprisings, many runaways, and the spread of deadly diseases. The California settlers were more successful in transplanting their political and material culture, the first town governments, cattle ranching, and agriculture.

The Spanish era lasted less than 60 years, but it forged a path that Californians can still see. During the next few decades, the surplus of cattle in California’s economy and the reliance on Indian labor were the very founda- tions of the Mexican and early American eras. The importance of family loyalty and Catholic piety, community life, and the ethic of gracious hospitality all continued without interruption among the Spanish-speaking residents. The most visible remnants of Spain in California today are the rebuilt and recon- structed missions, most of which still serve as houses of worship. As symbols of a distant era, they have been romanticized in novels and movies. Most are tourist attractions whose tranquil atmosphere suggests a peaceful, pastoral past. For some, however, they stand as symbols of an oppressive regime that began the destruction of a way of life. Spain succeeded in transferring her lan- guage and culture to Alta California. Place names echo this heritage: La Jolla, Santa Ana, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Sierra Nevada, San Francisco, and many more. The layout of towns, Spanish-style architecture, the patio, the plaza, the rancho, all survive in altered forms as elements in California’s built environ- ment. The Spanish settlers introduced European plants and animals that for- ever changed the flora and fauna of California.

Some elements of Spanish town government and statutory law survive to this day. The lands owned by the municipalities of San Diego, Los Angeles, and San José are based on the generous Spanish government grants to the pueblos. The Spanish law concerning water rights as a communal rather than a private

62 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

resource continues to influence California’s legal history. So too does the Span- ish legal doctrine of community property.

Increasingly, the Spanish language is an important second language in California, as Latinos—whose roots extend into Mexico and Latin America— continue with a second chapter in the Spanish colonization project. The lan- guage spoken by Father Serra, the presidio soldiers and settlers, as well as many mission Indians, can be heard in the streets and fields of California in the 21st century. Thus the profound changes begun in 1769 continue to echo into the present.

Suggested Readings

❚ Bolton, Herbert Eugene. One of the most prolific scholars in Spanish California studies. Students should consult his book-length studies on Father Juan Crespi, De Anza, and especially his translation of Father Francisco Palou’s Historical Memoirs of New California (New York: Russell & Russell, 1966).

❚ Castañeda, Antonia I., “Presidarias y Pobladores: Spanish-Mexican Women in Frontier Monterey, Alta California, 1770–1821” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stan- ford University, 1990). One of the few book-length monographs about Spanish women in this period.

❚ Cook, Sherburne F., The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976). An anthropologist who has interpreted a wealth of data to help us understand the dimensions of the conflict.

❚ Costo, Rupert, and Costo, Jeannette H., The Missions of California: A Legacy of Genocide (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1987). A historical attack on the pro-Spanish interpretation of the missions written by California Indian historians.

❚ Engelhardt, Father Zephyrin, The Missions and Missionaries of California (San Francisco: James Barry, 1908–1929). The classic defense of the California missions is this four-volume work by the Franciscan priest, as well as the scholarly writings of Msgr. Francis J. Weber, in his individual histories of the missions.

❚ Geiger, Father Maynard, The Life and Times of Fray Junípero Serra, O.F.M.; or, The Man Who Never Turned Back, 1713–1784: A Biography (Washington: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1959). The classic study of Father Serra’s labors in California.

❚ Gutiérrez, Ramón A., and Orsi, Richard J., eds., Contested Eden: California Before the Gold Rush (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California

Suggested Readings 63

Press, 1998). An anthology of the most recent interpretations of California’s history before 1848. New essays on the ecological consequences of conquest.

❚ Monroy, Douglas, Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Cul- ture in Frontier California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor- nia Press, 1990). A well-written discussion of the California Indian interactions with the Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo frontiers.

❚ Peelo, Sarah, “Baptism Among the Salinan Neophytes of Mission San Anto- nio de Padua: Investigating the Ecological Hypothesis,” Ethnohistory 2009 56(4):589–624. Presents evidence for and against the environmental pres- sures as explaining wide-spread native conversions.

❚ Weber, David J., The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992). The masterwork by one of the lead- ing borderlands scholars, setting the California experience in a larger context.

64 CHAPTER 2 The Spanish Colonization of California, 1769–1821

CH AP

TE R 3

Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

Main Topics

❚ A New Political Order

❚ The Rise of the Ranchos

❚ Social Relations in Mexican California

❚ California and the World

❚ Summary

In 1877, a Californio ranchero named José del Carmen Lugo recalled life during the Mexican era for Thomas Savage, one of historian Hubert Howe Bancroft’s research assistants.

His memory about the work routine provides important details about the reality of rancho life in Mexican California—specifics that contradict the vision of an idyllic, lazy, pastoral existence that has often been depicted in literature and film. The romance of the rancho has become a staple for California promoters and writers. Seldom do people consider the mundane and harsh realities that surrounded rancho life in the Mexican era.

The Californian way of life in my early years was as follows: at eight o’clock in the evening the entire family was occu- pied in its prayers. In commending themselves to God, they recited the rosary, and other special prayers which each one

From José Carmen del Lugo, “Vida de un Ranchero,” Quarterly of the Historical Society of Southern California, Vol. 31, No. 1 (September 1950), p. 21. Reprinted by permission of the Historical Society of Southern California.

65

addressed to the saint of his or her name or devotion. Hus- band and wife slept in the same room, and nearly always in the same bed. The children—if there were any, and the dwelling had conveniences and separate apartments—slept, the men in the galleries outside in the open-air, and women in an enclosed quarter of which the parents kept the key, if there was the key, a thing that was not very common.

At three o’clock in the morning the entire family was summoned to their prayers. After this, the women betook themselves to the kitchen and other domestic tasks, such as sweeping, cleaning, dusting, and so on. The men went to their labor in the field—some to the cattle, others to look after the horses. The milking of the cattle was done by the men or the Indian servants. Ordinarily some women had charge of the milking, to see that the milk was cleaned and strained. The women and the Indian servants under them made the small, hard, flat cheeses, the cheese proper, butter, curds, and a mixture made to use with beans.

CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture,

1821–1846

1822 Luis Argüello elected as jefe político, or governor, of newly independent California

1824 Chumash rebellion against missions ends

1825 José María Echeandía selected as California’s governor; unofficial capital in San Diego

1826 Beginning of secularization of the missions; American fur trapper Jedediah Smith enters California; partial emancipation of mission Indians.

1831 Rebellion against Governor Manuel Victoria by southern Californians (sureños)

1833 José María Padrés and José María Híjar recruit 204 settlers to go to California

1834 Governor José Figueroa continues secularization of the missions

1836 Norteños led by Juan Bautista de Alvarado rebel against Governor Mariano Chico

1838 Civil war: sureños and norteños battle for control of the province

1839 Governor Juan Bautista de Alvarado and the norteños win

1840 John Sutter obtains land grant at junction of Sacramento and American Rivers

1841 Bidwell-Bartleson overland expedition enters California

1842 Governor Manuel Micheltorena appointed; Americans led by Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones occupy the port of Monterey

1843 Andrés and Pío Pico obtain grant to Rancho San Onofre y Margarita, largest rancho in California

1846 Donner expedition ends in tragedy

66

The women’s labors last until seven or eight in the morning. After that they were busy cooking, sewing, or washing. The men passed the day in labor in the fields according to the location—some preparing the ground for sowing the seed, bringing in wood, sowing the seed, reaping, and so on. Some planted cotton, some hemp, some planted both. This was done by those who had facilities for it; they planted and harvested in the things they needed most for the benefit of their families, such as rice, corn, beans, barley, and other grains, squash, watermelons, and cantaloupes.

The lands in the immediate vicinity of Los Angeles were set to fruit trees such as grapes, pears, apples, pome- granates, here and there an olive, cactus fruit, peaches, and other minor fruits. The owners of fields who could not obtain seeds of oranges, lemons, or producing fruits were found at the missions because the Padres selfishly refused to allow them to grow elsewhere than at their missions.

In José del Carmen Lugo’s memory, the Mexican era of California’s history was one in which industry and labor were transforming the land. Prosperity seemed to be less an automatic result of climate than the result of family and individual efforts. Indeed, this was a major change from the Spanish era. The mission no longer had a monopoly on the land and labor. Now, private rancheros rather than mission friars shaped the economic and the political destiny of California. To be sure, there was

General Don Andres Pico (1810-1876) of Los Angeles standing in the corridor of one of his farm buildings which was formerly the property of Mission San Fernando. The “neighboring” Lugo family lived in a two story adobe in Los Angeles, and held title to several large land grants stretching from San Diego to Sonoma. By 1870 the Lugo’s vast holdings had dwindled to less than 400 acres.

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CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846 67

much continuity in everyday life, but the older order was passing away and in its place a Mexican Californio way of life emerged.

Questions to Consider

❚ What were the main characteristics of Mexican political life in Alta California?

❚ How did the creation of the ranchos change the social and economic development of the province?

❚ How did secularization of the missions affect the California natives?

❚ To what degree did these changes lead to greater foreign influence?

❚ What kind of impact did these foreigners have on the Mexican and Indian peoples?

A New Political Order

In the decades following Mexican independence from Spain, the European set- tlers of Alta California became more independent in spirit as they developed a stronger regional identity. They began to call themselves “Californios,” Spanish- speaking inheritors of a frontier society that had an intense loyalty to family and to place. Ironically, the landholding Californios of this era owed their prosperity and independent spirit to the policies of the central government of Mexico, whose policies led to the redistribution of the mission lands and the creation of new wealthy families. The Mexican government enacted secularization laws designed to end the Catholic Church’s tutelage of native people and to create a nation of independent farmers. Under these laws, the Christianized natives who had worked for the missions were supposed to be emancipated and given small tracts of land. But the land hunger of the Californios and the failure of the mis- sions to fully assimilate the natives resulted in the former mission Indians becoming a landless, exploited, and homeless class. Upon the departure of the mission padres, most of the neophytes left the missions and soon their lands were declared abandoned and open to petition for a land grant from the gov- ernment. Ultimately, the mission lands passed to the hands of several hundred Californio families who became the new leaders of Alta California. For the native people, who outnumbered the Mexican population, sporadic resistance against the settlers and ranchers continued.

Early Self-Government: Solá and Argüello

With independence from Mexico, California’s political situation became much more complicated as a succession of Mexican governors who attempted to

68 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

administer the affairs of the province provoked conspiracies and rebellions. The end result of the many Californio uprisings was a greater local indepen- dence and a tradition of opposition to centralized control. In many ways, the controversies in California during the Mexican era mirrored the struggle going on in Mexico, where the federalists and centralists battled one another over the degree of authority the central government should have. The Californios learned of the liberal ideas flowing from the American and French Revolutions and the Spanish liberal Constitution of 1812—ideas of democracy, secularism, and freedom of expression, all concepts that had been banned under the Span- ish regime. These ideas, mixed with strong ties to family, an identification with and loyalty to the region, and a geographic isolation from Mexico City, shaped the distinctive path of Californio politics.

California’s new republican politics began in 1822, with news that Agustín Iturbide had proclaimed himself emperor of Mexico. Soon, a commissioner from Mexico City arrived with instructions on how to proceed. A diputación, or provincial legislature, was to be elected by the ayuntamiento (town council) and army officers, and this local body, in turn, was to elect a new governor. Accordingly, a group of Californios elected native born Luis Argüello, from San Francisco, as the new governor.

Argüello’s two-year term as governor was marked by revolts of the mission Indians at Santa Barbara, Santa Inés, and Purísima Concepción, and by conflict with the mission administrators over the relocation of Mission San Francisco. The Indian rebellion was ultimately put down (see Chapter 2), and Argüello compromised with the church authorities to allow Mission San Francisco to remain where it was and to allow the founding of the last mission, San Francisco Solano, near present-day Sonoma. Finally, in 1824, news came of Iturbide’s abdication and the creation of a Mexican Federal Republic governed by a constitution. While this seemed to promise more home rule for the Californios on paper, the immediate consequence, ironically, was to deny the local population the right to elect their own governor.

The Governorship of José María Echeandía

In 1825, the Mexican government selected José María Echeandía as the new gover- nor of the territory of Alta California. Traveling by ship to the port of San Diego, Echeandía decided to remain in the presidio there because he preferred the mild climate compared to that of the designated capital, Monterey. With Echeandía’s residence in San Diego, a rivalry developed between north and south. The politicos of the north resented the south’s emergence as the de facto seat of government. Nevertheless, for the next few years San Diego was the unofficial capital of the ter- ritory and the governor carried out all of his official business there. Occasionally he would venture forth to Los Angeles and even to Monterey for short periods.

For the next five years, Governor Echeandía sought to implement policies that reflected the changing direction of the Mexican government. One of those

A New Political Order 69

policies was to ensure the loyalty of the former-Spanish subjects to the Mexican Republic. The missionary priests, most of whom were Spanish, had refused to take an oath of loyalty to the new Mexican government. On April 28, 1826, the governor met in San Diego with a group of padres and, after some discussion, the priests agreed to take the oath if it was “compatible with our religion and profession.” Finally, all five of the padres of the San Diego district and those in the other missions agreed to take the oath. Several of the older priests returned to Spain to retire. In all of Alta California there were about 36 mission priests who were affected by this new change of government.

The Mexican government passed a series of secularization laws that man- dated the dismantling of the remnants of Spain’s power in Mexico. This meant breaking up the mission system and converting the lands to private property. Echeandía began to implement this secularization of mission lands. On April 28, 1826, he began discussions with the padres to determine how best to carry this out. They suggested that Indians “of good conduct and long ser- vice” could form independent towns near the missions. In the spirit of this dis- cussion, Echeandía issued a decree of partial emancipation on July 25, 1826. Indians could leave the mission if they had been Christians since childhood or for 15 years, were married, and had a means of earning a living. They had to apply to the comandante of the local presidio and get a written permit in order to travel from place to place. The proclamation initially applied only to the San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Monterey districts, but it was later extended to other missions. Only a very few mission Indians could meet the require- ments, and only a small number participated. Governor Echeandía brought his secularization plan before the territorial assembly on July 20, 1830, and it was approved.

Rebellion Against Centralism: Governor Victoria

In 1830, the Mexican central government appointed Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Victoria to succeed Governor Echeandía as the jefe político of Alta California. Before Victoria could assume office, a group of San Diego’s most prominent families, in league with other Californios, sought to influence Echeandía to carry out a more rapid secularization policy, so that they might take possession of the mission lands, properties, herds, and Indian labor. The young reformers included the Bandinis, Carrillos, Vallejos, Picos, and Alvarados—men who were enthusiastic about republicanism and the possibility of obtaining new rancho lands. They persuaded governor Echeandía to carry out the secularization of more mission lands before the new governor took over. As soon as Victoria assumed office, however, he overturned Echeandía’s decrees. He represented the centralists, a more conservative political faction that opposed ideas of liberalism.

One of the themes that developed in the Mexican era—and continues today—was the rivalry between the northern and southern Californians. Each

70 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

side competed for the location of the customs house and territorial govern- ment. Under Mexico’s laws, all foreign vessels had to pay duties at the port of entry in Monterey before being allowed to engage in trade. Whoever controlled the customs house would thus have the economic benefit of being first in line for trade. Similarly, there was pride in being the capital of the territorial gov- ernment and local families would have greater influence over decisions affect- ing land grants as well as trade. Pride was mixed with politics and economics

Confirmed Mexican Land Grants in California (total 8,987,000 acres) enlarged 120%

NEVADA

CALIFORNIA

MEXICO

IDAHOOREGON

PACIFIC OCEAN

Map 3.1 Confirmed Mexican Land Grants in California

A New Political Order 71

in the various struggles between the sureños (southern Californians) and the norteños (northern Californians). This competition would intensify in the American period.

Thus, from the start, Governor Victoria was not popular with many sureños. He removed the territorial government from San Diego and went to live in the official capital, Monterey. Victoria represented the centralist, anti- democratic, pro-church factions then resurgent in Mexico. Despite a request from a group of delegates from the San Francisco presidio, Victoria refused to convene the territorial diputación and announced his intention to restore mili- tary rule and abolish all elected government. The governor then ordered the execution of several persons who were convicted of minor offenses and sus- pended the ayuntamiento of Santa Barbara. He exiled several influential norteños, including José Antonio Carrillo, without a trial. Carrillo then began agitating for a revolt against the governor.

For the next few months, the sureños secretly and then openly led a move- ment to remove Victoria from office. Juan Bandini, a Peruvian immigrant who had come to San Diego in the 1820s, was perhaps the most active leader of the anti-Victoria movement. On November 29, 1831, Pico, Bandini, and Carrillo, with “about a dozen” companions, took over the San Diego presidio and issued a pronunciamento (a statement justifying a rebellion). The Pronunciamento de San Diego was California’s first written declaration of political indepen- dence. Probably penned by Juan Bandini, in the florid literary style of the day, it set forth the reasons for people to join the rebellion against Victoria. It accused Victoria of “criminal abuse” and of breaking the law, while claiming that the pronunciamento signers were motivated by “love of country” and “respect for the laws.” It listed as grievances the governor’s suspension of the government of Santa Barbara, the execution of several people in violation of the procedures of law, and the banishment of several prominent Californios. The document called Victoria a despot.

The Victoria rebellion was ultimately resolved when a military force of sureños from San Diego and Los Angeles met Victoria’s small group of only 30 men near Cahuenga Pass in December 1831. After a short skirmish, two men were killed and Victoria was wounded. His army retreated to Mission San Gabriel, where he finally agreed to resign his governorship. The following month, he traveled to the port of San Diego and on January 17, 1832, he left for Mexico.

Secularization of the Missions: José Figueroa

After the rebellion against Victoria, the political struggles among Californios, between families, and between the norteños and sureños complicated things for many months. Agustín Zamorano led a norteño faction that claimed to be the legitimate government of the territory north of Santa Barbara, while Echeandía claimed jurisdiction over the south. Zamorano, who later imported

72 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

the first printing press in California, served until the arrival of José Figueroa, the new governor appointed by Mexico City. Although Figueroa felt that the sureño Californio leaders were a “clique of conceited and ignorant men,” the Californios eventually benefited through his implementation of the final secularization of the mission lands.

During the 1830s, the intention of the Mexican government was to convert the California mission properties into Indian pueblos. This policy, which had envisioned free settlements of Hispanicized natives, ultimately was subverted by the local Californios, many of whom regarded the Indians as incapable of self- government or property ownership. The secularization of the mission lands and the emancipation of the neophytes, however, proceeded rapidly under Governor Figueroa, and subsequent Mexican governors completed the legal process.

The secularization of the missions affected about 18,000 Christianized natives in California. At the beginning, Governor Figueroa took the unusual step of traveling to some of the missions to explain the benefits of emancipa- tion to the natives in person. In San Diego he spoke to 160 families; however, only 10 families agreed to accept their freedom, which was not enough to form a pueblo. So Figueroa appointed Santiago Argüello as the comisionado, or com- missioner, in charge of Indian properties at San Diego. Eventually, enough ex- neophyte families accepted their changed status and established the Indian pueblo of San Dieguito, near the mission. Others near Mission San Luis Rey moved to an already existing native pueblo at Las Flores. Another Indian pueblo grew up in San Pascual, near present-day Escondido. Each of these new pueblos was instructed to select its own alcalde, or mayor. Thus, the Kumeyaay Indians, not the Spanish-speaking descendants of the founders of the presidio, elected the first self-government in the San Diego district. Those natives who agreed to live in these pueblos were informally allowed to use the lands they needed for dwellings and agriculture. The remaining ex-mission lands were declared abandoned and thus open to petition for ownership by the Californios.

Many mission Indians did not embrace the idea of living as free farmers. Most left the mission lands and returned to their former lives, thus rejecting further supervision and control by Mexican authorities. Moreover, many had maintained contact with relatives and extended families outside the mission lands, and they wanted to go home. Others, whose villages had disappeared because of disease or war, were now homeless, lacking the protection of the mission padres. Traditional lands that had been the homeland of native peoples were now controlled by rancheros. As a result, thousands of homeless Chris- tianized Indians sought to eke out an existence by hiring themselves out to the Spanish-speaking population as vaqueros, domestic servants, mistresses, and indispensable laborers within the Mexican pueblos and presidios.

By 1834, six missions in California had been secularized and the rest would soon follow. The wealthiest and most populous, Mission San Luis Rey, was

A New Political Order 73

administered by Pío Pico. At Mission San Diego there were more than 5000 neophytes, and most of them departed after the priests left. An estimated 2000 moved closer to the newly constructed town of San Diego (as yet not officially a pueblo), where they found occasional work as servants and laborers. For the remainder of the Mexican period, the Christianized ex-neophyte native population greatly outnumbered the Mexican mestizo population within the San Diego district. For many Mexican settlers, Indian allegiances were suspect, and frequent raids and rumors of impending attacks always raised suspicions of alliances between the local Indians and the indios bárbaros.

During the decade that followed, the Californios petitioned the Mexican government, eager to claim hundreds of ranchos formed out of lands that had been declared “abandoned” by mission administrators. Many of these same administrators ended up owning the very lands they supervised. Who benefited from this era of rancho creation? Rancho grantees were those who, because of political influence or because of long service to the mission or presidio, were in a position to claim the land and the cattle on it. To be successful, individuals had to do more than claim the lands. They also had to have the interest and ability to manage a cattle ranch. Eventually, more than 700 private land grants were approved by the Mexican government. A portion of the grants went to foreigners—mostly to naturalized American citizens.

Governor Figueroa died before seeing the final result of the Mexican govern- ment’s secularization laws. These included: (1) the dispossession of the mission- ized Indians of the lands they had depended upon for food and shelter, (2) the creation of a new floating class of homeless, exploitable Indian laborers, and (3) the birth of a new aristocracy of landed families who increasingly asserted their rights over those of the Mexican governors and the Indians alike.

Rebellion, Revolution, and Home Rule

Governor Manuel Victoria was succeeded by a series of temporary governors who inspired contempt and rebellion on the part of the Californio families, many of whom were related to each other and who competed for political control. José Castro, from northern California, served briefly as a temporary governor, followed by Nicolás Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez was quickly replaced in 1835 by Mariano Chico, from Guadalajara, a representative of the newly emer- gent centralist faction in Mexico City. The centralists believed in reducing the autonomy of the state government, removing local controls, and substituting that of military authorities from Mexico City. The centralists threatened the new autonomy of the Californio rancheros. The subsequent Californio revolts against the Mexican governors occurred at about the same time as rebellions in the Mexican states of Queretaro, Zacatecas, Yucatán, New Mexico, and Texas. All were sparked by reactions against the centralist ascendancy in Mexico City, which was led by General José Antonio Lopez y Santa Anna. The central gov- ernment’s military forces suffered a disastrous defeat in Texas in 1836, leaving

74 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

them less able to enforce their will on the far-flung northern territories. Accordingly, the Californio rebels escaped punishment at the hands of General Santa Anna.

In 1836, Juan Bautista Alvarado led a norteño rebellion against governor Chico, calling for California’s independence from Mexico until the federal sys- tem was restored. In reaction to the prospect of the dominance of Monterey, the sureños in San Diego and Los Angeles joined forces to offer an alternative to Alvarado’s rebellion. The last effort by the sureños to salvage their regional pride and political influence began in the spring of 1837, when an anti- Alvarado group from San Diego gathered about 40 men and persuaded the ayuntamiento to endorse “El Plan de San Diego.” This document, written by Juan Bandini, formally recognized the official Mexican government and rejected Alvarado’s rebellion. The sureños proposed that they organize a loyal- ist government to rule the territory, now reorganized as a department, until the Mexican government approved a legitimate governor.

The leaders of “El Plan de San Diego” were Bandini, Santiago E. Argüello, and Pío Pico. Together, they traveled north to get the Los Angeles ayuntamiento’s endorsement of El Plan. By June 1837, the sureños had assembled an army of about 150 men and were prepared to meet Alvarado on the field of battle to decide who would rule California. The expected struggle did not take place, how- ever. Before any fighting occurred, news from Mexico arrived confirming the establishment of a new centralist government and everyone, including Alvarado, accepted it. In July 1837, Alvarado took an oath to support the constitution, and the provincial diputación selected him as governor until a new Mexican appointee arrived.

The civil war between the north and the south continued when the replacement governor, Carlos Carrillo, arrived. Carrillo sided with the sureño faction, named Los Angeles the new capital of the department, and moved the customs house to San Diego. Shortly thereafter, Alvarado refused to recognize Carrillo until he was officially ordered to relinquish the gover- norship. Meanwhile, Alvarado sent representatives to Mexico City to plead his case as the legitimate governor, and he prepared to challenge Carrillo with force of arms.

In the spring of 1838, the sureños and norteños assembled for battle near Mission San Buenaventura. About half of the soldiers on the sureño side were from San Diego. They exchanged shots and one person was killed before the southerners were outmaneuvered and retreated to Los Angeles. Remnants of the army, led by Carrillo, continued fleeing to San Diego, where they prepared for a last stand. Before further bloodshed, the two governors met in April 1838 near Mission San Luis Rey. They signed a “treaty” that called on Mexico City to determine who was the legitimate governor. A formal notification arrived in August and, to the bitter disappointment of the sureños, the central govern- ment named Alvarado as the legitimate provisional governor. Carrillo left for Mexico.

A New Political Order 75

Alvarado was a native-born northern Californio who, as governor of the territory, led his compatriots in democratic revolutions and protests against Mexico City’s high-handed leaders. He championed legislative initiative, public schools, government improvements, and many other projects to improve the economy and political health of the department. He presided over the most momentous economic change in the history of California, the breakup of the mission lands and the distribution of these lands to the native Californians, foreigners, and Indians.

Alvarado was related by marriage to another powerful California figure, General Mariano Vallejo. Together, they lived through the American takeover of their territory, and both authored multivolume histories that remain unpub- lished and untranslated in the Bancroft library. Under Alvarado’s regime, in 1827 the diputación at Monterey voted to change the name of California to “Moctezuma” in honor of the Aztecs, a move that was overturned by the national government. As a young man, Alvarado and his friends secretly pur- chased books that were on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books list, and for that they were threatened with excommunication. Alvarado, along with many other prominent Californios, had a mistress and several chil- dren to whom he gave his name. In his maturity, Alvarado became an alcoholic whose periodic binges were embarrassing, causing him to miss his own wedding and his inauguration as governor, and to panic when the Americans mistakenly invaded Monterey in 1842.

Despite these weaknesses, Alvarado was a capable leader and politician who enjoyed the respect of many native Californians. He participated in most of the crucial turning points of the territory’s history—the revolts against Nico- lás Gutiérrez and then against Micheltorena made Alvarado the longest-termed governor of Mexican California.

Micheltorena and the Catesby Jones Affair

In 1842 Mexico again attempted to impose another non-Californio governor, General Manuel Micheltorena. He arrived with 300 troops termed cholos (meaning low-class mestizos and Indios) by the status-conscious Californios, who accused them of petty thievery and disorder. It is true that many of the troops were unpaid ex-convicts who were encouraged to forage for their suste- nance. An additional cause for the disaffection of the norteños was their desire to regain local political power.

During Micheltorena’s first year as governor, an American naval officer, Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones, occupied the port of Monterey on the mistaken notion that war had broken out between Mexico and the United States. This mistake gave Mexico a preview of the warlike intentions of the United States and made any negotiation over the peaceful acquisition of Cali- fornia by the United States impossible. Jones was the commander of the Pacific squadron, and he had secret orders to occupy Monterey in the event that

76 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

Mexico decided to cede California to Britain. While in the Peruvian port of Callao, he received false information that the United States and Mexico were at war and that the British naval commander in the Pacific was sailing toward California with plans to occupy it. Jones’s two ships, the United States and the Cyane, raced toward California and, on October 18, 1842, entered the harbor at Monterey. The following day, Jones demanded the surrender of the town to his troops. Alvarado, the military commander, received the message and reluc- tantly surrendered, fearing bombardment of the town by the Americans. Jones’s men lowered the Mexican flag that flew in front of the governor’s house. Later that day, one of Jones’s men was reading through the government archives and discovered recent newspapers indicating that there was no war between the two countries. In the meantime, the local population had fled the town.

Governor Micheltorena was visiting Los Angeles when he heard the news of the mistaken capture of the capital. Commodore Jones decided to sail to San Pedro to meet with the governor and offer his formal apologies. The governor held a formal dinner in Los Angeles in honor of his guests, and apologies flowed with the wine. That night, however, reports of strange ships sighted off the coast led Governor Micheltorena to fear a full-scale American invasion; daylight brought assurances that it had been a false alarm. After appropriate formalities and typical Californio hospitality, the Americans returned to their ships and sailed away.

A New Political Order 77

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A few years later, in 1845, Alvarado and José Castro led a rebellion in Monterey against Micheltorena that resulted in another “battle” at Cahuenga Pass. Though only a mule and a horse were killed, the governor was forced to depart for Mexico. As a compromise between the regional factions, Pío Pico assumed the title of governor and Los Angeles became the capital. José Castro became the military comandante in charge of the northern district, including the customs house in Monterey.

The last Mexican governor was a Californio. Pío de Jesús Pico was born in San Gabriel Mission of mixed African and mestizo ancestry. He grew up in San Diego and moved to Los Angeles in the 1830s, where he became important in local politics. During his short tenure as governor, he completed the seculariza- tion of the missions and confirmed a flurry of land grants to his friends as he saw the approaching threat of the Anglo Americans. As he said in a speech: “They are cultivating farms, establishing vineyards, erecting mills, sawing up lumber, building workshops, and doing a thousand other things which seem natural to them, but which Californians neglect or despise.” He was helpless to prevent the American takeover of his beloved land during the U.S.-Mexican War. On the eve of that conflict, the Californios continued to be divided into northern and southern factions, and this weakened their ability to respond to a foreign invasion.

The Rise of the Ranchos

A review of the political history of Mexican California shows that Californios increasingly asserted their self-confidence in their ability to control their own society. This was based on the creation of a native California landholding class whose prosperity grew with each season as the cattle and livestock multiplied beyond count. The Mexican government encouraged private landholding, and the land was free for the taking, providing the claimant met the necessary con- ditions. The newly independent Mexico liberalized the Spanish trade restric- tions, opening California to trade with Americans, the British, and Russians. Thus the prosperity of the ranchos during this era was a product of political decisions made in Mexico. An unintended result, however, was the creation of a new spirit of independence and rebellion.

Under Mexican laws, the usual way an individual obtained a rancho grant was to file a written petition with the governor of the territory requesting a defined piece of land, described in very general terms and accompanied with a crude map, or diseño. If the governor approved, he would order the local officials to investigate the lands to determine whether they were actually vacant and that there were no conflicting interests. The results of the investigation, called the informe, were then returned to the governor and, if he approved, a formal grant was made. All of the paperwork attached to the grant was called

78 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

the expediente; however, the grant was not considered final until the territorial assembly approved it. The final act of possession then took place with a formal ceremony involving the local officials.

Mexican officials approved more than 700 private land grants following these procedures. One of the largest, Rancho San Onofre y Margarita, was 89,742 acres, granted to Andrés and Pío Pico in 1841. Many of the grants were more modest in size. For example, in 1843, the government granted Rancho La Cañada de los Coches (Glen of the Hogs), which amounted to only 23.39 acres, to Apolinaria Lorenzana, “La Beata.” In 1845 Guajome Rancho (Home of the Frog), consisting of 2,219.41 acres, was granted to Andrés and José Manuel, two Luiseño Indians. Women as well as Indians were eligible to receive land grants. Historian Gloria Ricci Lothrop found that 55 ranchos—or 13 percent of the total of 700 grants—were given to women, many of whom were the sole managers of their estates.

The land itself was not worth much without livestock, but the cattle that roamed virtually wild on the grasslands were usually inherited from the mis- sions as part of the grant. Disputes over the ownership of these herds became matters for the local juez de campos (judge of the plains), or for the alcalde. As elsewhere in the Mexican Southwest, brands were registered and periodic rodeos were required to sort out the herds. In the Los Angeles district, for example, rancheros were required by law to have rodeos in January and April, and the general public was required to assist in the roundup. During these rodeos, the vaqueros sorted out vast herds of cattle that had inter- mingled on the open range, branding the newborn calves and castrating the young bulls. They were paid with food and the fiesta that followed each day of labor.

The Californio men prided themselves on their horsemanship and had many opportunities to display this talent during these events. It was considered manly to be able to lasso and kill a cow, using a horsehair lariat and long lance, without dismounting from one’s horse. Horseracing was a passion, as was the sport of correr el gallo, which involved plucking a buried chicken from the ground while galloping at full speed. Many of the vaqueros were Indians who had learned these skills at the missions. The Californios distinguished them- selves from these common laborers by their elaborate dress, fine mounts, and, for the very rich, ornate saddle and livery.

As was true throughout all of northern Mexico, cattle raising created a unique culture, with its own vocabulary and independent spirit. The vaqueros taught the American immigrants who entered the Mexican frontier the basic techniques of stock raising in a semi-arid environment. Law, brands, and cus- toms regarding the open range are of Spanish-Mexican origin, and much of the mystique of the American cowboy arises from these Mexican roots.

In Mexican California, stock raising was more a way of life than an indus- try, which it later became under the Americans. The meat of the cattle was of little value, since it had to be eaten immediately, unless preserved as jerky.

The Rise of the Ranchos 79

Instead, the hide and the fat of the animal—the tallow—provided value to the daily life of the settlers and later to the Yankee clipper ships that came to California. If an occasional cow was killed mysteriously, it was of no conse- quence as long as the “California dollar” (the hide) was left behind. Hence the poor had a ready source of food. The Indians who lived on the ranchos farmed small plots and helped raise sheep, goats, pigs, horses, mules, and cattle. They were paid in kind, with foodstuffs and the right to build an adobe or jacale (brush) hut on rancho land.

It is probably wrong to characterize the Californio ranchos as similar to the haciendas in mainland Mexico, because they were more informal in their organization. The Indian vaqueros and farmers were not bound by the rules of peonage that prevailed in central Mexico. The Indians who worked on the ranchos were not paid in money but with food, clothing, and shelter. A sense of paternalism prevailed, with the rancheros as the patrons and the Indians as servants and workmen. The Californios sought to create a lifestyle and mystique surrounding their class. While the Mexican government had abol- ished the system of official ethnic distinctions, known as the casta system, the Californios maintained pretensions about their racial purity as gente de razón and insisted on deference from the natives. They justified their owner- ship of the Indian lands by arguing that the Indians had abandoned them and that the Californios had thus inherited the Indians’ sovereignty over the land.

The most prominent of the 700 families who became landholders in Mexi- can California emerged as the political leaders in this period, as described ear- lier. In the far north, Mariano Vallejo, owner of Rancho Petaluma, was the powerful comandante of the region, placed there to defend the north from Brit- ish and Russian encroachments. In Monterey, Juan Bautista de Alvarado and his family periodically controlled local politics. The Santa Barbara district was led by Pablo de la Guerra; Los Angeles by the Pico brothers, Andrés and Pío; and San Diego by Juan Bandini and José Antonio Carrillo. There were other notables who contributed to the Californio legend, and some of them were Anglo Americans who slowly began to discover the richness of the soil and married the Californio daughters.

The expansion of the ranchos, particularly the growing number of cattle and horses, put a severe strain on the native population. The grazing animals consumed vast amounts of grasses, nuts, and roots, which had been staples in the diet of many Indian communities. In order to eat, many began to slaughter the free-ranging cattle and to raid settlements. This, in turn, pro- voked reprisals from the rancheros. Although the end of the mission system freed thousands of Indians from required labor, many were forced to hire themselves out to the rancheros as vaqueros (cowboys) and farmers. Many worked without wages but at least were able to gain food and shelter for their families. The natives became the mainstay of the Mexican labor force in these years.

80 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

Environmental Changes

Environmental historians such as William Preston have noted that the intro- duction of livestock by the Spanish and Mexicans began to change the ecosys- tem of the state. The proliferation of cattle and horses led to periodic overgrazing as well as to the creation of well-worn trails on hills and in the valleys. On Santa Catalina Island, goats introduced by the Spanish multiplied so greatly that they drove more than 48 animal and plant species to extinction. Adding to the pressures on the grasslands, native wild animals began to prolif- erate, mainly because the Indians who had previously hunted them were now either living on wild cattle or living in the missions or pueblos. Periodic large- scale slaughters of cattle and even horses by the Mexican rancheros led to an explosion in the grizzly bear population, which fed off the carcasses and refuse. Other changes during the Spanish and Mexican eras were wrought by foreign hunting. Otters, fur seals, sea lions, beavers, and minks were increasingly slaughtered by Russian, British, and American hunters. The great demand for their pelts in Europe led to their near decimation. Finally, the introduction of European food crops led to environmental changes. Roughly 10,000 acres of land were under cultivation by 1834, watered by irrigation systems that drew from dammed rivers and creeks. Along with corn, wheat, oats, and other grains came the introduction of European weeds that quickly spread and competed

Pío Pico, his wife, and nieces, probably in the 1850s. Pico was the last Mexican governor and one of the largest rancho owners in California. What evidence is there that Mexican Californios had different attitudes toward race than did most Americans of this era?

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The Rise of the Ranchos 81

with native plants. California’s declining Indian population, caused by the introduction of European diseases, led to an increase in wild game and the proliferation of European plants and livestock. This changed the ecosystem, forcing Indians as well as native species to adapt to a new environment.

Social Relations in Mexican California

Political independence from Spain did not radically change the cultural and social patterns of Spanish California. Patriarchy continued to hold sway in social relations and the family continued to be the primary social and political unit. Indians were still at the bottom of the hierarchy. Major changes in the 27 years of Mexican administration included the creation of a landed class that had pretensions of aristocracy and the opening up of California to increased trade with foreigners. Both factors would undermine the older Spanish colonial conventions and ideals.

The Growth of Town Governments

Town governments grew in the Mexican period as former soldiers and their families settled near the presidios where they had once served. Spain had given the civilian population living in Monterey a pueblo government and lands in 1794. Monterey’s municipal government was occasionally oversha- dowed by the territorial government, as in the period from 1839 to 1840, when the centralist governor abolished the local town council. The population surrounding the presidio of Monterey was more numerous, including seven missions and the Spanish villa of Branciforte (Santa Cruz), with a total of about 1600 gente de razón by 1840. By the time of the U.S.-Mexican War, about 550 people lived in the town.

San Diego’s civilian settlement was located just downhill from the site of the first presidio. By 1834, the town finally had a sufficient population—400 people—to qualify for pueblo status, with the right to elect local officials and to obtain a grant of land from the government. This lasted until 1838, when the declining population and political competition with Monterey resulted in the loss of their local government. In 1845, Governor Pío Pico confirmed San Diego’s ownership of 48,000 acres of former mission lands, including water rights. It was the largest such concession ever given to a Mexican town in California.

San Francisco also was established as a pueblo government in 1834 after achieving a sufficient number in population, probably about 200 individuals between the peninsula and Contra Costa. The settlement of Yerba Buena, the nucleus of modern-day San Francisco, grew as town lots were sold by the pueblo government out of its four square leagues of public lands, which had

82 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

been granted by the Mexican governor. From the beginning, the settlers of this new town were multiethnic and multinational, including Americans, English- men, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Mexicans, and native Californios. By 1840, Yerba Buena had 50 residents; 16 of them were foreigners.

In 1835, the military garrison at San Francisco was transferred north and thus Sonoma, another Mexican-era pueblo, was founded. In the town itself there were probably not more than 200 people, a mixture of Hispanicized mis- sion Indians and former soldiers and their families. Nearby was the Petaluma hacienda of Mariano Vallejo, the comandante whose energetic policies of paci- fication of the northern Indians through alliances made it possible for more than 80 ranchos to be established.

Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was born in Monterey on July 4, 1807, and became a professional soldier during the Mexican regime, rising in rank and authority to become comandante-general of California by 1838. Vallejo was in charge of the colonization of the frontera norte, the region north of San Pablo Bay and the Sacramento River. Vallejo was skilled at forming lasting alliances with the local Indians, and more than 50 of the presidio soldiers in Sonoma were native California Indians. He was instrumental in helping to organize the town governments of San Francisco and Sonoma. Much of the time he paid for the expenses of the Mexican military out of his own pocket. He opposed the Russian settlement at Fort Ross as well as the growth of Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento. Vallejo also opposed Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado, who he thought was incompetent and lacking initiative. Partly because of his public dissatisfaction, Micheltorena was sent to replace Alvarado. In 1844, Val- lejo disbanded the military forces in Sonoma because he could no longer afford to pay them. Thereafter, he supported annexation by the United States even after being imprisoned by the Bear Flag rebels in 1846.

Californianas: Mexican Californian Women

Indian and Mexican women were largely responsible for the growth of a domestic Hispano-Indian culture and society in California. Under Mexican government, the established patriarchal forms of life continued. The govern- ment and men considered women’s reproductive capacities most important for the success of the colony. Accordingly, women were expected to bear large families. Teresa de la Guerra, for example, had 25 children; Francisca Benicia Vallejo had 16 children; and Angustias de la Guerra Ord had 11 chil- dren. Unfortunately, infant mortality was quite high, as was death from child- birth. Mexican culture accorded a woman status through her production of children and women were thus valued within the family for their role as childbearers.

In addition to childbearing, women played a key role in the Californio economy. They worked in the domestic production of clothes, soap, candles, and other household items. The wealthier Californianas supervised scores of

Social Relations in Mexican California 83

domestic servants and worked alongside them. Californianas, moreover, were trained to ride horses from an early age. Some of the stereotypes about Mexi- can patriarchal society have to be modified when considering the female ran- cheras of California. On small ranchos, women and men worked side by side in the many labors associated with farming and ranching. Fermina Espinosa, for example, was the owner of Santa Rita rancho. Because her husband was not so inclined, she ran the ranch—riding, roping, and branding—in addition to bear- ing many children. On Rancho Sal-Si-Puedes, the four daughters of Vicente Ávila dressed like men and rode about the rancho doing the work of livestock raising—in addition to weaving blankets, churning butter, and making cheese.

Historian Rosaura Sanchez has studied many examples of female indepen- dence and agency in Mexican California and has warned against overgeneraliz- ing. Women were still subject to male authority. Arranged marriages were the norm, especially among the wealthier classes. Single women were not free to choose their own suitors, and elaborate rituals regulated courtship. The first communications of love may have found their way around the watchful eyes of the parents, but their approval was necessary for meetings and marriage. Women were generally considered male possessions to be protected and con- trolled. Although women did have property rights and the right to divorce and file lawsuits against their husbands, these rights were not commonly exercised.

One story that illustrates the many complexities of women’s status in Mexican California is that of Josefa Carrillo, daughter of Joaquin Carrillo of San Diego. In 1829, she eloped with Henry Delano Fitch, an American merchant sea captain, thus becoming one of the first Californianas to marry a foreigner. While the account of this affair has been told a number of times by California historians, the narration she gave in 1875 at the age of 65 gives her version of events.

When Captain Henry D. Fitch made a call on the port of San Diego in 1826, he was introduced to Josefa and fell in love. Within a year, he requested her hand in marriage and her parents approved. Several years passed before Captain Fitch agreed to become a Catholic and a Mexican citizen so the two could be married. The marriage was scheduled for April 15, 1829, the day after his baptism. Halfway through the marriage ceremony, a message arrived from Governor Echeandía ordering the rites to cease, because the marriage was in violation of a law prohibiting non-Catholics from marrying Catholics.

Henry and Josefa decided to elope, sailing south and eventually marrying in a Catholic ceremony in Valparaiso, Chile. A year later, Captain Fitch’s ship returned to the San Diego harbor, and Josefa learned that her father considered the family dishonored by the elopement and had “promised to kill her on sight.”

Nevertheless, courageously, and determined to be either reconciled or killed, Josefa went to beg her father’s forgiveness. Entering his study, she threw herself on her knees and “in a humble tone begged for pardon, remind- ing him that if she had disobeyed him it had been only to cast off a hated tyranny [Governor Echeandía] who overturned the laws and customs.” Her father responded, saying, “I pardon you daughter, you are not to blame if our

84 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

governors are despots.” Josefa and her husband eventually went to Monterey, where Captain Fitch faced charges of forcible abduction, and he was sent to Mission San Gabriel for three months. As a penalty for his crime, he was given a penance of donating a 50-pound bell to the church at the Los Angeles pueblo, and the couple was commanded to hear high mass with lighted candles for three días festivos, or special days.

This love story involved family honor, governmental intervention, and paternal power. Josefa threw herself on her father’s mercy and cleverly politi- cized her actions so he could accept her return with honor. She succeeded in manipulating the patriarchal system. The most important part of Josefa’s 1875 narration, rendered in the most detail with the greatest passion, was not the interrupted marriage, the elopement, or the trial, but rather her confrontation with her father. Josefa may have been subject to male authority, but she knew how to manipulate it to her advantage.

Mexican–Indian Relations

With the secularization of the missions, thousands of native Californians tried to return to the lives they had once known, fleeing inland and into the foothills to join with remnants of their peoples or with other native groups. They soon

California vaqueros rounding up cattle. Widely praised for their skills as horsemen, the Californios rarely dismounted.

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Social Relations in Mexican California 85

found that things had changed, even for tribes far from the missions. Numer- ous diseases had decimated their numbers, and the ecology of traditional gath- ering grounds had been forever changed by the grazing of Mexican livestock and the introduction of European plants. The cattle and even horses were tempting targets for hungry natives who had grown used to mission food. Con- sequently, native groups periodically raided outlying ranchos, and military retaliation inevitably followed.

Aside from the mission revolts (see Chapter 2), the most notable periods of Mexican–Indian violence took place in the 1830s in southern California, fol- lowing secularization. One memorable incident was an Indian attack in 1837 on Rancho Jamul, located east of San Diego, and owned by Doña Eustaquia López, who lived at the rancho with her two unmarried daughters and young son. A band of Kumeyaay assisted by some servants attacked the rancho, kill- ing the foreman, his son, and several others. The Indians carried off both daughters, Tomasa and Ramona, aged 15 and 12. They were going to kill the mother and her little boy but, because of their pleadings, the Indians spared them. Instead, they stripped them naked and left, taking with them the livestock and other valuables and burning the ranch houses. Several expeditions went out from San Diego to try to recover the girls. Ransoms were offered but refused, and rumors later flourished that the girls had married Indian chiefs.

Later that year, in 1837, other bands of Kumeyaay planned to attack the pueblo of San Diego with the assistance of local servants. The plot was foiled when a loyal Indian told her mistress of the plan. Immediately, the military officer in charge, Alférez Macedonio Gonzalez, rounded up the named con- spirators, all of whom worked as house servants for the local pueblo families, and forced them to confess. The following day, he took them to a nearby cem- etery and executed five of them by a firing squad. In the years that followed, fear of Indian servants and the possibility of revolt from within colored the nightmares of many Californios.

A large and uncounted number of former neophytes lived in quasi- peonage. In Los Angeles, Father Duran noted that 200–300 Indians lived as virtual slaves, paying off debts that had been advanced to them for food, goods, or liquor. Every Mexican settlement had its floating population of natives who survived on the margins, working as occasional laborers or prosti- tutes, and sometimes even selling their children in order to eat. The lucky ones worked on the ranchos as servants, farmers, or vaqueros. They too were debt slaves and had to endure the racial pretensions of their masters. These Indians were bound to the land by their indebtedness just as many Mexican peons on the haciendas in Mexico during a later era. By custom, the natives had to remain at the rear of the church during mass, and they were buried in plots separate from the Californios. The Los Angeles ayuntamiento passed laws to ensure that the local Indians did not live too close to the pueblo or pollute the water of the local irrigation ditches.

86 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

At the same time, almost every Californio family could point to a servant who had been raised with their own children and who was considered a mem- ber of the family or could, if they chose, remember how cousins and nieces were related to the local Indian tribes by blood. As long as the Hispanicized Indians accepted a Californio paternalism and knew their place, they were accepted within the patriarchal rancho system. There were real friend- ships and occasional bonds of marriage and compadrazgo (godparentage) between some Californios and the Hispanicized Indians. General Mariano Vallejo’s Indian ally, Chief Solano, lived with Vallejo’s family in his old age, and the two were compadres, sharing their mutual misfortunes well into the American era.

Immigrants and Foreigners

Alta California’s population grew slowly, but not nearly enough to challenge the native Indians’ demographic dominance. In 1820, at the beginning of the Mexican period, there were perhaps as many as 3000 of Hispano-Indian stock, excluding the mission Indians. By 1848, at the end of the Mexican era, there were probably about 7000 who considered themselves Californios. At the same time, although the native population was declining due to deaths from diseases, they numbered probably more than 100,000 in 1846, most of them not Hispanicized.

As David Weber pointed out in his study of this era, the Mexican govern- ment was losing its ability to defend its northern territories because of the lack of northward migration. Political instability in Mexico City made for changing policies regarding the frontier. Mexicans could not be induced to leave family and town for the uncertainties of life on the frontier. Many were economically unable to afford such a journey, and many others were peons who were not free to move even if they so desired. Moreover, the Spanish administrative mentality had endured, making it difficult for individuals to strike off on their own without governmental approval. Additionally, California was isolated from Mexico by the forbidding Sonora and Mojave Deserts, lands inhabited by Indians who had proven their dislike of Spanish and Mexican interlopers.

The Mexican government made one major effort to send new colonists to California, but it ended in disaster and discouraged further attempts. The Mex- ican government regarded the Russian colony at Fort Ross as a threat to its political control of Alta California. Beginning in 1812, the Russian government had established several small agricultural settlements some 90 miles north of San Francisco. Fort Ross (Rus or Russia) was the hub intending to supply growing seal and otter stations that the Russian-American Company had founded along the coast as far north as Alaska. To counter this threat, in 1833, the government authorized José María Padrés and José María Híjar to recruit 204 Mexican settlers to go to California. The plan was for these new- comers to take possession of vacant mission lands. This, of course, antagonized

Social Relations in Mexican California 87

the Californios, who wanted those lands for themselves. The Californios were in luck, however, because en route, a change in the central Mexican govern- ment revoked the Padrés-Híjar commission. The expedition continued to Cali- fornia nevertheless and upon arrival, Governor Figueroa, a native Californio, refused to let them have the lands they had been allocated and ordered them to return to Mexico. Most of the colonists ignored this order and settled throughout California, in the pueblos and on some lands in the Sonoma Valley given to them by General Vallejo. Members of the Padrés-Híjar expedition brought much-needed skills to California and were responsible for many improvements in local life, especially in the pueblos.

The Mexican government did not encourage foreign immigration to Alta California. After a decade of encouraging American immigration into Texas in 1836, the foreigners revolted against the national government. This seemed to be ample proof that this was an unwise policy. Nevertheless, foreigners did make their way to this remote territory, many for commercial purposes. By the 1830s, the ranchos were developing a thriving trade in hides and tallow with Yankee clipper ships, and hundreds of thousands of hides found their way east to make shoes for the Anglo Americans and the English. Some of the sailors on the American and English ships chose to stay behind. Alfred Robinson, for example, stayed behind and married into the de la Guerra family in Santa Barbara. His book Life in California (1846) described the native Cali- fornios in a sympathetic light. This was not the case for Richard Henry Dana, who also came on a clipper ship and later wrote his immensely popular account, Two Years Before the Mast (1840), in which he deprecated the Califor- nios as an “idle, thriftless people” who were “proud, and extravagant, and very much given to gaming.” Dana did, however, praise the lush environment and urged others to come to develop it. He wrote: “In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be!” Dana’s views had wide circulation in the East and helped shape sentiments of Manifest Destiny.

The Americans were slow to find their way overland to California and the first ones who came entered illegally. In 1826, the fur trapper Jedediah Smith came overland from Salt Lake into southern California. He was subsequently jailed in San Diego, Mission San José, and Monterey before being expelled for lacking a passport. Smith was the first American to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains and open a trail to Salt Lake. He was also the first American to open the coastal trade route from California to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River. Among his greatest exploits, Smith blazed a trail across the deserts of the American West—the first American to enter California by crossing the Mojave Desert and the first to traverse the vast Great Basin Desert to return east.

In 1828, Sylvester and James Ohio Pattie, father and son, also fur trappers, arrived in San Diego after an exhausting overland trek from the Colorado River. Governor Echeandía believed them to be spies for Spain and had them imprisoned. The father, Sylvester, died in prison but James, who had brought

88 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

with him a supply of smallpox vaccine, was allowed to leave the San Diego jail to inoculate the local population. Eventually, he traveled up the California coast and vaccinated 22,000 people. He returned home to New Orleans via Mexico in 1830. Later trappers such as Ewing Young and Joseph R. Walker found new ways of entering California from the east, developing trails that later immi- grants found useful.

By 1830, fewer than 100 foreigners were living in California, most of British or American nationality. Under the Mexican Colonization Laws of 1824 and 1828, territorial governors were allowed to grant lands to non- citizens. The regulations governing the procedures were sporadically—and not very effectively—enforced. Despite the availability of free lands, few foreigners took advantage of these laws in California. Most of the best lands were tied up in the missions until the secularization of the mid-1830s. Thereafter, the Californios used their family influence to gain most of the desirable properties.

In spite of their small numbers, the foreigners’ influence was felt to a degree that was out of proportion to their numbers. Many had settled in Cali- fornia because of their recognition of the rich opportunities for hunting, trap- ping, trading, and land acquisition. Others simply sought adventure or had fallen in love with a beautiful Californiana. Most became partially Mexicanized, learning to respect the culture and the language and marrying the daughters of important Californio landholders. As sons-in-law of large extended families, they had a stake in California’s future. One prominent example is William E. P. Hartnell, an Englishman who came to California as a merchant in 1823, married into the powerful de la Guerra family in Santa Barbara, became a nat- uralized Mexican citizen, and received a large rancho land grant. In the 1830s, he won appointments to a number of official posts as a customs officer, a teacher, and a translator. In the American era, he served as the official Spanish-language translator for the California constitutional convention.

Other foreigners participated in rebellions. In 1836, Isaac Graham, an American settler, gathered a company of American riflemen to help Juan Bautista Alvarado in his successful revolt against the government. Later, in 1840, Graham and a few British settlers were arrested by Governor Alvarado on charges of treason but were later sent to Mexico, where they were released. John A. Sutter was a Swiss immigrant who became important in the California Gold Rush. He came to California after having traveled to Santa Fe, Oregon, and Hawai‘i. In 1840, he received an 11-square-league (48,000 acres) grant of land from the Mexican governor, and he set about building a fort at the junc- tion of the Sacramento and American Rivers. He employed local Indians as well as Hawaiian Kanakas and purchased the movable property of Fort Ross from the Russians, including more than 40 cannon, to build his fort. Sutter’s Fort became a mecca for the foreign community in California, particularly the Americans, who began to enter California in larger numbers. Sutter began developing local industries such as fur trading, wheat farming, and weaving, providing employment to anyone who wanted to work.

Social Relations in Mexican California 89

In 1837, a merchant named John Marsh immigrated to California from Independence, Missouri, after he had become bankrupt. Marsh claimed to be a medical doctor, having an A.B. degree from Harvard. This was sufficient, however, for him to get a license from the Los Angeles ayuntamiento. Marsh traveled north to San Francisco, and eventually purchased four square leagues of land in what is now Contra Costa County, where he settled down to become a ranchero. Marsh was active in writing letters back home urging more Amer- icans to come to California, suggesting that they could easily “play the Texas game” and take over the Mexican province. As a result of these publicity efforts, Marsh’s friends in Missouri formed the Western Emigration Society in 1841 and set about encouraging settlers to go to California. One of those who began organizing a wagon train of immigrants was 22-year-old schoolteacher John Bidwell.

Bidwell encouraged some 68 Midwesterners to join the first overland wagon train of Americans to California. They set out from Sapling Grove, Kan- sas, on May 18, 1841. The elected captain of the group was John Bartleson, and the expedition became known as the Bidwell-Bartleson party. They were guided by a Jesuit priest, Father DeSmet, who was going to Oregon, and by an experi- enced mountain trapper who knew the route. In Idaho, about half the group chose to continue on to Oregon instead of to California. One member of the expedition mortally wounded himself with a gun and four others turned back. They had to abandon their wagons in the Sierra mountains and were reduced to eating mules and coyotes until they reached the California coast. After six months, 32 men, a woman named Nancy Kelsey, and her baby staggered onto Dr. Marsh’s rancho. The Americans in the Bidwell-Bartleson party were illegal immigrants, lacking passports, but Mariano Vallejo, the comandante of the region, was convinced that they did not need this formality and he allowed them to stay. Roughly five years later, some of these same Americans repaid this kindness with insult when they supported Vallejo’s imprisonment and backed an American military conquest of California.

The Bidwell-Bartleson expedition opened the door for other overland immigrant wagon trains. The same year, a group of 134 Americans left Santa Fe, New Mexico, under the direction of John Rowland and William Workman. They followed a route called the “Old Spanish Trail” from New Mexico to southern California, a route that had been partially used by the Spanish and Mexican traders and was well known by the 1830s. After reaching Los Angeles, some of the Americans decided to become permanent residents. Workman, Rowland, and several other members of the expedition became ran- cheros in the Los Angeles region, and they, too, later supported the American acquisition of California.

Bidwell’s written account of the 1841 overland trip to California found its way into the papers in the Midwest. Other accounts of California also enjoyed wide circulation, encouraging more immigration. California, however, had to compete with Oregon as a destination, and, until the publication of Bidwell’s

90 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

journal in 1842, California was losing the publicity campaign. This was due to the negative views of Thomas J. Farnham, an American who had briefly visited California in 1840 and whose published letters criticized the Mexican govern- ment’s efforts to control immigration. Nevertheless, in 1843, several more American wagon trains found their way west to California. Joseph B. Chiles led 59 people into Sacramento via the northern route, and Lansford W. Hastings set out with 53 more from Missouri, although most of them decided to go to Oregon instead. In 1844, Andrew and Benjamin Kelsey brought 36 settlers overland following the by-then well-known trail, and Elisha Stevens and a large family of Murphys entered California with more than 50 settlers. The latter expedition was notable in that, for the first time, wagons were able to cross the Sierras. The next year, more than 250 Anglo American settlers made the crossing or entered the San Joaquin Valley via Oregon.

The most famous of the overland expeditions to California before the U.S.-Mexican war was the Donner party. In early 1846, 87 men, women, and children left Springfield, Illinois, for California, following the established route. Instead of taking the trail that would have led them north of the Great Salt Lake, they chose a shortcut. This route slowed them down, however, because they had to clear a trail for their wagons, and they lost some oxen in the pro- cess. Because of this delay, they arrived at the California mountains late in the fall and that year the snows came early. Soon, the Donner party found them- selves caught in the mountains without supplies for the winter. At a lake near the summit (later named Donner Lake), they camped in 10 feet of snow, with- out adequate firewood or food. Faced with sure death, a small group of 15 set out to try to reach Sutter’s Fort to get help. Only seven reached the San Joaquin Valley after having killed and eaten their two Indian guides and several other companions. When the rescue parties finally reached the stranded pioneers, they found more evidence of cannibalism. Only 45 of the original 87 had sur- vived the ordeal. The Donner expedition became a macabre reminder of the perils of crossing the Sierras in the winter.

The same year as the Donner disaster, another group of immigrants entered California by sea. These were 200 Mormon settlers led by Sam Brannan. They had been sent by Joseph Smith to colonize the western outposts of Desert, the proposed Mormon national state, which was expected to stretch from the Great Salt Lake to southern California. Earlier settlers had been sent to San Bernardino, near the Mexican settlement of San Salvador, to establish a colony. The Mormon settlers who came in 1846 increased the presence of English-speaking residents, laying the foundation for an eventual American conquest.

Among the foreigners, one of the most influential was Thomas O. Larkin, who came to California in 1832 and established himself as a leading merchant in Monterey. Unlike other Americans who settled before the 1840s, Larkin did not marry into a Californio family and become a ranchero. He married an American woman and remained a U.S. citizen while learning Spanish and

Social Relations in Mexican California 91

slowly amassing a fortune as a merchant. Later, he was appointed the U.S. con- sul general and acted as a confidential agent for President James K. Polk, reporting on British interest in California. He also secretly worked to convince influential Californios to secede from the Mexican Republic and join the United States.

It is estimated that by 1846, on the eve of the U.S.-Mexican War and the American acquisition of California, there were about 1300 foreign-born settlers in California. About three-fourths of them were Americans, and European nationalities were represented as well. Except for those who had become Mexi- can citizens in order to receive land grants, most were immigrants who had entered without due authorization from the Mexican government. Local offi- cials were only too glad to have new skilled workers, and they ignored the letter of the law. They did not fully realize that many of the new immigrants had no intention of assimilating into the Californio society. They did not learn Span- ish, rejected the Catholic faith, and brought their own families with them instead of intermarrying with the Mexican population. This contrasted with the scores of Mexicanized Americans who had settled prior to the overland migrations of the 1830s, men like Don Abel Stearns in Los Angeles, Henry

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92 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

As this image illustrates, the overland journey to California was fraught with peril. In the left foreground a party comes across a ruined wagon, a dead ox or horse, and its equally unfortunate owner.

Delano Fitch in San Diego, John B. R. Cooper in Monterey, and Alephs B. Thompson in Santa Barbara. These men had married into Californio families, become Mexican citizens, and accepted Mexican society. But these individuals were also of lukewarm loyalty to the Mexican Republic, and most sided with the Americans during the war that resulted in the conquest of California by the United States.

California and the World

Alta California took its first steps toward becoming a participant in the world’s economy during the Mexican era, from 1821 through 1848. Trading ships from the United States, England, and France regularly called at California ports. The hide and tallow trade with the eastern United States and Britain increased. Beginning in 1813 and slowly increasing every year, ships plied the California coast laden with merchandise to trade for California hides and tallow. Most of the ships probably avoided paying port duties in Monterey, which amounted to a percentage of the cargo. Southern California led in the production of goods for export and San Diego, because of its port and climate, became the largest trading area in California. Once on board, the tallow was traded in Mexico and Peru and the hides found their way to New England’s shoe and boot factories. The British attempted to compete with the Americans, establishing a trading store in Yerba Buena (San Francisco) run by the Hudson’s Bay Company. But this outpost could not begin to challenge the Yankees, whose clipper ships reg- ularly pulled into port. Visits by Russian, British, and American whaling ships also added to the Californio economy. These ships visited the California ports in search of food supplies, for which they traded manufactured goods.

Compared with other Mexican frontier regions, such as New Mexico and Texas, California had greater contact with other nations because of the relative ease of ocean communication and trade. Within a generation, the Californios had established themselves as a province of private landholders—hacendados and rancheros—where 500 landowning families dominated the Mexican soci- ety. In New Mexico, by contrast, very few private land grants were given during the Mexican era. Most people continued to live on Spanish land grants where title to the land was vested in the community, not in the individual. Alta Cali- fornia’s Indian population was a ready source of cheap labor for the develop- ment of the thriving cattle industry, whereas the New Mexicans and Texans did not have this benefit. For the most part, the Californios did not have to endure the perils of hostile Indian attacks, which were more common in both Texas and New Mexico. Politically, the Californios enjoyed the same kind of regional democracy as their frontier cousins through the ayuntamiento and alcalde sys- tems; they also had similar internal rivalries and factions based on family and region. Texas had separated from Mexico after the Anglo American immigrant

California and the World 93

revolution in 1836, and thereafter the English-speaking Americans controlled the former Mexican province. New Mexico and California, while leading suc- cessful challenges to Mexican centralism, escaped the violence and racism of the Texas rebellion. They remained part of the Mexican Republic and in con- trol of their own society.

Summary

In 1846, Mexican California was a pastoral society that was rapidly changing because of the changes set in motion by the secularization of the mission lands and the opening of the province to foreign trade and settlement. Few could have foreseen that within a few years, even more profound changes were to catapult California into an entirely different era. On the eve of the American conquest, differing cultural traditions and visions competed for control of California’s future.

The oldest customs were those of the native peoples, who had been deci- mated by disease and challenged in their customary territories. Those who lived away from the coastal regions and avoided contact with the Spanish and Mexican colonists continued to live as they had for thousands of years. Even while their physical environment changed, through the introduction of new plants and animals, they continued in their spiritual beliefs about the correct ways to live. Others adapted to Mexican Catholic society by mixing their tradi- tional ways with those of the newcomers. They became acculturated to and dependent on their conquerors.

The Mexican, Spanish-speaking mestizos in California inherited a culture that emphasized family honor, community and regional pride, and ethnic- racial hierarchy. For them, the land was less for profit than for possession and dominance, a mark of the prestige of being an hidalgo, or nobleman. The younger Mexican Californians grew up nourished on ideas of popular democ- racy, free trade, and rationalism, inheriting an ideology of the American and French Revolutions as it was translated through Mexico. Progressive Mexicans believed that they could benefit from political and marital alliances with the Anglo Americans and had a positive view of the Americans’ contribution to California.

The English-speaking settlers in California were divided over their views of the future. Mexicanized Americans, like Don Abel Stearns, thought that Mex- icans and Americans could and should coexist in harmony for their mutual profit, and that the Californios were willing students in the development of the region. The newer immigrants, those who had come overland by wagon train in the 1840s, considered the Mexicans to be a lazy, thriftless people with few redeeming graces. The Californios who owned the ranchos were obstacles to progress, they thought, and the Californios’ Catholic faith was an anathema

94 CHAPTER 3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture, 1821–1846

to these Protestant families. Many of them had absorbed a sense of Manifest Destiny, a belief in the inevitable expansion of the United States across North America, often linked to a faith in the superiority and inevitable triumph of the Anglo American race over native peoples and Mexicans. The future, the Amer- icans thought, belonged to them.

Suggested Readings

❚ Chávez-García, Miroslava, Negotiating Conquest: Gender and Power in Cali- fornia, 1770s to 1880s (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004). An in- depth examination of racial and gender relations in Mexican California.

❚ Haas, Lisbeth, Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 1769–1936 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990). A schol- arly yet readable analysis of the changes in ethnic identities among Indians and Californios in southern California.

❚ Langum, David J., Law and Community on the Mexican Frontier: Anglo- American Expatriates and the Clash of Legal Traditions, 1821–1846 (London and Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987). The most thorough analysis of the Mexican legal system.

❚ Monroy, Douglas, Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Cul- ture in Frontier California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor- nia Press, 1990). A new attempt to synthesize the new social history with California’s early history.

❚ Osio, Antonio María, The History of Alta California: A Memoir of Mexican California (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996). One of the first survey histories of California written by a native Californio, and finally pub- lished after more than 100 years.

❚ Pico, Pío, Don Pío Pico’s Historical Narrative, Arthur P. Botello, trans. (Glendale, CA: Arthur Clark Co., 1973). An eyewitness account of many of the major events of Mexican California, written by the last Mexican governor.

❚ Rosenus, Alan, General M. G. Vallejo and the Advent of the Americans (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995). An important study of one of the key Mexican political figures of this era.

❚ Weber, David J., The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American South- west Under Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982). One of the best surveys to place California’s Mexican period in the context of Mexican history.

Suggested Readings 95

CH AP

TE R 4

War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

Main Topics

❚ The War Between the United States and Mexico

❚ The Gold Rush

❚ California Transformed

❚ Summary

In the 1870s, Hubert Howe Bancroft, a publisher in San Francisco, set out to write a multivolume history of California and dispatched assistants to interview the

Mexican residents of the state, who had important memories of the region’s history. Thomas Savage, one of Bancroft’s helpers, interviewed Doña Felipa Osuna de Marron. At the time, she had been a widow for 25 years. She had lived in California as a Spanish and as a Mexican subject and vividly remembered the American conquest of her native town, San Diego.

In 1846, at the beginning of the war, she was married to Juan María de Marron, a rancher who had been appointed the administrator of Mission San Luis Rey properties. Felipa was at the former mission in the summer of 1846 when General John C. Frémont and the American troops arrived, hoping to capture Californio political leaders. The Americans questioned her about where her husband was and who else was at the mis- sion. Don Matias Moreno, the secretary to the California gov- ernment, was with Doña Felipa when the Americans appeared.

96

Even though she “greatly feared the Americans who were not disciplined soldiers,” Felipa had the courage to quickly disguise him as a sick cousin, fooling the Americans, who then left. Once they had departed, Don Matias, who had rec- ognized his good friend Don Santiago Argüello who had been riding with the Americans, sent a messenger to catch up with Argüello to tell him to return, so that he could join him. So Don Matias changed sides because his friend had done so.

After this incident at the mission, Felipa went with her hus- band to their rancho in the backcountry; later, her husband sent her alone to San Diego for safety. She recounted that in San Diego, Don Miguel de Pedrorena, Don Pedro C. Carrillo, and Argüello, along with others, were allied with the Americans. The Californios who remained opposed to the Americans asked her husband to join them and he did so. Hoping to be reunited with his family, he joined Felipa and their children in the pueblo of San Diego, which was then occupied by the U.S. Army. Soon

CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era

Begins, 1845–1855

1842 Francisco Lopez discovers gold in southern California

MAY 11, 1846 United States declares war on Mexico

JUNE 10, 1846 The Bear Flag Rebellion

JULY 2, 1846 American forces arrive in Monterey

AUGUST 13, 1846 Commodore Stockton occupies Los Angeles

SEPTEMBER 22, 1846 Successful rebellion against American occupation forces in Los Angeles

DECEMBER 8, 1846 Battle of San Pascual; Mexican victory over General Kearny

JANUARY 13, 1847 Surrender of Mexican forces at Cahuenga Pass

JANUARY 24, 1848 John Marshall discovers gold in Coloma

FEBRUARY 2, 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends U.S.-Mexican War

JULY 4, 1849 Outbreak of anti-foreign violence in mining camps

SEPTEMBER 1, 1849 State Constitutional Convention meets at Colton Hall, Monterey

1850 Mariposa War begins; Humboldt Indians killed

APRIL 1850 California legislature passes the Foreign Miner’s Tax law

SEPTEMBER 9, 1850 California admitted as a state to the Union

1851 Joaquín Murrieta is reported killed by the California Rangers

1852 Antonio Garra leads rebellion and is executed in San Diego

97

they secured a safe conduct pass to leave town and they fled back to their rancho. There they found the Californios “furious” with her husband, accusing him of working as a courier for the Americans. They threatened to shoot him, but instead confis- cated the family’s horses and took the family as prisoners to another rancho. Almost every day, the Californio partisans des- cended on the rancho to take what they needed, driving Doña Felipa and her family to the verge of starvation. As she recalled, “most of what we had was taken from us, including the cattle that had been given to us by the mission fathers.”

When the war ended, the Californios continued to accuse Felipa and her husband of being pro-American, though they had never fought with the Americans. Their own countrymen finally forced the Osunas to ask for protection from the American commander of San Diego. Felipa and her husband journeyed from the rancho to town, and when they reached the outskirts her husband raised a white flag. They entered the pueblo, leaving their few remaining livestock outside. Felipa reported that some Americans in San Diego were angry at the return of these Mexicans, whom they regarded as enemies, but the Americans did not punish them.

These episodes, recalled by Felipa Osuna in an interview to Thomas Savage in 1878, reveal some of the schisms among the Californios over the American conquest. As evi- denced in her testimony, the conquest of California was more than a military one, extending to a struggle between friends and families. The real conquest—the transformation of the economy and society—began a few months after the end of the war with the discovery of gold. Within a year, thousands of immigrants from the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia overwhelmed the native peoples and the Californios. Virtually overnight, they created a new society—one that was entirely alien to Felipa Osuna and her family.

Questions to Consider

❚ What was the role that Californios played in the war between the United States and Mexico?

❚ How are we to evaluate the Gold Rush as a social, politi- cal, and moral event, given its mixed effect on the tradi- tional cultures of California?

❚ What has been the legacy of the Gold Rush on people of various ethnic and racial backgrounds?

❚ What is the larger meaning for California’s history of the economic and social changes brought about by the U.S.-Mexican War and the Gold Rush?

98 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

The War Between the United States and Mexico

On the eve of the war between the United States and Mexico, the northern states and the provinces of the Mexican Republic were increasingly being influ- enced by American commercial interests. The opening of the Santa Fe Trail in the 1820s and the increase in Yankee hide and tallow ships in California created new economic ties with the Mexican upper classes. In 1836, the Anglo Americans in Texas had waged a war of independence from Mexico and declared themselves a sovereign state, the Lone Star Republic. The Texans longed to join the United States but were prevented from doing so until 1845 because of opposition from northerners, who feared adding another slave state. In the interim, the Texans carried on a thriving trade between their ranches in central Texas and Louisiana. In 1842, they unsuccessfully tried to conquer New Mexico to add its lands to their new republic. Finally, in 1845 the United States admitted Texas to the Union as a slave state, with the Texans asserting that their southern boundary was the Rio Grande. Mexico, on the other hand, pointed out that the historic boundary between Texas and the province of Coahuila had always been the Nueces River. The friction between these two claims provided the spark that eventually led to an armed conflict between U.S. and Mexican troops in 1846.

There had been other rebellions in Mexico’s northern provinces. In 1837, the lower classes in New Mexico led a rebellion against the Mexican govern- ment’s centralizing administration, seeking more autonomy for their village governments. The Mexican upper classes soon crushed this rebellion. But they too had their grievances with the Mexican government, primarily its strict trade regulations. The merchants and other wealthy people of northern New Mexico grew to depend on the manufactured goods brought to them over the Santa Fe Trail. The value of goods brought overland from St. Louis increased every year, and Hispano trading families in Santa Fe grew rich. Meanwhile, the upper classes knew from past experience that the unstable Mexican government would not be able to preserve their interests.

The Californios were also dissatisfied with the Mexican government (see Chapter 3) and had deposed several Mexican governors, replacing them with their own native-born hijos de país. The rebellion of 1836, which placed Juan Bautista Alvarado in power, increased the self-confidence of Californio landholders that they could control their own affairs. They were growing wealthy from the hide and tallow trade, much of it illicitly conducted with American, British, and French ships, and some of them talked openly about separating from Mexico and joining the United States.

Though the upper classes in the Mexican north were growing more and more economically dependent on the Americans, and some of them were contemplating political separation, the vast majority of the more than 100,000 Mexican citizens who lived on the frontier, including Hispanicized Indians,

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were opposed to being forcibly annexed by the United States. They valued their independence and cherished their culture. When the war came, most realized what was being lost, and they fought back.

Manifest Destiny

In May 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico. Though the causes of this conflict were many, perhaps the most important was the spirit of expan- sionism called Manifest Destiny. Thousands of Anglo Americans believed it was God’s will that they move west and north across the entire North American continent, occupying the lands of the Mexicans and Indians and casting them aside in the process. As John O’Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review and popularizer of the term “Manifest Destiny” wrote in 1845, “the Anglo-Americans alone will cover the immense space contained between the polar regions and the tropics.” For most, however, Manifest Destiny had an economic dimension, justifying a more efficient use of natural resources by the industrious Anglo-Saxons. Mixed in with this sentiment of justifiable economic conquest were attitudes of the racial superiority of the Anglo Ameri- can people. Walt Whitman, the poet, expressed this view in 1846 when he wrote, “What has miserable inefficient Mexico—with her superstition, her burlesque upon freedom, her actual tyranny by the few over the many, what has she to do with the peopling of the new world? With a noble race? Be it ours to achieve that mission.” Or, as a writer for the New York Evening Post put it in 1845, “The Mexicans are Aboriginal Indians, and they must share the destiny of their race.”

Beginning with Andrew Jackson’s presidency in the 1830s, successive American administrations had offered to purchase California from Mexico in order to give the United States a window on the Pacific and to fulfill the nation’s destiny. Mexico had repeatedly refused these offers. In 1845, President James K. Polk sent John Slidell to make yet another offer to purchase California and to settle a dispute over the boundary between Texas and Mexico. The Mexican government refused. President Polk offered as justification for his declaration of war on Mexico the fact that the Mexican government rejected Slidell’s offer of $40 million for the purchase of California. There were other, more immediate, causes as well. Texas had been annexed as a state in 1845, but the Mexican government did not accept the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas. In the spring of 1846, Mexican troops attacked Zachary Taylor’s troops on what they believed was their own country’s soil. President Polk claimed these skirmishes were proof of a Mexican invasion of the United States. On May 13, 1846, he asked Congress for a declaration of war. In his war message, he recalled the failed attempts at negotiating grievances between the two countries and blamed Mexico for starting the war. “As war exists,” he argued, “and, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon by every consideration of duty and

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patriotism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights, and the interests of our country.” Though the declaration of war passed by a large vote in the Congress, there were opponents. Some southerners, including John C. Calhoun, feared that a war with Mexico would result in renewed conflict over slavery in the territories and would admit to the Union a new class of non-white citizens—a dangerous precedent for the slaveholding south. Some northerners opposed the war because they viewed it as a conspiracy of slave owners trying to acquire new lands to expand their “peculiar institution.” Some of them, including Henry David Thoreau and Abraham Lincoln, also opposed the war on moral grounds, since, in their view, the United States was clearly the aggres- sor nation.

An important factor in the agitation for war was the desire of many American expansionists to annex California. The value of California harbors for the China trade and the threat of possible British or French occupation of this area combined to heighten interest in acquiring not only California, but all of the territory between California and Texas—the present-day states of New Mexico and Arizona and parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado—as well. In 1844, presidential candidate Polk had listed the acquisition of California as one of the objectives of his presidential administration.

The Californios had been aware for some time of the expansionist designs of the Americanos. The mistaken capture of Monterey by Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones in 1842 sounded a clear warning of the expansionist objec- tives of the United States. The U.S. consul in Monterey, Thomas Larkin, had been sending letters to Washington discussing the possibility of annexation with the cooperation of progressive Californios and American émigrés who shared the belief that their political and economic independence would best be guaranteed by the United States. In 1845, President Polk commissioned Larkin as a secret agent to convince the Californio leadership to break away from Mexico and join the United States. Larkin noted that both Mariano Vallejo and General José Castro were predisposed toward independence from Mexico and union with the United States. But, in the spring of 1846, Polk’s strategy of acquiring California through peaceful intrigue disintegrated, a casu- alty of agitation for war and the violent actions of Americans in California.

Frémont and the Bear Flaggers

John Charles Frémont, whose father was a French émigré and whose mother was the daughter of a prominent Virginian family, grew up with a burning desire to be famous. He married Jessie Benton, daughter of Thomas Hart Benton, a powerful U.S. senator. Frémont, like his father-in-law, sought to advance his career by promoting western expansion. In 1842, 1843, and again in 1845, Frémont led expeditions across the Rockies into California and Oregon, earning for himself the name “Pathfinder.” In the winter of 1845–46, Frémont, by then commissioned as a lieutenant in the Army Corps of

The War Between the United States and Mexico 101

Topographical Engineers, entered California with a group of 62 men and a howitzer cannon. They camped near Monterey. Ostensibly, he was on a map- ping expedition, but even today the real purpose of his mission is unclear. His- torians have debated whether Frémont was on a secret presidential mission to accomplish the conquest of California. No hard evidence, however, has ever been found to prove that he was part of a plot to separate California from Mex- ico. Perhaps his actions in California during the early months of 1846 were his own initiatives and not directed by secret orders. In any case, his subsequent actions did assist the American military conquest of California.

When Frémont arrived in California in the spring of 1846, he told General Castro, the military commander of the north, that he was on a scientific expe- dition. Castro, however, suspected otherwise and ordered Frémont and his men to leave the province. For three days Frémont hesitated. He had his men fortify their positions atop Gavilan Hill near Monterey and defiantly raised the Amer- ican flag. But after several days of consulting with Oliver Larkin, the U.S. con- sul in Monterey, and seeing the Mexicans prepare for an attack, Frémont wisely decided to remove his troops from the area and to heed Castro’s orders. He and his men slowly withdrew from California, marching toward Oregon. Upon their reaching Klamath Lake, Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie arrived from Washington, D.C., bringing letters from Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Some historians suspect that Gillespie may have also brought oral instructions from President Polk himself, namely, to assist in the impending conquest of California by arms. We will never know what was said, but soon after Gillespie’s arrival Frémont ordered his men to march back to California. In May, he camped near present-day Marysville, a short march from Sutter’s Fort. In the days that followed, small groups of Americans came to Frémont’s camp and told him of rumors that General Castro was preparing an army to expel all Americans from California.

On June 8, acting on rumors of a possible Californio military action against the American settlers at Sutter’s Fort, Frémont sent a message to Wil- liam Ide, one of their leaders, suggesting that they come to his camp for pro- tection. On June 10, some 12 or 14 Americans led by Ezekiel Merritt launched a revolt against the Mexican government, capturing approximately 170 horses that were being driven from Sacramento to Santa Clara for use by General Castro’s troops. They now had a choice—either be horse thieves or revolution- aries. They chose the latter. They released the Mexicans who were leading the horses, telling them to tell Castro that the Americans were in possession of Sonoma and New Helvetia (Sutter’s Fort), and then they returned to Frémont’s camp with the horses. Ide remembered that Frémont had encouraged the horse raid and presented to the American settlers a “plan of conquest,” which he would support but not participate in directly. The horse thieves then set out for Sonoma, the residence of General Mariano Vallejo, one of the most powerful Californios and a man who had already voiced his support for American annexation.

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In the early morning hours of June 14, 1846, 33 rough and dirty men des- cended on Vallejo’s home and forced their way into his parlor, demanding the surrender of his command of the Mexican military forces in the region. Jacob P. Leese, Vallejo’s brother-in-law, acted as an interpreter. The mob slowly learned that Vallejo was actually an ally, but they wanted a surrender neverthe- less. Negotiations dragged on and Vallejo, with typical Californio hospitality, broke out the aguardiente (brandy). The mob proceeded to get drunk, and after a while someone put together a homemade flag, a grizzly bear with a red star on a white field. William Ide declared their intention to break away from Mexican despotism and establish a republic, along the lines of Texas in 1836. With their flag, the proclamation of independence, and a surrender doc- ument, the Bear Flaggers marched to Frémont’s camp with their prisoners— Vallejo, his brother Salvador, Leese, and Victor Prudon, a French resident of Sonoma. Then, with Frémont’s men as an escort, they proceeded to Sutter’s Fort, where Frémont assumed responsibility for the prisoners. In the few days after the capture of Sonoma, the Bear Flaggers had also killed three Californios in a skirmish near San Rafael, and the Mexican army had executed two Amer- icans near the Russian River. Frémont, by his words and then through his actions, joined the rebellion. Within a few weeks, his unofficial actions gained the approval of the U.S. government, as news reached California of the decla- ration of war with Mexico. The Bear Flaggers were then incorporated into the U.S. Army.

Occupation and Resistance

Congress declared war against Mexico on May 13, 1846, but news of the war traveled slowly. Commodore John D. Sloat, in charge of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Squadron, had orders to occupy the California harbors in the event of war. Upon hearing of the war declaration, he ordered his ships to sail into Monterey Bay, on July 2. He did not immediately capture the town, however, remember- ing the earlier embarrassment of Commodore Jones. He waited five days, until learning of the Bear Flag Rebellion. Fearing a British move to seize California, he raised the American flag over the customhouse and announced to the star- tled populace that “henceforward California will be a portion of the United States.” Sloat reassured the Californios that they would benefit from being part of the United States, and he called on General Castro and Governor Pío Pico to surrender. On July 23, because of ill health, Sloat turned over his com- mand to Commodore Robert F. Stockton, a politically ambitious naval officer. Stockton immediately commissioned Frémont and Gillespie as officers in the newly formed California Battalion, composed of Frémont’s company of engi- neers plus a contingent of former Bear Flaggers.

The bulk of the fighting in the conquest of California took place in the south. In the summer of 1846, General Castro and Governor Pico joined forces in Los Angeles to await the American advance, but they soon concluded that

The War Between the United States and Mexico 103

they were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. Both leaders departed for Mexico to seek reinforcements. Meanwhile, Frémont and Gillespie sailed for San Diego and on July 29, after some brief resistance, occupied the town. Californios still controlled the surrounding countryside and continued to harass the occupiers.

Commodore Stockton marched south from Monterey, and following a skirmish his troops occupied Los Angeles, on August 13, 1846. After issuing another proclamation stating that California was now officially part of the United States and promising to respect Mexican political institutions and laws, Stockton and Frémont returned north and left the occupation of Los Angeles in the hands of Gillespie and about 50 soldiers.

What followed was a wave of Mexican Californio resistance against the American invaders. In Los Angeles, the American troops entered private homes and took household goods. Gillespie enforced a strict curfew and for- bade Californios to meet in groups. Resentment grew until finally an uprising took place on September 22, 1846, led by José María Flores and Serbulo Varela. Several hundred Californios surrounded the American fortified position and Californio leaders issued El Plan de Los Angeles, calling on all Mexicans to fight against the Americans who were threatening to reduce them to “a condi- tion worse than that of slaves.” Gillespie, with only 50 men in his command, saw that his situation was hopeless, and on September 29 he signed the Articles of Capitulation. The Americans were then allowed to leave the Los Angeles district and march to San Pedro. Soon after that, the new Californio governor, José María Flores, declared California in a state of siege, secured loans to pay for a war, and began to recruit more troops.

For the next four months Los Angeles remained in Californio hands, and their military forces also managed to reoccupy San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Inés, and San Luis Obispo. From Los Angeles, Flores sent Francisco Rico, Ser- bulo Varela, and 50 men to recapture San Diego; this was done without firing a shot in October 1846. They held the town for three weeks until October 24, 1846, when the Americans recaptured the town after a brief battle. According to one eyewitness, the Americans hauled down the Mexican flag, but before it could touch the ground, María Antonia Machado, wife of a local ranchero, rushed into the plaza to save it from being trampled. She clutched it to her bosom and cut the halyards to prevent the American flag from being raised.

In their military forays against the American troops, the Californios had the advantage of knowing the terrain and of being superior horsemen. The Americans had superior weapons and formal military training, but the Califor- nios used guerrilla tactics and effectively won several victories. The Californio lancers won battles at Chico Rancho (September 26 and 27, 1846), Dominguez Rancho (October 8), Natividad (November 29), and finally at San Pascual (December 8).

The Battle of San Pascual was the bloodiest battle fought in California and was both a victory for the Californio forces and evidence of their determination

104 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

to resist the American conquest. Early in December, Andrés Pico and a force of 72 Californios lay in wait for the Americans, who were rumored to be approaching from the east. A large body of American troops under General Stephen W. Kearny had, in fact, entered California after marching overland from New Mexico. Kearny’s men numbered 179, including several Delaware Indian scouts led by Kit Carson and a few African American servants of the officers and mule drivers.

Early in the morning of December 6, 1846, the American force attacked the Californio camp in the Indian village of San Pascual. During the charge, the Americans became strung out in a long file, with those on stronger mules and horses far outdistancing those on tired mounts. The few gunshots exchanged were in this first charge, as the Californio troops met the early arrivals some dis- tance from their camp. The Californios raced away, allowing themselves to be chased for about three-fourths of a mile. They then turned and charged the Americans with their lances. It had been raining occasionally for several days, and the Americans’ gunpowder was damp and unreliable, forcing them to fight with their sabers. The Californios were armed with long lances and were expert at using them to slaughter cattle. In the hand-to-hand combat, the Californios had the advantage of superior mounts, weapons, and battle preparation.

Only about half of the American force was actually involved in the battle. The others were in reserve, guarding the supplies and baggage. The Ameri- cans were unfamiliar with their newly issued carbines and had trouble load- ing these guns in the dark and cold. The two groups fought most of the battle—about half an hour—in the dim light and fog. During the battle, the Californios captured one of the American cannons. Finally, the Americans

After orchestrating the Bear Flag capture of Sonoma, John C. Fremont led attacks against Californios in San Diego and along the coast from Monterey to San Luis Obispo.

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brought up another howitzer, firing at the Californios and causing them to retreat.

Nineteen American soldiers were dead on the field of battle. Two more died later from their wounds. Kearny himself suffered three lance wounds and temporarily relieved himself of command. The Californios had 11 wounded, and one of their group, Pablo Véjar, was taken prisoner. Some of the American deaths may have been from friendly fire in the dim light and confusion. Only one American was killed by a bullet.

General Kearny later wrote that the battle of December 6 had been a “victory” and that the Californios had “fled from the field.” One U.S. soldier, however, wrote that the Americans had been saved from decimation by the Californios’ capture of the American howitzer—an act that made the Califor- nios “consider themselves victorious, which saved the balance of the command.” Later, at the court-martial of General Frémont, Kearny admitted that a rescue party from San Diego had saved them from disaster. Generally the Navy officers, headed by Stockton, considered the Battle of San Pascual a defeat for the U.S. Army. Of course, the Californios considered this engage- ment a victory, and news of it spread throughout the district.

A month later, on January 29, 1847, another overland army arrived in San Diego. This was the Mormon Battalion, commissioned by the U.S. Army to survey a wagon road between Santa Fe and San Diego. The 350 soldiers trav- eled more than 1000 miles on foot but arrived too late to participate in the final battles of the war in California. Their numbers augmented a small contingent of Mormons who had settled in southern California near San Bernardino.

California Indians and the War

During the Mexican War, some California Indian groups increased their raids on the Californio ranchos, taking advantage of the weakened defense of the Mexican settlements. The Californios thought the Americans were behind the increased Indian depredations, but the majority of the attacks were probably the work of opportunists who took advantage of wartime chaos. In the early months of the war, though, California Indians did join the Americans. When Commodore Stockton organized his march in San Diego to recapture Los Angeles from the Californio insurgents, more than 100 Indians formed his rear guard to protect the U.S. Army from possible attack. Frémont recruited a small number of local Indians to join his men as he marched from Monterey to San Luis Obispo. And Edward Kern, the American commander at Sutter’s Fort, recruited 200 California and Oregon Indians to help secure the north and to prepare for the reconquest of southern California.

A major tragedy involving the natives and the Californios during the war was the Pauma massacre in southern California. A few days after the Battle of San Pascual, 11 Californio men and youths took refuge in an adobe house on Rancho Pauma, owned by José Antonio Serrano. While they were there, they

106 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

were tricked into allowing themselves to be captured by Luiseño Indians led by Manuelito Cota. The Indians took the men as prisoners to Warner’s Ranch. There they consulted with a Mexican named Yguera and William Marshall, an American who had married the daughter of a local Indian chieftain. After a short captivity, the captives were tortured to death by thrusts of red-hot spears. Later rumors strongly implicated Marshall in the murders; he hated one of the prison- ers, José María Alvarado, who had successfully courted Doña Lugarda Osuna, once the object of Marshall’s affections. Marshall may have suggested that the Indians would be rewarded by the Americans for disposing of the Californios.

Not all Indians supported uprisings against the Mexicans. Within days of the capture of the Californios, a force of natives from San Pascual who were loyal to the Mexican cause set out to rescue the captives, but they arrived too late. After learning of the massacre, a punitive force of 22 Californios immediately set out with a force of friendly Cahuilla Indians. They ambushed a Luiseño force, killed more than 100, and took 20 captives, who were later killed by the Cahuillas. The massacre of the Californios at Rancho Pauma illustrated both the persistence of native animosities toward the Mexicans and the possible manipulation of Indian hatreds by the Americans. News of this massacre, along withmemories of previous uprisings and knowledge that the Indians vastly outnumbered the Californios and Mexicans, may have worked to demoralize the Californio resistance movement.

Peace

Despite the Californios’ valiant though somewhat hopeless resistance against the American invaders, the American forces had recaptured all of southern California by the winter of 1847. Following the defeat of the last Californio army near Los Angeles, Andrés Pico signed a surrender agreement at Cahuenga Pass on January 13, 1847. Elsewhere in the Southwest, however, resistance continued. In New Mexico, the Taos Indians, in alliance with some of the Hispano families, rebelled against the American occupiers, killed the American military governor, Charles Bent, and recaptured some of the towns in northern New Mexico. On January 24, 1847, a Hispano-Indian army of 1500 met the Americans at La Cañada near Santa Fe, New Mexico, and were defeated. The Americans marched on the town of Mora and destroyed it, then marched south to surround Taos Pueblo, where the remnants of the resis- tance had entrenched themselves. In the days that followed, more than 150 defenders were killed and their leaders were captured. Fifteen were tried and convicted of conspiracy, murder, and treason in a display of mock justice. This marked the end of armed resistance in the Southwest.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

In Mexico, the fight against the American invaders killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in massive clashes of armies, at first in the north, near Monterrey, Mexico, and then in the Valley of Mexico. By January 1847, the

The War Between the United States and Mexico 107

U.S. Army, commanded by General Winfield Scott, occupied Mexico City and waited to hear the results of peace negotiations. Pressed by European creditors, lacking money to pay their own troops, wracked by internal rebellion, and fac- ing the occupation of their principal cities, the Mexican government had little choice but to sign a treaty of peace, giving in to the Americans’ territorial demands in exchange for the removal of troops from their homeland. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war, was signed in a town near Mexico City, across the street from the shrine to the patron saint of Mexico, Our Lady of Guadalupe, on February 2, 1848. Among the provisions in the treaty were those specifying the new boundary between the two nations as starting “one marine league due south of the southernmost point of the Port of San Diego” and running east to the Colorado River, then east following the Gila River and an as yet undefined latitude line to the Rio Grande. The Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico now lay within the United States. Articles VIII and IX of the treaty gave assurances regarding the property and citizenship rights of the Mexicans in the newly conquered territories. Article VIII specifically promised to protect the rights of absentee Mexican landholders and to give U.S. citizenship to all Mexicans who wanted it. Article IX promised that Congress would give citizenship “at the proper time” and that the Mexicans “in the meantime shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction.” Finally, the treaty transferred more than 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory to the United States.

The final ratified version of the treaty omitted Article X, which had con- tained stronger language protecting land rights, namely, that “all grants of land

General Andrés Pico, brother of Pío Pico, commanded the Mexican troops at San Pascual. He later signed the Treaty of Cahuenga in 1847 ending the hostilities in California. After the war, he became a successful politician serv- ing the California state Senate in 1859. What does this 1855 portrait reveal about Andrés Pico’s Mexican identity?

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108 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

made by the Mexican government or by the competent authorities, in territo- ries previously appertaining to Mexico ... shall be respected as valid, to the same extent if said territories had remained within the limits of Mexico.” The deletion of this article proved fatal to the future of the Mexican landholders in California. In lieu of the deleted article, the final treaty included the Protocol of Queretaro promising to respect land grant titles, but the United States Supreme Court ultimately invalidated it.

The U.S.-MexicanWar awakened new nationalist impulses withinMexico and eventually produced a reform movement led by Benito Juárez in the 1850s. In the United States, the Mexican cession provoked a new and heated debate over slavery in the newly acquired territories. This played a major role in the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861—the bloodiest conflict in American history.

Within the conquered territories, there were competing visions regarding the future of the territory. The California tribes outnumbered the whites despite the influx of hundreds of American soldiers. Most natives remained unaffected by the war, particularly those living on their traditional homelands away from the settled coastal regions. A few had joined the Americans as scouts and guides during the conflict. Even fewer capitalized on the war to set- tle old grievances against the Mexicans. Native peoples who had become His- panicized and who worked on the ranchos and in the pueblos now found themselves with more aggressive masters, the Americans. Indian laborers were still the backbone of the agricultural and ranching industries, and the new American masters inherited a dependence on this labor force.

The Divided Mind of the Californios

On the eve of the American era, the Spanish-speaking Mexicans in California were divided in their attitudes about their status as Americans. Some, like Mariano Vallejo or Juan Bandini, were optimistic about their future under an American regime that they thought would bring political stability and increased commercial opportunities for all. It was impossible for them to envision how much their traditional way of life would change. For now, they saw what seemed to be a new opportunity for their enrichment. Others, like Pío Pico, who had been allowed to return to California, or Felipa Osuna de Marron in San Diego, viewed the American occupiers with great suspicion. They felt sure that the conquest meant more than just the transfer of political sovereignty, for they were aware of the differences between the two cultures and knew that they could not coexist easily. Finally, there were the young men who had fought against the Americans in various battles or who almost immediately felt the outrages of racism as the Americans took over their houses and lands. Serbulo Varela, leader of the recapture of Los Angeles in 1847, along with Salomon Pico, Juan Flores, and scores of other ex-soldiers, became outlaws rather than submit to the Americans. In subsequent decades, their violent actions in response to the American occupation became the source of legend.

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It soon became apparent to the Californios that the new American masters believed in their own racial and cultural superiority and that they regarded the mestizo landless classes as little better than Indians. The conflicts between these two groups became evident as thousands of new immigrants began flooding northern California, attracted by the discovery of gold near Sacramento.

The Gold Rush

In 1842, Francisco Lopez discovered gold in San Francisquito canyon in south- ern California. For several years, hundreds of gold miners trekked north from Sonora to work the mines there. They scoured the riverbanks in a 20-square- mile area. Mining the deposits depended on water, which diminished in quantity as the number of miners increased. By 1843, about 2000 ounces of gold had been taken out of the canyon. While gold continued to be mined in subsequent years, eventually it played out. This first California Gold Rush paled in comparison to the impact of the discovery of gold on January 24, 1848.

Gold! The Discovery of 1848

James W. Marshall, an employee of John Sutter, was building a sawmill on the American River at a place called Coloma. Sutter had employed about 50 former members of the Mormon Battalion, who had drifted north from San Diego, along with a group of Indian laborers. While they were cutting a ditch to pro- vide water for the mill, Marshall noticed a few gold-colored flecks. He collected them over a four-day period, then hurried to Sutter’s Fort to consult with Sut- ter. Together, they read an encyclopedia entry on gold and performed primitive tests to confirm whether or not it was the precious metal. Sutter concluded that it was, in fact, gold but he was very anxious that the discovery not disrupt his plans for construction and farming. At the same time, he set about gaining legitimate title to as much land near the discovery as possible. Although Sutter sought to keep his discovery a secret, word leaked out when he sent Charles Bennett to Monterey to secure title to the land and its mineral rights. Bennett traveled as far as Benicia, where he bragged about the discovery of gold at a local store. Then, in San Francisco, he confided with acquaintances who had experience in gold mining. Meanwhile, Samuel Brannan, a former Mormon leader who owned a store near Sutter’s Fort, found out that local workers were paying for supplies with small quantities of gold dust. The Mormon workers gave him a tithe in gold and when Brannan returned to San Francisco he publicized the news, running through the streets with a bottle of gold dust in one hand and waving his hat shouting, “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River.” Nevertheless, the importance of this discovery was not imme- diately appreciated. As late as May 1848, San Francisco newspapers were blasé

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about the possibility of a gold field somewhere on the American River. By June, however, the fever caught hold.

Hundreds of Californios and American settlers quit their ranchos and jobs and raced to the new diggings. San Francisco, San José, and Monterey became ghost towns overnight. Stores selling pans, picks, shovels, and other mining implements did a tremendous business, and prices rose accordingly. Luzena Stanley Wilson, who came with her husband and family to the Gold Rush country, remembered selling her freshly made biscuits for five dollars each. Sol- diers, prisoners, politicians, ministers—young and old—all abandoned their families and occupations to set out for the diggings.

As fate would have it, the Mexican government had ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo a few months before the confirmation of a gold strike in California. News of the discovery reached northern Mexico in the summer of 1848, and hundreds of Sonoran miners immediately headed for Alta California. They had experience in gold mining, unlike the Anglo Americans and foreign- ers. In the fall of 1848, roughly 6000 miners, many of them Sonorans, entered California and set up mining camps along the American River. The first

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A grim view of conditions in the California goldfields and a critique of the Polk administration that led the U.S. into war with Mexico.

American miners to arrive knew nothing about gold mining and learned their mining techniques from the Mexicans. At first, life in the diggings was generally orderly and peaceable. Alonzo Delano, one of the so-called 48ers, remembered that at that time “property was safer in California than in the older states.” Bancroft, the publisher and historian from San Francisco, could

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112 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

only find two cases of robbery in all of the mining camps in 1848. But this soon changed.

The Argonauts

News of the gold strike in California rapidly spread, first to Hawai‘i, Oregon, and Utah, and then to South America, Australia, China, the eastern seaboard of the United States, and Europe. By December 1848, President Polk publicly delivered a speech to Congress confirming the gold discovery and interpreting it as a confirmation of God’s favor for the war against Mexico. During 1849, about 100,000 immigrants from all over the world, but especially from the east- ern United States, flooded northern California, forever changing the destiny of the state. Overnight, it seemed, San Francisco was transformed into an interna- tional city, a transfer point for miners and mining supplies. The pastoral life of the Californios in the north declined while the rancheros of the south enjoyed a brief flare of prosperity, as their cattle increased in value with the demand for food from the mining camps and the growing population of the north.

By 1850, fully one-quarter of California’s population was foreign-born; many were Latin American or Mexican. The Gold Rush was an international affair, attracting people from around the world. Chinese immigrants came, mostly after 1849. They were young men from southeastern China—from big cities like Hong Kong and Canton as well as from the countryside. In order to pay for their trip to the “Gold Mountain,” as they called California, these men indentured themselves to Chinese companies that, in turn, sold their labor to Chinese mining operations. Laboring long hours, with very low pay, the Chinese miners were virtual slaves until their debt was repaid, which often took years. By 1852, more than 25,000 Chinese were living in northern California, in the mining camps and in San Francisco.

Two-thirds of the new population attracted to California during the Gold Rush came from the eastern United States and were a multiethnic group of Scottish, French, Irish, German, and British descent. They called themselves the Argonauts, after the mythical Greek adventurers who traveled to the edge of the known world in search of a fabled golden fleece. In 1849 and subsequent years, they came to California by boat and wagon, on horseback, and even on foot, enduring grueling and dangerous passages.

This mass migration to California is one of the most documented popula- tion movements in world history, with hundreds of letters, diaries, and remi- niscences penned along the way and after arrival at the mines. Those who chose to travel by boat had to pick between two routes. One was by ship from New York to Panama, and then by smaller ship up the fever-infested Chagres River, and then by mule over the mountains to the Pacific port of Panama. There they transferred to another ship bound for San Francisco. This voyage could last from two to three months depending on connections. The longest delays were usually on the Pacific side of the Panamanian isthmus,

The Gold Rush 113

where, in the early years, there were rarely enough ships to carry the numbers who thronged the port seeking passage.

The other route to California by sea involved going around Cape Horn, the stormy southern tip of South America. The demand for travel “around the horn” stimulated a boom in the construction of clipper ships. Built for speed, these remarkable vessels were long and thin and carried huge amounts of sail on three tall masts. Accommodations were small and narrow, with ceilings so low that many had to bend over when moving about. One of the most notable clippers was the Flying Cloud, which on its first voyage took only 89 days to sail from New York to San Francisco. Those choosing one of the sea routes had to contend with shipwrecks, shipboard diseases of all kinds, and, if they selected the Panama route, death by yellow fever or malaria.

The overland route was the cheapest way to get to California, costing between $100 and $200. Nevertheless, it was still relatively expensive. (For comparison purposes, the daily wage of a New York City laborer in 1850 was less than one dollar.) Anthony Powers of Green Spring, Wisconsin, borrowed $125 to finance an overland journey to the gold fields. Another group from Monroe, Michigan, collected $2500 to pay for 10 people to make the journey. Though it was the most time-consuming route, it was the one that most of the American migrants chose.

The California immigrants of the 1840s had already blazed several trails, and others had been in use by the Spanish and Mexicans for centuries. The southern route—the Santa Fe Trail—ran from the Missouri River through what is now Kansas, to New Mexico, and then followed the Spanish trail from New Mexico to southern California. This route had the advantage of avoiding the snows of the Sierras. A more direct way was the northern route, the choice of most because it was better known to English speakers due to guidebooks that had been published. An estimated 25,000 immigrants followed the northern route, leaving towns along the Missouri River as soon as the spring grasses were long enough to provide food for their oxen and horses. They followed the Platte River west into what is now southern Wyoming, crossed the Rocky Mountains through a series of passes, and came down in the Great Basin near Salt Lake. From there, they went west to the Humboldt River Valley, across the desert to the Sierras, and, once over those forbidding peaks, to Sacramento. The entire journey from Missouri to California lasted from four to five months, depending on the route selected and the luck they encountered.

The dangers faced by the 49ers going to California on the overland trail included death by cholera and mountain fever and by starvation and dehydra- tion. Very few died from Indian attacks, which were rare. For the most part, the native peoples were content to watch in bemusement as wagon after wagon of “white eyes” drove themselves westward with fanatic zeal, abandoning many of their prized possessions in the process, in order to lighten their load. Milus Gay, an overland Argonaut, described one scene: “Such destruction of property as I saw across the Desert I have never seen. I should think I passed the

114 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

carcasses of 1200 head of cattle and horses and a great many wagons— harnesses—cooking utensils—tools—water casks.... We also saw many men on the point of starvation begging for bread.” The phrase “seeing the elephant” described the excitement of new adventure but also referred to the delusional state that many experienced on the trail.

Once in California the 49ers, as they called themselves, began trying to strike it rich. They labored to separate sand from gold along riverbeds by sloshing gravel in a pan filled with water, knowing that the heavier gold dust settled to the bottom. The miners soon developed more elaborate systems, but all of the techniques still involved washing sand or dirt with water and permitting the heavier gold to settle out. Wooden cradles rocked gravel and water back and forth to separate the gold. Sluices ran a stream of water over a long wooden trough partially filled with gravel. Using such methods, miners took out more than $200 million worth of gold between 1848 and 1852. To put this into per- spective, this amount of gold was roughly equal to the total value of all gold and silver money in circulation in the entire nation at the beginning of the Gold Rush, and is equivalent to almost $2 billion dollars today.

By mid-1850, the most easily available gold was gone. The miners contin- ued to use pans and long toms (sluices), but they found less and less gold to

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As illustrated by this image, even placer mining had negative environmental impacts including water diversion, soil erosion, and the siltation of streambeds.

reward their labor. Some fortune seekers began to return home or to follow the lure of quick riches to new gold strikes elsewhere. Others turned to more elab- orate methods of mining. By one estimate, a typical gold seeker averaged 20 dollars of gold in a day in 1848 but only two dollars’ worth by 1853. As miners moved farther and farther from streams, and as streams diminished in late summer, miners found they had to expend greater efforts diverting water to their claims. By 1855, miners or water companies had built more than 4000 miles of artificial waterways, mostly wooden channels called flumes.

One technique to get more gold was to use water diverted from rivers and streams for hydraulic mining. Reasoning that the gold dust in the riverbeds had washed there from the mountains, gold seekers began to look for gold in the foothills. Rather than digging through tons of soil and gravel over the prehis- toric streambeds, gold seekers began to use water under pressure to blast it away. They developed huge water cannons that could blast away fully grown trees and giant boulders and reduce an entire hillside to bedrock. After bom- bardment by water cannons, sand and gravel were suspended in water and run through sluices, permitting the gold to settle to the bottom and the tailings (small rocks of no value) to flow into nearby rivers. This hydraulic method was far more expensive than placer mining, but by 1870, 22 percent of all gold produced in California was obtained by hydraulic mining.

As thousands and then tens of thousands of gold seekers converged on the Gold Country, they found a region far removed from traditional structures of law or political authority. The military governor was far away, and Mexican political authority had never extended into the foothills of the Sierras. Gold seekers formed their own political authority, first by developing rough guide- lines regarding claims. A gold seeker could pre-empt a likely spot by “staking a claim,” but the consensus was that the claim was valid only if the area it cov- ered could be worked by a single person and only if someone was actually working it. Most mining camps elected someone to arbitrate their differences; this person was often called by the Mexican term, alcalde.

Such people functioned as unofficial justices of the peace, trying wrong- doers and prescribing punishment for crimes. Few such magistrates had much training in the law, if any, and many gained reputations for eccentric decisions or for blatant discrimination against foreigners, Californios, or Indians. If someone were accused of a serious crime, most mining camps carried out a semblance of a jury trial, though usually with little reference to established legal principles. Without sheriffs or jails, sentences for theft were usually either banishment (often with a shaved head), flogging, branding, or mutilation (such as cutting off the thief ’s ears). Murder and horse theft were usually punished by hanging. One of the first such hangings came in January 1849, in a camp thereafter known as Hangtown (later renamed Placerville). Though some pun- ishments resulted from a process much like a jury trial, others were simply a lynching in which a mob, sometimes drunken, acted as judge, jury, and execu- tioner in one.

116 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

Though such rough-and-ready justice may have seemed appropriate in the absence of legally constituted political authority, some mining camps continued in such fashion even when a properly authorized judge or sheriff was present. In 1851, in the town of Sonora, for example, a mob overpowered the sheriff and lynched a self-confessed thief. Soon after, the miners formed a vigilance committee. Unlike a lynch mob, which was by definition spontaneous and poorly organized, a vigilance committee was organized, claimed to represent leading citizens of the community, and justified its existence by claiming that the officials responsible for punishing wrongdoers were either corrupt or incompetent or both. Members of such a committee were called vigilantes. Led by their committee of vigilance, Sonorans banished an American thief and a French counterfeiter, and flogged and banished four Mexicans (two for counterfeiting, one for horse theft, and one for stealing a pistol) and one Aus- tralian (for theft of a mule). Committees of vigilance sprouted in a number of other mining camps in the early and mid-1850s. Lynch mobs also continued to take justice into their own hands. In 1855, for example, in Columbia, a mob took an accused murderer out of the hands of the sheriff and hanged him. Such actions were not limited to mining communities—both Stockton and Sacramento experienced lynchings in 1850.

The new society that was emerging spread outwards from the gold fields of the north, which encompassed an inland area in the San Joaquin Valley, bounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the east, and joined by the rivers that drained into the San Francisco Bay. Hundreds of settlements sprang up overnight with names that reflected their cultural tenor: Hangtown, Placerville, Spanish Diggings, Sonora, and El Dorado (see map on page 112). The town of Sacramento grew up to provide food and supplies to the mining district. Simi- larly, the port city of Stockton, almost 100 miles from the Pacific Ocean but located on the navigable San Joaquin River, grew to feed the new population. San Francisco, of course, owed its sudden urbanization to the Gold Rush migrants and economy. Overnight its population went from a few hundred souls to more than 40,000 in the last months of 1848. Within a short time it would become the cultural and economic capital of the state.

Camp Life

The rough-and-tumble life in the mining camps that sprang up along the banks of the rivers in northern and central California challenged the morals and stan- dards of living that many miners brought with them from the east. Boredom and homesickness typified the early months in the camps, as the miners began to miss the creature and family comforts of home. Edmund Booth of Iowa wrote in 1850 that “Cal. is a world upside down—nothing like home comforts and home joys.” He was referring to the fact that in the gold fields the normal relations between genders, races, and classes were all mixed up: Indians, Afri- cans, and Mexicans shared tents, food, and amusements with Australians,

The Gold Rush 117

Frenchmen, and Yankees. Men did the cooking and washing, and the bound- aries between respectable women and prostitutes seemed irrelevant. Men who had never cooked or done domestic work before found themselves planning their menus around trips to the distant store. They worried about infestations of lice and fleas and feared diseases such as scurvy and dysentery. New Yorker Howard Gardiner recalled that he and his fellow miners “lived more like pigs than human beings.” Those few miners who were fortunate to have a woman in their dwelling bragged to the others about their food and comfort.

To relieve the monotony of camp life, the miners created leisure activities that they might have avoided back home. Sometimes it seemed that everyone was eager to, in the words of Charles Davis, “join the ranks of Satan and spend their Sabbaths with little or no restraint.” Leisure activities associated with sex, liquor, gambling, and other amusements filled the gaps in miners’ lives. In these activities—in the fandango hall, the bordello, and the saloon—the mixture of races and classes pre- vailed. Gold Rush diaries describe the moral anguish miners felt, mostly after the fact, of drunken sprees and of sexual adventures with Indians and prostitutes. In the southern mines where the Latin Americans and Frenchmen worked, the min- ing camps had a more normal balance of the sexes and morals. Yankees from the northern mines frequently went south for a visit just to see women dancing. Other Sunday amusements included bull and bear fighting, where the two animals were chained together and prodded to fight to the death. Most mining camps had arenas built to accommodate the crowds who assembled for the blood sport. Occasionally, bullfighting took place when a brave individual ventured into the ring. In Sonora Camp, Enos Christian recalled seeing a female matador who turned out to be a man dressed as a woman for the amusement of the crowd.

A few sought out the comforts of religion, although churches were few and far between. In the southern mines, rude Catholic churches sprang up in which a diversity of nationalities and classes gathered. For the Protestant miners, the occasional preacher and denominational church provided the chance to share the Christian gospel and, perhaps, view a member of the opposite sex.

Historian Susan Lee Johnson called the Gold Rush the “most demographi- cally male event in human history.” By 1850, California men outnumbered women by more than 10 to one. Two years later, the ratio fell to seven to one and by 1860 it was two to one. It was not until the turn of the century that a balance between the sexes was achieved. The first women to live and work in the mining camps were California Indians who worked as prostitutes or held other jobs in the saloons and temporary brothels that sprang up. They were followed by Sonoran Mexicans such as Rosa Feliz, companion of the legendary Joaquín Murrieta, or Latin Americans such as Chilean Rosario Améstica, a prostitute who sailed north with a shipload of men. Some women were refor- mers. Elizabeth Gunn, who was married to the editor of the Sonora Herald, wrote home about the evils of the fandango and prostitution, and soon her husband’s paper published criticisms along those lines. Lorena Hays wrote and published under the pen name Lenita, to criticize the immorality of the

118 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

mining camps, even while identifying with the Mexican and Chilean miners. Wives and prostitutes thus were uneasy companions in the mining camps. Sin- gle entrepreneurial women also found their niche. Gold dust acted as a lure to women such as Rose Cartier, a Frenchwoman who owned a saloon in the min- ing camp of Sonora, where she employed other women who had emigrated from France and Europe.

Married women who traveled to the gold towns and settlements with their husbands endured many hardships and sufferings. Mrs. John Berry arrived in the camps in 1849 with her husband and lived in a wagon and then a tent through the cold, wet winter. She wrote: “The rains set in in early November, and continued with little interruption until the latter part of March.... Sometimes on a morning I would come out of the wagon (that is & has been our bedroom ever since we left the States) & find my utensils lying in all directions, fire out & it pouring down. . . .” Women tried to set up house- keeping among the dirt, fleas, dust, cold, and wet. Louisa Clappe came to California with her husband in 1850 and then traveled to the mines with him and wrote a series of 23 letters to her sister, which she signed “Dame Shirley.” These “Shirley Letters” were published serially in 1854 and again in 1933 and are perhaps the most vivid and detailed firsthand description of women’s daily life in the diggings. She wrote of the log cabin that they called home and of the few other women who lived nearby. Her detailed observations of the people she met and the mining camps are a classic in Gold Rush literature. Through it all, Louisa remained indefatigable and optimistic. Sometime in 1852 she wrote, “My heart is heavy at the thought of departing forever from this place. I like this wild and barbarous life; I leave it with regret.”

A characteristic of the gold camps noted by Dame Shirley was the tolera- tion of prostitutes, which she termed “compassionated creatures.” Most of the men of the Gold Rush were white men and most of the prostitutes were Mex- ican, Chinese, Chilean, or Indian. Historian Al Hurtado found that more than three-fourths of the prostitutes in Sacramento were women of color and more than half of them were Chinese. The southern mines, especially, had a multiracial, multinational female population including African Americans and Indians.

One of the most infamous tragedies of the Gold Rush era was the hanging in 1851 of Josefa, the only woman ever lynched in California. Josefa, also known as Juanita (her last name is not known), lived in Downieville with her boyfriend, José, a Mexican gambler. During the night of a Fourth of July celebration, a miner named Fred Cannon drunkenly fell into the couple’s humble shack and broke the door. The following day, when José and Juanita demanded payment for the damage, an argument ensued and Cannon called Josefa a prostitute. Soon after, in a rage, she killed him with a bowie knife. That afternoon, a mob assembled demanding that she be hanged and voting to execute her at four o’clock. Before she died, Josefa calmly arranged the noose around her neck so that it would not tangle her hair and coolly told the assembled rabble that she would do it all over again. She had defended her honor. Cannon had called her a prostitute.

The Gold Rush 119

Women worked for high wages doing domestic chores for the miners, including cooking, sewing, and laundry. Other women owned and operated stores, restaurants, saloons, and gambling and boarding houses. Some unmar- ried women lived with miners in an attempt to avoid the violence and insecu- rity that was a constant fact of female life. But respectable women did not stay unmarried for very long. And those who came to the mines as married women were under great temptation to find new husbands among the wealthy, or to seek less abusive, more attentive mates.

Because of the scarcity of women, divorce statutes drafted by the California legislature were more liberal than elsewhere. Divorce became more common for women than for men and, beginning in the 1880s, California led all other states in the proportion of divorced to married couples.

Nativism and Racism

One of the negative legacies of the Gold Rush was the wave of anti-foreign senti- ment that emerged, directed especially toward non-European immigrants. The Latin Americans, especially the Peruvians, Chileans, and Mexicans, along with the French and Chinese, became favorite targets of political agitation and vio- lence in California. Most Mexican and Latin American miners established them- selves in the southern mines, including the California counties south of the Sacramento River. Most of the anti-Mexican violence occurred here. Mexican, Californio, and Latin American miners helped teach the newly arrived Americans how to extract the metal from streambeds and ore deposits. But the gratitude they received for these lessons was short-lived. Resentments about the pre- sence of these foreigners soon erupted into violence, especially in 1849, when the Americans arrived in larger numbers. Americans were angry that many of the best claims had been staked out already by the “Sonorans,” as they called all Mexican miners. The fact that many of the mining towns, like Sonora, Hornitos, and Stockton, had become multilingual in business dealings grated on the English-speaking Americans, who regarded this development as unpatriotic. On July 4, 1849, acts of violence broke out against the foreigners, beginning with attacks on Chilean merchants and neighborhoods in San Francisco and then spreading to the mining camps. In the camps near Stockton, Yankee miners ousted the Chileans by creating an impromptu code of laws forbidding foreigners from mining. Intimidation and violence followed, and the Anglos confiscated the Chileans’ property and sold it at public auction. In November 1849, a vigilante group attacked Mexican miners along the Calaveras River, ousted them from their claims, and “fined” each miner an ounce of gold. A few days later, 16 Chileans were rounded up and accused of murder. They were given a summary trial, and then three were lynched. Similar acts of violence occurred throughout the diggings during the first few years of the Gold Rush.

Many native-born Mexican Americans, who were now citizens of the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, fell victim to these anti-foreign prejudices and laws. One estimate places about 1300

120 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

Californios (formerly Mexican citizens, now U.S. citizens) in the gold regions in 1848, with a similar number returning in 1849. In 1849, the military gover- nor of California, General Persifor Smith, responded to nativist fears that for- eigners were taking all of the gold out of the mining regions. He announced his “trespass” orders, prohibiting non-citizens from mining gold on public prop- erty. He appealed to Americans to help him enforce his policy. Using this order as a pretext and with some protection from the military, Anglo American miners robbed and harassed foreigners. After one riot, French immigrant miners were driven from the gold camps. Irish and Australians became targets of vigilante violence in San Francisco and elsewhere in the diggings. Chinese miners attracted more and more attention by nativists and many were driven out of the gold camps by late 1851.

In April 1850, the California legislature responded to the pressure from the 49ers and passed the Foreign Miner’s Tax, which required all non-U.S. citizens to pay a tax for the privilege of mining gold. The cost was $20 per month—an amount so high as to be prohibitive to all but the most successful. The law applied to all non-citizens, but tax collectors enforced it most consistently for miners whose language or race made them distinctive—Chinese and Latin Americans especially, but also the French and Germans. The tax was repealed the next year, due partly to complaints by gold country merchants that it was destroying their businesses. In 1852, the legislature passed a new Foreign Miner’s Tax of four dollars per month, later changed to three dollars. Another amendment, in 1855, exempted from the tax all those who declared their inten- tion to become citizens. This meant that the tax was limited almost entirely to Chinese miners, because they alone could not qualify for an exemption— California’s constitution limited citizenship to whites only. Until a law in 1870 voided the tax, it provided a major source of state revenue. Of the $5 million collected over 20 years through this tax, Chinese miners paid an estimated $4.9 million. Leaders of the Chinese community voiced their opposition to these discriminatory laws and others that were proposed, but as non-citizens they had little political influence in Sacramento. Nevertheless, members of the Chinese community protested by writing letters to the governor and to San Francisco’s newspapers. They also hired a lobbyist, a Presbyterian minister named A.W. Loomis, to fight against discriminatory laws, in particular the one restricting their testimony in court. By hiring lawyers and collectively funding court challenges, the Chinese won court victories challenging the Foreign Miner’s Tax and other prejudicial laws.

The Legendary Life of Joaquín Murrieta

One of California’s first folk legends was Joaquín Murrieta, a person whose life is a subject of controversy, speculation, and myth. According to the story, Mur- rieta was a Sonoran miner in Murphy’s Camp whose brother was lynched and whose wife was raped and murdered. What followed was Joaquín’s war of revenge against the Americanos. For a year, Joaquín and a band of Mexicanos

The Gold Rush 121

and Californios terrorized the state. As a result, the state of California created the California Rangers, a special mounted police force, modeled on the Texas Rangers. The state government placed a price of $1000 on Murrieta’s head.

In 1851, after several months of searching the foothills for Murrieta, Captain Harry Love and the Rangers surprised a group of Mexican vaqueros in Cantua Canyon. The Rangers killed several Mexicans, and Captain Love claimed that one of them was Joaquín. To prove his claim, he chopped off Murrieta’s head and brought it back for identification. Even though Love gath- ered a number of testimonials certifying that the head was indeed Joaquín’s, some doubted that Murrieta had been killed. To this day, many believe that Joaquín escaped and returned to his home in Sonora, Mexico.

Thus, Joaquín Murrieta became one of California’s first legendary figures. The first fictional interpretation of his life, based on some historical fact, was The Life and Adventures of the Celebrated Bandit Joaquín Murrieta, by John Rollins Ridge, published in 1854. Ridge was a Cherokee Indian whose native name was Yellow Bird. In Ridge’s hands, Joaquín became a vicarious avenger, a Robin Hood of the Sierra. Joaquín’s adventures soon reappeared in other novels and histories and rapidly became an international legend. As late as the 1960s, Joaquín Murrieta’s story was an inspiration for resistance against American cultural and economic control. In revolutionary Cuba and Commu- nist Russia, Murrieta appeared in textbooks and in life-size statues as an exam- ple of the revolt of the Third World against imperialism. The world-famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda composed an epic poem in which Murrieta was a Chilean who stood for the struggle of all Latin American people to be free of North American hegemony. At the same time, however, Anglo American nove- lists, history buffs, and some academics treated Murrieta as an overly romanti- cized, bloodthirsty, bandit-murderer, or as a fictitious character whose life is more properly a topic of literary study. This contradictory and ambiguous leg- acy springs from Gold Rush California.

California Transformed

The military conquest of California took less than six months but the social, economic, and cultural conquest was propelled by the Gold Rush and the sub- sequent economic development of the state. The cultural and social conquest of California’s oldest inhabitants continued over several decades as the newcomers asserted their dominance over the people and the land.

Conquest of the Californios

The Californio landholders also paid a price for the development of California during the Gold Rush. In 1846, roughly 10,000 Mexicans, includ- ing Hispanicized Indians, lived in California. Within a few years, they were

122 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of newcomers, most of whom had little love for dark-skinned peoples with their strange language and culture. The Californios swiftly lost control of the courts and the government and soon their land.

Within a generation, the Mexican Californians lost political influence and became an impoverished minority, victimized by racist attitudes and laws. In 1855, for example, the state legislature passed laws to control the Mexican pop- ulation. A Sunday Law imposed fines ranging from $50 to $500 for engaging in “barbarous or noisy amusements,” which were listed as bullfights, cockfights, horseraces, and other traditional Californio amusements. At the same time, they passed what was widely called “The Greaser Law” to fine and jail unem- ployed Mexicans who were considered vagrants.

Conquest of the Indians

The modernization of California’s economy came at a cost, largely borne by the native and Mexican peoples, whose way of life was seen by the new immi- grants as standing in the way of progress. The California Indians, who had been subject to the Spanish and Mexican attempts to change them, now fell victim to the new immigrants, most of whom thought of Indians as laborers, obstacles to settlement, or dangerous savages. During the early years of the Gold Rush, retaliatory massacres occurred when Indians occasionally killed whites—even though such killings may have been provoked by outrages against Indians. At Clear Lake in northern California in 1849, for example, 135 Indians were killed in retaliation for the killing of two white men who had enslaved local Pomo Indians. Indian massacres took place sometimes just because the Indians were living in the vicinity. In 1850, more than 60 Humboldt Indians—men, women, and children—were killed as they slept in their village because they occupied property thought to be rich with gold. The state legislature appropriated millions in funds to pay for militia operations against Indians.

When the Indians fought back, their resistance was termed “war” by the American settlers. In 1851, the so-called Mariposa War resulted when the Indians of this northern California band fought to preserve their land and suc- ceeded in defeating the local militia until reinforcements arrived from outside the region. During that conflict, American settlers first entered Yosemite Valley when they pursued the Indians into their stronghold. That same year, a rebel- lion broke out in southern California. This uprising was the result of an alli- ance between several Indian bands, perhaps protesting the American taxation of their lands and resenting the treatment of the Cupeño Indians by Juan José Warner. Their leader was Antonio Garra, an ex-neophyte Indian who sought an alliance with disaffected Californios. The Californios did not support his rebellion, however, and the state militia captured Garra with the help of rival Indian bands. He and six of his associates were tried and executed.

California Transformed 123

Economic Transformation

Without a doubt, the Gold Rush was one of the great turning points in Cali- fornia’s history, redefining the demographic, economic, and social future of the state. The lure of precious metal drew hundreds of thousands of immigrants to California and assured the rapid domination of the English-speaking peoples. By 1850, the population of California exceeded 150,000, allowing the territory to apply for admission as a state. California gold helped finance the north in the U.S. Civil War, stimulated the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, and encouraged the rapid agricultural and commercial development of the state. It is estimated that in the 25 years following the discovery at Coloma, miners extracted more than one billion dollars’ worth of gold from the mines—the equivalent of more than $100 billion at the end of the 20th century.

The mining industry stimulated demand for food and materials, which in turn stimulated home industry and the creation of new cities and towns. Sacra- mento and Stockton owed their creation to the Gold Rush, and San Francisco became a major international metropolis. The newcomers and their exuberance created a boom mentality within the state. The expectation of quick riches, opulent displays of wealth, a fluid and open society, and colorful and eccentric individuals all became early hallmarks of California’s American era. California became the western leader in banking, agriculture, stock raising, industrial development, and trade—a lead that has lengthened over the decades.

The Golden State

During the hectic first two years of the Gold Rush, the military governed California, but the American residents protested this situation and held mass meetings to demand that a civil government be organized. Bowing to public pressure, military governor General Bennett Riley issued a proclamation calling for the election of delegates from 10 districts. These delegates were to assemble in Monterey on September 1, 1849, to work on constructing a state government for California. They were elected by popular vote on August 1, 1849. The result was a group as diverse as the territory. Of the 48 men who assembled in Colton Hall that fall, eight of them were native Californios, six were foreign-born European immigrants, and 13 had been living in California less than a year. Deliberations were in English, with translators available for the Spanish- speaking delegates. Votes on many of the issues split along north-south lines. The southern delegates wanted territorial status or, if that were not possible, to split California in two. They lost on both counts. The delegates were unani- mous in wanting to exclude slavery from California and also to exclude free African Americans from the state. Many ex-slaves feared the threat of having to work as indentured servants in the mines. Finally, the provision specifically excluding them was deleted in order to get Congress to speedily approve

124 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

statehood. In dealing with this issue, delegates relied on the precedence of free states in the east.

With regard to citizenship rights, native Californios were aware that many Mexican Californios who looked like Indians faced the prospect of racial discrimination. Ultimately, they argued for the protection of their peo- ple even though it meant endorsing the racist views of their Anglo colleagues toward Indians and persons of African descent. Mexico had granted citizen- ship to “civilized” Indians and to blacks, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo clearly stated that former Mexican citizens were to be given the opportunity to become citizens of the United States. Following the biases of the time, the framers of the state constitution sought wording that would exclude African Americans and Indians while including Mexicans. Eventu- ally, the first section of the state constitution limited the suffrage to “every white, male citizen of Mexico who shall have elected to become a citizen of the United States.” The convention agreed that Indians and African Ameri- cans might at some future date be given the franchise but that, because voting was not an absolute right of citizenship, they could be excluded. The consti-tution left open the question of Indian citizenship, stating that “nothing herein contained, shall be construed to prevent the Legislature, by a two-thirds concurrent vote, from admitting to the right of suffrage, Indians or the descendants of Indians. . . .”

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This Bear Flag was designed by William Todd, one of the original Bear Flaggers and part of the group of Americans who took over Sonoma on June 14, 1846. The star was in imitation of the Texas lone star. The original was destroyed in the San Francisco fire of 1906. What is the significance of its similarity with the present-day flag?

Ultimately the Mexican Californios became full-fledged citizens, at least in theory, when the Congress of the United States admitted California as a state in 1850. Under the provisions of the treaty, those who did not want to become U.S. citizens had a year to declare this intention; they were also free to go to Mexico. No one knows how many Mexican Californios returned, but during the early 1850s there were several colonization expeditions that went south and settled in Sonora and Baja California.

Of course, the main issue in California was possession of the land, but the proposed constitution was silent in this regard. The former Mexican citizens had to trust their fate to the courts and their interpretation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. As Chapter 5 explains, their trust was quickly betrayed, as the U.S. government established complicated and lengthy procedures for verifying legitimate title to the land. Thus, most Californios had to mortgage or sell their lands to pay for litigation costs. Within a generation, most of the Californio rancheros joined the impoverished ranks of their former vaqueros.

The Constitutional Convention also debated where to set the eastern bound- ary of the state. Mexican maps had never specified an eastern boundary, and some argued that California included the present states of Nevada and Utah. The southern delegates argued that this territory would be too difficult to admin- ister and might prevent ratification by Congress. The final agreement established the present eastern boundary, roughly following the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Several sections in the state constitution showed Mexican influence. One provision, for example, required that all laws be published in both Spanish and English, in recognition of the Mexican minority. California also adopted the concept of community property, wherein married women had joint ownership of property along with their husband, as they had under Mexican laws. Mariano Vallejo, one of the Californio delegates, protested that the state flag and seal should not show a grizzly bear, a reminder of the Bear Flag Rebellion and his own personal humiliation, but his objections did not win a sympathetic hearing.

California’s constitution was accepted by the U.S. Congress after a lengthy debate that resulted in the Compromise of 1850. The state government that was established by the admission of California on September 9, 1850, promised to bring some degree of law and order to the politically ambiguous situation created by military government, but the lawlessness engendered by the Gold Rush continued in many areas.

Summary

The U.S.-Mexican War in 1846 marked the end of the Mexican era of Califor- nia’s history. This conflict produced notable military resistance and while some died to prevent the American takeover, others welcomed the change of sover- eignty. They had hopes that their economic prosperity and political liberties

126 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

would be secure under the American constitution and guarantees of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. These hopes would soon give way to the realities of massive immigration of Americans into California during the Gold Rush.

The Gold Rush influenced the fortunes of millions of men and women, from the lowly miners who never struck it rich and who abandoned their fam- ilies back east, to the fabulously wealthy entrepreneurs such as William Ral- ston, George Hearst, and Leland Stanford, who helped shape the economic future of the state. The Gold Rush changed the world’s supply of gold so dras- tically that silver quickly became devalued as a currency and the gold standard became the norm of industrialized countries into the 20th century. As can be surmised by the history of this period, the Gold Rush inaugurated a large-scale exploitation of the natural environment in America. As forests were devastated, rivers polluted, and mountains leveled, Americans were slow to realize that they were ravaging a non-renewable resource. This realization did not come until the last part of the following century. Contemporary historians believe that the Gold Rush was important primarily because of its consequences for families and social values. The tens of thousands of Anglo Americans who left their families in the east created broken homes and, for many, broken lives when their husbands did not return or came back beaten and impover- ished. In California, the Gold Rush had a mixed effect on morality. For some, it reinforced values of hard work, democracy, and community. For others, it created a “get rich quick” mentality of speculation, lawlessness, and isolation. For the Indians, the Mexicans, and the Chinese, the Gold Rush created an inhospitable society that had to be negotiated with great care.

Ultimately, the U.S.-Mexican War and the California Gold Rush were watershed events, not only in the development of the West but in the history of the United States more generally. Coming together, they shaped the future of the nation and created new directions for California. New economic forces and the blending of cultures and peoples begun in these years provided the dynamic energies that would have a worldwide influence.

Suggested Readings

❚ Griswold del Castillo, Richard, “ Joaquín Murrieta: Life and Legend,” in With Badges and Bullets: Lawmen and Outlaws in the Old West, Richard Etulain and Glenda Riley, eds. (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Press, 1999), pp. 106–123. A review of the many conflicting sources of the Murrieta story, along with the legend’s contemporary meanings.

❚ Griswold del Castillo, Richard, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990). The best single-volume study of the political and international importance of the treaty that ended the war with Mexico.

Suggested Readings 127

❚ Harlow, Neal, California Conquered: War and Peace on the Pacific, 1846–1850 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1982). The best single source for studying the U.S.-Mexican War in California.

❚ Johnson, Susan Lee, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000). An excellent source for under- standing the lives of women during the Gold Rush.

❚ Robinson, Alfred, Life in California During a Residence of Several Years in That Territory (New York: Da Capo Press, 1969). A firsthand account of Californio life before the conquest, written by a sympathetic participant.

❚ Rohrbough, Malcolm I., Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1969). A very thorough study of the social and cultural effect of the Gold Rush on the Anglo American migrants.

❚ Sanchez, Rosaura, Telling Identities: The Californio Testimonios (Minneapo- lis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). An analysis of the oral histories of the Californios gathered by Hubert Howe Bancroft in the 19th century.

❚ Starr, Kevin, Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). A sweeping cultural history of this important era written by the official state historian.

128 CHAPTER 4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American Era Begins, 1845–1855

CH AP

TE R 5

California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

Main Topics

❚ Crisis and Conflict in the 1850s

❚ Californians and the Crisis of the Union

❚ Economic Growth in a Time of National Crisis

❚ New Social and Cultural Patterns

❚ Summary

In 1857, Charles Stovall arrived in California from Missis- sippi. Archy Lee, a slave who belonged to Stovall’s father, was with him. Upon arriving in Sacramento, Stovall fol-

lowed the Southern practice of hiring out Lee to work for others, and he took a job himself. California’s state constitu- tion prohibited slavery, however, and by 1857 Californians who opposed slavery, black and white alike, had become prac- ticed in freeing slaves in their state. When Stovall learned of this, he tried to send Lee back to Mississippi, but Lee asserted his freedom and hid in a hotel run by an African American family. Stovall then had him arrested as a fugitive slave. Sev- eral white abolitionist lawyers defended Lee. When the judge ordered Lee released, Stovall had him rearrested on a new warrant, issued by David Terry, a state supreme court justice known to support slavery. In an astounding decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that, because Stovall had been ignorant of the law regarding slavery in California, he

129

should not be penalized by the loss of his father’s slave. The court ordered Lee to return to Mississippi with Stovall.

When the two arrived in San Francisco en route to Missis- sippi, black and white abolitionists were prepared. They had Lee arrested to keep him in the state, and they accused Sto- vall of holding a slave illegally. San Francisco’s small African American community sought funds throughout the state,

CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the

Union, 1850–1870

1848 Discovery of gold

1850 California becomes a state

1851 Vigilantes take control in San Francisco

1852–56 Adjudication of claims to land granted by Spain or Mexico

1856 Vigilantes again take control in San Francisco

1859 Senator David Broderick killed in a duel

1861–65 Civil War

1862 Pacific Railroad Act

1869 Joining of Central Pacific and Union Pacific tracks at Promontory Summit, Utah

This woodcut is from the cover of a book about Archy Lee, by Rudolph Lapp, published in 1969. There is, apparently, no photograph of Archy Lee. Why do you think that is?

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alerting opponents of slavery to the case. Some of the most prominent Republican lawyers in the state, led by Edward D. Baker, represented Lee in his third court hearing. They pointed out the absurdities in the supreme court’s ruling and secured a new ruling that Lee was a free man. Stovall, too, was prepared, however, and a federal marshal arrested Lee for violating the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Lee went to trial a fourth time, now before a federal commissioner who had come from the South and was presumably pro-slavery. Crowds of whites and blacks argued over the case on the streets as sidewalk orators harangued the crowds. Lee’s law- yers, led by Baker, argued that the 1850 law applied only to slaves who fled from a slave state into a free state, pointed out that Lee had been brought into California with his owner’s permission, and concluded that no federal law had been vio- lated. The commissioner agreed and set Lee free. Soon after, Lee moved to British Columbia, out of the jurisdiction of American law. The experience of Archy Lee dramatically indi- cates that California, separated by a continent from the center of the controversy over slavery, could not escape the political crisis that slavery engendered in the 1850s.

In 1850, however, the delegates who sat in Colton Hall writing a constitution for the new state of California were sepa- rated by a distance of some 1,500 miles from the nearest state. They probably had no idea that their request for statehood would contribute significantly to the emerging national crisis. Yet a crisis had long been approaching and was now hastened by the annexation of Texas and the territories acquired under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. California’s application for statehood compounded that crisis. Many sought to stem the conflict but failed, as the sectional crisis over the extension of slavery into federal territory grew to include the institution of slavery everywhere and eventually raised fundamental questions about the nature of the Union and the meaning of American cit- izenship. The crisis escalated to civil war, and the war brought the abolition of slavery, the redefinition of American citizen- ship, and the transformation of the federal Union. Though far removed geographically from the debates in Congress and the battlefields of war, California figured significantly in the crisis of the Union, and that crisis brought important changes to Cali- fornia. In 1850, California seemed to be separated by vast dis- tances of unsettled territory from the rest of the United States. Over the next 20 years, California came to be bound much more tightly into the federal Union. At the same time, the state was rapidly changing from a booming mining frontier to an econom- ically and socially diverse society.

CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870 131

Questions to Consider

❚ How did national political issues affect the new state of California?

❚ How did federal policy affect Californios and California Indians?

❚ How did sectional issues, especially slavery, affect Cali- fornians in the 1850s?

❚ What changes came to California as a result of the Civil War?

❚ How did the state’s economy change in the 1850s and 1860s?

❚ What role did the federal government play in the devel- opment of improved transportation between California and the eastern United States?

❚ What was the relation between socially defined gender roles and the creation of new social institutions in the 1850s and 1860s?

❚ Why did California acquire a reputation for religious toleration?

❚ How did Californians influence national literary development?

Crisis and Conflict in the 1850s

The new state was born in the midst of crisis and conflict—a national political crisis over slavery, a local crisis of political legitimacy, and conflicts within the state over land, labor, race, and ethnicity.

California Statehood and the Compromise of 1850

Some Americans who opposed the extension of slavery saw the annexation of Texas (1845), the war with Mexico (1846–48), and the acquisition of vast new territory under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) as part of a slave- holders’ conspiracy to expand slavery. From the Missouri Compromise (1820) onward, new states had entered the Union in pairs—one state that banned slav- ery along with one state that permitted it—so that the numbers of slave states and free states remained equal. Similarly, from the Missouri Compromise onward, slavery had been banned from all of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of 36°30’ north latitude (the southern boundary of Missouri). This seemed to cut off any expansion of slavery because nearly all remaining unor- ganized territory lay north of 36°30’. Opponents of slavery feared that

132 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

annexation of Texas and the acquisition of territories from Mexico might open new regions to slavery. When Californians requested entry into the Union as a free state, there was no prospect of a slave state being admitted to maintain the balance between free states and slave states in the Senate. Defenders of slavery took alarm, and some prepared to fight against California statehood.

Once the constitutional convention (see Chapter 4) completed its work, California voters approved the new constitution and elected state officials. The legislature met and, amidst other business, elected John C. Frémont and William Gwin to the United States Senate (senators were elected by state legis- latures at that time). Frémont and Gwin, along with newly elected members of the House of Representatives, hurried to Washington to press for statehood and to take their congressional seats once that occurred. They found a raging controversy centered in the Senate. Some of the most powerful political leaders of the first half of the century participated in the debate, including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun.

In the end, a relative newcomer to Congress, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, cobbled together a complex compromise based on Clay’s proposals. In addition to California statehood, the Compromise of 1850 included separate laws that created territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah, pledged federal authority to return escaped slaves from the North, and abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Most southerners opposed California statehood and abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Most northerners voted against the Fugitive Slave Law and territorial status for Utah. All the bills passed, but only because several moderates, led by Douglas, joined sometimes the northerners and sometimes the southerners to create a majority. California became the 31st state, but the Compromise of 1850 failed to ease sectional tensions.

San Francisco’s Crisis of Political Legitimacy: Vigilantism in the 1850s

During the 1850s, California experienced a crisis of its own, a crisis of political legitimacy. Political legitimacy in a republic means that a very large majority of the population agrees that the properly elected and appointed governmental officials should exercise the authority specified for them by law. Paying taxes, obeying laws, participating in elections, and accepting a judge’s decision are all ways in which individuals denote their acceptance of the political legitimacy of their government. During the 1850s, however, the United States faced a crisis of political legitimacy as abolitionists denied the legitimacy of laws protecting slavery, and defenders of slavery denied that the government had constitutional authority to ban or limit slavery. California in the 1850s also faced a crisis of political legitimacy, as many Californians denied the authority of governmental officials and instead took the law into their own hands. This happened in the gold-mining regions when vigilantes acted as judge, jury, and executioner. But

Crisis and Conflict in the 1850s 133

remote mining camps were not the only places where Californians spurned law enforcement officials and turned to vigilantism. San Francisco, the largest American city west of St. Louis, also experienced vigilante versions of justice.

From the raising of the American flag in July 1846 until the first legislature after statehood, San Francisco functioned largely under its Mexican governmen- tal structures. The alcalde (mayor) possessed wide powers, both judicial and administrative. Nonetheless, many San Franciscans felt that the city’s rapid growth had not been accompanied by corresponding growth in the protection of life and property. In 1849, Sam Brannan and other businessmen formed a citizens’ group to suppress ruffians, known as “Hounds.” The citizens’ group— more than 200 strong—sought out and held some Hounds for trial before a spe- cial tribunal consisting of the alcalde and two special judges. This tribunal con- victed nine men and, because there was no jail, banished them. This procedure did not circumvent the established authorities—the alcalde was centrally involved—but it was a step toward vigilantism as businessmen took the lead in apprehending those they considered the most flagrant wrongdoers.

The first session of the state legislature created a city government for San Francisco, and the city acquired a full range of public officials to enforce the law and dispense justice; however, a series of robberies, burglaries, and arson fires increased San Franciscans’ anxiety over the city’s growing number of Aus- tralians, who were often stereotyped as former convicts. A group of merchants and ship captains, led by Sam Brannan, formed the Committee of Vigilance. Almost immediately, they were presented with an accused burglar—an Austra- lian, purportedly a former convict. Committee members constituted themselves as an impromptu court, convicted the accused man, and—despite rescue efforts by public officials—hanged him. Then, claiming support from 500 leading mer- chants and businessmen, the Committee of Vigilance seized more accused criminals, turned some of them over to the legally constituted authorities, ban- ished others, whipped one, and hanged three more, all Australians. The vigi- lantes could not imprison their victims because the jail was controlled by the legally constituted authorities, whom the vigilantes were ignoring or openly flaunting. The committee functioned from June to September, although it drew opposition from most lawyers, public officials, and political figures.

The fullest development of vigilantism came in 1856, when Charles Cora, a gambler, killed William Richardson, a U.S. marshal. Soon after, James Casey, a member of the board of supervisors, shot and killed a popular newspaper editor, who had revealed that Casey had a criminal record in New York and had also announced in his newspaper that he was always armed. Casey claimed self- defense. The Committee of Vigilance was revived with William T. Coleman, a leading merchant, as its president. After hanging Cora and Casey, the commit- tee constituted itself as the civil authority in the city and established a force of nearly 6000 well-armed men, drawn mostly from the city’s merchants and busi- nessmen. They hanged two more men and banished about 20. The committee provoked a well-organized opposition that included the mayor, the sheriff, head

134 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

of the state militia (William T. Sherman), chief justice of the state (David Terry), and other prominent political figures, most of them Democrats. The governor, 30-year-old J. Neely Johnson, tried to reestablish the power of law, but the vigilantes simply ignored him. They eventually established a political party and yielded power only after elections in which their candidates won convincing victories. This party and its successors (under various names and with shifting patterns of organization) dominated city politics for most of the next 20 years, institutionalizing government by merchants and businessmen.

California’s experience with lynching and vigilantism in the 1850s came at a violent time in the nation’s history. Many male Californians routinely armed themselves when in public. An observer noted that more than half the mem- bers of the first session of the legislature, in 1850, “appeared in the legislative halls with revolvers and bowie knives fastened to their belts.” Chief Justice Terry carried both a gun and a bowie knife. San Francisco experienced 16 mur- ders in 1850 and 15 in 1851, not counting the men hanged by the vigilantes—a murder rate of between 50 and 60 per 100,000 inhabitants. (There is little

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Crisis and Conflict in the 1850s 135

James King of William, the popular San Francisco newspaper editor who was murdered by James Casey.

comparative data from other American cities for the 1850s: Boston had seven arrests for murder per 100,000 inhabitants in the late 1850s, and Philadelphia averaged four indictments for murder per 100,000 inhabitants in the mid- 1850s. San Francisco’s homicide rate was less than six per 100,000 in 2010.)

The violence of the era provides a necessary context for understanding the lynchings and vigilantism. Even so, the question remains: Are the vigilantes best understood as outraged citizens taking matters into their own hands and cleansing their community, or as an organized effort to overthrow the legally constituted authorities? Josiah Royce, an early historian writing in 1886, called the events of 1856 “a businessmen’s revolution”—that is, he considered it an illegal action in defiance of the law. Nearly all subsequent historians have agreed that action outside the law was unnecessary and that the businessmen who made up the Committee of Vigilance scarcely pursued—much less exhausted—legal courses of action. They were too preoccupied with business to bother with politics, and then, when they took action, they took a shortcut. Nonetheless, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most popular accounts of the vigilantes glorified them, treating them as saviors of the city. And, from 1856 until at least the 1930s, in times of community crisis, there were usually some who invoked the spirit of the vigilantes and urged extralegal action.

Violence and Displacement: California Indians in the 1850s

For most California Indians, the 1850s and 1860s were years of stark tragedy. Of the estimated 150,000 Native Americans in California in 1848, only 31,000 remained by 1860, after 12 years of the Gold Rush and a decade of statehood. Even so, the censuses of 1860 and 1870 showed California with the largest Indian population of any state.

Long before the Gold Rush, California Indians had become the major part of the work force on the ranchos along the coast between San Francisco and San Diego and inland from San Francisco Bay. Many of them continued some tradi- tional ways, including gathering acorns for food, dancing, and the sweat lodge. At the same time, they adopted practices from their Mexican employers and priests. Some (nearly all women) intermarried with Mexicans, many of whom were themselves mestizos—of mixed Spanish, Indian, or African ancestry. Many other Native Americans were familiar with European practices, traded with the ranchos, and occasionally worked for wages. Sometimes they traded with the Californios; other times they raided the Californios, stealing cattle and horses.

John Sutter’s settlement near the present site of Sacramento was built largely by Indian laborers. Sutter also maintained a hired Indian army to pro- tect his land and livestock and to wage war on Indian raiders. Other whites who entered the Central Valley in the early 1840s emulated Sutter and some- times contracted with him for Indian labor. Thus, on the eve of the American conquest, many whites looked to California Indians as an important source of paid labor. This expectation was a direct outgrowth of the Spanish and

136 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

Mexican approaches to converting and “civilizing” the Indians and turning them into laborers on the missions and ranchos. By contrast, in the eastern United States, the usual practice in new white settlements was to push Indians further west rather than integrate them into new settlements.

In the earliest stages of the Gold Rush, Mexican patterns prevailed, as Indians were hired to work in mining operations. They learned the value of gold and of their labor and expected to be paid accordingly; however, a flood of Americans who knew the eastern practices but not the Mexican ones soon descended on California, expecting that part of “subduing the wilderness” would include expelling the Indians. Some of the newcomers objected to com- peting with Indian labor, especially when the Indian laborers worked for Cali- fornios. Others, with no real evidence, viewed Indians as dangerous and sought to have them removed from the mining regions because they were considered a threat to white miners.

At the same time, many Native Americans suffered from severely reduced access to traditional food sources. Cattle ate the grass that formerly had pro- duced seeds for food. Large-scale hunting to feed hungry miners decimated the deer and elk herds. Thus, Indians were increasingly barred from wage labor in the mines at the same time that they were deprived of many traditional foods.

Violence soon flared. In a continuation of patterns from Mexican California, some Indians raided white settlements and stole food, cattle, and horses. Others forcibly resisted when white men made advances toward Indian women. Thefts by Indians often brought the burning of the village thought to be responsible. If an Indian killed a white, local militias or volunteers often destroyed the nearest village and killed its adult males and sometimes women and children. Undisci- plined volunteers often struck out at any Indians they found, whether or not they had any connection to a crime. Some local authorities in the 1850s even offered bounties ranging from fifty cents to five dollars for Indian scalps.

The killing of individual Indians and even the massacre of entire villages were repeated over and over, sometimes by groups of miners, sometimes by local or state authorities. More than one historian has suggested that genocide is the only appropriate term for the experience of California Indians during the 1850s and 1860s. Only rarely did anyone seek to punish white men for beating or killing Indians. On the contrary, state power was more often used against the Indians. In 1851, Governor Peter Burnett announced his view that it was inevitable that war be waged against the Indians until they became extinct, and he twice sent state troops against them. His successor, Governor John McDougal, authorized the use of state troops in 1851 in what was called the Mariposa War. In these instances, state troops engaged in the brutal killing of Indians and destruction of Indian villages. When local authorities presented the state with bills for their often undisciplined forays against Indians, the state routinely paid them.

Both the state and federal governments attempted to regulate relations between California Indians and whites. The previous practice of federal author- ities, who had exclusive constitutional authority to deal with Indian tribes, had

Crisis and Conflict in the 1850s 137

been to negotiate treaties by which Indians yielded their traditional lands in return for other lands, almost always to the west of white settlements. In Cali- fornia, however, it was no longer possible to move Indians west. In California in the 1850s, federal authorities negotiated with Indians to surrender title to large parts of their lands in return for promises that they could retain small tracts, or reservations. Federal policymakers envisioned the reservations as places where Indian people could live and be protected from the dangers of the surrounding white society, taught to farm, and educated. This new approach owed a good deal to the violence visited upon the California Indians in the Gold Rush regions.

In 1851, federal commissioners began to negotiate with representatives of Indian groups. They eventually drafted 18 treaties that set aside 12,000 square miles of land in the Central Valley and the northwestern and southern parts of the state. When the treaties went to the Senate for approval, however, they were rejected due to opposition from Californians. New federal agents were then appointed, and the process started over, even as violence against Indians mounted. In the mid-1850s, a few small reservations were finally created, some embracing only a few square miles. Some Indians from the Central Valley were moved north, to live on the new reservations in northern California. Most, however, continued instead to live in the midst of white settlements, working for wages on ranches and farms and following some traditional practices. A few moved into the mountains, avoiding white settlements as much as possible.

As federal authorities stumbled toward creating reservations, state officials also asserted their authority over California’s Indian peoples. In 1850, the first session of the state legislature approved the Act for the Government and Pro- tection of the Indians. The law permitted Indians to remain in the “homes and villages” that they had long occupied. The law also provided for the indentur- ing of Indian children, either with consent of their parents or if they were orphans. As a result, many Indian children became “bound labor”—obligated to work without pay in exchange for food, shelter, and necessities—until age 18 for boys and 15 for girls. Adult Indians not employed for wages were subject to arrest for vagrancy and could then be hired out by the courts. Burning of grass- lands (see Chapter 1) was made a crime. Penalties were established for anyone who compelled an Indian to work without wages, but Indians were prohibited (under a different law) from testifying in court against whites, so violations were difficult to establish. The historian Albert Hurtado concludes that “the 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of the Indians protected them very little and governed them quite a lot.”

The Politics of Land and Culture

When the news of gold first became known, Californios were among the first to rush to the gold country. Thousands of immigrants from Mexico, especially Sonora, and others from elsewhere in Latin America, especially Chile, soon

138 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

joined them. Whether citizens or immigrants, Spanish-speaking miners found themselves derided as “greasers,” harassed, assaulted, and sometimes lynched. Eventually violence and harassment, along with the Foreign Miner’s Tax of 1850 (see Chapter 4), drove many Latinos from the gold country. Some of the immigrants returned to their homes, but others took up permanent residence in the existing pueblos, especially San José, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles.

The Gold Rush, however, was good for some rancheros, who prospered because of the increased demand for cattle to provide food to the massive influx of gold seekers. Cattle prices tripled between 1849 and 1851, and 50,000 head of cattle from southern California went north for slaughter. Los Angeles, still with a Mexican majority, boomed both from cattle sales and from sale and distribution northward of horses and mules brought from north- ern Mexico to be sent to the mining regions.

Nearly all Californio landowners found themselves struggling to retain their land. Though the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed existing landownership, those who poured into California from the eastern United States brought significantly different expectations regarding landownership. In the eastern states, land was carefully surveyed, and each plot was precisely located. Under the Preemption Act of 1841, settlers could select a parcel of undeveloped land, build a home on it (often called “squatting”), farm the land, then buy the land from the government for $1.25 per acre. The intent of federal land policies, though not always the reality, was to encourage family farms and to discourage land speculators. For would-be squatters, land that was apparently not lived on or actively farmed was often considered available for squatting.

In Mexican California, there had never been any formal land surveys. Land grants were large and vaguely defined, often based on natural markers (streams or boulders, for example) rather than precise survey lines. For the largest Cali- fornia ranchos, much of the land seemed unused, at least by the standards of the eastern United States. Even before the United States acquired California, some Americans had squatted on land in California. After the war, many more did the same. Some did so in the expectation that the Preemption Act would be applied in California. Some did so on the assumption that, having won the war, they could claim what they desired. Some did it with full knowl- edge that Californios already owned the land.

One of the most important tasks in integrating California into the Ameri- can legal system was to verify and record land titles—the official record of landownership. Earlier experiences in Louisiana and Florida (both previously Spanish possessions) suggested that the process invited manipulation, fraud, and litigation. When Frémont and Gwin took their seats in the U.S. Senate in 1850, they immediately proposed federal legislation to clarify land titles. That law, the Gwin Act (1851), created a board of three commissioners, appointed by the president. Those claiming land presented their evidence of ownership to the commissioners. If others claimed the same land, they too introduced

Crisis and Conflict in the 1850s 139

evidence. If the commissioners accepted the evidence of ownership, the title was considered valid. If the commissioners rejected the evidence, the land passed to federal ownership. A federal agent participated in the hearings to challenge dubious evidence. Either the person claiming the land or the federal agent could appeal a decision, first to the federal district court and then to the U.S. Supreme Court. Of several proposals that went before Congress for clarifying land titles, the Gwin Act was probably the most cumbersome, time-consuming, and potentially costly for holders of Spanish and Mexican land titles.

The commissioners worked from early in 1852 until 1856, hearing more than 800 claims. Some were unquestionably fraudulent, but more than 600 were confirmed. Of those confirmed, nearly all were appealed through the courts, and the court proceedings dragged on interminably. Success came with a high price: travel to San Francisco to present arguments and documents, more travel to court hearings, and attorneys’ fees at every step of the way. One historian estimated that the average land-grant holder spent 17 years before securing final title to the land. Another historian estimated that attorneys’ fees involved in defending the Mexican land grants constituted 25 to 40 percent of the value of the land.

During the hearings, squatters often moved onto the most attractive lands, especially in northern California. The squatters formed a large and influential political group and found many public officials receptive to their pleas. Some desperate rancheros sold their claims for whatever they could receive—but such sales could not be final until after the final court decision on the title. Unscru- pulous lawyers sometimes saddled their clients with impossible debts, requiring land sales to pay off the mortgages. All in all, most historians who have studied the implementation of the Gwin Act have endorsed the judgment of Henry George, a San Francisco journalist who, in 1871, called it a “history of greed, of perjury, of corruption, of spoliation and high-handed robbery.”

If the northern rancheros found themselves flooded with squatters and lawyers, southern rancheros faced devastating tax burdens. South of the Teha- chapi Mountains, Californios remained in the majority. There, they won elec- tions as local officials and members of the state legislature. One Californio, Pablo de la Guerra, was elected president of the state senate in 1861 and was first in line to succeed the governor.

At the constitutional convention, Californio delegates from the south had raised the possibility of dividing California into a northern section, which would become a state, and a southern section, which would become a territory. Though defeated in the convention, the idea of dividing the state persisted. The 1850 session of the legislature created a tax system based on land and other possessions, including cattle, but not wealth, which included gold. These taxes fell disproportionately on the ranchos of southern California, which provided southerners both a reminder that they were dominated politically by the north- ern part of the state and an incentive for separation. Though southern

140 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

Californios’ motivation for dividing the state stemmed largely from their desire to separate themselves from northern domination and regain control over their taxes, some, especially white newcomers from the slave-holding South, also saw it as a way to create a new slave state.

Throughout the 1850s, the state legislature received proposals to divide the state. In 1859, the legislature approved a popular vote in the southern counties on the issue of division. The vote was two to one in favor of division, and the results were forwarded to the federal government for action, but nothing was done in Congress in 1860. The next year found the nation preoccupied with civil war. This effectively ended the possibility for creating a separate state or territory in which Californios and other Latinos might be numerically domi- nant. And, within a short time, English-speaking Americans soon outnumbered those who spoke Spanish in southern California as well as in the north, and political power slowly passed from the hands of the Californios.

The effort to create a separate state or territory in southern California marked one attempt by Spanish-speaking Californians to retain their culture and political autonomy. Political efforts to secure bilingual schools in Los Angeles (unsuccessful), to insist on implementation of the constitutional provi- sion requiring Spanish translations of official documents (a losing struggle), and to serve on local political bodies represented other examples. Such efforts came largely from members of the old, landowning Californio families. Most elite Californios, at least in the south, were accorded a level of respect and even honor by their new, English-speaking neighbors. Some historians have suggested that, in fact, many of them were co-opted into the emerging English-speaking power structure and that, despite their attempts to secure rec- ognition for their language and culture, they made little serious effort to protect the large numbers of landless Mexican laborers and farm workers from eco- nomic exploitation.

Californians and the Crisis of the Union

As Californians struggled with issues of land, labor, and ethnicity, national pol- itics moved rapidly toward the ultimate crisis of secession and civil war. Though far removed from Washington, California was never immune from the sectional conflict.

Fighting Slavery in California

Throughout the decade of the 1850s, slaveholders brought enslaved African Americans to live in California—some 300 in 1852, by one estimate. Some mined gold and others worked as domestic servants. The Gold Rush also attracted significant numbers of free African Americans, some of whom

Californians and the Crisis of the Union 141

hoped to gain enough gold to purchase freedom for their families. By 1860, more than 4000 African Americans lived in California—the largest black pop- ulation of any western state or territory other than Texas and Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). In California, African Americans encountered southern whites, most of whom brought their pro-slavery attitudes, and some of whom brought their slaves, as well as northern abolitionists, both white and black, who brought their hatred of slavery.

When slaveholders brought their slaves into California and continued to hold them in slavery, they seldom attracted attention from state or local offi- cials, despite the state constitution’s prohibition of slavery. Some officials had pro-slavery attitudes. Others seem to have been willing to tolerate slavery. As a result, enforcing the ban on slavery often fell to individuals outside govern- ment. As the state’s free African American community grew and prospered, its members took the lead in identifying slaves, urging them to claim their freedom, and organizing assistance for them. A German immigrant wrote that “the wealthy California Negroes ... exhibit a great deal of energy and intelligence in saving their brothers.” They could usually count on white abolitionists for financial assistance, political pressure, and legal representation in the courts.

One such court case arose in the Mormon settlement of San Bernardino, in southern California. Robert Smith was a Mormon from Mississippi who brought several slaves first to Utah and then, in 1852, to California. Bridget “Biddy” Mason, one of the slaves, made friends with a free black family in Los Angeles. In 1855, as Smith was preparing to move to Texas, free African Americans persuaded the Los Angeles county sheriff to take Mason and the other slaves into protective custody. Mason then sought freedom through the Los Angeles District Court and succeeded, not just for herself, but for 13 others as well.

California’s developing African American community and their white abo- litionist allies could claim some notable victories through court cases such as those that freed Biddy Mason and Archy Lee (see pp. 129–131). Other times they failed, either because they could not mobilize in time or because they could not persuade a judge. Black Californians had other struggles as well. Though some white Californians strongly opposed slavery and discrimination against free African Americans, the California legislature during the 1850s passed laws that discriminated against African Americans in ways similar to midwestern and mid-Atlantic states. Black Californians were prohibited from voting, serving on juries, marrying whites, or testifying in state courts. The pro- hibition against testifying in court was especially troublesome, as it restricted the ability of African Americans to defend themselves in court in the event of challenges to their property, savings, or even their freedom. In 1852, the state legislature passed the California Fugitive Slave Law, designed to assist slave owners in capturing slaves who fled within California, and the law remained in force until 1855.

142 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

To organize against such discrimination, black Californians drew upon eastern precedents to hold several statewide conventions. Meeting in Sacra- mento in 1855 and 1856 and in San Francisco in 1857, the conventions dem- onstrated black Californians’ continuing connection with events in the East as well as their determination to secure the repeal of discriminatory legislation in California. One convention led to the establishment of the state’s first black newspaper. All three conventions called upon white Californians to rec- ognize the contributions of African Americans to the state’s economy and its tax rolls and to repeal discriminatory laws. Discouraged by their lack of suc- cess, some 400 black Californians (including Archy Lee) moved to British Columbia in 1858.

Sectional Issues and California Politics

The prospect of a new state, with many elective offices, attracted politically ambitious men. William Gwin, for example, was a slaveholder and a Democrat from a prosperous and prominent family. He had served one term in the House of Representatives from Mississippi. Stymied in his hope for a U.S. Senate seat, he headed to California. Like Gwin, David Broderick came to California to pursue a political career when he found his political prospects blocked in New York. Largely self-educated, a Catholic and son of an Irish immigrant stonecutter, Broderick had entered Democratic Party politics in New York City and supported the faction that spoke for workers and opposed big business. Gwin arrived in California in time to win election to the constitu- tional convention, then won election to the U.S. Senate. Broderick came to California a bit later, jumped into Democratic Party politics, and won election to the state senate. His ambition, too, was to sit in the U.S. Senate. Both Broderick and Gwin were Democrats, but the conflict between them came eventually to mirror the nation’s conflict over slavery.

Within the California Democratic Party, Gwin led a faction called the Chivalry Democrats, including many from the South or border states. Tall, with a shock of gray hair, Gwin moved easily through the corridors of power. Though a slaveholder, he voted in the constitutional convention to ban slavery from California. In the U.S. Senate, he did not criticize slavery and usually voted with the southern Democrats. As senior senator and close to the admin- istration, Gwin controlled most federal patronage (appointments to federal jobs) in California, and he steered bills through Congress that established important federal agencies in the Bay Area, including the mint and the custom- house. (The customhouse was one of the most important federal agencies in any port city, providing many federal jobs.) Through organization and patron- age, Gwin and his Chivalry Democrats dominated the Democratic Party in much of California.

Broderick built a strong Democratic organization in San Francisco using techniques learned in New York City, and he soon dominated the state

Californians and the Crisis of the Union 143

legislature through his influence over the San Francisco members. As a political leader, he consistently defended the laborers from whom he had sprung and whose votes kept him in office. He opposed the Fugitive Slave Law and defended the rights of free African Americans, becoming an outspoken oppo- nent of slavery.

Just as in California, the sectional conflict over slavery disrupted politics nationwide during the 1850s. When congressional Democrats, led by Stephen Douglas, passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, they changed long-standing rules to permit slavery in the new territories. One result was the emergence of a new political party, the Republicans, who opposed any extension of slavery into the territories. The Whig party fragmented over slavery and soon disappeared.

In the mid-1850s, some voters, at least temporarily, chose another new political party, the American Party, which appealed to American nationalism and opposed immigrants in general and Catholics in particular. The American Party grew out of a secret anti-immigrant society; their opponents called them Know-Nothings because, when asked about the organization, they were sup- posed to say that they knew nothing about it. In southern California, Califor- nios called them Ignorantes. Divisions within the state Democratic Party led some southern, Protestant Democrats to support the Americans in 1855, and they probably got the votes of many former Whigs as well. They elected the governor and many members of the legislature; however, anti-Catholicism did not figure as prominently in the Know-Nothings’ victory in California as it did in eastern states. They soon died out.

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144 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

The other new political party of the mid-1850s was the Republican Party. Many of the most outspoken Republicans were abolitionists, who sought to eliminate slavery everywhere. In 1856, the new party chose John C. Frémont, California’s first U.S. senator, as its presidential candidate. But Frémont did not do well in California—he placed third, after both the Democrat and the candi- date of the Know-Nothings. Gwin and Broderick had patched over their differ- ences to support the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, and to regain a Democratic majority in the state legislature. The Republicans did little better in California elections over the next few years.

Gwin and Broderick forged a temporary alliance again in 1857, when Bro- derick used his control over the state legislature to win election to the U.S. Senate. Promising to relinquish federal patronage to Broderick, Gwin secured Broderick’s backing for his own reelection to the Senate. Soon after, however, Gwin and Broderick staked out strongly opposed views over admitting Kansas to the Union as a slave state. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces had poured into the new territory of Kansas, and they fought with words and with guns to secure the majority there. When pro-slavery forces met at the town of Lecompton and drafted a slave-state constitution, the Buchanan administra- tion tried to force it through Congress. Gwin led the pro-Lecompton forces in the Senate. Broderick joined Stephen Douglas and a few other northern Democrats who broke with their party and joined the Republicans to defeat the proposal. The bitter dispute between Gwin and Broderick carried over into the California state election of 1859. California Democrats divided into two camps. The Broderick faction, calling themselves Douglas Democrats, cooperated with the new Republican Party, but the Gwin faction won most of the state elections.

Shortly after the election, David Terry, a former Texan and former justice of the state supreme court, and a leading member of the Gwin faction, chal- lenged Broderick to a duel, claiming Broderick had insulted him during the campaign. Though illegal in California, dueling was still practiced. Broderick’s gun discharged prematurely, permitting Terry to take deadly aim. Broderick’s death made him a martyr to the anti-slavery cause, as his supporters widely quoted his supposed dying words: “They have killed me because I was opposed to slavery and a corrupt administration.”

Within a year, the national Democratic Party divided into northern and southern wings, each of which ran its own candidate in the 1860 presidential election. Gwin supported John Breckinridge, candidate of the southern Democrats. California’s voters, however, chose Abraham Lincoln, the Repub- lican candidate, as did most northern states. Lincoln’s election prompted southerners to secede from a union that they now rightly understood to be in the hands of the enemies of slavery. Gwin and a few other Democrats urged that the South be permitted to leave in peace, but Lincoln and his party considered the Union to be indissoluble. The nation plunged into four years of bloody civil war.

Californians and the Crisis of the Union 145

California and Civil War

Far removed from the arena of conflict, Californians nonetheless played a sig- nificant role in the war.

When the Union called for volunteers, Californians formed eight regiments of infantry, a regiment of cavalry, a battalion of mountaineers, and a battalion of cavalry commanded by Californios and made up of Californios, Mexicans, and other Latinos. These forces were assigned to defend the mail and transpor- tation routes between California and the North. When the Confederate army sent troops into New Mexico Territory, the California Volunteers were sent to block its advance. The Californians helped to drive the Confederates back into Texas, then spent the remainder of the war in campaigns against the Navajos, Apaches, and other Indian peoples of the Southwest, gaining a reputation as ruthless, even vicious, in their tactics.

Some Californians fought with the Union army in other units. Early in the war, Edward Baker—Archy Lee’s attorney—had raised a regiment in the East that included a number of Californians and was known initially as the 1st California. Several hundred Californians volunteered and made their way east, forming the “California Battalion” of the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry. Henry Halleck, a West Point graduate and prominent San Francisco lawyer, led all Union armies from mid-1862 to early 1864, but failed to make much progress against the Confederate forces. William Tecumseh Sherman, another West Point graduate, was more successful. He had passed through California in 1847 while serving in the war with Mexico; he returned as a civilian in 1853 and opened a bank. He was appointed major general of the California militia in 1856, shortly before the vigilantes hanged Cora and Casey. Opposed to the vigilantes but unable to use the militia to restore the lawful authorities, he resigned his commission. Sherman left California in 1858. By the end of the Civil War, his contributions to Union victory put him second only to Ulysses S. Grant.

In all, nearly 16,000 Californians served in the Union army—about one in every five males between the ages of 15 and 30—but most Californians contrib- uted to the Union in other ways than by bearing arms. Thomas Starr King, pastor of the San Francisco Unitarian Church, undertook grueling speaking campaigns around the state to promote the Union cause. Spurred in part by King’s oratory, Californians made their most impressive contribution to the Union in gold, especially as donations for the Sanitary Commission, a volun- tary organization formed to care for wounded soldiers. Only two percent of the Union’s population, Californians donated more than a quarter of all funds raised by the Sanitary Commission. California’s contributions, furthermore, were in gold, which had greater purchasing power than the depreciated green- backs that the Lincoln administration was issuing to help cover the cost of the war. California gold, sent regularly to New York, also played a significant role in helping to stabilize Union finances.

146 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

With the Republican victory in the 1860 Republican election, a new group of political leaders emerged in California. Prominent among them was Leland Stanford, a Sacramento merchant who had been the Republicans’ unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1859 and who won the governorship in 1861. In the 1864 presidential election, Lincoln easily carried California.

Though most Californians were loyal to the Union, there were exceptions. David Terry became an officer in the Confederate army, and other Californians also joined the Confederate ranks, some 250 just from Los Angeles County. Though Gwin hoped that the South might be allowed to leave in peace, he did not take up arms against the Union. He left California in 1861, returning only well after the end of the war. A few Confederate sympathizers schemed to separate southern California or to disrupt the shipment of California gold to the Union, but nothing came of such plans. A few Californians briefly nour- ished hopes that California might secede and join Oregon as a Pacific Republic. A few Confederate sympathizers were arrested when they became too outspo- ken, but were not jailed for long.

Completion of the telegraph early in the war meant that news of battles was known in California as soon as in New York. Whether they were firm supporters of the Union, critics of the war, or Confederate sympathizers, Cali- fornians closely followed the major military engagements of the war, even though they were separated from them by great distances. In the end, the war experience seems to have brought many Californians to feel more connected to the rest of the Union.

Reconstruction and New Understandings of Citizenship

During the war and afterward, events far away in Washington brought impor- tant changes in the legal status of African Americans and, ultimately, Asian Americans and others. At the end of the Civil War, the victorious Republicans pushed through three amendments to the U.S. Constitution as a way of making permanent the momentous changes they had created. The Thirteenth Amend- ment (1865) abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) defined federal citizenship and the rights of American citizens. The Fifteenth Amend- ment (1870) specified that the right to vote could not be denied based on race. These constitutional changes had implications not only for the defeated South, but also for California.

The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments meant, immediately, that Afri- can Americans could no longer be denied voting rights in California. Even before the Fourteenth Amendment, California Republicans in the state legisla- ture had passed legislation that removed the limits on court testimony for Afri- can Americans. There were also some changes in the laws governing education in the late 1860s, requiring school districts to provide schooling for students of color and permitting, though not requiring, students of color to attend the same schools as white children. In 1872, given the language of the Fourteenth

Californians and the Crisis of the Union 147

Amendment, the legislature repealed the law that prohibited Asians from testi- fying in court against whites. The Fourteenth Amendment was potentially far- reaching in its provisions and its implications; however, just as was true for the state constitution’s prohibition of slavery, the amendment was given meaning only as individuals appealed to the federal courts for protection of “equal pro- tection of the laws.”

Economic Growth in a Time of National Crisis

As the hundreds of gold seekers in early 1848 became tens of thousands in 1849 and after, the vast majority hoped to make their fortunes by finding gold. Some, however, sought wealth by selling goods to the miners or by investing in other ventures. Thus, the Gold Rush prompted the rapid development of other aspects of the new state’s economy, from merchandising to agriculture to lumbering. Civil war in 1861 failed to slow the state’s growth, and the new Republican Party quickly took action to subsidize a railroad to tie California to the Union. These developments, like the military and political events of the period, also helped to integrate California more closely with the rest of the nation.

The Transformation of Mining

The first miners found their gold by placer mining—panning or using sluices. The easily available gold was soon gone, however. By 1852 or so, it was often Chinese miners who remained to mine the less productive diggings, rework tailings, and work for wages in the increasingly capital-intensive mining indus- try. By 1860, 35,000 Chinese immigrants had come to California, most from Guangdong province in southern China, a region that had suffered from war with Great Britain in the early 1840s, from economic depression and internal strife in the 1850s, then again from war with Britain and France in the late 1850s. By 1860, nearly three-quarters of all Chinese Californians worked in mining, accounting for nearly a third of all those making their living by mining in California. By 1870, more than half of California’s miners were Chinese.

New forms of mining were also coming into use, including hydraulic min- ing (see p. 116) and quartz mining. By 1870, quartz mining produced 42 percent of all gold mined in California. Quartz mining involved digging quartz out of rock, often through the sinking of shafts into the face of a moun- tain, pulverizing the quartz, and then extracting the gold through chemical reactions. Like hydraulic mining, quartz mining was expensive, involving deep-shaft mines and powerful stamping mills to crush the quartz. By 1858, California’s stamping mills alone were estimated to be worth more than $3 million. Within another 10 years, some mine shafts had reached more than 1000 feet in length, requiring elaborate timbering to stabilize the shafts,

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artificial lighting, cable systems to haul out the ore, and sometimes powerful air pumps to force fresh air to the depths.

Throughout much of the 1850s, California had produced about $50 million in gold each year, even more in 1851 and 1852, with 1852 the high point of more than $80 million (equivalent in purchasing power to more than $2 billion in 2010). Gold production declined in the 1860s, to about $24million in 1864 and some $7million by 1870, but gold continued to be mined for many years afterward. Some gold seekers in the 1880s and 1890s showed great ingenuity. They built dredging boats that plied the rivers of the Central Valley, scooping up the sand from the bottom and separating out whatever gold it contained. Other gold seekers even diverted the course of rivers, enabling them to mine the riverbed directly.

By the early 1860s, many miners had abandoned California for the newest mining region—the Washoe region of Nevada, 20 miles east of the California border. There, in 1859, gold seekers found a silver bonanza. The discovery was called the Comstock Lode, after Henry Comstock, who had established an early claim. Just as the news of gold had spurred a great rush of prospectors into the Sierra Nevada foothills in 1848 and 1849, so news of silver discoveries brought thousands into the dry mountains east of Lake Tahoe. But Comstock silver, like gold quartz, required the expensive, up-to-date technology of deep-shaft min- ing and crushing mills.

Deep-shaft mining, hydraulic mining, and crushing mills necessitated cap- ital investment on a massive scale, transforming mining into a big business. Companies sought to raise the necessary capital by selling shares (stock) in the company. In 1862, the San Francisco Stock Exchange opened to formalize the process of selling stock, nearly all of it in mining companies, many in the Washoe. Within a year, nearly 3000 mining companies were issuing stock as a way to raise capital. Speculation in mining stocks soon came to rival mining as a source of quick wealth—or financial disaster.

Most of the wealth of the Washoe, like that of California mines, flowed as if through a giant funnel to the banks in San Francisco. This made the economic development of California unlike that in almost any part of the United States to that time. As Americans had moved west with dreams of economic development—farming, ranching, lumbering, mining—their enterprises had usu- ally been dependent on capital from more developed areas to the east and across the Atlantic. Many California enterprises were also dependent on eastern and for- eign capital, but the enormous amount of gold and silver meant that California’s economic development was different from most other frontier experiences—it soon became, as one historian aptly put it, “a self-financing frontier.”

Economic Diversification

The large numbers of gold seekers in 1849 and later stimulated a wide range of other economic developments, for they needed shirts and biscuits, tents and transportation. From the beginning, some made their fortunes by mining the

Economic Growth in a Time of National Crisis 149

miners—trading hardware, dry goods, and food for gold dust. One woman, in 1852, claimed to have earned $11,000 by baking pies in a skillet over a campfire and selling them to hungry miners. Levi Strauss earned lasting fame when he realized that trousers made of canvas would hold up better than those worn by most miners. By 1870, the durability of Levi’s pants—soon dubbed Levis—had made their inventor a millionaire.

The miners were hungry for meat, and the ranchers of southern California rapidly expanded their cattle herds to meet the huge demand. By 1860, Califor- nia stood third among the states in the number of cattle being raised for meat. Cattle raising expanded too fast, however, and supply soon exceeded demand. During the extremely wet winter of 1861 to 1862, many cattle drowned in flooding in the San Joaquin Valley, and more died during a drought in 1863 and 1864. The number of beef cattle fell by half between 1860 and 1870.

Production of other agricultural goods also expanded. During the early 1850s, flour had been the largest single import into California. By the late 1850s, Californians were producing a surplus of wheat and flour and began to export it. In 1860, California stood second among the states in winemaking and by 1870 held first place, producing well over half of the nation’s wine. Sheep raising also boomed, and by 1870 California ranked second in the production of wool.

Much of this early agricultural development was not in the central valleys that eventually became crucial to California agriculture. Most of the leading wheat-growing counties in 1860 were around San Francisco Bay, and the lead- ing wool-producing and cattle-raising counties were mostly along the coast between Monterey and Los Angeles. Los Angeles was the leading wine- producing county in 1860. By then, however, Agoston Haraszthy, an immi- grant from Hungary, had begun to experiment with viticulture (the growing of grapes for winemaking) in the Sonoma Valley. In 1861, he traveled to Eur- ope and returned with 100,000 grapevine cuttings representing more than 300 varietals.

California agriculture was distinctive by the size of its farms and ranches, a holdover in part from the days of the huge ranchos. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, the average farm in California was in excess of 450 acres, more than double the national average.

The Gold Rush and the expansion of agriculture stimulated the develop- ment of manufacturing. Californians developed new forms of mining equip- ment, some of which were among the most technologically sophisticated in the world. By the 1860s, foundries and machine shops in the Bay Area, espe- cially in San Francisco, were producing not only technologically advanced min- ing equipment but also farm machinery, ships, and locomotives. As wheat farming expanded, so did flour milling. By 1870, flour ranked as the state’s most valuable single product. Mining, agriculture, and the growing cities all needed construction material, and lumbering soon became an important indus- try. Loggers quickly cut the redwoods along the central coast and began to

150 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

move into the larger stands of trees along the northern coast. By the mid- 1850s, Humboldt County was emerging as a major source of lumber.

San Francisco rapidly developed as a commercial center, based on its port and on the federal customhouse and mint. By 1860, the city had become the nation’s sixth largest port and a major center for banking and finance.

Transportation

Throughout the 1850s and early 1860s, California remained remote from the eastern half of the nation, accessible only by difficult and dangerous routes. The major overland routes soon became well-beaten roads. By the late 1850s, the firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell dominated freighting along the Platte River route to Salt Lake City and the Pacific coast, eventually operating 3,500 wagons drawn by 40,000 oxen. When traveled by oxen, however, the overland route could occupy most of a summer. When Congress offered to subsidize any company that could deliver mail between the Mississippi River and San Francisco in 25 days or less, Butterfield Overland Mail secured the subsidy and in 1858 ran its first stagecoaches along a southern route, carrying both mail and up to nine passengers on a bouncing, three-week-long journey. Even- tually, a few other stage routes were added, also with federal subsidies for carrying mail. Though faster than ox trains, stagecoaches were prohibitively expensive for most. Freighting operations and stagecoaches required regular stations along the route, staffed by company agents, where stagecoaches could change their teams and travelers could get a meal. In 1860, Russell, Majors, and Waddell launched the Pony Express, a mail delivery system based on relays of individual riders, each of whom was to ride at full speed, with changes of horses every 10 miles and changes of riders every 70 miles. The first Pony Express riders left San Francisco and St. Joseph, Missouri, on April 3, 1860, and the mail arrived at the other end 10 days later. This fast mail service became obsolete 18 months later, when the first transcontinental telegraph line was completed.

The other route to California was by sea, either around Cape Horn, at the tip of South America, or to Panama, over the isthmus, and then up the Pacific coast. Fast clipper ships could make the journey from New York around Cape Horn to San Francisco in 130 days or less. The trip over the isthmus was faster. By the late 1850s, a rickety railroad was completed over the isthmus, and the trip to New York via Panama took about the same time as the Butterfield stage and its rail connections to the Atlantic coast.

Nearly everyone agreed that only a direct railroad connection could improve transportation between California and the eastern half of the nation. Nearly everyone agreed, too, that the cost of building a rail route was so astro- nomical that only massive federal subsidies could tempt entrepreneurs to undertake the construction. Such agreement, however, ended over the proper route for the rails. Stephen Douglas, senator from Illinois, led a group who

Economic Growth in a Time of National Crisis 151

wanted to connect San Francisco to Chicago. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, father-in-law of John Frémont, thundered his support for a route west from St. Louis. Southerners pointed to New Orleans as the logical termi- nus for a route through Texas and New Mexico Territory. Gwin tried to satisfy everyone by proposing a railroad with three eastern branches, for Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans, but the costs were prohibitive. The issue remained deadlocked throughout the 1850s.

Tying Together the Union With Iron

When Republicans took power in Washington in 1861, they faced secession and then war. As Lincoln and his party raised troops and amassed supplies, Republicans moved quickly to use the power of the federal government to encourage economic growth and development. Among the development mea- sures they passed was the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862.

As the new, Republican Congress assembled late in 1861, Theodore Judah arrived in Washington with plans for a railroad over the Sierra Nevada. Judah’s experience and abilities as an engineer had combined with his enthusiasm for a transcontinental line to attract support from several Sacramento merchants, all Republicans: Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker (whose brother, Edwin, was a prominent abolitionist as well as a leading Republican). As merchants, they may have been persuaded less by a vision of a railroad to the east coast than by the prospect of a railroad to the silver-mining regions of Nevada. Regardless of their motives, they joined Judah in mid-1861 and put up the initial capital to create the Central Pacific Railroad Company. By then, Stanford was the Republican candidate for governor.

With crucial support from the California congressional delegation, Judah tirelessly lobbied for federal support. Signed into law on July 1, 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act incorporated the Union Pacific Railroad Company (UP) to build and run a railroad from Nebraska Territory to the western boundary of Nevada, and authorized the Central Pacific Company (CP) to build track to meet the UP. The companies were to receive federal land for their tracks, sta- tions, and other buildings, and, as a subsidy, every other square mile of land for 10 miles (later increased to 20) on each side of the tracks. The remaining land within this checkerboard pattern was to be offered for sale by the federal gov- ernment at double its usual price, so that the land grant, in the long run, would cost the government almost nothing. Finally, the act provided for a loan of $16,000—later increased substantially—for every mile of track completed.

A symbolic first shovelful of earth was dug early in 1863 by Stanford, now both president of the railroad and governor of the state. Initial preparations got underway that summer. By the fall, however, Judah had fallen out with his partners and returned to the East to seek financial support against them, but he contracted a fever en route and died shortly after reaching New York. Huntington took over as the railroad’s chief lobbyist. Amendments to the

152 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

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Even with generous subsidies, the CP faced huge difficulties, beginning with finding a sufficient labor force. The Civil War had drained males from the work force, and the lure of Nevada silver took many more. Charles Crocker—in charge of construction—employed a few Chinese laborers as an experiment. The Chinese crews proved to be so capable that Crocker quickly hired more. From then on, the construction crews, including the foremen, were almost all Chinese, though supervisory jobs were held by whites. By mid-1866, 6000 Chinese laborers were at work on CP construction, and their numbers reached nearly 10,000 before the job was done.

The construction crews faced formidable obstacles as they entered the Sierra Nevada. The CP was anxious to build as rapidly as possible, because subsidies were awarded for track actually in place and because the UP was competing for those subsidies. The sooner the CP crews could reach Nevada and begin to build across relatively flat regions, the more of the subsidy would go to the CP. The winters of 1866–1867 and 1867–1868 were severe, but Crocker pushed his crews to work despite the ice and snow. The solid granite of the mountains also slowed progress; one tunnel took an entire year to build, as construction crews chipped out only eight inches of rock per day. In other places, Chinese laborers were lowered down sheer cliffs in baskets to chip away at the rock or to drill holes for blasting powder. Such work was highly dangerous, and many died in falls, explosions, avalanches, and accidents.

Not until June 1868 did the tracks reach Nevada. Though the UP started well after the CP, its initial construction had been through the flatlands of Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. By June 1868, the UP had built twice as many miles of tracks as the CP. Desperate to push their tracks to eastern Utah to cap- ture the business to and from Salt Lake City, the CP partners pushed their crews even harder. In the last year of building through the mountains, the crews com- pleted only 40 miles of track. In 1868, building through Nevada, they completed 362 miles. Competition between the CP and UP grew ever more intense, as both sought to maximize their tracks as a way to maximize their federal subsidies. UP construction crews, by then, were largely Irish, and ethnic rivalry also became frenzied. In the end, however, Crocker’s Chinese crews set the record of 10 miles of track in a single day.

A grand ceremony was organized to dramatize the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific rails at Promontory Summit, Utah, just outside the city of Ogden. On May 10, 1869, two giant locomotives from each line moved forward to face each other. Ceremonial spikes of precious metal from western territories and states were tapped into place, and Stanford used a silver mallet to drive in a final spike of California gold as telegraph lines carried the blows to the nation.

The driving of the golden spike did not unite California with the rest of the nation by rail, as the UP section of the track had some gaps and the Missouri River was still unbridged. Much of the track had been laid so rapidly that it required

154 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

almost immediate repairs. Nonetheless, the nation celebrated with fireworks and flowery speeches from Boston to San Francisco. The Liberty Bell was rung in Philadelphia. New York City heard a 100-gun salute. The nation, so recently divided by a bloody war, seemed determined to celebrate a new symbolic unity. The long trip between California and the Missouri valley had been cut to six days.

New Social and Cultural Patterns

During the 20 years following the discovery of gold, the state was transformed in many ways beyond the economic changes. California acquired new social institutions, especially educational and humanitarian institutions, and devel- oped a reputation as a literary center.

Gender Roles and New Social Institutions

The thousands of gold seekers gave the population of the new state a peculiar composition—the state’s population in 1850 was composed overwhelmingly of young men. As seen in Figure 5.1, more than half the population was male and aged between 15 and 30. But the imbalance between men and women persisted

Figure 5.1 Numbers of Men and Women by Age, 1850 This figure vividly shows the extreme demographic disproportions by age and sex that were created by the Gold Rush. What do these data suggest regarding the nature of life in the mines? Source: Statistical view of the United States: being a compendium of the seventh census (Washington, 1854).

New Social and Cultural Patterns 155

after many gold seekers returned to their homes in the East or left for other mining regions. Figure 5.2 presents data for 1870, indicating a continuing, though not so extreme, disproportion between men and women aged 20 to 50. This ratio between men and women, characteristic of frontier societies, car- ried implications for other social patterns.

Many Americans in the mid-19th century had sharply defined expectations regarding social roles for men and women. Domesticity was the notion that the proper place for a woman was in the home as wife and mother, and that as wife- mother she was guardian of the family, responsible for its moral, spiritual, and physical well-being. As moral guardians and protectors of children and families, women also assumed important roles in the church and the school and in voluntary organizations devoted to caring for women, children, and the less fortunate. Beyond this, moreover, many Americans believed that women ought not experience much of the world, for fear that business or politics, with their sometimes lax moral standards, might corrupt women. The best choice, it was widely argued, was for women to occupy a separate sphere, immune from such dangers. Though widely advocated in the pulpits and journals of the day, the concepts of domesticity and separate spheres proved most typical of white middle-class and upper-class women in towns and cities, and often held little relevance for farm women, working-class women, and women of color.

Figure 5.2 Numbers of Men and Women by Age, 1870 Note how men continued to outnumber women long after the initial stages of the Gold Rush had passed. Such demographic disproportions are typical of frontier economies dependent on the exploitation of raw materials, for example, through mining, lumbering, or ranching. What does this suggest about the California economy? Source: The statistics of the population of the United States compiled from the ninth census (Washington, 1872).

156 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

Many 19th-century Americans also accepted the notion that men naturally tended to be materialistic where women were spiritual and that men tended to be adventurous or even hedonistic where women were restrained and refined. “Nothing is better calculated to preserve a young man from contamination of low pleasures and pursuits,” stated one guidebook for young men, than fre- quent contact “with the more refined and virtuous of the other sex.” In Cali- fornia in the 1850s, however, the extreme imbalance between the numbers of men and women made such contact unlikely for many young men. Thus, few Americans were surprised that, without the restraining presence of women, the largely male mining camps seemed to be given over to adolescent-like excesses of vice, violence, and greed.

As women arrived in California during the 1850s and 1860s, many brought with them the middle-class expectations of their day, and they quickly set about constructing social institutions intended to convey morality, educate the young, and care for the unfortunate. They did not do so by them- selves, of course, for many men also understood the value of such institutions. In 1850, there were only two public schools and seven teachers in the entire state. By 1870, Californians had created 1,342 public schools, taught by more than 2,400 teachers, of whom 1,400 were women. The 28 churches of 1850 expanded to 643 in 1870. Californians also organized other social insti- tutions—orphanages, benevolent societies, libraries, reform associations—and many of them relied for their continuation on the voluntary labor of middle- and upper-class women.

Not all women who migrated to California accepted the prevailing social definitions of domesticity and separate spheres. Some came to California to get rich, a few by panning for gold, more by selling meals and lodging to miners, and probably the largest number by prostitution. Others challenged prevailing gender roles in other ways. Ada Clare, a San Francisco journalist, urged women to take advantage of a new gymnasium and to build themselves up physically, to dispel the prevailing social view of women as frail and sickly. Laura de Force Gordon delivered the state’s first public lecture on woman suf- frage in 1868 and helped to form a state woman suffrage association early in 1870. Another early proponent of woman suffrage was Emily Pitts Stevens, a former schoolteacher who launched the state’s first newspaper committed to women’s rights in 1869.

The Growth of Religious Toleration

California in the 1850s was rife with ethnic hostility and conflict, but it differed little in that regard from other parts of the nation. Discrimination against free African Americans and mistreatment of American Indians could be found nearly everywhere to the east. California and the West were unique, however, in the diversity of their ethnic groups. In the eastern part of the country, racial relations usually involved blacks and whites, or sometimes whites and Indians,

New Social and Cultural Patterns 157

or, rarely, blacks and Indians. Racial and ethnic relations in the West, however, involved not just American Indians and Americans of European and African descent, but also Mexican Americans (many of them mestizos) who had become citizens under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and immigrants from Asia, Eur- ope, Australia, the islands of the Pacific, and Latin America. (Table 5.1 presents data on groups included in census tabulations for 1852, 1860, and 1870.)

The Gold Rush attracted many European immigrants, some of whom came from intermediary points including the eastern United States and Australia. The influx included groups subject to discrimination and hostility in the east- ern United States. Irish immigrants, for example, were depicted in some eastern newspapers as whiskey-swilling ignoramuses. Anti-Catholicism was as old as the Reformation, and anti-Semitism was older. The Know-Nothing movement of the mid-1850s drew support all over the country by criticizing immigrants, especially Catholic immigrants.

Californians, particularly in the gold-mining areas, seem to have developed an unusual toleration of religious differences. One historian carefully surveyed

Table 5.1 RACE, ETHNICITY, OR NATIVITY FOR CALIFORNIA POPULATION, 1852, 1860, 1870

Race, ethnicity, or nativity

1852 1860 1870

Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent

Asian not available 34,933 9.2 49,310 8.8

African American (including mulatto)

1,678 0.7 4,086 1.1 4,272 0.8

American Indian*

31,266 12.3 17,798 4.7 7,241 1.3

Foreign-born 54,803 21.4 146,528 38.6 209,831 37.5

• Ireland not available 33,147 8.7 54,421 9.7

• German states not available 21,646 5.7 29,699 5.3

• Great Britain not available 12,227 3.2 17,685 3.2

All others (mostly whites born in the U.S.)

167,375 65.6 176,649 46.5 289,593 51.7

Total 255,122 379,994 560,247

*Described as “civilized” or “domesticated” by the census, meaning those who lived in the midst of the larger society and followed at least some social and economic patterns of the larger society.

Source: U.S. Census Office, The Seventh Census of the United States: 1850 (Washington, 1853), which included the special census of 1852; U.S. Census Office, Population of the United States in 1860 (Washington, 1864).

158 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

all available records and found only two clear instances of anti-Semitic discrim- ination in the mining regions during the 1850s. In 1850, the California consti- tutional convention alternated its daily opening prayer between Protestant and Catholic clergymen. Students in the Catholic school in Los Angeles in 1859 included not just Catholics but also Protestants and Jews. A few years before, Protestants in San Francisco had contributed generously to help build a new Catholic church.

Despite the victory of the Know-Nothings in the state elections of 1855, a similar religious toleration seemed to characterize most of the new state’s poli- tics. When he was active in New York Democratic politics, Broderick had understood that the state’s Democratic leaders were unwilling to permit Irish Catholics to rise too far. In California, Broderick won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1857. The Irish-born and Catholic John Downey became governor in 1860 after being elected lieutenant governor the year before. San Franciscans elected an Irish Catholic mayor in 1867, and two Irish Catholics followed Broderick into the U.S. Senate from California before 1870. Catholic Californios were elected to local offices in some parts of northern California as well as in the south, and José Estudillo was elected state treasurer, serving from 1875 to 1880. Jews were also elected to local offices in the mining regions in the 1850s, and Solomon Heydenfeldt, who was Jewish, won election to the state supreme court in 1851.

One key to understanding this toleration of Catholics and Jews may be found in the Gold Rush, when respect went to those who prospered most. By 1870, San Francisco had 27 Irish bankers; at the same time, Philadelphia (much larger) had 18 and Boston (also much larger) had only four. Another part of the reason is undoubtedly the sheer numbers of Catholics—half the church- goers in the state by one estimate in 1860. Recent historians suggest that the presence of significant numbers of African Americans, American Indians, Chinese, and mestizos may have led whites—whether Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, Irish, German, British, Californio, or old-stock American—to focus on their “whiteness” rather than their religion or national origin. Whatever the reasons, by 1860 California was developing a reputation for religious toleration. That reputation, however, was limited to religion and failed to extend to race.

Chinese immigrants were barred from American citizenship. Congress approved the first federal law on naturalization in 1790 and, although amended occasionally, the law provided that only white immigrants might become natu- ralized citizens. State laws also discriminated against immigrants from China. In a court decision in 1854, the law that barred African Americans and Ameri- can Indians from testifying in court against whites was extended to the Chi- nese. Though local school boards first created racially separate schools for black students, local officials soon mandated segregated schools for Chinese students as well. The state legislature in 1863 directed the state superintendent of instruction to withhold funds from school districts that did not create sepa- rate schools for “Negroes, Mongolians, and Indians.”

New Social and Cultural Patterns 159

Writing the Gold Rush

Among those who came to California in the 1850s and 1860s were young writers, some of whom created new patterns in American literature. Life in the mining districts stimulated the creative imagination of some who mined the excitement and turbulence there for a wealth of literary plots. Writers published articles, poems, essays, and short stories in the new newspapers and literary journals. By the late 1850s, San Francisco could choose among more than 10 daily newspapers and a larger number of weekly or monthly publica- tions. Every mining town had at least one local paper, and often two. Among the many firsthand accounts of the Gold Rush that appeared in such publica- tions, perhaps the finest were the 23 letters written by Louise Clappe under the pseudonym Dame Shirley and published in the San Francisco Pioneer in 1854 and 1855.

Bret Harte arrived in California in 1854 and tramped through the mining country before taking a newspaper job in Humboldt County. He scathingly condemned local ruffians for the brutal slaughter of 60 Indians, mostly women and children, then fled when he was apparently threatened with lynch- ing. He made his way to San Francisco and soon became editor of the Overland Monthly. In its pages, he presented accounts of life in the diggings, drawing both on his own experience and on other firsthand accounts. Through stories such as “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” Harte contributed significantly to the development of local color and realism in American fiction. Other California journalists also began to develop similar themes.

The most famous and influential of the Gold Rush authors was Samuel L. Clemens, a Mississippi River steamboat captain who fled from the strife of the Civil War and arrived in Nevada Territory in 1861. There he mined, speculated in mining stock, camped through the Sierra Nevada, and began to write humorous essays for the Virginia City newspaper. He began to use the pen name Mark Twain and quickly became the most popular humorist in Nevada. In May 1864, he moved to San Francisco, where he developed his humor into satire. His short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was published in a New York journal in 1865. A San Francisco newspaper, the Alta California, commissioned him to travel to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land (then part of the Turkish empire). His book on his travels, Innocents Abroad (1869), established his national reputation and he moved to the East.

Ina Coolbrith arrived in California with her mother and stepfather in 1851 and grew up in Los Angeles. Her first poetry was published when she was 11. After her marriage to an abusive husband ended in divorce, she moved to San Francisco in the early 1860s. There she soon received national attention for her poetry and joined Harte in running the Overland Monthly. She seems to have dazzled Harte, Twain, and other emerging literary figures with her poetry, lit- erary advice, conversation, and beauty. When Harte, Twain, and the others left California to pursue fame in the East or in Europe—they were all gone by

160 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

1870—Coolbrith remained. She worked as city librarian in Oakland for many years, encouraged a new generation of writers, including Jack London, and, in 1915 at the age of 74, was named poet laureate of California.

Summary

California’s application for statehood produced the Compromise of 1850, by which congressional leaders sought to stave off sectional crisis. Sectional issues affected California politics in the 1850s, however, as transplanted southerners struggled with transplanted northerners to control California’s two Senate seats. In California, as in the eastern states, the growing sectional crisis precipi- tated the emergence of a new political party, the Republicans. At the same time that national politics was rupturing over the issue of slavery, California experi- enced a crisis of political legitimacy with the rise of vigilantism, reaching its apogee when vigilantes overthrew the city government of San Francisco.

The federal government was slow to create reservations for California Indians, many of whom fell victim to violence. Californios who held Spanish or Mexican land grants found it expensive and time-consuming to prove title to their land, and many lost their lands. Throughout the 1850s, the full

Ina Coolbrith is shown here as an established, celebrated poet. Coolbrith, in keeping with the moral conventions of her time, tried to conceal her divorce. She also tried to conceal her family background—that her mother had fled to Salt Lake City and that Coolbrith was the niece of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church.

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Summary 161

meaning of the state constitution’s ban on slavery had to be determined through court actions, most initiated by abolitionists, black and white.

With the presidential victory of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the nation plunged into civil war. Far from the scene of battle, the war nonetheless affected California in important ways. Some Californians participated in the war itself, and others raised funds for the Union cause. Reconstruction, and especially the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, altered the meaning of citizenship, and California law was amended to remove many of the laws that discriminated against African Americans and others.

The economy grew and diversified in the 1850s and 1860s, with growth fueled by the continued development of mining. Throughout the 1850s, Cali- fornia remained remote from the eastern United States because of poor trans- portation. With the victory of the Republicans, however, came federal subsidies for construction of a railroad to tie California to the North.

With the continued growth of population, sex ratios in California began to move toward a more normal distribution. At the same time, partly through the prompting of women, new social institutions began to emerge. Catholics and Jews in California experienced less religious discrimination than their counter- parts in the eastern United States. California, and especially San Francisco, acquired a reputation as a literary center.

Suggested Readings

❚ Berglund, Barbara, Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers in the Urban West, 1846-1906 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007). A deeply researched study of the social and cultural evolution of Califor- nia’s largest city.

❚ Chen, Yong, Chinese San Francisco, 1850–1943: A Trans-Pacific Community (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). A recent treatment that empha- sizes the continuing contacts between San Francisco’s Chinatown and China.

❚ Clarke, Dwight L., William Tecumseh Sherman: Gold Rush Banker (San Francisco: California Historical Society, 1969). Incorporates long excerpts from Sherman’s detailed letters, especially interesting for the vigilantes of 1856.

❚ Dame Shirley, [Clappe, Louise A. K. S.], The Shirley Letters (1854–55; Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1970). The letters of “Dame Shirley” provide a wealth of information on life in the gold fields.

❚ Griswold del Castillo, Richard, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990). The best single treatment of this cru- cially important document for the history of California and the Southwest.

162 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

❚ Hurtado, Albert L., Indian Survival on the California Frontier (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). An insightful and comprehensive treatment of this important topic.

❚ Lapp, Rudolph M., Blacks in Gold Rush California (New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, 1977). A pioneering work in African American history.

❚ Lotchin, Roger W., San Francisco, 1846–1856: From Hamlet to City (1974; Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997). An excellent treat- ment of this crucial decade in the history of the city.

❚ Matthews, Glenna. The Golden State in the Civil War: Thomas Starr King, the Republican Party, and the Birth of Modern California (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). A new treatment of the topic, especially good on the role of Thomas Starr King.

❚ Quinn, Arthur, The Rivals: William M. Gwin, David Broderick, and the Birth of California (New York: Crown Publishers, 1994). A well-written and balanced account of the key political rivalry in California in the 1850s.

❚ Rawls, James J., Orsi, Richard J., and Smith-Baranzini, Marlene, eds., A Golden State: Mining and Economic Development in Gold Rush California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). One volume of a series, all of which are excellent, developed by the California Historical Society on the occasion of the state’s sesquicentennial.

❚ Rohrbough, Malcolm J., Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997). A highly acclaimed treatment of the Gold Rush itself and its impact on California and the nation.

❚ Senkewicz, Robert M., Vigilantes in Gold Rush San Francisco (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985). An excellent overview of San Francisco’s vigilantism for the decade of the 1850s.

❚ Starr, Kevin, Orsi, Richard J., and Smith-Baranzini, Marlene, eds., Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in Gold Rush California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Another of the excellent volumes published to mark the state’s sesquicentennial.

Suggested Readings 163

CH AP

TE R 6

California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

Main Topics

❚ The Economic Transformation of California and the West

❚ New Social Patterns

❚ Politics

❚ Cultural Expression

❚ Summary

Born in China in 1857, the young orphan took the name Mary McGladery when she lived in the orphanage run by the San Francisco Ladies’ Protection and Relief Society.

There, Mary learned English, other school subjects, how to play the piano, and how to be a proper middle-class lady. In 1875, she married Jeu Dip. Born in China in 1852, he came to San Francisco in 1869, learned English, lived mostly outside Chinatown, operated a successful business as a drayman and bondsman, and Americanized his name to Joseph Tape.

The Tapes moved to a house outside Chinatown where their first child, Mamie, was born in 1876. Three more children followed. In 1884, the Tapes tried to enroll Mamie in the school nearest their home, but the San Francisco school board had long denied admission to children of Chinese descent. The Tapes filed a lawsuit to permit Mamie to attend school, and the

164

court ruled in their favor, as did the state supreme court. However, the San Francisco school superintendent persuaded the legislature to amend state law to permit separate schools for children of Chinese descent. Mamie was again denied admission to her neighborhood school. In turning to the courts, the Tapes were among the significant numbers of Chi- nese Americans who sought judicial redress when local or state laws violated their legal and constitutional rights, and who helped thereby to break down racial segregation and discrimination.

In a letter published in the newspaper, Mary Tape angrily accused the school board of “Race prejudice” and asserted that Mamie “is more of an American than a good many of you.” Mamie and her brother were the first to enroll at the new Chinese school. Later they moved near Chinatown, where

CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

1859–1880 Most productive period of Comstock silver mining

1864 Ralston opens the Bank of California

1870 Wheat surpasses gold as California’s most valuable product

1871 Anti-Chinese riots in Los Angeles

1872–1873 Modoc War

1877 Workingmen’s Party of California formed

1878 Constitutional Convention

1879 Publication of Henry George’s Progress and Poverty

1882 Chinese Exclusion Law approved

1884 Publication of Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona

1884 Southern Pacific Corporation chartered in Kentucky

1884 Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company

1885 Tape v. Hurley

1886 George Hearst becomes U.S. Senator

1886 Yick Wo v. Hopkins

1887 New state law encourages irrigation

1888 First California fruit travels to New York in refrigerated railroad cars

1897 Phoebe Apperson Hearst becomes Regent of the University of California

1899 Publication of Frank Norris’s novel McTeague

165

Mamie and her siblings learned Cantonese and other Chinese cultural patterns. In 1895, the Tapes moved to Berkeley, where the younger children could attend the regular public schools, including high school. While still in San Francisco, Mary had become an award-winning and technologically inno- vative amateur photographer. In Berkeley, Joseph’s busi- nesses continued to prosper, and the Tapes invested in real estate and eventually owned two ranches, where Joseph enjoyed hunting.

Mary and Joseph Tape provide examples of those whom historians of immigration have called “rapid assimilators”— those who quickly learn English and adopt many aspects of the majority lifestyle. Joseph’s successful business enterprises permitted them to live in middle-class, white neighborhoods. Mae Ngai, a historian who has researched the Tape family, describes them as “highly unusual” among the immigrants of their time, but as “archetypical members of the first Chinese American middle class.”

Mamie Tape grew up during what historians call the “Gilded Age,” the years roughly from 1870 to 1900. A period

Children, in the wake of the Chinese Exclusion act, were all too rare and thus highly valued in California’s Chinese enclaves. Like Mamie Tape, they confronted discrimination in public education.

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of rapid industrialization and urbanization, large-scale immi- gration, and swift economic development in the West, it was an age of great fortunes and urban poverty, of powerful new technology and rampant child labor. The Gilded Age was, in fact, the title of the first novel by one-time Californian Mark Twain, coauthored with his Connecticut neighbor, Charles Dudley Warner. In it, they satirized the materialism and cor- ruption of their day. Although most histories of the Gilded Age focus on the industries, entrepreneurs, cities, immigrants, and workers of the East and Midwest, California shared in all these experiences, although sometimes with unique varia- tions. And Californians were often at the forefront during this era of rapid and far-reaching change.

Questions to Consider

❚ Why were railroads and water so important to the eco- nomic development of California during this time?

❚ What made San Francisco the metropolis of the West? ❚ How was education transformed during this period? ❚ In what ways did gender roles change during these years?

❚ How would you compare the experiences of California Indians, Latinos, and immigrants during the late 19th century?

❚ What was the significance of third parties in California politics during the 1870s and 1890s?

❚ What were the similarities and differences between the constitutional conventions of 1850 and 1878?

❚ In what ways did writers and artists draw on California as inspiration for their work?

The Economic Transformation of California and the West

Railroad construction was important to economic development throughout the United States after the Civil War. In California and the West, railroads were even more crucial because of the great distances and the dearth of navigable waterways. Mining continued to be a major element in the western economy. At the same time, agriculture emerged as California’s leading industry. And, increasingly, water stood out as indispensable for mining, agriculture, and urban growth.

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 167

Railroad Expansion

For a quarter of a century after Leland Stanford placed the golden spike, the Central Pacific Railroad and its successor corporation, the Southern Pacific, dominated rail transportation in California and other parts of the West. Even before 1869, the railroad’s “Big Four”—Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker—had begun to buy out potential rivals and block possible competitors.

San Francisco entrepreneurs organized the Southern Pacific Railroad to build a line from San Francisco to San Diego, and in 1866 Congress gave the Southern Pacific a generous land grant. The Big Four gained control of the Southern Pacific (SP) and plotted a route through the Santa Clara and San Joaquin Valleys—giving them not only a transportation monopoly there

Map 6.1 This map shows the extent of the Southern Pacific’s transportation system as of 1894. The Southern Pacific dominated railroad service in California and nearby areas and connected California to New Orleans, the Pacific Northwest, and the Midwest (via the connection in Utah with the Union Pacific). Southern Pacific water routes con- nected New York and other major eastern cities to New Orleans, making it possible to travel cross-country entirely on Southern Pacific facilities. Does this map help you to understand why the Southern Pacific was sometimes called “the octopus”?

168 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

but also a great deal of potentially valuable agricultural land as part of their land grant. In 1870, the SP reached Los Angeles, then a country town with fewer than 6000 people.

By the mid-1870s, the Big Four controlled 85 percent of all railroad mileage in California and had ambitious plans for expansion. Eventually, they operated a line across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to New Orleans. Another line ran north, through the Sacramento Valley, then to Portland, Oregon (See Map 6.1). They acquired fleets of ships that carried passengers and freight along the Pacific coast, between California and Japan, and between New Orleans and New York. In 1884, they merged all these operations into the Southern Pacific Company, a holding company for which Huntington secured a corporate charter in Kentucky after the California legislature balked at approving such a powerful corporation. By 1884, the Big Four claimed that the SP was the largest transportation system in the nation, with more than 9000 miles of rails, 16,000 miles of water lines, and a virtual monopoly within California and other parts of the West.

The SP was also the largest landowner in California. While other land- grant railroads sold much of their lands, the SP held most of its land, arousing opposition from would-be farmers. On occasion, conflict over land erupted into violence. The most famous conflict was the “battle of Mussel Slough,” a struggle between the SP and farmers near Hanford, in what is now Kings County. Residents of the area had filed lawsuits over the SP’s land grant, and many farmers hoped to purchase land from the federal government for $2.50 per acre, rather than from the SP. The SP prevailed in court, however, and enforced prices of $10 to $25 per acre. In 1880, a federal marshal set out to evict a farm family, but a group of armed farmers blocked his way. Seven men died in the shootout that followed.

Leland Stanford served as president of the Central Pacific and then the SP. A founder of the Republican Party in California and the state’s first Republican governor (1863–1865), Stanford won election to the United States Senate in 1885. He and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, had one child, Leland Jr., who died of typhoid at the age of 16. They created a magnificent memorial to their son: Stanford University.

Collis P. Huntington was the shrewdest, coldest, and perhaps most ambi- tious of the Big Four. He represented them in the East and soon considered New York City his home. Huntington invested in other railroads, and by 1884 he could ride in his personal rail car over his own companies’ tracks from the Atlantic to the Pacific! He also invested in railroads in Latin America and Africa, urban transit in Brooklyn, land in southern California, shipbuilding in Virginia, and a host of other companies. True to his opposition to slavery in the 1850s, he insisted that his companies pay African Americans the same as white workers and that African Americans be hired on an equal basis with whites. His few charitable contributions included funds for schools for African Americans.

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 169

No other railroad challenged the SP’s dominance until the 1890s, and the company acquired a reputation for charging “all the traffic will bear,” that is, charging for freight and passengers at the very highest possible rate. Such behavior was typical of most railroad companies at the time. More than one entrepreneur reported that, upon his complaining about high freight rates, SP officials asked him to produce his account ledgers so that they could determine the highest level of freight rates he could pay without going bankrupt.

Most Californians understood the SP to be the most powerful force in state and local politics. All of the Big Four had taken part in Republican poli- tics in the 1850s, before their investment in the railroad. Stanford served as governor and U.S. senator. Huntington was the SP’s lobbyist in Washington, dedicated to preventing political restrictions on the SP and to gaining what- ever advantages could be realized through the political process. In the early 1880s, the widow of David Colton, a high-ranking official of the SP, released letters that Huntington had written to her husband in the 1870s. In one of the most notorious, Huntington wrote about one California congressman: “He is a wild hog; don’t let him come back to Washington.” Another letter dealt with the U.S. Congress: “It costs money to fix things . . . with $200,000 I can pass our bill.”

Competition for the SP arrived in 1885 in the form of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, known as the Santa Fe, which completed its line into Los Angeles in 1885. By 1888, passengers could take the Santa Fe from Chicago to San Diego, and a fare war broke out between the Santa Fe and the SP as each tried to undercut the other’s fares. In the meantime, several San Francisco merchants formed the Traffic Association to consider alterna- tives to the SP and to encourage the legislature to regulate freight rates. Even- tually, these efforts produced a new railroad company to build a line through the San Joaquin Valley to compete with the SP. Construction began in 1895, and by 1898 a line ran between Stockton and Bakersfield. The Santa Fe then bought the new line, linked it to the Santa Fe in southern California, and, in 1900, completed an extension to San Francisco Bay. The SP’s monopoly had finally been broken.

Despite complaints about railroad rates and political influence, rail lines were enormously important to the economic development of the West. With- out the railroad, most goods moved by water—up and down the coast and along the few navigable rivers of central California. The railroad permitted mining in remote regions and the shipping of heavy, technologically advanced mining equipment. Additionally, the railroad encouraged the development of specialized agriculture, especially fruit growing, that required fast trains and refrigeration equipment to carry produce from California to markets on the other side of the nation. By making travel from the eastern United States to California both easy and cheap, railroads also contributed significantly to the growth of the tourist industry and the state’s population boom.

170 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

Mining and Finance

Mining continued to be centrally important to the state’s economy, not only within California, but also for the activities of California companies in develop- ing mines throughout the West. Many aspects of mining required a high degree of expertise, technologically advanced equipment, and large amounts of capital. By the 1870s, California, and San Francisco in particular, were providing all three of these elements for mining throughout the West. In the process, the initiative in mining shifted from prospectors and mining engineers toward well-capitalized mining companies and investment bankers.

Nevada’s Comstock Lode (see p. 149) made some Californians wealthy. Between 1859 and 1880, a third of a billion dollars in silver (equivalent to about 6 billion dollars in 2010) was taken out of the Comstock Lode. Comstock mining required digging deep shafts and installing complex machinery to move men and equipment thousands of feet into the earth and to keep the tunnels cool and dry. By the mid-1870s, the Comstock mines used some of the most advanced mining equipment in the world.

The career of George Hearst illustrates the role of Californians in western mining. Born in Missouri in 1820, Hearst came overland to California in 1850 and acquired extensive mining experience. In 1859, he bought a one-sixth interest in the Ophir mine in the Comstock. The Ophir proved extraordinarily profitable. Hearst invested his profits in mining and in agricultural and timber lands throughout the West and Mexico. A Democrat, he served in the United States Senate from 1886 until his death in 1891. Though Hearst became wealthy from his mining investments, his fortune did not place him in the top ranks of San Francisco’s financial elite. Those positions were held securely by the Big Four and others who were even more successful than Hearst in coaxing profits from the Comstock.

The first Californians to rake in extraordinary profits from the Comstock were William Ralston and William Sharon. Ralston had organized the Bank of California in 1864 and soon set up agencies in the Comstock region. Sharon, Ralston’s representative there, established control over many mines in the region, and he also centralized decision making, financed deeper operations, and discovered new ore bodies. He vertically integrated the industry, combin- ing ownership of mines with ownership of a crushing mill, a timber company for shoring up the deep tunnels, water for the mills and for cooling the mines, fuel, and, after 1872, a railroad connection between the Comstock and the Cen- tral Pacific. In 1873, he was elected to the United States Senate from Nevada.

Nevada silver earned large profits for Ralston’s Bank of California. He invested some of this capital in manufacturing, mostly in San Francisco, including foundries and iron works, a refinery for Hawaiian sugar, and woolen mills to make cloth from the wool of California sheep. Other investments included shipping, hydraulic gold mining, insurance, irrigation canals, and the Palace Hotel, modeled on the great luxury hotels of Europe. He also loaned

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 171

funds to the Central Pacific. In 1875, however, Ralston faced a financial crisis. Some investments had been hit hard by the nationwide economic depres- sion that began in 1873, and some factories were suffering from competition with the products of eastern factories, now shipped to California over the railroad that Ralston had helped to finance. His back to the wall, Ralston sold his half of the Palace Hotel to Sharon, disposed of other stock as best he could, and resigned from the bank. He died the same day. Sharon took his place as head of a reorganized Bank of California.

By the time Sharon took over the Bank of California, he and the bank had already been displaced as the dominant factors in Nevada silver mining. They lost out to four partners, James G. Fair and John W. Mackay, both experienced mine operators, and James C. Flood and William F. O’Brien, San Francisco saloon keepers turned stockbrokers. These four—all Irish—wrested control of one large mine from Sharon in 1868, and the mine almost immediately began to produce large profits. They soon struck the richest vein of silver ore in American history. Like Sharon before them, they vertically organized opera- tions, investing in a reducing mill and in timber and water companies, all of which profited so long as the mines remained productive. Like others of the era, they invested their profits widely. Flood took the lead in creating the Nevada Bank of San Francisco in 1875 and served as its president. For a brief time, the Nevada Bank claimed the largest capitalization of any bank in the world.

San Francisco was the financial center of the Nevada silver boom and of mining throughout the West. The city’s merchants sold supplies to the miners, and most stocks in mining companies were bought and sold at San Francisco’s Mining Exchange, scene of quick profits and devastating losses. Initially, some San Francisco bankers, like Ralston, relied for capital on California merchants who had prospered during the Gold Rush. San Francisco bankers used their access to capital not just to invest in the Comstock but to centralize economic decision making there and to introduce more productive technologies. San Francisco bankers financed much of the West’s mining operations, and the profits helped to develop California industries, as well as to build lavish man- sions for the fortunate few. The process not only confirmed San Francisco as the financial capital of a self-financing frontier, but also reinforced the specula- tive mentality of the Gold Rush.

Agriculture

The 1870 census recorded that wheat had surpassed gold as California’s most valuable product. Wheat remained one of California’s most valuable products for the next 30 years, a period historians call the Bonanza Wheat Era. This massive increase in production occurred largely because of the expanding industrial work force of Britain, which required the importation of food. Cali- fornia’s weather in the central valleys was conducive to the production of hard,

172 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

dry wheat suitable for the long sea voyage and highly prized by British and Irish milling companies.

The high demand for California wheat and the relatively flat and dry California terrain led to mass production. Agricultural entrepreneurs carved out huge wheat farms—the largest extending over 103 square miles—and came to rely on machines to a greater extent than wheat farmers anywhere else, particularly on larger and more complex machines. Relatively flat terrain and large fields encouraged California wheat growers to use huge steam- powered tractors and steam-powered combines, which cut the standing wheat and separated the grain from the stalk in one operation. Not for another 20 years or so was such equipment widely used elsewhere.

Other agricultural entrepreneurs also operated on a large scale. Henry Miller and Charles Lux were German immigrants, both butchers. They formed a partnership and quickly moved to meatpacking (selling meat wholesale) and to cattle raising. Their company became the largest meat-packing firm in the West and the largest landowner in the San Joaquin Valley, where the company undertook massive drainage and irrigation projects to transform the landscape into fields and pastures. Eventually, Miller and Lux owned or leased thousands of square miles of land in three states. By 1900, the firm was the nation’s larg- est vertically integrated cattle-raising and meat-packing company, and the only agricultural corporation ranked among the 200 largest industrial corporations nationwide.

The bonanza wheat farms required a large force of laborers, especially at planting and harvesting times, as did the mammoth cattle ranches of Miller and Lux. Such operations gave a unique character to California agriculture— the farms and ranches were on a scale virtually unknown elsewhere in the country, and they relied on both technologically up-to-date equipment and an army of wage laborers, many of whom could only count on seasonal employ- ment. By 1900 or so, the Bonanza Wheat Era had passed, partly because expan- sion of wheat growing elsewhere in the world drove down prices, and the Miller and Lux empire also dissolved after Miller’s death in 1916.

Viticulture—the growing of grapes—had been well established in southern California by the Spanish missions. In the 1860s and after, grape growing for wine shifted northward, and the valleys around San Francisco Bay—Sonoma, Napa, Livermore, and Santa Clara—became the center of the California wine industry. There the climate, terrain, and soil produced grapes that could be made into high-quality wines. By 1900, California was making more than 80 percent of the nation’s wine. Grape growers, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, discovered another market for their products in the form of raisins, and by 1900 almost half of the California grape harvest was used for raisins.

During the 1880s and 1890s, fruit growers began to expand and diversify, especially around San Francisco Bay and in parts of the San Joaquin Valley. Climate and soil conditions gave California fruit growers a great advantage over other parts of the country, and new techniques in preserving fruit meant

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 173

that dried and canned fruit from California could easily be shipped to the east- ern states and elsewhere in the world. The development of refrigerated railroad cars greatly increased the ability of California growers to sell fresh fruit. The first refrigerated shipment of California fruit arrived in New York in 1888, leading to a major increase in demand. Refrigeration technology was soon applied to ships, and by 1892 fresh fruit from California was available in Great Britain. By 1900, Santa Clara County led the state in fruit production by a wide margin, followed by Fresno, Sonoma, and Solano Counties. In the 1870s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture introduced California growers to a navel orange from Brazil that was superior to previous varieties. Orange grow- ing expanded rapidly in southern California once refrigerated railroad cars opened markets in the eastern states. In the 1880s and 1890s, California also became an important producer of vegetables and nuts.

The transition to fruit, nut, and vegetable crops brought important changes in many other aspects of California agriculture. The enormous wheat ranches and the vast cattle ranches yielded to smaller farms that relied more on human labor than on machinery. Raisin, peach, plum, and pear growers averaged between 10 and 75 acres per farm, as opposed to the thousands of acres that had composed some wheat or cattle ranches. In many cases, a single family ran these small operations, although harvesting usually required additional labor.

The agricultural work force in central California in the 1880s and 1890s was ethnically diverse, including immigrants from Europe and whites whose families had been in the United States for generations. Cattle raising often employed Latinos, including both descendants of Californios and more recent immigrants from Mexico. Chinese farm workers contributed to the develop- ment of specialty crop agriculture out of proportion to their numbers. By the 1890s, there were also increasing numbers of agricultural workers from Japan and India.

Water

Water was key for the success of fruit, nut, and vegetable growing. Miners had developed elaborate water systems almost immediately and continued to require large amounts. Burgeoning urban areas required more and more water. Demands for water came up against legal systems that had been devised for different conditions. As a result, conflict over water often led to protracted legal battles and produced, in the end, new legal definitions of water rights and one of the first court orders protecting the environment.

Hydraulic mining had been used since the early 1850s (see p. 116). By 1880, some hydraulic mining operations operated around the clock, lit by giant electrical floodlights and drawing water from large reservoirs constructed by damming rivers. Unfortunately, hydraulic mining was highly destructive not only to the terrain where the water cannons were directed, but also to the envi- ronment downstream. The water from the blasting drained into rivers, carrying

174 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

with it debris that killed fish and made the water unsuitable for drinking. Mining debris filled river channels and created serious flooding. Those floods scattered mining debris over a wide area and damaged agricultural land. Urban residents far downstream from hydraulic mining had to build elaborate dikes to keep rivers from flooding their cities. The mining debris in the river chan- nels also threatened the use of rivers for shipping.

Finally, in 1884, Federal Circuit Judge Lorenzo Sawyer issued an order in the case of Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company prohibiting the dumping of debris in the rivers on the grounds that it was “a public and private nuisance,” and inevitably damaged the property and livelihood of farmers. It was, perhaps, the first federal court order restricting a business in order to protect the environment. The SP backed those challenging hydraulic mining because debris caused problems for the railroad too, by fouling its tracks and damaging its land. The Sawyer decision, which ended nearly all hydraulic mining, symbolized the transition from mineral extraction to crop production.

The legal system that Californians adapted from the eastern states was ill suited to the West. Eastern water law emphasized riparian rights, that is, the right of all those whose land bordered a stream to have access to the full flow of water from the stream, less small amounts for drinking. Irrigation removed water from the stream permanently, violating the riparian rights of those downstream from the irrigator. A different practice had emerged in the gold country, where the principle of appropriation was used to argue that the first person to take water from a stream gained the rights to that water. Both sys- tems received some legal sanction by the California legislature.

This confusing state of affairs came under increasing challenge as more and more farmers began to use streams for irrigation. Eventually, in 1887, the legislature approved a law that permitted residents in a particular area to form an irrigation district with legal authority to take water for irrigation regardless of downstream claims. By then, California led the nation in the amount of irri- gated farmland. By 1889, 14,000 California farmers (a quarter of the total), most of them in the San Joaquin Valley, practiced irrigation on more than a million acres, about eight percent of all improved farmland in the state.

As irrigation was transforming parts of the Central Valley previously too dry for many crops, wetlands were being drained to make them, too, avail- able for farming. In the middle of the 19th century, the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley held the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. Tulare Lake was broad—covering as much as 790 square miles—but shallow, and ringed by wetlands thick with tules and a wide diversity of wild- life. But as irrigators began to divert the rivers that fed Tulare Lake, the lake dried up. By 1900, the lake bed was being used for agriculture. Throughout the Central Valley, other wetlands were also drained for use as farmland. Draining wetlands together with massive irrigation projects produced unprecedented alterations in the landscape, to the point that the Central Valley now has deservedly been called “one of the most transformed landscapes in the world.”

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 175

In the 1870s, some companies that had initially been formed to supply water for gold mining began to sell water to cities and for irrigation. To meet the demand for electricity in the late 1880s and after, entrepreneurs in most Califor- nia cities were building generating plants that burned coal. Some, however, began to adapt the miners’ waterways and high-pressure technologies to generate elec- tricity more cheaply and with less pollution. By the early 1890s, there were sev- eral hydroelectric generating plants operating in the gold country. Mining towns like Grass Valley were among the first to have lights from hydroelectric power. By 1900, there were 25 hydroelectric generating plants in California, most in northern California, and that area was well on its way to becoming the region of the nation with the most intense use of water power to generate electricity.

Rise of Organized Labor

During the Gilded Age, changes in the state’s economy resulted in a more com- plex work force. Figure 6.1 indicates components of the work force, based on the 1900 census. The census data understate the number of women who worked in agriculture, so that proportion could be as high as a third. Also, women who ran boarding houses and prostitutes were often undercounted, which would increase the service sector somewhat. Increasing the agriculture and service sectors would, of course, proportionately decrease the others. Otherwise, Figure 6.1 provides a reasonable approximation of the California work force.

As the scale of operations grew in mining, transportation, and some parts of agriculture and manufacturing, and as reliance on technologically

Figure 6.1 Major Components of the Wage-Earning Work Force, 1900 This graph suggests how complex the California economy had become by 1900. It also points to the continuing importance of agriculture and lumbering, as well as to the major role of manufacturing. Source: Occupations at the twelfth census (Washington, 1904)

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176 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

sophisticated machinery increased in those areas, fewer people had the neces- sary capital to enter such fields. Instead, those who worked in these fields were increasingly likely to be wage-earning employees. Some of them helped to organize unions. In 1910, Lucile Eaves published one of the first scholarly histories of California labor. In it, she wrote that trade union activity appeared so early “that one is tempted to believe that the craftsmen met each other on the way to California and agreed to unite.” And, indeed, many immigrants to California brought a concept of trade unionism in their mental baggage.

The first recorded union activity in California came in San Francisco in 1849, when carpenters went on strike for higher wages. Local unions were common in San Francisco and other cities from the Gold Rush onward, though most were short-lived until the 1880s. The history of early California unions is much like that of their counterparts to the east—workers with a particular skill formed local unions to seek better wages or working conditions, and those organizations often fell apart if they lost a strike.

As in other parts of the country in the 1880s, many local unions in California affiliated with newly formed national trade union organizations and sometimes with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), organized in 1886. Such trade unions typically limited their membership to skilled workers in one particular field, such as carpentry or printing, and many excluded women and people of color. The 1880s also saw the rapid rise of the Knights of Labor, who admitted both skilled and unskilled workers, including women and African Americans, but the Knights were short-lived. All California unions excluded Chinese workers. In fact, most California unions in the 1880s presented themselves as defending white workers against competition with Chinese workers, arguing that employers used Chinese workers to drive down wage levels and working conditions. Most historians agree that opposition to Chinese labor gave California unions what historian Alexander Saxton called “the indispensable enemy.” This common “enemy” proved useful in efforts to organize white workers.

Unions also thrived in the prosperous 1880s because many employers found it to their financial advantage to give in to employee demands for better wages, rather than to face a strike. In 1891, employers formed the Board of Manufacturers and Employers of California, centered in San Francisco and devoted to opposing unions. A major depression that began in 1893 caused many unions to collapse when they lost members due to unemployment or were unable to maintain wage levels. Only with the revival of prosperity in the late 1890s did trade unions revive.

San Francisco: Metropolis of the West

The Southern Pacific, Hearst, Sharon, Flood and Fair, cattle barons, lumber companies, and other entrepreneurs located their corporate headquarters in San Francisco, which was, by any criterion of that day, a major city. In 1880, San Francisco’s population reached nearly 300,000, ranking it seventh among the nation’s cities—the only large city west of St. Louis. James Bryce, an English

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 177

visitor, noted in the 1880s that San Francisco “dwarfs” other western cities and “is a commercial and intellectual centre, and source of influence for the sur- rounding regions, more powerful over them than is any Eastern city over its neighborhood.”

Beyond being a commercial and literary center, San Francisco had about it an air of excitement. Rudyard Kipling, the British author, visited in 1891 and likened the cable cars to a miracle for their ability to climb and descend hills smoothly. The expanding population alone provided opportunities that couldn’t exist elsewhere. For example, aspiring women artists formed a sketch- ing club to encourage and critique each other’s work, amateur photographers (including Mary Tape) formed the California Camera Club, and German immigrants formed German gymnastics societies and singing groups. Seamen the world over knew of the city’s storied Barbary Coast, reputed to contain every conceivable form of pleasure and vice. San Francisco’s Chinatown was the largest in the United States and already attracted curious tourists—Oscar Wilde, in 1881, thought it was “the most artistic town I have ever come across.”

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178 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

This photograph of San Francisco, the metropolis of the West, was taken looking southwestward along Market Street. Jack London called the area to the left of Market Street “South of the Slot” (south of the cable-car slot), and described it as home to the city’s working class. The area closest to the Ferry Building on both sides of Market Street included many saloons, cheap eating places, and union offices, all catering to the men who worked on the waterfront. Why might newcomers from small towns and rural areas, arriving in San Francisco through the Ferry Building, feel uncomfortable in such surroundings?

San Francisco was the metropolis of the West because of its economic prowess. It was a center for finance and held the headquarters of corporations that dominated much of the Pacific coast and intermountain West. Its dominance also stemmed from its port: In 1880, 99 percent of all imports to the Pacific coast arrived on its docks, and 83 percent of all Pacific coast exports were loaded there. Western mining, transportation, and agriculture stimulated San Francisco’s manufacturing sector. By 1880, San Francisco’s foundries produced advanced mining equipment, large-scale agricultural implements, locomotives, and ships. San Francisco also became a major center for food processing.

San Francisco’s entrepreneurs extended their reach throughout the West and into the Pacific. Claus Spreckels, an immigrant from Germany, established a sugar refinery in the city in 1863. In the 1870s, he developed a huge sugar plantation on the Hawaiian island of Maui and soon controlled nearly all the Hawaiian sugar crop. By the 1890s, Spreckels was one of the three largest sugar producers in the nation, drawing not only upon Hawai‘i but also on sugar beet fields in several western states. In the late 1890s, Hawaiian-born sugar planters wrested control from Spreckels, then replicated the chain of vertical integration that Spreckels had pioneered, investing in a steamship company to carry raw sugar to the new C&H (California and Hawaiian) refinery they built at Crock- ett, northeast of San Francisco.

As the population of California’s cities burgeoned, lumberjacks cut the coastal redwoods for use in construction. When timberlands near San Fran- cisco Bay were exhausted, lumbering moved to northern California, Oregon, and Washington. Some lumber companies became vertically integrated, owning lumber mills, schooners that carried rough-cut lumber down the coast, and lumberyards and planing mills in the San Francisco Bay area. Born in Scotland, Robert Dollar grew up in lumber camps and worked his way up to sawmill owner. He purchased a ship in 1895 to carry his lumber to San Francisco and then added more ships. His Dollar Line eventually became a major oceanic shipping company and the predecessor of today’s American President Lines.

Some of California’s Gold Rush fortunes were extended and expanded by a second generation. By 1900, George Hearst’s former newspaper, the San Fran- cisco Examiner, was one of several papers owned by his son, William Randolph Hearst, who created a nationwide publishing empire in the early 20th century. William H. Crocker, son of Charles Crocker of the Big Four, formed Crocker Bank in the 1880s and invested widely throughout the West, including electri- cal power companies, hydroelectric generating plants, mining, agriculture, ship- ping, and southern California oil. Claus Spreckels’s son John invested heavily in San Diego in commercial properties, banks, newspapers, and the Hotel del Cor- onado, the city’s leading tourist attraction. His investments helped San Diego grow to almost 18,000 people by 1900. Henry Huntington—the nephew and heir of Collis Huntington of the SP—created an extensive streetcar system in the Los Angeles basin that both fed upon and contributed to the growth of Los Angeles.

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 179

New Social Patterns

California was becoming ever more urban—by 1900, more than 40 percent of Californians lived in its 10 largest cities. Urban growth was just one of the social and cultural changes that were also occurring elsewhere in the United States, including the emergence of new educational institutions, changes in the status of women, and large-scale immigration.

Education

During the Gilded Age, great changes occurred in education, including the expansion of higher education. Religious organizations created California’s ear- liest colleges. Methodists received the state’s first college charter, in 1851, for California Wesleyan College, later the University of the Pacific. In 1851, Joseph Alemany, first Catholic bishop of California, gave the Santa Clara mission to Jesuit priests for a college, and Santa Clara College (later Santa Clara Univer- sity) obtained its charter in 1855. Southern California lagged in creating col- leges. Los Angeles Methodists planned the University of Southern California in the 1870s, but the university opened in 1880 only because of a gift of land by three donors—one Protestant, one Catholic, and one Jewish. Presbyterians founded Occidental College in 1887.

Compared with eastern colleges, more of the early California colleges admitted women. Even so, as was the case in the East, separate women’s col- leges began to appear, notably Mills College, chartered in 1885 as a private, nondenominational women’s college.

Denominational colleges were older than the nation itself. Public universities—nondenominational, tax-supported—appeared in a few places after the American Revolution, but most public universities were created only after 1862, when Congress approved the Morrill Act, giving land to states for use in funding a university. The University of California derived from both traditions. The College of California, founded in 1853 as a private academy, drew upon the traditions of Harvard and Yale. In 1867, the trustees donated their institution to the state. The legislature added to that gift the state’s land grant under the Morrill Act and created the University of Cali- fornia. In 1873, the university acquired a medical college in San Francisco. As was occurring elsewhere, the university moved away from its original classical curriculum and created majors, including engineering, agriculture, and commerce. The university also increased its emphasis on research and service to the state.

The need for better-trained teachers led the legislature to create state- funded, two-year schools called “normal schools.” These institutions bore little resemblance to the colleges of the day. Instead of the classical curriculum or the new system of majors, they concentrated on training teachers for grades

180 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

one through eight. By 1900, state normal schools operated at Chico, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, San José, and Santa Barbara.

Leland and Jane Stanford spent years planning a university to memorialize their son. They envisioned Stanford University as a nondenominational, “practical” university whose graduates would be both broadly educated and prepared for a profession. Women were admitted on a basis of equality with men. The first president, David Starr Jordan, sought to mold a modern univer- sity, stressing research as well as teaching, providing graduate as well as under- graduate instruction, and permitting students to choose a major.

Throughout the nation at the time, public schooling usually ended after the eighth grade. This sufficed for those who worked in agriculture or industry but not for college admission. Those who attended college often prepared at private academies. During the Gilded Age, urban school districts began to create high schools. High schools prepared students for college, and by 1900 some high schools also offered vocational courses such as bookkeeping or woodworking. By 1900, 32 percent of California men and 39 percent of California women of high school age were in school.

Changing Gender Roles

Increasing participation by women in education was just one indication of the changes in women’s status. Another highly visible change was an increase in women throughout the work force—as wage earners, professionals, and self-employed entrepreneurs. These patterns were most pronounced in urban areas.

Many California women worked outside the home, including in 1880 one- quarter of San Francisco’s females over the age of 10. African American women and daughters of immigrants were most likely to work for wages. The largest number who worked outside their own homes were servants and waitresses; the next largest number worked in clothing making, either as factory workers or self-employed dressmakers or milliners. By 1900, women outnumbered men by four to one among stenographers and typists and by three to one among teachers. California women were also working in printing (one in eight were women), medicine (also one in eight), and business (one in four among book- keepers and accountants). By the late 19th century, changes in retailing— especially the appearance of department stores—also brought new employment opportunities for women. In 1874, Kate Kennedy, a San Francisco school prin- cipal and political activist, persuaded the legislature to require that women tea- chers be paid the same as male teachers for the same work, but the large majority of women still earned less than their male counterparts.

Still, the majority of California women did not work outside the home, and the social values of domesticity and separate spheres prevailed in most places, especially among the urban, white middle class. Women continued to be active in church organizations and benevolent societies. By 1894, the 204 charitable

New Social Patterns 181

organizations in San Francisco dispensed more than $1.3 million, nearly all from private sources. Middle- and upper-class women ran most of those chari- ties. They also organized women’s clubs devoted to self-education, socializing, and often charitable or reform activities. Throughout the nation, and in much of California, the largest women’s organization of the Gilded Age was the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Founded in 1874, the WCTU advocated the prohibition of alcoholic beverages and condemned the abuse of wives and children by drunken husbands.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst stands out among the California women involved in philanthropy. Born into modest circumstances, her life changed dramatically when she married George Hearst in 1862. Like other wealthy women, she par- ticipated in a wide range of civic and philanthropic activities, especially those that focused on women and children. She helped to support an orphanage, a school for female physicians, the first kindergartens in San Francisco (which provided child care for working-class mothers), and a settlement house (which provided social services for the poor). When George died in 1891, Phoebe inherited everything, allowing her to increase her philanthropic endea- vors. She helped organize the Parent Teacher Association and gave generously to the Young Women’s Christian Association. Her desire to help young women get an education led her to contribute generously to the University of Califor- nia, funding buildings, archeological expeditions, an anthropological museum (named in her honor in 1991), and other programs. In 1897, Governor James Budd appointed her to the university Board of Regents, and she was reap- pointed until her death in 1919. Thus, Hearst reflected many of the expecta- tions of her day about women’s social roles even as she challenged many constraints on women’s involvement in the wider sphere of life, beyond the home and the family.

Other California women also challenged restrictions on women. Two pio- neer female lawyers, Clara Shortridge Foltz of San José and Laura de Force Gordon from San Francisco, promoted an array of women’s issues, from admission to law school to changes in laws governing property ownership. (See p. 191 for their accomplishments during the state’s second constitutional convention.) Both, at different times, led the California State Woman Suffrage Association. In 1878, California Senator Aaron A. Sargent introduced in the U.S. Congress, for the first time, a proposed constitutional amendment for woman suffrage. A group of California women steadily promoted the cause of woman suffrage, but they could not persuade the state legislature to put the question before the voters until 1896. Susan B. Anthony and other national suffrage leaders then hurried to California to organize the most thorough cam- paign up to that time. Ellen Clark Sargent, widow of the senator who first introduced the suffrage amendment, led the effort. The cause won support from Jane Lathrop Stanford, the first time that suffrage secured public support from a woman of such high status. Liquor industry leaders became alarmed that a suffrage victory might lead to a WCTU victory, and they mounted a

182 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

strong anti-suffrage campaign. Outside San Francisco and Alameda County (Oakland) the suffrage amendment won a small majority, but large majorities against it in those two counties defeated it.

Urban areas also became the sites for a new type of challenge to accepted gender roles. A few men and somewhat more women changed their dress and behavior, passing for a member of the other sex either briefly or permanently. Lillie Hitchcock Coit was a wealthy San Franciscan who occasionally wore men’s clothing to attend saloons or nightspots that barred women. Elvira Mugarrieta claimed that she wore men’s clothing so she could “travel freely, feel protected and find work,” and spent much of her life passing as a man, serving as a lieutenant in the Spanish-American War and a male nurse during the San Francisco earthquake.

Though some people passed for the other gender, homosexual behavior was illegal everywhere. Same-sex relationships that involved genital contact vio- lated state laws and social expectations. In the late 19th century, however, bur- geoning cities provided anonymity for gays and lesbians, who gravitated toward cities and developed distinctive subcultures. By the 1890s, reports of regular meeting places for homosexuals—particular clubs, restaurants, steam baths, parks, and streets—came from most large American cities, including San Francisco.

California Indians

The legal situation of California Indians continued to evolve in unusual ways. Throughout the West during the 1870s and 1880s, federal policy and the army combined to locate Indian people on reservations. Efforts to move the native peoples of California onto reservations in California had been short-circuited before the Civil War (see p. 138), though a few small reservations were estab- lished and Indian peoples from several tribes were relocated to them. Most remained outside those reservations, however, living in small villages, called rancherías, and working for wages on nearby farms and ranches. Some ran- cherías existed because local landowners needed the labor of their residents. Sometimes Indian people pooled their resources and bought small plots of land for their rancherías. For most California Indians not living on reserva- tions, however, their legal status remained ambiguous.

The last armed conflict between the U.S. Army and Indian peoples within California was the so-called Modoc War of 1872–1873. The Modocs had tradi- tionally lived in northern California along the Lost River. In 1864, they were assigned to a reservation in southern Oregon with the Klamath people, tradi- tional adversaries of the Modocs. A group of Modocs led by Kientpoos (also spelled Keintpoos or Kintpuash)—often called Captain Jack—returned to the Lost River region and asked for a reservation there. Sporadic negotiations pro- duced no agreement. U.S. troops arrived in 1872 and ordered the Modocs to return to Oregon. Shooting broke out when one Modoc refused to surrender

New Social Patterns 183

his gun, and the Modocs fled. Several Modocs then killed 17 white settlers. Ordered to negotiate rather than attack, General Edward Canby opened discus- sions. Among the Modocs, one faction persuaded the rest that they could improve their bargaining position if they could demonstrate their power by killing the negotiators.

Rumors were rampant about the planned killings. The negotiators knew of the danger but came to the meeting place unarmed on April 11, 1873. Two, including Canby, were killed and another seriously injured. (Canby was the highest-ranking army officer ever killed by Indians.) The Modocs fled into what is now the Lava Beds National Monument. The army ordered the new commander to capture the Modocs. Though they first eluded the troops, even- tually all were captured. Those who had murdered the peace negotiators were tried and found guilty. Four were hanged, and two sentenced to prison. Mean- while, Oregon settlers killed several Modocs. Arguing that white settlers were likely to kill the others if they returned to Oregon, federal authorities sent them to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and permitted them to return to Oregon only 30 years later.

Changing Patterns of Ethnicity

For the United States, the years between the Civil War and World War I (1865–1917) were a time of large-scale immigration, mostly from Europe. Cali- fornia received large numbers of European immigrants, but also had its own unique immigration patterns. Streams of immigrants from Europe and Asia significantly affected Californians’ understanding of ethnicity.

Table 6.1 summarizes data on immigration, nativity, and race from the U.S. censuses of 1860, 1880, and 1900. The data for 1860 show the influence of the Gold Rush, when people from around the world descended on California to strike it rich. Immigration continued afterward, but there also developed a large population born in the United States and, especially, in California.

Table 6.1 shows that half the population of California, as of 1900, consisted of first- or second-generation white immigrants, the vast majority from Europe. As of 1900, the largest numbers of California’s immigrants were from Germany and Ireland, each with 19 percent of white immigrants, followed by Britain and English-speaking Canada, with 15 percent. Italy and Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland) each provided 6 percent.

In California, some European ethnic groups showed patterns of settlement and occupation significantly different from those groups elsewhere in the coun- try. In the Midwest, Scandinavians were among those most likely to be farmers. While some Scandinavians farmed in California, many Scandinavians worked as merchant seamen. A survey by the Sailors Union of the Pacific (SUP) found that 40 percent of its members were born in Scandinavia. Andrew Furuseth, a Norwegian-born seaman, helped to create the SUP and led it for more than 40 years. In the northeastern United States, Italians tended to be urban and

184 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

to work in manufacturing. There were Italians in California who did the same, but there were also many who lived in agricultural areas, especially around San Francisco Bay. Italian farmers around the bay and in the Santa Clara and Sacramento Valleys sent much of their produce to San Francisco, and Ital- ian produce merchants in San Francisco developed long-term relations with Italian farmers. Such contacts helped Amadeo P. Giannini when he made the transition from produce merchant to banker and created the Bank of Italy in 1904. Other Italians moved from selling produce to processing it, including winemaking, pasta making, and the canning of fruits and vegetables.

In many places in California, European immigrants settled into communi- ties defined by language and religion. Most Italians and most Irish were Cath- olic, so, for both groups, language, religion, and national origin coincided to help create ethnically self-conscious communities. Germans, however, often formed separate ethnic communities by religion—Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Jewish—although some German ethnic organizations and newspapers

Table 6.1 NATIVITY AND RACE, 1860, 1880, AND 1900

1860 1880 1900

Nativity and Race Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent

White, born in U.S. with both parents born in U.S.

644,428 43.4

White, born in U.S. with one or both parents foreign-born

176,649 46.5 549,529 63.6

441,794 29.7

White, foreign- born

146,528 38.6 217,652 25.2 316,505 21.3

Total white 323,177 85.0 767,181 88.7 1,402,727 94.5

Asian, Chinese 75,132 8.7 45,753 3.1

Asian, Japanese 34,933 9.2

86 .0001 10,151 0.7

American Indian 17,798 4.7 16,277 1.9 15,377 1.0

African American 4,086 1.1 6,018 0.7 11,045 0.7

Latino No reliable data available

No reliable data available

No reliable data available

TOTAL POPULATION

379,994 864,694 1,485,053

Source: Population of the United States in 1860 (Washington, 1864); Statistics of the population of the United States at the tenth census (Washington, 1883); Twelfth census of the United States, taken in the year 1900. Population (Washington, 1901–1902).

New Social Patterns 185

crossed religious dividing lines. Though most Scandinavians were Lutheran, their churches in America often differed significantly from those by German Lutherans. Many Norwegian Lutherans, for example, opposed the consumption of alcohol but few Germans saw any sin attached to a glass of beer.

In San Francisco and throughout the West, Chinese immigrants estab- lished Chinatowns—relatively autonomous and largely self-contained Chinese communities. Chinese Californians formed kinship organizations and district associations, whose members came from the same part of China, in order to assist and protect each other. A confederation of such associations with head- quarters in San Francisco, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association— the “Six Companies”—eventually exercised great power over the social and economic life of Chinese communities throughout the West. Chinese commu- nities were largely male, partly because of a federal law, the Page Act of 1875,

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Taken in the late 1890s, this photograph depicts San Francisco’s Chinatown before it became a tourist destination. Note the hanging lanterns, traditional clothing of the men and child, and how carefully the man is holding the child.

which prohibited “the importation into the United States of women for the purposes of prostitution.” This law was often used by immigration officials to exclude Chinese women, thus limiting the possibilities for the creation of fami- lies. As in other largely male communities, gambling and prostitution flour- ished, giving Chinatowns a reputation as vice districts.

Many Chinese immigrants initially came to California for the Gold Rush and railroad construction. During the 1850s and 1860s, four-fifths of Chinese Californians lived in mining regions, and nearly that large a proportion worked in mining. By 1900, however, nearly half of all Chinese Californians lived in the San Francisco Bay area and another quarter in the Central Valley. By then, about one-fifth of Chinese Californians worked in agriculture or fishing, another one-fifth as barbers, cooks, household servants, and the like, and another fifth as laborers. By 1900, the total number of Chinese Californians had declined significantly, from a high point of some 136,000 in 1883 to fewer than 46,000 by 1900.

These changes in the number and in the regional and occupational distri- bution of Chinese Californians reflect, in part, general economic changes. As mining declined, agriculture rose. But those changes also reflect the response by Chinese Californians to white mobs who tried to drive the Chinese out of particular occupations and particular communities. A wave of riots took place in the 1870s, accompanying the economic downturn of those years. Some white workers blamed the Chinese for driving down wages and causing unemploy- ment. In 1871, an anti-Chinese riot in Los Angeles erupted when city police, breaking up a fight in the city’s Chinatown, were fired upon, wounding two policemen and killing a civilian. A white mob surged into Chinatown, burned buildings, looted stores, and attacked Chinese, killing 18. San Francisco experi- enced anti-Chinese rioting in 1877. A second wave of anti-Chinese riots swept communities in the West in 1885. Anti-Chinese violence led many Chinese to retreat to the agricultural areas of central California and to the larger China- towns, especially San Francisco. Declining numbers of Chinese Californians also reflect a return to China by some, the exclusion of new immigrants after 1882, and the limited prospects for forming families.

In parts of California, the Chinese encountered segregation similar to that imposed on blacks in the South, including residential and occupational segrega- tion resulting from local custom rather than law. In 1871, the San Francisco school board barred Chinese students from the public schools, and the ban lasted until 1885, when, in response to the lawsuit brought by the parents of Mamie Tape, the city opened a segregated Chinese school. Segregated schools for Chinese American children were also established in Sacramento and a few other places.

In places with many Chinese immigrants, merchants often took the lead in establishing a strong economic base. Chinese organizations sometimes suc- ceeded in fighting anti-Chinese legislation. For example, when the San Fran- cisco Board of Supervisors restricted Chinese laundry owners, they went to court. In the case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), the U.S. Supreme Court for

New Social Patterns 187

the first time declared a licensing law unconstitutional because local authorities used it to discriminate on the basis of race.

There was relatively little immigration from Latin America to California between the Gold Rush and about 1900. Many immigrants who came from Latin America to California during the Gold Rush assimilated into Mexican communities that predated the Gold Rush. By 1900, people born in Mexico made up only three percent of foreign-born Californians. Most California Lati- nos, by 1900, had been born in California, and often their parents had been as well. In Los Angeles, only 11 percent of the Latino population had been born in Mexico as of 1880. Research on several southern California communities indi- cates very little change between 1860 and 1880 in the number of Latinos.

Historians have described a process that Albert Camarillo calls “barrioization”—the creation of barrios, separate Spanish-speaking neighbor- hoods within the cities, often near an old mission church. Such barrios, like neighborhoods of European immigrants, provided their residents with oppor- tunities and institutions to preserve their own cultural heritages even as they adapted to the expectations and opportunities in the larger community. Large barrios often had a newspaper, stores run by members of the group where one might buy culturally familiar products, and voluntary organizations including church-related groups, beneficial societies, and political clubs. There was, of course, one glaring difference between immigrant neighborhoods and barrios—European immigrants chose to migrate, seeking improved opportu- nities and a better life, but Mexican Californians went from being the domi- nant group to a disadvantaged and largely landless minority, with well over half of the males employed as unskilled laborers.

In the late 19th century, ethnicity played a prominent role in the way many Californians identified themselves. Foreign immigrants to California began to think of themselves as having much in common with others who spoke their language, worshiped as they did, and shared many of their values and expectations, whether or not they came from the same village. They thought of themselves as members of an ethnic group, different from the groups around them. Not surprisingly, for many Californians of the late 19th century, ethnic identities proved to be an important part of their self-identity and affected the way that they related to others.

Politics

During the Gilded Age, politics meant political parties. The large majority of Americans expected that only men would be involved, and that men would be steadfastly loyal to their party. Political parties nominated candidates for office at party conventions (at local, state, and national levels), and the

188 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

conventions were followed by circus-like campaigns. The parties distributed ballots on Election Day—a voter had to get the “ticket” with the candidates of his party in order to vote. In most of the country, ethnicity and loyalty to a party were closely linked. California differed from these national patterns in several ways: some California males seem to have been less strongly committed to their parties, and ethnicity seems less significantly related to party affiliation in California than elsewhere.

Political Discontent in the 1870s

In the 1871 election, the Republicans of Solano County demonstrated the potential for manipulation that was inherent in having political parties print ballots. Normally, parties printed their candidates’ names on a sheet of paper and distributed those “tickets” to voters. If a voter wanted to vote for someone else, he had to scratch out the name printed on the ticket and write in the other name. Some candidates distributed “pasters,” small strips of paper with the candidate’s name on one side and glue on the other, to make “scratching a ticket” easier. Republicans in Solano County devised a ticket only five-eighths of an inch wide and printed in a tiny font, making it impossible to write in a name or use a paster. Its long and narrow shape, with dense, tiny printing all over it, was soon labeled the “tapeworm ticket” and was imitated across the state. In 1874, the legislature required that ballots be “uniform in size, color, weight, texture, and appearance”—one of the earliest efforts by any state to regulate political parties. Another law in 1878 regulated the symbols used by parties to distinguish their tickets.

Newton Booth, who won the 1871 election for governor by running as a critic of the Southern Pacific, took office just as the Granger movement began to affect state politics. The Patrons of Husbandry—called the Grange— promoted educational programs and cooperatives among farmers. In several states, farmers formed independent political parties, known by various names but usually called Granger parties. Several states passed “granger laws,” creating state railway commissions to investigate, and sometimes regulate, railroad charges. In California in 1873, Grangers combined with opponents of the SP to create a new political party, the People’s Independent Party. Governor Booth favored the new party. The People’s Independents won a large bloc of legislative seats in 1873 and elected their candidate to the state supreme court (judges were then elected on party tickets). In 1875, the state legislature was faced with filling both U.S. Senate seats, due to the death of one incumbent and the expiration of the other’s term. People’s Independents combined with Booth’s followers and a few Democrats to elect Booth to one Senate seat and a Democrat to the other. When Booth resigned the governorship, Lieutenant Governor Romualdo Pacheco, scion of a prominent Californio family, became governor for the remainder of Booth’s term. By 1875, the Granger movement had passed its peak, and the People’s Independent Party soon disappeared.

Politics 189

Another third party emerged in San Francisco in 1877, during a time of economic depression and high unemployment. In July 1877, a strike by eastern railroad workers, protesting wage cuts, mushroomed into violence in several midwestern and eastern cities. In San Francisco, a meeting to support the rail- way strikers erupted into a riot aimed at Chinese workers. That fall, Denis Kearney, a drayman whose business had suffered from the depression, attracted a wide following when he condemned the monopoly power of the SP and, at the same time, argued that monopolists were using Chinese workers to drive down wages. He formed the Workingmen’s Party of California (WPC) and gave it the slogan, “The Chinese Must Go.” For a time in the late 1870s, the WPC dominated political life in San Francisco, sweeping elections in 1878 and

Illustration of a meeting of the San Francisco Workingmen’s Party. What does this image suggest about the ability of popular figures like Kearney to deflect white working class grievances onto even more economically marginalized Chinese workers?

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1879. WPC candidates also won elections for mayor in Oakland and Sacramento.

Kearney and the WPC were not the first to attack the Chinese. From the start of Chinese immigration to California, some viewed them as a threat. Beginning with Leland Stanford in 1861, most governors bemoaned the pres- ence of Chinese in California. “Anti-coolie” clubs (“coolie” was a derogatory term for a Chinese laborer) in working-class districts of San Francisco attracted many members. Opponents of the Chinese claimed that they drove down white workers’ wages and standard of living. Others portrayed the Chinese as unclean, immoral, clannish, and heathen. State and city laws discriminated against the Chinese from the 1850s onward.

The Second Constitutional Convention, 1878

The WPC’s greatest statewide success came in 1878, in elections for a second constitutional convention. In many places, anxious Republicans and Democrats compromised their differences and put up nonpartisan slates to oppose the WPC. In the end, the convention consisted of 80 nonpartisans, 52 Working- men (mostly from San Francisco), 10 Republicans, nine Democrats, and one Independent. Of those elected from rural areas, many had been involved with the Granger movement. Together, WPC delegates and Granger delegates com- prised a majority.

The convention delegates met in Sacramento in September 1878. The con- stitution they drafted—much amended—remains the state constitution today. The new constitution set the size of the state senate at 40 and the assembly at 80 (both still in force) and specified that the legislature should meet for 60 days in alternate years (a provision changed in 1966). Statewide officers were to serve four-year terms and be elected in even-numbered years halfway between presidential elections (provisions still in force). The 1849 constitution required publication of all significant public documents in both English and Spanish; the new constitution specified that all public documents be in English. The University of California was given autonomy from legislative or executive oversight (still in force). The WPC and the Grangers combined to create an elected railroad commission (now called the Public Utilities Commission) that was empowered to regulate rates. Water was declared to be under state regulation.

Clara Shortridge Foltz and Laura de Force Gordon (see p. 182) set up a well-organized lobbying operation at the convention. Though unable to get woman suffrage, they secured two important constitutional guarantees: equal access for women to any legitimate occupation and to public higher educa- tional institutions.

The convention teemed with proposals for constitutional restrictions on Chinese and other Asian immigrants. Only one member of the body opposed discriminatory legislation. In the end, the constitution authorized the

Politics 191

legislature to provide for removal from the state of “dangerous or detrimental” aliens, prohibited any corporation or governmental body from employing any “Chinese or Mongolian,” directed the legislature to discourage immigration by those not eligible for citizenship (federal law limited naturalization to “white persons” and those of African descent), and specified that white foreigners and foreigners of African descent had the same property rights as native-born citizens.

The new constitution was highly controversial, mostly because of its restrictions on corporations. Californians voted on it in May 1879. Despite strong opposition, it was approved by a healthy margin. The provisions restricting Asians were invalidated by the courts.

Politics in the 1880s

Anti-Chinese agitation soon reached national politics. In 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent a representative to China to negotiate a treaty per- mitting the United States to “regulate, limit, or suspend” the immigration of Chinese laborers, and the treaty was approved in November. That summer, both Republicans and Democrats promised, in their national platforms, to cut off Chinese immigration.

In 1882, U.S. Senator John Miller, a Republican from California, intro- duced a bill to exclude Chinese immigration for 20 years and to prohibit Chi- nese from becoming naturalized citizens. Miller’s bill drew strong support from westerners and from Democrats. It passed both houses of Congress by large margins, prohibiting entry to all Chinese except teachers, students, merchants, tourists, and officials. Most opposition came from northeastern Republicans, especially veterans of the abolition movement. President Chester A. Arthur vetoed Miller’s bill, arguing that it violated the 1880 treaty, that 20 years was too long, and that the bill might “drive [Chinese] trade and commerce into more friendly hands.” In response, Congress cut exclusion to 10 years and stated that the act did not violate the treaty. It now drew even more votes, and Arthur signed the bill into law.

The WPC had risen to prominence on the Chinese issue; however, by 1882, the party had broken into factional disarray and disappeared. State poli- tics in the relatively prosperous 1880s involved Republicans and Democrats, with no significant third parties. The Southern Pacific continued to play a prominent part in state politics—symbolized in 1885 when Leland Stanford was elected to the U.S. Senate amid allegations of vote-buying. In 1886, voters elected a Democrat as governor and a Republican as lieutenant governor, and gave a narrow majority in the legislature to the Democrats. This permitted the Democrats, in 1887, to elect George Hearst to a full term in the U.S. Senate; he had been appointed by the Democratic governor to fill a vacancy the year before.

192 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

The 1880s marked the peak of power for Christopher A. Buckley, a blind saloon keeper who, around 1880, emerged as the most powerful Democratic leader in San Francisco. Born in Ireland and raised in New York City, Buckley acquired the reputation of being a “boss,” a party leader whose organization dominated all access to political office by controlling nominating conventions. As “boss,” Buckley used appointive governmental positions to reward his loyal followers. To keep voter support, he kept taxes so low that city govern- ment could do little. Buckley apparently extracted a price from many compa- nies that did business with the burgeoning city—when he died, his estate included bonds issued by companies that did business with the city during the 1880s. Buckley also extended his power to state politics, picking the Democrats who won the governorship in 1882 (George Stoneman) and 1886 (Washington Bartlett).

As of 1890, only one candidate for governor of California had ever been elected to a second term, and the governorship and control of the state legisla- ture (and therefore the U.S. senatorships filled by the state legislature) chan- ged parties at almost every election. Throughout the 1870s, third parties—first the People’s Independents and then the WPC—had attracted large numbers of California voters. Yet during much of the Gilded Age, American voters out- side California showed extraordinary loyalty to their political parties. By con- trast, enough California voters split their tickets between the two parties or changed party commitments between elections that they produced constant partisan turnover. Theodore Hittell, who published an extensive history of the state in 1897, emphasized that this pattern was virtually without parallel in other states, and he attributed it to the “‘thinking-for-itself ’ character of the people.”

Political Realignment in the 1890s

This “thinking-for-itself character” of California voters became even more pro- nounced in the 1890s. The elections of 1890 provided a catalyst for change. In San Francisco, the usual large Democratic majorities failed to materialize, giv- ing the governorship and control of the legislature to the Republicans. Control of the legislature was important, because Stanford’s term in the U.S. Senate was ending, and the legislature was to choose his successor in 1891. Claiming that Buckley had sold out to Stanford, reform-oriented Democrats campaigned to oust the boss. A grand jury investigated Buckley on charges of bribery. Belea- guered, the boss debarked on an extended foreign tour, and his organization fell into disarray.

The legislative session of 1891 that reelected Stanford to the Senate exhib- ited such shameful behavior that it became known as the “legislature of a thou- sand scandals.” For example, when Senator Hearst died and the legislature had to elect someone to complete his term, a wastebasket was found filled with empty currency wrappers and a list of assembly members. Nonetheless, the

Politics 193

legislature approved the Australian ballot, a change that drew support from reformers, organized labor, and the WCTU. Henceforth, the government printed and distributed ballots that included all candidates, and voters marked their ballots in secret.

During the early 1890s, many Americans questioned existing political and economic systems. In Looking Backward: 2000–1887, a novel by Edward Bel- lamy, a young Bostonian is hypnotized in 1887 and awakens in 2000 to find that all people are equal, poverty and individual wealth have been eliminated, and everyone shares in a cooperative commonwealth. Bellamy’s admirers formed Nationalist Clubs to promote a cooperative commonwealth—an eco- nomic system based on producers’ and consumers’ cooperatives rather than on wage labor and profits. As the San Francisco Examiner noted in 1890, “California seems to have an especially prolific soil for that sort of product.” California claimed 62 Nationalist Clubs in 1890, about a third of all those in the entire country, with some 3,500 members. Within a year, however, the movement had virtually disappeared, with many of its adherents swept up in the emergence of the new Populist Party.

Between 1890 and 1892, a new political party emerged, taking the name People’s Party, or Populists. Growing out of the Farmers’ Alliance (an organi- zation similar to the Grange), the new party appealed to hard-pressed farmers in the West and South. In their 1892 national convention, they declared that the old regional lines of division between North and South were healed. The new division, they proclaimed, was between “producers” (farmers and workers) and “capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings [corrupt political organiza- tions], trusts.” Among other changes, they called for government ownership of railroads.

Californians organized a state Farmers’ Alliance in 1890, later than in the Midwest or South. Nonetheless, by late 1891, the California Alliance claimed 30,000 members and launched a state party. California Populists attacked rail- roads, especially the SP, and railroad influence over politics. In 1892, Populists took nine percent of the vote in California for president and won one congres- sional seat and eight seats in the state legislature. They did especially well in rural areas, where farmers were suffering from low crop prices. In the 1893 legislative session, one Populist voted with the Democrats to elect Stephen White to the U.S. Senate. White, a Democrat from Los Angeles, built a political following by his relentless attacks on the SP and on corporate control of poli- tics. Now led by White, California Democrats took the governorship in the election of 1894, but lost nearly everything else. In 1894, the Populist candidate won the office of mayor in San Francisco with his strongest support in working-class parts of the city, and the next year a Populist was elected mayor of Oakland.

The 1896 presidential election took place amidst a serious economic depression. Republicans nominated William McKinley of Ohio, a staunch supporter of the protective tariff, as the means of bringing economic

194 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

recovery. The Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, argued for bringing recovery by counteracting the prevalent deflation (falling prices) through an expanded currency supply. The Populists also endorsed Bryan. Bryan carried nearly all of the West and South, leaving McKinley with the urban, industrial Northeast and the more urban and industrial parts of the Midwest. McKinley also won California, though by the narrowest of mar- gins. Thus, California behaved politically more like the Northeast than like the rest of the West.

In 1896, California and the nation stood at the beginning of a long period of Republican dominance of politics. Between 1895 and 1938, no Democrat won the California governorship, and Republicans typically controlled the state legislature by large margins. In 1896, California was on the verge of becoming one of the most Republican states in the nation.

California and the World: War With Spain and Acquisition of the Philippines

In April 1898, the United States went to war with Spain. Most Americans—and most Californians—responded enthusiastically to what they understood to be a war undertaken to bring independence and aid to the long-suffering inhabi- tants of Cuba, the last remaining Spanish colony in the western hemisphere. When President William McKinley called for troops, nearly 5000 Californians responded, forming four regiments of California Volunteer Infantry and a bat- talion of heavy artillery.

Many people were surprised when the first engagement in the war occurred in the Philippine Islands–nearly halfway around the world from Cuba. On May 1, Commodore George Dewey’s naval squadron steamed into Manila Bay and quickly destroyed or captured the entire Spanish fleet there. (Dewey’s flagship, the U.S.S. Olympia¸ had been built in San Francisco’s Union Iron Works.) Dewey’s victory focused attention on the Philippines and on the Pacific more generally. One regiment of the California Volunteer Infan- try and part of the California heavy artillery were dispatched to the Philippines. They encountered not Spanish resistance, but opposition from Filipinos, who preferred independence to American control. Several Californians died in action against the Filipino insurgents.

Many Americans now looked to the Hawaiian Islands as a crucial base halfway to the Philippines. Congress approved the annexation of Hawai‘i on July 7, 1898. At the war’s end, among other settlements, Spain ceded Guam and sold the Philippines to the United States. Soon after, the United States signed the Treaty of Berlin, acquiring part of the Samoan Islands. Some Cali- fornians opposed acquisition of the Philippines out of principled opposition to imperialism, and others, especially labor leaders, opposed it out of fear of an influx of Asian labor. Other Californians, however, embraced the new

Politics 195

acquisitions and eagerly anticipated extending their entrepreneurial activities to the new Pacific empire.

Cultural Expression

Though Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and most other literary figures of the Gold Rush era had left California by 1870, a new group of writers had emerged by 1900. One was María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, the state’s first published Latina author, whose novel The Squatter and the Don (1885) was based, as its subtitle proclaimed, on “contemporary occurrences in California.” In her novel, Ruiz de Burton presented a romance set against the conflict between an aristocratic Californio rancho owner and settlers squatting on his lands, and then against the conflict between them and the railroad.

By using contemporary social and economic conflict as the context for her novel, Ruiz de Burton anticipated the work of Frank Norris, the best known of California’s new authors. While at Berkeley, Norris discovered the French novelist Emile Zola, with his realistic treatment of contemporary life, especially among the working class, and Norris began to see the people as the stuff for powerful fiction. Of Norris’s six novels, McTeague (1899), The Octo- pus (1901), and The Pit (1903) are the most well known. He died suddenly in 1902. The Octopus, first book of a projected trilogy focused on California wheat, dealt with conflict between wheat growers and the railroad—“the Octopus” was a thinly disguised version of the SP. In The Pit, Norris shifted to Chicago, to treat financial manipulations in the wholesale buying and sell- ing of wheat. He died before he could write the final novel in the trilogy, The Wolf, which was to have been set in Europe, where the wheat that had been produced amidst conflict between railroad and farmers, and that had been bought and sold amidst financial machinations, finally became bread that saved lives during famine.

California also provided the setting for one of the most popular novels of the day, Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona (1884). Jackson was an activist in the movement to change federal policy toward Indians, and Ramona was an effort to mold public opinion. Setting Ramona in southern California in the 1850s, Jackson used romance as the vehicle to depict the mistreatment of Indians. An instant success, Ramona had some influence on federal policies, but its romanticized image of southern California had a greater effect in promoting tourism.

Henry George, a San Francisco journalist, also sought to influence politics. George analyzed the rapid growth and industrialization of California in Prog- ress and Poverty (1879), the best known of several works in which he studied the urban, industrial society of his day. George argued that “progress”

196 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

(economic growth and development) inevitably brought greater poverty, some- thing he attributed to land speculation and land monopolization. He proposed, as the solution, a single tax on the increase in the value of land, which he hoped would create such a tax burden on large landholders as to force them to break up their holdings.

Others also took inspiration from California itself. In his late twenties, John Muir set out to witness nature. His travels took him to Yosemite Valley in the Sierra Nevada, and the beauty of that magnificent landscape moved him deeply. “Born again!” he wrote in his journal. For the rest of his long life, he roamed the Sierras in the summers and spent his winters describing their gran- deur in magazine articles and books. His writings helped to make many Amer- icans more aware of the importance of preserving wilderness. In 1892, he became the first president of the Sierra Club. He was an important advocate for the National Park Bill that passed in Congress in 1899, and that, among other things, created Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. He is considered today to be one of the founders of environmental activism.

The Sierra Nevada also inspired William Keith, who by 1900 was perhaps the most famous painter in California. His sometimes ethereal paintings of California scenes were popular on both coasts. Carleton Watkins also took inspiration from the California landscape, but his medium was the new one of photography. Considered by many as the most important American photog- rapher of the 19th century, Watkins took photographs of Yosemite that made him—and Yosemite—famous, but his work over nearly a half century included many photographs of urban and farm life as well.

For the first six months of 1894, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park became the site of the California Midwinter International Exposition, one of the era’s many celebrations of progress, technology, and culture. The exposition was also intended to proclaim to the world not only that the city and state had attained a high technological and cultural level, but that tourists could bask in Califor- nia sunshine when their own cities were beset by snow and ice. Great exhibit halls demonstrated accomplishments in manufacturing, liberal arts, fine arts, mechanical arts, and agriculture and horticulture. Electrical lights were strung everywhere in dazzling celebration of that new technology. The fair succeeded, attracting visitors from around the nation and launching San Francisco’s repu- tation as a favorite destination for tourists.

Summary

The Gilded Age was an era of rapid industrialization and urbanization and of large-scale immigration from Europe and Asia. In California and the West, railroads were crucial to economic development because of the great distances,

Summary 197

and the Southern Pacific (SP) emerged as a powerful corporation, operating with virtually no competition or regulation throughout much of the Gilded Age. Mining continued to be important in the economy of California and the West, especially Nevada, which was an integral part of California’s economy. California’s bankers played key roles in the economic development of the West. Agriculture emerged as California’s leading industry, first with wheat and then specialty crops of fruit and vegetables. Water was indispensable for mining, agriculture, and urban growth. Workers, especially in urban areas, formed unions, but most had little staying power until late in the 19th century. In the 1880s and 1890s, San Francisco was one of the largest cities in the nation, and the dominant metropolis of much of the West.

The Gilded Age was a time of significant change in California’s social and cultural patterns, including the emergence of new educational institutions, changes in the status of women, and the emergence of a gay and lesbian sub- culture. California experienced significant immigration from Europe, as did other parts of the United States, but was more unique in some aspects of its ethnic and racial relations, especially those involving Latinos, Asian Califor- nians, and American Indians.

California’s voters showed a less pronounced commitment to political par- ties than was true elsewhere in the country. From the end of the Civil War until 1900, the two major political parties were closely balanced and often alter- nated in power within state government. Third parties were a recurring feature of state politics, including the Grangers, the Workingmen’s Party of California, and the Populists. The second constitutional convention, in 1878, drafted the constitution still in use, though it has been amended many times. Two recur- ring political issues were the power of the Southern Pacific and opposition to Chinese immigration. In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain and acquired an island empire in the Pacific. California lay on the major route to the new island possessions. In the Gilded Age, Californians achieved national prominence through their writing, painting, photography, and other forms of cultural expression.

Suggested Readings

❚ Chan, Sucheng, Asian Californians (San Francisco: MTL/Boyd & Fraser, 1991). Though not limited to the Gilded Age, this book has a great deal of information about Asian immigrants during that time period.

❚ Garone, Philip, The Rise and Fall of the Wetlands of California’s Great Central Valley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). The first comprehensive environmental history of the Central Valley.

198 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

❚ Hundley, Norris, Jr., The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, 1770s–1990s (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992). Ranges widely over the history of the state, but contains a good treatment of water issues during the Gilded Age.

❚ Igler, David, Industrial Cowboys: Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850–1920 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor- nia Press, 2001). An interesting account of a company that played a major role in changing the ecology of the San Joaquin Valley.

❚ Issel, William, and Cherny, Robert W., San Francisco, 1865–1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986). Surveys social and economic patterns as well as politics.

❚ Levy, Harriet Lane, 920 O’Farrell Street (1937; reprinted, Berkeley: Heyday Press, 1996). Memoirs of growing up in a Jewish, middle-class family in San Francisco during the Gilded Age.

❚ Monroy, Douglas, Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990). An excellent treatment of Mexican Californians during the late 19th century.

❚ Ngai, Mae, The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2010). The fascinat- ing story of Joseph and Mary Tape and their children.

❚ Orsi, Richard, Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Devel- opment of the American West, 1850–1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). The best treatment of the subject.

❚ Shumsky, Neil L., The Evolution of Political Protest and the Workingmen’s Party of California (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991). Currently the standard treatment of the Workingmen’s Party of California.

❚ Vaught, David, Cultivating California: Growers, Specialty Crops, and Labor, 1875–1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). An essential work for understanding changes in California agriculture that accompanied the development of specialty crops.

❚ White, Richard, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011). A recent, often amusing, and devastatingly critical appraisal of the transcontinental railroads.

Suggested Readings 199

CH AP

TE R 7

California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

Main Topics

❚ The Origins of California Progressivism

❚ Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era

❚ California Progressivism, 1910–1920

❚ Californians in a World of Revolutions and War

❚ The Meaning of Progressivism for Californians

❚ Summary

Katherine Philips Edson and her husband Charles moved to Los Angeles in 1899. Kate, as her friends and family called her, then joined the Friday Morning Club, one of

the most prestigious women’s clubs in southern California, where she was soon centrally involved in that club’s evolution into a proponent for reform. Her first major foray into politics was a campaign to improve the regulation and inspection of dairies, to guarantee that children’s milk would come from healthy cows and be free of contaminants. She quickly became the most prominent woman in state politics.

Philips Edson helped to organize support for Hiram Johnson’s successful campaign for governor in 1910, then became the chief lobbyist for woman suffrage during the 1911 legislative session. Carefully watching the final vote, she clapped her hands gleefully when the assembly voted to put the issue before the voters. She then headed up the

200

southern California campaign for approval of the woman suffrage amendment. In 1912, she became a member of the Progressive Party State Central Committee, supporting the third-party presidential campaign of Theodore Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson.

Also in 1912, Johnson appointed her as a deputy inspec- tor in the State Bureau of Labor Statistics. In that capacity, she conducted studies that persuaded the legislature in 1913 to regulate women’s working conditions. Johnson then appointed her to the new Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC), responsible for implementing and enforcing the new

CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

1899 Construction begins on Los Angeles harbor at San Pedro

1901 Teamster and waterfront strike in San Francisco leads to victory of Union Labor Party in municipal elections

1902 National Reclamation Act (Newlands Act)

1905 C. E. Kelsey investigates the situation of California Indians

1906 Earthquake along the San Andreas Fault, destroying much of San Francisco

1907 “Gentlemen’s Agreement” limits immigration from Japan

1907 Formation of Lincoln-Roosevelt League

1909 Legislature adopts the direct primary

1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times building

1910 Revolution and civil war in Mexico produce sharp upturn in immigration from Mexico

1910 Hiram Johnson elected governor

1911 Legislature approves long list of progressive reforms

1911 California voters approve woman suffrage, initiative, referen- dum, and recall amendments to state constitution

1912 Hiram Johnson nominated for vice president by the new Progressive Party

1913 Legislature approves many more progressive reforms

1913 Owens Valley aqueduct opens

1913 Congress approves damming the Hetch Hetchy Valley

1914 World War I begins in Europe

1916 Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco

1917 United States enters World War I

1918 World War I ends

201

regulations. She served on the IWC until 1931 and was the chief administrator for much of that time. During World War I, she served on the State Council of Defense and as federal Industrial Mediator for California. A strong advocate for approval of the Nineteenth Amendment (woman suffrage) to the U.S. Constitution, she helped to form the League of Women Voters after it passed.

Though active first in Progressive Party politics, she had moved easily to Republican politics in 1916 and was a delegate to the 1920 Republican National Convention, where she made one of the seconding speeches for Hiram Johnson. Though Johnson failed to receive the nomination, Philips Edson was nonetheless appointed to the Executive Committee for the presidential campaign of the Republican candidate, Warren G. Harding. The next year, Harding appointed her to the advisory board for the American dele- gation to a major international conference on the limitation of armaments.

Katherine Philips Edson’s career in state politics would have been unusual for most Californians, but before her time it was unheard of for a woman to take such an active part in party politics or to head a state agency. In fact, women’s participation in politics was changing rapidly during the

Katherine Philips Edson, seen here in a formally posed photograph, was the most prominent woman in California progres- sivism. A moving force behind passage of a minimum wage law for women in 1913, she was appointed by Hiram Johnson to the new Industrial Welfare Commission and served eighteen years. She also became chief of the Division of Industrial Welfare in 1927. How does her career reflect new patterns of women’s involvement in politics during the progressive era?

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202 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

progressive era, the term historians use for the late 1890s and the first 15 or 20 years of the 20th century, a time when many individuals and groups sought to change politics and public policy. Though many of the most important changes of this period were in the structure and function of government, there were also important changes in the state’s social and economic patterns, including a revival of anti-Asian agitation.

Questions to Consider

❚ How were the experiences of reformers in Los Angeles and San Francisco similar? How do they emphasize the differences within progressivism?

❚ Do events in California confirm the argument by histor- ians that there was no single progressive movement but instead many individuals and groups pursuing separate reforms?

❚ How did the social and economic changes in California sometimes carry international implications? Provide examples.

❚ What was the relation between water and economic growth? How did this sometimes produce conflict?

❚ How did progressive reform change the structure of California politics?

❚ How did progressive reform change the function of state government?

❚ How did the Mexican Revolution affect Californians? ❚ How did Californians respond to the war that began in Europe in 1914?

❚ What are some of the long-term results of progressivism?

The Origins of California Progressivism

The Progressive Party campaign of Theodore Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson in 1912 marked one high point for progressivism. It took place when reform was “in the air” almost everywhere. This commitment to reform came because many Americans, and probably a majority of Californians, concluded that something had to be done to restrict the new industrial corporations and to remedy the problems of the cities. Many also concluded that traditional politics posed a constraint on reform.

The Origins of California Progressivism 203

The Many Shapes of Progressivism

Progressivism took form through many individual decisions by voters and political leaders, but a more basic choice loomed behind many of them: Should government play a larger role in people’s lives? Time after time, Americans— and Californians—chose a greater role for government. As they gave govern- ment more power, Americans also sought to make it more responsive to ordinary citizens by introducing new ways to participate more directly in politics—and nowhere did these reforms reach as far as they did in California. Changes in the structure and function of government during these decades fundamentally altered California’s politics, and, at the same time, politics dra- matically expanded to embrace a wider range of concerns.

In the 1890s and early 20th century, groups organized and entered California’s political arena, often sharing an optimism that responsible citizens, acting in concert, assisted by technical know-how, and sometimes drawing on the power of government, could achieve social progress—could improve the human situation. As early as the 1890s, a few Californians began calling themselves “progressive citizens.” By 1912, many more called themselves “progressives.”

Historians use the term progressivism to signify three related developments: (1) the emergence of new concepts of the purposes of government, expressed in a language of reform that groups and individuals used to justify their varying proposals for change; (2) changes in government policies and institutions; and (3) the political agitation that produced those changes. A progressive, then, was a person involved in one or more of these activities. The large num- ber of individuals and organized groups with differing visions of change made progressivism a complex political phenomenon. There was no single progres- sive movement. Roosevelt’s Progressive Party in 1912 probably had more strength in California than in any other state, but even in California it failed to capture the allegiance of all those who called themselves progressives.

There was no single pattern to the development of progressive reform. In some states, most notably Wisconsin, it burst forth initially in state govern- ment. In other places, it affected city government first. In California, the first victories for progressive reform came in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Municipal Reform: Los Angeles

In the 1890s, city boosters in Los Angeles took pride in the city’s two railroad connections and its booming population, but worried over the lack of a harbor. When Collis Huntington of the Southern Pacific (SP) sought to develop Santa Monica into a port for oceangoing ships, LA’s entrepreneurs and civic leaders organized a Free Harbor League. “Free harbor” meant one not controlled by the SP. They gained a valuable ally in U.S. Senator Stephen White, the Demo- crat elected with Populist support (see p. 194). White helped Angelenos secure

204 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

federal funds to develop San Pedro as a port. In 1899, the city celebrated a “Free Harbor Jubilee,” as construction began. One of the most significant engi- neering endeavors on the Pacific coast, the project made Los Angeles a major port—eventually one of the largest ports in the nation.

Other Angelenos wanted to reform city government through a new charter and to defeat the conservative Republicans who dominated city government. Most of the reformers, though, were also Republicans, so they usually worked within the Republican Party. They created reform organizations, notably the Direct Legislation League, led by Dr. John R. Haynes, which persuaded city voters to amend the charter to provide for the initiative, referendum, and recall—reforms that permitted citizens, through petitions, to propose new laws (the initiative), block laws passed by the city council (the referendum), and evict an elected official from office (the recall). Other LA reformers sought municipal ownership of public utilities and the merit system for filling city jobs. Under the merit system, people seeking government jobs demonstrate their abilities through competitive examinations. Previously, people secured appointments to government jobs through loyalty to elected officials. In 1908, reformers promoted charter amendments that made city offices nonpartisan and required city council members to seek election citywide rather than from districts. This change, they argued, was more likely to produce council members who viewed the city as a whole, rather than as a collection of neigh- borhoods. As that campaign was in progress, reformers found evidence linking the mayor to corruption. They recalled him from office, then elected a progres- sive mayor.

Municipal Reform: San Francisco

A city’s charter defines its structure of government. From 1856 onward, San Francisco’s government had been structured by the Consolidation Act, an act of the state legislature that significantly restricted city government. Several efforts at charter revision had failed. When James D. Phelan was elected mayor in 1896, he made charter reform his first priority. His supporters, some of whom called themselves “progressive citizens,” included many of the city’s business leaders plus a few representatives of organized labor. The new charter, they argued, was solidly based on progressive and businesslike princi- ples and would create a more centralized city government and increase the mayor’s power. These changes, they claimed, would prevent political manipu- lation by figures like “Boss” Buckley.

The new charter, which took effect in 1900, reflected Phelan’s views in pro- viding for eventual city ownership of public utilities. Phelan consistently argued that the city should own and operate utilities including streetcars, water, and electrical power—a position more radical than most other urban reformers, who typically concerned themselves with creating honest and efficient city gov- ernment. Phelan argued that if city governments regulated private utility

The Origins of California Progressivism 205

companies, those companies would inevitably seek to influence, and corrupt, the officials responsible for the regulation.

In 1901, Phelan’s third term as mayor was ending when the city experi- enced a major labor battle. The struggle began with a dispute between the new Teamsters’ Union and their employers, the Draymen’s Association. Team- sters drove teams of horses that pulled freight wagons throughout the city. Soon the Employers’ Association took over the draymen’s side of the conflict and refused to bargain with the union. Other unions saw this as a challenge to their own ability to seek improvements in working conditions. Unions on the waterfront went on strike in support of the teamsters, closing down the port. Phelan tried unsuccessfully to bring the two sides together. As the strike dragged on to a second month, events sometimes turned violent, especially when city police began protecting strikebreakers. Father Peter Yorke, a Catholic priest sympathetic to the strikers, had given crucial support to Governor Henry Gage during his election campaign in 1898, and Yorke now persuaded Gage to bring together the teamsters and draymen. Gage got them to agree on a settle- ment that permitted the teamsters to continue to unionize.

Charging Phelan with using police to aid the employers, some angry unionists entered city politics as the Union Labor Party (ULP). In 1901, the ULP candidate for mayor, Eugene Schmitz, president of the Musicians’ Union, won the election. Schmitz was reelected in 1903, and the ULP swept most city offices in 1905. Almost from the beginning, rumors swirled through the city that Abraham Ruef, once a reform Republican, had become the “boss” of the ULP, exacting bribes from businesses that dealt with city government and manipulating Schmitz and ULP members of the Board of Supervisors (San Francisco’s equivalent to a city council).

In 1905, Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, published exposés of Ruef’s dealings and sought federal assistance in investigating Ruef and Schmitz. He raised funds from private citizens and brought in the nation’s leading private detective firm. As the city suffered through the disastrous earth- quake and fire of 1906 and the rebuilding afterward (see pp. 216–218), the “graft prosecution” collected evidence that led to the removal from office of Schmitz and nearly all the supervisors. A reform mayor was first appointed, and then elected in his own right.

Francis Heney, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed to prosecute Ruef. In the midst of the trial, late in 1908, Heney was shot by a prospective juror whom he had offended by revealing an old criminal record. Heney even- tually recovered, but prosecution of Ruef fell to Hiram Johnson, Heney’s assis- tant. A highly successful trial lawyer, Johnson secured Ruef’s conviction and became well known throughout the state.

The ULP survived the graft prosecution and returned to power in 1909, when Patrick H. McCarthy, head of the Building Trades Council, won the office of mayor. Most recent historians have concluded that the ULP was much more than just a vehicle for Ruef’s graft. Instead, it was a labor party

206 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

much like those emerging in Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand— parties formed by labor organizations to prevent governmental power from being used against workers’ organizations, and to use government instead to benefit unions and working people.

Thus, by 1910, both of California’s largest cities had experienced municipal reform. Both had experimented with structural changes designed to make city government more effective. Both had advocates for the municipal ownership of public utilities. And both had produced successful reform politicians. These campaigns were publicized throughout the state and were imitated elsewhere.

Organized Labor in the Progressive Era

The political successes of the ULP helped to give San Francisco a reputation as one of the most unionized cities in the nation. The San Francisco Building Trades Council (BTC), organized in 1896, won a major strike in 1900 that made it a powerful force within the construction industry, able to require that only union members be hired and that work be limited to eight hours per day. Patrick H. McCarthy, BTC president after 1898, became a significant force in city politics. After a major organizing drive from 1899 to 1901, and encouraged by the strikes of 1900 and 1901, other workers in northern California also joined unions. Within San Francisco, the ULP mayor guaranteed that police would not protect strikebreakers. One journalist described San Francisco as “the city where unionism holds undisputed sway,” and, in fact, the city may have been the most unionized major city in the country. The BTC probably exercised more control over working conditions than any comparable group of workers elsewhere in the country. Workers in foundries and machine shops, organized into the Iron Trades Council, got the eight-hour day after a strike in 1907, at a time when most ironworkers and steelworkers elsewhere in the country were working 10- or 12-hour days. In general, the unionized work- ers of San Francisco were better paid and had better working conditions than their nonunion counterparts across the country.

In much of the country then, unions recruited only the most skilled workers. In San Francisco, however, dishwashers, stable workers, and other unskilled or semiskilled workers had unions. At a time when some unions resisted efforts to organize women, San Francisco’s female laundry workers, waitresses, and other female wage earners had unions. Women’s road to unionization was never easy, however, even in a highly unionized city. The most important limit on unioni- zation was race. Few unions admitted African Americans, and none admitted Asians. Unions thrived in San Francisco partly because they united white work- ers by pointing to Asian immigrants as threats to white workers. Then, too, the city’s geographic isolation made it difficult to bring in strikebreakers. City government—in the hands of the ULP from 1901 to 1906 and from 1909 to 1911—did not intervene on the side of the employers. And San Francisco employers repeatedly failed to organize as effectively as their workers.

The Origins of California Progressivism 207

If San Francisco was “the city where unionism holds undisputed sway,” Los Angeles had a reputation as a stronghold of the open shop—the term used to describe employers who refused to bargain with unions. In LA, the chief bul- wark against unions was Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, the moving force behind the Merchants and Manufacturers Association. A conservative Republican and powerful force in LA, Otis’s newspaper berated his opponents, including Democrats, progressives, and unions. The Merchants and Manufacturers Association organized the city’s businesses against unions. By keeping out unions, the city’s business leaders reasoned, they could attract companies seeking an inexpensive work force. Nonetheless, by 1910, some LA unions were making gains; Mexican workers on the street railways and workers in several industries declared strikes to gain recognition. Pushed by the Mer- chants and Manufacturers Association and Otis, the city council responded by prohibiting picketing by strikers.

The unions of the Bay Area looked anxiously at LA, for lower wages there tempted companies to relocate. Bay Area unions were also pressured by employers who competed with southern California companies and their lower labor costs. Extremists in the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, including John and James McNamara, had begun to set bombs to terrorize opponents of unions. In 1910, they targeted the Los Angeles Times building. In the early hours of October 1, an explosion ripped open the build- ing and ignited a roaring fire. Twenty-one people died. William Burns, whose detective agency had aided the San Francisco graft investigation, tracked down the bombers. Most union leaders considered it a “frame-up” and

In the early morning of October 1, a bomb exploded in the Los Angeles Times building and ignited highly flammable ink, newsprint, and natural gas, turning the building into a flaming inferno and killing 21 people. Why did the LA Times attract this form of terror? What was the aftermath?

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defended the McNamara brothers. When brought to trial in 1911, however, James McNamara confessed and John McNamara pled guilty, cruelly disillu- sioning their supporters. Both brothers were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Efforts to Reform State Government Before 1910

Several varieties of reform swirled across the nation in the early 1900s. In 1900, Robert M. La Follette, a Republican, won election as governor of Wisconsin and led that state to regulate railroads and reduce the power of political bosses. His success prompted imitators, who began to win state elections across the country by attacking corporations, especially railroads. At the same time, Pres- ident Theodore Roosevelt secured his reputation as a “trustbuster” by using the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) to break up giant corporations. He then moved on to railroad regulation in 1906. Publishers discovered that their sales boomed when they featured dramatic exposés of political corruption, corporate wrong- doing, or other offenses—for example, Fremont Older’s crusade against Ruef. Those who practiced this provocative journalism acquired the name “muckra- kers.” Muckraking magazines brought national attention to situations in partic- ular cities or states. In 1904, for example, Ray Stannard Baker profiled San Francisco’s unions in McClure’s Magazine, the most prominent of the muck- raking magazines.

Though reform burgeoned across the nation, California state government seemed immune. In 1902, the Republican state convention nominated George C. Pardee—considered a reliable conservative and friend of the Southern Pacific—to run for governor. The Democrats ran Franklin K. Lane, who con- demned the SP and nearly defeated Pardee. As governor, Pardee slowly sepa- rated himself from the SP. When he sought renomination in 1906, the Republican state convention instead chose James Gillett, a member of Congress known to be close to the SP. Journalists accused the SP of brazenly dominating the convention and dumping Pardee. Abraham Ruef, “boss” of San Francisco’s Union Labor Party and a Republican in state politics, later admitted that the SP had given him $14,000 (equivalent to about $335,000 now) to help in nominat- ing Gillett. Theodore Bell, the Democratic candidate, crisscrossed the state demanding railroad regulation and other reforms, but Gillett won.

In 1907, reformers charged the SP with blocking reforms in the legislature. In August 1907, a group of Republican reformers, most of them newspaper pub- lishers and lawyers, launched the League of Lincoln-Roosevelt Republican Clubs—usually called the Lincoln-Roosevelt League—and pledged to end SP control of state politics. They scored some victories in the 1908 elections, and the legislative session of 1909 was marked by battles between reformers and con- servatives, and between the critics and defenders of the SP. Most importantly, the legislature passed a direct primary law. In a direct primary, voters registered with a particular party choose that party’s candidates for office. Previously, candidates for state offices had been chosen by conventions. At conventions,

The Origins of California Progressivism 209

reformers charged, political bosses connived with corporations—especially the SP—to nominate candidates agreeable to both of them. Thus, the direct primary was presented as a way to remove corporate influence from the political process.

In 1910, the state stood at a significant crossroads. Progressive Republicans were well organized, and they had the opportunity, for the first time, to go directly to the voters for the nomination of candidates for office.

Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era

While reformers struggled with conservatives over control of state government, the state’s social and economic patterns were undergoing important changes. Though not as obvious as the dramatic political battles between the reformers and defenders of the SP, these changes were no less important. And many of them worked their way into the political process.

Immigration and Ethnic Relations

Between 1900 and 1910, California’s population grew more rapidly than at any time since the Gold Rush. The growth was most pronounced in southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. In 1900, California’s population ranked 21st among the 45 states. By 1920, it moved up to eighth among 48.

The state’s population was becoming racially more homogeneous. In the 1850s, a quarter or more of all Californians were African American, American Indian, Asian, or Latino; however, due to white migration from other countries and from other parts of the United States, the state became 95 percent white by 1910. Among white Californians during these years, nearly half were immi- grants or children of immigrants, and these foreign-stock Californians came from many different cultural backgrounds. The 1920 census recorded the lan- guage of first- and second-generation white immigrants, and those data provide an approximation of their cultural backgrounds. Figure 7.1 indicates the eth- nicity, based on language or race, of Californians in 1920. (In Figure 7.1, the percentage for British and Irish are estimated because the census data com- bined those two groups. Those listed as speaking Spanish include those whose parents were born in Latin America, Spain, and elsewhere.)

Between 1900 and 1908, 55,000 Japanese immigrants came to the United States, and most settled in California. Earlier, a few Japanese students had stud- ied at American universities, including Berkeley and Stanford. With the decline in the number of Chinese Californians after the 1880s, California growers sought new sources of labor, including Japan. Smaller numbers of immigrants from Korea and the Punjab area of India (mostly Sikhs) also came to Califor- nia. And after the United States acquired the Philippines in 1898, Filipino migrants began to arrive.

210 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

The Exclusion Act and its extensions significantly limited immigration from China, but those who could prove that they were born in the United States, or were born to American citizens, were citizens and had the right to enter the country. A brisk trade developed in providing appropriate evidence to would-be immigrants, who became known as “paper sons” or “paper daughters.” Sometimes called the “Ellis Island of the West,” the Immigration Station on Angel Island, in San Francisco Bay, was opened in 1910. Its major purpose was to detain and interrogate Chinese entering the country and to seek evidence of fraudulent papers. Most were detained for two to three weeks, some longer.

The rise in immigration from Japan provoked a revival of anti-Asian senti- ments. San Francisco union leaders formed the Asiatic Exclusion League. In

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Figure 7.1 Californians in 1920, by Race, Ethnicity, or Mother Tongue of Whites of Foreign Parentage This figure suggests the ethnic diversity of Californians, even at the same time that it indicates the lack of racial diversity. Though the population of the state was nearly 95 percent white, there was great diversity within the white population in terms of ethnicity. In this figure, the ethnicity of the white population is based on the “mother tongue,” i.e., the first language of those who were foreign-born or whose parents were foreign-born. Among the whites who were born in the U.S. of parents born in the U.S., many were also likely to have identified with one of the ethnic groups noted. Source: Fourteenth census of the United States: California (Washington, 1924).

Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era 211

1906, the city’s school board, dominated by the Union Labor Party, ordered students of Japanese parentage to attend the segregated Chinese school. News- papers and politicians in Japan denounced the segregation order as a national insult. Most Californians knew that Japanese forces had recently delivered a stunning defeat to Russia—a white, European nation—in the Russo-Japanese War. Anxious to maintain good relations with Japan, President Theodore Roosevelt persuaded the San Francisco school board to rescind the segregation order. In return, he promised to persuade the Japanese government to cut off the migration of laborers to the United States. This he accomplished through the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” (not a formal treaty) of 1907–1908. At the same time, Roosevelt sent the U.S. Navy around the world, painted white as a sign of peaceful intentions—and known therefore as the White Fleet. It was also, how- ever, a strong statement of American ability to carry naval warfare into Japa- nese waters.

After 1908, immigration from Japan was reduced but not stopped. The large majority of those who arrived before 1908 were males, and many had their relatives in Japan arrange marriages for them. “Picture brides” were permitted to enter the United States until the early 1920s. Thus, the number of Japanese Californians increased from 41,356 in 1910 to 71,952 in 1920. Many made their living as farmers, working small plots—the average was 70 acres in 1920—where they raised labor-intensive crops such as vegetables or berries.

During the early years of the 20th century, many Mexicans migrated north, most to south Texas and southern California. Though this migration began before 1910, the numbers increased greatly as many Mexicans sought to escape the revolution and civil war that began in 1910—and the serious social and economic dislocations that devastated their nation for years afterward. At the same time, exclusion of Asian immigrants produced a growing demand for Mexican labor in California agriculture.

A large Mexican community developed in Los Angeles. Los Angeles County and surrounding areas included significant agricultural operations. Many Mexican immigrants worked as agricultural field workers or cannery workers, following the crops through the growing, harvesting, and canning seasons, then spending the winter in LA. There, they joined a long-standing Mexican community in which many men worked in railroad construction and maintenance (including LA streetcars), construction, or furniture making, and women worked in garment making—all of which, like agricultural field work and canning, were often seasonal in nature.

Other Mexican immigrants lived in small barrios along the coast or inland. In 1903, Japanese and Mexican sugar beet workers in Oxnard formed a union, conducted their meetings in both languages, went on strike, and won their major objectives. When they petitioned for a union charter from the American Federation of Labor (AFL), however, they were refused because their union admitted Asian workers, a violation of existing AFL rules.

212 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, California continued as home to one of the largest American Indian populations in the nation. Yet California had few reservations, and they were small both in size and in num- ber of residents. Most California Indians continued to live outside the reserva- tions, as they had since the United States acquired California.

Congress, in 1905, authorized an investigation of conditions among California Indians. A special agent, C. E. Kelsey, traveled throughout the state, visiting almost every Indian settlement. He contacted 17,000 California Indians, of whom only 5,200 lived on reservations. Kelsey found that about 3,000 of the nonreservation California Indians owned land, most of which was worthless for farming. More than 1,000 lived in federal forest reserves and national parks, areas that had been their traditional homelands. Nearly 8,000 lived in rural areas, typically in rancherías where they preserved some traditional ways of life even as they adapted to white society. Men often worked as farm laborers, stock herders, lumber workers, or miners, and many women worked as laundresses, domestic servants, or basket makers. Those not living on reservations usually tried to avoid attention, as they could still be targets for random violence. Those on the reservations had more protection from random violence but were constantly pressured by agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to give up their traditional ways and send their children to boarding schools.

Kelsey’s report led Congress to appropriate funds to create reservations for the landless California Indians. As the Commissioner of Indian Affairs explained in 1906, by establishing new reservations, the Indians of California “will be protected from the aggression of white people and have a fair chance to make a living.” Federal authorities began to convert some rancherías into small, but official, reservations. Some 50 new reservations were eventually established, many of them based on existing rancherías. For example, the Pino- leville Reservation, comprising about 100 acres (less than a quarter of a square mile), was established in 1911 on land that a group of Pomo had purchased 30 years before. California’s older reservations were also experiencing change. At Round Valley, protests against the federally run school led in 1915 to the creation of a public school on the reservation, with control lodged in a school board elected by reservation residents.

Figure 7.1 illustrates the diversity of languages—and cultures—among Californians classified as white. In fact, the diversity was even greater, for the 49 percent of the population who were white and born in the United States of parents born in the United States included many descendants of immigrants who still identified with an ethnic group.

Immigration in the early 20th century expanded existing Italian communi- ties, especially in the San Francisco Bay area, where earlier Italian immigrants had established themselves in viticulture, horticulture, and fishing. By the early 1920s, San Francisco had the sixth largest Italian community in the nation, and was second only to New York City, among major cities, in the proportion of its population of Italian parentage.

Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era 213

Other European groups who arrived in California in significant numbers after 1900 included Eastern European Jews, many of them fleeing persecution in Russia; Armenians, many fleeing persecution from the Turkish empire; and Portuguese, including many from Portugal’s island possessions in the Atlantic. Eastern European Jews tended to settle in urban areas, especially San Francisco and Los Angeles, which had established Jewish communities, mostly of German origin, dating to Gold Rush days. Many Armenians were drawn to farming in the San Joaquin Valley, especially in the area around Fresno.

From the 1870s through the early 20th century, some black leaders had pro- moted the creation of all-black communities as places where African Americans could exercise full political rights and enjoy full economic opportunities—rights and opportunities denied them in the South. Among these all-black communi- ties was Allensworth, near Bakersfield in the southern San Joaquin Valley. This community was founded in 1908 by Allen Allensworth. Born into slavery, Allensworth spent a career as an army chaplain, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel, and then retired to Los Angeles in 1906. His inspiration for an all-black town came from the California Eagle, a black newspaper, that advised African Americans: “Get a home of your own. Get some property.” He especially recruited members of the U.S. Army’s four all-black units, urging them to live in Allensworth after completing their military service. Allensworth voters elected Oscar Overr as the first African American justice of the peace since the time when California had become a part of the United States. Problems with the water supply contributed to a decline of the town in the 1930s.

Economic Changes

California’s economy remained both diverse and highly productive. The 1920 census reported that, during the previous year, the state’s farms and ranches had yielded produce worth $770 million, and its mines, quarries, and oil wells had produced $163 million worth of minerals. At the same time, California manufacturing enterprises produced nearly $2 billion worth of goods. (One dollar in 1920 is equivalent to nearly $11.00 now.) Based on the number of employees and the value of the products, food processing was the largest indus- try, followed by petroleum refining; other important manufacturing industries included metal products, lumber, printing, and clothing.

During the early 20th century, California agriculture continued to diversify through the expansion of specialty crops, especially fruit, nuts, grapes, and vegetables (Map 7.1 shows where agriculture crops were being produced as of 1909.). By 1920, California ranked first among the states in production of many crops, including well over half of all lemons, oranges, olives, apricots, nuts, plums, table grapes, and raisins. Citrus crops were concentrated in southern California, other fruits and nuts in the Santa Clara Valley and around San Francisco Bay, and grapes in the wine-growing region north and east of San Francisco Bay and in the raisin-producing region of the San Joaquin Valley.

214 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

Expansion of fruit and vegetable growing spurred food processing. As early as 1900, California ranked first among the states in canning and preserving fruits and vegetables, producing a quarter of the nation’s canned and preserved fruits and vegetables in 1900 and half by 1919. The expansion of specialty crops

One dot = $100,000 in agricultural crops

Map 7.1 Value of All Crops, 1909 This map shows the distribution of California’s agricultural crops, as of 1909. Note, even this late, that irrigation facilities in the Central Valley had still not developed to the point that it could challenge the Bay Area and LA basin as the most productive agricultural regions.

Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era 215

and of canneries necessitated a significant labor force at harvest time, but there was often little work for such employees at other times of the year.

The emergence of large numbers of relatively small-scale fruit, nut, and vegetable growers prompted the development of growers’ organizations, ini- tially to influence prices and assist distribution. Orange growers developed an effective marketing cooperative, renamed the California Fruit Growers’ Exchange in 1905. It became a powerful force in the industry, organizing nearly all aspects of marketing, and, in 1908, creating its own brand name, Sunkist, which it promoted through extensive advertising. Given this success, other spe- cialty crop growers created their own marketing cooperatives based on the orange growers’ model.

In 1900, gold remained the most important mineral product of California, exceeding in value all other mineral products combined. Petroleum was in second place, and California ranked fifth among the states in the value of refined petroleum products. By then, an oil boom was developing in southern California. Observers in 1899 noted that the only problem with California oil was that it was not well suited for refining into kerosene, then the chief product of refineries because of the demand for home lighting. California petroleum was better suited for making gasoline, for which, in 1899, there was less demand. That soon changed dramatically. By 1920, Californians had registered one car for every six residents, and petroleum production soared. By 1919, California stood second among the states in the making of refined petroleum products.

Earthquake and Fire in 1906

In 1906, nearly half of all Californians lived around San Francisco Bay or along the coast between Monterey and Eureka. Nearly all of them were jolted awake a few minutes after five o’clock in the morning, on April 18, 1906, when a mon- strous earthquake rumbled along 296 miles of the San Andreas Fault, from near San Juan Bautista to Cape Mendocino. Shaking was felt as far away as Los Angeles, Oregon, and Nevada. Seismologists now conclude that the most severe shaking centered on two locations, west of San Francisco and west of Bodega Bay. They now estimate the moment-magnitude (Mw) at 7.9—one of the two most powerful earthquakes in California’s recorded history. Map 7.2 shows the extent of the slippage.

The earthquake toppled centuries-old redwoods, destroyed farms and vil- lages, set church bells ringing wildly, and caused brick walls and chimneys to crash to the ground. One witness in San Francisco said, “I could see it actually coming up Washington Street. The whole street was undulating. It was as if the waves of the ocean were coming toward me.” The earthquake destroyed thousands of buildings and killed hundreds of people. It twisted streets, side- walks, and streetcar tracks, and broke water lines, gas pipes, and electrical power wires.

216 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

In San Francisco, broken water mains rendered fire hydrants useless. Fifty or more fires broke out, fed by escaping gas. For the next three days, city resi- dents struggled to contain what became a firestorm. General Frederick Fun- ston, commander of the U.S. Army at the Presidio, sent troops to keep order and fight the fires. Without water to battle the flames, firefighters and federal troops dynamited buildings to build firebreaks.

Earthquake, fire, and dynamite destroyed the heart of the city, 4.11 square miles and 28,000 buildings, including three-quarters of the homes of the city’s residents. Destruction was almost universal within the fire zone—mansions and tenements, churches and brothels, saloons and libraries. The official record listed about 500 deaths in San Francisco and 200 outside the city, but subse- quent researchers concluded that the number probably reached 3000 or more. Financial help poured in from individuals, organizations, and governments— some $9 million, used for food, temporary housing, and assistance in reestab- lishing homes and businesses.

Californians rushed to rebuild. San Franciscans feared that any delay in reconstruction would endanger their place as economic leader of the West. Though a few civic leaders urged a careful, planned approach, including wide

Map 7.2 Slippage Along the San Andreas Fault in 1906 These maps show the extent of the 1906 earthquake. The map in the upper right indi- cates the geographic range of damage, from near San Juan Bautista to Cape Mendo- cino, about 270 miles. The diagram in the lower left shows the amount of horizontal movement of the earth for various locations. Where was the most serious slippage? Why is this earthquake usually closely associated with San Francisco?

Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era 217

Water Wars

The fire gave new urgency to civic leaders in both San Francisco and Los Angeles who were trying to create water projects. While the danger of fire pro- vided a good talking point, the major concern in both cities was water for growth.

In the late 1890s and early years of the 20th century, civic leaders in Los Angeles secured their city’s control over the Los Angeles River. In 1903, voters approved a charter amendment creating a Board of Water Commissioners to oversee the city’s water and remove it from politics. Such commissions were one of the new forms of government that developed during the progressive era. By 1904, the Los Angeles River could not sustain future urban growth, so William Mulholland, superintendent of the LA water system, launched an

boulevards and other civic amenities, in the end, the city was rebuilt much as before—although in the current architectural style.

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Compare this photograph of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire of 1906 with the photograph on p. 178, taken about a year before this one. Among older buildings, the devastation was nearly complete. In the distance can be seen the city’s first steel- frame office buildings, nearly all of which survived the earthquake, though they were also gutted by fire. Why did San Francisco business leaders rush to rebuild the city rather than engage in a carefully planned reconstruction?

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audacious plan. The city secretly bought up land, including water rights, along the Owens River, 235 miles north of LA. In 1907, city voters approved a bond issue for an aqueduct from the Owens Valley to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County. Completed in 1913, the project diverted virtually the entire Owens River into the LA water system, providing four times as much water as the city needed and permitting rapid development in the San Fernando Valley, which was annexed to LA in 1915. Though some Owens Val- ley residents resisted the water project in court, LA won, and the Owens Valley became a parched area suitable mostly for cattle grazing. By 1920, Los Angeles expanded to nearly 365 square miles and half a million people.

In San Francisco, civic leaders also worried that the privately owned Spring Valley Water Company could not provide enough water for the growth of the city. Mayor James Phelan, in 1901, chose the Hetch Hetchy Valley for a reser- voir. Located 170 miles east of San Francisco, the valley was a canyon with near-perpendicular granite walls—2,500 feet high—and a flat meadow floor, ideal for a reservoir if a dam were built across the canyon entrance. It was part of Yosemite National Park, but uses other than recreation were then per- mitted in national parks. In 1910, city voters approved bonds to construct a water system based on Hetch Hetchy. The city then sought permission from Congress to dam the valley. In addition to opposition from the Spring Valley Water Company, John Muir and the Sierra Club argued forcefully against con- struction in a national park. Hetch Hetchy, Muir proclaimed, was “one of the greatest of all our natural resources for the uplifting joy and peace and health of the people.” “Dam Hetch Hetchy!” he exclaimed angrily. “As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.” Electrical power companies, especially Pacific Gas & Electric, also opposed the project because the dam would gener- ate electricity and might lead to public ownership of the city’s electrical system. Despite this opposition, Congress passed, and President Woodrow Wilson signed, the necessary legislation in 1913, and construction began in 1914. Hetch Hetchy water finally flowed through the city’s faucets in 1934.

The struggle over Hetch Hetchy revealed divisions within the emerging environmental movement. On one side were those like Muir, who argued for the preservation of wilderness as a place where urban people might find inspi- ration and recreation. On the other side were progressives like Phelan and Gifford Pinchot, Theodore Roosevelt’s chief adviser on conservation, who defined conservation as the careful management of natural resources so as to secure the maximum benefit from them, and who argued that the needs of a half million thirsty San Franciscans should take precedence over the recreation of a few “nature lovers.” The preservationists lost the battle but helped to shape the nation’s awareness of the long-term need to preserve national parks.

As San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities began to tap the water of the Sierra Nevada for their own uses, California farmers were also expanding their irrigation facilities. By 1920, more than half of California’s farms were

220 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

irrigated. Some irrigation could be found in almost every county but was most common in the San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys and the citrus-growing areas of Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

Individual entrepreneurs developed many of the initial irrigation projects in California; however, the National Irrigation Association, created in 1899, set out to secure federal financing of irrigation projects. Francis Newlands, a member of Congress from Nevada and the son-in-law of William Sharon (p. 171), introduced key legislation. The National Reclamation Act of 1902, also called the Newlands Act, reserved the funds from the sale of federal lands in 16 western states for irrigation projects. To promote family farms, the law specified that only farms of 160 acres or fewer could receive water from its projects. The Newlands Act established a new federal commitment, later expanded many times: The federal government would assume responsibil- ity for constructing western dams, canals, and other facilities that made agricul- ture possible in areas of slight rainfall. Over the course of the 20th century, governmental water projects profoundly transformed the western landscape, and water—perhaps the single most important resource in the arid West— came to be extensively managed.

California in the World Economy

The growth in agriculture, manufacturing, and petroleum refining were all reflected in the cargo of the ships that left California’s ports, and the impor- tance of those ports was magnified by construction of the Panama Canal. Californians eagerly anticipated the completion of the canal, expecting that it would boost the volume of cargo moving through their ports and significantly reduce the cost of shipping between the West Coast and the East. In both San Francisco and Los Angeles, harbor commissions rushed port improvements to completion.

San Francisco hosted an international exposition to celebrate the opening of the canal. Dominated by a dazzling “Tower of Jewels,” the Panama-Pacific International Exposition opened in 1915. Though the exposition presented exhibition halls that displayed the commercial and cultural products of much of the world, San Francisco civic leaders had another purpose as well—they hoped the exposition would provide clear proof of the city’s recovery from the devastation of 1906. A similar exposition celebrating the opening of the canal was held in San Diego, and some of its structures, later restored, now stand in Balboa Park.

The opening of the canal in 1914 did significantly increase intercoastal shipping. By the early 1920s, the port of San Francisco was unloading half a million tons of cargo a year from the eastern United States, with metal pro- ducts and coal the most prominent. Almost as much cargo bound for the East Coast passed over the San Francisco docks, led by canned goods. Califor- nia’s agricultural produce was also shipped all around the Pacific and to Great

Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era 221

Britain and Europe, and refined petroleum products were exported throughout the Pacific. California’s ports also handled a large volume of Pacific imports— Hawaiian pineapple and sugar, coffee and crude oil from Latin America, silk from Japan and China, as well as coconut products (used in making soap and other toiletries) and sugar from the Philippines and the Pacific islands. California also imported iron, steel, and coal from Great Britain and Europe.

California Progressivism, 1910–1920

Progressivism came late to California state government, but in 1910 Californians elected a governor and a legislature that put their state in the forefront of progressive reform.

Hiram Johnson and the Victory of the Progressives, 1910–1911

The direct primary law of 1909 empowered California voters to choose their party’s candidates for state office. For the Lincoln-Roosevelt League, the pri- mary election of 1910 tested their ability to organize a campaign. After consid- erable discussion, League leaders persuaded Hiram Johnson to seek the Republican nomination for governor.

Johnson had grown up in Sacramento. His father, Grove Johnson, was a staunch conservative and defender of the Southern Pacific who had been accused of shady political maneuvering. Hiram had quarreled with his father over politics and moved to San Francisco. He had developed such a distaste for politics that progressive Republicans found it difficult to persuade him to seek the nomination for governor in 1910.

Once committed, though, he threw himself into the campaign. He easily won the Republican primary, then took his campaign to as many voters as pos- sible, driving throughout the state and wearing out his car in the process. Com- mitted and combative, Johnson tirelessly repeated his central message: “The Southern Pacific must keep its dirty hands out of politics.” Democratic voters nominated Theodore Bell, their anti-SP candidate from four years before. With Johnson and Bell as candidates for governor, Californians were certain to elect an enemy of the SP. Johnson won narrowly, mostly on the basis of his large vote in southern California. Upon winning, Johnson traveled east to talk with Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, and other leading Republican progressives.

As governor, Johnson was a whirlwind of action, wasting no time in announcing the reforms he wanted the legislature to approve. California’s pro- gressive tide was rapidly rising. Rarely has a single session of the legislature produced so many new laws as that of 1911. Early in the session, Johnson

222 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

urged a constitutional amendment for the initiative, referendum, and recall. The initiative and referendum encountered some opposition, but the recall of judges provoked the greatest criticism. Johnson stood firm. When a state judge’s irresponsible behavior generated headlines all over the state, the pro- posal sailed through the legislature. Johnson also pushed for a measure to per- mit the voters to elect U.S. senators, another “direct democracy” reform. Other constitutional amendments were also approved by the legislature and submit- ted to the voters.

Johnson pushed a drastic overhaul of the state’s regulation of railroads by giving the previously ineffective Railroad Commission new power to determine the maximum rates railroads could charge. Another measure gave the commis- sion authority over privately owned public utility companies (companies selling electricity, gas, water, streetcar service, and the like) in addition to railroads.

In extending direct democracy and regulating railroad and utility compa- nies, California progressives followed a path marked out by progressives in other states. When it came to organized labor, however, many California pro- gressives, especially Johnson, showed more sympathy for working people and their unions than was usual elsewhere. Despite some divisions among progres- sives, the legislature, with Johnson’s support, approved laws requiring the eight-hour day for most female workers, restricting child labor, and creating a workmen’s compensation program based on employers’ liability for injuries caused by industrial accidents.

The legislature passed still more measures. Textbooks were to be provided without charge in the public schools; previously, students had to buy their books. A Board of Control was created to investigate corruption and ineffi- ciency in state government. Elections for judicial and school officials were made nonpartisan—now, candidates for judgeships and school boards or other school positions had to run as individuals rather than as party nominees. Prohibitionists secured a “local option” law that permitted voters in any county supervisorial district to ban the sale of alcohol within the district. Within two years, voters prohibited the sale of alcohol in half the state’s supervisorial dis- tricts. Other laws prohibited racetrack gambling and slot machines.

Johnson took no position on woman suffrage, but the legislature submitted to the voters an amendment to the state constitution to extend the suffrage to women. In lobbying the legislature and in persuading male voters, a few suf- frage advocates made straightforward feminist arguments, that women should have the same rights as men. Most suffragists made more complex arguments, drawing upon some tenets of domesticity to argue that women would bring their moral and nurturing nature to politics, clean up politics, and protect women and children. Still others, especially female unionists, argued that female wage earners needed the ballot to protect themselves from economic exploitation.

Meeting for only three months, the legislature of 1911 passed more than 800 bills and sent 23 constitutional amendments to the voters. It was an

California Progressivism, 1910–1920 223

amazing record. The voters approved nearly all of the constitutional changes, including the initiative, referendum, and recall, the changes in the Railroad Commission, and woman suffrage. California now marched in the forefront of progressive reform.

The new laws and constitutional amendments transformed the role of indi- vidual voters. The initiative and referendum were extensively used from the beginning: by 1920, Californians had voted on 41 proposals, including prohibi- tion of alcoholic beverages, the eight-hour day, regulation of chiropractors, the closing of brothels, and the banning of vivisection. California voters were cau- tious in using their new power—of the 41 proposals, voters approved only six initiatives and three referenda. California ballots now became lengthy, crowded with initiatives, referenda, proposed constitutional amendments, and bond issues. In 1914 alone, voters confronted nearly 50 such issues.

California Progressives and the Presidential Election of 1912

In 1912, California progressives, especially Hiram Johnson, moved into the front ranks of national politics. Theodore Roosevelt, during his presidency (1901–1909), had helped to define progressivism by his bold forays against big business—using antitrust laws to break monopolies and pushing Congress to pass the first meaningful federal regulatory laws. In 1908, he personally picked William Howard Taft as his successor and helped elect him. Taft, however, inherited a Republican Party deeply divided between progressives and conser- vatives. Lacking Roosevelt’s leadership qualities, Taft watched Republican unity rapidly unravel.

As the 1912 presidential election approached, Johnson and other leading California Republican progressives concluded that Taft could not win in California and probably not in the nation. In January 1912, Roosevelt invited Johnson to discuss the coming election. Johnson quickly boarded an eastbound train, hoping to persuade Roosevelt to seek the Republican nomination. He was not disappointed—Roosevelt announced his candidacy soon after talking with Johnson and other progressive Republican governors.

In 1912, California was one of only 13 states that used direct primaries to select delegates to the national nominating convention. Roosevelt easily carried the California primary, winning more votes than his two opponents—Taft and Robert La Follette—combined. In other states with direct primaries, Roosevelt also won the most delegates. Elsewhere, however, Taft supporters controlled the party machinery. At the Republican nominating convention, Taft’s suppor- ters dominated the credentials committee and gave contested seats to delegates supporting their man. Johnson led the California delegates out of the conven- tion, claiming that Taft had stolen the nomination. Other Roosevelt delegates followed. The remaining delegates nominated Taft on the first ballot. At the same time, in a hall nearby, Johnson urged the Roosevelt delegates to create a new party and to nominate Roosevelt.

224 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

Roosevelt’s angry supporters formed the Progressive Party, nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party” after Roosevelt’s boast that he was “as fit as a bull moose.” The delegates wrote a platform that included regulation of corporations, a national minimum wage, an end to child labor, woman suffrage, tariff reduc- tion, and the initiative, referendum, and recall. Roosevelt was nominated for president without opposition, and Johnson was similarly nominated for vice president.

When the Democratic convention opened, joyful delegates predicted that the Republican split would give them victory. The hotly contested nomination went to Woodrow Wilson, governor of New Jersey, who had a reputation as a progressive.

In much of the nation, the contest was between Roosevelt and Wilson. In California, that was even more the case, because Johnson and his allies kept Taft off the ballot. Johnson campaigned vigorously for Roosevelt, both in California and nationwide. Wilson’s California campaign was led by James Phelan, former mayor of San Francisco and the state’s leading progressive Democrat. Late in the campaign, Phelan issued a campaign card with an old statement by Roosevelt favoring citizenship rights for Japanese immigrants, and, on the other side, a harshly anti-Asian statement composed by Phelan and signed by Wilson. Johnson thought the card cost Roosevelt 10,000 votes in California. Roosevelt still eked out a narrow victory in California but lost to Wilson nationwide.

Radicals in a Progressive Era

For the nation, the 1912 presidential election marked the high point for the new Socialist Party of America (SPA). Before World War I, several radical organizations had flourished in California. While many progressive organiza- tions reflected middle-class and upper-class concerns, such as businesslike gov- ernment, prohibition, and greater reliance on experts, the SPA claimed to be the political voice of workers and farmers. Formed in 1901, the SPA argued that industrial capitalism had produced “an economic slavery which renders intellectual and political tyranny inevitable.” Socialists rejected progressivism as inadequate to resolve the nation’s problems and called instead for workers to own and control the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

In California, the SPA scored some local victories. In 1911, amidst the McNamara trial (see pp. 208–209), the citizens of Los Angeles voted in a run- off contest between two candidates for mayor: George Alexander, a progressive Republican, and Job Harriman, a Socialist. The progressive narrowly won. Women had gained the vote between the first election and the run-off, and women voters may have swung the balance against Harriman. Nonetheless, Harriman’s strong vote in working-class neighborhoods indicated that many of LA’s working people were turning from progressive reformers to a more radical alternative. That same year, J. Stitt Wilson, a Socialist, won election as

California Progressivism, 1910–1920 225

mayor of Berkeley, and Socialists won a majority on the city board in Daly City. In both places, the Socialists promised little more than municipal owner- ship of public utilities—proposals not far different from what progressives were implementing in San Francisco (city-owned water and streetcar lines) and Los Angeles (city-owned water and electricity). More radical Socialists dismissed such efforts as mere “gas and water” socialism and called for public ownership of factories and transportation facilities. Whether of the radical variety or of the gas-and-water persuasion, SPA candidates drew few votes in most parts of California. Nonetheless, one Socialist won election to the state assembly in 1912, and three were elected to the assembly in 1914.

In 1905 in Chicago, a group of unionists and radicals organized the Indus- trial Workers of the World (IWW). Often called Wobblies, IWW organizers reached out to the workers at the bottom of the economy—sweatshop workers, migrant and seasonal laborers, and other workers usually ignored by the Amer- ican Federation of Labor with its emphasis on skilled workers. The Wobblies’ objective was simple: When the majority of all workers had joined the IWW, they would call a general strike, labor would refuse to work, and capitalism would collapse.

In California, the IWW organized among timber workers, farm workers, maritime workers, and any others who would listen to their message. One tac- tic of IWW activists was to stand on a box on a sidewalk and speak about the exploitation of labor. When local authorities in Fresno tried to ban Wobbly speakers from the streets, dozens of Wobblies descended on the town, made speeches, got arrested, and filled the jail. As the costs of maintaining so many prisoners rose, and as more Wobblies kept arriving, the city government gave in and permitted street speaking if the IWW promised to call back the more than 100 Wobblies on their way to Fresno to continue the fight.

In San Diego, the IWW held frequent street meetings. In 1912, the Mer- chants and Manufacturers Association pushed the city council to ban street speaking. Wobblies joined AFL unionists, Socialists, and some church groups to form a California Free Speech League, and Wobblies began to pour into San Diego for a “free speech fight.” The IWW hoped that the city would back down when they filled the jail and forced the city to feed hundreds of prisoners. Instead, local vigilantes joined San Diego police in beating the demonstrators and running them out of town. Those who were jailed were treated so brutally that one died. The police shot and killed one demonstrator. Governor Johnson sent a personal representative to investigate, and he confirmed the horrors reported by free-speech advocates. Finally, the state attorney general arrived and informed local authorities that the state would intervene if they did not handle protests within the law. Vigilante action ceased, but the right to make sidewalk speeches was not restored until 1914.

In 1913, near Wheatland in northern California, violence drew attention to problems afflicting migrant farm labor. The Durst brothers, owners of a ranch that raised hops (used in brewing beer), advertised widely for hoppickers. Some

226 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

2,800 men, women, and children responded—double the number needed. The Dursts could name their price for labor and still have enough pickers. There were virtually no sanitary facilities in the camp, and in the blazing hot fields the only drink was watery lemonade, sold by the Dursts for five cents a glass.

Among the pickers were perhaps 100 IWW members and a few experi- enced organizers. They called a protest meeting and demanded fresh water, better sanitation, higher wages, and other improvements. Ralph Durst offered some changes but refused others, then discharged the IWW organizers and called in a sheriff’s posse. The crowd refused to disperse, so one deputy fired a shotgun in the air, setting off about 40 shots, some from the strikers, some from the deputies. Four people were killed, including the district attorney, a deputy, a young striker who had fired on the deputies, and a boy on the edge of the crowd. Others were wounded. Several IWW activists were accused of second-degree murder, convicted, and sentenced to prison—though everyone agreed that they had not fired a gun. They immediately became labor martyrs, imprisoned for no crime other than presenting workers’ grievances.

The success of some Socialist candidates and sympathy for the victims of free-speech fights and for miscarriages of justice showed that some Californians were willing to endorse a radical analysis of social problems. Most Californians, however, had no interest in eliminating private property. Most progressive reformers looked aghast at the Socialists and Wobblies and tried to undercut their appeal with reforms that addressed some of their concerns but stopped short of challenging capitalism. Some of the important labor legislation of the 1911 and 1913 legislative sessions may be understood in that light.

A Second Flood of Reform, 1913

After the presidential campaign of 1912, progressives faced some difficult deci- sions, many of which affected the legislative session of 1913. The session began in controversy, over proposed legislation to prohibit aliens not eligible for citi- zenship (i.e., immigrants from Asia, especially the Japanese) from owning land in California. Similar proposals had been introduced before but were blocked by leading Republicans (including Johnson in 1911) to prevent diplomatic pro- blems for Republican presidents Roosevelt and Taft. Now, in 1913, a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, sat in the White House, and his California supporters had pulled votes away from Governor Johnson’s ticket by appealing to anti-Asian sentiments. Johnson signaled legislators, and a bill restricting the property rights of Asian immigrants moved toward passage. The government of Japan protested. Wilson, anxious over relations with Japan, sent his secretary of state to California to urge defeat of the bill. The legislature listened respectfully, then passed the bill.

Johnson signed the Alien Land Act into law, which placed Wilson and the Democrats in the politically embarrassing position of siding with Japan and Japanese immigrants against the California legislature and, probably, a majority

California Progressivism, 1910–1920 227

of California voters. The law particularly appealed to Central Valley voters, many of whom disliked the Japanese. Some legislators, however, probably understood that the law could be evaded by putting land titles and leases in the names of the American-born children of Japanese immigrants. In retro- spect, the Alien Land Act seems little more than a cynical political exercise, as Republican progressives used racial antagonism to benefit their own political standing and create political embarrassment for President Wilson.

The 1913 legislative session accomplished more of lasting significance. Though progressives elsewhere put limits on political parties, California went further than any other state. In 1913, the legislature required all county and local offices to be nonpartisan. When combined with the nonpartisan measures of 1911, this meant that only members of the federal Congress, the half-dozen statewide officers, and members of the board of equalization and the state leg- islature could run for office as party candidates. The 1913 legislature also mod- ified the direct primary law through cross-filing. Under cross-filing, candidates in the primary election could seek the nomination of more than one party, thereby permitting former Republicans who had become Progressives in 1912 to file for the nominations of both parties.

In 1913, the California Federation of Women’s Clubs lobbied for a long list of reforms supported by women’s groups. With assistance from the nationally prominent reformer Florence Kelley, and over the opposition of organized labor, Katherine Philips Edson (see pp. 200–203) persuaded the legislature to adopt a minimum wage for female workers. The legislature also created the Industrial Welfare Commission, and Governor Johnson appointed Philips Edson to the new commission, responsible for implementing the minimum wage for women and developing policies regarding the health, safety, and wel- fare of women and children. Women’s organizations lobbied hard for a law that made property owners responsible if their buildings were used for brothels. Called the Red Light Abatement law, it was challenged in a referendum. Women then took the lead in organizing voter support in the referendum, and voters backed the new law. It led to the closing of the wide-open houses of pros- titution that had, until then, flourished in San Francisco and a few other places.

The 1913 legislature approved several new labor laws. One created the Industrial Accident Commission to promote industrial safety and to administer the 1911 workmen’s compensation act and a new State Compensation Insur- ance Fund. Another new commission, the Commission of Immigration and Housing, was to address the needs of migrant farm laborers, whose plight had been so vividly demonstrated at Wheatland. To head the agency, Johnson appointed Simon Lubin, a social worker turned Sacramento businessman. The commission created housing and educational programs for migratory farm labor and brought some improvements in sanitation. For these new commis- sions and other state agencies, Johnson appointed a number of representatives from organized labor—perhaps more than were appointed by any other gover- nor of the progressive era.

228 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

The Progressive Tide Recedes, 1914–1920

Late in 1913, Johnson convinced his closest allies to abandon the state Repub- lican Party and form the California Progressive Party. He expected the Progres- sives to become one of the major parties, and he wanted California to remain in the forefront of progressivism. In 1914, Johnson sought reelection as a Progressive—and received more votes than his Republican and Democratic opponents combined, thus becoming the first governor to win a second term since the 1850s. Republican, Democratic, and Progressive candidates also ran in the state’s first direct election for the U.S. Senate, and the winner was James D. Phelan, the progressive Democrat.

The peculiarities of cross-filing became apparent among members elected to the assembly in 1914: 24 were elected as Republican, 10 as Democrat, seven as Progressive, 10 as Republican-Progressive, seven as Republican-Democrat, seven as Democrat-Progressive, six as Republican-Democrat-Progressive, and the other nine had various combinations of Republican, Democratic, Progres- sive, Prohibitionist, and Socialist nominations. One assembly member, a Social- ist, had all five parties’ nominations! Thus, from the beginning, cross-filing suggested that party labels had little meaning if one person could simulta- neously be the candidate of both the Republican and Socialist parties (despite their contradictory platforms) or of both the Democratic and Prohibitionist parties (which took contrary positions on alcohol) or of the Republican, Dem- ocratic, Socialist, and Prohibitionist parties!

By 1914, progressivism seemed to be waning in California. The many new laws adopted in 1911 and 1913 addressed nearly all concerns that reformers had voiced before 1910. In 1915, the legislature added little to that list of reforms. The next year, in 1916, Theodore Roosevelt urged his followers to return to the Republicans, and most Progressives followed his lead. Johnson was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1916, and his lieutenant governor, William D. Stephens, became governor. Then, in April 1917, the nation went to war, and many Californians turned their attention from reform to mobilizing a war machine. Women continued their political activism, however, and in 1918 four women won seats in the state legislature. In 1919, the legislature enacted significant restrictions on child labor.

Californians in a World of Revolutions and War

During the early 20th century, more than ever before, Californians were affected by events elsewhere in the world—the construction of the Panama Canal, revolution in Mexico after 1910, and war that began in Europe in 1914 but engulfed much of the world by 1917.

Californians in a World of Revolutions and War 229

Californians and the Mexican Revolution

Rebellion broke out in Mexico in 1910, and peasant armies calling for tierra y libertad (land and liberty) attacked the mansions of great landowners. A series of governments proved unable to establish stability.

One group of revolutionaries operated from southern California. In Los Angeles in 1907, several exiles from Mexico established a branch of the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM, or Mexican Liberal Party). Founded in St. Louis by Ricardo Flores Magón in 1905, the PLM opposed the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico with support from great landholders, the church, and the military. When Magón called for revolution in 1907, he was arrested and spent nearly two years in the LA jail while his lawyer, Job Harriman (see p. 225), fought to prevent him from being extradited to Mexico. Magón and his followers, called magonistas, moved toward a radicalism similar to that of the IWW, advo- cating the overthrow of Díaz and also a redistribution of property and wealth.

In 1910, Magón moved his headquarters to Los Angeles and, when revolution came to Mexico, the magonistas were ready. Early in 1911, they joined with some Wobblies on a foray into the Mexican state of Baja California. They first seized the town of Mexicali. Prominent American anarchists, including Emma Goldman, converged on San Diego to build support for the ragtag army of Mexicans, Wobblies, and adventurers. They took Tijuana in early May but developed little following elsewhere. Soon, a Mexican army arrived to reestablish control, and the magonistas fled back to the United States. Magón, his brother, and a few other leaders were convicted of violating U.S. laws by sending weapons into Mexico.

The growing numbers of Mexican immigrants to southern California com- bined with the radical agitation of the era to breed what some historians have called a “Brown Scare” during the years 1913 to 1918—a predecessor of the Red Scare of 1919 and a parallel to the anti-IWW activities in San Diego and elsewhere. The radical speeches and publications of Flores Magón and his fol- lowers persuaded some white Californians that the Mexican community of Los Angeles harbored dangerous revolutionaries. In 1915, Texas officials announced they had found a “Plan de San Diego” for an invasion from Mexico to coincide with an insurrection by Mexican Americans. When Mexican raiders led by the revolutionary Pancho Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, it seemed to confirm rumors of impending insurrection and intensified the Brown Scare. In Los Angeles, the police chief banned the sale of guns and liquor to Mexicans.

War in Europe and Conflict at Home

In the summer of 1914, assassinations by a Serbian terrorist led to world war. By August, two great alliances were attacking each other—the Allies (the British Empire, France, Russia, Belgium, and eventually Italy) versus the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey).

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the United States to be neutral and urged Americans to be neutral in thought as well as deed. Neutrality

230 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

proved difficult to maintain, however. From the beginning, some Americans advo- cated that the United States should join the Allies. Others supported neutrality. By 1916, many Americans had lined up on opposite sides over “preparedness”—a military and naval buildup to prepare the United States for war.

In San Francisco in 1916, the city seemed on the verge of a “labor war,” as unions and employers squared off over several issues. In the midst of a strike by longshoremen, the Chamber of Commerce sponsored a mass meeting of the city’s business leaders, drew upon the heritage of the vigilantes to create a Law and Order Committee, bankrolled it with a million dollars, and charged it with restoring “peace and quiet” on the waterfront. The Law and Order Committee then launched a wide-ranging offensive against unions. At the same time, a group of business leaders, including many from the Law and Order Committee, organized a parade on July 22 in support of preparedness. Unions urged their members to boycott the parade, as did Socialists, pacifists, and a few leading progressives. About half an hour after the parade began to wend its way down Market Street, as various parade units were still waiting to join the march, a bomb went off at the corner of Market and Steuart Streets, killing nine people and injuring 40. The search for those responsible soon narrowed to a small group of radical unionists.

Authorities arrested five suspects and began to bring them to trial, one at a time. The first, Warren Billings, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The next, Tom Mooney, was convicted and sentenced to death. By the time of the third trial, of Rena Mooney, the defense had discovered evidence of perjury. Rena Mooney was found not guilty, as was the next defendant, and the prose- cution dropped charges against the final defendant. But Billings and Mooney were in prison, Mooney awaiting execution. Radicals and unionists across the country demonstrated for their freedom, but Governor Stephens only com- muted Mooney’s sentence from death to life imprisonment, guaranteeing the continuation of the struggle to free the two men.

In March 1917, President Wilson began to move toward war with Germany. On March 1, he made public a decoded message from the German state secretary for foreign affairs, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German minister in Mexico. Zimmermann proposed that, if the United States went to war with Germany, Mexico should ally itself with Germany and attack the United States. Further, Mexico should urge Japan to change sides and oppose the United States and the Allies. If the Central Powers won, Mexico would recover its “lost provinces” of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Zimmermann’s suggestions created outrage and fear among many Californians as the sensationalist press projected the hor- rors of a Mexican or Japanese conquest of California. Then, in April 1917, the nation went to war against Germany and the other Central Powers.

Californians Go to War

More than 130,000 Californians served in the war. Nearly all were men who became part of the army or navy. A few women served as army nurses or in

Californians in a World of Revolutions and War 231

the Red Cross or other support organizations. Some 4,000 Californians lost their lives on the battlefield or to disease while serving in the military.

The war produced important changes at home. Historians have called World War I the first “total war” because modern warfare demanded mobilization of an entire society and economy. The State Council of Defense sought to build sup- port for the war effort, usually equating opposition to the war with disloyalty.

German-language newspapers were banned. Radicals came under suspi- cion, and many were arrested. The war altered nearly every aspect of the econ- omy, as the progressive emphasis on expertise and efficiency produced unprecedented centralization of economic decision making. The railroads and the telephone and telegraph systems came under direct federal management. Mobilization extended beyond war production to the people themselves, their attitudes toward the war, and their response to the need for labor. In the midst of war, in 1918, the nation—and the world—were plunged into a serious influ- enza epidemic that killed many thousands.

Most Californians’ lives were significantly changed by the need for more food, clothing, ships and weapons, and other manufactured goods. One crucial American contribution to the Allied victory was through agriculture, for the war disrupted European farming and increased demand for many products. President Wilson chose Herbert Hoover as federal food administrator. Prior to the war, Hoover, a Californian, had a worldwide reputation as a mining engineer. Before the United States entered the war, he skillfully directed a relief program in Belgium. Now he promoted increased production and conservation of food. Farmers brought large areas under cultivation for the first time, and food ship- ments to the Allies tripled. In addition to producing more food, California growers significantly increased their cotton production in response to wartime demands.

Demands for increased production when thousands of men were marching off to war opened up jobs for new workers. Employment of women in factory, office, and retail jobs was increasing before the war, but the war accelerated those trends. The war also had a great impact on African American communities. Until the war, about 90 percent of all African Americans lived in the southern states. By 1920, some 500,000 had moved out of the South in what has been called the Great Migration. The number of African Americans in Los Angeles more than doubled, and the black community of LA became the state’s largest—nearly twice the size of the black communities of the Bay Area—and most important center for black business and politics. In 1918, African Americans in LA helped to elect Frederick Roberts, a Republican, as the first black member of the state legislature. Black voters did not comprise a majority in Roberts’s district, how- ever, and he won with support from white as well as black Republicans.

Peace and the Backwash of War

When the war ended on November 11, 1918, church bells pealed and sirens shrieked. Californians thronged into the streets, celebrating the end of the war. One remembered that “it was just like New Year’s eve.” Huge bonfires

232 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

were lit on the highest hills in San Francisco, and, on the next day, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious leaders joined in a massive thanksgiving service in San Francisco’s Civic Center.

Californians soon found themselves embroiled in economic and social con- flicts that spun off from the war. The year 1919 saw not only the return of the troops from Europe, but also raging inflation, massive strikes, fear of subver- sion, violations of civil liberties, and passage of an unenforceable law to pro- hibit alcohol.

Inflation—which newspapers called HCL, for “high cost of living”—may have been the most pressing single problem Americans faced after the war. Between late 1914 and the end of the war, the cost of living increased by about half, then continued to climb in 1919. Many unions made wage demands to keep up with the soaring cost of living, but, by 1919, employers were ready for a fight. Some companies were determined to return labor relations to pre- war patterns. Others planned to roll back prewar union gains.

Against the backdrop of a general strike in Seattle, a police strike in Boston, and a multistate strike by steelworkers—all of which failed—several California unions struck for improved wages and working conditions. In the spring, shipyard workers in Los Angeles went on strike, but lost. Telephone workers struck throughout much of California in June. Telephone companies hired strikebreakers, and by late July most strikers returned to work with no gains. In the fall of 1919, San Francisco longshoremen went on strike; the strike failed, and the longshoremen’s union was destroyed. Shipyard workers up and down the Pacific coast walked out, but their strike, too, was a failure.

Across the country and in California, many companies discredited strikers by claiming that they were motivated not by legitimate desires to improve wages, but by political commitments to Bolshevism—the radical version of socialism that had taken power in Russia in 1917 and that was soon called Communism. The California legislature, like state legislatures across the country, adopted a state criminal syndicalism law, making it a crime to advocate changes in the economy and government of the sort sought by the IWW or the new Commu- nist Party. In May 1919, a group of veterans formed the American Legion, which not only lobbied on behalf of veterans but also condemned radicals and commit- ted itself “to foster and perpetuate a one hundred percent Americanism.”

The Meaning of Progressivism for Californians

The progressive era began with efforts at municipal reform in the 1890s and sputtered to a close during World War I. Some politicians who called them- selves progressives, including Hiram Johnson, remained prominent afterward, and progressive concepts of efficiency and expertise continued to guide govern- ment decision making. But the war diverted public attention from reform, and by the end of the war political concerns had changed.

The Meaning of Progressivism for Californians 233

The changes of the progressive era transformed California’s politics and government. Regulation of railroads and other public utilities continues to be a major function of state government. Protection of particular types of workers—women, children, migrants—has also been a continuing responsibility of state government. The progressives’ assault on political parties, through nonpartisan elections, cross-filing, and direct democracy, transformed state pol- itics. As parties declined, organized pressure groups—and their lobbyists— proliferated and gained significant influence in politics. Reliance on the initia- tive expanded dramatically over the course of the 20th century. With the decline of political parties came political campaigns based largely on personality and advertising. Hiram Johnson left a far greater personal mark on the state than did any of the governors or senators who preceded him. During the John- son years, Californians came to expect policy proposals to flow from a forceful governor. Johnson became the standard against which later governors were often measured—usually to their disadvantage. Women’s participation in poli- tics has continued to increase, especially in the last third of the 20th century.

Cross-filing remained a feature of California primary elections until 1959. Almost from the beginning, it permitted candidates with large personal follow- ings to lock up all major party nominations in the primary. This gave a strong advantage to incumbents, for they usually had the greatest name recognition among voters. Given the Republican majority among California voters, cross- filing especially benefited Republicans. By the late 1910s and early 1920s, the Republican primary was often the real election, because the winner of the Republican primary won other parties’ nominations as well.

Johnson himself became a fixture in state politics, moving from the gover- norship to the U.S. Senate, and then winning reelection every six years until his death in 1945. In the Senate, he continued to carry the progressive banner through the conservative 1920s and into the 1930s. Pugnacious, tenacious, and deeply hostile to corporate influence in government, he defined the mean- ing of progressivism for a generation of Californians. Throughout his long career, he remained largely outside the bounds of political parties, though ostensibly a Republican after 1916. But his insistence on his own independence meant that his campaigns for office were always his campaigns and not party campaigns. In many ways, Johnson set new patterns for state politics.

Summary

California progressivism began with municipal reform in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Efforts to reform state government, especially to regulate the Southern Pacific Railroad, mostly failed before 1910. Organized labor became powerful in San Francisco, but Los Angeles was a stronghold of the open shop. Extremists bombed the Los Angeles Times building because of the newspaper’s anti-union attitudes.

234 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

After 1900, California’s population grew rapidly, but the population remained largely white, despite increased immigration from eastern Asia and Mexico. A new federal commitment brought the creation of many new, but small, reservations for California Indians.

California’s agricultural economy moved further toward specialty crops, including fruit, vegetables, nuts, and grapes. Food processing was the state’s largest manufacturing industry, but growing numbers of automobiles stimulated an oil boom and expansion of petroleum refining. In 1906, a massive earthquake caused widespread damage through central California, centered on San Fran- cisco, which was also devastated by fire. Both San Francisco and Los Angeles undertook mammoth water projects to permit further growth. Irrigated agricul- ture grew in importance. California’s agricultural produce and refined petroleum products were sold around the Pacific Rim, and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 fostered more shipping between the East and West coasts. To cel- ebrate the opening of the canal, a great exposition was held in San Francisco.

In 1910, the election of Hiram Johnson as governor initiated reform in state government. In 1911, reformers put limits on corporations and political parties and adopted woman suffrage. Johnson became the vice-presidential candidate of the new Progressive Party in 1912. The Socialist Party made a few gains in California, and the IWW tried to organize the most unskilled and exploited workers. In San Diego and Wheatland, IWW demonstrations turned into violent confrontations. The legislature enacted more reforms in 1913, but then progressivism began to recede.

Mexico experienced rebellion and political instability after 1910, and California provided a base for some revolutionaries in Baja California. The unsettled situation in Mexico encouraged migration to the United States, including California. When Europe went to war in 1914, Californians were affected despite American neutrality. An anti-war bombing in San Francisco led to the imprisonment of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, even though key evidence against them was tainted. When the United States entered the war, it stimulated California agriculture and manufacturing. After the war, sev- eral unions were destroyed when strikes failed to improve wages. During the war itself and in 1919, there were efforts to restrict radical groups, including the Socialists, the IWW, and the new Communist Party.

Suggested Readings

❚ Brechin, Gray, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999). A highly critical account of the growth of the city and its effect on its environment.

❚ Cherny, Robert, Irwin, Mary Ann, and Wilson, Ann Marie, eds., California Women and Politics: From the Gold Rush to the Great Depression (Lincoln,

Suggested Readings 235

NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2011). An anthology that surveys women’s involvement in state and local politics before and after woman suffrage.

❚ Deverell, William, and Sitton, Tom, eds., California Progressivism Revisited (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994). An anthol- ogy focused on class, gender, and ethnicity in California progressivism, intended to supplement and revise earlier treatments.

❚ Gullett, Gayle, Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and Development of the California Women’s Movement, 1880–1911 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000). A thorough study of California women’s efforts to achieve suffrage.

❚ Kahrl, William L., Water and Power: The Conflict over Los Angeles’ Water Supply in the Owens Valley (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982). The most thorough account of the acquisition of the Owens Valley by Los Angeles.

❚ Kazin, Michael, Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987). An outstanding history of one of the most powerful labor organizations in the country.

❚ Lower, Richard Coke, A Bloc of One: The Political Career of Hiram W. Johnson (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993). A thorough and well- written biography of the most influential progressive leader.

❚ Mowry, George E., The California Progressives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951). The classic account, still interesting and useful but needs to be read with more recent treatments.

❚ Olin, Spencer C., California’s Prodigal Sons: Hiram Johnson and the Progres- sives, 1911–1917 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). A good introduction to events and issues in state politics in the progressive era.

❚ Walsh, James P., and O’Keefe, Timothy J., Legacy of a Native Son: James Duval Phelan and Villa Montalvo (Los Gatos: Forbes Mill Press, 1993). A thoroughly researched and well-written biography of the state’s leading Democrat during the early 20th century.

❚ Wallis, Eileen, Earning Power: Women and Work in Los Angeles, 1880–1930 (Reno: University of Nevada, 2010). Interesting study of ethnicity, class, and gender as they affected the lives of working women in Los Angeles.

❚ Walton, John, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992). A good treatment of the many dimensions of the politics of water.

236 CHAPTER 7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920

CH AP

TE R 8

California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

Main Topics

❚ The Rise of Los Angeles: Twentieth-Century Metropolis

❚ Prosperity Decade: The 1920s

❚ Depression Decade: The 1930s

❚ Summary

California is a garden of Eden, A paradise to live in or see, But believe it or not You won’t find it so hot, If you ain’t got the Do Re Mi.

So sang Woody Guthrie, who was born in Oklahoma in 1912 and came to California in 1937. Throughout the 1920s, California seemed to some like a paradise. Then

the nation’s economy turned sour after 1929. A long-lasting drought began in 1931, affecting much of the nation and turning Oklahoma, Kansas, and surrounding areas into a “Dust Bowl.” Farm families from the Dust Bowl and farm families dis- placed from their farms by technology, the Depression, or new

DO RE MI Words and Music by Woody Guthrie WGP/TRO-(c) Copyright 1961 (Renewed) 1963 (Renewed) Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & Ludlow Music, Inc., New York, NY administered by Ludlow Music, Inc. International Copyright Secured Made in U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Including Public Performance For Profit. Used by Permission.

237

governmental policies headed for California, hoping to start over. Guthrie described his trip to California:

I got what you wood call disgursted, busted, and rooled me up a bundel of duds, an’ caught a long-tail, frate-train that had a California sign on the side of it…. I was headin’ out to see some relatives, but I diden’t know for shore wich r.r. bridge they was alivin’ under…. I seen about 99 44-100 of California’s great senery, from Tia Juana to the Redwood forests, from Reno, an’ Lake Tahoe, to the Frisco bay. I finally … found my relatives up at Turlock, Calif., and et off of them till we all picked up an’ moved down to Lost Angeles—where we’ve been ever since.

In Los Angeles, Guthrie was one of many Okies—an epithet applied to all those from the Dust Bowl who came to California. Some estimated that as many as 200,000 had come. Many

CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

1918 World War I ends

1920–1921 Major oil discoveries in Los Angeles basin

1922 Colorado River Compact

1924 Piper v. Big Pine School District

1927 First talking movie, The Jazz Singer

1929 Great Depression begins

1930 Los Angeles ranks fifth in size among U.S. cities

1930 Bank of Italy renamed as Bank of America

1933 New Deal begins

1934 Coastwide longshoremen’s strike

1934 San Francisco general strike

1934 Upton Sinclair’s unsuccessful EPIC campaign

1935 WPA begins

1937 Woody Guthrie comes to California

1937 Construction completed on Golden Gate Bridge

1938 Culbert Olson elected governor

1939 Publication of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath

1940 Construction completed on first California freeway

1941 United States enters World War II

238

found work as seasonal agricultural workers, harvesting crops up and down the Central Valley. Few Californians greeted them warmly; the LA police chief sent police to the state border to encourage Okies to turn back. Woody sang about that too:

Lots of folks back east, they say, Leavin’ home ev’ry day, Beatin’ the hot old dusty way to the California line. Cross the desert sands they roll, Getting out of that old dust bowl, They think they’re going to a sugar bowl But here is what they find: Now the police at the port of entry say, “You’re number fourteen thousand for today.”

By the time that Woody Guthrie arrived in California in 1937, he had already identified with those most hard hit by the economic and environmental catastrophes of the 1930s, and his politics quickly moved far to the left, in sympathy with the outcast and suffering. After spending a few years in California, he continued to travel around the country, singing his affection for the people and the land, and his criticism of the economic system. What is your reaction to Guthrie’s effort to reproduce the language and spelling of someone with little education? What do you think the reaction was in the 1930s?

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Oh, if you ain’t got the do re mi, folks, If you ain’t got the do re mi, Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.

Woody found a job singing on radio station KFVD, where he tried many of the songs that later became classics of the Depression and the Dust Bowl. His politics moved left. By 1939 he was writing for the People’s World, a daily newspaper of the Communist Party in California. As he put it in his first column,

Don’t be bashful a bout writing to me if you know of a job. I play the guitar…. If you are afraid I woodent go over in your lodge or party, you are possibly right. In such case just mail me $15 and I wont come. When I perform I cut it down to $10. When for a good cause, $5. When for a better cause, I come free. If you can think of a better one still, I’ll give you my service, my guitar, my hat and 65¢ cash money.

Woody’s songs transformed the folk ballad, making it an instrument of social protest, showing the way for such song- writers as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Tracy Chapman.

The image of California in the 1920s included some of the things Guthrie said about it—a Garden of Eden, a paradise. Many Americans in the prosperous 1920s imagined California by picturing movie stars driving convertibles down palm-lined streets under a sunny sky. During the hard times of the 1930s, that image changed. Now California became a place inhabited, as Woody described it, by “the [Dust Bowl] Refugees a livin’ in the various Trailer Cities thet are strung around over the country, the conditions in which the children must live in destitution, want, filth and despair.” Both images contained elements of truth, but neither was complete. Nonetheless, everyone who lived through those times drew a sharp distinc- tion between the 1920s and the 1930s.

Economists think in terms of alternating periods of expan- sion and contraction in the economy. During expansion, the economy grows, demand for products rises, stock market prices rise, unemployment is low, and wages often rise. Expansion phases are periods of prosperity. But every expansion is followed—though not on any easily predictable basis—by con- traction, a time when the economy shrinks, demand for products decline, stock market prices fall, and employers lay off workers or cut wages in response to declining demand. In the 1920s, the economy expanded, based largely on the demand for consumer goods such as automobiles, radios, and electrical appliances. Consumer purchases were encouraged by the introduction of installment buying—making a down payment and paying off

240 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

the remaining cost (plus interest) in “easy monthly payments.” During the 1930s, the nation experienced the most serious contraction of the 20th century—the Great Depression. All these national patterns had parallels in California.

Questions to Consider

❚ What explains the rapid growth of Los Angeles in the early 20th century?

❚ How did Los Angeles develop differently from older cities?

❚ What are the connections between California politics in the 1920s and progressivism?

❚ What role did the federal government play in the eco- nomic and social changes of the 1920s?

❚ What role did the federal government play in the state’s economic and social changes during the 1930s?

❚ How did the Great Depression change state politics in the 1930s?

The Rise of Los Angeles: Twentieth-Century Metropolis

The 1920 census recorded that Los Angeles had passed San Francisco in popu- lation, becoming the 10th largest city in the nation. LA was, in fact, the fastest- growing major city in the country during the early 20th century. Figure 8.1 on the next page presents population patterns among the largest cities in California between 1890 and 1940. During the 1920s, LA doubled in size—by 1930, it ranked fifth in the nation in size and continued to grow in the 1930s.

The Economic Basis for Growth

LA’s spectacular growth began in the 1880s, when competitive railroad passen- ger rates from the Midwest and South combined with the sunny climate and a romanticized version of California history to attract health seekers and tourists. The development of refrigerated railroad cars and ships in the 1890s contrib- uted to a boom in citrus growing. LA boosters secured massive federal funding to construct a port at San Pedro. The Owens River began to flow into the LA water system in 1913, providing much more water than the city then needed, and later projects expanded water supplies in advance of need. The availability of water permitted growth, and other factors contributed to the emergence of a diversified economy. During the 1920s and 1930s, three elements contributed to the city’s growth: the motion picture industry, oil discoveries, and a variety of manufacturing enterprises.

The Rise of Los Angeles: Twentieth-Century Metropolis 241

By World War I, the motion picture industry was the most prominent industry in southern California. Los Angeles was a natural for making movies—the weather was usually sunny, it rarely rained, and a variety of natu- ral scenery existed nearby, including ocean, mountains, and desert. By 1914, Hollywood, a suburb of Los Angeles, had become the center for moviemaking. By the mid-1930s, the industry was dominated by a few large studios, notably Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM, formed in 1924), RKO (1928), Warner Broth- ers (1929), 20th Century-Fox (1935), and Paramount (1935). These studios competed to lock up actors and directors in long-term contracts and to pro- mote their own “stars.” Movies became big business, dependent on New York banks for capital to construct huge physical plants and to deploy the latest tech- nology of light and sound. By 1937, moviemaking was the fourth largest indus- try in the nation. And, by then, eight corporations produced 90 percent of all films and controlled both distribution of the films and many movie theaters.

A second factor in the growth of LA was oil. Major oil discoveries in the LA basin in the early 1920s boosted California to first place among oil- producing states during the 1920s. Discoveries in 1920 and 1921 at Huntington

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Source: Report on the social statistics of cities in the United States at the eleventh census, 1890 (Washington, 1895); Twelfth census of the United States, taken in the year 1900 (Washington, 1901–1902); Thirteenth census of the United States taken in the year 1910 (Washington, 1913); Fourteenth census of the United States (Washington, 1924); Fifteenth census of the United States, 1930 (Washington, 1932); Sixteenth census of the United States, 1940 (Washington, 1942–1943).

242 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

Beach, Long Beach, and Santa Fe Springs set off a speculative mania—as one observer put it, everyone went “stark, staring oil mad.” A geologist called it “the greatest outpouring of mineral wealth the world has ever known.” In 1924, oil passed agriculture as the state’s leading industry. By 1930, the LA basin held 32 refineries employing 5000 people.

A third factor in LA’s growth was manufacturing. In the early 1920s, the nation’s three largest tire companies all separately concluded that they should build plants in Los Angeles—its port was convenient for shipping rubber from Southeast Asia, it was close to newly developed cotton fields (cotton cord was the other major ingredient in making tires), and it was in the center of the most rapidly growing market for tires. LA could also promise to meet the plants’ heavy demands for water. Similar reasoning led Ford to locate an auto- mobile assembly plant in the LA basin and steelmakers to open a plant in Torrance. At the same time, the LA basin remained a major agricultural region, producing crops for food-processing plants. Between 1919 and 1930, LA moved from 28th to ninth place among American manufacturing cities. By 1930, however, LA ranked fifth in population, so manufacturing did not domi- nate the city’s economy in the same way that it did in Detroit or Pittsburgh, where a third to a half of the work force was in manufacturing. In LA, the proportion was a bit over a quarter.

The growth of LA was not affected by one of the state’s greatest disasters, the collapse of the St. Francis Dam. Built in San Francisquito Canyon in 1924–26 to create a reservoir for water from the Owens River, the dam filled to capacity on March 7, 1928. It collapsed on March 12, sending a torrent 125 feet high down the canyon, destroying everything in its path. The huge wave then followed the Santa Clara River channel through Ventura County and into the Pacific Ocean, carrying debris and victims with it. The official death toll was 385, but current estimates are as many as 600, making it second only to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 as California’s deadliest disaster. The collapse of the dam badly damaged the reputation of William Mulholland (pp. 218–220), and he soon retired from the LA water department that he had done so much to create.

The Automobile and the Growth of Southern California

The rapid growth of Los Angeles came just as the automobile industry was promoting the notion of a car for every family. By 1925, LA had one automo- bile for every three residents, twice the national average. The LA basin also had an excellent streetcar system. The auto and the streetcar made it possible for Angelenos to live further from work than ever before. At the same time, real- estate developers busily promoted the ideal of the single-family home. By 1930, 94 percent of residences in Los Angeles were single-family homes—something unprecedented for a major city—and Los Angeles had the lowest population density by far among the nation’s 15 largest cities.

The Rise of Los Angeles: Twentieth-Century Metropolis 243

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Life in Los Angeles came to be organized around the automobile to an extent unknown in other major cities, where most growth and construction had taken place in the era of the horse and the streetcar. The experience of LA set the pattern for future urban development nearly everywhere else. The first modern supermarket, offering “one-stop shopping,” appeared in LA. The “Miracle Mile” along Wilshire Boulevard was the nation’s first large shopping district designed for the automobile. The Los Angeles Times put it this way in 1926: “Our forefathers … set forth ‘the pursuit of happiness’ as an inalienable right of mankind. And how can one pursue happiness by any swifter and surer means … than by the use of the automobile?”

Promoters attracted hundreds of thousands of new residents to southern California by presenting images of perpetual sunshine, tall palm trees lining wide boulevards, gushing fountains, and broad, sandy beaches. The rapid growth of the economy and the population also attracted many who hoped to

Grauman’s Chinese Theater is perhaps the most famous movie theater in the United States. It opened in 1927, and its architecture and interior décor were even more exotic than most theaters of the day. Why do you think that movie theater owners wanted theaters with unusual, even bizarre, architecture and ornament?

profit from the unsettled society, and the LA basin acquired a reputation as a center for get-rich-quick schemes, bizarre religious cults, and unusual political groups. Carl Sandburg, in the late 1920s, wrote that “God once took the coun- try by Maine as the handle, gave it a good shake, and all the loose nuts and bolts rolled down to southern California.”

Prosperity Decade: The 1920s

Called the “Jazz Age” and the “Roaring Twenties,” the 1920s was a period of prosperity that sometimes seems a swirl of conflicting images. Prohibition tried to preserve the values of 19th-century America. “Flappers” scandalized many by flaunting their sexuality. The booming stock market and the oil gushers of southern California seemed to promise prosperity to all. Many blue-collar workers endured the destruction of their unions. Technology emerged as an ever-more-potent ingredient in the state’s economic growth.

Politics in a Time of Prosperity

During the 1920s, a large majority of California voters registered as Republi- cans, but the state Republican Party was sharply divided between progressives and conservatives. U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson led the progressive faction. In 1920, he sought the Republican nomination for president, running as a pro- gressive and the heir of Theodore Roosevelt. Another Californian, Herbert Hoover, also ran for the presidency that year. He could claim some commit- ment to progressive values and pointed to his experience as a highly successful federal administrator during the war. In California, progressives and union lea- ders lined up behind Johnson, and conservatives and business leaders backed Hoover. In the state’s Republican presidential primary, Johnson took about 370,000 votes to Hoover’s 209,000. Only about 23,000 Democrats voted in their party’s presidential primary. The Republican presidential nomination, however, went to Warren G. Harding, who easily carried California and the nation in the general election. Hoover became secretary of commerce. Johnson turned down the Republican nomination for vice president; had he accepted, he would have become president when Harding died in 1923.

Johnson sought reelection to the U.S. Senate in 1922. He faced strong opposition in the Republican primary but won the election easily. In 1922, there was also a closely contested Republican primary for governor. The incumbent, William Stephens, was a pragmatic progressive. He shared many of Johnson’s concerns about big business and was willing to extend the role of state government as seemed necessary, but he shied away from projects that seemed unpopular or unworkable. Stephens lost in the Republican primary

Prosperity Decade: The 1920s 245

to Friend Richardson, a staunch conservative. When Richardson sought reelec- tion to the governorship in 1926, he was defeated in the Republican primary by a progressive, C. C. Young. In 1928, Johnson sought reelection to the U.S. Senate and again faced a conservative opponent in the Republican primary.

Thus, throughout the 1920s, the Republican Party of California scored vic- tory after victory in statewide and local elections but remained deeply divided. The most important elections were those in the Republican primary. After 1910, many voters seem to have moved to the Republican Party as a way to participate in the important contests that characterized every primary. By 1930, 73 percent of the state’s voters called themselves Republicans, making California one of the most Republican states in the nation. The Republican proportion among registered voters in major urban areas ranged from 81 per- cent in San Francisco, to 79 percent in Alameda County (Berkeley and Oakland), 71 percent in Los Angeles County, and 70 percent in San Diego County. California Democrats could not come close to a majority in a single county.

Throughout the 1920s, prohibition divided voters and affected state politics in sometimes unpredictable ways. The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting production or sale of alcoholic beverages, was, in some ways, the last gasp of the reforming zeal that had generated progressiv- ism. Many Californians simply disregarded it from the beginning, and it grew less popular the longer it lasted. Nonetheless, prohibition remained the law from 1920 until 1933, when the Twenty-first Amendment repealed it. Prohibi- tion was most effective among those groups and in those areas—notably south- ern California—that had provided its greatest support. It was not well enforced in most places, and police largely ignored it in most cities, especially San Fran- cisco. Bootlegging—production and sale of illegal beverages—flourished.

The administrations of Governors Stephens, Richardson, and Young dem- onstrated that divisions among Republicans were not mere personality contests; rather, they reflected significantly different approaches to the role of the state in the economy and society. Stephens was a cautious, pragmatic progressive. In 1919, he promoted a huge bond issue to build highways. In 1921, he proposed a number of new programs to regulate business or protect particular groups of consumers or workers. To pay for the new programs, he backed a 35 percent increase in taxes on corporations. At the same time, he tried to reorganize state government to make it more efficient.

Richardson defeated Stephens in the 1922 Republican primary by con- demning Stephens for higher taxes and spending. As governor, Richardson slashed spending for state programs, and, in 1925, set an all-time record by vetoing more than half of all bills passed by the legislature. Young defeated Richardson in the 1926 Republican primary by criticizing his negativity. Dur- ing Young’s administration, state government expanded to assist the disabled and elderly, protect the environment, conserve water, and expand state parks. To pay for these new programs, Young backed a tax on banks and greater

246 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

efficiency in state government. State budgets had been in the range of $100 million in the early 1920s; by 1930, despite Richardson’s budget cutting, the state budget stood at $244 million.

In the early 1920s, California politics continued in the anti-Asian mode set by the progressives through the Alien Land Law in 1913. A wave of anti- Japanese sentiment swept the state beginning in 1919. James D. Phelan, the progressive Democrat elected U.S. senator in 1914, faced reelection in 1920. He based much of his campaign on the slogan, “Keep California White.” Though defeated by a large margin, Phelan ran well ahead of other Democrats—due, perhaps, to his anti-Asian campaign but also to his progres- sive stance on economic issues. Phelan’s Republican opponent differed little on racial issues but was more conservative on economic matters. That year, voters approved by a three-to-one margin a second Alien Land Law, designed to close loopholes in the legislation of 1913 by prohibiting aliens who were ineligible for citizenship (those born in Asia) from putting land in the names of their American-born minor children. With this Alien Land Law and with changes in federal immigration policy (see pp. 250–251), anti-Asian rhetoric became more low-key, at least until World War II.

New Economic Patterns

During the 1920s, important changes emerged in the state’s economy. Some involved massive construction projects by local, state, or federal government. Others involved innovations in the structure of business or the application of new technologies. And, everywhere in the state, labor organizations found themselves on the defensive.

California’s first paved highway opened in 1912, but the 1920s saw a burst of highway construction. The state had 784 miles of concrete-paved roads in 1916 and 2,171 miles in 1930. This construction went far toward realizing a long-term plan for two major highways, one through the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys and one along the coast, connecting as many cities and towns as possible and with branches to cities and towns not on one of the highways. The Bayshore Highway, connecting San Francisco and San José, built between 1924 and 1932, represented one of the most advanced highway designs of its day, carrying three lanes of high-speed traffic in each direction. California’s first freeway—multilane, divided, with controlled access, patterned after the German Autobahn—was in southern California. Planning began in the 1920s for what became the Pasadena Freeway, and it finally opened in 1940.

Highways were crucial for California’s transportation infrastructure, but the two most dramatic transportation projects, by far, were the two great bridges that linked San Francisco eastward to Oakland (the San Francisco– Oakland Bay Bridge) and northward to Marin County (the Golden Gate Bridge). Both projects began in the 1920s. When the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, it was the longest and highest single-span suspension bridge

Prosperity Decade: The 1920s 247

in the world and quickly became a widely recognized symbol of San Francisco. Proposals for a bridge or tunnel connecting San Francisco and Oakland had been discussed for many years before the 1920s, but planning intensified in 1927 and 1928, and the Bay Bridge opened late in 1936. It was, at the time, the largest bridge ever built.

Highway and bridge building contributed to a transportation infrastructure crucial to the state’s long-term economic development. Other massive con- struction projects sought to develop water and electrical resources by reengi- neering the landscape. California’s electrical power companies had long been pioneers in the development of hydroelectric power, and California’s growers had been at the forefront of developing irrigated agriculture. In the 1920s, pub- lic officials began to look to projects of such size that only the government could possibly undertake them. Throughout the 1920s, Californians debated elaborate plans to dam the Sacramento River and construct canals to carry its water south into the San Joaquin Valley. Voters rejected three such plans, but the planners persisted, drawing encouragement from Governors Stephens and Young. Eventually, those plans led to the California Water Project after World War II.

Throughout the mid-1920s, Senator Hiram Johnson and Congressman Phil Swing promoted federal legislation to create a gigantic dam at Boulder Canyon on the Colorado River, in Nevada, to accomplish flood control, generate hydro- electric power, and provide water for irrigation and urban growth. They first introduced their bill in 1922, but passage came only in 1928, after agreements among the six states affected by such a drastic change in the river. The first of these, the Colorado River Compact of 1922, was the first compact ever among states under the provisions of Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution. Negotiations among states and amendments to the original bill limited the amount of water that could be claimed by California. When Boulder Dam was completed in 1935, it was the largest dam in the world. In 1947, it was officially renamed Hoover Dam, for Herbert Hoover.

Large-scale highway, bridge, and dam construction during the 1920s and 1930s brought the emergence of new business enterprises. Henry Kaiser began in road construction before World War I and built projects throughout much of the West in the 1920s. When the federal government sought contractors for Boulder Dam, Kaiser realized that few companies in the entire West could mobilize the resources necessary for such a huge project. He led in the forma- tion of a consortium of six western construction companies that successfully bid on the contract. They emerged from the project as leaders in western con- struction. Eventually Kaiser, Warren Bechtel, and some of their partners each became the head of a giant, multinational construction corporation.

When Kaiser needed financing for the Boulder Dam project, he turned to Amadeo Peter Giannini, the San Francisco banker whose Bank of America was transforming Americans’ thinking about banking. The son of Italian immi- grants, Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in 1904 as a bank for shopkeepers

248 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

and workers in the Italian neighborhood of San Francisco. Called the greatest innovator in 20th-century American banking, Giannini created his bank for ordinary people and opened branches near people’s homes and workplaces. Until then, most banks had only one location, in the center of town, and most limited their services to businesses and people with hefty accounts. Giannini broadened the base of banking through advertising that encouraged working people to open checking and savings accounts and to borrow for such purposes as car purchases—all virtually unknown before his efforts. By 1920, the Bank of Italy was the largest bank in California and became the third largest in the nation in 1927. Giannini renamed it the Bank of America in 1930. His bank backed entrepreneurs such as Kaiser and helped to fund the fledgling film industry in southern California. By 1929, one California farmer in every 11 had a loan from the Bank of Italy. The bank not only made loans to growers, but also provided information on new agricultural techniques and crops.

Between World War I and 1940, cotton emerged as a major crop. In 1909, only 18 California farms raised cotton; by 1939, more than 5000 farms raised cotton, pushing California to eighth place among the states in cotton produc- tion. By then, California cotton growers were the most productive, on a per acre basis, in the country. Cotton growing was concentrated in the southern San Joaquin Valley, with some production in Imperial and Riverside Counties. One of the leading cotton growers was J. G. Boswell, who came from Georgia in 1921 and began growing cotton in the former bed of Tulare Lake (p. 175).

California agriculture was becoming increasingly industrialized during those years. These new patterns can be seen in operations of the California Packing Corporation, or Calpak, whose products were marketed under the name Del Monte. Throughout the 1920s, Calpak was the largest canning oper- ation in the world. By the 1930s, it not only contracted with thousands of growers to supply its canneries but also raised its own fruit and vegetables on thousands of acres. Another California company, Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation, was the nation’s largest seller of fruit, based on some 15,000 acres of irrigated farmland in the San Joaquin Valley and on contracts with other growers. Calpak and Di Giorgio had storage and distribution facilities in other parts of the nation and thus represented vertical integration in agriculture—growing crops, processing the fruits and vegetables, and distributing the produce to dealers across the country.

New Social Patterns

California’s rapid growth in the 1920s brought changes in some social patterns and intensified some previous patterns. Changes in federal immigration laws altered the ethnic composition of migrants to California, and this, in turn, affected both ethnic and racial relations and ethnic patterns in some sectors of the economy.

Prosperity Decade: The 1920s 249

Though LA led the state’s population growth, other areas also experi- enced rapid growth. California more than doubled in population between 1920 and 1940, moving from the eighth largest state in 1920 to fifth in 1940. Population growth in the 1920s came largely from other parts of the United States, especially the Midwest, and most of the newcomers located in southern California. Most came for economic opportunities, but some came for other reasons—for example, to establish utopian communities or create new religious organizations.

California, from the time of the Gold Rush, has attracted utopians—those who hope to create a perfect society. In the early 20th century, a group of artists and writers created a colony at Carmel, and that area and the nearby Big Sur region attracted artists and writers through the 1920s and after. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several socialist communities were estab- lished, based on cooperative principles, but few lasted very long.

Many utopians had religious inspirations. From 1897 until her death in 1929, Katherine Tingley led the Theosophical Society in America from an elab- orate complex at Point Loma, now part of San Diego. They drew upon various religious traditions, especially those of India, to create a community devoted to “developing a higher type of humanity.” A few other Theosophical communi- ties developed along the coast, including a large one at Ojai.

Aimée Semple McPherson preached a different message. She arrived in southern California in 1918 and by 1922 had organized her Four Square Gos- pel Church in Los Angeles. In her immense Angelus Temple, she preached in white robes, staged spectacular performances complete with a full orchestra that sometimes played jazz, and drew thousands of enthusiastic converts to her version of fundamentalist Protestantism—a call to return to the Bible and the simplicity of old-time religion. She was also a pioneer in the use of radio. One observer suggested that she was popular because “she made migrants feel at home” and “gave them a chance to meet other people.”

Though among the most flamboyant, Sister Aimée was only one of many fundamentalist preachers in California. Fundamentalist Protestantism emerged in the early 20th century from a conflict between Christian modernism and orthodoxy and became a powerful force throughout the nation by the 1920s. Whereas modernists tried to reconcile their religious beliefs with modern science, fundamentalists rejected anything incompatible with a literal reading of the Scriptures and argued that the Bible’s every word is the revealed word of God.

Migration to California in the 1920s came largely from within the nation rather than Europe, due partly to changes in federal law. Californians had long been at the forefront of efforts to restrict immigration from Asia, but others wanted to limit immigration from Europe. The National Origins Act of 1924 limited immigration to 150,000 people each year, with quotas for each Euro- pean country based on two percent of the number of Americans whose ances- tors came from that country. Those provisions cut immigration from southern

250 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

and eastern Europe to a mere trickle. Californians in Congress shaped two pro- visions of the new law. The author of the law, Albert Johnson, a Republican from Washington State, included no provisions regarding immigration from Asia. Senator Hiram Johnson of California demanded exclusion of all immi- grants from Japan, and the final language prohibited entry by any immigrant not eligible for citizenship—meaning those from all of Asia. Johnson and other Californians failed to persuade Congress to amend the Constitution to deny citizenship to the American-born children of Japanese immigrants. Though the new law excluded Asians, it placed no limits on immigration from Canada and Latin America. Occasional efforts to introduce quotas for the western hemisphere were defeated through loud protests from representatives of California and southwestern agriculture and business, who argued that they could not survive without laborers from Mexico.

Though the new law placed no numerical limits on immigration from Latin America, all immigrants entering the United States had to provide birth certificates (and marriage certificates if they were traveling as a family), prove their ability to read and write, undergo health inspections, and pay fees of $18 (equivalent to nearly $230 today) plus $8 for each family member. For poor Mexicans seeking a better life north of the border, these were significant limita- tions, discouraging many would-be migrants from entering legally. Even so, more than half a million migrants from Mexico did pass through border check- points and secure their papers between 1919 and 1930. Probably another half million people entered without papers. Most migrants went to Texas, but increasing numbers came to California. By 1930, Mexican Californians (those born in Mexico and those of Mexican descent) made up at least 6.5 percent of the state’s population, with larger proportions in the south and the cities. By 1930, the Mexican population of Los Angeles was estimated at 8 to 15 percent, or between 100,000 and 190,000 people. Mexicans also made up some 80 per- cent of agricultural field labor in southern California, and somewhat less far- ther north.

During the 1920s, in many areas of southern California, the children of Mexican immigrants were increasingly segregated into separate schools as local boards of education established “American Schools.” These were separate facilities or classrooms where Mexican students received instruction in English and American culture. Behind this policy there was usually a racial agenda of separating Anglo and Mexican children. The Los Angeles School District, for example, justified segregation by saying that Mexican children “are more inter- ested in action and emotion but grow listless under purely mental effort.” Such practices were widespread throughout the Southwest, until the Supreme Court declared them illegal in Mendez v. Westminster (1947).

Anti-immigrant sentiments, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and fear of radicalism contributed to the growth of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s. The original Klan, created during Reconstruction to intimidate former slaves, had long since died out. D. W. Griffith’s hugely popular film, The Birth of a

Prosperity Decade: The 1920s 251

Nation, released in 1915, glorified the old Klan and led to efforts to resurrect it. The new Klan portrayed itself as a patriotic order devoted to America, Protes- tant Christianity, and white supremacy. It attacked Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and African Americans, along with bootleggers, corrupt politicians, and gam- blers. Bob Shuler, a leading fundamentalist preacher in Los Angeles, defended the Klan as helping to keep Los Angeles, as he put it, the only large American city “not dominated by foreigners.” Other Protestant ministers also encouraged the Klan, which established strong chapters in Los Angeles and San Diego. There the targets of Klan attacks—verbal and physical—were often Mexicans.

Cultural Expression

The most conspicuous form of cultural expression to come out of California during the 1920s was the movies. The new medium quickly gave birth to a wide variety of genres—comedy, westerns, sentimental dramas, swashbuckling adventure tales, history epics, and romances—all of which were silent. In 1927, Hollywood produced The Jazz Singer, the first “talking picture.” Many movies derived from earlier forms of cultural expression—novels, vaudeville, and the theater—but they reached much larger audiences than their predecessors could have imagined. The plots of movie westerns and swashbucklers usually bore little resemblance to historical reality, but they reached so many people that their version of the past was often more widely known than the actual history. The Mark of Zorro, for example, a 1920 adventure film, fostered a romantic version of Mexican California. Though some critics dismissed the movies as inherently tasteless and uninspired, some films demonstrated that they were, in fact, a new art form. The comedies of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd not only provoked laughter—they also frequently provided a moving commentary on the human condition.

Hollywood’s productions reached and affected the majority of Americans. Movie attendance doubled from a weekly average of 40 million people in 1922 to 80 million in 1929. By then, the equivalent of two-thirds of the nation’s pop- ulation went to the cinema every week! The popularity of movies created a new type of celebrity—the movie star. Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, cowboy stars Tom Mix and William S. Hart, and dashing Douglas Fairbanks became as well known as champion baseball sluggers or presidents. Sex, too, sold movie tickets and made stars of Theda Bara, the “vamp,” Clara Bow, the “It” girl, and Rudolph Valentino. Through their movies, California’s screenwriters, directors, producers, and studios played a significant role in redefining and homogeniz- ing American culture.

Californians who contributed to literature, the arts, and architecture could not hope to reach the numbers that the movies did, but there was a flowering of cultural expression in the 1920s, especially in architecture. The prosperity of the decade took concrete form as the central business districts in both San Francisco and Los Angeles boomed upward with dramatic new high-rise office

252 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

buildings. Movie theaters sprouted everywhere; in the cities, especially, architects employed exotic styles for grandiose theaters, drawing inspiration from ancient Egypt, traditional China, and medieval Spain (For an example, see p. 244.).

The 1920s marked the high point of popularity for the bungalow, a California contribution to residential architecture associated especially with the work of Charles and Henry Greene. The brothers came to Pasadena in 1893 and gradually incorporated architectural elements from Mexican California, Japan, and the Arts and Crafts movement into their work, produc- ing some spectacular residences in the Pasadena area in the early 20th century. A scaled-down, one-story, inexpensive version, the California bungalow, was widely popular from around 1905 through the 1920s, making it possible for an ever larger number of middle-income Californians to acquire their own single-family home.

The 1920s and 1930s marked the culmination of the careers of two of California’s most creative and influential architects. Bernard Maybeck, son of a German immigrant, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (the world’s leading school for architecture). During the early 20th century, he adapted the popular Arts and Crafts style to emphasize building materials native to the Pacific coast, and he applied his own vision to the creation of a series of remarkable houses and churches in the Bay Area. The First Church of Christ,

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Highly popular during the 1920s, the California bungalow design derived from several architectural sources, but one of its key characteristics was simplicity. The bungalows were usually all on one floor with a large front porch that was offset from the center of the house and which usually had distinctive pillars. One of the great advantages of the simplicity of design was that prices could be kept low. Aside from price, what may have made this design so popular?

Scientist, in Berkeley (1910), is especially notable. He drew upon his Beaux- Arts training to create the majestic Palace of Fine Arts for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915) and to design elegant showrooms for selling automobiles in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles in the 1920s.

Julia Morgan studied engineering at the University of California at Berke- ley, worked for a time with Maybeck, then, in 1898, became the first woman admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts. Upon returning to the Bay Area, she began, like Maybeck, to define a California variant of the Arts and Crafts style with her designs for houses. Morgan also designed larger commercial or public structures for the YWCA, other women’s organizations (notably the Berkeley Women’s City Club), the University of California at Berkeley, and Mills College. She was a pioneer in the use of reinforced concrete and was per- haps best known for the creation of William Randolph Hearst’s fantastic man- sion at San Simeon. Morgan’s sophisticated seismic engineering prevented serious damage there when a major earthquake struck in 2003.

Depression Decade: The 1930s

By 1928, the economy showed signs of slowing, both in California and across the nation. In fact, much of American agriculture had never shared in the pros- perity, though California growers had fared relatively better than their counter- parts elsewhere in the country. As early as 1926, the southern California construction boom began to level off. The price of stock in Giannini’s banks dropped sharply in mid-1928. Then, on October 24, 1929, prices on the New York Stock Exchange fell, and continued to decline over the next weeks, months, and years. Businesses failed. Unemployment mounted, especially for manufacturing workers. Those who kept their jobs often worked fewer hours and at reduced wages. People were evicted from their homes when they could not make their rent or mortgage payments. Cars and radios bought on the installment plan were repossessed. The economy did not fully recover until World War II.

Impact of the Great Depression

Until the mid-1930s, no governmental agency kept data on unemployment, so there are no reliable statistics on the number of Californians out of work in the early 1930s. Estimates suggest that unemployment reached as high as 30 per- cent in San Francisco and Los Angeles by late 1932. The number of people employed in the oil industry was about three-fifths of what it had been in the mid-1920s. For lumbering and canning, it was about a third. The Bank of America compiled a monthly business index that, in late 1932, showed the

254 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

state at 60 percent of normal. New construction slowed to a trickle. Depart- ment store sales declined by 38 percent between 1929 and 1932.

The Depression cruelly affected many Californians. In 1930, the Los Angeles Parent Teacher Association (PTA) launched a school milk and lunch program when teachers reported children coming to school hungry. Some LA schools remained open through the summer to dispense milk and lunch. Even so, in the fall of 1931, some children arrived at school so malnourished they were hospitalized. When the PTA ran out of funds, the county board of super- visors paid for the program. Aimée Semple McPherson’s church fed 40,000 people during 1932. On the San Francisco waterfront, Lois Jordan, the “White Angel,” fed as many as 2000 men each day using contributed food and finan- cial donations. In 1931, the state created work camps for unemployed, home- less men. They worked on roads and built firebreaks and trails, but received no wages—only food, clothing, and a bed in a barracks. City and county govern- ments mounted work programs in which unemployed men worked for a box of groceries. When San Francisco ran out of money for relief in 1932, a large majority of voters approved borrowing funds to provide minimal assistance to the unemployed.

In southern California, some claimed that Mexican immigrants were taking jobs away from whites or driving down wage levels. As unemployment rose, so did agitation to deport undocumented Mexicans, with the loudest voices com- ing from AFL unions, the Hearst press, and patriotic (and often nativist) groups such as the American Legion. During the presidential administration of Herbert Hoover (1929–1933), the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) conducted raids in Mexican neighborhoods. Thousands were deported to Mexico, the large majority for lacking proper papers, but the deportees included a significant number of American citizens, the American-born chil- dren of Mexican immigrants. The Los Angeles county supervisors offered county funds for transportation for Mexicans willing to return to Mexico, and more than 13,000 did so between 1931 and 1934. Other communities pro- moted similar programs. Those who were deported and those who returned on their own included some who had lived and worked in the United States for many years, and some left behind their homes, savings, and family mem- bers. After the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt (who took office in 1933), the INS took a more humane approach, and the number of deportations fell by half. In 2005, the California legislature approved a resolution apologizing for the violations of civil liberties and constitutional rights committed during the 1930s.

As unemployment rates rose, other ethnic groups also felt threatened. After the United States acquired the Philippine Islands in 1898, Filipino immigrants came to California, as growers sought workers for agriculture. Because the Philippines were an American possession, their residents were not considered aliens, but neither were they citizens. The 1940 census recorded more than 30,000 Filipinos in California, two-thirds of all Filipinos in the United States.

Depression Decade: The 1930s 255

Half worked in agriculture or canneries, and some led strikes during the early 1930s. Some white Californians urged that Filipinos be deported, but there was no legal basis for doing so. In 1930, anti-Filipino rioting broke out in Watson- ville. Several Filipinos were injured, and two were killed. Other violence fol- lowed, spawned by fears that Filipinos were competing for jobs or by anxieties over Filipino men socializing with white women. Eventually, anti- Filipino attitudes combined with a long-standing promise of the Democratic Party to bring independence to the Philippines. In 1934, Congress passed and President Roosevelt signed the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which set in motion a process leading to Philippine independence. The same law cut migration from the Philippines to 50 people per year.

The plight of migrant farm labor drew less interest. As Mexican farm workers left or were deported, increasing numbers of Dust Bowl migrants took their place. Most Californians at the time thought of the migrants as refu- gees from drought, but many of them had been uprooted by technological change in agriculture (the transition from small farms to larger units that relied on heavy machinery) or by the impact of federal agricultural programs that favored landowners over tenant farmers. Usually denigrated as Okies, regard- less of the state from which they came, they encountered miserable living con- ditions. The state Commission of Immigration and Housing, created in 1913 to supervise migratory labor camps, had its budget cut so much that, by 1933, there were only four camp inspectors for the entire state. Most migratory labor camps lacked rudimentary sanitation, and most migratory labor families could not afford proper diets or health care. A survey of migratory children in the San Joaquin Valley during 1936 and 1937 found that 80 percent had medi- cal problems, most caused by malnutrition or poor hygiene.

Though some Californians reacted to rising unemployment by seeking sca- pegoats, others turned to a Marxist analysis and argued that the problem was with capitalism itself. The Socialist Party had declined since its high point before the war. Though it still provided a focal point for a critique of capital- ism, it was able to muster less than four percent of the vote for governor in 1930, up from two percent in the 1928 election for the U.S. Senate.

In the 1930s, a different Marxist group began to attract attention. Radicals had formed the Communist Party (CP) of the United States shortly after the war, but it struggled through the 1920s, losing more members than it recruited. The CP defined itself as a revolutionary organization, devoted to ending capi- talism and to uniting all workers. Communists saw the Soviet Union as the only workers’ government in the world and committed themselves to its defense. These revolutionary and pro-Soviet attitudes made it difficult to recruit American workers, few of whom wanted to overthrow the government or defend the Soviet Union. At the same time, CP organizers committed them- selves to the “class struggle”—to helping workers achieve better wages and working conditions. They saw their special task as organizing the unskilled, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and other workers ignored by existing

256 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

unions. Throughout the 1920s, they had little success. The California CP had 730 dues-paying members in early 1925, recruited 145 new members that year and in early 1926, but had only 438 dues-paying members in mid-1926—a loss of half their members in a year’s time.

In the early 1930s, the CP grew dramatically, in numbers and visibility. Communists organized protest organizations for the unemployed. Though the CP counted only about 500 members in the entire state in 1930, many more joined the party’s Unemployed Councils. In March 1930, the CP organized marches by the unemployed. One thousand people marched in San Francisco, where Mayor James Rolph met with them and offered them coffee. In LA, the mayor mobilized 1000 police to stand against the marchers and sent police to arrest leaders the night before the march. One LA police commissioner explained his view on dealing with radicals: “The more police beat them up and wreck their headquarters the better.” By early 1934, the CP counted 1,800 members in the state, and provided leadership to thousands more.

The Communists were not the only group from the fringes of the political spectrum to attract attention. On the right, remnants of the Ku Klux Klan were still active in some parts of California in the 1930s, and they found new allies in the Silver Shirts, a San Diego branch of a national fascist organization that emulated Nazism. Another right-wing, militaristic group, the California Cava- liers, organized statewide in 1935. These and similar groups usually blamed the state’s problems on Jews, immigrants (especially Mexicans and Filipinos), and Communists, and some added President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. Most required their members to be proficient with firearms.

Some groups closer to the mainstream, notably the American Legion (the state’s largest organization of veterans), also mobilized against what its leaders saw as a Communist menace. Some Legionnaires joined vigilante groups to ter- rorize radicals and striking workers. The state organization set up a Radical Research Committee to collect information on suspected radicals, sometimes through undercover operatives. The committee cooperated closely with the Industrial Association and Associated Farmers (see p. 258) and traded infor- mation with local and state police and with military and naval intelligence. In Los Angeles, the Better America Federation denounced advocates of publicly owned utilities as Communists, tried to purge liberal books and magazines from the schools, and contributed to the repression of labor unions.

Labor Conflict

During the 1920s, labor organizations were on the defensive all across the country, and nowhere more than in California. The powerful Merchants and Manufacturers (M&M) in LA stood ready to block union efforts in southern California. In San Francisco, several failed strikes from 1919 to 1921 led to the decline of once-powerful unions. In 1921, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce helped to organize the Industrial Association, with funding from

Depression Decade: The 1930s 257

banks, transportation companies, and utility companies—indeed, nearly every company in the city. From the early 1920s until the mid-1930s, the Industrial Association closely governed labor relations in San Francisco, blocking every effort to revive union organizations.

In the early 1930s, California agriculture was wracked by strikes, some- times violent, usually in response to wage cuts or miserable working condi- tions. The first came in early 1930, in the Imperial Valley, when Mexican and Filipino farm laborers walked off their jobs in the lettuce fields. The strike spread to 5000 field workers. Communist organizers quickly offered help for the strikers through their union, which was soon renamed the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU). Other strikes broke out else- where, most by Mexican and Filipino field and shed workers, and CAWIU organizers always appeared to offer support and seek converts. Whether in the Imperial Valley or Half Moon Bay, the CAWIU seemed unable to win strikes. By 1932, they had begun to target particular areas and to build an orga- nizational base prior to a strike. In 1933, strike after strike hit the state’s agri- cultural regions. By August, more strikes were successful, pushing average agricultural wages from 16 cents an hour to 25 cents. Growers regrouped, how- ever, and strikes in late 1933 were met by violence against the strikers and threats of lynching against the strike leaders.

Growers and business leaders formed the Associated Farmers in March 1934, with funding from the Industrial Association, banks, railroads, utilities, and other corporations. The Associated Farmers blamed Communists for the labor unrest in agriculture, launched a statewide anti-Communist campaign, and sought indictments of CAWIU leaders under criminal syndicalism laws. Seventeen CAWIU leaders, mostly CP members, were brought to trial in 1935. The Associated Farmers paid generously to assist the prosecution, and eight defendants were convicted. The CAWIU was dissolved the next year, but the Associated Farmers remained alert, ready to oppose any new efforts to unionize farm workers.

In May 1934, longshoremen (workers who load and unload ships) went on strike in all Pacific coast ports. Before World War I, Pacific coast longshoremen had been organized into the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA). By the early 1920s, however, as a result of unsuccessful strikes, California dock- workers had no meaningful union. Dock work was harsh and dangerous, and longshoremen were hired through the “shape-up,” in which foremen hired men for a day at a time. In 1933, the ILA launched an organizing drive in Pacific coast ports. In San Francisco, Harry Bridges, an immigrant from Australia who had worked on the docks since 1922, emerged as a leader of one group of longshoremen—including some CP members—who used the Waterfront Worker, a mimeographed newsletter, to advocate militant action.

In 1934, the ILA’s Pacific Coast District (California, Oregon, and Washing- ton) sought a union contract. When waterfront employers refused, some 10,000–15,000 longshoremen from northern Washington to San Diego walked

258 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

out in an attempt to shut down shipping on the Pacific coast. They demanded a union hiring hall (replacing the hated shape-up), higher wages, and shorter hours. Greeted by picket lines upon entering Pacific coast ports, ships’ crews quickly went on strike with issues of their own, adding 6000 more strikers. In San Pedro on May 15, private guards fired on strikers, killing two of them.

The strike focused on San Francisco, site of the largest ILA local and of many employers’ headquarters. Bridges, chairman of the strike committee for the San Francisco local, became a prominent figure in opposing compromise and insisting on the union’s full demands. In late June, the Industrial Associa- tion took over the employers’ side of the strike and determined to reopen the port using strikebreakers under heavy police protection. Union members and their supporters fought back. During a daylong battle on July 5, police killed two union members and injured hundreds more. Governor Frank Merriam dis- patched the National Guard in full battle array, armed with machine guns and tanks, to patrol the San Francisco waterfront. Ostensibly deployed to prevent further violence, the Guardsmen also protected the strikebreakers.

On July 9, thousands of silent strikers and strike supporters took over Market Street, solemnly filling that great thoroughfare as they marched after the caskets of those killed on July 5. From July 16 through July 19, the

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Harry Bridges and other labor leaders meet in Washington D.C. in 1937 to plan a coordinated unionization drive among longshore workers. Following the meeting, John Lewis, the head of the C.I.O. vowed to support creating a “uniform policy for the entire industry.”

San Francisco Labor Council coordinated a general strike that shut down the city in sympathy with the striking maritime workers and, implicitly, in opposi- tion to the tactics of the police and the governor’s use of the National Guard. Never before or since have American unions shut down a city as large as San Francisco through a general strike. At the time, business leaders and politicians feared that the general strike held the seeds of Communist insurrection, but the real moving force was workers’ anger over the use of government power to kill workers and protect strikebreakers. By late July, all sides agreed to arbitration, and the longshoremen secured nearly all of their demands.

The strikes by agricultural workers and by longshoremen and seafaring workers were the leading California instances of a strike wave that broke over the nation between 1933 and 1937. In 1933, Congress tried to reverse the eco- nomic collapse of the nation with the National Industrial Recovery Act. One of its provisions, Section 7-a, encouraged collective bargaining between employers and unions. Section 7-a stimulated union organizing all across the country, as workers turned to unions to stop wage cuts and improve working conditions. Everywhere, workers formed unions. In San Francisco, the number of union members doubled within a few years after 1933. In 1935, Congress passed the Wagner Labor Relations Act, strengthening and extending federal protection of unions and bargaining.

In Los Angeles, unions challenged the M&M, organizing in many fields, notably furniture making, printing, the movie studios, and construction. The M&M did not give in easily. They hired an army of private guards to protect strikebreakers and counted on close cooperation from city police, but they lost a showdown with the Teamsters’ Union in 1937. By 1941, unions claimed half the workers in LA as union members.

As union membership burgeoned, the labor movement divided between two groups: the American Federation of Labor (AFL), oriented to organizing the more skilled workers into unions defined along the lines of skill or craft; and a group led by John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, who called for an industrial approach to organizing, in which all workers in an industry would belong to the same union regardless of skill or craft. At first they called themselves the Committee on Industrial Organization (CIO) and worked within the AFL, but in 1937 the AFL expelled the CIO unions.

Lewis and the CIO reorganized themselves into the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The Pacific Coast District of the ILA, now led by Harry Bridges, broke away from the ILA to become the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union of the CIO. The CIO also chartered the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA), which launched an organizing drive among California agricultural and cannery workers, only to meet strong and often violent opposition from the Associated Farmers. Nonetheless, UCAPAWA organized thousands of cannery workers, the large majority of them women, including many Mexicans. Latinas advanced to leadership in some UCAPAWA locals, and Luisa Moreno, a well-educated

260 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

immigrant from Guatemala, became a vice president of UCAPAWA, the first Latina to serve in such a post in any American union. Other CIO unions, espe- cially the Auto Workers, Steelworkers, Clothing Workers, and Rubber Work- ers, organized manufacturing workers, especially in southern California. AFL unions grew too, especially the Teamsters and the Machinists. By 1940, AFL unions in California claimed a half million members and the CIO had 150,000, making California a leading state for union membership.

Federal Politics: The Impact of the New Deal

The revolution in labor relations represents only one of the many ways that new federal policies changed life in California during the 1930s. There were many others. The political changes of the 1930s worked a transformation not just in state–federal relations but also in the relationship between individuals and the government at all levels. The impetus for most of these changes was the Depression. The first changes came during the presidency of Herbert Hoover, but greater changes came after 1933, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Hoover spent much of his four years as president addressing the Depres- sion. He approved programs that went further in establishing state–federal cooperation than ever before. One example was the Hoover-Young Commis- sion to plan the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. Another was his approval of funding for the bridge construction from the Reconstruction Finance Corpo- ration (RFC), an agency that loaned funds to companies to stabilize the econ- omy. In the case of the Bay Bridge, the loan was to a state agency, for the purpose of constructing a publicly owned bridge—something unprecedented. As in the case of the dam project at Boulder Canyon, Hoover’s approval helped to promote other massive federal water projects throughout the West; however, Hoover was adamant that the federal government should not directly assist the unemployed or those in need.

When Hoover faced reelection in 1932, he lost in a landslide to the Demo- cratic candidate, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the governor of New York, who prom- ised to do more to address the problems of the Depression. California’s voters gave 1,324,000 votes to Roosevelt, and 848,000 to Hoover. As Figure 8.2 on the next page indicates, the election marked the beginning of a new pattern to Californians’ voting for president, a move toward the Democratic Party.

As president, Roosevelt conveyed a confidence that something could be done about the Depression, and he called upon Congress to pass legislation for relief, recovery, and reform. The Public Works Administration (PWA) set up an ambitious federal construction program to stimulate the economy. In California, PWA paid for many new federal buildings—post offices, court buildings, and buildings on military posts and naval bases—and also new ships for the navy. Other PWA projects included schools, courthouses, dams, auditoriums, and sewage treatment plants. The Works Progress Administration (WPA),

Depression Decade: The 1930s 261

created in 1935, was a work program for the unemployed. WPA projects across the state included public parks, buildings, bridges, and roads. The WPA and PWA together helped to fund the Pasadena Freeway. All in all, the PWA and WPA had a major impact on the state’s infrastructure, but the WPA went beyond construction projects to include orchestras (composed of unemployed musicians), murals in public buildings (painted by unemployed artists), a col- lection of guidebooks (compiled by unemployed writers), and adult education programs (presented by unemployed teachers).

New federal agencies took up the plight of migratory farm workers. In 1935, the Resettlement Administration (RA) set out to construct camps with adequate sanitation and housing that met minimal standards. Two camps were built before the RA gave way, in 1937, to the Farm Security Administra- tion (FSA), which continued the work of building and operating camps—13 by 1941. The FSA was closed down in 1942, however, ending direct federal efforts to assist migratory farm workers and their families.

The New Deal brought important changes to the governance of Indian reservations. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, California was home to nearly 20,000 Native Americans, putting California among the half-dozen states with the largest Indian populations. In the early 1920s, whites and California Indians formed the Mission Indian Federation to improve the situation of southern California Indians. Similar efforts took place in the north. When the

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Figure 8.2 Number of Votes Received by Major Party Presidential Candidates in California, 1892–1948 This graph shows the number of votes received by major party presidential candidates in California between 1892 and 1948. Note especially the sharp change from 1928 to 1932 and 1936. What accounts for this dramatic change in voters’ support?

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington, 1975).

262 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

state legislature, in 1921, approved a law specifying that Native American chil- dren could only attend local public schools if there were no Indian school within three miles of their homes, Alice Piper, a Native American, sued to attend her local public school. In Piper v. Big Pine School District (1924), the California Supreme Court ruled in Piper’s favor. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) also continued to buy small plots of land to create reservations for land- less California Indians. Roosevelt appointed John Collier as the commissioner of Indian Affairs. A longtime critic of previous federal Indian policies, Collier closed down programs aimed at forced assimilation, including boarding schools and the suppression of traditional religious practices. His “Indian New Deal” included, as its centerpiece, the Indian Reorganization Act (1934), which encouraged tribal self-government.

State Politics: The Rise of the Democrats

Though California’s voters clearly turned to the Democrats in the 1932 presi- dential election and continued to vote for Democrats through the presidential elections of the 1940s, they showed more ambivalence in state elections. There was an increase in support for Democratic candidates, but that increase did not automatically translate to the election of Democrats to state offices.

In the elections of 1930, the real contest, once again, was in the Republican primary. The incumbent progressive governor, C. C. Young, faced two oppo- nents in the Republican primary. One was James C. “Sunny Jim” Rolph, the popular mayor of San Francisco, first elected in 1911 and reelected every four years, usually by large margins. Though Rolph had promoted progressive causes in the 1910s, he became more moderate during the 1920s, and was probably best known, in 1930, for his outspoken opposition to prohibition. Young’s other opponent was Buron Fitts, a conservative from LA who was a staunch prohibitionist. Young, too, supported prohibition. Fitts and Young divided the “dry” vote. Rolph took the “wet” vote, won the Republican nomi- nation, and easily defeated his Democratic opponent.

As governor, Rolph spent much of the state’s budget surplus on assistance to the victims of the Depression. He also supported the Central Valley Project Act of 1933 to create dams and canals for hydroelectric power and irrigation, and the bill passed despite strong opposition from electrical power companies. With Rolph’s support, the legislature repealed the enforcement of prohibition, which meant that policing the unpopular law was entirely the responsibility of a handful of federal officials. However, Rolph seemed to condone violence against farm strikers, and he publicly approved of the lynching, in San José, of two men suspected of kidnapping and murder. He died in office, in June 1934, and was succeeded by his lieutenant governor, Frank Merriam.

Democrats hoped to win the governor’s office in 1934, for the first time in more than 40 years. Voter registrations had shifted from the huge Republican majorities of the late 1920s to a fairly even split by 1934. In 1932, a Democrat

Depression Decade: The 1930s 263

captured one of California’s U.S. Senate seats. For 1934, Democratic Party lea- ders backed George Creel, a moderate liberal, for governor; however, the Dem- ocratic primary for governor became a battle between Creel and Upton Sinclair. Sinclair had become nationally famous for his novel, The Jungle, in 1906. A classic example of progressive muckraking, The Jungle revealed in sick- ening detail the unsanitary conditions and exploitation of workers in Chicago’s meatpacking industry. A Pasadena resident after 1915, Sinclair continued to write novels with strong social and political messages. He ran for governor as a Socialist in the 1920s, but changed his party registration to Democrat in 1934 and entered the Democratic primary for governor.

Sinclair’s slogan was “End Poverty in California,” soon abbreviated to EPIC. He wrote a novel—I, Candidate for Governor and How I Ended Poverty—and used it to promote his candidacy. At the center of the EPIC program was “pro- duction for use,” a plan to let the unemployed raise crops on idle farmland and make goods in idle factories, and then exchange their products using state scrip (by scrip, Sinclair meant state-issued certificates that would specify the value of the agricultural and manufacturing products). Thousands of Californians joined EPIC clubs across the state, making them a new force in politics. Sinclair won the Democratic nomination for governor by a clear majority, and his sup- porters won nominations for other offices. Frank Merriam, the bland conserva- tive who had become governor upon the death of Rolph, won the Republican primary.

In the general election, Sinclair’s opponents attacked EPIC as unworkable and Sinclair as incompetent for proposing it. Sinclair’s plan reflected a weak grasp of economics but hardly deserved the abuse heaped on it as dangerously “red.” In fact, Socialists and Communists both vigorously attacked EPIC. Hollywood studios regularly produced a short news feature that ran in theaters before the main feature; now they created alleged news stories, actually staged, that claimed the state faced a deluge of hobos and Communists attracted by EPIC. Republicans hired press agents Clem Whitaker and Leone Baxter to sort through Sinclair’s writings and produce lurid campaign advertisements based on Sinclair’s supposed support for free love and contempt for organized religion. In the process, Whitaker and Baxter created a new career—that of the freelance campaign consultant—and their success inspired a host of imitators on both the right and the left. National Democratic leaders abandoned Sinclair, and Roosevelt refused to endorse him. Merriam won, but Sinclair had trans- formed the California Democratic Party, as 26 EPIC candidates were elected to the state assembly, including Augustus Hawkins, the first black Democrat to serve in the legislature. In many places, EPIC clubs began to prepare for the next election.

In the 1934 elections, the Communist Party showed surprising strength. Though their candidate for governor got fewer than 6,000 votes, Anita Whitney, the CP candidate for controller, got 100,000 votes and five percent of the total. Leo Gallagher, running for the supreme court without a party

264 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

label but with support from the CP, received 240,000 votes and 17 percent. The CP was highly critical of the New Deal in 1933 and 1934, but from 1937 to 1939, top CP leaders reversed their position and encouraged party members to support New Deal Democrats.

EPIC was not the only unusual proposal to percolate out of southern California. In 1934, Francis Townsend, a retired physician from Long Beach, launched Old Age Revolving Pensions. He proposed taxing business transac- tions to pay $200 each month to every citizen over the age of 60 (except crim- inals) on the condition that he or she retire and spend the full amount each month. The plan had something for nearly everyone: older people could retire; putting money into circulation would stimulate the economy; and retirements would open jobs for younger people. It was enormously popular. Some older people bought goods on credit, expecting to pay for them with their first checks. Townsend’s popularity translated to political clout—California candi- dates hesitated to criticize his plan, and many endorsed it. The adoption of Social Security in 1935, however, took the wind from Townsend’s sails. In 1938, grassroots activists put a new panacea on the ballot, nicknamed “Ham and Eggs,” which proposed to pay $30 in state “warrants” every Thursday to all unemployed people over 50. The measure lost in 1938, and a revised version lost in 1939.

The progressive reforms that reduced the power of political parties may have made Californians more likely than before to cross party lines. Thus, they supported Roosevelt in 1932 and elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, but in 1934 they elected a conservative Republican as governor. In 1934, Roo- sevelt endorsed Republican Hiram Johnson for the U.S. Senate, and Johnson used cross-filing to win both the Democratic and Republican nominations. Like other prominent progressive Republicans, Johnson supported Roosevelt in 1932 and endorsed much of the early New Deal, but he was privately turn- ing against Roosevelt by 1936. In 1936, California voters gave Roosevelt a large majority and elected a majority of Democrats to the state assembly for the first time in the 20th century. State senate districts, however, had been drawn to minimize the number of senators from urban districts, where the Democrats were developing much of their support.

After Merriam was elected governor in 1934, he disappointed his most conservative supporters by acting pragmatically to implement some New- Deal-type reforms, to create a state income tax (generally considered a liberal approach to taxation), and to increase taxes on banks and corporations. Seek- ing reelection in 1938, he faced Culbert Olson, a Democrat who had entered politics through EPIC and now campaigned to “Bring the New Deal to California.” In the Democratic primary, another former EPIC supporter, Sheridan Downey, won the nomination for the U.S. Senate, and still another former EPIC activist won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor. Business and conservative groups promoted Proposition 1, an initiative to clamp severe restrictions on unions, and they backed it with the most money

Depression Decade: The 1930s 265

spent to support a proposition up to that time. The Republican candidates for governor and senator supported Proposition 1. Despite the bitterness between the AFL and CIO, nearly all the state’s unions combined to defeat Proposition 1 and support the Democrats. Olson, Downey, and other Democrats won, and the Democrats again won a majority in the state assembly.

A good campaigner, Olson proved less effective as governor. He freed Tom Mooney and Warren Billings (see p. 231), for which he won high praise from labor and the left, but earned the hatred of conservatives. He also supported efforts to unionize farm workers. In 1939, Olson proposed a long list of reform legislation—including medical insurance for most working Californians and the protection of civil rights—but such proposals garnered no support among the conservative Republicans who dominated the state senate. In 1940, two years into the Olson administration, voters sent a major- ity of Republicans to the assembly. That same year, Hiram Johnson again won both the Democratic and Republican nominations for U.S. Senate through cross-filing, although, by then, he had become highly critical of the New Deal.

Cultural Expression During the Depression Decade

During the 1920s, many American writers and artists rejected the consumer- oriented society around them. Their novels often seemed exercises in hedonism or escapism. Some artists produced works so abstract that they held different meanings for each viewer. In the 1930s, much of that changed. Some leading novelists of the 1930s portrayed working people and their problems, and others looked for inspiration to leading figures in American history. Artists produced realistic scenes, sometimes motivated by a desire for social change and other times rooted in affection for traditional values. And Californians produced some of the leading examples of these trends.

John Steinbeck defined the social protest novel of the 1930s. Born in Salinas in 1902, Steinbeck attended Stanford briefly. Among his early works, Tortilla Flat (1933) portrayed Mexican Californians and In Dubious Battle (1936) presented an apple-pickers’ strike through the eyes of an idealistic young Communist. The Grapes of Wrath (1939), which won the Pulitzer Prize for best novel, presented the story of the Joad family, who lost their farm in Oklahoma and migrated to California. There, the family disintegrated under the stresses of transient agricultural work and the violence of a farm- workers’ strike. Sinclair’s novel has been likened to Uncle Tom’s Cabin for its social impact. Some artists also presented social criticism in their work. Diego Rivera, the great Mexican muralist whose work usually carried a leftist politi- cal message, painted murals in California and influenced a generation of California mural painters. Other muralists, especially those in the WPA arts projects, often presented the lives of ordinary Californians or themes from the state’s history.

266 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

Dorothea Lange, a commercial photographer before the Depression, began photographing the victims of the Depression in the early 1930s. Lange became well practiced in photographing these victims, ranging from unemployed men in San Francisco to strikers and migrant workers. In 1935, the California Rural Rehabilitation Administration hired Lange and Paul Taylor (an economics pro- fessor at the University of California, Berkeley) to document the plight of agri- cultural labor, and she continued that work with the Federal Resettlement Administration. Her photograph of a farm-migrant mother and children, later entitled “Migrant Mother,” taken in 1936, emerged as perhaps the most famous and most moving photograph of the era. In 1939, Lange and Taylor published American Exodus, a documentary counterpart to The Grapes of Wrath, vividly depicting the misery of life in the migratory labor camps and in the fields, through photographs, commentary, and statistics.

Hollywood produced a few films of social criticism during this time, most notably an adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath (1940), starring Henry Fonda. Charlie Chaplin’s leftist politics were apparent in two important works: Modern Times (1936), portraying the dehumanizing tendencies of technology, and The Great Dictator (1940), which mocked Adolf Hitler. Studio heads were often uncomfortable with social protest films, however, and some barred them entirely, insisting that the public needed entertainment that would take their minds off the Depression. Musical extravaganzas like Forty-Second Street (1933) fit the bill. So did some westerns and gangster films, but others probed

Dorothea Lange gave this pho- tograph the title “Destitute pea- pickers in California; a 32 year old mother of seven children. February 1936.” In 1960, in an article in Popular Photography, Lange explained how she took her famous picture: “I saw and approached the hungry and des- perate mother, as if drawn by a magnet…. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food.”

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more deeply into the human condition. Stagecoach (1939), directed by John Ford, so defined the western genre that it inspired imitators for years after. Gangster films rose to popularity with Little Caesar (1930), which boosted Edward G. Robinson to stardom. Similarly, Hollywood turned the hardboiled detective stories of California writers Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chan- dler into immensely successful movies, notably The Thin Man (1934) and The Maltese Falcon (1941), both based on novels by Hammett. In The Maltese Falcon, set in San Francisco, Humphrey Bogart first defined the character he continued to develop in such later films as Casablanca (1942), The Big Sleep (1946), and Key Largo (1948).

By the late 1930s, the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany and his Nazi party’s attacks on Jews and the Left produced a flood of refugees, and 10,000 of them came to southern California. Hollywood had attracted European immigrants from the beginning. Many of the studio heads and lead- ing directors had been born in Europe, and many studio heads were Jewish. By the late 1930s, southern California had become home to a significant number of displaced European intellectuals, including the German novelist Thomas Mann, the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, the German writer Bertolt Brecht, and the Austrian director Otto Preminger. Their presence gave the LA basin a more cosmopolitan cultural bent.

Many of these currents came together in 1939 and 1940, when San Francisco hosted the Golden Gate International Exposition, held on Treasure Island, a 400-acre artificial island created in San Francisco Bay with WPA funding. The island was connected to both sides of the bay by the new San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, and had full views of the new Golden Gate Bridge. Much of the exposition’s architecture reflected prevailing Art Deco and Moderne styles, but sometimes with Pacific themes. One theme of the exposition was the unity of the Pacific basin, and one of the popular exhibits was the real- life arrival and departure of PanAmerican Airways’ Flying Clippers—giant (for the day) airplanes, able to carry 48 passengers that landed and took off from the water of the bay. PanAmerican charged $360 (equivalent to more than $5,500 today) for a one-way ticket to Hawai‘i. Another, more mundane, goal of the exposition was to promote the growth of tourism to the Bay Area.

California on the Eve of War

Treasure Island had been constructed with the intent that, after the exposition, it would become San Francisco’s airport. But the first year of the exposition was marked by war. War was already raging in Asia, as Japan had seized Manchuria in 1931 and then initiated all-out war against China in 1937. In 1939, Germany marched into Czechoslovakia, then Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany. In 1940, German armies rolled into Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. When the Treasure Island exposition closed, the island became a base for the U.S. Navy.

268 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

The creation of a naval base on Treasure Island was just one of many examples of increased federal expenditures in California for the army and navy after World War I. In 1921, the U.S. Navy decided to divide its fleet into Atlantic and Pacific divisions. This decision was due partly to rising con- cerns about the intentions of Japan in the Pacific and the need to protect the American possessions there. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego all insisted that they were the best location for a navy base, which was predicted to have as many as 45,000 naval personnel. Members of California’s congres- sional delegation contested with each other over the prize, but in the end the navy decentralized its facilities, scattering elements up and down the Pacific coast. As international tensions increased in the late 1930s, so too did naval and military expenditures in California.

Despite the headlines of war, despite increasing naval and military prepara- tions all around them, most Californians hoped to stay out of the war. Unlike 1914 through 1917, when advocates of preparedness often hoped openly that the United States would enter the war, few made such arguments from 1939 through 1941. All Californians were shocked when their radios announced, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, that Japanese planes and ships had attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawai‘i. California was on the verge of one of its greatest transformations.

Summary

The 1920s and 1930s marked very different eras in California’s economic his- tory. The 1920s were years of prosperity, the 1930s a time of depression. Still, Los Angeles grew at a rapid pace through both decades. The motion picture industry, oil, and manufacturing all contributed to LA’s economic base during the 1920s and 1930s. LA was the first large city to be designed around the automobile and the single-family home.

The large majority of Californians voted Republican during the 1920s, but the Republican Party was divided into progressive and conservative wings. Hiram Johnson served in the U.S. Senate throughout the two decades and beyond, leading the progressive wing of the state Republican Party. The other most prominent California Republican was Herbert Hoover, who was elected president in 1928. Prohibition divided voters during the 1920s, and the early 1920s saw a renewal of anti-Asian actions and laws.

Highway and bridge construction laid the basis for the state’s transporta- tion infrastructure in the automobile age. Hoover Dam was a massive hydro- electric and irrigation project promoted largely by Californians, though located in Nevada. Henry Kaiser was one of several construction companies that took on such mammoth projects. A. P. Giannini’s Bank of America brought

Summary 269

important innovations to banking, especially the concept of branch banking. Cotton became an important crop during the 1920s and 1930s, and agriculture was becoming increasingly industrialized, as large corporations owned farm- land, processing plants, and distribution networks.

California’s population grew throughout the 1920s and 1930s, with much of the growth concentrated in southern California. Federal immigration policy changed dramatically in 1924. Californians, led by Senator Hiram Johnson, succeeded in writing Asian exclusion into the new law. Though no formal lim- its were placed on immigration from Mexico, the process for legal immigration was intimidating and expensive.

Movies were California’s most conspicuous contribution to cultural expression. They came in a variety of genres and reached large numbers of Americans. Important architectural contributions included the California bungalow, popularized by Greene and Greene. Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan helped to create a distinctive California variant of prevailing architec- tural styles.

During the Great Depression, beginning in 1929, unemployment rose, wage levels fell, and business slowed. Some blamed Mexicans and Filipinos and agitated to have them removed from the state. The Communist Party showed some success in its efforts to organize the unemployed. Large numbers of Dust Bowl refugees poured into the state seeking work, but camps for migra- tory farm workers were unhealthy.

Labor conflict broke out among agricultural workers, often led by Commu- nists. Longshoremen struck for three months in 1934 at all Pacific coast ports and encountered violent opposition, but secured most of their objectives. Changes in federal labor policy encouraged unions, and unions grew rapidly in both the San Francisco Bay area and the Los Angeles basin. The labor move- ment divided between the AFL and CIO, and both were well represented in California.

New federal laws, especially during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, redefined federal–state relations. California voters gave large majorities to Roosevelt. PWA and WPA programs resulted in the con- struction of a wide variety of new buildings and other facilities in California. New federal programs tried to assist migratory farm workers and California Indians.

Democrats hoped to win the governorship in 1934, but Upton Sinclair’s EPIC campaign came under heavy attack from both right and left, and the Republican candidate won. Other unusual proposals percolated up from south- ern California in addition to EPIC, including the Townsend movement and Ham and Eggs. The Democrats won the governorship in 1938, but Governor Culbert Olson proved ineffective.

270 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

Suggested Readings

❚ Balio, Tino, Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). An examination of nearly every aspect of the industry.

❚ Bottles, Scott L., Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Mod- ern City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). A good account of the relation between the expansion of Los Angeles and the automobile.

❚ La Chapelle, Peter, Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). Focuses on the country music that was introduced to Los Angeles by the Okie migration.

❚ McWilliams, Carey, Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (New York: Duell, Sloane & Pearce, 1946). One of the classic works on California; never unbiased, McWilliams wrote with the freshness that comes from personal observation.

❚ Sanchez, George J., Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). A major contribution to understanding the experience of Mexican Americans in the early 20th century.

❚ Selvin, David F., A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Francisco (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996). Thorough and well written, Selvin’s book also conveys the intensity of feeling of the strikers.

❚ Sitton, Tom, and Deverell, William, eds., Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001). An anthology that treats many of the important elements in the growth of Los Angeles during the 1920s.

❚ Starr, Kevin, Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). A sweeping account of south- ern California in the 1920s based upon a wide range of material.

❚ , Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). Continues Starr’s account of the state’s development, with rich details and balanced interpretations.

❚ Steinbeck, John, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Viking, 1939). Nothing matches this novel for its depiction of the Okies and of California farm workers in the 1930s.

Suggested Readings 271

❚ Tygiel, Jules, The Great Los Angeles Swindle: Oil, Stocks, and Scandal During the Roaring Twenties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). A lively account of the financial manipulations of C. C. Julian cast against Los Angeles in the 1920s.

❚ Weber, Devra, Dark Sweat, White Gold: California Farm Workers, Cotton, and the New Deal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). An inci- sive analysis of cotton growing, especially the agricultural work force, and its relation to government.

❚ Yung, Judy, Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). An exhaustively researched study from about 1900 to World War II.

272 CHAPTER 8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941

CH AP

TE R 9

World War II and the Great Transformation

Main Topics

❚ Economic Expansion

❚ Japanese Relocation and Internment

❚ Population Growth and Diversity

❚ Daily Life and Culture

❚ Political Transformation

❚ Summary

On October 20, 1943, Theresa Waller stood in the “col- ored” waiting room in the train station at Houston, Texas. Dressed in her Sunday best, this tall, dignified

24-year-old felt a disquieting mixture of fear, expectation, excitement, and uncertainty. Her strong will and poise—traits that marked her as a person who “wanted to go somewhere and be someone”—had propelled her to this departure point. In a few moments there would be no turning back. A young woman who “wanted to do something good and big, but couldn’t name it” was about to leave everything that she had known as a child for the promise of a new life in California.

In Houston, Theresa had worked as a domestic servant. Each morning, she left her home in the mostly black Fifth Ward for the rich white neighborhoods in “the heights.” As she worked at jobs that “didn’t amount to much” and was paid only a few dollars a week, she endured the dangers and

273

humiliations of life in the segregated South. Struggling to describe her experience, Theresa remarked, “You just don’t know what it was like. They [white people] would try to make you feel like you weren’t human.” Facing a future limited by racial discrimination, she dreamed about leaving Texas.

Early in 1943, Theresa met and fell in love with a man who worked on the Houston waterfront. Through a network of fellow workers, he learned of plentiful, high-paying defense jobs in the San Francisco Bay area. Their relationship flourished on shared dreams of a better life out West, and soon they married. Within weeks, he moved to Oakland, found housing and a job in the shipyards, and sent for his bride. Theresa, about to embark on a journey that would reunite her with her husband and pro- foundly change her world, felt small and alone on that October day in the Houston train station. But as her journey unfolded, it bore a striking resemblance to the journeys made by count- less other California-bound migrants during the war years. While most found economic opportunity, others—particularly black migrants like the Wallers—encountered significant racial prejudice and discrimination. In this regard, California was not the promised land.

By the early 1940s, California had become central to the nation’s war effort. Its aircraft and shipbuilding industries, funded by huge federal defense contracts, dramatically expanded production and provided new employment opportu- nities for skilled and unskilled workers, women, and ethnic minorities. California’s ports and military bases, suddenly bus- tling with defense-driven activity and thousands of new recruits, also contributed to civilian job growth. The wartime

CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

1941 United States enters World War II

1941–1945 Wartime defense production transforms the state’s economy Population grows by 1.5 million Women enter the industrial labor force in unprecedented numbers

1941 Executive Order 8802 bans racial discrimination in defense industry

1942

Japanese relocation and internment authorized Earl Warren elected governor Bracero program established Sleepy Lagoon case

1943 Zoot Suit Riots

1944 Port Chicago explosion and “mutiny” Defense industries begin to demobilize

1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki War ends

274

boom spilled over to virtually every sector of the economy. Restaurants, nightclubs, theaters, and other service establish- ments, responding to a burgeoning clientele of soldiers and round-the-clock defense workers, extended their hours and hired additional employees. The state’s growers, attempting to keep pace with wartime demand for agricultural commodi- ties, increased production and expanded their labor force. The defense effort even stimulated the development of new elec- tronics, communications, and aerospace technologies that became the mainstay of the state’s postwar economy.

Sadly, the war also ignited long-smoldering anti-Asian prejudice, culminating in the worst mass violation of civil rights in the state’s history. In the spring of 1942, California’s Japanese American population was deported by government order to a series of internment camps in remote sections of the western United States. In the process, most lost homes, treasured possessions, and businesses, and suffered severe emotional and physical trauma. Wartime prosperity, which partially offset the pain and humiliation of racial discrimina- tion for other ethnic minorities, only added to the raw sense of loss experienced by Japanese Americans.

As this tragedy unfolded, California’s economic boom attracted newcomers from a variety of ethnic and class

Shown here is a shift change of workers at the Kaiser, Richmond Shipyards circa 1942–1944. What does this photograph reveal about wartime changes in the age, gender, and ethnic composition of the industrial labor force?

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backgrounds, greatly increasing the size and diversity of the state’s population. Unfortunately, growth placed strains on schools, recreation facilities, housing, and transportation systems—strains that heightened existing patterns of racial discrimination and produced tensions between migrants and established residents. Emboldened by the pro-democracy rhetoric of the war, minority activists and their sympathetic supporters attacked discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations with new zeal, creating the foundation for postwar struggles for civil rights and political power. The Wallers, and countless other African American newcomers, joined this struggle to make the California dream a reality. At the same time, state government, under the leadership of Earl Warren, responded to growth-related challenges by taking a more active role in directing the forces of social and economic change.

Questions to Consider

❚ Did World War II have a significant and lasting impact on the state’s economy? How? Discuss why historians have described this era as the “Second Gold Rush.”

❚ Who was responsible for Japanese relocation and intern- ment? Did anti-Asian prejudice, rather than “informed military judgments,” contribute to this mass violation of civil rights?

❚ Excluding Japanese Americans, did Californians benefit equally from the Second Gold Rush? Why or why not?

❚ How and why did World War II alter the priorities of political activists and leaders and expand the size and scope of state government?

Economic Expansion

Overview of the War’s Economic Impact

By 1939, war in Europe created increased demand for goods produced in the United States. This helped draw California’s manufacturing, oil, and agricul- tural industries out of their Depression-era slump. At the same time, the fed- eral government initiated a rearmament program and the nation’s first peacetime draft, leading to an expansion of the state’s existing military facilities and the construction of several new training centers, supply depots, and bases. The influx of military personnel, in turn, generated civilian jobs at military

276 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

installations and stimulated retail and service sector growth in nearby towns and cities.

When the United States officially entered the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, California’s economy swung into high gear. The war was no longer solely a European conflict, but one waged in the Pacific as well, with personnel, ships, aircraft, food, munitions, and supplies all chan- neled through California’s ports and military staging facilities. The federal gov- ernment, acknowledging California’s geographic importance to the Pacific war effort, committed $35 billion to the state’s defense industries and military installations. And Californians, receiving a windfall that amounted to 10 per- cent of the government’s entire budget, went from unemployment lines to around-the-clock, high-wage production work. Jobs, once scarce, were created faster than workers could fill them. The Second Gold Rush had arrived.

The Aircraft Industry

The southern part of the state, with its mild climate, nonunionized work force, numerous small airstrips, and affordable land prices, began attracting aircraft manufacturers as early as 1912. The industry, however, did not take permanent root until 1920 when Donald Douglas, an aviation engineer for Martin in Ohio, organized his own company in Los Angeles. Two other aircraft entrepreneurs, Ryan in San Diego and Lockheed in Burbank, soon joined Douglas. As the air travel industry expanded during the 1930s, the region attracted other manufac- turers, such as Consolidated Aircraft Corporation and American Aviation. By 1940, a majority of the nation’s aircraft workers were employed by southern California firms.

With the war, demand for aircraft suddenly increased, and California’s manufacturers, already at the center of aircraft production, came to dominate the industry. Over the course of the conflict, aircraft companies in southern California received nearly 60 percent of all defense contract dollars that flowed into the state from the federal government. Change was sudden and dramatic. In 1939, the region’s 20,000 aircraft workers produced only a few thousand planes in modestly sized shops and factories. By 1943, sprawling fabrication facilities employed more than 280,300 workers, who produced 100,000 planes in that year alone. Lockheed, whose mostly skilled work force built 37 planes in 1937, employed more than 90,000 workers at the height of the war and mass- produced more than 18,000 aircraft between 1941 and 1945, a production record matched by Douglas, Northrup, North American, Convair, and Ryan.

The infusion of federal funds, however, only partially explains the astound- ing level of productivity. Plant employees, over 40 percent of whom were women, worked around the clock, logged thousands of hours in overtime, and risked serious injury to meet production demands. While rising wages helped motivate workers, many also made wartime sacrifices out of a sense of patriotic duty. Early in the war, Roosevelt called for the production of 50,000

Economic Expansion 277

planes a year. Workers, responding to reports of growing casualties overseas, more than doubled that figure by 1944.

The war left a lasting imprint on southern California’s aircraft industry. Federal dollars not only funded plant expansion, they also financed research and development that created the foundation for diversification. Wartime research, funded by the government and conducted in partnership with the California Institute of Technology and UCLA, pushed aircraft manufacturing into the age of aerospace technology. Industry giants like Douglas, Lockheed, and Convair moved confidently into the postwar period as manufacturers of jet propulsion equipment, missiles, missile guidance devices, and electronic track- ing systems.

Shipbuilding

California’s shipbuilding industry, centered in the San Francisco Bay area, underwent a similar transformation during the war. Existing shipyards expanded their facilities and hired thousands of new workers to fill military contracts. Demand, however, soon exceeded existing capacity and entrepre- neurs such as Henry Kaiser constructed new shipyards throughout the region. Prior to the war, Kaiser directed the construction of several large dams and bridges, successfully applying mass production and prefabrication techniques on an enormous scale. When the war started, Kaiser secured government sup- port to build a new shipbuilding facility in Richmond and turned his expertise to the production of supply freighters or “Liberty Ships.”

Kaiser’s application of assembly-line construction techniques, replicated by other Bay Area shipbuilders including Bechtel in Sausalito, reduced the need for skilled labor and cut production time from 250 days per ship to an average of 25 days. The shipyards were open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Kaiser Shipyard workers set a record by constructing one ship in four days. At peak operation, Kaiser’s four Richmond yards employed more than 100,000 workers, including large numbers of women and black migrants from the South. To meet ongoing labor demands, Kaiser sent recruiters across the country in search of workers, helped arrange transportation out West, and offered on- the-job training. He also promoted worker retention by funding on-site child care and creating a subsidized, prepaid medical program for his employees, one of the first group health plans in the nation.

During the war, shipbuilders employed more than 260,000 workers and received more than $5 billion in federal government contracts. For a brief time, the Bay Area was the country’s premier shipbuilding center, producing more than one-quarter of the nation’s ships, and attracting thousands of new- comers with the promise of high-paying, dignified employment. Wartime ship- yards provided unprecedented, though fleeting, economic opportunities to women and ethnic minorities. Most significantly, defense jobs propelled Dust Bowl migrants from the fields into the state’s blue-collar work force, removing

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the stigma of poverty and outsider status that had dogged them throughout the Depression. Their whiteness, now that jobs were plentiful, became the currency of acceptance and assimilation, while other newcomers—particularly African Americans—were branded as undesirable intruders.

Agriculture

Agriculture was one of the first industries to recover from the Great Depres- sion. As domestic and overseas demand increased, labor shortages rather than labor strife became the primary concern of the state’s growers. Growers not only fed an expanding civilian labor force, but also supplied troops stationed in California and abroad, and U.S. allies overseas. Between 1939 and 1945, California agriculture grew from a $623 million industry to one netting $1.75 billion—a level of growth that solidified the state’s position as the nation’s leading agricultural producer and accelerated the trend toward con- solidation and corporate ownership of California’s farmland.

As the military, defense industries, and forced incarceration of Japanese Americans siphoned workers out of the fields, growers faced severe labor shortages. Defense jobs, in particular, beckoned workers with wages that growers—despite labor shortages—were unwilling to match. Labor shortages also raised the unhappy prospect of unionization; a labor force much in demand could potentially obtain the level of unity and bargaining power that had eluded agricultural workers during the 1930s. In 1942, at growers’ urging, Congress approved the “bracero program,” a joint agreement between the American and Mexican governments that allowed the importation of Mexican guest workers into California’s fields. The program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and monitored by the Mexican government, was intended to provide a steady stream of labor during the wartime emergency, while guaranteeing braceros decent housing, transportation, food, health care, a minimum wage, and unemployment compensation in the unlikely event of work shortages.

The program held several advantages for growers. Transportation, medical, unemployment, and disability expenses were financed by the federal govern- ment. The growers were responsible for providing decent housing and working conditions and a minimum wage, but these obligations were easily and repeat- edly circumvented. Braceros, as a temporary, contract labor force, undercut the collective bargaining power of other field workers and were frequently used to break strikes. In essence, growers used the federal subsidy to freeze farm wages, to keep all but the most desperate domestic workers from the fields, and to argue that foreign workers were necessary to meet agricultural labor demands. Long after the war ended, growers successfully defended the program on the grounds that the supply of domestic workers was not sufficient to meet demand. Not until 1964 did Congress, bowing to public criticism of the system’s abuses, terminate the program.

Economic Expansion 279

Other Industry

The war’s impact reached beyond aircraft, shipbuilding, and agriculture to sev- eral other industries, transforming the state into a powerhouse of heavy indus- try and creating the foundation for a high-tech postwar economy. Steel, much of it imported from outside the state, was suddenly in huge demand, and Bay Area producers expanded production to meet the needs of local shipbuilders. Kaiser, ever the innovator, further reduced dependence on imports by building a state-of-the-art blast furnace and rolling mill in Fontana. East of Los Angeles, the Kaiser mill produced more than 700,000 tons of steel per year, increased the state’s production capacity by 70 percent, and created a new blue-collar suburban development to house its work force.

The war also stimulated the growth of the state’s fledgling electronics industry. In 1938, Stanford graduate students David Packard and Bill Hewlett began producing electronic devices out of a garage behind their Palo Alto boarding house. One of Hewlett’s projects, and the subject of his master’s the- sis, was a variable frequency oscillator. Hewlett’s professor, Fred Terman, was convinced of its commercial potential and helped the two men secure funding to start a business. Walt Disney Studios made the first large purchase, buying eight oscillators to produce the soundtrack for their full-length animated film, Fantasia.

Their real breakthrough, however, came with World War II. By 1942, Hewlett and Packard employed about 100 workers and grossed around $1 mil- lion in sales of defense-related electronic equipment. More significantly, they pioneered a bottom-up management style that encouraged and rewarded employee creativity and innovation. After the war, Hewlett Packard became the nucleus of Silicon Valley and a model for other high-tech firms around the country (see Map 9.1 on the next page).

Across the bay, physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, focused their efforts on developing nuclear weapons. During the 1930s, Ernest O. Lawr- ence created an atom-smashing cyclotron and isolated new radioactive ele- ments and isotopes that soon became integral to weapons production. In 1942, the federal government launched the Manhattan Project and contracted with the university to build atomic weapons. Lawrence’s laboratory at Berkeley was expanded, and a second lab, at Los Alamos, New Mexico, was placed under the direction of Lawrence’s Berkeley colleague, J. Robert Oppenheimer.

In 1945, the military dropped atomic bombs produced at Los Alamos on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, concluding the war in the Pacific and ushering in the “nuclear age.” The destructive force of the bombs killed and injured hundreds of thousands of civilians, deeply shocking Lawrence and Oppenheimer, and raising public concern that technological innovation was outstripping the human capacity to ethically judge its impact or control its application. In the meantime, another Los Alamos physicist, Edward Teller, was pioneering the development of a more powerful nuclear

280 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

Map 9.1 Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is, of course, a state of mind rather than a specific location on a map. This map shows the location of major technology companies and the universities that contributed to the development and growth of such companies, all centered in the southern part of San Francisco Bay.

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weapon: the hydrogen bomb. At his urging in the early 1950s, the Atomic Energy Commission established another weapons lab in Livermore, California, ensuring that the state remained in the forefront of nuclear research for dec- ades to come.

Japanese Relocation and Internment

The war brought Californians out of the Depression and stimulated the growth of new industries that ensured economic vitality for years to come; however, it also generated intense fear and hatred of the “enemy” and fueled long-standing anti-Asian prejudice and hostility. Wartime hysteria, primarily directed toward Japanese Americans, quickly evolved into government policy that deeply wounded many of the state’s most loyal citizens.

The Unfolding Tragedy

Immediately following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, newspapers and radio commentators across the state began scapegoating Japanese Americans. The Los Angeles Times called California a “zone of danger” and warned: “We have thousands of Japanese here.… Some, perhaps many, are good Americans. What the rest may be we do not know, nor can we take a chance in light of yesterday’s demonstration that treachery and double-dealing are major Japa- nese weapons.” Such reports, found in virtually every California newspaper, were accompanied by Governor Culbert Olson’s announcement to the press that he was considering house arrest of all Japanese Americans “to avoid riot and disturbance.” In the meantime, the federal Department of Justice took more decisive action, working with local law enforcement to round up and detain “dangerous enemy aliens,” including hundreds of Japanese American religious and community leaders. In some cases, authorities failed to notify relatives of the whereabouts of detainees for weeks or even months after their arrest.

Public alarm increased in mid-December, when Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox held a press conference in Los Angeles. Detailing the damage in Hawai‘i, Knox deflected criticism of the military’s incompetence and lack of preparedness by blaming the “treachery” on the island’s Japanese American population. Uninformed and frightened Californians speculated that the West Coast was equally vulnerable to alien subversion and attack. By the end of the month, the Justice Department authorized the FBI to randomly search the homes and businesses of “enemy aliens” for weapons, explosives, radio trans- mitters, cameras, and other so-called contraband. Although the FBI later reported that none of the seized “contraband” was used for subversive pur- poses, the searches contributed to mounting public suspicion and hysteria.

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By mid-February, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command in San Francisco, issued a recommendation to the secretary of war for the “Evacuation of Japanese and other Subversive Persons from the Pacific coast.” After outlining how the “enemy” presence threatened West Coast military installations, DeWitt asserted that all persons of Japanese descent, including American-born citizens, were a menace to security: “The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on American soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted.” Tragically, public, political, and military pressure groups reinforced DeWitt’s personal prejudices.

The press, the general public, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles mayor Fletcher Bowron, Governor Olson, and state Attorney General Earl Warren, all lobbied for Japanese removal. Moreover, the West Coast con- gressional delegation, led by Leland Ford, John Costello, A. J. Elliot, and Jack Anderson, applied additional political pressure by issuing a unanimous resolu- tion on February 13 that called for the “immediate evacuation of all persons of Japanese lineage and all others, aliens and citizens alike, whose presence shall be deemed dangerous or inimical to the defense of the United States from all strategic areas.…” DeWitt was also concerned that failure to take action might result in his removal from command, a disgrace recently suffered by Hawai‘i’s chief officers. Finally, DeWitt’s superiors consistently pressed for the mass evacuation of Japanese Americans.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the secretary of war to designate military areas from which “any or all persons may be excluded.” Although the order never men- tioned the words “Japanese” or “Japanese Americans,” its executors quickly moved to apply its provisions selectively. More than 93,000 Japanese Ameri- cans were forced from their homes in California into internment camps. About two-thirds were American-born citizens, or Nisei. The rest, members of the older Issei immigrant generation, were “aliens” only in that the law had pre- vented them from becoming citizens. Ironically, Hawai‘i’s large and economi- cally indispensable Japanese American population was not relocated or interned.

Smaller numbers of German and Italian aliens were forced to relocate away from sensitive military installations and were subjected to special curfews and travel restriction. Except for those suspected of enemy connections, none were incarcerated. For an 11-month period from late 1941 to late 1942, the govern- ment also prohibited Italian aliens from leaving port in their fishing boats. This all but decimated San Francisco’s fishing industry and led to fish shortages and higher seafood prices. To be sure, many suffered financial hardship or were wrongly accused of subversive ties, but they were not singled out for intern- ment on a mass scale simply because of their ethnicity. Even on the East Coast, where enemy attack from Europe was more of a direct threat, German and Italian aliens were never subjected to group incarceration.

Japanese Relocation and Internment 283

Prior to the Japanese evacuation, Congress organized a series of hearings to address any lingering public concerns over the plan, including its “military necessity” and constitutionality. State Attorney General Earl Warren, who had recently declared his candidacy for governor, testified that the proposed evacu- ation was “absolutely constitutional,” given the questionable loyalty of the Japanese in California. Warren, in fact, asserted that the American-born Nisei were more dangerous than their noncitizen Issei parents, and that in wartime “every citizen must give up some of his rights.”

City and county officials came forward with similar testimony, creating an uncomfortable dilemma for Japanese American leaders: disagreement with the proposal could easily be viewed as un-American or evidence of subversion. Agreement, on the other hand, would be seen as evidence of loyalty, but also as an admission that the public’s fears were reasonable. The Nisei-run Japanese American Citizens League filled the leadership vacuum left when the Depart- ment of Justice arrested and detained older, Issei community leaders in the weeks following Pearl Harbor. Members of the league adopted a nonconfronta- tional posture before the hearings, hoping for lenient treatment in exchange for their avowal of loyalty. Others, however, took an opposing stand. James Omura, publisher of a small Japanese American magazine, testified that he was opposed to mass evacuation of American-born citizens. “It is my honest belief that such an action would not solve the question of Nisei loyalty,” he said.

Omura and other Japanese American dissenters, along with white suppor- ters from organizations such as the Northern California ACLU and the Califor- nia CIO, failed to stop the mass evacuation. Just as disappointing, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality on three separate occasions. In 1942, Gordon Hirabayashi, a student at the University of Washington, refused to comply with the evacuation order and was sentenced in federal court to six months in prison. He and his attorneys appealed on the grounds that the order, to be constitutional, had to apply to all citizens, not just to a select group. In 1943, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction on the grounds that military necessity and the questionable loyalty of persons of Japanese ancestry justified the selective restrictions.

In 1944, the Supreme Court more directly affirmed the constitutionality of the exclusion order by upholding the conviction of Fred Korematsu, a young Californian who refused to report for evacuation. His attorneys asked the court to consider “whether or not a citizen of the United States may, because of his Japanese ancestry, be confined in barbed-wire stockades euphemistically termed Assembly Centers or Relocation Centers—actually concentration camps.” The majority opinion maintained that “the gravest imminent danger to the public safety” and the questionable loyalty of persons of Japanese ancestry justified the order “as of the time it was made and when the petitioner violated it.” In the third case, involving Californian Mitsuye Endo, the court again failed to act, further undermining the system of checks and balances designed to protect the rights of Americans. All levels of government—local, state, federal, legislative, executive,

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and judicial—abandoned higher moral principles in favor of racist hysteria, undermining the very system that was allegedly threatened by “enemy aliens.” It took 40 years for the government to acknowledge its mistake and conclude that the exclusion decision was shaped by “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership,” rather than “informed military judgments.”

Relocation and Internment

The evacuation process began in early March of 1942, when Lieutenant General DeWitt designated western Washington and Oregon, parts of southern Arizona, and all of California as military areas off-limits to persons of Japanese ancestry. His proclamation created a trickle of voluntary migration out of the zone, but most families either lacked the resources to leave or were discouraged by reports of vigilante violence directed at those who had relocated. By the end of March, DeWitt curtailed even this small option by prohibiting all Japanese Americans from leaving the zone, and issuing the first forced removal order to residents of Bainbridge Island near Seattle. Other removal orders soon fol- lowed, giving families only a few days to pack their belongings, vacate their homes, and report to a central receiving station for transport to an assembly center. With an average of six days’ notice, and allowed to bring only personal belongings they could carry, families were forced to make major economic and personal decisions under severe time pressure.

This is a view of the desert and camp at Manzanar, east of the Sierra Nevadas. How did the geographic location and physical design of camps like Manzanar shape the daily lives of internees?

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The list was endless. Homes and businesses had to be rented, sold, or entrusted to sympathetic friends, neighbors, church groups, and government agencies. Lovingly tended gardens and pets needed new caregivers. Children, infants, the aged, and the ill had to be reassured and prepared for the largely unknown physical and emotional challenges ahead. Possessions accumulated over many years, including family heirlooms, furniture, appliances, automo- biles, artwork, clothing, pianos, books, bicycles, and toys, had to be placed in storage or sold at a loss to “human vultures” willing to take advantage of their neighbors’ misfortune. All of this and more needed to be accomplished in the context of uncertainty; no one knew how long the war would last, or whether they would ever be allowed to return to their homes. Families also suffered serious financial loss, estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars for property alone. Added to this were the lost wages and earning power of the period in exile.

While the newly created War Relocation Authority (WRA) constructed permanent camps in remote inland locations, the army converted racetracks, livestock exhibition halls, and fairgrounds into temporary assembly centers. Evacuees—exhausted, frightened, and humiliated by their recent ordeal—now faced a new challenge: living for one to six months in crowded, unsanitary bar- racks or renovated horse stalls. At racetracks like Santa Anita and Tanforan, each family occupied either a 20 � 9-foot or a 20 � 18-foot stall that was only partially partitioned off from neighboring units. A thin veneer of linoleum did little to mask the odor of manure and urine-soaked floorboards, and horse- hair, hay, and other debris had been hastily whitewashed into the walls. Latrines and shower facilities, located outside of the barracks and lacking doors or parti- tions, afforded little privacy and violated the women’s sense of modesty. Diar- rhea, caused by unsanitary conditions and poor-quality food, afflicted nearly everyone and compounded their embarrassment. Laundry, which had to be done by hand with a limited supply of hot water, created an additional hardship for women, particularly those with babies and small children.

Between June and November of 1942, the army moved evacuees to guarded camps outside of the West Coast military zone. These camps, euphe- mistically called “relocation” or “resettlement” centers, were located on remote, desolate sites that were swelteringly hot in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter. Only two camps, built on Arkansas swampland, were not sited in the desert. Barracks containing six one-room units were flimsily con- structed of pine and covered with single-thickness tar paper. Wind and dust constantly swirled in through the cracks and holes in walls and floor boards, making it impossible to keep the barracks warm and clean. Small families crowded into single 20 � 16-foot units, while larger families of up to seven persons were assigned 20 � 25-foot rooms. Each unit was furnished with a single bare light bulb, an army cot for each occupant, and an oil or wood stove. Latrines, showers, and mess halls were depressingly similar to those in the assembly centers.

286 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

Evacuees struggled to create a sense of normalcy in an inhospitable envi- ronment by improving their bleak dwellings, planting gardens, and organizing schools, clubs, athletic teams, and cultural events. Their hardships, however, were innumerable. White camp administrators and staff were notoriously unre- sponsive to the concerns of inmates. As a consequence, schools were under- staffed, poorly equipped, and uneven in quality. Camp kitchens were poorly provisioned and frequently pilfered by white staff. Diets were starch-laden, until evacuees took the initiative to raise vegetables and livestock.

Women, while relieved of some of their domestic responsibilities by com- munal living, continually struggled to keep dwellings clean, preserve domestic harmony in cramped quarters, and care for the young, sick, and aged under crude conditions. Poor medical facilities compounded their burden. Obstetric and gynecological care was woefully inadequate, and many women suffered complications during pregnancy and delivery. Despite crowded, unsanitary liv- ing conditions and constant exposure to cold weather, vaccines were in short supply or simply unavailable, as were very basic medical supplies like sutures, lab testing equipment, and sterile infant formula.

Men, normally breadwinners and authority figures, felt their status diminish within their families. Everyone—husbands, wives, sons, and daughters—earned

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Shown here is a volleyball game at Manzanar. Compare this photograph to the one on page 285, and reflect on the ways that internees attempted to humanize camp life.

the same low wages for working at various jobs within the camps. And children, spending more time with their peer group in a communal setting, circumvented parental guidance and authority. The loss of jobs and businesses compounded men’s pain and humiliation and led to a high incidence of ulcers, depression, and other stress-related illness among male evacuees.

Nisei teenagers enjoyed greater independence from their more traditional parents, but faced uncertain futures at a time when family stability and support was being undermined. Ties between the generations grew more tenuous when the WRA began to issue leave permits to Nisei who found sponsors outside of the military zone. Beginning in the fall of 1942, the American Friends Service Committee and other church groups helped about 250 young people resume their studies at colleges and universities outside of California. Thousands of other Nisei received permits to take jobs in urban centers like Denver, Chicago, and Salt Lake City; however, most remained in regular contact with their par- ents, sent money back to the camps, and returned to their families following the internment ordeal.

Nisei received another, more controversial, opportunity to leave in January of 1943, when the War Department announced its intention to enlist recruits from the camps. This decision, coupled with the WRA’s desire to relieve pres- sure in the camps by issuing more leave permits, led the army to prepare and administer a loyalty questionnaire to all inmates over the age of 17. Issei and Nisei, who had demonstrated their loyalty by complying with internment orders, were now asked to “swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic sources, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor or any other foreign government, power, or organization.” The Issei, who had been denied citizenship, were particularly distressed by the oath. A “no” answer on their part was an admission of disloy- alty, while a “yes” could be interpreted as an admission of prior allegiance to the “enemy.” Nisei, on the other hand, risked emotional and physical separa- tion from their families if they chose to answer differently from their parents.

Eventually the questionnaire was reworded, and a majority of both Issei and Nisei answered in the affirmative. Subsequently, thousands of young men served in the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, suffering almost 10,000 casualties, including some 600 deaths, in seven major Italian and French campaigns. As they fell in battle, and earned the distinction of belonging to the most decorated regiment in army history, their friends and relatives remained behind barbed wire. While the men of the 442nd pondered this contradiction, the army continued to insist that “military necessity” justified internment on the home front.

When camps were closed at the end of the war, most evacuees gradually returned to the West Coast. Their ordeal, however, was far from over. Many Issei, financially and emotionally broken by the internment experience, were too old to start over and had to rely on their children for support. The Nisei,

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who before the war had struggled to blend in with their peers by being model students and Americans, continued to be perceived as aliens on their native soil. Business owners posted signs announcing “No Japs Allowed” and refused to sell goods and services to returnees. Property owners refused to rent or sell to Japanese Americans, and evacuees who returned to their own homes and businesses often found them stripped or damaged by looters, vandals, or care- less tenants. Employment discrimination was widespread, forcing many Nisei families to rely on more than one breadwinner, settle for menial jobs, or start businesses that required little initial capital, like gardening. Returnees also faced racial violence, often condoned and encouraged by civic leaders and law enforcement. In the first six months of 1945, 70 acts of terrorism and 19 shoot- ings occurred in California alone. Angry whites in Placer County, for example, fired shots into the home and dynamited the packing shed of a returning Japa- nese American family. The perpetrators were caught and brought to trial, but a local, all-white jury voted for acquittal.

The violence gradually subsided, but former internees continued to live with deep emotional scars from their ordeal. After years of intense organizing and lobbying by Japanese American activists, organizations, and political lea- ders, camp survivors obtained a small measure of redress. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 mandated that each former internee receive $20,000, and that the government issue a formal apology for the mass exclusion and detention of Japanese Americans. Representative Robert Matsui, a California Democrat who had been active in the redress movement from its inception in 1970, char- acterized the victory as “a reaffirmation of the values this country was built on.” Though redress could never compensate for the financial and emotional cost of internment, it began, for many, the slow and still-unfinished process of healing.

Population Growth and Diversity

World War II created opportunities as well as challenges for other Californians. Between 1940 and 1944, the defense industry boom attracted more than 1.5 million newcomers, making California the fastest-growing state in the nation. Such growth was unprecedented, dwarfing even the Depression-era migration and continuing well into the postwar years. San Diego’s population, for example, grew by 110.5 percent between 1940 and 1947. Los Angeles grew by 17.8 percent, and the San Francisco Bay area by nearly 40 percent. Rapid growth, concentrated around aircraft and shipbuilding facilities and military installations, placed heavy strains on surrounding communities. Richmond, home to the massive Kaiser shipyards, grew from 23,642 residents in 1940 to more than 93,738 by 1943—a 296.5 percent increase. And like other California boomtowns, Richmond experienced growing pains. Housing, with so many

Population Growth and Diversity 289

new arrivals, was in short supply, forcing many newcomers to live in trailers, tents, makeshift shanties, or share small units with two or more families. Many of these dwellings, hastily constructed from salvaged materials or subdivided by unscrupulous landlords, lacked basic services like running water, heating, cook- ing facilities, and electricity. The resulting threat to public health and safety prompted federal authorities to finance temporary war housing developments in Richmond and other defense centers across the state. By the end of the war, Richmond’s public housing program, the largest in the nation, sheltered more than half of the city’s residents in prefabricated, multiunit developments.

Although still overcrowded, and often racially segregated, public war housing offered several benefits to residents. Most projects were located near defense jobs and public transportation lines. Common laundry and recreation facilities brought newcomers together and fostered friendships, resource shar- ing, and the growth of permanent community institutions. The projects also provided modern, though modest, amenities that earlier makeshift accommo- dations frequently lacked. War housing, however, did little to alleviate the strain on municipal services, especially schools. Between 1940 and 1943, Richmond’s student body grew from 3000 to 35,000, forcing elementary schools to conduct multiple sessions and pack an average of 75 pupils into each class. Parks, buses, trains, markets, theaters, and restaurants were equally overcrowded and increasingly “frowzy” from excessive use. Wartime shortages and rationing of essential goods such as gasoline, meat, sugar, and butter added to the overall perception that too many people were crowding into the area.

Established residents, alarmed over deteriorating infrastructure in Richmond and other defense centers, blamed newcomers for “ruining” their cities. Migrants, according to popular stereotypes, were either illiterate, lazy “poor white trash,” or ignorant, uncouth “Southern Negroes.” Both groups were regarded as morally deficient, criminally inclined, and a threat to public decency. In reality, though, most newcomers came with the skills, education, and work ethic to succeed in an urban, industrial environment. In Richmond and other defense centers, such stereotypes led to municipal law enforcement and moral reform campaigns designed to regulate migrant behavior and access to public space. Tougher anti-vice ordinances and police sweeps of “trouble zones,” which not surprisingly netted both estab- lished residents and newcomers, did little to address the underlying problem of overtaxed, decaying urban infrastructure—a problem that would persist and deepen during the postwar years.

Black Migration

White newcomers gradually gained acceptance as permanent residents, but a large percentage of the established population continued to view black migrants as guest workers who could not be assimilated. Local residents, including many

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civic leaders, hoped that black migrants would leave California at the end of the war. African Americans, however, came to the state for more than the jobs associated with the booming defense economy. The Wallers and thousands of other black migrants from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma sought freedom from the racial violence and discrimination that cruelly dampened their dreams and expectations in the South. Seeking a better life for themselves and their families, most came to California to stay. Between 1940 and 1950, the state’s African American population grew from 124,306 to 462,172, with most of the increase concentrated in the defense centers of Los Angeles, Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco. In the Bay Area alone, the black population increased 227 percent, from 19,759 in 1940 to 64,680 in 1945. Some communities, with small prewar black populations, saw even more spectacular levels of growth. Richmond’s black population, for example, grew from 270 in 1940 to more than 10,000 by 1945.

The migration began slowly, but took off after Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning racial discrimination by federal defense contrac- tors. Word of employment opportunities traveled quickly, spread by labor recruiters, word of mouth, and black railroad workers whose jobs took them across the country. The first wave of newcomers, once settled in jobs and hous- ing, encouraged friends and relatives to join them, creating a great chain of migration that continued even after the war ended. Most wartime migrants were young, and contrary to white stereotypes, relatively skilled and well edu- cated. Moreover, they came with high expectations and a long history of bat- tling racial discrimination in the South. Once in California, they joined or formed civil rights organizations, registered to vote, and established churches, fraternal orders, social clubs, and other mutual aid associations.

The determination of the black newcomers to challenge racial barriers and transplant their own cultural institutions alarmed established residents. Whites, who regarded the influx as an “invasion,” deeply resented the migrants’ sense of entitlement and willingness to violate existing racial boundaries. Established black residents, vastly outnumbered by migrants, feared that hostile whites would reverse what little racial progress had been made, and lump all African Americans together as unwelcome outsiders. California, while not the Jim Crow South, had serious racial problems of its own. Housing discrimination, enforced by restrictive covenants that prohibited property owners from renting or selling to ethnic minorities, confined prewar black residents to specific neighborhoods. Racially biased real estate agents also reinforced residential seg- regation by steering black clients away from white neighborhoods. When migrants arrived, they were forced into these existing black communities, plac- ing severe strain on already overcrowded, older housing stock. Others secured housing in neighborhoods vacated by Japanese Americans, creating new black enclaves in San Francisco’s Fillmore District and Los Angeles’s “Little Tokyo.” In Richmond and Vallejo, both without distinct prewar black communities, migrants settled in segregated war housing projects or on vacant land on the

Population Growth and Diversity 291

outskirts of town. In any case, housing discrimination limited their options and set the stage for the emergence of California’s postwar urban ghettos.

Despite Roosevelt’s executive order, newcomers also encountered wide- spread job discrimination. Many employers, including large defense contrac- tors, simply ignored the law and refused to hire African Americans. When Boeing, Consolidated Vultee, and North American Aviation faced wartime labor shortages, they recruited white women to fill skilled and semiskilled air- craft jobs, rather than integrate their work force. Other employers hired black workers, but channeled them into less skilled, menial, or more strenuous trades. Unions, which controlled access to better-paying, highly skilled defense jobs through closed-shop agreements, also created barriers to equal employ- ment. The Boilermakers and the International Association of Machinists, the two largest aviation and shipbuilding unions and both AFL affiliates, forced black workers into segregated auxiliaries where they had little voice in union affairs, or excluded them from membership altogether. As a consequence, black workers filled the lowest rungs of the occupational ladder, rarely held supervisory positions, and were among the last hired and first fired.

To make matters worse, white coworkers and supervisors subjected black newcomers to verbal abuse, physical violence, and intimidation. Instead of intervening, unions and employers often justified their own discriminatory pol- icies as necessary to preserve racial harmony. Black workers had few places to turn for support. Even the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC), cre- ated by Executive Order 8802 to monitor and curb job discrimination, was too swamped with complaints to handle all of them adequately.

One of the most egregious cases of discrimination, occurring entirely out- side of the FEPC’s jurisdiction, involved black sailors stationed at Port Chicago, a munitions depot near Concord, California. Their ordeal, which underscored the contradiction between fighting a war for democracy and pervasive discrim- ination on the home front, compounded the sense of betrayal felt by other black workers. On July 17, 1944, 320 men were killed by a massive explosion while loading munitions aboard two naval vessels. Of the dead, 200 were black sailors who served in segregated units under the command of white officers.

The survivors, reassigned to Mare Island Naval Depot after the blast destroyed the Port Chicago facility, refused to resume loading ammunition, cit- ing inadequate training and dangerous working conditions. Charged with mutiny, all 50 black defendants were found guilty, sentenced to 15 years in prison, and dishonorably discharged. During their 23-day trial, the men testi- fied that their commanding officers held and placed bets on munitions loading contests between crews, punished losing teams, and created a racially hostile working environment. In 1946, with help from the NAACP, most of the sailors returned to active duty with suspended sentences, but they were discharged from the service “under conditions less than honorable,” and thus deprived of veterans’ benefits; however, Thurgood Marshall, the lead NAACP attorney on the case, linked the tragedy to the wider issue of segregation in the armed

292 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

forces. As a consequence, the disaster helped generate public and government support for integration of the military. In 1994, the surviving mutineers won a rehearing of their case, but the navy upheld its original decision. In 1999, President Clinton pardoned one of the few remaining survivors, prompting an ongoing campaign for a presidential proclamation that would exonerate all others.

Finally, black servicemen, migrants, and established residents faced dis- crimination in public accommodations—discrimination that grew worse during the war years, as whites struggled to maintain and strengthen preexisting racial boundaries. The Oakland Observer, helping to draw the battle lines, commen- ted that “now we see Negroes all over the place,” and accused African Amer- icans of “butting into white civilization instead of keeping in the perfectly orderly and convenient Negro civilization of Oakland.” Businesses posted “White Trade Only” signs in shop and restaurant windows, or simply refused to serve black customers. Other businesses instituted various forms of segrega- tion. Ice rinks and nightclubs reserved certain days or hours for white patrons. Bowling alleys prohibited mixed teams and separated lanes by race. Even black servicemen, enlisted in the war for democracy, faced a hostile reception and were forced to seek recreation at segregated USOs.

Armed with the pro-democracy rhetoric of the war, black Californians fought back. Defense workers took collective action against union and employer discrimination by creating organizations such as the San Francisco Committee Against Segregation and Discrimination and the East Bay Shipyard Workers’ Committee. Their effort paid off in 1945, when the state supreme court banned the practice of forcing African Americans into separate Jim Crow auxiliaries as a condition of employment.

Black newcomers swelled the membership of existing NAACP chapters and established new branches in cities like Richmond. They reinvigorated local and state-level campaigns against discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations. Newcomers also joined with established civil rights leaders and CIO-affiliated union activists to register voters and run pro- gressive candidates for office. These new “voter leagues” and enlivened NAACP chapters would create the foundation for several major postwar victories: fair employment and housing legislation, a ban on restrictive covenants, and the election of black representatives to state and local office.

Black migrants also asserted their right to remain in California by putting down cultural roots. Instead of turning away from their southern heritage, they used it to build a positive sense of identity in their largely hostile surroundings. In their homes, churches, social organizations, and mutual aid associations, migrants cultivated their own religious practices, dietary preferences, speech patterns, folklore and crafts, music, and tradition of hospitality, self-help, and reciprocity. Migrants, for example, established hundreds of new churches that reflected and reinforced their black, southern religious beliefs. In some cases, clusters of migrants from the same southern town or region even encouraged

Population Growth and Diversity 293

their ministers to join them in California. Newcomers from the same southern town or city also formed social and mutual aid organizations based on shared geographical ties. In the San Francisco East Bay, for example, migrants from Vicksburg, Mississippi, created a mutual aid and social organization that still provides services for its members. In the process of putting down cultural roots, migrants did more than assert their status as permanent residents. Their gospel and blues music, Creole and soul foods, figures of speech, folklore, modes of worship and recreation, and even celebrations like Juneteenth trans- formed and enlivened the state’s richly textured, ever-changing cultural landscape.

New Challenges and Opportunities

Mexican Americans, long regarded as outsiders who needed to be American- ized through assimilation campaigns, saw the war as an opportunity to prove their loyalty, assert their rights as full-fledged citizens, and uphold their own cultural institutions. In California, more than 375,000 Latinos joined the mili- tary, choosing the more dangerous Paratroopers and Marine Corps over less risk-intensive branches of the service. Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, for example, made up 10 percent of the city’s population, but accounted for 20 percent of its total casualties. Patriotism was also evident on the home front. War ballads, composed in Spanish or translated from English, could be heard in every barrio or colonia. The Spanish-language press, including newspapers like San Gabriel Valley’s El Espectador, Los Angeles’s La Opinión, and El Sol de San Bernardino, not only highlighted Latino contributions to the war effort, but mobilized democratic rhetoric to protest segregation and discrimination in their communities.

Relatives of Latino servicemen, including many who had been locked into low-wage agricultural jobs, found new employment opportunities in the state’s defense centers—particularly in southern California. For the first time, large numbers of men moved into relatively high-paying, semiskilled or skilled industrial jobs. Women also found employment in the defense industry and in the expanding clerical sector. As young men joined the service, and their families moved to urban centers for defense jobs, the state’s growers lobbied for the importation of Mexican workers to relieve agricultural labor shortages. The resulting “bracero program” led to a decline in wages and working condi- tions for domestic workers, and encouraged additional migration out of rural areas well into the postwar years.

Wartime population growth and heightened competition for scarce resources fueled white hostility against perceived outsiders. Mexican Ameri- cans, like African Americans, became targets of this intensified animosity and encountered widespread discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations. Southern California’s cities, which received the bulk of the rural Mexican American migrants, were the worst offenders. Newcomers,

294 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

forced into existing barrios, placed strain on already overcrowded and substan- dard housing and recreation facilities. Their children, even if they lived closer to a white school, were segregated into crowded, poorly equipped “Mexican” schools. Downtown businesses posted “White Trade Only” signs, or in the case of movie theaters, forced Latino patrons into segregated sections. Even public swimming pools operated on a segregated basis, setting aside one or two days a week for nonwhite users.

Two incidents, in particular, illustrate wartime racial prejudice against Mexican Americans: the Sleepy Lagoon case of 1942, and the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots. In August 1942, the Los Angeles police arrested 22 members of a Mexican American youth “gang” called the 38th Street Club for murder. The victim, Jose Diaz, had attended a party near an abandoned, water-filled quarry called Sleepy Lagoon—a swimming hole used by Latino youth who were excluded from public pools. Some club members crashed the party, and fight- ing broke out. The police reported that Diaz was killed during this altercation, but his body, found the following morning on a dirt road near the house, showed no signs of injury. A hit-and-run driver could have killed him. Despite the lack of evidence and witnesses, an all-white jury convicted 17 of the defen- dants on charges ranging from assault to first-degree murder.

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This is a scene of Mexican American zoot suiters who were arrested after young sailors stationed at Los Angeles area bases engaged in unprovoked attacks against them. What does this image reveal about wartime race relations and the justice system?

Police Captain Ed Duran Ayers, whose “expert” opinion was widely cir- culated by the press, maintained that Mexican Americans had an inborn dis- regard for human life, and an innate desire to use knives and let blood. According to Ayers, they could not change their inborn lust for violence, and would regard lenience as a sign of weakness. Thus, he recommended that all gang members, not just those who belonged to the 38th Street Club, be imprisoned, and that all Latino youth either find jobs or enlist in the mili- tary. The defendants did obtain some outside support, especially from the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, which was chaired by noted journalist Carey McWilliams. Its membership included progressive labor leaders, Mexi- can American activists, and film stars such as Rita Hayworth and Anthony Quinn. The committee helped the defendants secure a new trial. On October 4, 1944, the Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the convictions, ruling that the trial had been conducted in a biased fashion, the defendants’ constitutional rights had been violated, and no evidence linked club members to the murder.

Before the case was closed, distorted and inflammatory coverage of the trial fueled anti-Latino prejudice and violence across the state. Throughout the spring of 1943, from San Diego to Oakland, white servicemen invaded Mexican American neighborhoods in search of “hoodlums.” Young Latinos, who had adopted a distinctive style of dress called the zoot suit as an expression of cul- tural pride, were frequent targets. And the police, rather than restraining the marauding servicemen, arrested the victims for disturbing the peace. The “riots” reached a climax in early June, when sailors went on a seven-night ram- page through the streets of Los Angeles in search of zoot suiters. Police refused to arrest the perpetrators, who by this time were attacking African Americans and Filipinos as well as Latinos. The press also encouraged the assaults, char- acterizing the sailors as solid citizens who acted in self-defense or took much- needed initiative against social undesirables.

The riots ended when military authorities, not the police, declared down- town Los Angeles off limits to servicemen. When federal officials, including Eleanor Roosevelt, expressed concern that the violence had been racially moti- vated, the Los Angeles Times came to the city’s defense, claiming that Angele- nos were proud of their colorful Mexican heritage and that “we like the Mexicans and think they like us.” An investigative committee, formed by Governor Earl Warren, however, called for punishment of the perpetrators, a better-educated and better-trained police force, and greater restraint on the part of the press. But these recommendations were virtually ignored, and police harassment, in particular, remained a serious problem within Mexican American communities.

Latinos, like African Americans, fought back, using the pro-democracy rhetoric of the war to attack racial discrimination on the home front. A larger, more stable urban population base enlarged the membership of established organizations like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC),

296 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

and led to the formation of new civil rights groups like the Unity Leagues, founded by returning veterans. These organizations registered voters, ran Mexican American candidates for political office, and spearheaded legal cam- paigns against school segregation, housing and employment discrimination, and police brutality.

In 1946, for example, LULAC supported a class action suit against several Orange County school districts, charging that their policy of segregating Mexican students violated the Fourteenth Amendment. One year later, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in their favor, setting a precedent for the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that ordered schools across the nation to implement integration plans. At the same time, Unity Leagues in Chino and Ontario were registering voters and running Latino candidates for office. In Chino, Andres Morales won election to the city council, and the Ontario candidate lost by only a small margin. El Espectador, the region’s Mexican American newspaper, proudly announced: “For the first time in the history of these communities, candidates of Mexican descent are competing for public office.” These small campaigns would later inspire more serious electoral challenges like Edward Roybal’s successful 1949 bid for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council.

These organizations and an expanding Mexican American press and radio network also served to transmit and preserve distinct cultural traditions. Latin music, novellas, films, sports, and social clubs created a strong sense of ethnic identity among barrio residents, and added to the growing complexity and richness of California culture. Like African American and white migrants, whose music, foods, humor, and other cultural belongings seeped into the broader social landscape during the war, Mexican Americans exerted a growing cultural influence on their non-Hispanic neighbors. Increasingly, assimilation was not a one-way process.

World War II was also a watershed for California’s Chinese American population. Viewed as allies, rather than enemy aliens, women and men moved from low-wage, menial jobs into industrial, clerical, professional, and civil service occupations. Both aircraft plants and shipyards welcomed Chinese Americans. By 1943, for example, they held 15 percent of all shipyard jobs in the Bay Area. The Mariner, a Bay Area shipyard publication, foreshadowed the emergence of the model minority stereotype by extolling the virtues of Chinese American defense workers: “We have learned that these Chinese Americans are among the finest workmen. They are skillful, reliable—and inspired with a double allegiance. They know that every blow they strike in building these ships is a blow of freedom for the land of their fathers as well as for the land of their homes.”

Chinese Americans, like Latinos, viewed military service as a way to estab- lish their patriotism and loyalty, and they enlisted in large numbers. They were also more likely to be drafted than any other ethnic group. Exclusion acts had created a predominantly male population with few dependents, and thus with

Population Growth and Diversity 297

one less exemption from military service. Those on the home front supported the troops by participating in War Bond, Red Cross, and Chinese War Relief drives. Organizations like San Francisco’s benevolent societies raised thousands of dollars for the war effort, while women’s groups rolled bandages, hosted fundraising cultural events, and staffed servicemen’s clubs.

Their dedicated war service gave Chinese Americans the moral ammuni- tion to lobby against discriminatory exclusion laws. Congress responded in 1943 by repealing exclusion acts and establishing a new annual quota for Chinese immigrants. The law also allowed resident aliens and newcomers to apply for citizenship, a right long denied under the Naturalization Law of 1790. After the war, new legislation, including the War Brides Act, allowed Chinese wives to join their husbands without being counted under the annual quota. Slowly, the male to female ratio balanced out, and California’s Chinese American communities became more family centered.

The state’s disproportionately male Filipino population also reaped benefits from the war. Prior to 1934, Filipinos were classified as “American nationals” and allowed unrestricted entry into the United States. Most who came settled in California and took jobs in agriculture or domestic service, hoping to work a few years and return home with their savings. The majority were young and male. In 1930, the male to female ratio in California was 14 to one. The Depression intensified economic competition between white and Filipino work- ers and fueled anti-immigrant prejudice and violence. Congress responded in 1934 by reclassifying all resident Filipinos as “aliens” and restricting immigra- tion to 50 persons annually. The same year, the Supreme Court ruled that Filipinos, as non-whites, were ineligible for citizenship.

Men who returned to the Philippines to visit family or marry then fell under the new quota on attempting reentry, and essentially forfeited their live- lihoods. Those who remained in the United States had neither the rights of citizens nor the support of family. California law prohibited racial intermar- riage, and the new immigration restrictions prevented wives and children from joining their husbands. Working in California’s fields or as “houseboys” in private homes, most Filipinos had little chance of escaping poverty. Labeled as “Malays,” “monkeys,” and “goo-goos,” they also faced discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations.

World War II created an abrupt change in status. In 1942, when Roosevelt amended the draft law to include Filipinos, 40 percent of the state’s Filipino population volunteered for military service. As members of the armed forces, they became eligible for citizenship. Moreover, their distinguished war record in the Pacific prompted Congress to extend citizenship to all Filipinos in the United States, and to liberalize immigration laws. Additionally, the War Brides Act allowed Filipino veterans to bring their wives to the United States, includ- ing many who had endured 10 or more years of separation. The war also gen- erated new economic opportunities, allowing Filipinos to move out of agricultural and domestic service occupations into industrial, clerical, and

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technical jobs. For many, these gains would be temporary, but overall the war created an upward trend in occupational mobility.

During the war, hundreds of American Indians migrated to California for defense jobs. Others, enlisting in the armed forces, were trained or stationed in the state, including a specialized group of Camp Pendleton marines that developed a secret military code based on Navajo. After the war, many of these newcomers opted for permanent residency. At the same time, large numbers of California Indians left reservations and rural communities for military and civilian jobs. As a result, the state’s Indian population not only increased, it became more urban and culturally diverse. The Sherman Institute, a federal boarding school in Riverside, helped advance this trend. Recruiting students from reservations across the state and nation, and coordinating its industrial training program with the needs of regional defense contractors, Sherman channeled a steady stream of young, well-trained workers into the military and civilian labor force. Coming from rural areas and possessing multiple tribal affiliations, Indians—like African American migrants—came together to forge new identities, communities, and mutual aid associations. During the postwar period, as the federal government adopted a policy of termination and relo- cation, thousands of additional newcomers would join them in claiming California’s urban centers as Indian Country.

Shifting Gender Relations

Wartime labor shortages allowed single, poor, and working-class women to exchange gender-specific service and clerical jobs for higher-paying, tradition- ally male occupations. Middle-class wives and mothers, previously discouraged from working outside the home, took over production jobs formerly reserved for their husbands. Newspapers, films, magazines, radio, posters, and billboards all glamorized “The Woman Behind the Man Behind the Gun” and “The Janes Who Make the Planes.” The Department of Labor and War Production Board proclaimed that women could easily master industrial and technical skills— skills once characterized as too complex and physically demanding for all but the most highly trained male workers.

Women readily responded to the call, filling roughly 25 percent of all ship- yard and 40 percent of all aircraft production jobs. Thousands of others worked in the iron and steel industry, machine shops, food-processing plants, munitions factories, warehouses, and military supply depots. Many of these jobs required specialized training, provided either on-site or at public vocational schools. Women often took advantage of these courses beyond entry-level training in order to move into more highly skilled, better-paying positions, or to enhance their postwar employment prospects.

Despite their competence, women met with a mixed reception in the work- place. Employers reserved supervisory and better-paying jobs for men, or

Population Growth and Diversity 299

reclassified positions and pay scales according to the worker’s gender. Male workers often viewed women as unwelcome competitors, or subjected them to sexual harassment. More conservative unions, like the Boilermakers, blamed women for the erosion of skilled trades—a process that actually grew out of Kaiser’s pioneering application of mass production and prefabrication techni- ques to shipbuilding and other large-scale production projects. Other unions, particularly those affiliated with the CIO, were less overtly hostile. They argued, often successfully, that women should earn men’s wages for doing men’s jobs, fearing that employers would resist returning to higher pay scales when male workers reclaimed their jobs at the end of the war. Thus, their primary concern was to protect men’s jobs, rather than the female workers. Black women, bur- dened with both gender and racial discrimination, fared even worse. Sadly, the hostility of white female coworkers helped ensure that they would be the last hired and the first fired.

Women’s increased labor force participation did little to alter traditional gender roles. As “temporary” workers, filling in during a national emergency, women were expected to retain their femininity and primary commitment to home and family. More than half of California’s working women were married, forcing many to juggle both workplace demands and domestic responsibilities. This “double burden,” largely ignored by employers, was aggravated by war- time food and housing shortages. Migrant women, who had to cook, clean, and do laundry in crowded, poorly equipped surroundings, found domestic duties particularly time consuming.

Shown here is a female defense worker. Why were women allowed to join the industrial labor force during World War II? If you entered the same workplace five years later, would you expect to see similar images? If not, where would you find women workers?

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Child care was a major concern. Some employers and public agencies, alarmed over high rates of female absenteeism and the growing number of latchkey children, stepped in to help; however, demand exceeded supply, and most women were forced to turn to friends and relatives for support. In Los Angeles, for example, the board of education had established 21 day care cen- ters, serving 2,000 children by 1943. By this point, more than 101,000 women worked in aircraft plants alone, and the existing facilities served only a fraction of their 19,000 children.

As the war ended, women were barraged with propaganda that urged them to voluntarily leave their jobs and return to the home; however, surveys conducted near the end of the war revealed that 80 percent of employed women wished to keep working, most out of economic necessity. Their preferences and needs were largely ignored. As early as 1944, defense industries began to lay off women. Those who needed to work returned to low-wage factory, service, retail, and clerical jobs that offered few opportu- nities for economic or professional advancement. Other women, willingly or reluctantly, returned to the domestic sphere and helped launch the postwar baby boom.

World War II had a less ambiguous impact on California’s gay and lesbian population. Thousands of young men and women from small towns and cities across the United States came to California’s defense centers for jobs and mili- tary duty. In sex-segregated rooming houses and military barracks, those who were gay readily discovered others like themselves. Men and women who were less certain of their sexual orientation found the freedom to explore same-sex relationships.

Prewar gay communities, relatively small and unstable, benefited from the wartime influx of newcomers. In San Francisco and Los Angeles, gay-owned businesses catered to an expanding clientele. In smaller cities, like San José, gay bars and nightclubs opened for the first time. Gradually, after years of iso- lation and invisibility, gays and lesbians began to forge a cohesive urban sub- culture, one that assumed a greater degree of permanence and stability as hundreds of newcomers decided to stay following the end of the war. Having experienced new sexual freedom and a sense of community, many simply could not go back to their small, insular hometowns.

This emerging subculture soon generated organizations dedicated to com- bating discrimination against lesbians and gays. The Mattachine Society and One Inc. were established in Los Angeles in 1951 and 1953, respectively, and patterned themselves after civil rights organizations like the NAACP. In 1955, two San Francisco lesbians formed the Daughters of Bilitis after hearing about the Mattachine Society’s activities. This organization, soon generating new chapters across the country, pledged to improve the public image and self- image of lesbians. Together, these and other gay and lesbian organizations would create the foundation for the much larger, more militant, gay liberation movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Population Growth and Diversity 301

Daily Life and Culture

Wartime Challenges

World War II changed the patterns and rhythms of daily life in unpredictable, unsettling ways. Living in a major staging area for the war in the Pacific, Califor- nians witnessed firsthand the departure of thousands of young men and women. Moreover, the state served as a rest and relaxation (R&R) center for soldiers on leave or recuperating from injuries. Residents thus had intimate knowledge of the war’s brutal toll. Closer to home, numerous Californians sent their own sons and daughters off to war, earning the honor of placing blue stars in their windows. As the war took lives, gold stars, signifying the loss of family members, replaced the blue. Not surprisingly, most families, including children, intently followed radio and newspaper reports on the war’s progress, setbacks, and casualties.

The war also demanded greater caution and material sacrifice. Fear of enemy attack, fueled by Japanese submarine operations along the Pacific coast, prompted military and civil defense planners to institute nightly blackouts. These, however, interfered with round-the-clock defense production and led to a marked increase in traffic accidents when conscientious drivers turned off their headlights. Dim-outs replaced blackouts, except when all-too-frequent air- raid alerts (announced by sirens) demanded total darkness. Police and civil defense patrols enforced these security measures, which were not wholly unwar- ranted. On December 22, 1941, a Japanese submarine torpedoed an American oil tanker off the central coast. And on February 23, 1942, another submarine attacked a coastal oil storage facility north of Santa Barbara, in Ellwood. These attacks, accompanied by numerous false alarms, heightened public wariness and prompted thousands of residents to enlist as civilian defense volunteers.

Californians registered their cooperation with the war effort in numerous other ways. They purchased war bonds, participated in scrap metal drives, and complied with federal rationing orders. Gasoline, meat, sugar, and butter were strictly rationed in order to provide more fuel and food for troops. Some com- modities, like silk stockings and metal toys, disappeared altogether from store shelves. Silk was needed for parachutes, and metal for the manufacture of mili- tary hardware. To relieve food shortages and ensure that troops were the pri- mary beneficiaries of California’s agricultural bounty, many residents grew “victory gardens,” transforming backyards, empty lots, and schoolyards into vegetable plots. Residents also adapted to fuel shortages by using public trans- portation and cutting back on recreational travel.

Entertainment

The wartime emergency also had a brighter side. The influx of service person- nel and defense workers led to an explosive demand for entertainment.

302 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

Nightclubs, dance halls, servicemen’s clubs, and movie houses geared up to meet the need, providing round-the-clock entertainment to temporary and per- manent residents alike. The young, in particular, enjoyed the new diversions and lax supervision associated with rapid expansion. Unfortunately, prostitu- tion, gambling, and trade in black market goods also increased, alarming public health and law enforcement officers, but contributing to the overall excitement of the boomtown atmosphere.

Music, aired on the radio and performed live in clubs and auditoriums, was one of the more popular wartime diversions. Big-name musicians like Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, the Andrews Sisters, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby thrilled California audiences with repertoires that reflected the public’s patriotic and nostalgic mood. At the same time, the state’s increasingly diverse population broadened and enriched the musical landscape. Black jazz, blues, and bebop artists, arriving as part of the larger wartime migration, packed clubs along Central Avenue in Los Angeles, in West Oakland, and in North Richmond. Blues artists even created a distinct West Coast style, and an even more distinct Oakland blues sound.

White Dust Bowl migrants, who had come a decade earlier, created a thriv- ing subculture with a taste for country or “hillbilly” music. By World War II, their music reached a broader audience through “victory barn dances,” radio shows, and concerts. Cowboy film stars like Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, and Gene Autry helped enhance the general public’s enthusiasm for all things western. Finally, the growing Mexican American population, particularly in Los Angeles, helped expand the market for Latin music. Playing at smaller clubs as well as larger venues like the Orpheum Theater and Shrine Auditorium, performers introduced the tango, rumba, and Latin-infused swing to Californians. Young Mexican Americans, especially those belonging to the zoot suit subculture, cre- ated a unique fusion of jazz, rumba, and swing that later influenced more con- temporary artists such as Carlos Santana.

Even before World War II, motion pictures were an established and highly popular diversion. The war, however, made the movies more attractive than ever. They were cheap, close to home, and offered instant escape from wartime cares. The plush seats and semiprivate darkness of theaters also provided weary service personnel and defense workers with a convenient place to nap, and young lovers with an opportunity to escape adult supervision and scrutiny. But Hollywood did more than provide a refuge or diversion; it actively supported the war effort.

Early in the war, the federal government enlisted industry support to pro- duce training and propaganda films, and to make movies that bolstered public unity and patriotism. Content guidelines, issued by the Office of Wartime Information (OWI), encouraged screenwriters to portray America as a harmo- nious, multiethnic democracy working to overcome the forces of evil and to preserve a unique way of life. Nowhere was this theme more apparent than in war movies where men of different class and ethnic backgrounds pulled together to defeat the German or Japanese enemy. Bataan, for example,

Daily Life and Culture 303

produced by MGM in 1943, featured a rainbow battalion of Jewish, Anglo, Mexi- can, Polish, Irish, Italian, and African American characters who set aside personal differences for a common cause. Although it ignored the real segregation and dis- crimination in the military and on the home front, this and similar films helped to promote a more democratic vision of American society and to erode some of the more offensive ethnic stereotypes that permeated popular culture.

Women, as depicted in wartime films, did not fare as well. Hollywood, fol- lowing OWI directives, made propaganda and major-release films that encour- aged women to take war jobs and courageously accept separation from loved ones. Geared toward middle-class homemakers, rather than the thousands of other women who needed little prodding to enter higher-paying defense work, these films stressed the temporary nature of wartime employment and the femininity of their characters. For example, Tender Comrade, released by RKO in 1943, depicted four women who took defense jobs while their hus- bands were away in the service. Rather than focusing on their wartime contri- butions, the film emphasized the pain of separation, fear for their husbands’ lives, and their longing to return to domestic roles. In other films, stars like Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth played sexy, but homespun, girls who gave up glamorous careers or marriage opportunities for average, honest men. Their “cheesecake” photos decorated military barracks, planes, and tanks, and served as a symbol of what awaited servicemen upon their return.

Political Transformation

The war’s population boom placed severe strains on California’s urban infra- structure and heightened competition for existing resources. Race relations dete- riorated as many white residents, attempting to retain control over housing, jobs, and public services, directed their hostility toward ethnic minorities. At the same time, a growing number of Californians—both established residents and newcomers—felt that racial discrimination was incompatible with the pro- democracy thrust of the war. Ethnic groups, they maintained, deserved all of the rights and privileges of citizenship, particularly in light of their wartime service. Moreover, political leaders and governmental institutions had an obligation to ensure that all residents benefited from the war’s economic boom and democratic promise. If the state’s infrastructure and civic fabric were unraveling, it was the fault of shortsighted, ineffective leadership, not California’s newest residents.

Change from the Grassroots

A more liberal political vision took root in the early years of the war with the formation of multiethnic coalitions like the Bay Area Council Against Discrim- ination, and the Los Angeles–based Council for the Protection of Minority

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Rights. These coalitions of minority activists, white liberals, and CIO union leadership focused primarily on discrimination in the defense industry and housing. Other coalitions soon followed. Throughout the state, CIO unions, whose membership now included large numbers of African American and Mexican American activists, joined with white liberals to register voters and back pro-labor, liberal candidates for office. In the San Francisco East Bay, for example, the CIO Political Action Committee (PAC) and Democratic Club joined forces to register thousands of new voters, including black migrants. On Election Day in 1944, the East Bay electorate weighed in for Roosevelt and the liberal congressional candidate, George Miller, and helped defeat a right-to-work ballot measure. The PAC then went on to select its own slate of candidates—pro-labor supporters of fair housing and employment legislation— for the municipal elections of 1945. Though its candidates were unsuccessful in 1945, the PAC created a growing interracial alliance that enjoyed greater elec- toral success in the postwar period.

The efforts of these CIO-led voters leagues were complemented by the activ- ities of civic unity councils, which were multiethnic organizations devoted to end- ing discrimination through increased public education and political pressure. For example, in 1944, Mexican Americans, white liberals, and African Americans established the Los Angeles Council for Civic Unity, which attracted membership from a number of labor unions, the NAACP, LULAC, the Church Federation of Los Angeles, and the Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress. The Los Angeles Council, like the San Francisco Civic Unity Council established the same year in the San Francisco Bay area, promoted racial tolerance, equality, and cooperation through public forums, children’s summer camps, and social events.

These and other liberal coalitions won small, local victories during the war but, more importantly, their efforts helped create the foundation for the civil rights and liberal political advances of the postwar years. Working in concert with various ethnic organizations, larger, more influential coalitions—growing out of this earlier institutional framework—would eventually mobilize large numbers of minority voters, and secure fair employment and housing legisla- tion and the election of African American and Mexican American candidates to local and state office.

Change at the Top

In 1942, state attorney general Earl Warren succeeded Culbert Olson as gover- nor of California. Although a lifelong Republican, Warren secured broad- based, bipartisan support by downplaying his party affiliation and crafting a progressive, even liberal, political image. His pragmatic, nonideological leader- ship style, mastery of media-based campaign strategy, and exploitation of California’s cross-filing system easily won him reelection in 1946 and 1950. Following in the progressive political tradition, Warren believed that govern- ment had an obligation to ensure the public good by directing the forces of

Political Transformation 305

social and economic change. Entering office during a period of unprecedented growth and upheaval, he had ample opportunity to devise policies that would help the state meet its new challenges.

Warren’s first project was to use the tax revenue generated by the booming economy to create a “rainy day fund” in anticipation of defense industry demo- bilization and mass unemployment at the end of the war. The fund, easing the transition to a peacetime economy, put Californians to work rebuilding existing infrastructure and constructing new schools, hospitals, and other state-run facilities. His massive highway construction program, initiated in 1947, and financed by a gasoline tax that was bitterly opposed by the oil and trucking lobbies, also eased postwar unemployment and created the foundation for future economic and suburban expansion.

Warren’s efforts to upgrade the state’s infrastructure extended beyond highway and school construction to the development of water resources. He believed that the new Central Valley Project would not be sufficient to meet future demand. Instead, a comprehensive state-funded system was needed to move water from northern California to the more arid agricultural and urban areas in the south. Although Warren did obtain legislative approval to develop the plan, its implementation was blocked until 1959. For more than a decade, northern Californians, conservationists, and organized labor persuasively argued that a state-funded plan would primarily benefit large corporate farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. Indeed, the state, unlike the federal government, imposed no eligibility restrictions on access to subsidized water. If the project were federally funded, farmers cultivating more than 160 acres of land would lose their subsidy and pay higher rates for irrigating their excess acreage. No such limits applied to state-funded projects, and growers would benefit at the taxpayer’s expense.

Concerned for the health and welfare of the state’s growing population, Warren upgraded the Public Health Service, financed the construction of new mental health facilities, and increased welfare benefits, unemployment insur- ance, old age pensions, Aid to the Blind, and compensation for disabled work- ers. In 1945, Warren also proposed a comprehensive health coverage system for all California residents, to be financed by employee and employer contribu- tions. Inspired by an uncle’s preventable medical tragedy, Warren’s proposal was defeated by the California Medical Association, which characterized the plan as socialized medicine. The powerful agricultural lobby similarly defeated Warren’s proposal to include farm workers under the state’s unemployment and worker compensation systems. These confrontations with corporate and special-interest groups prompted Warren’s vigorous backing of lobby control legislation in 1949 and 1950.

Warren’s relationship with organized labor and the state’s ethnic groups was more ambiguous. Although he increased worker benefits and opposed anti-picketing and right-to-work laws, Warren sided with his fellow Republi- cans in opposing a CIO-backed initiative to redraw state senate districts so

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that ethnic and working-class voters would be more fairly represented. As state attorney general and candidate for governor, Warren had helped fuel anti- Japanese hysteria and officially sanctioned relocation and internment. Only at the end of his life did he express regret for his actions. As governor, however, Warren defended the right of internees to return to California and took strong action against perpetrators of anti-Japanese hate crimes.

Throughout his administration, he also lobbied unsuccessfully for state fair employment legislation and the creation of a state Fair Employment Practice Commission. Such legislation would finally pass into law in 1959, during Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown’s first term in office. On another race-related issue, Warren was less of an advocate. Despite constant pressure from civil rights groups beginning at the end of World War II, Warren refused to integrate the California National Guard until 1949.

Warren, at times inconsistent and always enigmatic, was a transitional political figure. Despite being a lifelong Republican, he often faced challenges with a decidedly liberal outlook—one that was shaped by the expansive opti- mism and pro-democracy sentiment that grew out of World War II. At many crucial junctures, he failed to take moral or courageous action. At others, he led with remarkable insight and compassion. Over time, however, he would distin- guish himself as a leading figure in the civil rights movement and a champion of the poor and disfranchised. In 1953, Warren left office to serve as chief jus- tice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he wrote the majority opinion for the Brown desegregation case of 1954. This, and other decisions made by the “Warren Court,” cemented his reputation as one of the most “liberal” justices in American history.

Summary

World War II, like the Gold Rush, was a major turning point in California history. The wartime defense boom lifted the state out of the Depression and led to the growth of new industries that would ensure prosperity for years to come. The war also fueled anti-Japanese hostility, resulting in the relocation and internment of California’s Japanese American population. Thousands of newcomers flocked to the state, increasing the size, diversity, and cultural richness of its population. At the same time, declining infrastruc- ture and increased competition for resources fueled racial tensions and inten- sified discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations. Ethnic groups and white liberals, pointing to the contradiction between fight- ing a war for democracy and racial discrimination on the home front, fought back, creating the institutional framework for postwar civil rights struggles and electoral contestations. Through it all, California’s enigmatic governor, Earl Warren, greatly expanded the state’s role in directing the forces of social

Summary 307

and economic change. Out of this momentous wartime transformation came competing visions of the California “dream” and renewed efforts to extend its promise to all of the state’s citizens.

Suggested Readings

❚ Allen, Robert L., The Port Chicago Mutiny: The Story of the Largest Mass Mutiny Trial in U.S. Naval History (New York: Warner Books, 1989). This book provides a detailed history of the Port Chicago mutiny in the context of race relations in the military and society at large.

❚ Daniels, Roger, Concentration Camps U.S.A: Japanese Americans and World War II (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1972) and From Relocation to Redress (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986). These two books provide a comprehensive overview of Japanese relocation and internment, the redress movement, and the personal experiences of internees.

❚ Irons, Peter, Justice Delayed: The Record of the Japanese American Intern- ment Cases (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989). This book provides an overview of the legal challenges to relocation and internment.

❚ Johnson, Marilyn, The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). This book is a regional study, focusing on the political, economic, cultural, and demo- graphic impact of the war on the San Francisco East Bay area.

❚ Lemke-Santangelo, Gretchen, Abiding Courage: African American Migrant Women in the East Bay Community (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). This book, based on oral histories, examines African American migration from the South to the San Francisco East Bay area during World War II.

❚ Lotchin, Roger, ed., The Way We Really Were: The Golden State in the Second Great War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000). This collec- tion of essays details the war’s impact on California race relations, politics, industry (including Hollywood), and culture.

❚ Nash, Gerald D., The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985) and World War II and the West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990). These two books provide a good overview of the war’s impact on California and the greater American West.

❚ Rosenthal, Nicolas, Re-Imagining Indian Country: American Indians and Cities in Modern America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012). This book is one of the first to detail the experience of urban

308 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

Indians in 20th-century America, and includes significant coverage of California.

❚ Tateishi, John, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984). This book, based on oral accounts of the internment experience, details the daily lives of camp residents.

❚ Verge, Arthur C., Paradise Transformed: Los Angeles During the Second World War (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1993). This book, another regional study, focuses on the war’s impact on Los Angeles.

❚ White, Edward G., Earl Warren: A Public Life (New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1982). This insightful biography of Earl Warren covers his years as California’s governor during and after World War II.

Suggested Readings 309

CH AP

TE R 10

Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontent in the Golden State: 1946–1963 Main Topics

❚ Unbridled Growth

❚ Postwar Politics

❚ Social and Cultural Dissent

❚ Summary

Catherine “Kay” Spaulding was born in Los Angeles in 1911. Bright, independent, and longing to advance California’s muckraking literary tradition, she majored

in journalism at Stanford University. While attending a youth peace conference in 1934, she met and fell in love with Clark Kerr. After marrying him on Christmas Day of the same year, Kay channeled her formidable energy and talent into raising a family and advancing her husband’s career. Clark, with Kay’s support and advice, went on to draft California’s Master Plan for Higher Education, serve as U.C. Berkeley’s chancellor from 1952 until 1958, and fill the office of U.C. president from 1958 until 1967.

Residing in a Berkeley home that overlooked the San Francisco bay, Kay was disturbed at the diminishing expanse of water. The bay, already one third smaller that it was 100 years earlier, was being filled at an alarming pace by develo- pers and landfill operators. Just as troubling, most Bay Area residents were seemingly unaware that their vast, sparkling

310

jewel was disappearing. By 1960, the public had access to only four miles of shoreline.

In 1961, one year before Rachel Carson published Silent Spring and nine years before the first Earth Day celebration, Kay and two other “university wives” founded Save the San Francisco Bay Association. Coming up against powerful cor- porate and political opponents, the three women successfully lobbied for the 1965 McAteer Petris Act, which placed a mor- atorium on filling the bay and created the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the first state agency in the nation devoted to coastal protection. The group also advo- cated for public access, helping to establish the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge, and a network of shoreline parks and trails.

CHAPTER 10 Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontent

in the Golden State: 1946–1963

1947 Hollywood anti-Communist investigations begin

1949 University of California Regents mandate loyalty oath for faculty

1950 State legislature adopts loyalty oath for state employees

1951 Stanford Research Park, foundation of Silicon Valley, established

1952 Lawrence Livermore Lab established

1953 Goodwin F. Knight takes office as governor after Earl Warren is appointed chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

1955 Merger of the AFL and CIO

1956 Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is published

1957 Students at U.C. Berkeley form SLATE

1958 Edmund G. Brown elected governor

1959 State legislature approves the Fair Employment and Unruh Civil Rights Acts

1960

Anti-HUAC protests in San Francisco Legislature approves Master Plan for Higher Education and California Water Plan Federal Clean Water Act passed

1961 Association of Bay Area Governments formed Save San Francisco Bay Association founded

1962 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring published California becomes most populous state in the nation

1963 Federal Clean Air Act passed State legislature adopts the Rumford Fair Housing Act

1964 State Commission on the Status of Women established

311

Catherine Kerr’s story illustrates the spirit of optimism that prevailed during the postwar period. Coming out of the Depression and war, many Californians viewed government in positive terms, calling on their elected officials to balance private interests and the public good. Moreover, the state’s economy was booming, bolstered by Cold War military spend- ing, the growth of new industries, an expanding population, and government investment in transportation, housing, edu- cation, and resource development. Established residents and newcomers, enjoying an unprecedented level of prosperity, were more willing than ever to support environmental pro- tection, social welfare spending, and fair housing and employment legislation—measures designed to preserve and extend the California dream. By the early 1960s, however, California was still a long way from solving its most pressing problems. Environmental degradation outpaced conservation efforts. Housing and employment discrimination continued to reinforce existing social and economic inequalities, leading to growing frustration and anger within inner-city minority communities. Even middle-class suburbs harbored discontent. Many women and youth, anxious to escape the stifling conformity and isolation of these homogeneous enclaves, launched a quiet protest that soon erupted into more overt forms of rebellion.

Questions to Consider

❚ How did federal and state government policies contrib- ute to postwar economic expansion and suburban growth?

❚ How would you define liberalism? Which liberal policies or reforms had the most significant impact on Califor- nians during the postwar period?

❚ How did California’s Red Scare affect the state’s political, social, and cultural landscapes?

❚ Did all Californians benefit from postwar economic expansion and the suburban boom? Why or why not?

Unbridled Growth

After a brief lull immediately following the war, the state entered one of the longest periods of economic expansion in American history. The war increased industrial capacity, stimulated the growth of new industries, and devastated the

312 CHAPTER 10 Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontent in the Golden State: 1946–1963

economies of our European and Asian competitors. More significantly, the federal government increased defense spending, funneling billions of dollars to private industry in order to wage the Cold War. Federal and state invest- ment in education, transportation, housing, and the development of water resources also helped sustain high levels of economic and population growth; however, growth came with a cost. Industrial expansion and suburbanization took a frightening toll on the state’s natural resource base, leading to a gradual awakening of environmental consciousness and tentative efforts to regulate the pace and impact of development.

Industrial Growth and Organized Labor

In northern California, shipbuilding declined only to be replaced with a booming electronics industry. In 1951, Stanford University created a high- technology research park by leasing unused land to private entrepreneurs. Originally intended to generate revenue for the college, the park eventually became a means of translating campus-based research into product develop- ment, and attracting star-quality faculty to the university. By 1955, seven companies, including Hewlett Packard and Varian Associates, had signed leases. By 1960, the park had attracted 25 more companies and was drawing numerous other high-tech firms, including Fairchild Semiconductor, to the surrounding region. “Silicon Valley,” named after the silicon chips that soon revolutionized the electronics industry, was taking shape (see Map 9.1 on p. 281). Across the bay, Berkeley’s nuclear research was also creating spinoffs. Lawrence Livermore Lab, established in 1952, employed thousands of workers in weapons-related research, while helping, along with the electronics industry, to attract mammoth defense contractors to the Bay Area, including Lockheed, IBM, Westinghouse, and General Electric.

Southern California’s industrial growth was no less impressive. Its aircraft manufacturers, diversifying into the production of jet engines, radar, super- sonic aircraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles, dominated the nation’s aerospace industry and employed the majority of the manufacturing work force in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties by the 1950s. These firms also enjoyed a close partnership with regional research institutions. UCLA, the Jet Propulsion Lab at the California Institute of Technology, and the Rand Corpo- ration received government funding for research and development and trans- ferred their products to the private aerospace industry.

The expansion of the aerospace and electronics industries was largely a product of the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union. To win this competition, the government transferred billions of dollars to universities and private industry, creating a vast, interlocking university-military-industrial complex. By 1960, California was receiving more than 25 percent of the nation’s total defense expenditures and 42 percent of the Defense Department’s research contracts.

Unbridled Growth 313

Other sectors of the state’s economy also prospered during the postwar years. Municipal, county, state, and federal government, adjusting to popula- tion growth and new demands on infrastructure and public services, generated new bureaucracies and hired scores of additional workers. Minorities, in partic- ular, benefited from the expansion of the public sector. Government, which adopted nondiscriminatory hiring policies more readily than private industry, helped create a growing black and Mexican American middle class. In Oakland, for example, 30 percent of the city’s black civilian labor force worked for various branches of government by the early 1960s.

California’s apparel, footwear, scientific instruments, frozen foods, cos- metic, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, benefiting from increased national demand, reached beyond local markets to broaden their consumer base. On a local level, real estate, retail, and financial institutions expanded their services to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly prosperous pop- ulation. The construction industry, however, received an even more significant boost. Thousands of new residents, many starting families for the first time, demanded housing. The GI Bill, passed by Congress in 1944 to provide benefits for veterans, included the provision of low-interest home loans to veterans. This made home ownership an affordable option for many first-time buyers. Developers met demand by applying mass production and prefabrication tech- niques to homebuilding and by locating new housing “tracts” on cheaper land surrounding the urban core. Across the state, postwar suburban housing tracts, consisting of row upon row of nearly identical dwellings, replaced orchards, truck farms, and open fields.

In contrast, Southern California’s film industry faced serious challenges in the postwar period, but it emerged as a stronger, more influential cultural insti- tution. Until 1948, major studios not only produced films, but also monopo- lized box office profits by screening their movies at their own theater chains. As a result of federal antitrust lawsuits initiated by smaller, independent thea- ters, the studios had to sell their chains. This seriously eroded profits at a time when production costs and stars’ salaries were rising. Simultaneously, studios faced increasing competition both from foreign and independent filmmakers and from the emerging New York–based television industry. Hollywood adapted by producing more films on location, rather than relying on the costly and elaborate studio sets and lots of the past. It also diversified into recording and television production, reestablishing its dominance in the entertainment industry by the early 1960s.

California’s labor unions, enjoying unprecedented power during the post- war years, helped ensure that the benefits of a booming economy were widely distributed. Having taken a “no-strike” pledge during the war, unions— particularly those affiliated with the CIO—focused on expanding their mem- bership, forming political action committees, and creating coalitions with liberal and progressive community organizations. When the war ended, they had not only the numeric strength to obtain wage and benefit concessions

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from management, but the political clout to influence local and state elections. The anti-Communist crusade, leading to the expulsion of left-wing union lead- ership, and the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which limited the effectiveness of strikes and protected open shops, somewhat muted their new power. But labor rebounded in 1955, when the AFL merged with its more progressive rival, the CIO. Together, the two represented more than 90 percent of the state’s union members. Largely as a result of the decade’s rabid anti-Communism, this new entity de-emphasized liberal social activism and rank-and-file participation. Nevertheless, its mostly blue-collar membership obtained substantial material benefits, swelling the state’s middle class to a historic high.

Large growers consolidated their dominant position in California agricul- ture during the postwar years, reaping enormous profits and political influ- ence in the process. Their increasing power partly derived from the “agricultural-industrial complex,” a partnership forged by farmers, public research institutions, and private manufacturers of chemicals and farm machinery. For example, the University of California at Davis, the state’s pre- mier agricultural institution, obtained private industry funding to develop new high-yield plant varieties, pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, and farm equipment tailored to the needs of large-scale producers. Industry then secured the patents and sold their product to large growers. As a conse- quence, small farmers, unable to afford the new technology or apply it on a reduced scale, fell behind their larger, more competitive counterparts.

Although this partnership predated the war, it grew stronger and more influential in the 1950s and 1960s. Wartime chemical research led to the crea- tion of a new generation of synthetic compounds that could be endlessly com- bined and modified for agricultural use, even tailored to specific crops, soils, insect pests, and climatic conditions. Plant genetics and farm equipment tech- nology also advanced rapidly during the postwar years.

Postwar agricultural growth, despite this new technology, continued to depend on cheap agricultural labor. Using their considerable political influence, large growers successfully lobbied for the continuation and expansion of the bracero program, ensuring a captive, subsidized labor supply throughout the 1950s. Several hundred thousand undocumented workers and foreigners with temporary work permits also helped keep wages low by maintaining a surplus labor supply. In addition to its labor subsidy, agribusiness received ample cheap water from both state and federally funded sources. The Central Valley Project (CVP), completed in the postwar years with federal funds and sup- ported by large growers like J. G. Boswell, diverted water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers to the drier San Joaquin Valley. In accordance with the Reclamation Act of 1902, growers with more than 160 acres of land were not entitled to subsidized water from federally funded projects. Agribusiness used its political influence to obtain significant concessions in the law: additional 160-acre allowances for each child, spouse, joint tenant, and corporate partner; reclassification of some CVP water as “natural flow,” which was exempt from

Unbridled Growth 315

Education

Postwar economic growth and Cold War anxieties precipitated changes in the state’s educational system. Private industry, government officials, and the scien- tific community all warned that California’s booming economy, increasingly centered on high technology, demanded a more educated, specialized work force. They also argued that the United States would compromise its ability to

the federal acreage limit; and suspension of the limitation if local irrigation dis- tricts, managed by grower-elected boards, repaid their share of CVP construc- tion costs in a timely fashion. Finally, farmers who leased, rather than owned, land avoided the limit altogether.

The legal costs involved in circumventing federal law prompted growers to back the new state-funded California Water Plan that promised to deliver sub- sidized, limit-free water from northern California to growers in the San Joaquin Valley and southern California. Blocked for several years, the plan was finally approved between 1959 and 1960, removing yet another obstacle to agricultural consolidation and corporatization.

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316 CHAPTER 10 Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontent in the Golden State: 1946–1963

Aerial view of the California Aqueduct. Consider the massive scale of the state’s water delivery system. Did the benefits to agriculture, industry, and growing urban and suburban areas outweigh its environmental costs?

wage the Cold War unless it provided the younger generation with adequate scientific and technical training.

At the same time, rapid population growth placed strains on existing educational facilities. Wartime migration, coupled with the postwar baby boom, filled elementary and secondary classrooms beyond capacity. The state’s colleges and universities, crowded with veterans who took advantage of the GI Bill’s generous education benefits, experienced similar strains. These strains continued as the first baby boomers, attending college at higher rates than any other generation in history, came of age in the 1960s.

With these concerns in mind and with ample support from taxpayers, education policymakers embarked on an ambitious program of school construction, curricular reform, and reformulation of teacher preparation requirements. In keeping with the new curricular emphasis on traditional dis- ciplines, particularly math and science, future elementary and secondary school teachers could no longer major in education. The 1961 Fisher Act instead required teachers to possess a four-year academic degree and a fifth year of professional education training.

Higher education, suffering from uneven academic standards and unneces- sary duplication of institutional missions and programs, also needed attention. In 1960, the legislature approved the Master Plan, which created a new three- tiered structure: university, state college, and junior college tiers. Under the plan, the University of California was given sole authority to award doctoral degrees and given exclusive jurisdiction over graduate-level training in law, medicine, dentistry, and veterinary studies. As the premier research and professional institution, the university was to admit students from the top 12.5 percent of the state’s high school graduates. Similarly, candidates for advanced degrees were chosen on the basis of high academic and professional promise. State colleges, under the Master Plan, were to provide a liberal arts education to students from the top one-third of high school graduates. Gradu- ate training, with special exceptions, was limited to the master’s degree level. Junior colleges, open to all high school graduates, offered a two-year liberal arts curriculum designed to prepare students for transfer to the state college or university system, as well as technical and vocational programs of study leading directly to employment. This system, offering tuition-free education to California’s college students, became a model for the rest of the nation.

Population and Suburban Growth

California’s population increased dramatically during the war and continued to expand throughout the 1950s and 1960s. From 1951 to 1963, the state’s annual growth rate fluctuated between 3.3 and 4.6 percent, with more than a million people added every two years. In 1962, California became the most populous state in the nation. During this period, the state’s population increasingly spilled outside of the urban core into the suburban fringe as developers rushed

Unbridled Growth 317

to meet the demand for new housing. Citrus groves in the Los Angeles basin and orchards and truck farms in the San Francisco Bay area were converted to suburban communities at an astonishing rate. From the early 1950s to the early 1960s, between 60,000 and 90,000 acres of prime agricultural land were replaced with tract homes, freeways, and shopping centers. Industry, attracted to ample, cheap land and a less heavily unionized labor force, relocated to the suburbs as well, contributing to the massive, largely unregulated redistribution of the state’s population and tax base.

New suburbanites, longing for normalcy after the dislocations of the war years, focused on pursuing the “California lifestyle.” Ranch-style homes, and houses built by innovative developer Joseph Eichler with their characteristic flat roofs and open, glass-enclosed interiors, reduced barriers between indoor and outdoor space. Patios, barbecues, outdoor furniture, swimming pools, and casual dinnerware further reduced this separation by facilitating outside enter- taining and family activity. Hollywood, television, advertising agencies, and the popular press not only popularized this lifestyle among Californians—they also created a new national trend.

Recreation patterns also shifted. Suburban shopping centers, forerunners of today’s malls, framed consumption as a leisure activity. Suburb-based theme parks, following the Disneyland prototype, provided “wholesome” entertain- ment for the entire family as an alternative to urban, adult-centered cultural institutions. New sports facilities, such as Dodger Stadium and Candlestick Park, built on the urban fringe, also catered to suburban families. Finally, the new emphasis on outdoor living extended to the state’s beaches and mountains. Campgrounds, ski lodges, vacation rentals, and summer home developments burgeoned during the 1950s and 1960s, intruding on once-pristine or sparsely populated scenic areas.

The carefree suburban lifestyle came with a price. Its housing tracts, shop- ping centers, and decentralized industry not only despoiled open space, but also stripped inner cities of their much-needed jobs and tax base. Beginning in the late 1940s, and continuing through the 1960s, white residents left inner cities for the suburbs. Industry soon followed. Black and Mexican American residents, locked out of the suburban exodus because of discriminatory real estate and housing practices, remained behind in the older, decaying urban core. Even after the state adopted fair housing legislation in the mid-1960s, discriminatory lending institutions, homeowners, and real estate agencies continued to block equal access to affordable suburban housing. This process, reinforcing social separation and economic inequality, was repeated in virtually every metropolitan region of the state, setting the stage for the urban revolts of the ’60s.

Although idealized in postwar popular culture as safe, untroubled enclaves, suburbs came under criticism in the mid-1960s by a new generation of femin- ists. The suburb, according to pioneering feminist Betty Friedan, was little more than a “comfortable concentration camp” that fostered depression, a

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growing sense of isolation, loneliness, and quiet desperation among its female inhabitants.

Many suburban wives, whether they felt trapped or not, did indeed con- form to the postwar ideal of the stay-at-home mom. But thousands of others joined the paid labor force in the ’50s and ’60s. Ironically, the financial demands of maintaining the “California lifestyle” often necessitated more than one wage earner per family and began to erode the long-held taboo against married women’s participation in the labor force. At the same time, increasing numbers of women were attending college—some in search of hus- bands, but many in preparation for rewarding careers. Young careerists, along with an older generation of professional women, rarely obtained jobs that matched their education and skill levels. Locked into clerical and sales jobs, and a limited number of professional occupations like nursing and teaching, working women earned only 60 cents for every dollar made by their male counterparts.

These inequities, combined with suburban isolation, prompted female acti- vists to press for change. In 1964, after three years of intense lobbying from women’s organizations, the California legislature finally agreed to create a state Commission on the Status of Women. The commission’s findings on employment discrimination and male/female wage differentials reinvigorated the women’s movement and created the foundation for the more radical feminist critiques of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Transportation, Energy, Water Resources, and Environmental Pollution

A massive, postwar freeway construction program, funded with a mix of state and federal dollars, helped facilitate white and industrial flight to the suburbs. In 1947, the state legislature passed the Collier-Burns Act, which approved approximately 12,500 miles of new roads, connecting suburbs to surrounding urban centers and funded with a seven cent per gallon gasoline tax. By the mid-1950s, the federal government augmented this expanding network by helping to fund an interstate freeway system that created linkages between each major metropolitan center. Growing dependence on the automobile was further encouraged by the decline of prewar electric rail systems that had connected residential neighborhoods to downtown areas. From San Diego to San Francisco, local governments replaced energy-efficient electric trains and trolleys with diesel-fueled buses. By the late 1950s, only isolated remnants of these regional rail systems survived. The automobile—increasingly a symbol of personal freedom and status—reigned supreme.

The new freeway system had several unanticipated drawbacks. It frequently bisected poor, inner-city neighborhoods, cutting them off from surrounding services, wiping out small business districts and large tracts of affordable housing, and contributing to the spatial isolation and

Unbridled Growth 319

“ghettoization” of residents. Declining air quality was yet another problem associated with the postwar transportation boom. By the late 1940s, Los Angeles residents faced a human-made atmospheric threat: automobile- generated smog. The city first responded by imposing restrictions on factory emissions and backyard waste burning, but failed to address the primary cause—the transportation boom. Part of the problem was that smog came from multiple jurisdictions. Even if city officials imposed regulations in their municipality, pollution from neighboring areas knew no boundaries. By the early 1950s, the problem had worsened. Los Angeles County responded by establishing an Air Pollution Control District, which began to monitor air quality and introduce pollution control measures.

Soon after, in 1955, nine counties in the San Francisco Bay area joined forces to create a regional air quality control district, empowered to set emis- sion standards and regulate polluting industries. Although these districts did

Reflect on the social, political, and demographic pressures that led to urban sprawl in Los Angeles County, and evaluate the costs and benefits of such rapid growth. How did the uniform nature of postwar subdivisions affect residents’ quality of life?

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little to curtail auto emissions, the main source of pollution, they created an important model of regional cooperation that was later adopted by other municipalities. When the federal government passed the Clean Air Act in 1963, regional air quality districts, along with the newly created state Air Resources Board, provided the institutional framework to enforce the act’s auto emission standards.

By the early 1960s, declining air quality and increasing traffic congestion on the already overtaxed highway system prompted some cities to reconsider electric transit systems. The Bay Area took the lead in 1962, receiving approval from voters in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco Counties to build a regional rapid transit system; however, it took another two decades for Los Angeles, Sacramento, San José, and San Diego to follow suit. And even with these systems in place, most Californians continue to prefer private transporta- tion to the cleaner, more fuel-efficient alternatives.

From World War II on, population and economic growth rapidly moved the state from energy self-sufficiency to dependence on imported energy. California’s plastics, chemical, and defense-based industries, and its suburban, automobile-centered lifestyle, were fuel intensive, demanding more energy than the state produced. By the early 1960s, hydroelectric resources had been exploited to about 80 percent of capacity. And the new California Water Plan, with its extensive network of pumping stations and cross-terrain aque- ducts, was expected to use much of the energy it generated. Onshore oil reserves were also limited, leading petroleum companies to search offshore for new deposits during and after World War II, and to supplement domestic sup- plies with imports. Utility companies followed suit, tapping electricity, gas, and oil from elsewhere in the West, and ultimately turning to foreign suppliers. By 1962, for example, two-thirds of California’s natural gas, which was used to generate electricity, heat homes, and produce chemicals and plastics, came from Texas, New Mexico, and Canada.

Long before the energy crisis of the 1970s awakened consumers to their dependence on imported fuel, the state’s utility companies searched for alterna- tive sources to meet increasing demand. In 1960, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) became the first private utility in the nation to tap geothermal energy at its Geyserville plant in Sonoma County. Other geothermal plants soon fol- lowed, providing a clean, but modest addition to the state’s energy mix. More controversially, nuclear power, promoted by the Atomic Energy Commission as a safe, environmentally friendly energy source, was first produced in 1957 on an experimental basis at the Vallecitos plant outside of Livermore. PG&E began operating a commercial facility in 1963 near Eureka, spearheading a 10-year plant construction boom that failed to anticipate growing public concern over seismic hazards, safe disposal of radioactive wastes, and the potentially lethal consequences of human error or reactor malfunction.

By 1964, when PG&E proposed another facility at earthquake-prone Bodega Bay, the public grew more skeptical of industry safety claims and

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mounted a successful campaign to block the plan. This protest, slowing but not stopping the plant construction boom, set the stage for the more vocal and militant anti-nuclear protests of the 1970s and 1980s and helped broaden the focus of older environmental organizations. In the meantime, even nuclear energy could not keep pace with demand, and California’s utility companies and petroleum industry drew ever more heavily on imported fuel.

Unbridled growth also took its toll on the state’s water resources. The Central Valley Project, which became fully operational in the 1950s, diverted vast quantities of water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers to farm- land in the San Joaquin Valley. The initial phase of the project, which included construction of the Shasta, Keswick and Friant dams and their water delivery canals, allowed growers to bring more than 700,000 acres of San Joaquin farmland into production. Although it benefited wealthy landowners like J. G. Boswell, the project decimated wild fisheries, destroyed thousands of acres of waterfowl habitat, and prevented natural flow from reaching and recharging underground aquifers. The most serious impact of the CVP was the decline of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta water quality. As fresh water was pumped southward, particularly during the dry summer months, salt water from the San Francisco Bay intruded into the delta, damaging fragile ecosystems and reducing freshwater flow into the bay. Salty water, occasionally drawn into canals and used to irrigate farmland, also contributed to the salini- zation of soils in the San Joaquin Valley. Indeed, California’s second largest river, the San Joaquin, was soon reduced to a drainage ditch for pesticide and salt-laden agricultural runoff.

The California Water Plan, initiated in 1960, eventually diverted additional water from the north to the San Joaquin Valley and up over the Tehachapi Moun- tains to thirsty southern California residents. The system tapped the tributaries of the Sacramento River, further compromising delta ecology, intensifying north- south competition for water resources, and sparking angry opposition from envir- onmentalists to proposed dams on California’s remaining wild rivers.

Postwar growth did more than place strains on the state’s water and energy resources; it generated increasing amounts of toxic wastes that poured, virtually unregulated, into the air, water, and soil. New chemical compounds, added to the older mix of heavy metals, solvents, corrosives, paints, and dyes, created an unprecedented threat to California’s environment and public health. Produced in increasing quantities by the petrochemical industry following World War II, new substances like DDT, PCBs, and dioxin not only persisted in the environ- ment for long periods of time, but also became more concentrated as they moved up the food chain. By the early 1960s, wildlife biologists began to sound the alarm. More careful study also revealed their potential threat to human health. Despite mounting public concern, mobilized by Rachel Carson’s 1962 condemnation of the chemical industry in Silent Spring, and by environ- mental organizations like the Audubon Society and California Tomorrow, effective regulation of toxic chemicals did not occur until the 1970s and

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1980s. The federal Clean Water Act of 1960 prompted the state to adopt more stringent sewage treatment standards, but synthetic chemicals and other toxic substances could not be removed by normal processing methods. And the pro- ducers and consumers of these compounds, including the state’s powerful pet- rochemical and agricultural industries, vigorously opposed regulation of chemical production, use, and disposal.

As Californians awakened to the growing threat of toxic pollution, a small group of environmental activists launched a path-breaking movement to save one of the state’s natural wonders from industrial and suburban development. During the postwar years, the San Francisco Bay lost 2,300 acres each year to accommodate shoreline construction of garbage dumps, airports, housing tracts, and industrial parks. Already reduced by 40 percent of its size from a century earlier, it was in danger of becoming little more than a shipping channel by the year 2000. In an era when limits to growth were inconceivable to most of the state’s residents, Catherine Kerr and her fellow “university wives” vocally asserted that the public good should prevail over the interests of municipal and private developers. Save San Francisco Bay Association, founded in 1961, attracted enough public support over the next four years to secure legislative approval for both a temporary halt to bay fill and the formation of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. This agency, empowered by the state legislature to grant or deny permission for all shoreline construction, established the precedent for government regulation of development. Other com- missions, including the California Coastal Commission and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, soon followed, along with a host of municipal-level no-growth and controlled growth ordinances and measures.

Smog in Los Angeles. Examine the relationship between this photograph and the Los Angeles sprawl image. What were the connections between suburban growth and declining air quality?

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Postwar Politics

The rapid economic and demographic growth of the postwar period created a host of problems that defied individual and even municipal-level solution. Increasingly, Californians turned to government to regulate and guide the pro- cess of change. On the state level, Governor Warren’s two successors continued his legacy of support for education, social services, resource development, and highway construction, and enlarged the state’s role in protecting environmental quality. On a local level, city governments responded to the negative impact of unbridled growth by forming regional partnerships with their neighbors. Growing numbers of Californians also demanded that local government take a more active role in protecting the rights of working people and ethnic minor- ities and in bringing the disadvantaged into the economic mainstream through increased social spending. The democratic ideals that fueled support for the war effort, they argued, must now be applied at home.

These general political currents, however, were overshadowed by the anti- Communist hysteria of the early Cold War years. In California and the nation as a whole, fear of internal subversion temporarily limited the pace and extent of political change. Conservative Republicans were alarmed by liberal inroads into state and local politics, the growing power of organized labor, and the new political clout of ethnic minorities. In response, they mounted a counteroffen- sive by mobilizing the anti-Communist rhetoric of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Accusing their mostly Democratic opponents of being “soft on Commu- nism,” they created a political atmosphere charged with fear, intolerance, suspicion, and opportunism. Their attacks not only had a devastating impact on organized labor, civil rights organizations, higher education, and Holly- wood, but also convinced many ordinary Californians that “a liberal is only a hop, skip, and a jump from a Communist.”

Democrats, however, gradually recovered their political credibility by promoting “responsible liberalism,” creating a more effective party structure, and highlighting the excessive conservatism of their opponents. In 1958, Californians elected a Democratic governor, and a Democratic majority to both houses of the state legislature. Locally, liberals also made significant prog- ress in removing Republicans from city office and electing leadership that supported a stronger regulatory and planning role for government. Liberalism, rather than radicalism or conservatism, ultimately prevailed.

California’s Red Scare

Although Californians voted overwhelmingly for a liberal Democratic agenda in 1958, many citizens—perhaps a majority—spent the early postwar period suspecting that liberalism amounted to Communism. Governor Earl Warren and his immediate successor, Goodwin Knight, were both

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Republicans. And although they supported liberal policies that angered their party’s conservatives, they escaped direct attack. Democratic candidates, progressive organizations, and any individual or institution supporting lib- eral causes were not as fortunate.

In 1938, the U.S. Congress established the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to root out subversives on a national level. After the war, HUAC’s first major target was the Hollywood film industry, whose writers, directors, and actors were accused of harboring left-wing sympathies. Not coin- cidentally, industry workers had just concluded a major studio strike, under- scoring the growing power of organized labor in the state. Starting in 1947, HUAC held hearings on the “Red Menace in Hollywood” with the full cooper- ation of many industry leaders, including Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, and studio owners Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, and Walt Disney.

In the course of the hearings, several prominent screenwriters, known as the Hollywood Ten, refused to provide testimony about their political beliefs and affiliations, citing their constitutional rights under the First Amendment. The Committee for the First Amendment—whose membership included Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, and Frank Sinatra— attempted to come to their defense and challenge the constitutionality of the hearings. But its efforts were unsuccessful. All 10 were sentenced to prison for contempt of Congress, and nine were permanently banned from industry employment. HUAC then went on to compile a list of 324 present and former Hollywood employees with alleged Communist ties. A majority of those on this “blacklist,” many with well-established careers, lost their jobs. Equally damaging, those who remained in the industry approached their craft with more caution, avoiding content that might attract negative attention from in-house and external censors. For more than a decade, Hollywood films mirrored the conservatism and moral rigidity that charac- terized American culture as a whole.

The California Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, headed by Senator Jack B. Tenney and emboldened by HUAC’s high-profile Hollywood investigation, claimed that it had uncovered evidence of Communist subversion in the state government and educational system. In 1949, fearing a disruptive investigation of its own employees, the University of California, with approval from the Board of Regents, required professors to sign a loyalty oath. The state legislature approved a similar and more exacting oath for all state employees in 1950 when it adopted the Levering Act.

Within the university, the oath generated widespread protest and legal action. Maintaining that the policy violated their constitutional rights and academic freedom, numerous professors refused to sign and were fired for insubordination. Still others resigned in protest, or refused job offers from the university because the oath offended their principles. In 1951, the Third California District Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the dissenting professors,

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arguing that the oath violated both tenure agreements and the state constitu- tion. The Board of Regents, angered over faculty “insubordination,” decided to appeal the decision. After considering the appeal in 1952, the California Supreme Court ordered the reinstatement of the dismissed professors and inva- lidated the university’s oath on the grounds that the state, through the Levering Act, had sole authority to determine employee loyalty. The court, in other words, failed to consider the constitutionality of loyalty tests, and simply ruled that the power to require them belonged to the legislature. The state’s loyalty oath, covering all government employees, including professors, was not declared unconstitutional until 1967.

The Tenney Commission and its parent organization, HUAC, also launched investigations into subversive infiltration of labor unions and civil rights organizations. Reeling from the negative publicity generated by HUAC allegations and lacking the financial resources to mount a credible defense, numerous organizations expelled leaders and members who fell under suspi- cion, backed away from more militant strategies and tactics, and avoided build- ing alliances with “subversive” groups. California’s liberal politicians came under attack as well. In a 1946 U.S. congressional race, a young World War II veteran named Richard Nixon defeated his Democratic opponent, Jerry Voorhis, by using Red Scare tactics. Although Nixon later admitted that he

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Protest against the Hollywood HUAC investigation. Why did some members of the film industry, including many high-profile stars, speak out against HUAC’s Hollywood investigation? Why did others, including future governor Ronald Reagan, cooperate with efforts to purge the industry of the “Red Menace”?

knew “Voorhis wasn’t a Communist,” he fell short of an apology for his smear tactics. “Nice guys and sissies,” he maintained, “didn’t win elections.” Once in Congress, Nixon advanced his political career by joining HUAC and vigorously pursuing the conviction of Alger Hiss, a State Department official who was accused of spying for the Soviet Union. Although the allegation was never proved, Hiss was convicted of perjury for denying the charges against him. And Nixon received credit for uncovering subversion at high levels of the fed- eral government under the Democrats’ watch. On both the state and national level, Republicans used the Hiss case and other allegations of subversion from within to paint the Democrats as either “soft on Communism” or guilty of actual conspiracy.

In the 1950 U.S. Senate race, Nixon again turned to red baiting. Mischar- acterizing his Democratic opponent, Helen Gahagan Douglas, as “the Pink Lady” with a Communist-like voting record in the U.S. House of Representa- tives, he handily won the contest. Douglas, like Voorhis, was merely a Democrat with a liberal voting record. Meanwhile, Nixon’s political fortunes advanced. Just a year after defeating Douglas, he was rewarded with the vice presidency—a clear indication that the American political process had been deeply influenced by postwar anti-Communist hysteria.

Warren and Knight

Earl Warren and his successor Goodwin J. Knight, both Republicans, held office during the height of California’s Red Scare, but, unlike Nixon, they refrained from exploiting fear to advance their political careers. Moreover, both men adopted liberal policies that greatly expanded the power of govern- ment “over the lives of the people”—policies that were heartily criticized by their more conservative colleagues. Their party affiliation, however, largely pro- tected them from charges of subversion or softness on Communism. Warren, who characterized himself as a progressive, expanded governmental services, upgraded California’s infrastructure, and invested heavily in health, welfare, and public education. He also took a principled position on his party’s anti- Communist crusade. In 1948, Warren criticized HUAC’s Hollywood investiga- tion and refused to support a loyalty oath for state employees. As an ex-officio regent, he attempted to convince his fellow board members that the university’s loyalty oath was ineffective and unconstitutional. He also opposed the 1950 Levering Act, which had been drafted by one of his critics, a right-wing Repub- lican assemblyman from Los Angeles. By 1953, when Warren was named chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, his foes were heartened that the lieutenant governor, Goodwin J. Knight, a conservative critic of Warren’s liberal policies, would take over the office. Knight, having the incumbent’s advantage and his party’s blessing, then won the governorship in his own right in 1954.

Once firmly in office, however, Knight followed in Warren’s footsteps by supporting increased spending on infrastructure, water resource development,

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workers’ benefits, social services, and mental health. Even more troubling to his party’s conservatives, Knight expanded the regulatory role of government by endorsing clean air standards, and he established himself as a friend of organized labor by opposing “right-to-work” legislation (discussed on the next page). As the next election approached, Knight faced serious opposition. Two conservative rivals, Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator William Know- land, saw his office as a step toward the presidency. With proven right-wing credentials, either one could count on the financial backing of the state and national Republican Party in the 1958 election.

In 1957, Knight’s fears materialized when Knowland announced that he would run for governor. Making matters worse, Nixon supporters, angry over Knight’s refusal to endorse Nixon’s 1956 vice-presidential nomination, were sure to back Knowland. Knight’s chances of winning the primary were also undercut by a 1952 voter referendum that forced candidates to identify their party affiliation on primary ballots. The old ballot had listed incumbents at the top without revealing their party membership. Knight, as an incumbent with broad, nonpartisan appeal, would have had an advantage over rival Republicans and Democrats under the old system. Cognizant of these liabilities, Knight withdrew from the race and left the field to Knowland.

The state’s Democrats, in the meantime, regrouped. Twenty years earlier, Republicans had created an efficient, tightly knit organization to raise money and coordinate their campaigns. Having a disproportionate number of incum- bents, they were also the primary beneficiaries of the old cross-filing system. And the postwar anti-Communist hysteria provided the Republicans with yet another political advantage. By the election of 1958, however, conditions had changed. The Red Scare tapered off, and many Californians now viewed its main architects as political opportunists and extremists. Moreover, the liberal policies of two Republican governors, although roundly criticized by conserva- tives, had visibly improved the state’s infrastructure, strengthened its economy, and improved the health and welfare of its citizens.

At the same time, election reform gave Democrats a more equal playing field in primary elections and prompted them to create a vigorous new party organization, the California Democratic Council (CDC), to advance their polit- ical agenda. By 1956, the Democrats had ample reason to be hopeful that the tide had turned in their favor. In that year’s elections, they eroded the Republi- can majority in the assembly from 53–27 to 42–38, and in the senate from 29–11 to 20–20. As the 1958 election approached, their prospects seemed even brighter; the Republican incumbent had dropped out of the governor’s race, and his replacement had a reputation as a right-wing extremist.

Edmund G. Brown

In 1958, Democrats chose Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, a native San Franciscan and state attorney general, to run for governor. Brown, a New Deal Democrat

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and active member of the CDC, had impeccable liberal credentials. During the 1940s, as district attorney for San Francisco, Brown transformed a corrupt and inefficient department into a modern, aggressive, crime-fighting unit. While waging legal battles against prostitution, gambling, juvenile delinquency, and political corruption, Brown attacked civil rights violations with equal zeal. Resisting popular opinion, he vocally condemned Japanese relocation and internment, and opposed the anti-Communist crusade against Harry Bridges, the militant leader of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU). In 1950, with Governor Warren’s endorsement, Brown was elected as state attorney general. When pro-business conservatives succeeded in placing a “right-to-work” initiative on the 1958 ballot, Attorney General Brown forced them to change the proposition’s title to “Employer and Employee Relations” to avoid misleading voters. This decision bolstered Brown’s liberal, pro-labor reputation and gave him a decisive edge in the upcoming governor’s race.

The “right-to-work” initiative, which unions branded as the “right to work for less and less and less,” became a major issue of the 1958 campaign. In many workplaces, unions secured “closed-shop” agreements from management that made union membership a condition of employment. The “right-to-work” ini- tiative would have prohibited such restrictions, allowing employees to choose whether to join an existing union upon accepting a job. Organized labor feared that the initiative was part of a broader campaign to erode the membership and political power of unions. Knowland, determined to repudiate Warren’s and Knight’s liberal policies and to secure conservative support for the 1960 Repub- lican presidential nomination, adopted a largely negative, anti-labor platform that highlighted his support of the right-to-work initiative. As a consequence, labor united behind Brown, exercising an unprecedented degree of organiza- tional and political muscle. Brown, assured of union support, moved beyond this single issue to promote a broader, more optimistic agenda that consoli- dated support within his own party, attracted thousands of new voters, and convinced many independents and moderate Republicans to opt for his “responsible liberalism.”

Framing his opposition to the right-to-work initiative as part of a prag- matic, forward-looking plan of action, Brown succeeded in casting Knowland as an ultraconservative, overly pessimistic throwback to a bygone era. With the support of a broad new constituency, Brown won in 54 of the state’s 56 coun- ties and secured nearly 60 percent of the total vote. Just as significantly, Brown entered office with a Democratic majority in the state senate and assembly. California voters had delivered a strong mandate in favor of governmental advocacy and activism.

Once in office, Brown moved quickly to enact his liberal agenda. Several of his proposals simply expanded existing programs. For example, Brown strengthened the state’s social safety net by increasing workers’ compensation and unemployment benefits, old age pensions, and welfare entitlements. He

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also continued government support for mental health benefits, education, and highway construction, and he financed programs through tax increases, much as Warren had done in creating his “rainy-day fund.”

Brown, however, was a bold innovator. He overcame opposition to the California Water Plan by stressing that it would create thousands of new jobs, benefit the state as a whole, and include adequate environmental safeguards. In a 1960 special election, preceded by an aggressive media campaign designed to convince voters of the plan’s merits, Californians approved a $1.7 billion bond measure to fund this unprecedented expansion of the state’s water infrastruc- ture. Although Brown backed policies that accommodated economic and urban development, he strengthened government’s role in moderating the impact of rapid growth. Under his leadership, the legislature enacted consumer protec- tion and air quality standards and created the Office of Consumer Affairs and an Air Quality Control Board to enforce the new regulations. These agencies, soon followed by others, greatly expanded the state’s regulatory framework, and reflected growing public concern over quality-of-life issues.

Brown acted with a similar degree of boldness in reorganizing the state’s system of higher education, supporting both the Master Plan and Fisher Act. He also secured legislative support for a series of political reforms proposed by a fellow Democrat, Assemblyman Jesse Unruh. The cross-filing system, modified in 1952, was abolished completely in 1959, generating more spirited electoral contests and partisan debate. Unruh, with Brown’s backing, went on to introduce a series of reforms that greatly improved legislative performance and fairness. In 1965, the legislature abandoned the antiquated system of apportioning senators by county and adopted the more equitable practice of allocating representatives by population-based districts. Finally, Unruh and Brown obtained legislative approval to create a Constitutional Revision Com- mission, charged with increasing the efficiency and upgrading the quality of state government. Commission reforms and supporting legislative measures streamlined executive and legislative bureaucracies and procedures, increased legislators’ salaries and staff, established year-round legislative sessions, enhanced city and county control over local affairs, reduced the qualification requirements for ballot initiatives, and afforded greater constitutional protec- tions to California citizens. By the end of Brown’s second term, the state had a national reputation for efficient, professional government—a reputation that prompted the American Good Government Society to honor Jesse Unruh with its George Washington Award in 1967.

Brown, acknowledging the support that he received from the state’s growing African American population, placed civil rights at the top of his gubernatorial agenda and lobbied tirelessly for legislative approval. His efforts paid off in 1959, when the legislature banned discrimination in the workplace and created a new regulatory agency, the Division of Fair Employment Prac- tices, to enforce the law. The same year, Brown obtained support for an Unruh-sponsored measure that prohibited racial discrimination in public

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accommodations, business and real estate transactions, and government- funded housing projects. Brown also supported fair housing legislation introduced by William Byron Rumford, a black assemblyman who was first elected in 1948 by a newly enlarged African American constituency in the San Francisco East Bay. In 1963, with Brown’s backing, the legislature approved the Rumford Act, a measure banning racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing.

Although Brown had succeeded in advancing most of his liberal agenda by the end of his first term, he was exhausted by his own high standards and somewhat dispirited by his few failures. He had repeatedly pushed for an increase in the state’s minimum wage, only to meet stubborn and effective resistance from agriculture and private industry. He had also lobbied unsuc- cessfully against California’s death penalty and received negative publicity for delaying the execution of a violent sex offender, Caryl Chessman. Finally, Brown failed to unite his party’s delegation behind John F. Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Although Kennedy won the presiden- tial nomination, California Democrats, still divided on Election Day, could not deliver the necessary votes. Kennedy lost in the state by 36,000 votes, which, much to Brown’s embarrassment, almost cost Kennedy the presidency.

Brown decided to run for a second term only after Nixon, who had lost the 1960 presidential race, announced his candidacy for governor in 1962. Nixon revived his old Red Scare tactics and accused Brown of being “soft on Communism.” Brown countered by arguing that Nixon, obviously out of touch with the state’s major issues, was intent on using the governorship as a “stepping stone to the presidency.” Californians, unmoved by Nixon’s tired rhetoric, delivered a second mandate for Brown, returning him to office and preserving the Democratic majority in the legislature. Brown’s second term, however, presented greater challenges. By the mid-1960s, Californians, either alarmed by the scope of reform or impatient with the slow pace of change, undermined liberalism’s fragile foundation.

Liberalism at the Municipal Level

On a municipal level, the problems associated with rapid economic and demographic expansion generated a new level of civic activism. In many communities, citizens elected candidates who promised to increase the profes- sionalism and efficiency of city government and actively direct growth in positive directions. At the same time, minority activists joined with organized labor and progressive whites to forge a broader liberal agenda that called on local government to protect and advance civil rights through fair housing and employment legislation, and increased social spending.

In Berkeley, for example, small businessmen, whose primary objective was to keep taxes at a minimum by limiting the expansion of municipal services, dominated the government. By the late 1940s, liberal Democrats, concerned

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that the city was failing to meet the needs of its growing population—including large numbers of African American newcomers—began to run their own can- didates for office. The conservative incumbents fought back by urging voters to “Keep the Communists and Campus Carpet-Baggers Out of City Hall.” Work- ing hard to build a broad-based, multiethnic coalition during the next decade, liberals finally secured a majority on the city council and school board in 1961. Even more significantly, two of their winning candidates were black. Wasting no time, the new city government began to fulfill its platform. In early 1963, the council passed a fair housing ordinance, predating the state-level Rumford Fair Housing Act. The same year, the city became the first in the state to adopt a school integration plan. The council also improved recreation facilities in poorer sections of the city and rezoned the flatlands, which contained Berkeley’s largest black neighborhoods, to protect low-income housing from speculation and uncontrolled development.

Just to the south, in Oakland, a labor-initiated coalition mounted a simi- lar, although less successful, attack against the city’s conservative leadership. In 1947, the Oakland Voters League (OVL), uniting left-wing unions, middle- class white liberals, and black migrants, ran candidates for five seats on the city council. Their platform struck a chord with voters. It called for the con- struction of public housing and schools; increased funding for recreation facilities, public health, and street improvements; the creation of a fair employment commission; the repeal of anti-labor ordinances; and a more equitable tax structure. Four of their five candidates won, giving the OVL just one seat short of a majority on the nine-member council. But conserva- tive forces mounted a successful campaign against their liberal challengers. In the next two elections, three OVL representatives were ousted from office after being smeared as pro-Communist. Soon after, the OVL also collapsed and Oakland’s conservative leaders enjoyed the political advantage for several years to come.

In Los Angeles, yet another liberal coalition won a modest but more per- manent victory. In 1947 Edward Roybal, a Mexican American army veteran and public health worker, ran unsuccessfully for the city council. Following his defeat, Roybal and his supporters formed the Community Service Organization (CSO) to register Mexican American voters and advocate for community improvements. Soon the CSO attracted the attention of the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation, a group that supported grassroots community organizing efforts across the country. The foundation provided the CSO with financial support and the assistance of Fred Ross, one of its seasoned organizers. In 1949, the CSO supported Roybal’s second bid for the ninth- district council seat, a district that housed a growing Mexican American popu- lation, but also pockets of Jewish, Asian, African American, and Anglo voters. By focusing on issues that directly impacted all ethnic minorities and appealed to liberal whites—particularly the progressive Jewish community—CSO organi- zers secured Roybal’s victory over the incumbent councilman by a vote of

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20,472 to 11,956. Once in office, he not only championed fair housing, employ- ment, and educational opportunities, but also risked his political career by opposing a bill requiring city employees to take a loyalty oath. Roybal, the first Mexican American to serve on the council, remained in office until elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962.

Liberal challenges, like those that took place in Berkeley, Oakland, and Los Angeles, permanently altered municipal politics in other cities throughout the state. In some cases, liberal coalitions achieved dramatic results, completely upsetting the local balance of power. But even minor victories produced signif- icant changes. Roybal’s campaign, for example, emboldened thousands of new voters to demand the respect of elected officials, and encouraged community organizations to pursue their liberal agendas more aggressively. Despite post- war anti-Communist hysteria, changing demographics, postwar prosperity and optimism, and the problems associated with rapid growth generated an unstoppable tide of popular support for visionary, proactive leadership. Begin- ning close to home, where the impact of change was more immediate, this tide spread outward, sweeping Pat Brown into office in 1958 and handing him a solid mandate for change.

Social and Cultural Dissent

The postwar period, although an era of relative economic prosperity, social harmony, and political stability, contained the seeds of conflict. While the mid- dle class expanded, largely because of state and federal investment in housing, education, and the military-industrial complex, poverty and racial discrimina- tion remained serious problems. The suburban boom, a symbol of the era’s prosperity and stability, bypassed ethnic minorities and the poor, and took— as many were beginning to recognize—a tremendous toll on the environment. Even gender roles were in flux, as increasing numbers of married women entered the work force or confronted the isolation, boredom, and lack of status associated with suburban domestic roles. The political arena was also charged with tension, roiling with anti-Communist hysteria, blatant opportunism, and bitter contests between liberal and conservative forces. Only in 1958 did the state approach anything remotely resembling a political consensus.

White Flight and Ghettoization

The state’s black population continued to expand during the postwar period, fueled by the baby boom and a steady stream of opportunity-seeking migrants. By the mid-1960s, reflecting a decade of gradual progress, African Americans held four state assembly seats, representing the 17th District in Alameda County, the 18th District in San Francisco County, and the 53rd and 55th Districts in

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Los Angeles County. Augustus Hawkins, who had served in the assembly since 1934, became California’s first black congressman in 1962. Local gains were also impressive, with African Americans obtaining city council seats in Los Angeles, Compton, and Berkeley; school board seats in Oakland, San Fran- cisco, Los Angeles, and Berkeley; and one seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

These political advances translated into important civil rights victories, particularly on the state level. In 1959, the legislature banned employment dis- crimination and created the Division of Fair Employment Practices to enforce the new law. It also passed the Unruh Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimina- tion in public accommodations, business transactions (including real estate), and public housing. Fair housing legislation, although meeting with greater white resistance, followed in 1963. Finally, several municipalities adopted civil rights measures of their own. San Francisco, for example, created a Fair Employment Practices Commission in 1958, and Berkeley enacted a fair hous- ing law and school integration plan in 1963.

Fair employment legislation, combined with political pressure from civil rights groups, produced the most immediate results. State, county, and local government, which expanded rapidly during the postwar period, adopted nondiscriminatory hiring policies in advance of private industry. As a conse- quence, increasing numbers of African Americans gained access to civil service employment—jobs that offered relatively high wages and occupational security and contributed to the growth of California’s black middle class.

The political progress that produced such gains, however, was partly a product of black ghettoization. African Americans won representation not in the booming, prosperous suburbs, but in the urban core and within the con- fines of well-defined black districts or neighborhoods. Fair employment legisla- tion, all too easily circumvented by private employers, did even less to prevent industry from following whites to the suburbs. And fair housing legislation, which should have allowed minorities to participate in the suburban boom, met with bitter opposition and organized resistance. Even after the courts upheld the law, homeowners and lending and real estate agencies continued to ignore its directives. Most African Americans, regardless of their economic status, were trapped.

As white and industrial flight to the suburbs stripped California’s inner cities of their tax and employment base, those who remained behind faced increasingly bleak futures. By the mid-1950s, the postwar ghetto had taken shape, characterized by high levels of joblessness, dilapidated housing, inade- quate police and fire protection, poor recreation facilities, and limited medical and shopping establishments. The spatial and economic marginalization of ghettos was compounded by government-financed freeway projects that destroyed entire black neighborhoods and business districts, and cut residents off from the rest of the city. By 1960, for example, the Watts section of Los Angeles was effectively Balkanized by the very transportation networks that

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facilitated white and industrial flight to the suburbs. Although 60 percent of its population was young and full of promise, astonishingly high levels of unem- ployment created a climate of frustration and despair. More than 40 percent of young adults were unemployed, and most of those who were fortunate enough to find jobs worked part time and for low wages.

De facto school segregation also emerged as a serious problem. Most black children attended predominantly black schools, reflecting their increasing spatial isolation from other inner-city neighborhoods and the surrounding sub- urbs. Although a few cities adopted school integration plans in the early 1960s, most, including Los Angeles, resisted efforts to ensure educational equity well into the 1970s. Even then, citywide desegregation programs were only partially effective. Many white urbanites either placed their children in private schools or relocated to the suburbs. And predominantly white suburban districts, with a surplus of resources, continued to afford richer academic environments than their urban counterparts.

As conditions in ghettos deteriorated, many municipalities adopted urban renewal plans. These efforts to reclaim “blighted” sections of the inner city frequently entailed the wholesale destruction of entire neighborhoods. At best, older single-family homes were replaced with low-income housing projects that confined the poor to even smaller, more isolated enclaves. At worst, as was said at the time, urban renewal amounted to “Negro removal.” In West Oakland, for example, city officials razed block upon block of affordable housing without constructing an equivalent number of low-income units.

Despite the shrinking opportunity structure in California’s black ghettos, a majority of black activists embraced a civil rights–oriented agenda. Black advancement, they believed, hinged on full integration into the white mainstream—integration that could be achieved through laws that guaranteed equal access to all the rights and privileges of citizenship. By 1963, however, a new generation of activists realized that legislation alone would not eliminate racial discrimination. Some, retaining the liberal optimism of the older genera- tion, turned to nonviolent protest to force compliance with the law. Others, particularly those who had been raised in the inner city, had less faith that whites would willingly relinquish their power, or that civil rights legislation would address the deeper, more tangled form of racism so keenly felt by ghetto residents. Postwar California, despite its booming economy and legislative commitment to racial equality, had fostered and ignored the ghettoization of black citizens. Soon the resulting rage and frustration, fueled by voter repeal of the Rumford Fair Housing Act, dispelled any lingering fantasies of social harmony and political stability.

Poverty in the Barrios and Fields

The state’s Mexican Americans experienced a similar mixture of hope and despair. During the postwar years, the Hispanic population not only increased,

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but also continued to cluster in urban areas. While most of this growth was concentrated in southern California, newcomers, mostly Mexican Americans from other southwestern states, settled in northern cities as well. Between 1950 and 1960, the Spanish-surnamed population more than doubled in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San José, and increased by almost 90 percent in Fresno and the San Francisco Bay area. Undocumented immigrants, sharply increasing in number following the war, also contributed to this growth and created a painful dilemma for Mexican American activists.

On one hand, undocumented immigrants exacerbated the problems cre- ated by the bracero program. They displaced domestic workers in agriculture and industry, depressed wages, undercut unionization efforts, and were per- ceived as undermining the efforts of long-term residents to combat negative stereotypes and enter the Anglo American mainstream. Moreover, immigration officials frequently violated the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike during neighborhood and workplace “sweeps” for undocumented residents. These Cold War–era roundups, termed “Operation Wetback” by the federal govern- ment, resulted in almost two million deportations between 1953 and 1955 and were partly intended to root out alien dissidents. On the other hand, new immigrants and Mexican Americans shared cultural, linguistic, and often fam- ily ties. If unified rather than divided by anti-immigrant hysteria, there was a potential for effective political action against prejudice and discrimination.

Regardless of their nationality, both groups did, in fact, have common con- cerns. By the mid-1960s, 85 percent of the state’s Spanish-surnamed population lived in cities, mostly within segregated enclaves or barrios. Like black ghettos, barrios were products of housing discrimination. And like ghettos, they were increasingly isolated from surrounding areas by freeways, and characterized by older, dilapidated housing, overcrowded and underfunded schools, inade- quate recreation facilities, declining infrastructure, and high levels of underem- ployment and unemployment. Residents who found jobs were limited to low-paying, unskilled occupations by discriminatory hiring practices. Even the public sector, while providing new employment opportunities to other ethnic minorities, extended comparatively few jobs to Mexican Americans. Los Angeles County government, for example, employed 28,584 Anglos and 10,807 African Americans in 1964, but only 1,973 Mexican Americans. As a consequence, one in every five families fell below the poverty line, and a major- ity earned significantly less than the median white income.

Many city officials, rather than addressing these problems, seemed more intent on harassing residents for petty legal violations, keeping them within the confines of the communities, or erasing barrios altogether through urban renewal. In 1957, for example, Mexican American residents were forced out of Chavez Ravine to make room for the new Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium. Residents rightly suspected that their removal was part of a broader, Cold War–inspired effort to curb the growing political and social power of the Mexican American community. Councilman Edward Roybal, objecting to the

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treatment of a family that resisted displacement, commented: “The eviction is the kind of thing you might expect in Nazi Germany or during the Spanish Inquisition.” Even in communities not threatened by urban renewal, residents lived in a chronic state of insecurity. Immigration sweeps and high levels of police brutality and harassment convinced many that the government was an enemy rather than a friend.

In rural areas, conditions were even worse, particularly for migrant farm families. Agricultural workers, lacking the protection of minimum wage laws, earned between 40 and 70 cents an hour during the 1950s. Even if a worker was employed for 50 hours a week, 35 weeks out of the year, earnings still fell well below the official poverty level. And most workers, given fluctuations in the weather and harvest cycle, averaged fewer than 35 weeks of annual labor. To survive, entire families, including children, worked together in the fields and moved repeatedly to find as much employment as possible during the year. Housing, if provided at all by growers, frequently lacked heat, running water, and proper sanitation. Although the state established minimum stan- dards for housing and sanitation, most farm labor camps were not inspected on a regular basis, and many growers simply ignored the regulations.

Farm workers also suffered from lack of health care. Even those who could afford medical services often had to travel long distances to the nearest clinic or hospital. As a consequence, they had significantly higher infant mortality rates and lower life expectancies than the general population. The 1962 Migrant Health Act, which provided federal funding for state and local health services, provided some relief, but failed to appropriate sufficient resources to meet even the basic needs of most farm workers. Education was yet another problem. Frequent moves interfered with regular school attendance and forced children to adjust to an ever-changing series of teachers, academic expectations, and learning environments. Rural schools, like those in the barrios, were typically segregated, overcrowded, and underfunded. Spanish-speaking students faced even greater difficulties. Not only was English the language of instruction, but students were often punished or ridiculed for speaking Spanish. Moreover, those who failed to keep up were frequently labeled as slow or retarded, and held back or placed on vocational tracks.

Community activists adopted a variety of strategies to address these problems. In urban areas, organizations like LULAC and the CSO attacked discrimination, lobbied for community improvements, and encouraged active political participation. Unlike LULAC, however, the CSO attempted to promote unity among Mexican Americans and immigrants by encouraging noncitizens to join and by helping newcomers obtain U.S. citizenship. Indeed, the CSO’s bylaws stated that “residents of the community who are not citizens of the United States shall be encouraged to become citizens and to actively participate in community programs and activities that are for the purpose of improving the general welfare.” As the CSO spread from Los Angeles to other cities across the state, its inclusive philosophy produced concrete results. By 1955, the

Social and Cultural Dissent 337

organization operated more than 450 citizenship-training classes, which by 1960 had helped more than 40,000 immigrants obtain citizenship.

The Asociación Nacional Mexico-Americana (ANMA), formed in 1950, was even more determined to break down the barriers that divided immigrants and Mexican Americans. Like the CSO, ANMA emphasized citizenship and political participation; however, it also recognized that political and economic rights were interconnected. To counter economic exploitation, ANMA advocated unionization, building coalitions with other minority groups, and developing stronger connections with underpaid laborers in Mexico and Latin America. ANMA was also one of the earliest Mexican American organizations to emphasize the beauty and richness of Mexican culture and vigorously attack negative stereotypes. In 1952, for example, it organized a national boycott against the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company, the sponsor of a radio show that contained offensive references to Mexican Americans. In Los Angeles, ANMA criticized Weber’s Bread Company for using unflattering caricatures in its advertising and mounted a similar campaign against Hollywood’s exploitation of popular stereotypes. Finally, ANMA, like the CSO, gave its support to the Los Angeles Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born (LACPFB), founded in 1950 to protest an increasingly aggressive federal immigration policy. ANMA was also an outspoken critic of police brutality against barrio residents.

By 1954, ANMA collapsed after its members and leadership were “identified” as Communists or Communist sympathizers by the FBI, and the U.S. attorney general branded it as a “subversive” organization; however, both ANMA and the CSO had succeeded in building electoral interest and activism among the state’s Spanish-speaking population. Just as significantly, both organizations helped foster a more positive sense of ethnic identity based on cultural pride and unity, rather than assimilation into the Anglo mainstream. The Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), founded in 1959, used this foundation to demand entry into the state’s Democratic Party structure. MAPA, which militantly promoted ethnic solidarity among Mexican Ameri- cans and de-emphasized cultural assimilation, devoted itself almost entirely to running candidates for office, voter registration drives, political lobbying, and get-out-the-vote campaigns.

Unlike ANMA, however, which weathered the postwar anti-Communist hysteria, neither MAPA nor the CSO spoke directly to the needs of the state’s farm workers. The National Farm Workers Labor Union, crippled by the bra- cero program and lack of funding, made little progress in organizing agricul- tural workers during the 1950s. Life in California’s fields remained one of sharp contrasts: between worker and employer, the poor and the wealthy, Mexicans and Anglos, the powerless and the powerful. At the CSO’s annual convention in 1962, Cesar Chavez, the organization’s national director, presented a plan to create a farm workers’ union and was voted down. Chavez, resigning from his post, returned to his farm worker roots in Delano and began to pursue his

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dream. In a few short years, his efforts would shake the nation’s conscience and inspire a new level of activism among the state’s Mexican Americans.

Asian Pacific Immigration and Activism

The postwar baby boom and somewhat more liberal immigration laws contrib- uted to the growth of California’s Asian American population between 1950 and 1960. While new immigrants tended to cluster in older ethnic neighbor- hoods, established residents were more widely dispersed. This was particularly the case with Japanese Americans, whose prewar communities had often been appropriated by other ethnic groups during the war. The Japanese American population grew from 84,956 to 157,317 between 1950 and 1960, Chinese Americans from 58,324 to 95,600, and Filipinos from 40,424 to 65,459. The Korean population, while significantly smaller, almost quadrupled during the same period. Much of this increase grew out of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. Chinese immigrants, for example, benefited from the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which granted entry to political refugees of the Communist Revolution. The Refugee Acts of 1953, 1957, and 1958, passed in the wake of the Korean conflict, extended asylum to both Chinese and Korean dissidents. The Walter McCarren Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, supported by Asian American organizations like the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), had an even greater impact. This act modestly expanded immigration quotas for Asian countries and granted the right of naturalization to Japanese, Chinese, and Korean immigrants. The law, by allowing aliens to apply for citi- zenship, also invalidated the California Alien Land Act, which had prohibited Asian noncitizens from owning property in the state. To remove any remaining ambiguity, California voters formally repealed the Alien Land Act in 1956.

The Walter McCarren Act, while dismantling many anti-Asian policies, contained some troubling provisions. It not only called for the detention and deportation of noncitizens suspected of “acts of espionage or sabotage” but also imposed tougher restrictions on illegal immigration. The postwar sweeps and raids of Mexican American barrios and the systematic deportation of outspo- ken community activists and union organizers were products of this act. Japanese Americans were particularly alarmed over the provision that autho- rized the creation of detention camps for suspected subversives and mounted a 20-year campaign to repeal that section of the law.

The postwar anti-Communist hysteria exerted a chilling influence on some Asian American political activity. On one hand, the government welcomed refugees from Communist countries. On the other, it mounted an aggressive attack against “subversives” from within. Citizens and noncitizens of Chinese and Korean ancestry were understandably reluctant to engage in political activ- ity that might arouse suspicion of disloyalty. Japanese Americans, still trauma- tized by the ordeal of internment and struggling to reestablish their livelihoods, were also cautious, but less likely to be confused with the new Communist

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“enemy.” This small measure of immunity emboldened Nisei activists to lobby for Issei citizenship rights and the repeal of the McCarren Act’s detention clause.

As the anti-Communist hysteria tapered off in the late 1950s, there was a small but notable increase in Asian American political activism. The JACL joined forces with other civil rights groups to protest housing and employment discrimination and to lobby for equal rights legislation. At the same time, polit- ical organizations, including the Los Angeles–based West Jefferson Democratic Club, the Nisei Republican Assembly, and the Chinatown Democratic Club, and San Francisco’s Chinese Young Democrats and Nisei Voters League, claimed a role in local and state government. Nonpartisan civic organizations, which promoted mutual aid and community service, also expanded to meet the needs of a growing Asian population. The Chinese American Citizens Alliance, the American-Korean Civic Association, and the Filipino Community all helped to foster interest in civic affairs, maintain cultural traditions, and pro- vide services to their respective ethnic groups.

Opportunities and Challenges for California Indians

For California’s Indian population, the postwar period brought both new opportunities and new challenges. Having made substantial contributions to the war effort on the battlefield and home front, Indians joined other minori- ties in securing their rights and seeking more equitable treatment. In 1944, after decades of lobbying and litigation, California Indians won an award of $5 million for the illegal seizure of tribal land. This award would have been greater if the federal government had not deducted funds that it had spent on reservation supplies and the administration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in California. Indians immediately protested these deductions by filing suit against the federal government under the Jurisdictional Act of 1928. In response, the government established the Indian Land Claims Commission in 1946, a federal agency empowered to investigate and settle land claims. The following year, in 1947, Indians established a new organization, the Federated Tribes of California, to press the commission for a more just award than the 1944 ruling. Their efforts failed, and in 1951 the original settlement was distributed in per capita payments of $150 per Indian.

Indians, however, continued to file additional claims. Several claims seek- ing compensation for land west of the Sierra Nevadas were consolidated into a single case. In 1964, the Indian Land Claims Commission approved a settle- ment of $29,100,000 for 64,425,000 acres of lost territory in this region. After attorney fees were deducted, the award amounted to about 47 cents per acre, or $600 per eligible claimant. This settlement, like the one issued in 1951, left many Indians bitter and disillusioned.

In the middle of these contentious land claim disputes, the federal government adopted a policy of termination that was designed to abolish

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government oversight and administration of reservations. In California, termi- nation began in earnest with the 1958 California Ranchería Act. Under this act, the federal government identified 44 Indian rancherías as candidates for termi- nation. In exchange for dividing up tribal landholdings among individual members, giving up their status as federally recognized tribes, and relinquish- ing all claim to all previously provided federal government services, tribes were promised various improvements to housing, schools, roads, sanitation systems, and water supplies. Over the next 12 years, 23 rancherías and reservations were terminated. As the policy was implemented, the federal government failed to provide the promised improvements to infrastructure. Many Indians, disgusted with poor living conditions or too impoverished to pay taxes on their individ- ual allotments, sold their land. Those who remained often faced serious health threats from poor sanitation, contaminated water, and substandard housing. Finally, in some cases, tribal members did not receive allotments at all. As a result of these problems, most “terminated” tribes filed lawsuits against the government and won reinstatement as rancherías or reservations, but this pro- cess would take decades.

While termination was being implemented, the Bureau of Indian Affairs adopted a national program that had an indirect impact on California Indians. In 1951, the bureau instituted a voluntary relocation program designed to entice Indians off reservations and into urban areas with the promise of job training programs and other transitional services. This program drew nearly 100,000 non-California Indians—Sioux, Navajo, Chippewa, Apache, Mohawk, Shoshone—to Los Angeles and the Bay Area between 1952 and 1968. Many Indians who made the move arrived without the education, work experience, or life skills to survive in an urban environment. Although they received help finding employment, the federal government provided few other support ser- vices. Widely dispersed and far from home, these newcomers faced isolation, loneliness, and alienation.

In time, however, California Indians and these newcomers came together to establish new organizations that addressed their common concerns. In 1961, with the help of the American Friends Service Committee, Indians of both groups established the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland. The following year, Friendship House activists formed the United Bay Area Council of American Indians. In Los Angeles, in 1958, urban California Indians and new- comers founded the Federated Indian Tribes to promote social events and pre- serve traditional customs and values. These and other organizations provided a foundation for the increased intertribal activism of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Student Activism

During the prosperous postwar period, attending college became the norm for middle-class youth. And a college education, although narrowly conceived by campus administrators as training a new generation of technicians and

Social and Cultural Dissent 341

managers, introduced students to a broad spectrum of issues and problems outside of the comfortable confines of suburban communities. Students’ very affluence, far from reinforcing the economic or political status quo, provided the freedom to reflect critically on social values and institutions, and ponder their responsibility to “make a difference” in the world. Raised to believe that capitalism and democracy had created a society free of the poverty, inequal- ity, and political repression that plagued other nations, students soon discov- ered another, deeply flawed America. This awakening, rather than producing cynicism and despair, gave students a sense of purpose. As the “best and the brightest,” they could be instruments of social transformation, forcing Amer- ica to live up to its values.

Student dissent began in 1957 on the Berkeley campus, when a small group of activists formed an organization called SLATE. Its members, impatient with the trivial issues that had long dominated student politics, campaigned against compulsory participation in ROTC and against racial discrimination in sorori- ties, fraternities, and other campus organizations. They also pressed for the crea- tion of a cooperative bookstore and a stronger university policy against housing discrimination within the city of Berkeley. While expanding their influence in student government, SLATE members became increasingly active in the sur- rounding community. In 1959, the group planned an on-campus rally in support of a citywide fair housing initiative sponsored by a local socialist organization. University administrators, invoking a regulation that prohibited campus groups from supporting outside political causes, ordered SLATE to cancel its demonstra- tion. SLATE refused, and more than 300 students attended the rally.

In 1960, SLATE moved beyond the Berkeley community to organize a pro- test against the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in San Francisco. Incensed over HUAC’s violation of civil liberties in the “defense” of democracy, students were determined to voice their opposition to its hypoc- risy. On Thursday, May 12, Berkeley protestors, joined by San Francisco State College students and faculty, gathered for a rally and picket at Union Square, and then marched to city hall to observe the hearings. Once there, however, students were denied entry passes. On Friday, hundreds of other students joined the original contingent in demanding admission to the proceedings. Barred again from the hearing room, the protestors staged a peaceful sit-in at city hall. As they sang “We Shall Not Be Moved,” armed police officers forcibly ejected them from the building with clubs and high-powered water hoses. Demonstrators and bystanders alike were shocked by the violence of the police response, watching in horror as the “best and the brightest” were “dragged by their hair, dragged by their arms and legs down the stairs so that their heads were bouncing off the stairs.” This show of force, however, only strengthened the students’ resolve. The next day, 5000 protestors gathered at city hall to picket the hearings.

Although SLATE was prohibited from using university facilities and denied on-campus status following the HUAC demonstrations, activism continued to

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Cultural Developments

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the San Francisco Bay area provided a haven for radical writers, artists, playwrights, and actors, many of whom had spent the war in prison or in Civilian Public Service camps for refusing military service. Some, influenced by Gandhian nonviolent philosophy, believed that there were moral alternatives to war. Others, influenced by socialist or anar- chist beliefs, saw World War II as a struggle between expansionist nations for global dominance—a struggle that imposed suffering on millions of innocent civilians in the service of corporate and state interests. Their views, highly unpopular during the “Good War,” met with equal hostility in the Cold War period. By creating an intellectual community in San Francisco, however, they not only escaped isolation and ostracism but also produced a literary and artis- tic renaissance that stood in stark contrast to the generally barren cultural landscape of the 1950s.

The poets and writers of the San Francisco Renaissance, including William Everson and Kenneth Rexroth, broke new literary ground through their conscious “repudiation of received forms” of composition and their pointed critiques of militarism, consumer culture, corporate greed, government corrup- tion, and social conformity. Renaissance actors and playwrights, lacking a

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Social and Cultural Dissent 343

Bob Donlin, Neal Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg, Robert La Vinge, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (left to right) outside of Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. Contrast this image with popular depictions of American life during the 1950s. Does anything in the photograph suggest that its subjects are part of a rebellion against conventional norms and values?

venue to perform works that “were significant and avant-avant-garde,” estab- lished the Interplayers, one of San Francisco’s first repertory theaters. Others, like Roy Kepler and the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, opened bookstores that sold controversial literature, hosted poetry readings, and served as social cen- ters for artists and writers. KPFA, the nation’s first listener-supported radio station, also emerged out of this cultural ferment, creating an opening on the airwaves for radical, dissenting voices.

By the mid-1950s, this flourishing subculture helped nourish a new liter- ary and artistic movement. In October 1955, San Francisco’s Six Gallery hosted a poetry reading that attracted about 150 participants, including the novelist Jack Kerouac and a young, aspiring poet named Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg’s poem entitled “Howl” attacked the spiritual and emotional sterility of postwar culture and captured the longing of American youth for more than the “ample rewards” of conforming to “the conventions of the contem- porary business society.”

The critical edge in “Howl” was made even sharper by its strong lan- guage and generated a backlash that propelled the “Beat” poets into the national spotlight. In 1956, Lawrence Ferlinghetti published Howl and Other Poems out of City Lights, his North Beach bookstore. The police, charging that the volume was “obscene and indecent,” confiscated copies of the book. Ferlinghetti fought back in court, obtaining a much publicized and positive verdict that “Howl” was literature, not pornography. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, which celebrated the intentional rejection of the work ethic, material success, emotional reserve, and sexual inhibition, was published in the wake of the “Howl” publicity, and added further stimulus to the move- ment. By the late 1950s, the Bay Area became a mecca for new writers, including Denise Levertov, Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder, Peter Orlovsky, and Ken Kesey. Artists, including Jay “The Rose” DeFeo and Joan Brown, boldly experimented with color, texture, and new materials, adding to this rich cultural environment.

Alan Watts, a scholar and practitioner of Zen Buddhism, influenced this new literary subculture by introducing Beat writers to Eastern religious tra- ditions that emphasized harmony with nature, renunciation of material pos- sessions, voluntary simplicity, pacifism, and faith in internal rather than external sources of authority. By exalting these values, Beat writers moved beyond mere criticism to create an alternative vision of society that sparked the idealism of young Americans and confirmed their faith that they could make a difference in the world. Just as significantly, the Beats’ philosophical orientation helped inform the much broader countercultural movement of the 1960s.

After the war, southern California became a cultural center of national, even international, importance. This transformation began in the 1940s, as hundreds of European refugees, including prominent writers, actors, artists, art collectors, and musicians, found a safe haven in the Los Angeles area.

344 CHAPTER 10 Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontent in the Golden State: 1946–1963

Previously recognized for its Hollywood productions, Los Angeles emerged as a serious contender in theater, symphony, and classical and modern art. Across the state, popular culture also flourished. Country music, brought to California by white migrants during the Depression and war years, established Bakersfield as the “Nashville of the West” by the early 1960s. Similarly, black migrants transplanted and later adapted their blues tradition, creating a distinct “California” style of playing. In the suburbs of Los Angeles, the Beach Boys put a southland spin on rock music. Their “California sound,” celebrating surf, beaches, sunshine, and young love, introduced the nation’s youth to the “California Dream.” Finally, Disneyland, McDonald’s, and Hollywood’s new television industry changed family recreation patterns and placed southern California at the forefront of consumer culture.

Summary

During the postwar years, California’s booming economy and population pro- pelled the state into the national spotlight. Its industrial base, benefiting from federal defense expenditures, not only broke new technological ground, but also attracted thousands of newcomers with the promise of prosperity. Growth, however, placed severe strains on existing infrastructure and prompted state and local government to invest heavily in education, social services, transporta- tion, recreation, community health, and public works. At the same time, thou- sands of Californians abandoned the older urban core for new suburban developments. Industry soon followed. This population shift destroyed millions of acres of open space and valuable agricultural land and transferred urban problems like air and water pollution to relatively unspoiled areas. It also rein- forced social and economic inequalities. Non-whites, shut out of the suburban boom by discriminatory housing practices, were left with a declining urban infrastructure, diminishing tax base, and shrinking job prospects. Despite their “ghettoization,” ethnic minorities still had cause for optimism. Many Cali- fornians, recalling the democratic rhetoric of the war, were concerned about civil rights. Anti-Communist hysteria, while damaging and distracting, failed to extinguish popular support for liberal reform. Moreover, urban ghettos, by concentrating ethnic groups in specific districts, enhanced minority political power. Thus, by the end of the postwar era, African Americans and Mexican Americans achieved significant legislative and political victories on the state and local levels. By the early 1960s, however, serious questions remained. Was civil rights legislation enough to solve the state’s “racial dilemma”? Were middle-class values and the suburban lifestyle stifling women and the young? Was postwar expansion extracting too heavy a toll on the environment? These questions, which arose during the 1950s, would find vocal expression during the tumultuous ’60s.

Summary 345

Suggested Readings

❚ Broussard, Albert, Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900–1954 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993). This book, while covering a broad span of time, provides good coverage of post- war black activism in the San Francisco Bay area.

❚ Dassman, Raymond F., The Destruction of California (Tappan, NJ: Macmillan, 1966). This book, a classic primary source, documents the environmental damage that resulted from rapid growth and development during the postwar period.

❚ Davidson, Michael, The San Francisco Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). This book examines the origins, impact, and legacy of the San Francisco Renaissance, culminating with the rise of the Beat Generation.

❚ Douglas, John A., The California Idea and American Higher Education, 1850 to the 1960 Master Plan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). This book provides a historical overview of higher education in California, including a detailed account of the Master Plan.

❚ Galarza, Ernesto, Farm Workers and Agri-Business in California, 1947–1960 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978). This book exposes the human costs associated with agricultural production, including a thorough critique of the bracero program.

❚ Hundley, Jr., Norris, The Great Thirst: Californians and Water—A History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). This book provides an overview of the state’s water resources, water exploitation, and local, state, and federal water policy.

❚ Lipset, Seymour, and Wolin, Sheldon S., eds., The Berkeley Student Revolt (New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1965). A classic collection of writings on the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and student activism, more generally.

❚ Nash, Gerald D., The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Sec- ond World War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990). This book details the lasting impact that World War II had on California’s economy, including a discussion of the state’s emerging electronics and aerospace industries.

❚ Navasky, Victor, Naming Names (Hill and Wang, 2003). This book places Hollywood’s Red Scare within a larger historical context, describes its human costs, and details its lasting impact on the industry.

❚ Pincetl, Stephanie, Transforming California: A Political History of Land Use and Development (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). This

346 CHAPTER 10 Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontent in the Golden State: 1946–1963

book provides a comprehensive history of land use, development, and envi- ronmental degradation in California.

❚ Schiesl, Martin, ed., Responsible Liberalism: Edmund G. “Pat” Brown and Reform Government in California, 1958–1967 (Los Angeles: California State University, Los Angeles, Institute of Public Affairs, 2003). This recent collection of essays provides a good overview of Brown’s political philoso- phy, agenda, and major accomplishments during his two terms as governor.

❚ Schiesl, Martin and Dodge, Mark, eds., City of Promise: Race and Historical Change in Los Angeles (Claremont: Regina Books, 2006). This recent collec- tion of essays documents the experience and struggles of the city’s Latino, African American, and Asian Pacific communities before and after World War II.

❚ Williams, James C., Energy and the Making of Modern California (Akron: University of Akron Press, 1997). This book provides a comprehensive overview of the state’s energy resources, use patterns, regulatory framework, and policy.

Suggested Readings 347

CH AP

TE R 11

Divided We Stand: Activism and Politics, 1964–1970

Main Topics

❚ Seeds of Change

❚ The Movement Expands

❚ Politics in the Age of Dissent

❚ Summary

In the fall of 1964, Margot Adler left her home in New York City to attend college at U.C. Berkeley. Raised by left-wing parents during the McCarthy era, Margot was no stranger

to political activism. While still in high school she joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), participated in civil rights demonstrations, and helped organize protests against civil defense drills. Berkeley, with its outstanding academic reputa- tion and “rich history of student activism,” was a logical choice for this bright, idealistic young woman. But just as important, it provided Adler with the opportunity “to find a rich and inter- esting life” of her own.

When she arrived at Berkeley, administrators had just pro- hibited on- and off-campus organizations from setting up tables at the south entrance of the campus, an area that had long been used by various groups to distribute their literature, recruit members, and engage in spirited political debate and discussion. The ban came during the national struggle for civil rights, when many Berkeley students joined protests against

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discriminatory hiring practices of local businesses such as Mel’s Drive-In, the Sheraton Palace Hotel, and the Lucky supermarket chain. Other students had recently returned from Mississippi, where they had spent the summer volunteering with civil rights organizations like CORE and the Student Non-Violent Coordinat- ing Committee to register black voters. For local activists and Mississippi volunteers, the tables on Bancroft and Telegraph— mistakenly thought by university administrators to be on cam- pus property—were the primary means of attracting support for the growing civil rights movement.

Not surprisingly, student activists, including some from conservative organizations like the Young Republicans, responded to the ban with anger. The university, they charged, cared more about maintaining good relations with local businesses by controlling campus political activity than about the constitutional right of free speech. The ban also brought other issues to the surface. Many felt that it was a paternalistic policy, designed to shelter students from unwholesome or “subversive” ideas—a policy that reflected the administration’s assumption that students were incapa- ble of making informed, independent judgments. To others, the prohibition underscored the university’s lack of moral direction. Its officials, students maintained, were mainly interested in “turning out corporate drones for industry”

CHAPTER 11 Divided We Stand: Activism and

Politics, 1964–1970

1962 Edmund G. Brown reelected as governor National Farm Workers Association (later renamed UFW) formed

1964 Rumford Act repealed by Proposition 14 U.C. Berkeley Free Speech Movement

1965 Delano Grape Strike launched Watts Riot Immigration Act abolishes race-based immigration quotas

1966 Black Panther Party established Ronald Reagan elected governor

1967 The Summer of Love Brown Berets established

1968–1969 Third World Strikes at San Francisco State and U.C. Berkeley

1969 Indians of All Tribes occupy Alcatraz Island Activists create People’s Park

1970

Chicano Moratorium march and rally against the war in Vietnam; Ruben Salazar killed by Los Angeles Police Department Reagan elected to second term as governor

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rather than in cultivating critical thought, social responsibil- ity, and civic virtue.

These concerns were broad enough to capture the atten- tion of several thousand students, who, like Adler, believed that “the right to political advocacy seemed obvious.” Even conservative student groups, usually at odds with “radical” campus activists, joined the emerging Free Speech Movement (FSM). After a semester-long series of protests, arrests, and fruitless negotiations with the administration, student acti- vists obtained the support of the faculty senate. A week later, the Board of Regents struck down all prohibitions against political activity, affirming that students, like all other citizens, were entitled to the protections of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. For Adler and other FSM activists, the victory struck a deep chord: “We’d done something to transform the world around us, and we were forever marked by the belief that change was possible,” she said. “It would affect us for life, making us deep optimists about human possibility and influencing every choice from then on.”

In the summer of 1965, Adler went to Mississippi to work on a voter registration project sponsored by the Student Non- Violent Coordinating Committee. Returning to Berkeley as a more seasoned activist, Adler joined the movement against the war in Vietnam—a movement that soon spread across the state, generated often-violent confrontations between police and demonstrators, disrupted “business as usual” on college campuses and in surrounding communities, and deeply polarized Californians.

After graduating from Berkeley in 1968 with a degree in journalism, Adler’s desire to change the world—to create a society more rooted in cooperation, spiritual values, and mean- ingful work—continued to shape her life journey. Reflecting back on her experiences, Adler observed: “For all the limitations of my generation—our unconscious actions, our unexamined ideas, our often silly phrases—we were alive to the deepest spiritual values. We believed that exploration was life-long, that one’s life work had to be honorable, creative, and transfor- mative. We seldom thought about consumption, or the eventual need to live the good life.... We believed that anything was possible and that everything was open to reexamination.”

This “ecstatic sense of possibility” was shared by an entire generation of young Californians during the 1960s, and created the foundation for a broad range of social move- ments that altered the state’s cultural, political, and economic fabric. As the decade progressed, heady optimism was

350 CHAPTER 11 Divided We Stand: Activism and Politics, 1964–1970

replaced with frustration over the slow pace of change, gen- erating more militant activism. But to many Californians, particularly those outside the process of change, the state and nation as a whole appeared to be coming apart at the seams. In the presidential election of 1968, Richard Nixon adopted the successful strategy of claiming to speak for “the great majority of Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators … those who do not break the law, peo- ple who pay their taxes and go to work, who send their chil- dren to school, who go to their churches … people who love this country [and] cry out ... ‘that is enough, let’s get some new leadership.’ ”

Just as California led the way for so many of the decade’s social movements, it also generated a conservative backlash against “disorder and chaos.” Two years before Nixon’s presiden- tial campaign, Ronald Reagan, the state’s Republican candidate for governor, foreshadowed Nixon’s conservative appeal by blam- ing the “mess at Berkeley,” urban unrest, and moral decline on Pat Brown’s liberal administration. He also promised to cut taxes by reducing government spending on social programs “dreamed up for our supposed betterment,” and he attacked the Rumford Fair Housing Act for betraying “sacred” property rights. All of these positions appealed to the “forgotten” voters who believed that government should uphold traditional moral values and exercise economic restraint instead of “coddling” a vocal, disruptive minority at taxpayer expense. Although Reagan failed to reduce taxes, quell social unrest, or curb the growth of state government, his conservative rhetoric and his apparent sincerity carried him through two terms as governor, revitalized his party on the state and national level, and eventually won him the presidency.

The ’60s, perhaps more than any other era, underscored California’s national influence and role as a bellwether state. The period’s social movements helped extend the democratic promise to a broader cross section of the population, created a greater appreciation of cultural diversity, and enhanced the state’s reputation for tolerance, openness, and innova- tion. They also fractured the postwar liberal consensus and precipitated a conservative reaction that reshaped national and state politics.

Questions to Consider

❚ What caused the shift from nonviolent civil rights pro- test to Black Power? How did the Black Power move- ment differ from earlier struggles for civil rights?

CHAPTER 11 Divided We Stand: Activism and Politics, 1964–1970 351

❚ Was the formation of the United Farm Workers union a watershed for California’s Mexican Americans? Why or why not?

❚ How did the youth movements of the 1960s, including the countercultural rebellion, affect California’s cultural, social, and political institutions?

❚ What factors contributed to Ronald Reagan’s 1966 elec- toral victory and his subsequent popularity as governor?

Seeds of Change

The decade’s social movements began with the African American and farm worker struggles for social, economic, and political equality; growing opposi- tion to the war in Vietnam; and the emergence of the counterculture. These movements, unfolding almost simultaneously, created the foundation for others that occurred later in the decade, as well as a conservative backlash against perceived chaos and disorder.

From Civil Rights to Civil Unrest

During the early 1960s, California’s civil rights activists had reason to be optimistic. In 1959, the state legislature passed laws prohibiting discrimina- tion in employment, public accommodations, and business transactions. The Rumford Fair Housing Act, passed in 1963, banned racial discrimination in housing. Moreover, a few cities had started to address the problem of de facto school segregation by adopting various integration plans like busing students to schools outside of their mostly all-white or all-black neighbor- hoods. Not all Californians, however, complied with the new legislation or approved of school integration. In response, black activists, white liberals, and idealistic youths joined forces to combat persistent patterns of racial discrimination.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which had a long history of civil rights activism in the Northeast and South, contributed to the leadership of California’s emerging struggle for racial equality. Like their parent organi- zation, the state’s first CORE chapters adopted the philosophy and tactics of Gandhian nonviolence and worked closely with older civil rights organiza- tions like the NAACP. In 1963, for example, CORE activists joined the NAACP in a series of protests against housing discrimination and de facto school segregation in Los Angeles. To the north, in the Bay Area, CORE and its supporters focused on employment discrimination, organizing pickets and sit-ins at businesses that refused to hire black workers. Mel’s Drive-In chain, the target of an extensive picket campaign in 1963, was forced to revise

352 CHAPTER 11 Divided We Stand: Activism and Politics, 1964–1970

its hiring policies. The following year, CORE organized protests against Lucky supermarkets, Bank of America, the Sheraton Palace Hotel, and automobile dealerships with similar results.

These modest and often token victories convinced movement participants that America’s democratic promise might soon be extended to all citizens. National events contributed to their euphoria and sense of possibility. The civil rights movement in the South was forcing an entire nation to confront its history of racial discrimination and violence, and generating an unprece- dented level of unity among white and black activists. And a new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, not only responded with federal civil rights legislation, but also promised to wage an all-out “War on Poverty.” For the thousands of ghetto residents trapped in poverty, Johnson’s economic opportunity bill raised hope that their government had not forgotten them. The Economic Opportu- nity Act, passed in August of 1964, established the Job Corps to train youths for gainful employment, VISTA (a domestic version of the Peace Corps), and a Community Action Program that provided millions of dollars in federal aid to impoverished areas. To be eligible for Community Action funding, cities had to comply with a “maximum feasible participation” mandate that involved the poor in the allocation and administration of anti-poverty monies. This, too, helped convince activists and ghetto residents that change was possible.

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Berkeley Free Speech demonstration. The 1964 Free Speech Movement on the U.C. Berkeley campus ushered in a decade of political and cultural activism among young Californians. How do you think older residents reacted to images of young, relatively privileged college students challenging the authority of university administrators and the Board of Regents?

By late 1964, however, optimism began to fade. In November, California’s voters repealed the Rumford Fair Housing Act by approving Proposition 14, a ballot initiative sponsored by the state’s real estate industry. The proponents of the proposition claimed that government had violated the sacred right of citi- zens to do what they wished with their own property. In reality, however, the initiative’s backers wanted to preserve all-white neighborhoods from black encroachment and the perceived threat of declining property values. For civil rights activists and ghetto residents, the message was clear: Californians, by a two-to-one margin, had registered—in Pat Brown’s words—a “vote for bigotry.” Although the state supreme court reinstated the Rumford Act in 1966, a decision upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967, the damage had been done.

At the same time, the War on Poverty, which had promised relief to the state’s ghetto residents, was off to a rocky start. In Oakland, one of the first cities in the nation to receive federal anti-poverty funds, the mayor handpicked members of the Economic Development Council, the agency responsible for deciding how federal monies would be allocated. As a consequence, federal funding was diverted into large-scale capital improvement projects that had lit- tle impact on living conditions in poor neighborhoods. Even job training pro- grams generated disillusionment. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, two young participants in the city’s War on Poverty program, soon concluded, “employ- ment training programs have become an acknowledged hustle, since few jobs are available at the end of the training program.” Like others of their genera- tion, they had observed the negative impact of white and capital flight from their community, and they recognized that jobs, rather than job training, were crucial to their survival.

Nevertheless, Oakland’s share of federal funding did provide some relief. This was not the case in Los Angeles, where War on Poverty funds were held up because city officials refused to comply with the maximum feasible partici- pation mandate of the federal government. By the long, hot summer of 1965, residents of Watts had ample reason to be angry and frustrated. Freeways sep- arated their community from the rest of the city. Urban renewal programs had destroyed black businesses and affordable housing. Jobs and white residents had fled to the suburbs, leaving ghetto residents with few employment oppor- tunities, underfunded all-black schools, deteriorating public facilities, and over- crowded, dilapidated housing stock. Housing discrimination, recently upheld by Proposition 14, and a woefully inadequate public transportation system cut off all avenues of escape. City officials, by failing to obtain federal relief monies, contributed to the growing sense of isolation and despair felt by many Watts residents. Finally, the Los Angeles police department was more intent on con- taining black residents in the ghetto than in protecting their lives and property. African American citizens repeatedly accused officers of ignoring due process, excessive use of force, and being “disrespectful and abusive in their language or manner.” Viewed as a brutal, occupying army, the mostly white police

354 CHAPTER 11 Divided We Stand: Activism and Politics, 1964–1970

department served as a catalyst for mounting anger. Although city officials initially blamed the ensuing uprising on “riff raff,” it was clearly rooted in chronic, systemic neglect of black neighborhoods.

On Wednesday, August 11, 1965, police patrolling Watts arrested Marquette Frye and his brother for drunken driving. Frye’s mother, who arrived at the scene with several other observers, was handcuffed when she protested the arrests. Bystanders reported that the police hit Marquette on the head, placed a gun to his temple, and roughly tossed all three family members into an officer’s car. The crowd was further inflamed by a rumor that police had attacked an innocent onlooker. More residents soon gathered as charges of police brutality circulated through the neighborhood. Alarmed officers radioed for backup, but the increased police presence and overreac- tion provoked the crowd. That evening, violence broke out but was contained within a small area and largely limited to attacks on police officers, white drivers, and television crews. The following day, African American commu- nity leaders, fearing the worst, appealed to police to replace white patrols with African American plainclothes officers and convinced the media to allow a respected minister to make a televised plea for peace. Both measures failed. The Los Angeles Police Department refused to assign African American offi- cers to Watts, and the minister’s appeal aired before most viewers had tuned in for the evening.

Beginning on Thursday night and lasting until Monday morning, the Watts uprising took a heavy toll. Crowds moved into the vicinity of the initial altercation, spread out into central Watts, and then moved outward, toward downtown Los Angeles. Venting years of anger and frustration, nearly 10,000 participants looted and burned hundreds of mostly white-owned businesses, resulting in $40 million in property damage. After order was restored by the National Guard, at least 34 had died, 31 of them black. Hundreds of others were seriously injured, and almost 4000 had been arrested. Although many participants claimed that the riot had forced whites to take note of ghetto con- ditions, the uprising produced few concrete changes. City officials created a board to administer anti-poverty funds immediately after the riot, providing short-term relief to residents; however, little was done to address chronic unemployment, de facto school segregation, housing discrimination, and police brutality. Watts, like the state’s other black ghettos, stood in stark contrast to the burgeoning, prosperous suburbs.

The riot, however, marked a transition from nonviolent civil rights activ- ism to more militant assertions of Black Power. Proposition 14, which repealed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, was identified as a contributing cause of the uprising, and it provided tangible evidence of white hostility to racial equality and integration. Moreover, the riot exposed conditions in Watts that clearly defied liberal solutions. African Americans, raised in impo- verished inner cities, derived little comfort from Lucky’s promise to hire more black workers. Not only did ghettos lack supermarkets where residents could

Seeds of Change 355

buy fresh, affordable food; they also lacked the public transportation systems that linked workers to jobs. As one black leader observed toward the end of the ’60s, the earlier generation of activists “retained their profound faith in America, her institutions, her ideals, and her ability to achieve someday a society reflecting those ideals.” Increasingly, however, “there is a growing and seriously held view among some militant Negroes that white people have embedded their own personal flaws so deeply in the institutions that those institutions are beyond redemption.”

Black Power

Throughout the nation, from California’s inner cities to the Mississippi Delta, young activists embraced more radical solutions to persistent patterns of racial discrimination—solutions that turned on the slogan “Black Power” and included militant assertions of cultural pride, community self-defense and determination, solidarity with Third World peoples, and socialist critiques of capitalism. The shift away from nonviolent civil rights activism to black self- determination alienated many formerly sympathetic whites and liberal black leaders from the emerging movement. For years, white and black activists had worked together toward the goal of creating an integrated, color-blind society. Now a new generation of black youths insisted on “the right for black people to define their own terms, define themselves as they see fit.”

In the fall of 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, two young Merritt College students, founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, and articulated this new agenda. The Panthers’ platform demanded full employ- ment, decent housing, an end to police brutality, the “power to determine the destiny of our community,” and education that “teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.” It also called on the government to release black people from prison “because they have not received a fair and impartial trial,” and demanded exemption from military service because “we will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America.” What shocked more moderate citizens, however, was the organization’s position on self- defense. Citing the Second Amendment of the Constitution, the Panthers asserted their right to bear arms in defense of “our black community from rac- ist police oppression and brutality.”

Upon forming the party, Newton and Seale recruited residents of Oakland’s ghetto to trail police and ensure that officers did not violate the con- stitutional rights of those they questioned or arrested. These citizen patrols, armed with guns and legal statutes, captured the media’s attention and over- shadowed the party’s less controversial after-school and free-breakfast pro- grams for children, community clinics, voter registration drives, and concern for education and prison reform—programs that contributed to its positive image in black communities. The Panthers, however, often encouraged

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publicity that emphasized their militancy. In 1967, as the state legislature debated a new gun control measure aimed at curbing their activism, armed party members converged on the state capitol and demanded access to the pro- ceedings. The confrontation, aired on the national news, contributed to the organization’s growing popularity with radical youth, but fueled white fears of black insurrection. The police, sharing this fear, intensified their efforts to sup- press the party, leading to a series of violent confrontations where the distinc- tion between victim and perpetrator was often blurred. In 1967, Huey Newton, the party’s minister of defense, was arrested following an altercation with the Oakland police that left one officer dead and Newton and another officer injured. Charged and convicted of manslaughter, Newton later won release because of ambiguities in police evidence and testimony. In 1968, the party’s minister of education, Eldridge Cleaver, was arrested following another con- frontation with the Oakland police in which two officers were wounded and a Panther killed. Cleaver, free on bail, ran as the Peace and Freedom Party’s pres- idential candidate in 1968, but later fled the country to avoid what many acti- vists believed would be a politically charged trial.

As the Black Panther Party spread across the nation, federal, state, and local governments took extreme and sometimes illegal measures to curb mili- tant activity. The FBI, which regarded the Panthers as a threat to internal secu- rity, used paid informants both to supply detailed intelligence and to instigate violence where police use of excessive force could be justified. In 1968 alone,

Black Panther demonstration. Photographs like this one, often underscored the anger and assertiveness of Black Power activists. How do you think white Californians reacted to such images?

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local police across the nation killed 28 Panthers and arrested hundreds of others. By the mid-1970s, the party was in disarray, torn apart by bloody con- frontations with law enforcement, internal divisions, and the deaths or impris- onment of its leadership.

The Black Panther Party, while relatively short-lived, left a lasting imprint on California politics. The party’s emphasis on community empowerment encour- aged the black electorate to demand a greater share of political power in the nation’s inner cities. In Oakland, for example, the party encouraged residents to challenge the mayor’s policy of hand-picking the Economic Development Coun- cil, the agency that allocated War on Poverty funds. By 1967, citizens gained control of the Council and began redirecting money to neighborhood-based development projects. Emboldened by this victory, the party moved on to elec- toral organizing, registering 30,000 new voters for the 1972 mayoral election. Stunning the city’s political establishment, Bobby Seale, the Panthers’ candidate for mayor, came in second, drawing 43,749 votes to the Republican incumbent’s 77,634. The Panthers went on to help organize voter support for John George, who became Alameda County’s first black supervisor in 1976, and Lionel Wilson, who became Oakland’s first black mayor in 1977. Gains on the federal and state levels were equally impressive. In 1970, the black vote sent Ronald Dellums to Congress and seated Wilson Riles as State Superintendent of Public Instruction. In 1972, Yvonne Burke followed Dellums to Washington, and Mervyn Dymally, seated as lieutenant governor, joined a growing contingent of black legislators in Sacramento. Just as significantly, the Panthers’ demand for “an educational system that will give our people a knowledge of self” helped ignite the student movement for black and ethnic studies programs and a more general assertion of cultural pride and identity. Finally, the Panthers’ anti-police brutality campaign led to the establishment of citizen review boards and affirma- tive hiring policies in local law enforcement agencies.

Municipal power, however, raised a thorny question—one that is still unre- solved. According to one observer, cities like Oakland had merely fulfilled “a cynical prediction of the central cities of the future; that as blacks and other minorities gain political office and a voice in governmental affairs, whites exodus out to the suburbs, and most importantly the major industries which carry a large load of the tax burden follow them. Non-whites gain office to control, but they in effect control nothing because there are no industries and no money. The city becomes yet a larger ghetto, controlled and dependent upon forces from outside.” As the Black Power movement waned, California’s African American population turned elsewhere for solutions to the state’s continuing racial dilemma.

The Grassroots War on Poverty

Poverty in California’s inner cities generated yet another movement of national significance, one that united women of all ethnicities. The welfare

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rights movement began in Alameda County in 1962 when fire struck the house of a welfare recipient. The welfare office withheld the woman’s monthly check because “she was living in unfit housing.” With seven young children in her care, the woman desperately turned to other recipients who then began to share similar stories of callous and disrespectful treatment. A permanent organization soon took root, spreading to inner cities throughout California. One of their earliest battles took place in Alameda County. In 1964, the state ended the bracero program, which had transported more than five million Mexicans to work in California’s fields. Strawberry growers in the northern part of the state complained of labor shortages. Shortly there- after, the county sent notice to welfare recipients that they would lose their benefits if they failed to take field jobs; however, if recipients took such work, they would be identified as “gainfully employed” and would still lose their benefits. Simultaneously, the county began withholding public assistance from new welfare applicants, claiming that agricultural jobs were readily available. The new Welfare Rights Organization (WRO) responded by stating that recipients, many of whom were skilled and semiskilled workers displaced by capital flight to the suburbs, would not be able to find substitute, higher- paying jobs in manufacturing if forced to work in the fields. The WRO then staged a sit-in at the county welfare office and threatened to take similar action in front of the state welfare department in San Francisco. As a conse- quence, the state allowed those who took agricultural jobs to retain their ben- efits, but still failed to address the more serious problem of forcing displaced workers into low-wage farm labor.

Emboldened by their partial victory, the WRO went on to lobby success- fully for increases in general assistance, an end to waiting periods or resi- dency requirements for benefits, and a complete ban on mandatory farm labor during all but the summer months. Even more significantly, welfare recipients began to challenge the authority of social service providers and the mythology that poor people are responsible for their own condition. As one WRO activist stated, “We are human beings just like everybody else… . We don’t get the taxpayers’ money free. We play the lowest games to get that money. You have to be harassed the whole month to get $200 from the welfare.” She went on to enumerate the obstacles women faced in finding gainful employment, including lack of funds for transportation and child care. For her and other welfare recipients, however, the bottom line was the lack of decent-paying employment within inner cities. As the WRO spread across the nation, attracting thousands of members and support from pro- gressive organizations, it successfully lobbied for increased aid and the liber- alization of eligibility requirements. While this provided immediate relief to many impoverished families, it failed to stem the continuing economic decline of urban ghettos. By the mid-1970s, the movement and its hard-won gains fell victim to the recession and fiscal conservatism of a new federal administration.

Seeds of Change 359

Justice in the Fields

In the midst of growing urban unrest, Cesar Chavez launched a revolution in California’s fields. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Chavez rejoined his family in Delano, married, and started a family. Seeking a way out of the grinding poverty and unrelenting toil that circumscribed the lives of California’s farm workers, he moved his growing family to the San Jose bar- rio of Sal Si Puedos, found work at a lumber mill, and joined a newly formed chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO). Initially, Chavez worked as a CSO volunteer, registering Mexican American voters in San Jose. His tireless dedication, however, soon led to a paid position as a statewide organizer, and ultimately to appointment as CSO’s national director.

As he rose through CSO’s ranks, focusing primarily on increasing the elec- toral power of urban Latino voters, Chavez became more and more convinced that political and economic justice were entwined—particularly in the state’s rural agricultural communities. There, growers used braceros and undocu- mented immigrants to undercut the wages, working conditions, and bargaining power of domestic workers. In the process, all three groups suffered. In 1962, at the annual CSO convention, Chavez presented a plan to create a farm workers’ union and was voted down. With only $900 in savings, eight children, and the support of his wife, Helen, Chavez resigned from the CSO and moved back to Delano. When he returned to Delano in April of 1962, farm workers’ living and working conditions were much the same as they had been two decades earlier. Federal and state laws that granted other workers a minimum wage, social security, unemployment insurance, and the right to organize and bargain collectively did not apply to agricultural labor. And the bracero program, pro- viding growers with an unlimited, subsidized work force, kept wages for domestic workers artificially low and made unionization virtually impossible. Against these odds, Chavez began to build a grassroots union that was philo- sophically committed to participatory democracy, dignity for the common per- son, nonviolence, and multiethnic unity and cooperation.

With a small team of talented organizers, including Dolores Huerta, Gilbert Padilla, Julio Hernandez, and Jim Drake, Chavez slowly built the organization’s membership by going from door to door and town to town, and providing practical services to farm worker families. By September of 1962, the union had built a strong enough base to hold its founding conven- tion. There, delegates voted to name the organization the National Farm Work- ers Association (NFWA), adopt the black eagle against a white and red background as its emblem, and accept “Viva la Causa” as the union’s motto. Delegates also approved monthly membership dues of $3.50 and elected Chavez as president, and Huerta and Padilla as vice presidents.

The new organization, while attracting additional members and volunteers, barely survived the next two years. By 1965, however, the tide had turned. The government finally terminated the bracero program, making it more difficult

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for growers to use an imported labor force to break strikes and block unioniza- tion efforts. The nonviolent civil rights movement in the South had also cap- tured national attention and created a groundswell of public concern over social and economic inequalities. Liberal Protestant and Catholic clergy and student activists who had championed racial justice in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi now had a compelling cause much closer to home.

The catalyst for liberal support was the Delano Grape Strike, initiated by Filipino farm workers on September 8, 1965. Growers in the San Joaquin Valley, determined to keep wages low, continued to pay domestic workers less than what braceros had received. In response, Filipino members of the Agricul- tural Workers’ Organizing Committee (AWOC), an AFL-CIO affiliate, voted to strike. Their demand was wage parity with braceros, or a modest $1.40 an hour. The growers, including agribusiness giants like the Di Giorgio Corpora- tion, not only refused to meet their demands, but also evicted Filipino workers from labor camps and called in the local police to intimidate strikers. Larry Itliong, the leader of the strike, turned to the fledgling National Farm Workers

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Seeds of Change 361

Shown here is a contemporary mural depicting Larry Itliong, Cesar Chavez, and other key figures in the 1965 Grape Strike. What does this image convey about the people who participated in this struggle?

Association for support. Chavez, in a rousing appeal to his membership, stated: “The strike was begun by Filipinos, but it is not exclusively for them. Tonight we must decide if we are to join our fellow workers in this great labor struggle.”

The strike soon gained national attention and support. Student volunteers and clergy flocked to Delano to offer their assistance and helped raise money in college communities and among their congregations. Unions, including the for- midable United Auto Workers, pledged their financial support and generated sympathy for “la Causa” among urban blue-collar workers. Luis Valdez, a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, returned to his roots in Delano and organized El Teatro Campesino (the farm worker theater) to dramatize the unfair treatment of farm labor. El Teatro, which performed to migrant audiences in the fields, helped recruit union members. Its actors, all campesi- nos, also toured college campuses, urban barrios, and various towns and cities to raise funds for the strike. Finally, Chavez called on the public to support a national boycott of products produced by Delano’s largest growers.

Additional support flooded in during and after the union’s 25-day proces- sion from Delano to Sacramento in the spring of 1966. Carrying union ban- ners, images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Mexican and American flags, striking workers and their supporters made the 250-mile journey in the spirit of a religious pilgrimage, as “an excellent way of training ourselves to endure the long, long struggle.” Many who witnessed the march as it aired on the evening news or passed through local communities were deeply moved by the spiritual discipline, humility, and poverty of the participants. The farm workers who made the journey had indeed drawn strength from their Catholic religious traditions to endure the economic hardship of a prolonged strike. Many had lost their homes and were forced to rely on the union’s meager resources for food, clothing, and shelter.

The march touched America’s moral conscience and placed additional pressure on growers to meet the strikers’ demands. Even before the procession reached Sacramento, Schenley Corporation, a producer of wine grapes, gave formal recognition to the union by signing a contract. A rumor that New York bartenders were planning to boycott Schenley products, and the Teamsters’ Union’s refusal to cross picket lines at the company’s San Francisco warehouse, helped convince Schenley to enter into the agreement. Soon after, other major winemakers, including the Christian Brothers, Almaden, Paul Masson, Gallo, Franzia, and Novitiate, signed contracts. Di Giorgio, whose pro- ducts were marketed under the S&W and Tree Sweet labels, agreed to allow its workers to vote on whether they wanted union representation.

The Teamsters’ Union, which had backed the strike, became increasingly concerned that the NFWA’s organizing efforts would disrupt the work sche- dules of its packers and truckers and place a drain on union resources. Thus, the Teamsters, in collusion with Di Giorgio, announced that it would compete with the NFWA to represent workers in the upcoming election. Worried that a Teamsters victory might result in a “sweetheart” contract that would fail to

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improve the wages and working conditions of agricultural labor, the NFWA decided to merge with AWOC to create a united front, affiliated with the AFL-CIO, against their new opposition. Their strategy succeeded. In the August 1966 election, Di Giorgio’s workers returned 331 votes in favor of Teamster representation and 530 votes for the newly formed United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC-AFL-CIO). Even after farm workers voted in favor of union representation, however, Di Giorgio failed to reach an agreement with UFWOC until April 1967.

Despite these major gains, the majority of the state’s table grape growers refused to recognize or negotiate with the UFWOC. In 1968, Chavez mounted a national boycott against all table grapes that forced most of the remaining growers to sign contracts with the union by July 1970. The victory, represent- ing the greatest advance for farm labor in American history, came at a high price. In Chavez’s words: “Ninety five percent of the strikers lost their homes and cars. But I think that in losing those worldly possessions they found them- selves, and they found that only through dedication, through serving mankind, and, in this case, serving the poor, and those who were struggling for justice, only in that way could they really find themselves.”

The Anti-War Movement

The civil rights, Black Power, and farm workers’ movements of the ’60s paral- leled America’s growing involvement in the Vietnam War. Although a broad cross section of California’s population joined anti-war protests, students formed the backbone of the movement. By 1965, campus teach-ins on America’s role in Vietnam crystallized student opposition to the war. And for the next seven years, activists tried to disrupt “business as usual” on college campuses and in sur- rounding communities. Their protests, while convincing many citizens and pol- icymakers that unrest at home was too high a price to pay for the war abroad, prompted others to call for the restoration of law and order. Combined with ethnic power movements, the anti-war opposition polarized the state’s residents and destroyed the last vestiges of the postwar liberal consensus.

Emboldened by their free speech victory at the end of 1964, Berkeley stu- dents embraced a new cause. In the spring of 1965, more than 12,000 students and faculty held a two-day teach-in on the Vietnam War. A series of protests followed, directed at the university’s ROTC program, military-related research, and policy of allowing defense industry job recruiters on campus. Their anti- war fervor was also fueled by California’s role as a major staging ground for the war in Southeast Asia. Troops, supplies, and military hardware were all deployed from state bases, often along highly visible rail lines and roadways. Teach-ins and protests soon spread to other colleges, creating the foundation for a statewide anti-war movement.

By 1967, many students throughout California had joined the Resistance, an anti-war organization that coordinated anti-war demonstrations, and

Seeds of Change 363

called on its supporters to “move from protest to resistance.” In October of 1967, during “Stop the Draft Week,” protestors marched on the Oakland Induction Center, where draftees and recruits were processed for military service. Police in riot gear blocked their attempt to surround and shut down the center. The protestors, however, donning hard hats and homemade shields, regrouped and briefly took control of the facility and sur- rounding neighborhood following a pitched street battle with the vastly out- numbered police.

Other protests, often violent and confrontational, followed the Tet Offensive in 1968, the U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970, and the release of the Pentagon Papers and the U.S. invasion of Laos in 1972. When the war finally ended in 1973, it had taken a frightening toll. Military expenditures had diverted resources from anti-poverty programs and plunged the state into economic recession. Thousands of young Californians lost their lives in the war, and those who survived received little assistance in coping with physical and psychological trauma. By 1979, when Congress finally appropriated funds to provide outreach services to veterans, many had already suffered irreversible damage from substance abuse, posttrau- matic stress disorder, and exposure to the defoliant known as Agent Orange.

The anti-war movement also exposed deep political rifts. Many old- guard liberals and labor leaders were unwilling to break ranks with Lyndon B. Johnson over his foreign policy. On the other hand, left-wing Democrats called for an end to the conflict and a renewed commitment to ending racism and poverty. By the end of the decade, the Democratic Party, on both state and national levels, was deeply divided. Conservative Republicans capitalized on this division and the mounting fears of many ordinary Californians to create a new coalition of “Forgotten Americans”— Americans who were more concerned about curbing government expendi- tures and militant protest than social and economic reform. This coalition, abandoning the liberal agenda of the postwar era, would shape state and national politics for years to come.

Although many youths retained their commitment to nonviolent social change, they had grown more suspicious of their government. Indeed, some members of the protest generation lost faith in political leaders and institutions and launched violent attacks against the “establishment.” For example, the Symbionese Liberation Army, a small fringe group that viewed itself as the rev- olutionary vanguard, assassinated Oakland School Superintendent Marcus Foster, robbed a series of banks, and kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. After a violent confrontation with police in 1975, the “Army” briefly regrouped, robbing more banks and killing a female bank customer, before its remaining members were arrested or driven into hiding. Four members of the group, who remained in hiding until recently, were finally caught, prosecuted, and sentenced in 2001 and 2002.

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The Counterculture

By mid-decade, growing numbers of young Californians embraced cultural rebellion as well as political protest. The Vietnam War, persistent patterns of racial discrimination, the conservative social values of the older generation, and disillusionment with mainstream political leadership prompted many youths to experiment with alternative lifestyles. Accusing their elders of creating a society based on material greed, competition, violence, and the repression of emotion and sexual desire, these cultural rebels sought liberation through communal living, free love, “mind-expanding” drugs, and psychedelic music. By separating themselves from the world of their parents, they hoped to create a parallel, or counter, culture that would serve as a model to the rest of society. Although some abandoned electoral politics and political protest as an avenue of social change, they nonetheless saw themselves as activists—as pioneers of a new, more peaceful, spiritual, and egalitarian social order.

An earlier generation of cultural rebels, the Beats, played a pivotal role in launching the state’s countercultural revolution. In 1963, novelist Ken Kesey used the profits from his book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, to start a commune in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Its members, calling themselves the Merry Pranksters, toured around the state in a brightly painted bus champion- ing the virtues of psychedelic drugs and flouting middle-class behavioral con- ventions. Using LSD, a hallucinogenic drug produced by Augustus Owsley Stanley III, the son of a U.S. senator, the Pranksters went on to sponsor a series of “acid tests.” Participants, often numbering in the thousands, danced to new bands like the Grateful Dead while under the influence of LSD that had been provided by “test” organizers. From that point on, hallucinogenic drugs became an integral part of the decade’s cultural revolt. Following the lead of Kesey and Harvard psychologist-turned-drug-prophet Timothy Leary, young rebels sin- cerely believed that psychedelic drugs were a gateway to higher consciousness, the key to creating a social order based on cooperation, sensual openness, cre- ative expression, and unity with nature.

By the mid-’60s, San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury District became the cen- ter of the emerging counterculture. Lined with communal “crash pads,” drug paraphernalia and poster shops, hip clothing boutiques, bead stores, and a growing contingent of longhaired, colorfully attired “flower children,” its streets attracted national media attention. Much of the publicity emphasized the kooky and seamy side of the hippie lifestyle, portraying its adherents as unkempt, drugged-out hedonists. But this only added to the Haight’s mystique among the young who flocked to San Francisco by the tens of thousands. This influx was so significant that it was popularized in a hit song. Musician Scott MacKenzie, in “Are You Going to San Francisco,” urged the would-be traveler to “be sure to wear flowers in your hair.”

A new form of rock music, often performed in accompaniment with light shows, also helped establish San Francisco as the center of the countercultural

Seeds of Change 365

revolution. The “San Francisco sound,” or acid rock, developed by local bands such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, and Big Brother and the Holding Company not only celebrated drug use but also underscored other themes of the movement: peace, open sexual expression, racial unity, cooperation, and alienation from mainstream society. Performed at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium, Avalon Ballroom, and outdoor parks and amphitheaters, the music drew thousands of youths together in celebration of their new collective identity. Like drugs, rock music was viewed as an agent of social liberation. In the words of Ralph Gleason, a local music critic, “at no time in American history has youth possessed the strength it possesses now. Trained by music and linked by music, it has the power for good to change the world.” Many older Americans saw things differently. Whereas the Beach Boys promoted a wholesome, “fun in the sun” image of California, these bands seemingly encouraged reckless experimentation with sex and drugs, and rebel- lion against parental authority.

Sexual experimentation now entailed a lower risk of pregnancy because of the development of reliable contraceptives, and thus it became the third cor- nerstone of the youth culture. Public nudity, casual sex, open displays of affec- tion, and the use of sexually explicit language were viewed as political attacks against “uptight Amerika” as well as expressions of personal liberation. The pursuit of sexual pleasure, however, did not necessarily include the revision of traditional gender roles. Among both political and cultural rebels, men contin- ued to monopolize positions of authority and power and to relegate women to subordinate or supporting roles. Indeed, the anti-war movement, with its emphasis on the heroism and sacrifice of male draft resisters, relegated women’s issues and concerns to the back burner. War resistance slogans like “Girls Say Yes to Men Who Say No!” reinforced the notion that sexual avail- ability was a measure of women’s political commitment. Within the counter- culture, this pressure intensified. Women who wanted the emotional security, intimacy, and stability of monogamous relationships were accused of being repressed, uptight, or brainwashed by their puritanical parents.

Within a few years, the contradiction between the movement’s goal of cre- ating a nonhierarchical, cooperative society and women’s lived experience gen- erated a powerful new feminist movement. For the time being, though, youthful rebels continued to elaborate on their counterculture. The under- ground press, including the Los Angeles Free Press, the Berkeley Barb, and the San Francisco Oracle, promoted both political and cultural defiance. Similarly, underground posters, comics, radio, film, and theater disseminated alternative values and reinforced a shared sense of purpose and unity. Urban and rural communes proliferated throughout the state as hippies or flower children sought to live their vision of a more humane, cooperative, decentralized social order. The Diggers, a San Francisco anarchist group, provided free food on the streets and in parks. People discarded unwanted clothing in “free boxes.” And sympathetic health professionals organized free clinics.

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By the end of 1969, however, the counterculture was in decline. The “Summer of Love” had attracted thousands of young people to San Francisco, along with drug addicts, dealers, and petty criminals. Idealistic youths, including growing numbers of runaways, were easy targets for more sophisticated criminals, leading one participant to observe: “Everybody knew that the scene had gotten so big that they’d destroyed it. Too many people. Too many runaways. Drugs were getting pretty bad. Heroin was showing up. The street carnivals were crazy.” By December, two events marked “The End of the Age of Aquarius”: the violence at the Rolling Stones’ Altamont concert and the grisly Charles Manson murders. At Altamont, the Stones hired members of the Hollister-based Hell’s Angels motor- cycle gang to provide “security.” The Angels, high on beer and drugs, and armed with clubs, terrorized and assaulted the audience and stabbed one young man to death. Two other people died when a car ran into a crowd, and another person— high on drugs—drowned in an irrigation ditch. In contrast to the peaceful Wood- stock concert earlier in 1969, Altamont exposed a dangerous, violent side to the counterculture. Manson, a self-proclaimed countercultural prophet, attracted a small but devoted following to his southern California commune with drugs, free love, and his psychotic preaching. From there, he and his “family” committed a series of brutal murders, including the ritualistic killing of pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Although these two events shocked the public, and contributed to growing skepticism of the “love generation’s” values, the counterculture found a final cause before it completely disintegrated in the early 1970s.

Coming Together at People’s Park

Although many cultural rebels withdrew from politics and emphasized building alternative institutions, most were active participants in anti-war protests and other political struggles. Similarly, most political activists crossed over into the counterculture, adopting various aspects of the hippie lifestyle. The convergence of the two took concrete form in the battle over People’s Park. In late April of 1969, Berkeley students and community activists took possession of a vacant lot owned by the University of California. After clearing the site of debris, activists planted trees, grass, and flowers, and set up playground equipment, a stage area for musical and street theater performances, and a distribution station for free clothes and food. Political radicals and cultural rebels, more cynical toward authority than they had been during the Free Speech Movement, viewed the sei- zure as an act of defiance against the university—an institution that devoted its resources to military- and corporate-sponsored research, and to educating a new generation to assume leadership roles in the “establishment.” Confrontation, rather than a last resort, was now the preferred plan of action. Many activists, however, also viewed their actions in productive or creative terms. Working cooperatively and democratically, they had transformed a barren, trash-strewn lot into a People’s Park. If the youth were in charge, they asserted, the world would be a greener, kinder, and more egalitarian place.

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University administrators, city officials, and many local business leaders saw things differently. The seizure of university land not only violated private property rights but also revealed the contempt that youths had for adult authority. Moreover, the park threatened to attract an even larger number of hippies and longhaired radicals to the community. On May 15, after the High- way Patrol and Berkeley police cleared the site and constructed a fence around the perimeter, 6000 demonstrators marched down Telegraph Avenue to “liber- ate” People’s Park. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, and protestors retaliated by throwing rocks, breaking store windows, and setting trash con- tainers on fire. As the violence escalated, police sprayed demonstrators with buckshot, blinding one man, killing another, and injuring more than 100. By evening, Governor Reagan called in the National Guard to restore order.

Protestors, however, continued to gather at the park on a daily basis, in a nonviolent but uneasy standoff with the “occupying” army. This battle of nerves culminated in more violence on May 20, when the National Guard blocked the southern entrance to the campus and used helicopters to drop tear gas on hundreds of students trapped in the university’s Sproul Plaza area. This show of force horrified many Berkeley residents and generated widespread sympathy for the protestors. On May 30, 30,000 people took part in a march to the park in memory of James Rector, the protestor slain on May 15. Although peaceful, this protest ushered in three years of ongoing conflict over the site. In May 1972, after Nixon announced his intention to mine North Vietnam’s main port, demonstrators converged on the park and finally succeeded in tearing down the fence. Shortly after, the Berkeley City Council voted to lease the land from the university and assume responsibility for its upkeep. For the time being, the “people” had won.

The Movement Expands

The Chicano, American Indian, Asian, Feminist, and Gay Pride movements, although rooted in long-standing concerns and grievances, were influenced and informed by the decade’s earlier struggles. Civil rights and farm worker advocates, emphasizing political, economic, and social justice, inspired other groups to seek the same opportunities. Similarly, the Black Power movement’s call for cultural pride and self-determination resonated with other disfran- chised minorities and subcultures.

The Chicano Movement

By 1960, California’s Mexican American population was primarily urban. The majority lived in barrios, characterized by underfunded schools, high levels of unemployment, deteriorating housing, and inferior public services. Like black

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ghettos, barrios were also plagued by police brutality, spatial isolation from more affluent areas, and poorly planned “redevelopment” schemes that destroyed affordable housing and displaced stable neighborhood businesses. Population concentration, however, brought the possibility of greater political power. The Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), recognizing this potential, sought to build on the modest political gains achieved by postwar activists. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the cornerstone of Johnson’s War on Poverty, also bolstered the optimism of urban Mexican Americans by promising funds to attack barrio poverty.

Optimism soon turned to disillusionment. In 1962, MAPA helped elect John Moreno and Philip Soto to the state assembly, but both lost in the next election after their political opponents succeeded in reapportioning their dis- tricts. During the same period, Los Angeles City Councilman Edward Roybal was elected to Congress, but this major victory left the city’s Mexican Ameri- cans without representation in city government. The council, instead of calling for an election, appointed Gilbert Lindsay, an African American, to Roybal’s seat. Even the state’s liberal governor, Pat Brown, seemed to ignore the barrio electorate, appointing fewer than 30 Mexican Americans out of a total of 5000 possible appointments. Finally, the War on Poverty, while raising expectations among Mexican Americans, directed a disproportionate amount of funding to programs in black communities.

These developments, occurring at a time when African Americans were embracing Black Power and the UFW was forcing concessions from growers, inspired young urban Mexican American activists to adopt more militant strat- egies for social and political change. Rather than emphasizing assimilation into Anglo culture, the Mexican American youth demanded their “right as a people to have their own culture, their own language, their own heritage, and their own way of life.” Like Black Power advocates, they argued that self- determination, cultural pride, community self-defense, and Third World soli- darity were the true sources of liberation. And like black activists, they believed that recovering their history—a history that had been “distorted” by whites in order to justify exploitation and discrimination—was a crucial first step in forg- ing a new movement.

Their narrative history, which ran counter to most standard textbook accounts, asserted that the Southwest was theirs. The region, they argued, was the original homeland of their indigenous ancestors. After the Spanish con- quest, their forebears (now of mixed European and Indian ancestry) created a vast New World empire that extended into the Southwest, an empire inherited by the Mexican Republic following the war for independence. In the late 1840s, Anglos, determined to extend their own empire, then seized Mexican territory in an unprovoked and unjustified war, stripped established residents of their land, and transformed a once proud people into a poorly paid, menial labor force. To a new generation of Mexican American activists who called them- selves “Chicanos,” this historical equation led to one conclusion: California

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belonged to La Raza—the Mexican Americans. Changing demographics added symbolic weight to their assertion. Between 1960 and 1970, for example, the Hispanic population in Los Angeles County grew from 576,716 to 1,228,295. This increase, not reflecting large numbers of undocumented immigrants ignored by the census, stood in contrast to a two percent decline in the Anglo population. While still in the minority in the county as a whole, the Mexican American population constituted a strong majority within certain communities and districts.

The Mexican American claim to power, based on these shifting demo- graphics and a new sense of cultural pride, took several different forms. In the political arena, some activists abandoned their struggle for recognition and representation within the two parties and established organizations devoted to their empowerment. The La Raza Unida Party (RUP), founded in the late 1960s, enjoyed its greatest success in 1970 and 1972, when it inspired Mexican Americans throughout the Southwest by wresting political control from an Anglo minority in the Crystal City area of Texas. In California, how- ever, the party’s political influence was less direct. In 1971, for example, the RUP registered enough voters to dilute the strength of the Democratic Party and cost it the election in the 48th assembly district. The RUP’s candidate, Raul Ruiz, a college professor and editor of La Raza magazine, took just enough votes away from Democrat Richard Allatorre to hand the election to a non-Hispanic Republican. This prompted state Democrats, who had long taken the Mexican American vote for granted, to run more Hispanic candi- dates in future elections. Despite small advances of this nature, however, the potential political power of Mexican Americans continued to be undermined by language barriers, gerrymandering of political districts, the constant influx of new immigrants, and the low level of voter participation by established residents.

Mexican American activists also sought reform in the educational arena. In March of 1968, thousands of students walked out of their high schools in the Los Angeles area, protesting racial bias among Anglo teachers, the lack of His- panic administrators and instructors, dilapidated school infrastructure, an uninspiring curriculum that ignored Mexican American culture and history, and the tracking of students into vocational classes. Their action inspired simi- lar protests in high schools across the nation. Similarly, on the state’s college campuses, students formed organizations like United Mexican American Stu- dents (UMAS) and El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MECHA) to press for Chicano or Mexican American studies programs, more financial aid and student services, and the hiring of Mexican American faculty. Their efforts, often supported by students of other ethnicities, led to the establish- ment of more than 50 Chicano studies programs in state colleges and universi- ties across the nation by 1969. Finally, activists launched a long struggle for bilingual education programs in elementary and secondary schools, winning a legislative mandate in 1976.

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Heightened appreciation of Mexican American history and culture extended beyond high school and college campuses into the barrios. Activists established cultural centers, organized mural projects, formed theater and dance troupes, and published magazines and journals like La Raza, Inside East- side, and El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary Mexican American Thought. Barrio youths, influenced by this cultural renaissance, attacked community pro- blems with a heightened militancy and sense of purpose. The Brown Berets, which grew out of an East Los Angeles youth group called Young Citizens for Community Action, emphasized cultural nationalism, self-determination, and community self-defense. Like the Black Panther Party, the Berets organized cit- izen patrols to monitor police activity within their communities. And like the Panthers, they soon became targets of law enforcement infiltration, harassment, and intimidation.

Police antagonism toward the Brown Berets and the barrio-based Chicano movement took an ugly turn in the fall of 1970. In 1969, the Berets helped form the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, an organization opposed to the U.S. war in Vietnam and to discriminatory selective service policies. Mexican American youths, less likely to attend college than Anglos, received fewer student deferments. They also lacked the political connections that allowed some of their white counterparts to escape the draft or receive assign- ment to less risky branches of the military. As a consequence, they were drafted in disproportionate numbers and suffered a disproportionate level of casualties in fighting what many of them regarded as an unjust war against other people of color. On August 29, 1970, the Moratorium Committee sponsored a march and rally in East Los Angeles. Following the march, 20,000–30,000 participants, including families with small children, gathered peacefully in Laguna Park to listen to music and speakers. Police, in an unprovoked show of force, moved in and disbanded the demonstrators with clubs and tear gas. In the process, hundreds of citizens were arrested, 60 injured, and two killed.

In the late afternoon, after most of the demonstrators had dispersed, Ruben Salazar and two of his coworkers who had been covering the day’s events for a Spanish-language television station took a break for a beer in the Silver Dollar Bar. Police, claiming to have seen a man enter with a rifle, sur- rounded the bar, fired in tear gas canisters, and prevented patrons from leav- ing. One of the canisters hit Salazar in the head, killing him. His death was not an unfortunate accident or product of police overreaction, charged the Mexican American community. Salazar had earlier exposed Los Angeles Police Depart- ment brutality in a case of mistaken identity that led to the shooting deaths of two Mexican nationals. The police had warned Salazar that he would pay the consequences if he did not tone down his coverage. Despite serious evidence of misconduct, no officers were charged for Salazar’s death, and police– community relations remained deeply troubled.

Although police brutality, lack of political representation, and poverty con- tinued to plague California’s barrios, the Brown Power movement helped

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promote a more positive sense of identity among urban Mexican Americans. Moreover, it had a lasting impact on higher education. During the 1970s and 1980s, state colleges and universities attracted increasing numbers of Mexican American students through affirmative action, financial aid, and ethnic studies programs. This, combined with a greater commitment to affirmative hiring policies in the public and private sectors, led to the growth of the Mexican American middle class, increased representation in professional occupations, and a new, better-educated generation of political leaders.

Taking the Rock

In the late 1960s, the state’s American Indian population responded to the pressures and challenges of termination, relocation, poverty, and broken trea- ties with an assertion of “Red Power,” a movement that emphasized cultural pride, intertribal unity, and mutual aid. Indians created the foundation for this movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s by building a new institutional power base. The Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland, the San Francisco Indian Center in San Francisco, the United Bay Area Council of American Indians, and the Intertribal Council of California united “relocates” who came from tribes across the nation with California Indians and provided them with

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a forum for articulating shared concerns. Other organizations, devoted to cul- tural preservation and education, also took root. In 1964, the chairman of the Cahuilla tribe organized the American Indian Historical Society to promote scholarship on Indian life, culture, and history, and the revision of school text- books. In 1967, the California Indian Education Association was founded to promote Native American studies programs on college campuses and to encourage political activism among the Indian youth.

At the same time, Indian youths were influenced by the Black Power and Chicano Power movements. Impatient with the pace of change, they adopted more militant forms of struggle for cultural recognition and redress. Their protests paid off. By 1969, several college campuses had established Native American studies programs or study groups. In November of 1969, student activists, with the support of Indian organizations and their leadership, planned and carried out the occupation of Alcatraz Island. Launched after a fire destroyed the San Francisco Indian Center—a central gathering place of Bay Area Indians—this action signaled the birth of the Red Power movement. Led by Richard Oakes, a Mohawk Indian and Bay Area student, the “invaders” adopted the name “Indians of All Tribes” to underscore their diverse back- grounds. Other veterans of the occupation included Adam Fortunate Eagle (Anishinabe-Ojibway), John Trudell (Sentee-Sioux), La Nada Boyer (Shoshone-Bannock), Edward Castillo (Cahuilla-Luiseño), Millie Ketcheshawno (Mvskoke), Shirley Guevara (Mono), Luwana Quitiquit (Pomo-Modoc), John Whitefox (Choctaw), and Wilma Mankiller (Cherokee).

On November 9, 1969, Richard Oakes and several other Indians staged a preliminary and short-lived invasion that convinced them that a longer occupation was viable. Just 11 days later, on November 20, approximately 100 Indians, mostly students, seized the island and issued a series of demands that included permanent title to Alcatraz, and the right to establish a Center for Native American Studies, a Spiritual Center, and an Ecology Center on its soil. They also established an elected council to coordinate day-to-day negotiations with government officials and media relations.

As the months passed, occupiers confronted a series of setbacks. The federal government steadfastly refused to concede to their demands. Hundreds of new- comers, including many non-Indians, arrived on the island, placing stress on existing supplies and services. Competing political factions challenged the original elected council. Oakes, distraught over growing political divisions and the acci- dental death of his daughter in January of 1970, left the island. In the meantime, the government shut off the island’s electricity and blocked the transport of water from the mainland. A fire broke out three days after the disruption in water supply, destroying several buildings. Finally, on June 10, 1971, federal marshals and FBI agents invaded the island and removed the remaining occupiers.

The Alcatraz activists, however, left a lasting legacy. In the words of La Nada Boyer, an occupation leader, “Alcatraz was symbolic in the rebirth of Indian people to be recognized as a people, as human beings, whereas before,

The Movement Expands 373

we were not. We were not recognized, we were not legitimate … but we were able to raise, not only the consciousness of other American people, but our own people as well, to reestablish our identity as Indian people, as a culture, as political entities.” Even before the occupation ended, President Nixon for- mally halted the federal policy of termination and restored millions of acres of land to several tribes. He also increased federal spending on Indian educa- tion, housing, health care, legal services, and economic development. The occu- pation inspired Indians across the nation to engage in similar actions, including the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., which forced the agency to hire more Indian employees to administer its programs. Another occupation, of a former army base near Davis, California, led to the establishment of D-Q University, the “first and only indigenous controlled institution of higher learning located outside of a reservation.”

Change and Activism Along the Pacific Rim

The 1960s brought massive changes to California’s Asian American communities. The 1965 Immigration Act, reflecting the more liberal racial attitudes of

the postwar, civil rights era, created a new major wave of Asian immigration by abolishing race-based quotas and permitting 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere to enter the United States each year. Spouses, minor chil- dren, and parents of U.S. citizens were not counted as part of the quota. Prior to the Immigration Act, Japanese Americans constituted the largest percentage of the Asian American population, followed by Chinese, Filipinos, and Koreans. After 1965, however, Japanese Americans dropped from first place, as immigrants from other groups entered the state in larger numbers.

The Chinese population underwent the greatest transformation. Prior to 1965, a majority of Chinese residents were American-born. With the new immigration, however, the number of foreign-born increased to 63 percent of the total population. About half of the newcomers, lacking professional or tech- nical training, clustered in existing Chinatowns and worked in low-wage menial or service occupations. This population of “Downtown” Chinese stood in contrast to a second group of immigrants: the “Uptown” Chinese, educated professionals and entrepreneurs mostly from Hong Kong and Taiwan. This group either settled outside of existing Chinatowns altogether, following a pat- tern adopted by American-born Chinese residents, or established new, upscale suburban enclaves. For example, Monterey Park, which was 85 percent white in 1960, was more than 50 percent Chinese two decades later and was known as the “Chinese Beverly Hills.”

Filipinos, arriving in even greater numbers, were more widely dispersed and homogeneous in education and training than Chinese immigrants. Most were professional and technical workers fleeing economic hardship and political repression in the Philippines. But although highly skilled, as many as one-half of all newcomers worked in low-wage clerical or manual occupations

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because American professional associations refused to accept their degrees or grant them licenses to practice. This enormous pool of talent from the Philippines, including doctors, lawyers, dentists, engineers, and professors, was virtually wasted in the United States.

Korean immigrants, although facing greater language barriers than Filipinos, came with similar credentials. A majority were college-educated, middle-class professionals who also faced institutional obstacles in the United States; however, many arrived with the capital to launch small businesses, which in turn fostered the development of ethnic enclaves. Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles, for example, quickly emerged as a center of entrepreneurial activity, housing churches, grocery stores, insurance companies, restaurants, beauty shops, nightclubs, and travel agencies by 1975. However successful, these business ventures still represented a step down for trained professionals like Kong Mook Lee, who, unable to practice as a pharmacist, opened a sewing factory in Los Angeles. He, and a majority of other highly trained Korean immigrants, never anticipated that their professional skills would be useless in the United States.

As the immigrant population expanded, increasing the size and diversity of the state’s Asian population, many sons and daughters of established residents reclaimed their ethnic heritage and launched the Asian American student movement. In the Bay Area, Asian American students joined the 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State University, organized by a multiethnic coalition of students and faculty that called for the creation of a Third World College. This, and a second strike that shut down the Berkeley campus in 1969, resulted in the creation of ethnic studies departments on both campuses and fostered ethnic consciousness among participants. Asian American students, in particular, emerged with a new awareness of their own ethnic heritage, history of oppression, and responsibility to their communities. Vietnam War protests also helped radicalize young Asian Americans. Having experienced anti-Asian prejudice at home, they drew parallels between their own experience and the negative stereotypes used to dehumanize the “enemy.”

These experiences encouraged young activists to return to their own roots and recover their culture and history. Cultural organizations, like the Combined Asian Research Project, encouraged young writers, musicians, and artists to produce works that reflected their ethnic heritage and identity, and to establish an Asian American artistic and literary tradition by locating and documenting the contributions of older generations. Others emphasized politi- cal activism within their neighborhoods and communities, focusing on housing conditions, sweatshop labor, and the lack of medical, legal, and social services in Asian enclaves. Groups such as the Asian Law Caucus and Asian Law Alliance, for example, provided low-cost legal advice in the areas of housing, immigration, and employment discrimination. For many, however, San Francisco’s International Hotel provided the call to action. By the late 1960s, the hotel, housing a resident population of older, low-income Filipino and

The Movement Expands 375

Chinese men, and serving as a home base for activist youth organizations, was threatened with demolition by its owner, Walter Shorenstein. A coalition of tenants, resident activists, and college students persuaded the owner to lease the hotel to the United Filipino Association and formed a collective to renovate the building and provide services to the residents.

The hotel soon became a symbol of Asian American unity, self- determination, and ethnic pride; however, financial problems and factional struggles among different activist groups undermined the collective experiment, prompting the owner to proceed with eviction and demolition plans. In August of 1977, after activists had exhausted all legal and political options for saving the hotel, they rallied more than 2000 supporters to surround the building and block the eviction. Police used force to break through the crowd and remove the tenants from the hotel. The building was eventually demolished, but the site remains vacant because of ongoing political pressure from community acti- vists who insist that low-income housing be part of the development agree- ment. Of less symbolic—but more lasting—significance was the creation of Asian American studies programs on college and university campuses, increased political participation and representation, and an enduring cultural influence in music, literature, art, film, and theater.

Emerging Feminist and Gay Rights Movements

During the ’60s, a relatively quiet but growing movement went largely unno- ticed in the face of more dramatic, noisy protests against the status quo. Just as young women were confronting sexism within the decade’s social movements, an older generation of “liberal feminists” began working through legal and political channels to address gender bias in education and employment. In 1964, these mostly white, middle-class professionals convinced the California legislature to establish a State Commission on the Status of Women. Over the next three years, the commission worked to document widespread gender inequities and sent delegates to the National Conferences of the State Commis- sions on Women. At the third national conference, held in Washington, D.C., in 1966, delegates criticized the federal Economic Opportunity Commission for failing to investigate complaints of sex discrimination. Following the closing luncheon, several participants formed the National Organization for Women (NOW) to “break through the silken curtain of prejudice and discrimination against women.”

California’s liberal feminists returned home determined to organize local and state chapters of NOW. In 1967, the State Commission issued its long- awaited report on the status of women, along with a series of proposed legisla- tive remedies. When Governor Reagan ignored its recommendations, liberal feminists were ready to fight back. By the early 1970s, when they were joined in their struggle by younger activists who had encountered sexism among their “radical” male colleagues, a full-fledged feminist rebellion would emerge.

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In a similarly quiet manner, gay and lesbian activists worked diligently throughout the ‘60s to promote greater acceptance of homosexuality among California’s heterosexual majority. Their efforts, emphasizing political engage- ment, public education, and cooperation with sympathetic liberals, grew out of the same desire for inclusion that informed early civil rights struggles. In 1961, for example, a gay San Franciscan formed the League for Civil Education (LCE), which sought to build a political voting block among the city’s homo- sexual residents. In 1964, the Society for Individual Rights (SIR)—an LCE spin off—was formed to promote electoral unity and activism as well as “a sense of community; and the establishing of an attractive social atmosphere and con- structive outlets for members and friends.” By 1967, SIR and the Daughters of Bilitis (1955) began hosting “Candidates Nights,” where those seeking politi- cal office could meet their gay and lesbian constituents.

Beyond the political arena, organizations like LCE, SIR, the Mattachine Society (1950), and the Daughters of Bilitis created opportunities for social engagement outside of the more closeted confines of gay and lesbian bars. In 1966, for example, SIR established the nation’s first gay community center on 6th Street in San Francisco. They had also won a small measure of public tol- erance by building coalitions with sympathetic heterosexuals. In 1964, gay and lesbian activists joined with liberal San Francisco clergy to form the Council of Religion and the Homosexual (CRH), an organization that promoted accep- tance of homosexuality within mainstream religious denominations. On Janu- ary 1, 1965, the CRH held a fundraising ball. As guests arrived—both gay and straight—they were harassed and photographed by police. Officers also arrested CRH lawyers who had demanded a search warrant when police attempted to enter the hall. For the first time, heterosexuals experienced the officially sanc- tioned intimidation and brutality that had long been used to break up gay and lesbian social activity in bars, restaurants, and clubs. The resulting outcry from “respectable” members of the community helped sway public opinion against such routine civil rights abuses.

Liberal activism, however, soon gave way to more militant calls for gay liberation. The shift happened gradually. In 1966, at Compton’s Cafeteria on Turk and Taylor Streets in San Francisco, gay patrons fought back when police raided the premises. In 1967, after several police raids of Los Angeles gay bars, several hundred protestors gathered on Sunset Boulevard to demand freedom from harassment. Predating New York’s 1969 Stonewall uprising against anti-gay police harassment, usually cited as the catalyst for the gay liberation movement, these two events signaled a radical departure from the old politics of inclusion. A younger generation, influenced by the counterculture’s rebellion against “uptight” sexual mores, and minority demands for “power,” would soon call for more than acceptance into the mainstream. Asserting that “Gay Is Good,” and demanding “complete sexual liberation for all people,” they urged gays and lesbians “Out of the Closets and Into the Streets.”

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Politics in the Age of Dissent

The Decline of Liberalism

Ethnic power struggles, student unrest, and the Vietnam War had a profound and lasting impact on politics. Democrats were deeply divided over foreign and domestic policy. The Right, in the meantime, had formulated a new agenda that included Americans who, in the words of Richard Nixon, believed that “we live in a deeply troubled and profoundly unsettled time. Drugs, crime, campus revolts, racial discord, draft resistance—on every hand we find old standards violated, old values discarded.” At the same time, federal expendi- tures on the war contributed to high levels of inflation. Many Americans, alarmed over a weakening economy, rejected “spendthrift liberalism” in favor of Republican promises to “cut, squeeze, and trim” government spend- ing and to reduce taxes. In contrast to liberals, conservatives argued that gov- ernment agencies, immune from free market competition, had become inefficient, wasteful of taxpayer money, and bloated. Even worse, many of the public services that they provided undermined individual initiative and responsibility. Private industry, they maintained, would provide ample opportunities for the deserving and hard-working if freed of excessive gov- ernment regulation. The new conservative agenda, a reaction to movements that challenged “traditional” values, also had a strong moral component. During the Depression and World War II, migrants from Oklahoma, Arkan- sas, and Texas moved to California, transplanting their fundamentalist brand of evangelical Protestantism. As early as the 1950s—and long before the emergence of the religious right on the national political stage—these moral conservatives were challenging liberal reforms on the municipal and state level. Then, in response to the perceived moral laxity of the ’60s countercul- ture, southern California-based evangelicals supported Barry Goldwater’s 1964 bid for the presidency and Reagan’s 1966 gubernatorial campaign. Gaining new converts in the 1970s, including hippies who were disenchanted with their generation’s excesses, California’s self-defined “moral majority” helped secure Reagan’s 1980 presidential victory and an enduring influence in the national Republican Party.

When Edmund “Pat” Brown announced his intention to run for a third term in the gubernatorial election of 1966, he faced serious opposition within his own party. Many anti-war Democrats, disenchanted with Brown’s moder- ate position on the escalating conflict, refused to back his reelection bid. Making matters worse, conservative party members rejected Brown as too lib- eral and backed Los Angeles mayor Samuel Yorty in the Democratic primary. Although Brown secured his party’s nomination, Yorty garnered nearly one million votes—votes that might easily be captured by the Republicans in the upcoming election.

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In contrast, Ronald Reagan, who easily won the Republican nomination, enjoyed the full backing of a newly unified, well-funded party organization. He and his advisers had also crafted a campaign strategy designed to capture the support of conservative white Democrats who were alarmed over student unrest, minority demands for economic and political power, the countercul- tural assault on traditional morality, and government programs that benefited “cheats” and “spongers” at the taxpayer’s expense. Although Rea- gan denied that race was an issue in his campaign, he did, in fact, exploit the fear and resentment of white voters. His attack on government spending, for example, reinforced white suspicions that liberal social programs encouraged dependence, fraud, and a growing sense of entitlement among minority reci- pients. Similarly, Reagan repeatedly reminded voters that he had backed Proposition 14, an initiative supported by a majority of white voters, but recently declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court. Brown accused Reagan of exploiting the white backlash against integration, but Rea- gan deflected criticism by framing his position as a defense of private prop- erty rights.

In the 1966 election, Reagan won office by 993,000 votes, nearly the same number that Brown had lost to Yorty in the primary. Republicans also eroded Democratic majorities in the senate and assembly, and captured every other office with the exception of state attorney general. Two years later, another Californian, Richard Nixon, used the Reagan strategy to win the presidency.

Ronald Reagan won election as governor by pledging to clean up the “mess at Berkeley,” curb government spending, reduce taxes, defend free enterprise, and provide moral leadership. How does this image make you feel about his leadership abilities? Does his body language reflect determination and self-confidence or passivity and doubt? What is the impact of the photographer’s choice of background and the subject’s height and pose?

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Reagan as Governor

During his first term, Reagan attempted to implement his policy of “cut, squeeze, and trim” with disappointing results. Only two areas—higher educa- tion and mental health—suffered cuts, and the resulting savings were oversha- dowed by record-level expenditures elsewhere. In higher education, he reduced funding by several million dollars and urged administrators to make up the shortfall by increasing tuition. This, he maintained, would save the taxpayers money and “help get rid of undesirables”—students who cared more about protesting than their studies. He also vetoed an increase in payments to old age pensioners and implemented sweeping cuts in the mental health budget. The state’s mental health system, which the Warren and Brown administra- tions had expanded, had become a national model of humane and enlightened treatment of the mentally ill. Reagan slashed the staff at state mental hospitals by 3,700, forcing institutions to prematurely discharge patients and reduce the scope and quality of hospital services. He also cut funding for community men- tal health clinics that provided outpatient treatment for those with less serious mental disabilities. While saving the state more than $17 million, these cuts had disastrous and lasting consequences for the mentally ill, their families, and local communities. Reagan also reduced funding for the state’s Medi-Cal program, which was created during Brown’s last term in office to provide health care to low-income and indigent residents. These cuts, however, were blocked by the state supreme court.

Beyond these relatively modest cost-cutting measures, Reagan met with stiff opposition. Many of the most costly programs were protected by federal and state mandate or vigorously defended by the Democratic majority in the senate and assembly. As a consequence, Reagan’s 1967–1968 budget of just more than $5 billion was the largest in state history and exceeded the previous year’s total by $400 million. To cover the increase, he was forced to authorize a record-breaking tax increase of $1 billion. Nevertheless, he remained popular with voters, diverting attention from his larger budgetary failures with folksy references to his smaller cost-saving measures and his “get tough” posture with “campus rioters.” His plain-dealing cowboy image, initially honed in Hollywood and ably resurrected by his public relations staff, was also a power- ful political asset.

Furthermore, Reagan, like many governors before him, avoided characteri- zation as an extremist by adopting moderate or pragmatic positions on several issues. At the risk of alienating his right-wing colleagues, he failed to support a legislative repeal of the Rumford Fair Housing Act, despite his strong position during the campaign. He also backed the Beilenson Bill, the most liberal abor- tion law in state history. Finally, conservationists were heartened by his veto of the Round Valley Dam project and his support for legislation that protected the middle fork of the Feather River. In his second term, Reagan improved on his environmental record, signing into law new air and water quality

380 CHAPTER 11 Divided We Stand: Activism and Politics, 1964–1970

standards and approving legislation that required environmental impact reports for public works projects. Environmentalists, however, were alarmed by his refusal to endorse legislation to regulate development in the Lake Tahoe area, and his belated backing of a watered-down measure to create Redwoods National Park after claiming “a tree is a tree” to a cheering audience at the 1966 meeting of the Western Wood Products Association.

Nevertheless, his blend of personal appeal, pragmatism, and ideological conservatism won Reagan a second term in 1970. Again determined to reduce state spending, he focused on reforming the welfare system. In a compromise with the Democrats, Reagan obtained tougher eligibility requirements for Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC), a work requirement for able- bodied recipients, and a cost reduction in the Medi-Cal program. As part of the compromise, however, the final measure included expensive cost-of-living increases for welfare recipients. Although Reagan claimed that the welfare sys- tem fostered dependence and laziness, only one percent of recipients were able- bodied males. About three-quarters were blind, aged, or disabled, and the remainder were children in single-parent, female-headed households. Welfare “reform,” which appealed to angry taxpayers, completely ignored or misrepre- sented the plight of the state’s most vulnerable citizens. Moreover, the savings that it generated were relatively insignificant because federal mandate protected many programs, and the work requirement was undermined by a weak economy.

Year after year, Reagan signed off on progressively larger budgets, from $6.8 billion in 1971–1972 to $10.2 billion for 1974–1975. At the same time, economic recession produced a decline in state revenue, necessitating addi- tional tax increases. In 1971, Reagan raised $500 million in taxes by introduc- ing a paycheck withholding system and revising capital gains and corporate tax schedules. A year later, Reagan drafted another tax bill with Democratic legis- lators that raised sales, bank, and corporate taxes. This measure not only gen- erated revenue for education and social welfare programs, but also allowed the state to provide tax relief to homeowners. By the late 1960s, rising inflation had increased property valuations and local tax assessments. The new sales tax financed additional state income exemptions for property owners, and tempo- rarily quelled what soon became a statewide campaign to limit local property tax increases—the tax revolt of 1978.

In 1973, Reagan made a final attempt to salvage his reputation as a fiscal conservative. Proposition 1, a Reagan-sponsored ballot measure, was a consti- tutional amendment that would have prohibited the legislature from raising taxes beyond a certain percentage of a taxpayer’s income. Opponents of the initiative argued that local governments and property owners would be forced to compensate for the resulting shortfall in state services. And Reagan admitted that even he did not fully understand the measure’s complex provisions and formulas. Voters rejected the proposition by more than 300,000 votes, but Reagan had preserved his conservative image by championing fiscal restraint

Politics in the Age of Dissent 381

and tax relief. When he left office in 1974, with his eye on a career in national politics, this would be what voters remembered. His basic philosophy of “cut, squeeze, and trim,” perfectly in tune with the declining economic fortunes of the Golden State’s electorate, was soon to carry the same weight with American voters in the presidential race of 1980. Moreover, moral conservatives, con- vinced that he was more in tune with their “plain folk” values than other national Republican figures, were willing to forgive his earlier support of the Beilenson Bill.

Summary

The ’60s left a lasting impression on the state’s culture, politics, and economy. The decade shattered the myth that Californians were one big, happy family. African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans demanded not only equal rights and political power, but also respect for their cultural traditions and historical contributions. As a consequence, the state’s residents were forced to acknowledge that they lived in a pluralistic, often con- tentious society, rather than a melting pot where various ethnic groups blended together by accepting white, middle-class values. At the same time, countercul- tural rebels and anti-war activists challenged the political and economic priori- ties of their parents and created an alternative values system that emphasized cooperation; creative, fulfilling work; sexual and emotional liberation; and envi- ronmental awareness.

These challenges to the status quo, however, also produced a backlash. Ronald Reagan, appealing to “forgotten” Californians, attempted to replace the liberal agenda of his Democratic predecessor, Pat Brown, with his own blend of social, fiscal, and political conservatism. Though he failed in the fiscal arena, his conservative philosophy and rhetoric not only revitalized the Repub- lican Party, but also eventually won him the presidency. Change, however, was difficult to suppress. The ’60s gave many Californians a new appreciation of cultural diversity and a broader choice of alternate lifestyle options. In the workplace, emphasis on creativity and shared decision making increased worker productivity and innovation, particularly in the emerging Silicon Valley. In the home, many men and women renegotiated their roles and increasingly chose alternatives to the traditional nuclear family. Colleges and universities gave students more curricular choices and a greater role in gover- nance. Most significantly, they broadened their curricular choices to include non-Western, ethnic, and women’s studies.

Finally, the ’60s led to the growth of new movements: gay and lesbian lib- eration, modern feminism, environmentalism, and anti-nuclear activism. What the Right regarded as an abandonment of traditional values, others viewed as a healthy skepticism of authority and a welcome expansion of cultural and

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political horizons. Rather than reaching a new social consensus in the coming decades, the state’s residents would continue to grapple with the sweeping changes introduced during the ’60s.

Suggested Readings

❚ Adler, Margot, Heretic’s Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997). This is a first-person account of student activism on the Berkeley campus during the ’60s.

❚ Cannon, Lou, Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2003). This book covers Ronald Reagan’s political career from his early years as a New Deal Democrat to his two terms as a conservative governor.

❚ Espiritu, Yen Le, Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). This book details the origins, activities, and legacy of the Asian American youth movement, with particular emphasis on campus activism in California.

❚ Foner, Philip S., ed., The Black Panthers Speak (Cambridge and New York: Da Capo Press, 2002). This collection includes interviews with and writings by Black Panther Party members.

❚ Griswold Del Castillo, Richard, and Garcia, Richard A., Cesar Chavez, A Triumph of Spirit (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995). This is a concise biography of Cesar Chavez that provides ample information about his union activities, fellow organizers, and political opponents.

❚ Johnson, Troy, The Occupation of Alcatraz (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996). This is a comprehensive account of the Alcatraz occupation that includes information on organizers, participants, federal government reaction, and the occupation’s legacy.

❚ Kerner Commission, Report of the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders (New York: Bantam, 1968). This report, produced by a federal commission and criticized by many civil rights activists as too superficial, explores the causes and consequences of the Watts uprising.

❚ McGirr, Lisa, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). This book documents the emergence and growing influence of the new right in state and national politics.

❚ Muñoz, Carlos, Youth, Identity, Power: Chicano Movement (New York: Verso Press, 1989). This book describes the origins, activism, and legacy of the Chicano youth movement.

Suggested Readings 383

❚ Perry, Charles, The Haight-Ashbury (New York: Vintage, 1984). This book provides a good overview of Haight-Ashbury’s counterculture during the ’60s.

❚ Rorabaugh W. J., Berkeley at War: The 1960s (New York: Oxford, 1989). This book covers the rise of the Free Speech, anti-war, Black Power, and countercultural movements, and describes their impact on American poli- tics and culture.

❚ Seale, Bobby, Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1997). This book, written by one of the founders of the Black Panther Party, describes the origins, activities, internal and external problems, and guiding philosophy of the organization.

❚ Wolfe, Tom, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968). This is an entertaining, journalistic account of the counter- culture’s founders, philosophy, and alternative lifestyle.

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CH AP

TE R 12

Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

Main Topics

❚ The Legacy of the ’60s

❚ Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints

❚ Politics in the Era of Limits

❚ Summary

Jacqueline Nguyen, the daughter of a South Vietnamese army major, was born in 1965 just as the U.S. was escalat- ing its involvement in the war. Ten years later, as the South

Vietnamese Government fell to Ho Chi Minh’s forces, her father drew on his connections to U.S. military officials to spirit Jacque- line and her siblings to safety on one of the last evacuation planes to leave South Vietnam. Had they remained they would have paid dearly for their father’s loyalty to the losing side. The Nguyens, including five children all under the age of eleven, spent their first several months of “freedom” living in an army tent alongside hundreds of other refugees at Camp Pendleton.

After settling in the La Crescenta-Montrose area of Los Angeles, the family faced new challenges. Major and Mrs. Nguyen worked two to three menial jobs at a time, often with the help of their children, to amass the savings to start their own business. By the time Jacqueline started high school, her parents had purchased a North Hollywood dough- nut shop which, like many other immigrant-run businesses,

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depended upon family labor. Even while attending Occidental College, where she earned a degree in English and compara- tive literature in 1987, Jacqueline continued to help out between classes and on weekends.

Inspired by her family’s struggle to negotiate the complex- ities of immigration and small business law, Jacqueline then went on to obtain a doctorate in jurisprudence from UCLA in 1991. Following four years at a private firm, she was appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California where she supervised fraud prosecutions and rose to the posi- tion of Deputy Chief of the General Crimes section. In 2002 Governor Gray Davis, taking note of her work ethic and integ- rity, appointed her to a Los Angeles County Superior Court judgeship. Becoming the first Vietnamese American woman ever appointed to that position, she quickly built a reputation for fairness and restraint. Impressed with her record, President Obama nominated her in 2009 to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Central Division—a nomination confirmed by the Senate. Then, in 2012, Jacqueline was nominated and con- firmed for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, becoming the first Asian American to serve as a federal appellate judge.

The Nguyens’ journey was followed by a much larger exo- dus from Southeast Asia. Although religious and charitable

CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

1972 U.S. troops withdraw from Vietnam California ratifies the Equal Rights Amendment Bay Area Rapid Transit System begins operating

1973 Arab oil embargo triggers state energy crisis

1974 Lau v. Nichols Edmund Brown Jr. elected governor

1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act signed into law

1978

Harvey Milk elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Proposition 13 approved by voters Bakke Supreme Court decision Harvey Milk and San Francisco mayor George Moscone assassinated

1980 AIDS identified by the Centers for Disease Control

1988 Reparations extended to Japanese American internment camp survivors

1982 George Deukmejian elected governor

1990 Americans with Disabilities Act becomes law

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organizations across the U.S. assisted the federal govern- ment in resettling wave after wave of destitute boat people, California—with its warm climate, plentiful jobs, and estab- lished Asian communities—was the destination of choice. By 1995 an estimated 335,000 refugees had moved to the state, giving California the highest refugee density in the world, and increasing the size and diversity of its Asian population. Although Jacqueline’s meteoric ascent from a refugee child at Camp Pendleton to a federal judge was excep- tional, her parents’ story was more typical. The Nguyens, like other immigrants to the state, worked hard to establish a small measure of economic security, and to maintain cultural and family ties. Indeed, following her appointment as Assistant U.S. attorney, Jacqueline continued helping out at the family doughnut shop on weekends—a contribution that signified her unflagging loyalty and gratitude toward her parents.

Whether or not Jacqueline realized it, her family’s experi- ence was an outgrowth of American foreign policy during the

This photograph shows Vietnamese refugee children at Camp Pendleton. What does this image suggest about their ability to adjust to a new life in California? What barriers might they face in their effort to assimilate?

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’60s—a foreign policy that gave rise to a contentious anti-war movement and reshaped national and state politics. But Viet- namese immigration was only one legacy of the ’60s. New forms of activism, growing out of earlier social movements, flourished during the 1970s and early 1980s, and bolstered California’s reputation as a center of experiment and change. As the Nguyens adapted to their new surroundings, they, like other Californians, entered a shifting economic environment. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, the state’s economy became increasingly tied to the booming trans-Pacific, or Pacific Rim, trade. Although Asian countries provided new markets for Cali- fornia’s products, their cheaper exports damaged other indus- tries and contributed to a growing trade deficit.

Even more significantly, the state’s economy shifted away from heavy industry to service sector employment. Manufacturing jobs, the most heavily unionized in the state, moved overseas or to lower-wage regions of the United States, while service sector employment accounted for more than three-fourths of all new job growth during the same period. Many Californians, with the education and training to move into higher-wage service employment, benefited from this shift. Others, including new immigrants, were forced into low-paying, largely nonunion service jobs that afforded less in terms of security, benefits, and opportunities for advancement than those in heavy industry.

As these economic shifts unfolded, Californians faced unprecedented limits to growth. The state’s resource base, undermined by decades of economic and demographic expan- sion, appeared more fragile than ever. Muted by the upheavals of the ’60s, concern resurfaced in often contentious efforts to protect air and water quality, open space, and wilderness areas. During this period of economic change and environ- mental constraints, a Democratic governor, the son of the great liberal reformer, Pat Brown, entered office. Thirty- seven-year-old Edmund “Jerry” Brown Jr., promising to bring a “new spirit” to Sacramento, defied categorization as a lib- eral or conservative. He supported the rights of farm workers, opposed the death penalty, and appointed more women and minorities to state office than any of his predecessors. He was also a staunch advocate of environmental protection, resource conservation, and the development of renewable energy sources and sustainable technology. But in fiscal mat- ters, Brown was conservative, asserting that “we are going to cut, squeeze, and trim until we reduce the cost of government.” His refusal to live in the governor’s mansion or

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use the state limousine and airplane underscored his personal commitment to the “era of limits” philosophy.

By 1982, Brown’s popularity had plummeted. A national economic recession and Proposition 13, a property-tax reduc- tion initiative passed by voters in the late 1970s, plunged local and state governments into fiscal crisis. Economic woes prompted worried residents to elect a Republican governor, George Deukmejian. By the mid-1980s, the national and state economy recovered, quelling any lingering concerns that Jerry Brown’s cautionary message about learning to live within limits might actually have had substance.

Questions to Consider

❚ How were the social and political movements described in this chapter connected to those of the ’60s? Provide specific examples of the connections.

❚ To what extent did California’s minority groups make significant progress during the ’70s and ’80s?

❚ How did the economy change during the “era of lim- its,” and what were the costs associated with its trans- formation?

❚ What were the similarities and differences between the Brown and Deukmejian administrations? Can either be easily categorized as liberal or conservative?

The Legacy of the ’60s

During the 1970s and 1980s, women, people with disabilities, and gays and lesbians launched new movements for social change. Their quest for equal rights and recognition, inspired by the activists of the ’60s, bolstered the state’s reputation for diversity and tolerance and ensured that California remained in the forefront of social and cultural change for decades to come. Simultaneously, the state’s minority population edged closer to attaining majority status and reaped concrete benefits from their earlier struggles. Affirmative hiring and admissions policies, which increased employment and educational opportu- nities, led to the expansion of the middle class. Most significantly, fair housing and employment legislation afforded some protection against more overt forms of racial discrimination. During the 1970s and 1980s, ethnic minorities sought to consolidate these gains through political action, while simultaneously grap- pling with a new set of challenges.

The Legacy of the ’60s 389

Feminism

California’s feminist movement, mirroring national trends, took two directions during the “era of limits.” Liberal feminists, primarily white, middle-class pro- fessionals, worked through existing political channels to address issues like wage equity, reproductive rights, child care, and sex discrimination in govern- ment, higher education, and the professions. Radical feminists, younger mem- bers of the “protest generation,” used more militant tactics to challenge discrimination and alter the cultural values and practices that reinforced women’s inequality.

Liberal feminists responded to the lack of political support for gender equity by founding local National Organization for Women (NOW) chapters and joining national efforts to secure passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). In 1972, California became one of the first states to ratify the amend- ment, but the battle was far from over. By the 1982 congressional deadline, only 35 of the 38 states needed to ensure passage had ratified the ERA.

During the long and ultimately unsuccessful struggle for the ERA, NOW chapters pursued a broader feminist agenda. In 1972, its activists created a statewide organization in California to coordinate the activities of individual chapters and lobby for legislative action. Over the next several years, the new organization, located in Sacramento, sponsored assembly and senate bills that addressed inequities in the insurance industry, guaranteed stiffer penalties for repeat sex offenders, and protected the privacy of rape victims. NOW, joined by the California Abortion and Reproductive Rights League (1978), also lob- bied for access to abortion and birth control.

During the 1980s, NOW and other liberal feminist organizations supported comparable-worth legislation. The number of women in California’s labor force had steadily increased during the 20th century, and by 1970, a majority of women worked for wages; however, most were forced into gender-specific jobs that paid, on the average, only 60 cents for every dollar earned by male workers. Comparable worth, a concept that promoted equal pay for comparable—but not necessarily identical—jobs, was viewed as a solution to these wage disparities. The legislature approved the use of comparable-worth criteria in setting salaries for state employees in 1981; however, Governor George Deukmejian, who opposed government regulation of private industry, vetoed several other bills that would have extended the practice beyond state employment. As late as 1985, a government task force reported that the state’s labor market was still segregated by sex, with little change in wage differentials between men and women.

California’s women also lagged behind men in holding elected and appointed office. In response, organizations like the California Women’s Polit- ical Caucus (1973) and the California Elected Women’s Association for Educa- tion and Research (1974) encouraged women to run for office, lobbied for greater representation in appointed positions, and promoted public education

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and research on women and the political process. By the mid-1970s, their efforts had produced modest results. Jerry Brown, elected governor in 1974, appointed more than 1,500 women to various boards and commissions— more than any previous administration. Women also made gains in the legisla- ture, increasing their representation from six in 1976 to 17 in 1986. All but four, however, served in the assembly, while the state senate and the congres- sional delegation remained almost entirely male dominated.

Political gains were even more impressive on the local level. In 1978, fol- lowing Mayor George Moscone’s assassination, Dianne Feinstein was chosen by fellow members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to finish his term. In 1979, she won the mayoral contest in her own right, becoming the first woman elected to that post. Subsequently, women were elected as mayors of San Diego, Berkeley, Sacramento, and San José, and to a host of city council and county supervisor offices.

In the meantime, younger, radical feminists argued that “mainstreaming” was not enough. The entire society—its religious and moral beliefs, language, literature, art, media, economy, educational system, and political institutions— undervalued and denigrated women. Throughout the state, radical women established small discussion or consciousness-raising groups to share common concerns and come up with strategies for change. Having used direct action to protest racial inequality and the war in Vietnam, many decided to use the same tactics against institutions that they felt degraded women: beauty pageants, the advertising and fashion industries, male-only clubs and professional associa- tions, and the mainstream media.

Similarly, radical feminists followed the countercultural strategy of building alternative institutions: battered women’s shelters, rape crisis centers, health clinics, child care cooperatives, bookstores, cultural centers, art galleries, print and publishing collectives, recording and film studios, theater troupes, and urban and rural communes. Within professional associations, women created caucuses to promote feminist research and the hiring and promotion of women. At colleges and universities, feminist students and faculty launched women’s studies programs. For example, the women’s studies program at San Diego State University, the first in the nation, was established in 1970 by women who had earlier participated in a campus-based consciousness-raising group.

The joint efforts of liberal and radical feminists moved California closer to gender equity, but serious problems remained. Occupational segregation and wage disparities contributed to the “feminization” of poverty in California and the nation as a whole. The women’s movement, attracting mostly white, edu- cated, middle-class feminists, was often slow to address such concerns. Women of color also felt isolated by a movement that emphasized sexism and tended to ignore the impact of racism. In response, African American, Asian American, and Latina feminists often broke away and formed their own organi- zations, such as Black Women Organized for Action, Asian American Women United, and Mujeres en Marcha.

The Legacy of the ’60s 391

Disability Rights

The disability rights movement, patterned after the civil rights and ethnic power struggles of the ’60s, was founded by a small group of students on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Between 1962 and 1969, the university housed severely disabled students in Cowell Hospital, the campus health center. For the first time, these young people experienced a sense of community, but also faced barriers to full participation in campus and community life—barriers that limited their access to public places, employment, social services, and recreation opportunities. According to one of the students, Phil Draper, “we wanted to be able to control our own destinies— like the philosophies that propelled the civil rights and women’s movements.”

In 1970, the Berkeley activists, who called themselves the Rolling Quads, formed the Disabled Students’ Program on the U.C. campus. A year later, they established the Center for Independent Living (CIL) in the city of Berkeley “to give people with disabilities the will and determination to move out of hos- pitals and institutions,” and fully participate in the life of their communities. Over the next several years, Berkeley’s CIL coordinated independent living arrangements for its clients and lobbied for increased community access for the disabled. After extensive pressure from the CIL, for example, the Berkeley City Council allocated funds for curb ramps. Activists then lobbied for improved access to buildings, workplaces, recreation facilities, and public transportation.

By the mid-1970s, the disability rights and CIL movements had spread across the nation, and activists focused their efforts on lobbying for federal leg- islation that advanced their access agenda. In 1973, the Rehabilitation Act was signed into law over President Nixon’s veto. Section 504 of the act prohibited any program or agency receiving federal funds from discriminating against handicapped individuals solely on the basis of their disabilities. This was the first time in history that the federal government acknowledged that the exclu- sion of people with disabilities was a form of discrimination.

The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) was given the task of drafting guidelines for Section 504’s enforcement; however, by 1977, HEW still had not drafted regulations that addressed architectural and commu- nications barriers to access, and reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. In response, disability rights activists staged sit-ins at HEW offices across the nation. The San Francisco sit-in, lasting 28 days, marked the longest occupation of a federal building in U.S. history. The demonstrations, combined with a lawsuit, letter-writing campaign, and congressional hearings, prompted HEW to act. On May 4, 1977, Section 504 regulations were issued, creating a precedent for the much broader anti-discriminatory protections later provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

During the 1980s, California activists joined the national effort to defend and broaden HEW regulations. Working primarily through the legal system, activists convinced the Supreme Court that Section 504 prohibited employment

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discrimination and covered people with AIDS and other communicable illnesses. They also obtained federal legislation that allowed the disabled to sue states for violations of Section 504. By 1988, the federal government was ready to introduce a more comprehensive version of the Rehabilitation Act—one that would prohibit all forms of discrimination against people with disabilities, even within organizations and businesses that operated without federal funds. In 1990, the ADA became law, extending to people with disabil- ities the same protections that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave to women and minorities. From its beginnings at Cowell Hospital at U.C. Berkeley, the dis- ability rights movement had become a political force on the local, state, and national levels.

Gay Pride

Inspired by the militancy of the ’60s, gay and lesbian activists created a host of new organizations to combat discrimination and foster “gay pride.” Like radical feminists and disability rights activists, many used direct action to attack homophobic attitudes and institutions. In 1970, for example, gay liberation groups stormed the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco to protest the profession’s characterization of homosexuality as a mental disorder. This and similar protests across the nation prompted the APA in 1973 to delete homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Like radical feminists, gay liberationists also created alternative institutions and celebrations. Annual gay pride marches in Los Angeles and San Francisco, beginning in 1970, drew ever larger crowds, as did the Gay Games and film festivals. Gay and lesbian community centers, clinics, youth shelters, coffee- houses, restaurants, theaters, sororities, fraternities, choral groups, athletic lea- gues, and theater companies flourished alongside older gay institutions, adding greater variation and richness to community life.

As these institutions took root, the state became a mecca for those seeking a less-closeted lifestyle. Existing gay and lesbian enclaves, like Venice and West Hollywood, expanded. New communities, like San Diego’s Hillcrest neighbor- hood, sprang to life. And in San Francisco, older gay enclaves in the Tender- loin, the South of Market area, and North Beach shifted uptown to the Castro District. In San Francisco alone, the gay population almost doubled between 1972 and 1978, growing from 90,000 to more than 150,000.

Growth translated into political power. In 1977, Harvey Milk, a Castro Dis- trict camera shop owner and community activist, became the first openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Others soon followed, culmi- nating in the “Lavender Sweep” that brought 11 gays and two lesbians into city office in 1990. Change was even more dramatic in West Hollywood, where, in 1984, voters elected a lesbian mayor and a gay and lesbian majority to the city council. Moreover, by the mid-1980s, several cities had included sexual

The Legacy of the ’60s 393

orientation in their nondiscrimination ordinances, banned discrimination against people with AIDS, and acknowledged the validity of domestic partnerships. Such gains, however, were accompanied by a strong, conservative backlash.

The first challenge came in 1977, when state congressman John Briggs spon- sored a ballot initiative that would have required school districts “to fire or refuse to hire … any teacher, counselor, or aide, or administrator in the public school system … who advocates, solicits, imposes, encourages, or promotes private or public homosexual activity … that is likely to come to the attention of students or parents.” Gay and lesbian activists, working through organizations like the Bay Area Committee Against the Briggs Initiative and the Committee Against the Briggs Initiative, Los Angeles, convinced voters to reject the measure. Gay rights advocates soon faced another challenge, however.

On November 27, 1978, Dan White, a former police officer and member of the Board of Supervisors, murdered San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. White, who had recently resigned from the board over a series of disagreements with more liberal members, had a change of heart about leaving his post. Moscone, however, was unwilling to reinstate him. Feeling betrayed and defeated by his liberal opponents, White marched into city hall and took his revenge with a gun. Although subject to the death penalty for assassinating public officials, White was only convicted of manslaughter, a charge that carried a sentence of seven years and eight months. The jury, from which gay and lesbian panelists had been excluded, agreed with psychiatrists who testified that White suffered “diminished capacity” from consuming too much junk food—the so-called Twinkie defense.

Following the verdict on May 21, 1979, thousands of protestors converged on city hall, smashing windows and setting police cars on fire. Later that night, violence spread to the Castro as angry residents engaged in street battles with what they perceived to be an invading army of police officers. At the end of the “White Night” riots, property damage exceeded $1 million, and hundreds had been injured. Just a few months later, another tragedy unfolded.

In 1980, a new disease came to the attention of the Centers for Disease Control. Soon identified as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), it spread rapidly through California’s gay male communities and eventually to the general population through blood transfusions, intravenous drug use, and unprotected sex. As the death toll mounted, gay and lesbian activists reacted by creating hospices, food banks, counseling and testing services, shelters, and home care networks. They also rallied to demand increased funding for research, testing, treatment, and prevention. At the same time, the AIDS epi- demic gave anti-gay conservatives new ammunition in their moral crusade against homosexuality. Proposition 64, placed on the California ballot in 1986, called for the quarantine of people with AIDS. Another ballot measure, sponsored by Southern California U.S. Representative William Dannemyer in 1988, would have required doctors and clinics to report HIV-positive clients to

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state authorities. Voters, rejecting attempts to label AIDS a highly contagious “gay disease,” defeated both measures. In the meantime, gay and lesbian acti- vists became even more militant. New organizations, like the AIDS Action Coalition (1987) and ACT-UP (1988), used civil disobedience to counter their conservative critics, demand more funding for treatment and research, and attack the pharmaceutical industry for withholding promising drugs and over- charging consumers.

As older activists met the challenges of the AIDS crisis, a new generation began to broaden the scope of the gay liberation movement. Moving beyond the hetero- sexual/homosexual paradigm, they created organizations that embraced a wide range of marginalized sexual groups that had often been ignored or excluded by gay and lesbian organizations, including bisexual, transgender, and questioning individuals. Queer Nation, representing this new spirit, identified itself as “an infor- mal, multicultural, direct action group committed to the recognition, preservation, expansion, and celebration of queer culture in all its diversity.”

Multiethnic Political Gains

For California’s African American population, the 1970s and 1980s brought a higher level of political representation. In 1970, Wilson Riles was elected as the first black superintendent of public instruction. The same year, Marcus Foster became superintendent of the Oakland public schools, the first African American to head a district of that size. Ronald Dellums, elected to the Berke- ley City Council in 1967, took a seat in the U.S. Congress in 1970, joining Augustus Hawkins, who had served his Los Angeles district since 1962. Two years later, Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, a former state assemblywoman, also won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, raising to three the number of black Californians in Congress. In 1973, Los Angeles City Councilman Thomas Brad- ley became the city’s first African American mayor. Bradley not only served an unprecedented five terms in this office, but also won the Democratic nomination for governor in 1982 and 1986. In 1974, state senator Mervyn Dymally took office as lieutenant governor and later joined the U.S. Congress. By 1980, black Californians were also well represented in the state legislature, with two senators and six assembly members. Assembly speaker Willie Brown would later become mayor of San Francisco, and assemblywoman Maxine Waters, representing Los Angeles, would join the U.S. Congress.

The state’s Hispanic population grew dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s, exceeding 5.7 million by 1985. Constituting nearly 22 percent of the total population by the mid-1980s, Hispanics were California’s largest and fastest-growing minority group. Worsening economic conditions in Mexico, combined with an increase in high-tech manufacturing and service sector employment, contributed to some of this growth; however, large numbers of Central Americans and Chileans, fleeing U.S.-sanctioned political repres- sion and violence, also sought refuge in California. As a consequence, the

The Legacy of the ’60s 395

Hispanic population, concentrated primarily in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area, became more diverse. Rapid growth and diversity, in turn, presented challenges to organizations that had long struggled to foster political unity.

In urban areas, middle-class-oriented organizations like LULAC and the GI Forum, which lost membership to more militant groups during the ’60s, recovered in the 1970s as strong advocates of political unity, civil rights legisla- tion, and electoral participation. New organizations, such as United Neighbor- hood Organization (1975) and Communities Organized for Public Services (1974), followed in the footsteps of the Community Service Organization (CSO) by organizing poor and working-class residents to demand political power and better services for their communities. For these and other organiza- tions, the primary challenge was how to unify and awaken the “sleeping giant”—the Latino electorate.

During the 1970s, the most striking gains came in the form of political appointments. Governor Jerry Brown, assuming office in 1975, appointed a record number of Hispanics to state agencies and the judiciary, including

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396 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

How does this image of Governor Jerry Brown contrast with that of Ronald Reagan? Does Brown project the same level of authority, or is his persona more apt to appeal to the increasingly powerful baby boom constituency of the mid-1970s and early 1980s?

Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Mario Obledo. Only a small number of Hispanics held elected office on the local and state levels, despite the fact that the number of eligible voters had dramatically increased. But this was about to change. By the 1980s, the growing influx of undocumented work- ers, coupled with economic recession, precipitated an anti-immigrant backlash. The Simpson-Mazzolli Immigration Reform and Control Act, passed by Congress in 1986, increased penalties for hiring undocumented workers and heightened security at the U.S.-Mexico border. The same year, voters approved an amendment to the state constitution establishing that “English is the official language of the State of California,” and directing legislators and government officials to “take all steps necessary to ensure that the role of English as the common language of the state is preserved and enhanced.” These measures galvanized the Hispanic electorate and led to increased representation in local, state, and national office. The Democratic Party, which took the strongest posi- tion in defense of immigrant rights, was the primary beneficiary of this political “awakening.”

Within the state’s Asian population, Japanese and Chinese Americans made the most striking progress in the political arena. Japanese American acti- vists won a major moral victory in 1980, when Congress agreed to establish the U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. In 1988, the federal government adopted the commission’s recommendation to award reparation payments of $20,000 to each surviving internee, and to issue a for- mal apology for wartime exclusion and detention. Although Congress failed to appropriate the necessary funds until 1989, and the first payments were not made until 1991, most Japanese Americans felt at least partially vindicated. Sig- nificantly, Norman Mineta, one of the state’s first Japanese Americans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, announced the government’s decision. In 1976, the year Mineta was initially elected to his post, California voters sent a second Japanese American, Robert Matsui, to Congress, and S. I. Hayakawa to the U.S. Senate. Hayakawa began his controversial political career during the ’60s when, as president of San Francisco State University, he took a hard line against student protestors. After his single term in the Senate, he returned to California and spearheaded the campaign for the 1986 “English Only” ballot initiative.

The state’s Chinese American residents also made some political progress during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974, March Fong Eu, elected as secretary of state, became the first Asian American to hold statewide office in California. In 1994, soon after she finished her fourth and final term, her son, Matthew Fong, was elected state treasurer. Chinese Americans also gained representation on the municipal level, holding five elected offices in San Francisco by 1980, and one in Los Angeles by 1985. Reflecting the growing Chinese presence in Monterey Park by the 1980s, voters elected Lily Lee as that city’s mayor. In 1974, the state’s Chinese Americans won a major legal victory for public school children with limited English language skills. In Lau v. Nichols, the U.S.

The Legacy of the ’60s 397

Supreme Court ruled that the failure of schools to meet the linguistic needs of children constituted unequal treatment. Two years later, the state legislature mandated bilingual education in California’s schools.

The activism of the ’60s, including the occupation of Alcatraz Island, reinvigorated the Native American struggle for political visibility and power. In 1983, 17 terminated tribes were restored to their previous status after win- ning a class action suit, Hardwick v. United States. Others were restored through action initiated by California Indian Legal Services; however, the federal government was slow to help these tribes regain their land base and reestablish their tribal governments. During the 1970s, the Yuroks fought to protect their fishing rights along the Klamath River, and the Achumawis took legal action against Pacific Gas & Electric to reclaim land in northeastern California. In Santa Barbara, Indians occupied a spiritually significant site to prevent construction of an oil tanker terminal. Others, having lost their land and tribal identity, reunified and sought formal recognition from the federal government. For example, the Tolowas of Del Norte County, driven to the brink of extinction in the 19th century by disease and white violence, gradu- ally recovered. In the mid-1980s, they applied for tribal status—a status that promised federal funds for education and health care, and the legal standing to assert their land rights. Other groups, however, could ill afford the long and costly process of establishing common ancestral ties among surviving tribal members.

Ethnicity and Economics

In the economic arena, the state’s African American population experienced both gains and persistent barriers to advancement during the 1970s and 1980s. Affirmative hiring policies and fair employment legislation led to the growth of the black middle class. Entrepreneurship also increased, aided in part by minority contract programs. By the 1980s, California had more black- owned businesses than any other state in the nation, supporting thousands of workers with a payroll of $217 million. At the same time, stronger enforcement of fair housing legislation allowed more prosperous African Americans to move out of the inner city. As a consequence, the older black enclaves of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland lost some of their economic diversity. In some cases, middle-class flight also altered the ethnic composition of neighborhoods. Watts, for example, went from being a predominantly black enclave to one that is now mostly Asian and Hispanic.

Economic mobility, however, was offset by an increase in black poverty. During the postwar period, inner cities had steadily lost jobs to the suburbs. In the 1970s and 1980s, heavy industry, whether in the urban core or in outly- ing areas, began to leave the state altogether. Without blue-collar jobs, tradi- tionally a source of upward mobility for those with less education and training, thousands slipped into poverty. State and national cuts in social

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spending, including Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), com- pounded the plight of California’s most disadvantaged families. By 1980, nearly three-fourths of all black families lived in poverty. Black workers were twice as likely as whites to be unemployed, and the jobless rate for black youths stood at 40 percent—where it had been just before the Watts riot. Even with the expan- sion of the black middle class, the average annual income of African American families was only 60 percent of the white average.

Barriers to equal education were part of the problem. Inner-city schools had not only fewer resources than their suburban counterparts, but also a much larger population of disadvantaged youngsters. Recognizing that hous- ing discrimination and income disparities between blacks and whites had contributed to de facto school segregation, many municipalities adopted school integration plans as early as the 1960s; however, Los Angeles, contain- ing the state’s largest school district, had long ignored the fact that 90 percent of its black children attended predominantly black schools. In 1970, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against the district, the state’s supreme court judge, Alfred Gitelson, ordered its officials to initi- ate an integration plan. In 1978, after losing several appeals, the district finally implemented a mandatory busing plan for its students; however, in 1979 California voters approved a constitutional amendment that limited mandatory busing to cases of legal or intentional segregation. As a conse- quence of this decision, Los Angeles and other cities abandoned mandatory busing. By this time, many affluent parents—most of them white—had simply removed their children from public schools, or relocated to suburban dis- tricts. With or without busing, California’s public schools would remain highly segregated by race and class.

Affirmative college admission programs, another attempt to ensure edu- cational equity, also came under attack shortly after they were implemented. Beginning in 1969, the U.C. Davis medical school reserved 16 out of 100 annual admission slots for minority students. In 1973 and again in 1974, Allan Bakke was turned down for admission. He concluded that Davis rejected him because he was white, and that affirmative action constituted a form of reverse discrimination. After the state supreme court upheld his posi- tion, the university appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1978, the justices ruled five to four in favor of Bakke; however, their decision fell short of a blanket condemnation of affirmative action. Such programs, they maintained, were constitutional as long as race was not the only consideration in evaluat- ing an application. For the time being, racial criteria could still be used to increase the diversity of the student population and ensure equal access to higher education.

For Latinos, economic progress was also mixed with challenges. Through- out the 1970s, agricultural workers continued to benefit from the protections offered by the United Farm Workers. After its successful table grape boycott in the late ’60s, the union moved on to organize the state’s lettuce workers.

The Legacy of the ’60s 399

This brought renewed conflict with the Teamsters’ Union. Claiming to represent field workers in the Salinas Valley, the Teamsters signed contracts with several large lettuce growers that provided few benefits for farm labor. Resenting the UFW’s challenge to what they perceived as their jurisdiction, the Teamsters, with growers’ support, mounted a campaign of violence and intimidation against their rival union. The UFW responded by launching a let- tuce boycott and lobbying for state legislation that would create an Agricultural Labor Relations Board to supervise union elections and recognize only “one industrial bargaining unit per farm.” The bill, also allowing legalized strikes and secondary boycotts, passed in 1975. The state gave farm workers the legal right to choose a bargaining agent and made a commitment to guaranteeing that elections were noncoerced and fair. Moreover, the law mandated that only the union receiving the majority of votes be allowed to represent the workers on any given farm.

A weakness of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act was that it failed to grant organizers the right to enter farms to speak with workers. Growers could legally block the entry of UFW members while allowing free access to the Teamsters. The Labor Relations Board also lacked the funding necessary to follow up on the many violations of the act, particularly election fraud. Cesar Chavez decided to appeal directly to California voters by launching an initiative campaign. Proposition 14, which appeared on the November 1976 ballot, would have given union organizers free access to the state’s farms and provided adequate funding for the Labor Relations Board. Growers, using deceptive scare tactics similar to those used to overturn the Rumford Fair Housing Act, convinced voters that the initiative threatened the property rights of all citizens. The measure failed, and the UFW was forced to devote scarce resources to more labor-intensive efforts to recruit new members.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Act was also weakened when Governor George Deukmejian, who took office in 1983, undermined the regulatory func- tion of its board by stacking it with anti-labor members and staff. The growing number of undocumented workers, jurisdictional disputes with rival unions, and a costly new grape boycott further diluted the strength of the organization and undercut its efforts to recruit new members.

Over the next two decades, the UFW took on new battles: the abolition of the short-handled hoe, protecting workers from excessive exposure to pesti- cides, preventing growers from using undocumented labor to break strikes, and supporting the rights of immigrant workers. The union’s campaign against the short-handled hoe—a tool that crippled thousands of workers—was suc- cessful. The other issues, along with the loss of contracts to competing unions and the impact of mechanization on the agricultural labor force, remain on the UFW agenda. With Chavez’s death on April 23, 1993, the union suffered a tremendous loss—a loss compounded by financial problems stemming from a series of lawsuits filed by growers against the union.

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In the meantime, a majority of Hispanic workers were employed in nonagricultural sectors of the economy, particularly in low-wage service and high-tech assembly occupations. These sectors, although expanding during the 1970s and 1980s, were largely nonunion. Organized labor, focusing its resources on preserving jobs and membership in heavy industry, was only beginning to reassess its role in the new economy. It would be another decade before service workers, like some janitors and home care providers, organized and enjoyed the benefits of union representation.

California’s Asian American population continued to grow throughout the 1970s and 1980s as immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and the Philippines benefited from the 1965 abolition of the national-origins quota sys- tem. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the state also received increasing numbers of Southeast Asian refugees. By 1985, about 750,000 Vietnamese, Laotians, Hmong, and Cambodians had resettled in the United States, with roughly 40 percent choosing California as their final destination. Southeast Asians, admitted under a refugee provision in the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, arrived with special needs. A majority came with few resources, poor English language skills, little understanding of American culture, and a history of emotional and physical trauma.

By 1985, an estimated 350,000 refugees had resettled in California. Under the Refugee Act of 1980, the federal government agreed to provide 36 months of financial support to help newcomers achieve economic self- sufficiency. A year later, the Reagan administration reduced support to 18 months, and decreased funding for refugee assistance programs. As a consequence, state agencies and a growing number of refugee self-help organizations were forced to bear an increasing share of the resettlement burden. The outcome, however, was not entirely negative. Mutual aid orga- nizations, which were given priority in obtaining the remaining federal resettlement funds, were operated by members of the refugee community. Understanding the barriers to assimilation and economic independence, they were able to provide services in a more culturally sensitive manner than state and federal agencies. Moreover, mutual aid societies provided a nucleus for emerging refugee communities and helped foster the develop- ment of internal leadership.

While Southeast Asians put down roots, Chinese and Japanese Americans made strides in education and income. The state’s Japanese American resi- dents achieved the most unambiguous measure of success, surpassing the white population in education, representation in professional occupations, life expectancy, family income, and individual earnings. Although Chinese Americans also surpassed whites in high school graduation rates, college attendance, and median family income, their community remained bifur- cated. A high proportion had obtained advanced degrees and professional employment, but many lacked the language skills, education, and occupa- tional training to move beyond low-wage service and manufacturing jobs.

The Legacy of the ’60s 401

The experience of Filipino and Korean immigrants also challenged the model minority stereotype. By 1980, Korean Americans were 50 percent more likely than whites to be self-employed or working for a family-owned business. A majority of their businesses, however, were small, requiring the unpaid labor of more than one family member to survive. In addition, Korean entre- preneurship was often the only acceptable substitute for well-educated profes- sionals who faced language and accreditation barriers, and discrimination in their chosen fields.

Filipinos, who displaced Chinese residents as California’s largest Asian group in 1980, also found that their education and training did not guarantee professional employment. Consequently, the number entering the United States on professional visas declined from 27 percent of all Filipino immigrants in the early 1970s to two percent in 1981. Nor was educational success an Asian American universal. In 1980 through 1981, one-quarter of the state’s Filipino high school students, mostly second-generation, failed to graduate. This per- centage, far in excess of the 11 percent dropout rate for all Asian Americans, more closely corresponded to the 31 percent average for blacks, and the 35 percent average for Latinos. Finally, while Koreans and Filipinos enjoyed higher median family incomes than whites, they averaged more wage earners per family. When earnings were calculated on a per-person rather than family basis, both groups earned less than whites, even given their higher levels of educational attainment.

Economically, California Indians remained the most disadvantaged of the state’s ethnic groups. During the 1980s, several tribes introduced bingo on their reservations, raising much-needed revenue from outside patrons. These enter- prises, exempt from legal prohibitions against gaming, paved the way for the casino gambling initiatives of the late 1990s, which, while controversial, hold the promise of greater economic autonomy for California’s Indian tribes.

Cultural Advances

Throughout the state, each of these groups made striking contributions in the cultural arena. California’s African American population enjoyed greater cul- tural visibility during the ’70s and ’80s. Hollywood, responding to criticism from black actors, audiences, filmmakers, and civil rights groups, began to offer more diverse, dramatic portrayals of African American life. Independent filmmakers, benefiting from the cultural awareness that grew out of the social movements of the ’60s, reached a wider audience. Marlon Riggs, for example, produced award-winning documentaries on racial stereotypes and black gay identity that aired on public television stations across the nation. Newly estab- lished ethnic studies programs and academic associations promoted scholar- ship on African American history, psychology, politics, health, education, and culture. A new generation of black writers, including poet June Jordan, novelist Ishmael Reed, and social critic Angela Davis, increasingly captured the

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attention of a multicultural readership. Black dance and theater companies pro- vided new venues for performing artists. And the music world embraced talent as diverse as Tower of Power and the innovative conductor of the Oakland Symphony, Calvin Simmons.

For Latinos, the cultural renaissance launched during the ’60s continued into the 1980s. Luis Valdez, founder of El Teatro Campesino, produced a num- ber of plays that reached audiences beyond the farm worker movement. Zoot Suit, Bandido, Los Corridos, and I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinkin’ Badges, for example, highlighted Chicano history, folk culture, and political resistance. Muralists continued to decorate public spaces with colorful depictions of his- torical figures and events, and to commemorate contemporary struggles against immigration restrictions, freeway construction, and urban “renewal” projects. Cultural centers and museums housed and promoted the arts. Mexican Ameri- can studies programs produced a new generation of scholars, writers, and artists. And barrios, housing a growing number of businesses and cultural insti- tutions, Hispanicized surrounding communities. San Francisco’s Mission District, for example, attracted a growing number of outside visitors to its cul- tural events, restaurants, and markets by the late 1980s. Finally, despite “English Only” legislation, the state maintained and strengthened its commit- ment to bilingual education and issued an increasing number of publications, including election materials, in the Spanish language.

In the cultural arena, Asian American scholars, writers, and artists continued to explore their cultural heritage and challenge negative ethnic stereotypes. Max- ine Hong Kingston, Jeanne Wakatsuki, Janice Mirikatni, and Yoshiko Uchida enriched and enlivened the state’s literary canon. Judy Narita’s one-woman show, exploring stereotypes of Asian American women, won the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award, Drama-Logue Award, and the Association of Asian/Pacific Artists’ “Jimmie” Award. Films, including Farewell to Manzanar, “Gam Saan Haak” (Guests of Gold Mountain), Sewing Woman, The Fall of the I Hotel, Bean Sprouts, and China, Land of My Father, depicted the diversity, strength, and resourcefulness of Asian Americans to broader audiences.

A new generation of Indian activists focused on preserving and reclaiming tribal culture and history. Scholar/writers like Paula Gunn Allen, Greg Sarris, and Gerald Vizenor have devoted their careers to chronicling, interpreting, and establishing the contemporary relevance of traditional myths and cultural prac- tices. Individual tribes, like the Cupeno and Cahuilla, alarmed over the disap- pearance of their cultural traditions, established cultural centers and museums to preserve their language, history, and tribal artifacts. In 1976, the California Native Heritage Commission was established to help Indians preserve cultur- ally significant sites and artifacts. The Indian Repatriation Act, passed by Con- gress in 1990, gave tribes across the nation the right to recover cultural artifacts and ancestral remains that had long been held in public museums and institu- tions. It also prohibited individuals from desecrating or appropriating Indian remains and cultural property.

The Legacy of the ’60s 403

Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints

In the early 1970s, the long era of uninterrupted postwar prosperity came to an abrupt halt. From that point forward, California’s economy faced a series of challenges rooted in overseas competition, deindustrialization and capital flight, and shifts in federal spending priorities. As residents entered this new era of economic uncertainty, they also confronted the environmental costs associated with decades of uncontrolled growth. Air and water pollution, diminishing open space, toxic wastes, and resource shortages eroded the quality of life and generated an unprecedented level of public support for regulatory legislation. In the long run, however, it would prove extremely difficult to reconcile eco- logical constraints with private economic interests and consumer habits. By the mid-1980s, environmental degradation, while slowed by protective measures, was still proceeding with alarming rapidity.

The Economy

Despite periodic downturns, California’s economy, by conventional measures of growth, expanded during the 1970s and 1980s. In contrast to its industrial com- petitors in the East and the Midwest, the state benefited from its competitive edge in the high-tech industry and growing trade with the Pacific Rim, Mexico, and Latin America. As a consequence, the California economy enjoyed an overall increase in corporate profits, gross domestic product, per capita income, and job creation. By the late 1980s, the state’s economy outperformed that of most nations, ranking sixth in gross domestic product, seventh in the amount of goods and services produced, and 12th in the value of its international trade.

For large segments of the ever-expanding labor force, however, economic growth did not translate into a higher standard of living. Inflation outpaced wage increases, leading to a decline in real income. Blue-collar jobs in heavy industry increasingly moved overseas or to lower-wage regions of the United States. Many of the newly created jobs were in the service sector, paying lower wages, and affording fewer benefits and opportunities for upward mobil- ity than the industrial jobs that they had replaced. The economic costs of “deindustrialization” were staggering. East Los Angeles, for example, lost 10 of its 12 largest manufacturing industries between 1978 and 1982, at a cost of 50,000 jobs. Fontana, 50 miles to the east, was built around the state’s largest steel mill. In 1983, the plant closed, depriving 6,000 workers of their jobs and completely destroying the city’s industrial base. Oakland and southern Ala- meda County also felt the impact of deindustrialization and capital flight as businesses closed or relocated where labor and operating costs were lower.

California’s geographic position on the Pacific Rim, however, and higher levels of economic diversification helped cushion the transition to a service- based economy. By the 1970s, global industrial production shifted from the

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United States and Europe to developing nations, especially Asian countries. California, situated at the edge of this emerging industrial center, eagerly exploited the economic advantages of foreign trade. By 1984, Pacific Rim nations were buying 78 percent of the state’s exports, including agricultural commodities, aircraft, electronics, and military hardware. In turn, they supplied 85 percent of the state’s imports, usually at a lower cost to consumers than domestic producers. At the same time, Asian financiers invested in California real estate, financial institutions, hotel and convention facilities, and industry. By 1985, one out of every five jobs in the state was linked directly to trade, with countless others dependent on the influx of investment capital.

Like the rest of the nation, however, California was plagued by a growing trade deficit, spending more on imports than it obtained from its exports. In addition, more jobs moved overseas than were created by new partnerships with Asian investors. Even California’s seemingly invincible electronics industry was in constant danger of losing its competitive edge to overseas manufacturers. Nevertheless, the state’s political and business leaders remained convinced that the benefits of Pacific Rim trade would outweigh its short-term disadvantages.

California also had the advantage of a more diverse economic base. Long before most states faced the sudden and traumatic transition to a postindustrial economic order, California had shifted from heavy manufacturing to services. Before World War II, more than half of the state’s work force was employed in the service sector—jobs including social services, government, education, trans- portation, retail and wholesale trade, real estate, finance, insurance, and utili- ties. By 1970, almost 70 percent of the work force held service sector jobs, with only 27 percent employed in manufacturing and construction. During the 1970s and 1980s, the service sector continued to expand, accounting for more than three-fourths of all new jobs created in California.

The growth of service sector employment created new job opportunities for many of the state’s residents; however, workers who lost their jobs in heavy industry often lacked the education and skills to obtain higher-level ser- vice employment. Instead, they settled for jobs on its lowest rungs: data proces- sing, telemarketing, retail, food service, custodial, customer service, and institutional, home, and child care. Thus, fewer Californians were able to main- tain a middle-class lifestyle, and many entered the ranks of the working poor.

Another growth sector of the economy was the high-tech industry. By the late 1950s, Stanford’s research park had attracted a growing number of firms that developed transistor-based components for radios, televisions, calculators, missile guidance systems, and other electronic devices. Stanford professor William Shockley, a pioneer of transistor technology, soon pushed the industry in a new direction. Experiments at Shockley Transistor Company and its spin off, Fairchild Semiconductor, led to the development of the integrated circuit, a silicon-based microprocessor that could transmit electrical signals with greater efficiency and speed, and store huge volumes of information in “memory.” The

Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints 405

silicon chip, introduced in 1959, led to the development of thousands of new products, including mainframe computers.

Relatively large in size and expensive, most early computers were used by government and private industry; however, by the mid-1970s entrepreneurs were developing computers for personal use. From there the industry boomed. The once pastoral Santa Clara Valley became Silicon Valley, home to high-tech millionaires and 20 percent of the nation’s high-tech workers. But while entrepreneurs, engineers, and managers prospered, those who worked on the electronics assembly lines often earned little more than minimum wage. Pro- duction workers, mostly immigrant women, were almost exclusively nonunion- ized, despite their notoriously low wages and dangerous working conditions. Moreover, as housing prices soared, few could afford to live close to their jobs. The industry’s golden image was also tarnished by its growing economic vulnerability. By the mid-1980s, foreign competition eroded sales and profits, and produced a wave of layoffs, salary cuts, plant closings, and “downsizings.” Although the high-tech industry eventually recovered, Californians came to realize that overreliance on a single industry came with a price.

The state’s defense industry, one of its economic mainstays, also had its ups and downs. Dependent on federal contracts, the industry prospered and declined according to Washington’s budget priorities. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, as national defense outlays slumped, California’s aerospace industry was forced to cut employment by 40 percent. From the mid-1970s to 1980, defense expenditures gradually increased, leading to a modest recovery.

Steve Jobs, chairman of Apple Computer and so-called Computer Kid who launched the personal computing revolution, radiates youthful charm and confidence in this photograph. How did images like this one boost the state’s reputation as a place of experimentation, innovation, and openness to alternative work and lifestyles?

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When Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, federal military spend- ing skyrocketed, bringing unprecedented prosperity to private defense contrac- tors, weapons labs, and military bases. In 1985, for example, Lawrence Livermore Lab received about 35 percent of the Department of Energy’s research and development funds, while private industry claimed one-fifth of the nation’s total defense budget. This expansion continued until 1989, when the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War. By the early 1990s, Cali- fornia’s defense industries, facing massive reductions in federal funding, were forced to lay off hundreds of thousands of workers.

Environmental Activism and Constraints

Along with these new economic challenges, Californians faced environmental limits to growth. Like other Americans, they had long assumed that natural resources were inexhaustible, or that technological innovation would outpace environmental constraints. By the early 1970s, however, a new generation of activists, emerging out of the counterculture and the new Left, sought to rede- fine America’s relationship to the natural environment by creating a host of eco-friendly institutions: organic farms, food co-ops, natural food stores and restaurants, recycling and ecology centers, and sustainable living demonstration projects like the Berkeley Integral Urban House and the San Diego Center for Appropriate Technology. An alternative press, disseminating publications like the Whole Earth Catalog, provided practical advice on living within environ- mental limits.

Just as significantly, baby boom activists brought new vigor and militancy to the state’s environmental movement. Traditional preservationist organiza- tions such as the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Audubon Society, and Wilderness Society attracted thousands of new members and adopted a less compromising, more militant posture toward their opponents. This included aggressive political lobbying and the use of lawsuits and injunctions to advance their agendas.

Preservationists were only one beneficiary of this new ecological conscious- ness. Friends of the Earth (1969), League of Conservation Voters (1970), and the Earth Island Institute (1981) attracted young activists by emphasizing a full range of environmental concerns along with more traditional preservationist issues. These three organizations, founded in California but national in scope, addressed resource depletion, overflowing landfills, air and water pollution, species extinction, nuclear contamination, despoliation of wetlands and fisher- ies, the development of open space and agricultural land, waste dumps, and international environmental issues. Like the older organizations, however, they relied on public education, political lobbying, policy analyses and develop- ment, and endorsing or criticizing elected officials.

As environmental concern deepened in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many activists adopted the more militant tactics of the ’60s to advance their

Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints 407

agenda. In California, organizations like the Abalone Alliance (1977) and Earth First! (1980) engaged in civil disobedience to block the construction of nuclear power plants and the logging of old-growth forests. They also adopted a new philosophical orientation toward nature. Two elements of this philosophy—bioregionalism and ecofeminism—first emerged in California. Bioregionalists argued that humans should think globally, but act locally to protect the integrity of natural ecological communities. As a result of their efforts, wetland and creek restoration projects, greenbelt alliances, agricultural and open space land trusts, and school and community gardens all prolifer- ated during the late 1970s and 1980s. In some cases, bioregionalism even had an impact on local government, leading cities like Berkeley and Santa Monica to adopt eco-friendly policies like comprehensive recycling programs, munic- ipal greenbelts and organic gardens, and bicycle routes.

Inspired by the work of Berkeley scholars Susan Griffin and Carolyn Merchant, ecofeminism charged that patriarchal values and institutions, deeply rooted in Western tradition, denigrated women as well as nature. Like bioregionalists, ecofeminists called for a shift from anthropocentrism to ecological equality—to a society based on cooperation, diversity, conserva- tion, and stability rather than competition, uniformity, exploitation, and progress. Ecofeminism, blending feminism with ecology, gave women the moral authority to claim a leadership role within the contemporary environ- mental movement.

Although the state’s environmental movement broadened its base and adopted new, more militant strategies and tactics during the ’70s and ’80s, it largely ignored the needs and concerns of economically disadvantaged com- munities. A majority of organizations attracted a mostly white, middle-class membership and focused on preservation, resource management, and pollu- tion control. In the meantime, impoverished inner cities and rural communi- ties lacked the economic and political clout to demand protection from polluting industries and toxic waste dumping. Even more troubling, many were forced to choose between jobs and environmental quality. By the mid- 1980s, however, poor communities of color began a movement to tackle “environmental racism.” In 1985, Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles, and Mothers of East Los Angeles, representing the city’s largest Latino and African American communities, inspired a broader national movement against illegal dumping, lax enforcement of environmental regula- tions, and selective siting of toxic waste incinerators and other polluting industries in poor neighborhoods.

Environmental activists only partially succeeded in altering patterns of consumption and resource management—despite their creativity and political clout. Petroleum dependence was a particularly vexing problem. In the early 1970s, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reduced oil exports to the United States and instituted a series of price increases. The resulting “energy crisis,” which fueled inflation and contributed to a nationwide

408 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

economic recession, was particularly painful for auto-dependent Californians. Several critical industries, including chemicals, plastics, fertilizers, power gener- ation, agriculture, and tourism, also depended on fossil fuels. Offshore oil reserves held some promise of alleviating the crisis, but the disastrous Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 had produced strong public opposition to coastal dril- ling. Similarly, the nuclear power industry, which used the crisis to promote atomic energy as a clean, inexhaustible alternative, faced mounting public criti- cism over safety issues and cost effectiveness. Indeed, by the mid-1980s, anti- nuclear groups like the Abalone Alliance brought a halt to the industry’s expansion through a combination of lawsuits, civil disobedience protests, and a massive publicity campaign that emphasized the potentially catastrophic impact of accidents, design and siting flaws, and the hazards associated with waste disposal and storage. In Sacramento, the new governor, Jerry Brown, promoted conservation and the development of renewable energy sources as partial solutions to the crisis. Jimmy Carter’s administration in Washington followed suit, calling on Americans to fight inflation and unemployment by reducing their consumption of imported oil.

From the 1970s to the early 1980s, Californians reduced their energy con- sumption by purchasing fuel-efficient vehicles and appliances, insulating their homes and water heaters, and more carefully monitoring their use of gas and electricity. The California Energy Commission, created in 1975, promoted such measures by setting energy efficiency standards for new household appliances

Santa Barbara oil spill. The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill contaminated hundreds of square miles of ocean and 30 miles of coastline with oil. How might this and other images of the spill have threatened the state’s golden reputation as a place where economic growth and great natural beauty coexisted in perfect harmony?

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Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints 409

and commercial and residential construction. The government also promoted the development of energy alternatives. In 1977, the state legislature enacted a tax credit program for consumers who purchased solar energy systems. The following year, legislators approved tax incentives for the commercial develop- ment of wind energy, giving rise to a series of “wind farms” across the state. Finally, the Public Utilities Commission provided incentives for industries to produce their own electricity through cogeneration.

These measures helped Californians reduce their oil consumption by an astonishing 17 percent between 1979 and 1983; however, this progress was only temporary. When oil prices tumbled in the early 1980s, consumption— particularly in personal transportation—zoomed upward. By 1985, the state was more dependent than ever on imported oil as residents shrugged off their concern and took to the road in a new generation of gas-guzzling vehicles.

At the height of the energy crisis, Californians entered a two-year period of severe drought that necessitated strict water conservation measures and height- ened competition over the state’s water resources. Agricultural lobbyists and southern residents revived their campaign for a Peripheral Canal that would increase their annual water supply by 700,000 acre-feet by diverting water directly from the Sacramento River into the existing California Aqueduct. Northern Californians and environmentalists countered that the health of the San Francisco Bay and Delta, dependent on regular infusions of fresh water, would be compromised by the proposed project. The California Water Project, they argued, already diverted too much water, endangering fragile delta, bay, and offshore ecosystems. And agribusiness, the largest water con- sumer of all, had not done its share to conserve resources or safely dispose of salt-, pesticide-, and fertilizer-laden runoff. Instead of diverting more water from the north, the opposition called for conservation, wastewater reclamation, and curbs on suburban growth.

During the late 1970s, the Brown administration worked to forge a com- promise between these competing interests. The result, Senate Bill 200, was passed by the legislature in June of 1980. The bill, while appropriating funds for the canal, also called for constitutional amendments that would strengthen protections for the delta and northcoast rivers. Northern Californians and environmentalists quickly mounted a referendum campaign to overturn the legislation. In June of 1982, state voters approved Proposition 9, defeating the proposed canal by a 62 to 38 percent margin. Growers scored a victory the same year when Congress passed the Reclamation Act, dramatically increasing (from 160 to 960) the number of acres that could be irrigated with federally subsidized water. Moreover, the state’s water wars were far from over. In 1984, Governor George Deukmejian proposed the construction of a scaled- back version of the Peripheral Canal. When opponents threatened to force “Duke’s Ditch” onto the 1986 ballot, the year he would be up for reelection, Deukmejian withdrew the proposal. Meanwhile, new battles erupted over exist- ing water resources. In the early 1980s, San Joaquin Valley farmers drained

410 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

thousands of acre-feet of agricultural wastewater into the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge. The discharge, contaminated with selenium, created frighten- ing abnormalities in the refuge’s wildlife population. Growers, facing mounting criticism from environmentalists, argued that the practice protected their land from salt buildup. In 1985, the Interior Department settled the dispute when it ordered farmers to halt discharge into Kesterson; however, the growing prob- lem of agricultural soil contamination still defies solution.

In the north, the wildlife at Mono Lake faced a different threat. The City of Los Angeles had diverted water from the area since the 1940s, but in 1970 began to tap the entire flow of the lake’s tributaries. Lake levels dropped precipitously, joining what had once been an island to the shoreline. The California seagull population, which used the island as a breeding ground, was now exposed to predators. Moreover, the increasing salt content of the lake threatened brine shrimp, the major food source of nesting gulls. In 1983, the state supreme court ruled that water rights could be modified or suspended if diversion caused environmental harm. After years of subsequent litigation, Los Angeles was forced to relinquish its water rights, allow the lake to return to a minimally sustainable level, and regulate all future diversions to maintain that level.

Yet other conflicts erupted over California’s scenic and wild rivers. In 1983, environmentalists lost the long battle to prevent impoundment of the free-flowing Stanislaus River behind the New Melones Dam; however, they suc- ceeded in blocking projects along the Tuolumne, Klamath, Eel, Trinity, Smith, and Lower American Rivers. The Sacramento River Delta also received added protection in 1986, when Congress authorized the release of federal water to preserve the region’s fisheries and wildlife habitats.

California’s resources, stretched to the limit by population growth, were also threatened by pollution and poor management. State and federal water quality standards, established in the 1960s and 1970s, and enforced by the Water Resources Control Board and nine regional agencies, reduced the amount of organic contaminants flowing into the state’s waterways. The threat from inor- ganic substances, however, including heavy metals, PCBs, dioxin, solvents, fuel, pesticides, and fuel additives, increased during the 1970s and 1980s. Illegal dumping and routine violation of bans on certain chemicals prompted voters to pass an anti-toxics initiative in 1986. This law prohibited the discharge of sub- stances that caused cancer and birth defects into water supplies, held the govern- ment more accountable for enforcement, and allowed citizens to file lawsuits against violators. The Deukmejian administration held up implementation of the law until the late 1980s by failing to compile a list of regulated toxics.

The problem continued to grow. By the mid-1980s, industry produced more than 26.5 million truckloads of toxic substances annually. In Silicon Valley alone, toxic solvents leaking from storage tanks at more than 120 differ- ent sites had contaminated surrounding soil and water. Defense plants, gas stations, oil refineries, and military bases were also common sources of toxic pol- lution. Cleanup, even with federal support, could take years and cost billions of

Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints 411

dollars. And some contaminated sites, including sediment deposits in the San Francisco Bay, can never be restored to health. Bay fish are so heavily contami- nated that the public has been cautioned against consuming them.

Federal and state air quality legislation, requiring automobile and oil companies to produce cleaner vehicles and fuel, led to modest improvements in air quality in the state’s older urban centers in the 1970s; however, popu- lation growth, concentrated in outlying suburbs, created new smog belts. The San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys, San Bernardino, Orange, East Contra Costa, and San Diego Counties, and the Los Angeles suburbs regularly exceeded federal air quality standards. As smog blew east, it damaged vegeta- tion in Sequoia National Park and the San Bernardino Mountains. Even the Tahoe Basin, suffering from overdevelopment and traffic congestion, faced a growing air pollution problem.

In 1977, the federal government amended the Clean Air Act to require smog inspection programs for states that routinely violated federal air quality standards. After the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) threatened to withhold funds for highway and sewage treatment projects, California finally adopted a sufficiently rigorous vehicle inspection program. The law, adopted in 1982, required that automobiles pass a smog test every two years. If owners refused to comply, the vehicle’s registration would lapse.

Public transportation, the state’s long-term solution to its air quality problems, took a step forward in the 1970s. The Bay Area Rapid Transit System, which carried its first passengers in 1972, provided a clean, efficient transportation alternative for East Bay and San Francisco residents. The system, expanded during the 1980s and 1990s, also provided a model for other communities, including San Diego, San José, Sacramento, and most recently, Los Angeles. Still, most Californians preferred private transporta- tion and increasingly rejected smaller, more fuel-efficient cars in favor of sport-utility vehicles that are not held to the same emissions standards as automobiles.

Growth control measures sponsored by citizens and municipal govern- ments have also met with mixed results. By the mid-1980s, at least 25 cities and counties passed measures that limited or attached conditions to new con- struction. But rural areas, eager for the benefits of an expanding tax base, were less willing to limit development. As housing costs increased in estab- lished communities, home buyers sought more affordable alternatives in rural areas. To the north, burgeoning suburbs gobbled up fertile farmland in Tracy, Gilroy, Pleasant Hill, Fairfield, Vacaville, Napa, and Santa Rosa. To the south, development pressed into the far reaches of San Diego, Riverside, Los Angeles, and Ventura Counties.

The loss of agricultural land was particularly troubling. In 1965, the state legislature passed the California Agricultural Land Conservation Act to pre- serve this vital resource. As suburbs spread into rural areas, land values and property taxes increased. Farmers who resisted the temptation to sell to

412 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

developers faced increasing tax assessments. If farmers signed a 10-year con- tract agreeing to keep their land in agricultural production, the Land Conser- vation Act guaranteed that local governments would assess their property at the lower, agricultural level, rather than at subdivided value. Local govern- ments, however, wishing to encourage development, frequently allowed farm owners to sell before their contracts had expired. When the courts demanded stricter compliance, developers successfully lobbied for new escape clauses to the Land Conservation Act. Still, as of 2007, more than 16 million acres of agricultural land were protected from suburban development under the bill.

Environmentalists’ efforts to preserve open space and wilderness areas were also mixed. In 1972, state voters approved Proposition 20, a ballot mea- sure that created a temporary Coastal Commission to regulate development and preserve public access to the shoreline. After vigorous lobbying from con- servationists, the legislature voted to create a permanent commission in 1976. With the authority to grant or deny development permits, the commission had jurisdiction over the state’s coastline from 1000 yards inland to three miles off- shore. During the Brown administration, the commission rejected or called for modification of thousands of development proposals. Deukmejian, more sympathetic to developers, cut the agency’s budget and staff and appointed like-minded commissioners who approved several large hotel and residential projects. The power of the commission was further eroded by a series of bud- getary and jurisdictional limits pushed through by pro-development lobbyists.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), established by the U.S. Congress in 1969 and jointly managed by California and Nevada, represented another governmental effort to regulate growth and halt environmental degradation. Throughout the 1970s, the agency, heavily influenced by develo- pers, did little to advance its own mandate. Construction of casinos, resorts, and housing continued, placing severe strain on the basin’s sewage system, roads, air quality, and already limited water supply. Under growing pressure from the federal government and various conservation groups, the TRPA finally adopted more stringent environmental protection standards and a new regional plan.

The TRPA’s 1984 plan, a compromise between Nevada’s pro-development forces and more conservation-minded Californians, allowed for construction of 600 housing units annually over the next three years, with a case-by-case assessment of environmentally sensitive lots. The League to Save Lake Tahoe and California’s attorney general immediately filed legal suits against the agency, charging that the plan violated earlier regional protection compacts. In 1985, the federal court of appeals agreed, suspending the plan and halting all new development in the region. Forced back to the drawing board, the TRPA issued a new plan in 1987 that limited construction to 300 homes annu- ally, and commercial development to 400,000 square feet over the next decade. Amendments also established an environmental ranking system for residential lots and restricted construction in ecologically sensitive areas such as stream

Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints 413

zones. Federal and state legislation, authorizing the use of public funds to pur- chase environmentally sensitive sites, complemented the TRPA’s efforts to restore Tahoe’s water quality and wildlife habitat. Critics, however, argued that these measures were too little, too late. Sadly, the basin’s continuing decline appears to support their contention.

Preservationists’ efforts to extend California’s park and wilderness areas were more successful. Created in 1972, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge placed thousands of acres of fragile shoreline, marshland, and tidal areas under protection. In 1978, Con- gress created the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, but the Reagan administration held up federal funds to purchase open space from pri- vate owners until the mid-1980s. In 1984, Congress designated 1.8 million acres of federally owned land in the state as wilderness or scenic preserves. Two years later, U.S. Senator Allan Cranston introduced the California Desert Protection Act. Passed by Congress in 1994, the act classified 7.5 million acres of public desert land as protected wilderness and set aside an additional 1.4 million acres as the East Mojave Preserve. Local and state parkland also increased during the 1970s and 1980s, but Proposition 13 forced reductions in maintenance and necessitated increases in user fees.

Politics in the Era of Limits

Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr., like presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, was swept into office on a tide of resurgent liberalism following the Watergate scandal. As secretary of state from 1970 to 1974, Brown established a reputation for honesty by enforcing campaign disclosure laws, exposing elec- tion fraud, and uncovering a tax evasion scheme hatched by Richard Nixon. As a principal sponsor of the 1974 Political Reform Act, a ballot initiative that called for the creation of a Fair Campaign Practices Commission, stricter disclosure of candidate spending and assets, and tighter limits on campaign funding, Brown enhanced his standing with disillusioned post- Watergate voters. He also obtained the support of organized labor by oppos- ing Proposition 22, a 1972 ballot measure that restricted union organizing efforts among agricultural workers. By revealing that many of the measure’s qualifying signatures had been fraudulently obtained, Brown helped ensure its defeat at the polls.

In the 1974 primary election, Brown scored two major political victories: He won the Democratic nomination for governor, and voters endorsed the Political Reform Act. Meanwhile, the Republican favorite, Lieutenant Governor

414 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

Ed Reinecke, had been indicted for perjury in the Watergate hearings and lost his party’s nomination to State Controller Houston Flournoy. The November election was a close contest. Underestimating his opponent, Brown waged a lackluster campaign filled with vague promises to bring a “new spirit” to Sacra- mento, and barely squeaked by with a 2.9 percent margin of victory. But although he lacked a strong popular mandate, he could count on support from his party. Democrats gained solid majorities in the legislature, dominated the congressional delegation, and secured most statewide offices.

During his first term, Brown adopted policies consistent with California’s liberal/progressive tradition. The Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, drafted in collaboration with Rose Bird, whom he appointed secretary of agri- culture, was a major breakthrough for farm workers and the UFW. Just as sig- nificantly, Brown ensured enforcement of the act by appointing pro-labor advocates to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Bird, the first woman to head the Department of Agriculture, and in 1977 the state supreme court, was one of more than 1,500 women that Brown appointed to state office during his two terms as governor. He also appointed a record number of minorities, giv- ing both groups unprecedented political visibility and an opportunity to shape public policy.

Consistent with his personal commitment to “voluntary simplicity,” Brown established a strong environmental protection record. He created the State Office of Appropriate Technology to promote the development of alternative energy sources, sustainable agriculture, waste recycling, and resource conservation. The solar tax credit and other alternative energy development incentives were other outgrowths of his “era of limits” philos- ophy. Raising the ire of private industry and developers, Brown appointed conservationists to the Air Resources Board and Energy Commission, advo- cated more stringent controls on the nuclear power industry, supported the coastal protection initiative, appointed environmentalists to the new coastal commission, and opposed construction of the New Melones Dam. Less con- troversial was Brown’s Civilian Conservation Corps, a public works pro- gram that employed young people to improve and maintain public spaces and wilderness areas.

On budget matters, Brown was a fiscal conservative. During his first term, he refused to raise taxes, approved only modest increases in the state budget, and held the line on salary raises for state employees. As a consequence, large state agencies like the departments of Health and Welfare and Mental Health, still reeling from Reagan’s cost-cutting measures, failed to keep pace with increasing demands for their services. Brown also failed to address the state’s recession- driven unemployment problem. Although he initially supported the creation of a public works program, he backed off after the Oakland Tribune labeled the proposal as “Brown’s Secret Plan for Worker State.”

In 1976, Brown decided to seek his party’s presidential nomination. Although he won primaries in several states, including California, the Democrats

Politics in the Era of Limits 415

endorsed Jimmy Carter. Determined to try again in 1980, Brown became more attentive to his conservative critics. Announcing that jobs took priority over the environment, Brown supported legislation to simplify the regulatory process for industry wishing to do business in the state, and made pro-business appoint- ments to several commissions and departments. To encourage economic devel- opment, Brown traveled to Japan, Canada, Mexico, and England to cultivate new business partnerships, and lobbied the legislature to appropriate funds for a sat- ellite communications system and a new University of California space research facility. Convinced that the state’s aerospace and electronics industry could play a leading role in space colonization, Brown vigorously promoted the latter, earning the nickname “Governor Moonbeam.”

Brown also responded to charges that he was “soft on crime”—charges that stemmed from his support of legislation that reduced penalties for marijuana possession and the decriminalization of sexual activities between consenting adults. Attempting to placate his critics, he signed a bill authorizing harsher, mandatory penalties for felons convicted of violent crimes; however, he remained steadfastly opposed to the death penalty, vetoing a 1977 bill calling for its reinstatement. In 1978, voters took matters into their own hands, using the initiative process to reinstate the penalty and offset the possibility of another veto from the governor.

Although he succeeded in mending fences with some of his conservative critics, he gained a reputation for inconsistency, flakiness, and political oppor- tunism. Nonetheless, he easily won reelection in 1978, defeating his Republican opponent, Attorney General Evelle Younger, by 1.3 million votes. But at the beginning of the race, Brown’s campaign was in serious trouble. Unlike Younger, he had opposed Proposition 13, a tax reduction measure that had appeared on the 1978 primary ballot.

During his first term, Brown gained the respect of voters by refusing to raise taxes; however, he seriously underestimated the impact of inflation. Residents, already forced to shell out more of their income for consumer goods, were also saddled with skyrocketing property values and tax assessments. Wages and salary increases not only failed to keep pace with inflation, but also pushed many into higher income tax brackets. By 1978, inflated sales, property, and income taxes, combined with Brown’s tightfisted fiscal policies, generated a state budget surplus of at least $3.5 billion. Taxpayers were outraged.

Two disgruntled property owners, Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, launched the United Organization of Taxpayers to bring the issue of rising property taxes to voters. Proposition 13, which easily qualified for the 1978 primary ballot, set residential and business property taxes at one percent of assessed value, based assessments on 1975 property values, and limited annual increases in assessed value to two percent. Reassessments were per- mitted only when property was bought or improved, and any new taxes required the approval of a two-thirds vote rather than the previously required simple majority.

416 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

Brown initially criticized the initiative as skewed in favor of landlords and commercial/industrial property owners, and disadvantageous for renters and future home buyers. But after the measure passed in June, giving his pro-13 Republican opponent the advantage in the upcoming gubernatorial election, Brown quickly withdrew his criticism and began to develop plans for distributing the state surplus to local and county governments. He also instituted a state government hiring freeze and created a commission to explore other economizing measures. Brown appeared more inconsistent and opportunistic than ever, but his well-publicized efforts to implement Proposition 13 helped him defeat Evelle Younger in November.

Brown’s second term was plagued by financial difficulties, party disunity, humiliating political defeats, and the Medfly controversy. Emboldened by the success of Proposition 13, Paul Gann sponsored a second tax-cutting mea- sure. Proposition 4, approved by voters in 1979, pegged annual government expenditures to the rate of inflation and population growth, and directed local and state governments to return budget surpluses to taxpayers. It was the earlier initiative that did the most damage; within two years, the state’s budget surplus had been spent bailing out hard-pressed city and county gov- ernments. Across the state, libraries, schools, police, fire, and park depart- ments, and social service providers were forced to cut staff and services. Maintenance on public buildings, roads, and water and sewer systems was also reduced or deferred. The state’s public schools, heavily dependent on property taxes, were among the hardest hit. By 1986, California fell from 17th to 35th place in per-pupil spending, and finished last among states in student/teacher ratio. Higher education also suffered. State colleges and universities, among the best in the nation, were forced to eliminate staff, cut course offerings, and consider fee increases to compensate for budget shortfalls.

Brown responded to the growing fiscal crisis by vetoing pay raises for state employees and attempting to hold cost-of-living increases for welfare recipients below federally mandated levels. These and other austerity measures were strongly opposed and ultimately overridden by former Democratic allies in the legislature. Despite growing party disunity, Brown decided to try for the 1980 presidential nomination. Calling for tax cuts and a federal balanced bud- get amendment to woo conservative voters, Brown further alienated liberal and Left-leaning supporters. His reputation for political opportunism, eccentricity, and inconsistency also damaged his chances.

Returning to California after another humiliating loss to Jimmy Carter in the June primary, Brown faced one of the worst crises of his career. The Med- iterranean fruit fly, capable of destroying a wide variety of commercial crops, invaded the Santa Clara Valley. Growers called for aerial spraying with pesti- cides. Brown, however, sided with suburban residents of the area and approved a less toxic approach. The Reagan administration, calling for a quarantine of all California produce, forced Brown to reverse his decision

Politics in the Era of Limits 417

and order aerial spraying. In the end, he lost the support of both constituen- cies and provided his critics with more evidence of his indecisiveness and inconsistency.

Deukmejian

In 1982, the combined impact of Proposition 13 and a national economic recession plunged the state into its worst financial crisis since the Depression. Brown, whose popularity had steadily declined, decided to run for the U.S. Senate rather than for a third term as governor. After losing to Pete Wilson, the Republican mayor of San Diego, the outgoing governor wryly announced, “I shall return, but not for awhile.”

The gubernatorial race of 1982 was one of the closest in state history. Tom Bradley, who won the Democratic nomination on his strong record of effec- tiveness as the mayor of Los Angeles, faced the Republican nominee, State Attorney General George Deukmejian. Although Bradley, a former Los Angeles police captain, assured voters that he would be tough on crime, Deukmejian projected a stronger “law and order” image. As a state senator, Deukmejian had pushed through a statute mandating stiffer penalties for gun-related crimes, and authored the state’s 1977 initiative reinstating the death penalty. As attorney general from 1978 to 1982, he was a harsh critic of Brown’s judicial appointees, accusing Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird and others of being soft on crime. Deukmejian also used the governor’s declining popularity against his opponent, claiming “Tom Bradley’s administration will be no differ- ent than Jerry Brown’s.” Race, however, was most likely the deciding factor. Deukmejian won the election by a mere 0.68 percent plurality, the smallest margin since 1886. During the campaign, six percent of polled voters indicated that Bradley’s race (African American) had swayed their decision in favor of Deukmejian.

Deukmejian’s electoral victory coincided with the state controller’s announcement that California faced a huge deficit. Rejecting the legislature’s tax increase remedy, Deukmejian proposed massive cuts in social spending and assistance to beleaguered local governments, and rolling over the remain- ing debt into the following year’s budget in hopes that the economy would recover enough to erase the deficit. After weeks of budgetary gridlock, the leg- islature and governor finally reached a compromise that included spending cuts, debt rollover, and a sales tax increase if the anticipated recovery did not materialize.

Deukmejian, who had promised not to raise taxes, was undoubtedly relieved when the economy began to stabilize. Indeed, by the mid-1980s, the state treasury once again posted a surplus. In the meantime, William Honig, the new superintendent of public instruction, devised a “back to basics” school reform package that called for extending the school day and year, stronger graduation requirements, extra pay for teachers who

418 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

devoted extra hours to mentoring students, and an overall increase in pub- lic school funding. The governor not only backed Honig’s plan, but also approved funding increases for the U.C. and C.S.U. systems. Deukmejian took a tougher line with community colleges, insisting that they institute a precedent-shattering $50 enrollment fee. As a consequence, a crucial link in the state’s Master Plan for Education was weakened. Between 1980 and 1985, community colleges reported an enrollment decline of 20 percent.

The governor also approved modest funding increases for the state’s rapidly deteriorating transportation system, and a pay increase for state employees. More controversially, he pushed through massive appropriations for prison construction and began the process of reshaping the state’s judi- ciary to reflect his “tough on crime” philosophy. Critics charged that prison construction diverted resources from programs that addressed the root causes of crime. They also pointed to the fact that prisons held growing numbers of petty, nonviolent offenders, while the rate of violent crime con- tinued to climb.

Deukmejian’s stance on the environment and welfare reform was equally controversial. Siding with his pro-growth and agribusiness supporters, he angered conservationists by endorsing offshore drilling and a scaled-back ver- sion of the Peripheral Canal, and by making pro-development appointments to the California Coastal Commission and other environmental protection agen- cies. He also raised the ire of liberal Democrats by vetoing welfare pay increases and pushing through a reform package that included a work requirement, or “workfare,” for able-bodied recipients.

In the 1984 election, Deukmejian suffered two setbacks. The state legisla- ture, which had the power to reapportion political districts, was firmly con- trolled by Democrats, stifling Republican efforts to alter the existing balance of power. A ballot initiative, supported by Deukmejian, would have removed reapportionment from the legislature’s jurisdiction and placed it in the hands of a panel of retired judges. In the election, voters not only rejected this mea- sure, but also approved another that the governor had opposed, one that established a state-run lottery to help fund public schools. These minor differences of opinion, however, did not translate into voter disapproval of Deukmejian. In 1986, the booming economy—flush with Reagan adminis- tration defense contracts—gave the governor a strong advantage in his reelec- tion bid.

In the 1986 race, Deukmejian once again faced Democratic opponent Tom Bradley, who had recently won a fourth term as mayor of Los Angeles. The reconfirmation of Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird, a Brown appointee, became a major campaign issue. Conservative politicians accused Bird, a strong opponent of the death penalty, of contributing to the state’s growing violent crime problem. Many Californians agreed with this assessment. Deukmejian had long supported Bird’s ouster, but Bradley refused to take a position for or against her removal. This helped bolster

Politics in the Era of Limits 419

Deukmejian’s reputation as a tough-on-crime victims’ advocate. In the election, voters registered their approval by handing Deukmejian 4,395,972 votes to Bradley’s 2,721,674. They also overwhelmingly rejected Rose Bird’s reconfirmation.

Deukmejian’s second term was characterized by battles with the Democrat-controlled legislature over his judicial nominations. He retaliated by using the veto to kill or cut their appropriations for social and environ- mental programs. Republican legislators, although in the minority, united behind Deukmejian to prevent the necessary two-thirds majority from over- riding his vetoes. A revived economy, generating surplus state revenue, allowed Deukmejian to keep his promise not to raise taxes. He was even able to issue a $1 billion rebate to taxpayers. He also approved modest increases in education spending and even larger appropriations for prison expansion. Despite these expenditures, California schools continued to decline, while its violent crime rate increased. With a new economic recession in the 1990s, these two problems worsened, igniting explosive public and political debate over the best use of public funds.

Summary

In contrast to the turbulent ’60s, the ’70s and ’80s have been mischaracterized as the period when nothing happened. In reality, California’s political, economic, and cultural landscape was richly dynamic and increasingly complex. New move- ments, often posing a greater challenge to traditional moral and ethical standards than those of the ’60s, profoundly altered personal and political relationships. The state’s ethnic minorities, soon to be in the majority, made significant prog- ress in consolidating the gains of previous decades, but confronted persistent barriers to full equality. At the same time, California’s economy was in flux, increasingly integrated into a system of international trade, and centered on ser- vices and information technology rather than heavy industry. While residents grappled with the accompanying economic challenges, they also faced unprece- dented limits to growth. In response, many joined the struggle to protect the state’s most valuable assets: its natural beauty and resource base. Political leaders, attempting to negotiate rapid change and new limits, escaped easy categorization. Brown, although a fiscal conservative, was a social liberal. Deukmejian, defeating his Democratic opponent by the narrowest of margins in his first bid for gover- nor, often compromised with his liberal critics on fiscal issues. Finally, Califor- nians continued to elect Democratic majorities to the legislature, including growing numbers of women, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos. Perhaps voters, like their leaders, were uncertain how to negotiate the unfamiliar terrain of the postindustrial economic order. In the meantime they tried to strike a balance between liberalism and conservatism.

420 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

Suggested Readings

❚ Davis, Mike, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles (New York: Vintage, 1990). This is a critical study of racial and class divisions, political infighting, economic neglect, and poor urban planning in Los Angeles and its suburbs.

❚ D’Emilio, John, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). This book details the emergence of gay and lesbian communi- ties and organizations, including those in California.

❚ Godfrey, Brian J., Neighborhoods in Transition: The Making of San Francisco’s Ethnic and Nonconformist Communities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). This book documents the origins and evolution of San Francisco’s ethnic, gay, and countercultural communities.

❚ Gutierrez, David, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immi- grants and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). This book provides a historical overview of Mexican immigra- tion, community and identity formation, and U.S. immigration policy.

❚ Hanson, Dirk, The New Alchemists: Silicon Valley and the Microelectronics Rev- olution (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982). This book details the rise of Silicon Valley and its microelectronics pioneers and entrepreneurs.

❚ Jackson, Bryan, and Preston, Michael, Racial and Ethnic Politics in Califor- nia (Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies, 1991). This work provides an overview of political contestations among various ethnic constituencies in California.

❚ Kotkin, Joel, and Grabowicz, Paul, California, Inc. (New York: Rawson, Wade Publishers, 1982). This book discusses the economic development of California, details the economic policies of the Brown and Reagan adminis- trations, and documents the growth of the Pacific Rim economy.

❚ Ong, Paul, Bonacich, Edna, and Cheng, Lucie, eds., New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994). This book examines the political and economic factors behind recent Asian immigration, the economic status of immigrant workers, and class and political divisions among various Asian groups.

❚ Palmer, Tim, ed., California’s Threatened Environment: Restoring the Dream (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993). This is a series of essays exploring diverse threats to California’s environment.

❚ Quinones, Juan Gomez, Chicano Politics: Reality and Promise, 1940–1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990). This book provides a comprehensive political history of Mexican Americans from 1940 to 1990.

Suggested Readings 421

❚ Sale, Kirkpatrick, The Green Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993). This book provides a good overview of contemporary environmental move- ments and activists.

❚ Schrag, Peter, Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future (Ber- keley: University of California Press, 1999). This book documents the recent decline in California’s public education system, infrastructure, and social services network.

❚ Shilts, Randy, And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epi- demic (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987). This book examines the impact of the AIDS epidemic on gay communities, efforts to secure resources for prevention and treatment, public response to the crisis, and how AIDS became a political issue.

❚ Wellock, Thomas, Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in Califor- nia, 1958–1978 (Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998). This is a history of anti-nuclear activism in California.

422 CHAPTER 12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities: 1970–1990

CH AP

TE R 13

California in Our Times

Main Topics

❚ A New Kind of California

❚ The Economic Roller Coaster

❚ A Faltering Infrastructure

❚ Politics in the New California

❚ Religious and Cultural Diversity

❚ Competing Visions: The History and Future of California

❚ Summary

Richard Rodriguez grew up in Sacramento in the 1950s, the son of immigrant parents from Mexico. He was acutely aware of race and ethnicity from an early age.

“In Sacramento, my brown was not halfway between black and white,” he wrote. “My family’s shades passed as various. We did not pass ‘for’ white; my family passed among white.” He entered first grade speaking about 50 words of English and went on to earn degrees in English at Stanford University and philosophy at Columbia University. His acclaimed memoirs— Hunger of Memory (1982), Days of Obligation (1992), and Brown (2002)—explore American race relations through the lens of his personal experiences. In Brown, he considered the contra- dictions of race from his perspective as a “queer Catholic Indian Spaniard at home in a temperate Chinese city [San Francisco] in a fading blond state in a post-Protestant nation.”

423

Rodriguez embodies several of the contradictions and complexities of contemporary California. His adopted label “brown” speaks to his mixture of ethnic, racial, and cultural heritages. A political nonconformist, Rodriguez has angered many Latinos and liberals for his opposition to affirmative action and bilingual education. He is openly gay and devoutly Catholic. “Of every hue and caste am I,” he has written. In California in the 1990s and early 21st century, ethnic and cul- tural categories often blurred and clashed.

The state also encountered serious challenges. “The land of golden opportunity is becoming a land of broken promises,” pro- claimed Timemagazine in 1991 in an issue devoted to California’s “endangered dream.” Nonetheless, California continued on the cutting edge of high-technology industries, especially in commu- nication, entertainment, and innovative uses of the Internet. At the same time, the state also became increasingly identified with environmental and social problems and with a political dysfunc- tionality that came to have serious negative effects on education and public services.

CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake

1990 Election of Pete Wilson as governor

1992 Los Angeles riots

1993–2000 “Dot-com” boom in the economy

1994 Northridge earthquake

1995 eBay goes online

1995 O.J. Simpson trial

1996 Proposition 209 approved, dismantling state affirmative action programs

1996 Google goes online

1998 Election of Gray Davis as governor

2000 U.S. Census records that California has no ethnic majority group

2000–2001 Energy crisis

2002 Publication of Richard Rodriguez’s Brown

2003 Davis recalled; Arnold Schwarzenegger elected as governor

2004 Facebook goes online

2008 Beginning of major economic downturn

2010 Election of Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown as governor

424

California continues to grow—by more than 25 percent between 1990 and 2010, to more than 37 million people, nearly one-eighth of all Americans. In 20 years, the state’s economy moved through two complete economic cycles of recession and expansion only to be brought down again in 2008. Nonethe- less, its gross domestic product (GDP) reached $1.9 trillion in 2010, making California the world’s eighth-largest economy, somewhat smaller than Britain and Italy. Tourism, trade, enter- tainment, agriculture, and high-tech industries flourish. The most populous state, California is also one of the most ethni- cally diverse. With its varied and productive economy, multicul- tural population, urban problems, political divisiveness, and edgy cultural expression, California embodies the hopes—and fears—of the wider nation and the world.

Questions to Consider

❚ How have California’s demographics changed since 1990? What implications do these changes have for the state’s future?

❚ What are the most important changes in California’s economy since 1990? What implications do these changes have for the state’s future?

In 1997, Richard Rodriguez said, “After the LA riots in 1992, my sense was not that the city was dying, as the expert opinion had it, but that the city was being formed. What was dying was the idea that LA was a city of sepa- rate suburbs and freeway exits…. In the LA of the future, no one will need to say, ‘Let’s celebrate diversity.’ Diversity is going to be a fundamental part of our lives…. I want to live my life in the center of the world. I want to live my life in Los Angeles.”

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❚ What are the most important changes in education, health care, housing, transportation, and the energy situ- ation since 1990? What implications do these changes have for the state’s future?

❚ What are the most important changes in California’s politics and government since 1990? What implications do these changes have for the future?

❚ What are the most important changes in California’s reli- gious life and cultural expression since the 1990s? What implications do these changes have for the future?

A New Kind of California

Throughout its history, California has constantly been remade as waves of peo- ple migrated to the Golden State with dreams for a better life. Since 1990, the outlines have emerged of a California not just being remade but also becoming different in major ways.

The Los Angeles Riots, the O.J. Simpson Trial, and After

During the early 1990s, two dramatic events focused attention on race and eth- nicity: the so-called Los Angeles riots of 1992 and the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995. Both centered on issues of police interaction with African Americans in Los Angeles, and both focused international attention on California’s racial tensions. Another trial, in 2009, of an Oakland BART officer, demonstrated that many of those issues still persisted, and were not limited to Los Angeles.

The spark in 1992 that ignited a volatile mix of social, economic, and racial pressures in southern California was the verdict in a court case involving Rod- ney King and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Rodney King, an African American, was savagely beaten by four LAPD officers on March 3, 1991. While 19 people (mostly other police officers) looked on, the four used police batons to strike King 56 times in 81 seconds, producing multiple skull fractures, a broken leg, a concussion, and nerve injuries. A nearby resident videotaped the beating, and those images soon played repeatedly on television stations around the world. When indicted by a grand jury, the four officers secured a change of venue, to suburban and conservative Simi Valley in Ventura County. After hearing the evidence, the jury—10 whites, one Latino, and one Filipino American—acquitted three officers and failed to reach a verdict on the fourth. In South Central Los Angeles, violent protests erupted and swelled into the bloodiest, most costly urban uprising in U.S. history.

The disorders lasted from April 30 to May 5, 1992. As parts of LA dis- solved into chaos, live television documented the tragedy. Motorists were

426 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

pulled from their cars and beaten, a mob attacked a police station, and arsonists set fires in stores—all on television. The National Guard and thou- sands of highway patrol officers and police were dispatched to Los Angeles, and eventually U.S. troops were also deployed. Police records show that most participants were African American and Latino. The violence spread from South Central to Korea Town, then to the mid-Wilshire area and Long Beach. In the midst of the turmoil, television stations repeatedly broadcast a moving appeal by Rodney King to end the violence and to “get along.’’ The riots also sparked demonstrations—sometimes violent—in other cities as well.

Fifty-three people died, 35 by gunshot, of whom 10 were killed by police or National Guardsmen. Twenty-five were African Americans, 16 were Latinos, and eight were white. More than 2000 suffered injuries, and there were 15,000 arrests. Police recorded 600 fires but other estimates of arson fires ran- ged into the thousands, and property damage was estimated at more than a billion dollars. Korean-owned stores were special targets, but no business was immune. Later, analysts pointed to multiple causes for the rioting, including increased ethnic and racial conflict within South Central LA, gang violence, Korean–black conflict, and earlier court verdicts considered unjust. Chronic unemployment of African American youth—more than 50 percent—was related to a high rate of violent crime in the inner city. During the early 1990s, like other large American cities, Los Angeles experienced an increase in the number of murders—from 790 per year between 1985 and 1988 to 1,045 between 1990 and 1993—an increase due largely to gang-related drug activity. At the same time, incidents of police violence were well known before the Rodney King case. All these factors contributed to the frustration that exploded in 1992.

Some changes came quickly. President George Bush quickly announced a federal investigation of the officers for violating the civil rights of Rodney King. Two were convicted and sentenced to 30 months in federal correctional facili- ties. The City of Los Angeles passed new ordinances increasing the powers of a civilian Board of Police Commissioners. LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates was replaced. A special commission investigated the events and proposed reforms, some of which were implemented.

Two years later, southern California was again the site of a trial with potentially explosive racial implications. On June 13, 1994, a neighbor discov- ered the slashed bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson, former wife of the famous African American football star, Orenthal J. (“O.J.”) Simpson, and Ronald Goldman, an employee of a local restaurant. Simpson was charged with both murders.

The prosecution presented evidence of Simpson’s past history of spousal abuse, blood samples from the crime scene that matched Simpson’s, and other physical evidence including a bloody glove found on his property. The defense cast doubt on the DNA evidence, argued that police had mishandled evidence, charged that one lead detective was a racist, and claimed that the

A New Kind of California 427

LAPD had conspired to frame Simpson. After a trial of more than eight months, the jury acquitted Simpson. The trial polarized Californians and Americans. A large proportion of African Americans believed Simpson inno- cent whereas the majority of whites did not. Many feminist activists con- sidered Simpson a symbol of domestic violence. Others concluded that the case showed how wealthy defendants can manipulate the justice system. A subsequent civil trial, based on much the same evidence, declared Simpson liable for the two deaths and awarded the victims’ families $33.5 million in damages.

In 2009 in Oakland, another incident and trial erupted into broader civil unrest. Early in the morning of New Year’s Eve 2009, a BART police officer named Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, an African American, as he was lying prone but resisting arrest for a disturbance at a station. In the trial that followed, Mehserle claimed he mistakenly thought that the weapon he was using was a taser gun. Several BART passengers videoed the shooting, and within a short time it appeared on YouTube and on the television nightly news. Prominent elected officials called the shooting an execution, evidence of endemic police brutality toward minorities. The state NAACP president labeled it a killing motivated by racial prejudice. The BART officials denied these accusations and the Grant family pleaded for calm, but hundreds of demonstrators destroyed cars and shops in downtown Oakland, and more than 100 people were arrested. The resulting protests and violent demonstra- tions intensified when the jury found Mehserle guilty of involuntary homicide rather than murder. These events in northern and southern California sug- gested how much racial conflicts and stereotypes remained a challenge for public policymakers.

The Rise of Latino California

The LA riots and the Simpson and Mehserle trials provided dramatic windows into California’s racial and ethnic relations, attracting world attention. Less dramatic, but perhaps more important in the long run, are data on California’s demographic growth. Figure 13.1 presents data on California’s population in 2010 and provides part of the context for understanding its contemporary social and political patterns.

A remarkable growth in the Latino population meant that Latinos consti- tuted almost 38 percent of California’s population in 2010. But the “Latino” category conceals many variations—multigeneration Californians, street-smart kids from Tijuana, Salvadorans who fled the violence in their nation during the 1980s, Portuguese-speaking soccer fans from Brazil, new arrivals from Yucatán who prefer to speak their own Mayan dialect, college professors born in Puerto Rico, and many more.

Despite the many immigrants, most of the increase in the state’s popula- tion over the past several decades has resulted from high birth rates—higher in

428 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

California than in any developed country in the world. This has resulted in part from the high proportion of immigrants in the state’s population, since foreign- born women tend to have more children. There are also important variations among ethnic groups. Total fertility rates—the total number of children born to a woman—average 3.7 children for foreign-born Latinas, the highest of any of the state’s large ethnic groups. By contrast, the lowest fertility rate is among U.S.-born Asian women, who average 1.4 children. In 2009, 49 percent of all births in California were to Latinas. The high fertility rate among Latinas has led demographers to project that Latinos will become the largest ethnic group in the state by 2025. Studies have consistently found that, among nearly all eth- nic groups, the more education a woman has, the fewer children she is likely to have—and Latinas were among those least likely to graduate from high school.

Increased political clout for Latinos has accompanied the growth of their numbers. By 2000, Latino citizens had registered to vote at a rate similar to non-Latino whites and in higher proportions than African Americans and Asian Americans. In 1998, Cruz Bustamante was elected lieutenant governor, the first Latino elected to statewide office since the 1870s, but Bustamante remained the only Latino to win statewide office as of 2012. More than 20 per- cent of the California legislature was Latino by 2001, and that proportion remained roughly stable throughout the following decade, although three of the six speakers of the assembly were Latinos between 2001 and 2011.

Among the largest ethnic groups from 1990 to 2010, Latinos had the lowest median family income and remained severely underrepresented in the professional sector. California has had one of the lowest rates of high

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Figure 13.1 Race and Ethnicity of Californians, 2010 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, State and County QuickFacts, California, Demographic Profile from the 2010 Census (online at http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview. xhtml?src=bkmk).

A New Kind of California 429

school graduation in the nation, and the dropout rate was highest among Latinos and African Americans. Latinos were also among those least likely to attend college. Although 38 percent of the population in 2010, Latinos made up only 13 percent of the baccalaureate graduates in the U.C. system and 21 percent in the C.S.U. system. Many adult Latinos were employed in low-paying jobs and lacked health insurance. Because many Latinos had lim- ited English proficiency and job skills, they were among those hardest hit by economic downturns. Yet, in a Los Angeles Times poll in 2001, Latinos were considerably more likely than whites and African Americans to believe that the quality of their lives was improving.

The Ever-Changing Ethnic Mosaic

California continues to attract newcomers. Figure 13.1 and Table 13.1 indicate not only a dramatic expansion of the state’s Latino population, but an increase in the number of residents categorized as Asian/Asian Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). Immigration accounted for much of this growth, but natural increase was also a factor. Taken as a whole, AAPIs had higher incomes, skill and edu- cational attainment levels, rates of home ownership, and life expectancies than other ethnic groups, leading to their characterization as the “model minority.” Such successes, however, were concentrated in sub-populations with a higher

Beginning in 1970, community artists and activists created a community park under the Coronado Bay Bridge in the heart of Barrio Logan. Over the years, Chicano artists created more than 50 murals reflecting community issues and historical reflections, making the park the largest single Chicano mural display in the United States. This photograph shows the mural “Coatlicue” (the Aztec mother of the gods) by Susan Yamagata and Michael Schnorr (1978), and “Chicano Pinto Union” by Tony de Vargas (1978), based on a poster for an organization dedicated to education for ex-convicts.

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ratio of U.S. to foreign born, and/or a larger proportion of highly educated and trained immigrants: Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and Asian Indian Cali- fornians. Even within these groups there was significant variation, and other AAPI populations had more difficulty realizing the “California Dream.” In 2010, 45 percent of Hmong, 40 percent of Cambodians and Laotians, and 20 per- cent of Pacific Islanders failed to complete high school. Moreover, 25 percent of Hmong and Cambodians lived in poverty, as did 20 percent of all Tongans.

A closer examination of two groups—Vietnamese and Asian Indians— illustrates these differences. In 2010, California had the nation’s largest Viet- namese population—one that increased by 30 percent between 2000 and 2010, and ranked third among Asian immigrant groups in the state. The first immigrants arrived immediately following the collapse of the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government in 1975, and consisted of military officials, political leaders, and professionals. The second, much larger wave (1978–1984) brought mostly rural, comparatively poor and uneducated “boat people” who were fleeing religious and political persecution. The third wave (1985–1990) included many children and partners of American servicemen, and the relatives of earlier arrivals. The final wave, a result in part of higher quotas in the 1990 Immigration Act, includes many who lack the education, skills, and language proficiency to compete in the post-industrial economy.

Table 13.1 CALIFORNIA’S FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION, 1990, 2000, AND 2009

1990 Census 2000 Census 2009 American

Community Study

Country Population (thousands) Country

Population (thousands) Country

Population (thousands)

Mexico 2,474 Mexico 3,929 Mexico 4,308

Philippines 482 Philippines 665 Philippines 783

El Salvador 281 China 570* China 681*

Vietnam 271 Vietnam 418 Vietnam 457

China 211 El Salvador 360 El Salvador 413

Korea 200 Korea 268 India 319

Canada 150 Guatemala 211 Korea 307

Guatemala 136 India 199 Guatemala 261

U.K. 135 Iran 159 Iran 214

Iran 115 Canada 141 Canada 133

All Others 2,002 All Others 1,944 All Others 2,071

Total 6,459 Total 8,864 Total 9,947

*2000 and 2009 data for those born in China includes Hong Kong and Taiwan; earlier years do not. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey.

A New Kind of California 431

Vietnamese Californians are disproportionately clustered in low-paying manufacturing and service jobs and have higher poverty and high school drop- out rates than Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Asian Indian Californians. Nev- ertheless, as the proportion of U.S. born increased and successive waves of immigrants assimilated, their socioeconomic profile has improved. Between 2000 and 2010, for example, the number of businesses owned by Vietnamese Californians increased, as did rates of homeownership, educational attainment, and participation in the professional, managerial, and technical labor force. Lit- tle Saigons in San Jose, San Diego, and Orange County supported both Viet- namese entrepreneurship, and a growing number of social, political, and cultural institutions that facilitated upward economic mobility, civic engage- ment, and political participation.

Between 2000 and 2010, California’s Asian Indian population increased 68 percent, garnering fourth place in the state’s ranking of Asian immigrant groups (see Table 13.1). Although their presence in the state dates back to the 19th century, Asian Indians began arriving in large numbers in 1990. Legisla- tion passed in 1990 and 2000 increased the number of visas issued to students and highly educated, skilled workers, spurring the recent and sustained immi- gration. Indeed, by 2010 more than 50 percent of all H1-B visas were issued in India. Concentrated in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, Asian Indian immi- grants had a high degree of English language proficiency (73 percent), educa- tional attainment (75 percent with a four-year degree or higher), and earned double the national income. Not surprisingly, they made a significant impact on the state’s economy. By 2007, Indian-owned firms were grossing $29.1 bil- lion annually and contributing to the development of cutting edge technology. In the Bay Area, for example, Asian Indians founded Sun Microsystems, Bro- cade, Cirrus, Logic, and Hotmail corporations and played a central role in developing Ethernet, fiber optic, and Pentium chip technology. For many, how- ever, resident status was linked to employment under the H1-B guest worker program, making them vulnerable to deportation during periods of economic contraction.

Despite such diversity, California’s AAPI population shared a growing interest in local, state, and national politics, and a commitment to economic advancement through higher education. Termed the next “sleeping giant” of electoral politics, AAPIs claimed a greater share of elected offices—especially on the local level—between 2000 and 2010. During the same period, their representation among the state’s registered voters increased from five percent to 11 percent. This may translate into greater political influence when legisla- tive districts are reconfigured along nonpartisan, demographically-based lines.

As a group, AAPI students had higher high school and college graduation rates than their non-Asian peers. They also outperformed all other groups on the California Standards Test, Scholastic Aptitude Test, and other measures of college readiness. Not surprisingly, they qualified in higher numbers for admis- sion to the U.C. system. Seeking to “balance” the student population and

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compensate for budget cuts, the Board of Regents adopted three policies that had a disproportionate impact on the state’s AAIP students: dropping the requirement of two SAT subject tests, reducing the number of students guaran- teed admission solely based on grades and test scores, reducing the number of in-state admissions to reflect reduced state funding, and recruiting more out- of-state and foreign students (who pay the full cost of their education). As a consequence, Asian American enrollment decreased by 30 percent.

By 2010, California had the largest Middle Eastern population in the nation, a broad census category that included Afghan, Arab, Iranian, Assyrian, Armenian, Israeli, and Turkish Americans. Arab Americans (Lebanese, Palesti- nians, Syrians, Egyptians, Iraqis, and Yemenis), and Armenians accounted for 61 percent of the total. Contrary to popular stereotypes, a large majority of Arab Americans were Christian. And they, like Armenians, had higher than average incomes and educational levels and were concentrated in professional, technical, managerial, and administrative occupations.

Aside from these two groups, there were significant socioeconomic differ- ences among Middle Eastern Californians—differences illustrated by Iranian and Afghan case studies. In 2010, Iranians constituted 25 percent of the state’s Middle Eastern population and ranked first among non-Asian/non-Latino immigrant groups (see Table 13.1). Large-scale immigration began in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution’s suppression of political and religious freedom, and included political and military leaders allied with the former regime as well as large numbers of young, pro-democracy activists. Arriving during a period of fiscal contraction and widespread anti-Muslim prejudice associated with the oil embargo and Iranian hostage crisis, many faced employment dis- crimination and were forced to take jobs for which they were overqualified. But as the economy recovered and shifted toward high-tech industry, they, and those who followed them, had the education and training that ensured rapid assimilation. Indeed, in 2010 the U.S. State Department identified Iran as the leading example of “brain drain” among developing and developed countries.

Coming from a wide range of religious traditions (Muslim, Christian, Bahá’í, Sufi, Zoroastrian, and Jewish), the Iranian immigrants were overwhelm- ingly committed to religious pluralism and the separation of church and state. They also shared a similar socioeconomic profile: highly educated, concen- trated in professional and managerial positions, family oriented, and dedicated to the preservation of Persian culture. Los Angeles, as of 2010, contained the largest concentration of Iranians in the nation, leading to its designation as “Tehrangeles.”

In comparison, the state’s Afghan population is small, comprising four percent of the Middle Eastern demographic in 2010. Nevertheless, California had the largest Afghan population in the nation. The first immigrant wave (1989–mid 1990s) coincided with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and con- sisted mostly of urban professionals, entrepreneurs, politicians, and military officials. Many, however, had difficulty transferring their skills because of

A New Kind of California 433

discrimination, licensing requirements, and the lack of English proficiency, and found jobs at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. Some, though, estab- lished successful, community-based small businesses. The second wave (late 1990s–present), coinciding with Taliban rule and U.S. military intervention, came with less capital, formal education, and marketable skills. They were also more rural, ethnically diverse, tribal/clan identified, impoverished, and dependent on public assistance—particularly subsidized housing. War widows with children and female professionals, deemed “women at risk” by immigra- tion officials, made up a large portion of this more recent refugee population. Both groups, however, had limited English proficiency and suffered from war- related post-traumatic stress—factors which impeded their assimilation. Seek- ing security—even more so in light of anti-Muslim prejudice—Afghans settled in tightly-knit communities like Fremont’s Little Kabul. But security came with a price. Young people, caught between the more traditional expectations of their parents and those of their American peers, faced the challenge of forging a positive identity. Among older Afghans, insularity hampered the acquisition of language skills that ensure access to health and human services, and upward economic mobility.

By 2010, California had the nation’s largest population of Native Ameri- cans, nudging out Oklahoma for that distinction. Aside from sheer numbers, the state’s Indian population was increasingly diverse, consisting of Native Californians and migrants with out-of-state tribal affiliations. It was also increasingly urban. Los Angeles, containing a vast network of cultural, social, and mutual aid associations, was home to the nation’s largest urban Indian population. “Indian Country” was no longer synonymous with rural communi- ties and reservations.

In the early 1990s, California tribes turned to legalized gambling to create jobs and fund health, education, and human services. After a costly, decade- long battle with governors, the courts, and Nevada gaming interests, California Indians turned to the state’s voters for support. In 2000, Proposition 1A passed by a huge majority and established the right of California Indians to build and operate their gaming enterprises. By 2008, Indian casinos were generating thousands of jobs and more than $7 billion in annual revenue—revenue that improved the quality of reservation life and funded cultural preservation/revi- talization initiatives. These benefits helped keep young people within their tribes, drew more educated and skilled members back, and encouraged others who had lost their tribal identity to reestablish ties. Finally, gaming-based pros- perity translated into political influence on national, state, and local levels. Tribes not only spent millions of dollars on pro-gaming initiative campaigns and candidates, they contributed generously to non-Indian charitable causes and community development projects.

These benefits, however, bypassed nongaming California tribes and Indians with out-of-state tribal affiliations. This majority experienced little or no change in key indicators of economic and social health. In 2010, Indian child

434 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

poverty, high-school dropout, and death rates were the second highest in the state, slightly below those of African Americans. Moreover, Indians continued to suffer from disproportionately high rates of substance abuse, obesity, diabe- tes, asthma, and communicable diseases, including tuberculosis.

Between 2000 and 2010, California’s African American population slipped from seven percent to six percent of the total, largely because Asian and Latino populations increased so markedly; however, reverse migration— back to southern states—beginning in the late 1990s may soon lead to a net loss of population. In the meantime, a more dramatic shift from city to sub- urb has unfolded. Between 2000 and 2010, the black population in Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley, and San Francisco dropped by 19–23 percent, and in Los Angeles by 10 percent. During the same period, the African American popu- lation in the suburbs rose: in Tracy by 91 percent, in Stockton by 30 percent, and by equally impressive percentages in southern California’s Antelope Valley and Inland Empire.

While this shift holds out the promise of more affordable housing, safer neighborhoods, and better schools, it also has political implications, as the black electorate will be weakened by geographical dispersal. For example, Ala- meda County, a historical seat of black political power that produced legisla- tors William Byron Rumford, Ronald Dellums, and Barbara Lee, lost 25,000 African Americans and gained 99,000 Asians and 66,000 Latinos in the last decade. Moreover, the shift has left those with the fewest resources behind, producing an even higher concentration of poverty in the state’s urban centers.

As California entered the new millennium, racial discrimination and pov- erty continued to hinder black advancement. In virtually every measure of well- being—income, employment, poverty, life expectancy, access to health care, educational attainment, exposure to violence, and incarceration—African Americans fared the worst. Finally, black residents were twice as likely as other Californians to report housing and employment discrimination.

Thus, California’s ethnic mosaic is a study in both contrast and common- alities. As we move into the future, our greatest challenge is likely to be—in the words of Los Angeles musician Ulises Bella—to build and be “bonded by bridges.”

The Economic Roller Coaster

Economic historians think of the economy as developing through alternating but irregular periods of expansion (growth) and contraction (recession, charac- terized by reduced productivity and increased unemployment). Between 1990 and 2012, California experienced two cycles of bust and boom and entered a third.

The Economic Roller Coaster 435

Cycles of Bust and Boom

In 1990, California entered a serious and long-lasting recession when a cyclical contraction coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and major reductions in military spending. Unemployment in California (Figure 13.2) was more severe and long-lasting than in the nation as a whole—indeed, unemployment in California has remained higher than national levels since the late 1980s. Previously, many Californians considered the state’s economy “recession-proof” because federal defense spending cush- ioned cyclical economic downturns. Now a recession was magnified and extended as federal military spending declined, producing layoffs in defense industries and the closure of military bases. Communities with defense-driven economies suffered from unemployment and declining property values. The aerospace industry, concentrated in southern California, sustained sharp cuts in defense-related contracts.

Employment in aerospace manufacturing in California was at its highest point in the late 1980s, with some 220,000 workers. By 2011, there were fewer than 68,000. This decline in the manufacturing workforce was not unique to aerospace. California had 1.3 million manufacturing production workers in 1987, and 1.2 million in 2011, a small decline when the state’s nonagricultural workforce increased by more than 20 percent. A similar change took place nationwide. Sometimes this reflected changing patterns of consumer demand, as when Californians bought Japanese-made automobiles, and American car

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Figure 13.2 Unemployment, 1986–2012, California and the United States This graph suggests a significant change in the relationship between national patterns of unemployment and those in California. When did the change occur? What may explain this change? Source: California Department of Finance http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/FS_DATA/LatestEconData/ FS_Employment.htm

436 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

makers closed their California plants. Other times, companies—Levi Strauss, for example—moved their manufacturing to countries with lower production costs, especially wages. The rise of Chinese manufacturing, often heavily subsidized by the Chinese government, has made it difficult for California manufacturers to compete with the products of those factories. In 2011, the Solyndra company, a pioneer in manufacturing solar panels (which convert sunshine into electricity), closed down because cheaper, Chinese-made solar panels undercut their sales. Even so, California remained the largest manufacturing state.

During the mid- to late 1990s, California’s economy expanded rapidly and unemployment fell (Figure 13.2), driven by international trade and high-tech industries (both discussed in this section). The Bay Area experi- enced a “dot-com” boom as companies created new commercial uses for the Internet. Part of this boom was, in fact, a “bubble”—a situation where inves- tors become irrationally convinced that a product has a great future and made investments based more on speculation than through rational analysis. Stock prices for dot-com companies soared even though most were not prof- itable and seemed unlikely to be for the foreseeable future. In 1999–2000, the dot-com bubble burst. Unprofitable companies closed their doors. High-tech stocks crashed. The entire high-tech sector suffered heavy losses. Though centered in California, the dot-com crash sent shock waves through the nation, underscoring the state’s central role in the national and global economies.

California’s recovery from the dot-com crash was slowed by the events of September 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Airlines suspended flights for two and a half days, losing billions of dollars. A significant decline in travel led airlines, hotels, and other travel-dependent businesses to lay off employees. Airline companies reduced the number of flights and sometimes the size of their fleets, and cut back orders for more planes.

Nonetheless, the economy was improving by the mid-2000s. The con- struction industry, especially, grew rapidly, fueled partly by sub-prime mort- gages (loans to people who would not normally qualify). As some economists warned of a housing bubble, new subdivisions burgeoned. Residential con- struction peaked in 2004–05, then fell by almost half by 2008. Many people with sub-prime mortgages found they could not make their payments. By 2008, more than 400,000 mortgages were delinquent in California. Lenders foreclosed. The housing market became clogged, and new construction ground to a standstill. Real estate prices fell, especially where the construction boom had been most prominent. Financial institutions with investments in sub-prime mortgages found themselves in trouble, and several collapsed. The stock market crashed. Unemployment zoomed upward. Only interven- tion by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury prevented a collapse similar to that of 1929.

The Economic Roller Coaster 437

The economic crisis in the United States was compounded by crises elsewhere in the world, and the world economy slowed as well. The recession technically ended in July 2009, but the larger economic slowdown—often called the Great Recession—gave few signs of ebbing. Unemployment remained at the highest levels in decades. By early 2012, there were some signs of a modest recovery, but economic uncertainties in Europe posed the danger of a new downturn.

Throughout, California maintained its preeminent position within the national economy. California continued to have the largest gross domestic product (the combined value of all goods and services) of all the states, pro- duced more manufactured goods than any other state, and ranked number one in the value of its agricultural produce. Despite the continued prominence of manufacturing and agriculture, the main drivers of state’s economy, since at least the late 1980s, have been the “Three Ts”—technology, trade, and tourism.

Technology

Californians have pioneered new technologies since the Gold Rush, but after World War II “high tech”—technology at the cutting edge—became a major force in the state’s economy.

Computer manufacturing remains the largest manufacturing industry in the state, with the most employees producing the highest value products— equipment used by virtually every industry: computers, storage devices, prin- ters, security devices, semiconductors, peripheral equipment, and more. Like manufacturing more generally, however, the number of computer manufactur- ing employees steadily declined, from 450,000 in 1990 to 283,000 in 2011. Even so, California still accounted for about a quarter of all computer manufacturing in the nation, and computer equipment remained the state’s single largest export. By about 2005, workers in high-tech services—software, telecommuni- cations, Internet services, data processing, computer design, and related research and development—outnumbered those in high-tech manufacturing.

In the late 1990s, high-tech services, also known as the information tech- nology (IT) industry, helped to generate the dot-com boom. New online com- panies multiplied, offering an amazing variety of online services. In some ways, nearly all e-commerce companies rested on the creation of an easy-to-use Web browser and a reliable search engine. Netscape, with headquarters in Mountain View, first filled that need for an easy-to-use browser. Created in 1994, Nets- cape soon gained 90 percent of web users; however, Netscape lost the “browser war” to Internet Explorer, created by Microsoft. Beginning in 2004, the domi- nance of Internet Explorer was challenged by Firefox, created by Mozilla, a company based in Mountain View. Yahoo!, started by two Stanford students in 1994, with headquarters in Sunnyvale, soared to become the leading Internet search engine, only to yield first place to Google, also created by two Stanford students, with headquarters in Mountain View. By 2010, Google was running a

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million servers all around the world and expanded rapidly from Internet searching to other IT services.

One of the most prominent and successful e-commerce companies was eBay, created in 1995 with headquarters in San Jose. Selling everything from houses to fine art, eBay evolved into a multibillion-dollar business operating in 30 countries. Netflix, located in Los Gatos, launched its media distribution service in 1999; by 2011, it claimed 24 million subscribers. Facebook, founded in early 2004 by Harvard students for Harvard students, quickly “went viral,” incorporated, moved to Palo Alto, and opened to the general public in 2006. By 2011, Facebook replaced eBay as the third largest Web company in the United States and claimed 750 million users around the world—more than 10 percent of the world’s population. Other successful and pioneering California- based IT companies included PayPal, YouTube, and Twitter. The spectacular success of such high-tech companies confirmed California as the worldwide center of computer and software technology.

Biotech became a major component in the state’s economy in the 1990s. By the late 1990s, almost 30 percent of all biotech firms in the nation had headquarters in California. Biotechnology’s applications range widely but include drugs and vaccines, gene therapies for diseases, medical devices, genet- ically engineered agricultural products, and bacteria that can clean up toxic wastes and oil spills. In 2004, California voters approved Proposition 71, autho- rizing a $3 billion bond issue over 10 years, to fund stem-cell research. Passed when the presidential administration of George W. Bush was blocking federal funding of most stem-cell research, the proposition encouraged biotech compa- nies to move to California. As of 2011, California continues as the leading region in the world for biotechnology.

The film industry also benefited from new technology that reshaped the delivery of entertainment as well as its form and content. Visual images came to be transmitted via satellite, telephone, and fiber-optic cable and stored on inexpensive DVDs. Images were enhanced or even created by computer- generated special effects and animation. California’s film and video industry, accounting for more than half the nation’s employment in that field, benefited significantly from these advances. New multimedia firms proliferated, produc- ing applications ranging from special effects software and video games to com- puter systems for distance and interactive learning.

Trade: Going Global

International trade also fuels the state’s economy. Containerization trans- formed oceanic shipping and allowed California to take full advantage of its position on the Pacific Rim. Containerization is the transportation of cargo in 20- or 40-foot-long metal boxes, allowing rapid loading and unloading of ships and the quick transfer of containers to trucks or railroad cars. By 2010, 90 per- cent of worldwide shipping was conducted in containers.

The Economic Roller Coaster 439

Containerization combined with the growth of Pacific Rim trade to trans- form California’s ports. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the largest in the country, and Oakland usually ranks fifth or sixth. The container revolution in shipping encouraged some U.S. manufacturers to relocate to other countries and encouraged manufacturers in other countries to export to the United States. The growth of containerized shipping correlates closely with the decline in manufacturing within the United States.

Computers and electronic products hold first place among California’s exports, accounting for about 30 percent of the total; food products are in second place. By 2010, Mexico had become California’s largest export market, followed by Canada, due partly to the North American Free Trade Agreement (1994), which reduced or eliminated trade barriers among the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Pacific Rim trade remained highly significant for California’s economy, as its next three largest export markets were China, Japan, and South Korea; how-ever, if the members of the European Union (EU) are considered together, then California’s exports to the EU are greater than to any individual country.

Some Californians have viewed globalization with suspicion, as U.S. manufacturing workers lost good-paying jobs and companies moved their manufacturing operations to areas with lower wages and little regulation of working conditions. Environmentalists pointed to potential dangers from the

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Together, the adjoining ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach occupy nearly 24 square miles—about half the size of the entire city of San Francisco—and are the largest and second-largest ports in the nation. Combined, they form the third-largest port in the world, after only Hong Kong and Singapore. How is the expansion of these ports related to economic globalization?

increased use of carbon-based energy sources, especially coal, in other parts of the world as a result of the relocation of manufacturing. California students have organized boycotts of companies that produced goods under sweatshop conditions. Others have pushed environmental groups to think globally.

Growing Wealth, Increasing Poverty, Shrinking Middle Class

Not all Californians shared in the benefits of economic growth. For many, the high-tech economy generated little more than low-wage service jobs. As lower- income, service-sector jobs replaced ones in such unionized, mid-income industries as manufacturing, more workers entered nonunion, lower-paying occupations with few opportunities for advancement—the types of jobs long held by women. Such jobs were also less likely to include medical insurance and pension benefits. At the same time, the cost of housing, medical care, and child care rose for most families, further eroding personal and family income. Even with women’s increased labor force participation, many Califor- nia families had difficulty making ends meet.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the rate of women’s participation in the Cali- fornia labor force grew, reaching almost 70 percent of those between the ages of 20 and 64 in 2010, as compared with 84 percent for men. During the same period, the wage gap between men and women narrowed. By 2010, women’s earnings averaged 89 percent of men’s, the narrowest wage differential in the nation outside of the District of Columbia. This shrinking of the wage gap came in part because of the declining economic fortunes of some male workers rather than a significant rise in women’s earnings, and more women than men continued to live in poverty. Women also continued to be underrepresented at higher corporate levels.

Federal welfare programs were refashioned in 1996, leading to a revision of state programs as well. The new law established a five-year cumulative cap on benefits, after which recipients would have to fend for themselves. Welfare rolls statewide dropped significantly, but child poverty rates remained high. Before implementation of the welfare reforms, during the 1996–1997 school year, 48 percent of all of California’s K–12 students met federal eligibility require- ments for free or reduced-price meal programs. By 2011, nearly 60 percent were eligible. Eligibility rates were especially high in the southern San Joaquin Valley and in Imperial County, where the concentration of children in need was one of the highest in the country.

All in all, the poorest 20 percent of Californians suffered a six percent decline in real adjusted family income between 1994 and 2000. Only the wealthi- est one-third of California families experienced real income growth in the decade of the 1990s. Between 1969 and 1998, the middle-income group (those with family incomes more than double but less than five times the poverty level) shrunk from 55 percent of the state’s population to 39 percent. Over the course of the 1990s, more Californians lived in poverty and the middle class had

The Economic Roller Coaster 441

shrunk. During the expansion phase following the dot-com crash, those patterns became even more pronounced. Between 2000 and 2007, corporate profits almost tripled. In the past, a high level of corporate profits usually translated to increased income for the state’s workforce; however, between 1995 (before the dot-com crash) and 2007 (before the Great Recession), most Californians experi- enced only modest gains in income, if they saw increases at all. In contrast, the top one-fifth, by income, showed a 51 percent increase, and the top one percent gained 117 percent. By 2007, the top one percent in income received 25 percent of the state’s total adjusted gross income (AGI, the total income of all taxpayers before deductions, as reported to the state Franchise Tax Board on state income tax returns), up from 14 percent in 1993. By contrast, the 20 percent of taxpayers exactly in the middle of the income distribution received 10 percent of AGI in 2007, down from 13 percent in 1993. The Great Recession that followed the crash of 2008 exacerbated the situation. Between 2007 and 2010, income inequal- ity became even more pronounced, and the proportion of the state living in poverty increased from 12 percent to 16 percent. Thus, increasing numbers of Californians were sliding into poverty, the middle class was shrinking, and, at the same time, upper-income Californians were receiving an ever larger propor- tionate share of the state’s AGI.

Organized labor joined with church and community activists to attack the growing income disparity by promoting living wage ordinances at the munici- pal level. In Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Orange County, and else- where, labor-led coalitions secured higher minimum wage rates for employees of city contractors. There have also been periodic increases in the state- mandated minimum wage, which is higher than the federal minimum wage and has risen from $4.25 per hour in 1988 to $8.00 in 2008.

A different sort of reaction to income inequality erupted in late 2011 with the Occupy Movement, which began near Wall Street, in New York City, and quickly spread to several locations in California. Claiming to represent “the 99%,” the Occupy protestors focused their rhetoric on the wealthiest one percent and on banks and major corporations. The Port of Oakland became an attractive target to the Occupy participants, who twice closed its operations, bringing protests from unions whose members lost work and a threat from companies to use other ports.

A Faltering Infrastructure

Since the 1980s, California’s infrastructure has strained to provide basic services to its burgeoning and increasingly diverse population. Education, health care, housing, transportation, and energy all seemed on the verge of crisis, forcing Californians to consider the costs of inadequate planning, the long-term results of the “tax revolt,” and the drawbacks of growth.

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Education

California’s schools have become significantly more diverse in the past quarter- century. The greatest change in population was the proportion of Latino students, which increased from one-fourth in 1985 to more than half in 2011. The proportions of African American students declined slightly, and there were small increases in the proportions of Asian American and Filipino American students. The percentage of white (non-Latino) students declined significantly, to a bit more than a quarter.

Since 1990, about one-fourth of public school students have been classified as English learners—those who have a primary language other than English and cannot comprehend English well enough to participate in the usual learn- ing activities. The proportions of English learners range much higher in some school districts. Having so many English learners in the same classroom with students whose primary language is English has posed major problems for meeting the needs of both groups.

The high proportions of students with limited English proficiency may have accounted for as much as two-thirds of the gap in math and reading per- formance when California students were compared to students in other states. In 1996, California placed 49th in reading scores for fourth graders. In 2001, California students’ scores in mathematics ranked third from the bottom.

Governors Pete Wilson and Gray Davis targeted overcrowded classrooms as one of the major problems with public education, and both sought to reduce the number of students in elementary classrooms. Their programs showed some success, but came up against serious financial constraints after 2000.

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A Faltering Infrastructure 443

Nonetheless, by 2009, after major efforts to reduce elementary class sizes, California students had gained an overall ranking of 40 out of the 50 states.

Educators faced other challenges. By 2008–09, after decades of tight bud- gets, California’s spending per pupil in K–12 ranked 39th among the states. That year, the average expenditure nationwide per pupil was $10,499; Califor- nia spent $9,657. (New York spent $18,126.) These tight budgets came just as schools needed more resources to address the needs of English learners and of the nearly one in five California children living in poverty.

An early response to budget stringencies was to increase class size; by the early 1990s, California had the largest K–12 classes in the nation. In 1996, Gov- ernor Pete Wilson launched a program to reduce K–3 classes to 20 students, and the program was later extended to other grades. By 2007–08, California’s elementary schools ranked 39th in class size, averaging 21.6 students. This reduction in class size contributed significantly to improved test scores. When the Great Recession significantly reduced state income, funds for K–12 were cut. When the state permitted schools to increase class size and shorten the school year, the average K–3 class promptly increased to 25, and 60 percent of school districts reduced the number of days of instruction.

During the 1990s, state officials upgraded high-school graduation require- ments, required more rigorous textbooks, and implemented statewide stan- dards. Then, in 2001, the U.S. Congress passed and President George Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Now, public schools receiving federal funds had to demonstrate constant improvement in test results. Schools that failed to do so received increasingly harsh penalties. NCLB generated a storm of criticism. In 2011, when projections suggested that 80 percent of all U.S. school districts were likely to fail to meet NCLB standards, President Bar- ack Obama announced he would return standards to state control.

California high schools improved graduation rates somewhat. Statewide, 74 percent of students who entered high school in the fall of 2006 graduated four years later, just slightly below the national average; however, only 56 per- cent of English learners graduated, and only 59 percent of African Americans did so. The graduation rate of Latino students improved from less than 60 per- cent in 2000 to 67 percent in 2010. For all ethnic groups, women were more likely to graduate than men. College attendance rates in California were well below national averages.

State funding for higher education followed the economic roller coaster— down in the early 1990s, up in the late 1990s, down with the dot-com crash, up in the mid-2000s, down with the Great Recession. When state funding fell, stu- dent costs at public colleges and universities increased, often dramatically. By 2011–12, for the first time, the state’s public universities were receiving more funds from tuition than from the state.

Thus, Californians faced multiple crises in public education. The state’s demographic changes and restrictions on public finances posed challenges for education at all levels. The profound changes in the state’s economy, especially

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the decline in the number of well-paying jobs in manufacturing and the increases in high-paying, high-tech jobs, meant that a college degree was the ticket to the upper tier of jobs—but reduced funding for higher education led to restrictions on admissions, and ever-increasing tuition costs posed addi- tional obstacles for many students. One study in 2011 projected that at least 41 percent of California jobs will require a four-year college degree in 2025, but that only 35 percent of adults will have such a degree. For an economy highly dependent on high-tech industries, continuing reductions in access to higher education posed the possibility of future economic decline.

Health Care and Housing

By the 1990s, major changes had occurred in California’s health care industry. Prior to World War II, most health services were delivered on a fee-for-service model, where patients or their insurers paid providers directly for medical treatment. A different approach emerged in the postwar period. In this new model, called managed care, patients and/or their employers paid a monthly fee to a health maintenance organization (HMO) in exchange for comprehen- sive health care benefits. By the 1990s, these large-scale providers delivered health services to a majority of Californians, including 90% of those with employee health benefits. At the same time, rising costs led many HMOs to cut staff, refuse treatment for pre-existing conditions, regulate the types of pro- cedures their doctors could provide, and divert indigent or uninsured patients to public hospitals. Even with these measures, medical costs spiraled upward, prompting employers to drop coverage altogether or insist that workers share the burden of rising premiums—premiums that increased 153% between 2002 and 2010, or more than five times the rate of inflation. By 2010, almost half of nonelderly Californians lacked employee coverage and faced average annual premiums of $15,724 to insure a family of four.

Not surprisingly, one in five Californians, including 14% of all children under the age of 18, were uninsured by 2010. Many, earning too little to pay for private insurance and too much to qualify for public medical services, were forced to rely on already overcrowded and understaffed emergency facilities for basic health care. State-level initiatives to address the crisis, including universal and mandatory, employer-provided insurance, were repeatedly rejected by voters, private industry, and legislators as too costly and intrusive. Federal health care reform, if fully implemented in 2017, promises to compen- sate for this policy failure by extending coverage to two-thirds of uninsured Californians.

Between 1995 and 2005, California property values doubled every five years. Job and population growth, especially in the Bay Area, outpaced the sup- ply of housing and initially drove up prices. So, too, did speculators who bought property, made modest upgrades, and then “flipped” it for a profit. In 1999, Congress deregulated the banking industry by repealing the

A Faltering Infrastructure 445

Glass-Steagall Act. Soon, unscrupulous lenders contributed to the problem by encouraging buyers to assume mortgages beyond their means and take out sub- prime or risky adjustable rate loans. Homebuyers were also at fault, assuring themselves that they could sell at a profit or take out home equity loans if their financial burden became excessive.

As home prices rose and more buyers were priced out of the market, devel- opers raced to build more affordable housing in far-flung interior suburbs like Fairfield, Merced, San Bernardino, and Stockton. There, too, buyers stretched their budgets to realize the dream of home ownership, even as it meant a much longer commute. By 2007, the housing bubble burst. A growing number of bor- rowers began to default on their loans, often when adjustable-rate mortgages were reset at higher levels. Banks, in possession of an excess of foreclosed prop- erties, sold their inventory at a lower cost. This depressed the property values of entire communities. Those who managed to hold on to their homes often ended up “underwater”—owing more than their houses were worth—or sur- rounded by vacant, neglected properties. As housing prices plummeted, many who were “underwater” simply walked away from their debt. Just as troubling, the foreclosure crisis spilled over to rental property, placing tenants at risk of displacement. The net result was a significant increase in the state’s homeless population, including children and youth. For example, Contra Costa County reported a 25% increase in homelessness among its public school students between 2007 and 2009. According to most forecasts, it will take several years for the housing industry and property values to recover.

The Environment

Natural disasters contributed to the state’s economic woes. On October 17, 1989, during the third game of the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants—the first-ever “Bay Bridge Series”—a devastating earthquake struck the Bay Area. Centered near Santa Cruz, the earthquake caused 63 deaths and $6.8 billion of damage. On January 14, 1994, an earth- quake on the Northridge fault, in the San Fernando Valley, killed more than 50 people, destroyed hundreds of homes, and caused more than $20 billion in damage. Nearly every building at C.S.U. Northridge was damaged. Other major earthquakes struck Cape Mendocino and the town of Landers in 1992, San Simeon in 2003, and Eureka and northern Baja California in 2010.

Climatologists have predicted that climate change brought on by global warming is likely to increase the severity of winter storms and summer wild- fires, and both patterns seemed to be developing. In the fall of 1991, a wildfire killed 25 people and destroyed 3000 homes in northern Oakland and Berkeley. In 2003, a wildfire near San Diego burned for six weeks, killed 15 people, and destroyed 2,200 homes. Mudslides in southern California in the winter of 2005 killed 19 people and destroyed many homes. Wildfires in October 2007 affected seven counties in southern California, killing nine people and destroying 1,500

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homes. Winter storms in 2010–11 brought serious flooding and mudslides in both southern California and the Sacramento area.

California’s political leaders have tried to address climate change in various ways, but the most ambitious effort came in 2006, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which set the goal of reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to the levels of 1990, to be accomplished by 2020. This ambitious program put California far in the lead among the other states in seeking to address the causes of global warming. One major goal was to improve energy efficiency everywhere— transportation, buildings, homes, land use, factories, water resources—and thereby reduce dependence on fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve health, conserve natural resources, and create green jobs. As imple- mentation of AB 32 got underway, however, out-of-state oil interests brought forward a proposition, Prop 23 of 2010, to suspend implementation of AB 32. California voters defeated Prop 23 by a margin of 3-2, but a compan- ion measure, promoted by other oil companies and presented as a way of pre- venting tax increases, narrowly passed, leaving uncertain the future of some aspects of AB 32.

The allocation and management of water resources remained one of the state’s most pressing environmental challenges in the new millennium. Califor- nians, especially California agricultural interests, continue to demand more water than the available supply. At the beginning of the 21st century, according to one study, 20 percent of developed water resources were used by urban areas and industry and the other 80 percent by agriculture. Another analysis sug- gested that moving water from one area to another accounted for 18 percent of all electricity and 31 percent of all natural gas consumed in the state. Since 1990, agencies throughout the state have worked to improve water efficiency, reasoning that more efficient use of water is less expensive than creating new water systems. Since the 1980s, for example, Los Angeles cut residential water use by 20 percent. Nonetheless, led by agricultural interests, political pressures continue to divert more water from the Sacramento River to central and south- ern California.

By 2007, the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta was in ecological crisis, with salmon, smelt, and other critical species on the brink of extinction due to ever-increasing water diversions. In response to lawsuits filed by environmental groups in 2007 and 2009, federal and state agencies were ordered to sharply reduce Delta water transfers—a move that infuriated the state’s growers. At the same time, the California legislature passed the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009 to “achieve the two coequal goals of providing a more reliable water supply for California, and protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Delta ecosystem.” More specifically, the bill created the state Delta Stewardship Council to guide the development of water policy; set new conservation targets for residential, industrial, and agricultural consumption; established a statewide groundwater monitoring system; required water

A Faltering Infrastructure 447

agencies to respond to the threat of global warming; prioritized Delta restoration; and called for stricter penalties against illegal water diversions. The $11.4 billion bond measure needed to fund and implement the act was postponed until 2012. In the interim, Governor Jerry Brown joined with the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the California Natural Resources Agency to endorse a peripheral tunnel that would export additional water to agribusiness and southern California water agencies. The tunnel, opposed by environmentalists, small farmers, Indian tribes, and fishing groups, and at odds with the “coequal goals” of the Delta Reform Act, underscores the jurisdictional incoherence and political complexi- ties of California water policy.

Transportation

California’s emerging global trade relationships, whether involving Europe, Latin America, or Asia, all depended on the state’s transportation infrastructure—its airports (including two of the seven busiest in the nation, Los Angeles and San Francisco), ports, rail lines, and trucking routes. Nearly a third of the nation’s waterborne international trade came through California in the late 1990s. At the same time, the state’s complex transportation infra- structure provided a major source of the greenhouse gases that the state was committed to reduce.

During the 1970s and 1980s, per capita government spending on public transportation in California sank to the lowest in the nation. In 1990, however, voters endorsed a gasoline-tax increase and $3 billion in bond issues to fund public transportation systems. Mass transit in many urban areas expanded dur- ing the 1990s and after, including a light rail and subway system in Los Angeles, expansion of light rail in the Sacramento area and Santa Clara Valley, and Metrolink, an intracity rail line connecting six southern California counties.

The California High Speed Rail Authority, created in 1996, began investigat- ing the feasibility of a high-speed train system connecting northern and southern California. Such a system, it is argued, would significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from both automobiles and airplanes and eventually produce sufficient profit to pay for future expansion. In 2008, voters approved Proposition 1A, allo- cating $9.95 billion in bonds for initial construction. This was augmented by fed- eral funds amounting to more than $5 billion. The most ambitious plans called for completion of a San Francisco-Los Angeles route by 2030, and the Sacramento-San Diego extensions by 2033 or later. The High Speed Rail Author- ity decided to begin construction in the Central Valley, where costs per mile would be less than in more densely populated areas. Not surprisingly, once plan- ning moved to specific routes and construction schedules, critics multiplied, some arguing against the entire project and others against particular details.

Other plans to improve transportation infrastructure and simultaneously reduce dependence on fossil fuels ranged widely, from expanding bicycle

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lanes in San Francisco, to replacing trucks with rail service in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, to a state rebate program to encourage purchase of electric or hybrid cars. Tesla Motors, launched in 2003 by a group of Silicon Valley engineers to prove the feasibility of electric autos, put their first models on sale in 2008 and opened a new manufacturing facility, in partnership with Toyota, in 2010 in Fremont.

Energy

By 1990, Californians paid much more for electricity than consumers in other states, prompting the legislature to pass a deregulation bill in 1996. Lawmakers optimistically assumed that free market competition would increase supply and keep prices low for consumers. Energy prices skyrocketed, however, leading to charges that suppliers, like Texas-based Enron Corporation, had manipulated energy markets for financial gain. Subsequent state and federal investigations revealed “just how egregiously and extensively California was ripped off by the energy pirates,” and resulted in multibillion dollar legal settlements. This debacle added impetus to the quest for energy independence.

Between 1990 and 2010, the state made significant strides in reducing its dependence on fossil fuels through conservation and the development of renew- able alternatives like solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. The California Energy Commission not only imposed strict efficiency standards for appliances and elec- tronic devices, but also mandated (along with the Building Standards Commis- sion) energy conservation measures in all new residential and commercial construction. Legislation passed in 2002 set the most stringent vehicle fuel effi- ciency standards in the nation and mandated that the state’s utilities sharply reduce their dependence on nonrenewable energy sources. By 2010 these mea- sures, combined with state and federal tax incentives, consumer rebates, and research and development grants, had reduced per capita energy consumption to 40% less than the national average, and generated thousands of new jobs.

Still, California remained more dependent on petroleum than the nation as a whole because of its large transportation-reliant workforce and system of commerce. By 2010, 50% of the state’s oil came from foreign suppliers, up from 5% in 1990. Clearly, fossil fuel-based transport remained the primary stumbling block to achieving energy independence and reducing the threat of global warming.

Politics in the New California

By the late 1990s, some political analysts were discussing California’s “govern- ment by initiative,” meaning the use of voter initiatives, often by well-organized interest groups, to bypass the legislative process and secure public policy. Such

Politics in the New California 449

groups hired agents to collect the necessary signatures to get a proposal on the ballot and then spent lavishly on advertising to win on Election Day. Initiatives have limited state taxes, beginning with Proposition 13 (1978), and other initia- tives have mandated spending, thus restricting the authority of the legislature over state budgeting. At the same time, political analysts also began to point to serious dysfunction in state government, reflected especially in repeated legisla- tive gridlock over budgeting and taxes. Two of the three governors between 1990 and 2010 left office with the highest levels of voter disapproval ever recorded by pollsters.

State Politics, 1990–1998: The Governorship of Pete Wilson

In 1990, California and Oklahoma became the first states to limit the number of terms for state legislators—California assembly members are restricted to three two-year terms and state senators to two four-year terms, and those who reach the limit can never again run for the legislature. Voters adopted term limits partly in response to the increasing entrenchment of incumbents. Thanks to careful redistricting in 1982, 99 percent of legislative incumbents won reelection in 1984, 1986, and 1988. There were other currents in the term-limits vote. Conservatives hoped to open more opportunities for their candidates, and some saw term limits as a way to end the long tenure of Willie Brown, an African American from San Francisco, as speaker of the assembly.

In 1990, Republican strategists persuaded Peter Wilson to run for gover- nor. Wilson, a former marine, had won election to two terms in the U.S. Sen- ate, where his record combined fiscal conservatism and social moderation, including being generally pro-choice and pro-environment. At stake in the 1990 election was the redistricting of California’s legislative and congressional districts. Republicans knew that they could not win control of the legislature, but by winning the governorship—and the ability to veto legislation—they hoped to keep the Democrats in the legislature from eliminating Republican districts through redistricting. Wilson won narrowly.

The new governor immediately faced a financial crisis. Confronted with a sagging economy and a $14.3 billion projected deficit in 1991, Wilson and the legislature responded with significant tax increases and drastic cuts in spend- ing. As already described (pp. 443–445), Wilson also promoted significant changes in public K–12 education. He also moved steadily to the right— reducing welfare benefits and becoming the first governor since Reagan to carry out the death penalty.

In the 1992 elections, Democrats did very well. Their presidential candi- date, Bill Clinton, carried the state. Both of California’s U.S. Senate seats were up for election that year: one to fill Wilson’s vacated seat and the other because Alan Cranston chose to retire rather than run again. California made history that year by electing two women to the U.S. Senate: Dianne Feinstein (who won Wilson’s former Senate seat) and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats.

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Never before had any state been represented in the Senate by two women at the same time.

In 1993, Wilson began to point to illegal immigrants (most of whom, peo- ple understood, came from Mexico) as a danger to the state because of the costs of education and social services. In 1994, he promoted Proposition 187 to deny undocumented immigrants all state-funded services, including educa- tion and nonemergency health care. Opponents of Prop 187, including the Catholic Church, labor unions, and most Democratic leaders, focused on the prospect of denying education and health care to children. Nonetheless, Prop 187 passed by a large margin. Almost two-thirds of white voters supported it, along with roughly half of black and Asian American voters and nearly a quar- ter of Latino voters. Opponents challenged the constitutionality of the initia- tive, and federal courts eventually invalidated most of the proposition. At the same time, as Father Pedro Villarroya, head of the Hispanic ministry for the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said: “We need to vote.” Perhaps the big- gest impact of Prop 187 was to prompt many Latino immigrants to become citizens and to mobilize a new generation of Latino voters.

Also in 1994, a voter initiative changed state policy on prison terms. Approved by 72 percent to 28 percent, Proposition 184, called the “Three Strikes” initiative, requires that those convicted of a third felony be sentenced to 25 years to life. The late 1980s had seen a dramatic increase in drug-related, violent crimes, but support for Prop 184 was driven mostly by the kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old girl by an ex-convict. The legislature also passed laws to increase sentences for crimes. As a result, between 1990 and 2005, Cali- fornia’s prison population grew three times as fast as the total population, pro- ducing serious overcrowding. By 2011, California’s prison population also contained a growing geriatric population whose medical needs pushed prison costs upward.

Wilson’s tough-on-crime stance and hostility to illegal immigration reso- nated with many California voters, and he easily won reelection in 1994. The election of 1994 illustrates another use of initiatives. Political analysts point out that propositions can be used to mobilize a particular segment of the electorate, which can then benefit one party or the other. Thus, even though much of Prop 187 was later declared unconstitutional, it nonetheless helped to reelect Wilson and to give Republicans a slim majority in the state assembly. Political strategists have increasingly looked to this mobilizing function of initiatives as a way to draw voters to the polls.

In 1995, the regents of the University of California voted to discontinue UC’s affirmative action admission programs. Soon after, in 1996, Proposition 209, called the “California Civil Rights Initiative,” proposed to eliminate all state-mandated affirmative action programs. With strong support from Gover- nor Wilson, Prop 209 passed by 54 to 46 percent. Surveys indicated that the vote in favor was heavily Republican, male, and white, and that opposition was strongest among Democrats, liberals, blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans.

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Wilson’s second term as governor brought few accomplishments. In the end, Wilson’s anti-immigrant politics and the passage of Propositions 187 and 209 seem to have triggered a backlash that significantly boosted the Dem- ocratic Party.

State Politics, 1998–2003: The Governorship of Gray Davis

During the 1980s, political analysts pointed to a new phenomenon—a widening gender gap that reflected differences in how men and women regarded political issues, the two major parties, and individual candidates. Women registered greater concern for child care, family leave, reproductive rights, social security, health care, gun control, and education, while men focused more on fiscal restraint, military preparedness, and limiting the size of government. Female voters were more likely to support Democrats and to show up at the polls in greater numbers. In the 1990s, the gender gap was particularly pronounced in California politics, including the large proportions of Democrats among female officeholders. By 2000, women held both U.S. Senate seats (both Democrats) and 13 (12-D, 1-R) of California’s 52 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the state legislature, women held 11 of the 40 senate seats (10-D, 1-R) and 20 of the 80 assembly seats (15-D, 4-R, 1-I).

By the mid-1990s and after, Republican voters, in their primary elections, often chose candidates opposed to abortion and gun controls. To win a general election, however, it seemed that a candidate could not take those stands. When combined with significant support for the Democrats from Latinos, unions, and women, the result was repeated Republican losses in statewide elections. After the 1998 elections, the Republicans held only two of the eight statewide offices; after 2002, they had none.

Joseph “Gray” Davis, the winning Democratic candidate for governor in 1998, had liberal views on reproductive rights and social policy, which gave him a commanding lead among women. That year, Barbara Boxer, another Democrat, won reelection to the U.S. Senate, and Democrats were elected as lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor, and treasurer. Democrats also won majorities in the state senate and state assembly and among the state’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. These Democratic gains came from several sources in addition to women voters. Many Latinos were alienated by Republican attacks on immigrants, and more than 70 per- cent of Latino voters voted Democratic for governor in 1998. Labor unions and the California Teachers’ Association gave strong support to the Democrats.

Gray Davis, though long experienced in state politics, lacked charm and charisma. Many Californians came to consider his nickname, “Gray,” a description of his personality. Proudly calling himself a moderate, Davis was

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often at odds with the liberal Democrats who led the legislature. He rejected many liberal bills, but he and the Democrats in the legislature nonetheless agreed on tougher gun control laws, increased health care safeguards, and extensions of gay rights. They also spent $3.5 billion to improve state highways. Under Republican pressure, the legislature also approved, and Davis signed, measures to reduce taxes.

Davis consistently sought the middle of the road and worked to hold together his base of support. His handling of the energy crisis of early 2001 (p. 449), however, produced a quick drop in his popularity, from more than 60 percent approval in 1999 to less than 40 percent by mid-2002. Nonetheless, in 2002 Davis was narrowly reelected, defeating a conservative Republican with virtually no previous experience in electoral politics.

By early 2003, California faced a monstrous deficit—between $26 and $35 billion— the result of reduced tax revenues due to recession and tax cuts, of spending $43 billion on electricity contracts during the energy crisis, and of the increased cost of state services due to modest inflation. Republicans con- sistently refused to support any increase in taxes. Democrats lacked the nece- ssary two-thirds majority to pass a budget but refused to slash spending for education and health care. The deadlock continued for months, but was resolved, finally, through a compromise to balance the budget by borrowing— thus putting off the crisis for a year.

As the legislative gridlock was underway, Davis faced an effort to recall him from office. In February 2003, several Republicans launched a recall cam- paign that sputtered along until Darrell Issa, a conservative Republican mem- ber of Congress, pumped nearly $2 million of his own money into the effort. The additional funds put the petition drive over the top. Californians now had to vote on two matters: whether Davis should be recalled, and who should suc- ceed him. Davis could not run. It was relatively easy to get on the ballot, and the election produced 135 candidates and a media circus that captured national and international headlines.

To the surprise of Issa, who had planned to run for governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” and announced that he would run as a Republican. Born in Austria, Schwarzenegger first achieved fame as a bodybuilder, then became famous as the star of action movies. Other Republicans, including Issa, bowed out under pressure from party leaders. Schwarzenegger, like Wilson and Davis, came from the moderate wing of his party—he opposed new taxes but was pro-choice and supported an ambitious environmental platform. His wife, Maria Shriver, was a Democrat and part of the politically powerful family of John F. Kennedy.

The vote to recall Davis received 55 percent in favor, making Davis only the second governor in the United States to be recalled from office. Schwarze- negger received 49 percent of the vote to replace Davis, far more than any other candidate.

Politics in the New California 453

State Politics, 2003–2008: The Governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger

Schwarzenegger faced probably the biggest challenge to confront any California governor—many knowledgeable Californians considered that, if the state had been a corporation, it would have had to declare bankruptcy. Schwarzenegger’s first major action was to seek a popular vote on a huge bond issue—$15 billion—to borrow funds to resolve the state’s desperate financial situation, and he tied the bond issue to a constitutional amendment to provide for a state reserve fund. He campaigned aggressively for both measures, and both won by large margins. Balancing the state budget by borrowing, however, was clearly a temporary expedient.

In January 2005, in his annual State of the State report, Schwarzenegger announced an ambitious “year of reform,” but he eventually focused on just four propositions: to make it more difficult for public school teachers to gain tenure, restrict political contributions by public employee unions, limit state spending, and take redistricting away from the legislature—a very conser- vative and very Republican “reform agenda.” Endorsed by business leaders, the Republican Party, many chambers of commerce, and the California Bankers Association, the propositions drew strong opposition from public school tea- chers, nurses, firefighters, and police, along with the Democratic Party. The voters rejected all four.

Schwarzenegger responded contritely, acknowledged that he had erred in targeting public employees, and promised more cooperation with the Demo- crats. Throughout 2006, he rebuilt his public support—he avoided confronta- tion, added prominent Democrats to his administration, and proclaimed himself to be “post-partisan.” In November of 2006, he easily won a second term. Voters also reelected Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, to the U.S. Senate by 60% to 35%, and chose Democrats for all but one of the other statewide offices.

In victory, Schwarzenegger promised to continue his “post-partisan” approach, and he worked with the Democratic leadership in the assembly on an ambitious health insurance plan, designed to extend coverage to all Califor- nians who lacked health insurance. The proposal attracted significant opposi- tion, however, especially from Republicans and large health insurance programs. The assembly passed the bill, but it died in the senate.

Under Schwarzenegger, and with significant Democratic support, Califor- nia took the lead among state governments on environmental issues. The state set energy efficiency standards intended to make the state 40 per cent more energy efficient than the rest of the country, and issued the strictest auto emis- sion standards in the country. Schwarzenegger and the Democratic legislature established programs to reduce greenhouse gases and increase production of electricity through rooftop solar panels. Schwarzenegger also gave strong support to a huge bond issue for a high-speed rail network.

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In the end, however, Schwarzenegger failed to resolve the state’s financial problems. The struggle over the budget in 2008 was one of the longest in the state’s history. Schwarzenegger agreed with the Democrats in the legislature that new taxes as well as spending cuts were required, but he could not sway even one Republican vote in the legislature. When the legislature finally came up with enough votes to pass a budget—85 days late—they simply passed cru- cial decisions on to the voters, in the form of six propositions to be voted on in May 2009. California voters overwhelmingly defeated five propositions and overwhelmingly passed just one—eliminating pay increases for elected officials when the state has a deficit.

After the repeated failure of the legislature to adopt a balanced budget or to adopt a budget on time, and after the inability of the two parties to find any common ground in time of crisis, Californians by mid-2010 registered an all-time high level of disapproval of the legislature. At the same time, Schwarzenegger tied with Gray Davis for the highest disapproval ratings of any governor since polling began. Schwarzenegger also achieved his goal of being post-partisan—he was less popular among Republicans than among Democrats! One lesson from this may be that a “post-partisan” gov- ernor and a highly partisan legislature guarantee an ineffective governor, since neither party has a stake in his initiatives, and the two-thirds rule for approving the budget or new taxes guarantees legislative deadlock. In the end, the repeated budget battles destroyed Schwarzenegger as an effective political leader.

During Schwarzenegger’s administration, same-sex marriage had become a major issue in state politics. The controversy began in 2000 with passage of Proposition 22, which stated: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Prop 22 came under challenge in 2004, when Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, directed city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Thousands of people soon recited their vows, promising to take each other as “spouses for life” rather than as “hus- band and wife.” Newsom argued that Prop 22 violated the equal rights provi- sions of the state constitution. His action set up a constitutional challenge to Prop 22. Constitutional challenges were soon under way in other states as well, several of which were successful. In May 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled that Prop 22 violated the state constitution, but in November 2008 voters approved Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment defin- ing marriage as between a man and a woman. Prop 8 was soon challenged in court, but both Governor Schwarzenegger and California Attorney General Jerry Brown refused to defend it, claiming they found it to be unconstitu- tional. In 2010, a federal district judge ruled that Prop 8 violated the due pro- cess and equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution; however, that ruling was put on hold pending appeals not resolved by the time this book went to print.

Politics in the New California 455

State Politics Since 2010: The Return of Jerry Brown

In the elections of 2010, Republican strategists seemed to be trying to close the gender gap, because that party nominated prominent female corporate execu- tives for both governor and the U.S. Senate—Meg Whitman, formerly of eBay, for governor, and Carly Fiorina, formerly of Hewlett-Packard, for the U.S. Sen- ate. The results, however, suggested that women voters looked at issues more than the sex of the candidate, for both Republican women lost, and lost in part because women voted in large proportions for the Democrats—Jerry Brown for governor, and Barbara Boxer, the incumbent U.S. Senator. Although many Democrats in other states struggled to survive in 2010, in California Democrats swept all the statewide elections and held onto all their legislative seats.

The election of Jerry Brown came as the culmination of a long political odyssey after he left the governor’s office in 1983. Largely avoiding politics until 1989, he then became state chairman of the Democratic Party until 1991. He left politics again until 1999 when he was elected mayor of Oakland, serving until 2007, when he was elected Attorney General. Some observers sug- gested that he had left the governorship as a visionary and returned as a prag- matist. His election set several California records—the oldest person (72) to be elected governor, the only governor to serve nonconsecutive terms, the last governor to serve more than two terms (the term-limits law did not bar him from running since his previous terms came before term limits passed).

As governor, Brown tried to craft a bipartisan approach to the state’s dire budget problems. Hoping to persuade the legislature to permit voters to decide on raising taxes, Brown found the Republicans opposed even to permitting voters to decide on taxes. As a consequence, Brown insisted that the budget for 2011–12 make the huge cuts necessary to produce a balanced budget, a deci- sion that closed many state parks, eliminated some social services, transferred significant costs to university students in the form of large tuition increases, and transferred other costs to local governments in the form of additional responsibilities. At the same time, Brown proposed an initiative for the 2012 ballot to raise taxes on the wealthiest Californians and modestly increase sales taxes, and to earmark the new funds for education, including universities. Sev- eral other groups also proposed initiatives to raise taxes in 2012.

The 2012 elections also seemed to hold a prospect for significant changes in the intense partisanship that had long characterized the legislature. Redis- tricting in 1991 and 2001 had created districts that were safely Republican or Democratic. One consequence seemed to be that legislators from both parties became more partisan, as candidates appealed only to their party’s base and not to moderates or independents. Never able to win a legislative majority, Republicans nonetheless maintained a veto over the budget and tax increases because both required a two-thirds majority. Democrat legislators always had to gain at least a few Republican votes to pass a budget, even if it meant cutting taxes. In 2010, however, Californians approved several initiatives that posed the

456 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

prospect for changing those dynamics. One was a constitutional amendment to permit a simple majority of the legislature to approve the budget, although two-thirds are still required for tax increases.

The other two changes directly affect the 2012 elections. One creates an open primary, in which the two candidates with the highest vote totals face each other in the general election, regardless of party. Those who promote the open primary hope it will encourage candidates to appeal to independents and moderate members of both major parties, rather than to the most partisan voters. The other change, resulting from initiatives in 2008 and 2010, takes redistricting from the legislature and gives it to a bipartisan citizen’s commis- sion, charged to create districts without regard for partisan registrations. Its supporters argued that this would create more competitive districts where can- didates would have to appeal to independent and moderate voters. Taken together, these two experiments in reducing intense legislative partisanship will take effect in the 2012 elections; the outcome of those elections and the behavior of state legislators in the 2013 legislative session will indicate if the experiment proves successful.

During the years since 1990, many political analysts have described California state government as dysfunctional. They have looked to the gridlock

This photo shows Jerry Brown campaigning for governor in 2010. You may want to compare this photo with the one in chapter 12 (p. 396), showing Brown during his first term as governor, almost forty years before. California held sixteen elections for state officers between 1950 and 2010. A member of the Brown family—Pat Brown, Jerry Brown, or Kathleen Brown—was a candidate in thirteen of those elections, and was a winner in ten of them. Why might voters have been so attracted to members of the Brown family?

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Politics in the New California 457

of the legislature as resulting from the need for two-thirds majorities to pass budgets or taxes, from initiatives that have restricted the ability of the legisla- ture to raise taxes or reduce some parts of the budget, and from high levels of partisanship in the legislature encouraged by redistricting that guarantees nearly every legislator a “safe” district. Even so, both conservatives and liberals have used popular initiatives to make California a national trend-setter, all seeming to confirm California’s reputation as—in the words of political analyst Michael Barone—“the great laboratory of America.”

Religious and Cultural Diversity

At the beginning of the new century California, with its large immigrant popu- lation, contained a greater diversity of religious sects and denominations than any other state in the nation and kept a secure hold on its reputation as a lead- ing source of new cultural developments.

Spirituality in Contemporary California

By the 1990s, California was the center of New Age spirituality, a loosely defined and multifaceted movement that had its origins in the ’60s countercul- ture, and offered a wide range of options for self-improvement and spiritual growth ranging from meditation and yoga to neo-Paganism and various blends of Eastern, Native American, and Christian traditions. New spiritual develop- ments also included reform efforts within mainstream religious denominations. Feminists pushed for the ordination of women, more positive representations of female religious figures, and gender-inclusive language in sacred texts and sermons. Others urged their denominations to welcome and ordain members of the GLBTQ community, sanction gay marriage, build ministries that reflected the state’s ethnic and class diversity, and reaffirm their commitment to social and economic justice.

Millions of other Californians embraced evangelical Protestantism, oppos- ing abortion, gay rights, and the overall erosion of what they termed “family values.” Some constructed mega-churches and radio, television, and Internet ministries, and adopted new styles of worship to attract younger, more ethni- cally diverse congregants. More racially inclusive than in the past, Christian evangelicals joined with conservative Catholics and Mormons to form a power- ful voting and fundraising bloc that supported socially conservative candidates and legislation such as Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage.

The most striking feature of the state’s spiritual landscape was its diversity. By 2010, California had the nation’s largest number of Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim, Bahá’í, and Catholic adherents, and its Mormon and Jewish populations were

458 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

second, respectively, only to those of Utah and New York. The Bay Area city of Fremont was a case in point. In 2000, Fremont was home to the nation’s larg- est Afghan-American population and housed four mosques, three Buddhist temples, Sikh and Hindu places of worship, and a women’s monastic retreat center. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Fremont was rocked by vio- lence against Muslim mosques and Afghan businesses, and the murder of Alia Ansari, a Muslim mother of six. The city’s political and religious leaders responded by initiating a series of interfaith dialogues and events to promote tolerance. Impressed with their efforts, the Harvard Diversity Project traveled to the Bay Area to produce Fremont U.S.A., a 2008 documentary that is now used by schools and congregations to build bridges among different faith tradi- tions. Fremont, though, was hardly unique. Across California, religious diver- sity was on the rise. By 2010, for example, Los Angeles and Orange counties combined contained 50 Hindu, 185 Buddhist, 64 Muslim, 16 Sikh, and 71 Bahá’í places of worship.

Cuisine

California’s food-ways were heavily influenced by increasing cultural diversity and its counterculture-based environmental ethics. California Cuisine— prepared with fresh, seasonal, and organically grown produce—was pioneered by Alice Waters, the owner of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse restaurant, and became a staple of upscale food establishments across the nation. In addition to pro- moting sustainable farming practices, Waters funded school gardening and cooking projects designed to encourage environmental awareness and healthier eating habits. Although most California growers still used chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, sustainability advocates gave impetus to the local, organic food movement. As a result, farmers’ markets and farm-to-table distri- bution networks spread across the state. Moreover, by the new millennium, larger food chains like Safeway were marketing their own organic brands.

At the same time, immigrant communities introduced Californians to a wide array of national dishes and enticing fusions of various food-ways. Little Saigons in Westminster, San Jose and San Francisco, and Little Indias in Arte- sia and Berkeley complemented the offerings of more established China, Korea and Japan towns. So, too, did Westwood’s Tehrangeles and Fremont’s Little Kabul. Immigrant chefs also joined the recent food truck fad, converging at designated sites to offer local residents a mobile, multicultural dining experience.

Art, Literature, Film, and Music

Despite economic hard times, Californians attended cultural and artistic events at double the national average. Moreover, by 2010 the state contained more than 11,000 nonprofit cultural organizations—more than most of the world’s

Religious and Cultural Diversity 459

nations. In the new millennium, California’s major art centers were healthier than ever. The San Francisco De Young Museum, after suffering major damage in the Loma Prieta earthquake, reopened in an entirely new, architecturally stunning structure in 2005. The Oakland Museum, dedicated to “advancing an integrated understanding of this ever-evolving state,” underwent a $62.2 million renovation and expansion during the same period. So, too, did the Getty Museum in Malibu. Finally, the wholly new J. Paul Getty Center opened in Los Angeles.

Aside from these landmark cultural venues, California boasted thousands of group-specific arts facilities, including the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, the Japanese American Museum in San Jose, the Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture in Los Angeles, and the Vietnam- ese Arts and Letters Association in Santa Ana. Native Californians, investing gaming revenue in cultural revitalization, built or expanded museums in Banning, Palm Springs, Lancaster, and Humboldt.

California’s penchant for the arts was primarily fueled by its decentra- lized, ethnically diverse cultural scene. In East Los Angeles, the Los Viejitos Car Club actively recruited former gang members to create and exhibit mobile art pieces. Similarly, East Oakland’s Original Scraper Bikes helped at-risk youth transform bicycles into works of art. Engaging with the needs and interests of local communities, organizations like Los Paisanos de Selma, a Fresno-based ballet folklorico troupe, and Los Angeles-based hereandnow, a pan-Asian theater company, built on the legacy of the ’60s to promote ethnic identity and historical awareness. Complementing these efforts, local communities sponsored hundreds of annual cultural festivals including the Sikh parade and gathering in Yuba City, the Vietnamese Tet celebration in San Jose, and Oakland-Fruitvale’s Day of the Dead festival.

California literature enjoyed a similar renaissance between 1990 and 2010 as its writers emphasized the importance of place and ethnic identity. Asian authors, including Andrew Lam (Vietnamese), Yiyun Li (Chinese), Amy Tan (Chinese American), Pati Navalta Pobleto (Filipino American), and members of the Hmong Writers Circle, documented the richness of their respective cul- tures, intergenerational tensions, anti-Asian prejudice, and struggles with iden- tity. Native California writers like Frank Gordon Johnson (Cahilla/Cupeno) and Darryl Babe Wilson (Achumawi/Atusgewi) provided compelling personal accounts of growing up Indian in postwar California. The Latino experience was similarly documented by Gary Soto, Rose Castillo Guilbault, and a host of authors in two recent anthologies: Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (2008) and Under the Fifth Sun: Latina Literature from California (2002). African American writers were represented by Alice Walker, Leroy Jones, and June Jordan, and in Aparajita Nanda’s Black California: A Literary Anthology (2011). At the same time,

460 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

playwrights Luis Valdez (Mexican American), Anna Devere Smith (African American), and J. California Cooper (African American) produced dramatic explorations of ethnic identity and conflict, and efforts to realize the “California Dream.”

The state’s commercial film and video game industries were job- producing engines in the new millennium, helping compensate for losses in other sectors of the economy. New studios, such as Pixar (later acquired by Disney) and the George Lucas/Letterman Digital Arts Center at the San Francisco Presidio, helped advance special effects technology, including computer-generated and 3-D images. So, too, did the video game industry. Indeed, by 2010 video games generated more revenue than Hollywood’s box office take.

The mainstream film industry, however, increasingly dominated by large media conglomerates like Disney and AOL Time Warner, failed to keep pace with the state’s shifting demographics. Organizations that tracked the indus- try repeatedly reported underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in casting, writing, producing, directing, and film content. With the notable exception of Crash (2004), other recent films like Precious (2009), The Blindside (2009), and The Help (2011) have been criticized for “white-washing”—using a white star or co-star to boost audience attendance—or emphasizing dys- function and pathology at the expense of realistic, complex images of people of color.

On the other hand, California produced, attracted, and sustained a large, diverse pool of independent filmmakers. The American Film Institute, Califor- nia Institute of the Arts, and the U.C.L.A. and U.S.C. film schools, ranking among the top in the nation, ensured a steady stream of new talent. So, too, did the state’s high level of support for the arts, and its bevy of annual compe- titions that showcased the work of African American, Asian, Native American, Latino, women, and GLBTQ filmmakers. Recent independent films have docu- mented Chicana activism (A Crushing Love, 2010), unaccompanied child immigrants from Mexico and Central America (Which Way Home, 2010), South Los Angeles gang culture (Crips and Bloods, 2009), the multiethnic his- tory of Los Angeles (White-Washed Adobe, in progress), the displacement of a Bay Area Indian burial site by an industrial site and then a shopping mall (Shellmound, 2005), the razing of a Mexican American community to build Dodger Stadium (Chavez Ravine, 2005), Latina domestic workers in Los Angeles (Maid in America, 2004), Japanese relocation and internment (Rabbit in the Moon, 2004), and the fight for same-sex marriage (One Wedding and a Revolution, 2004).

California has long been at the center of musical innovation, giving rise to entirely new genres such as experimental music, the Bakersfield country/ western sound, West Coast swing, blues and jazz, surf rock, psychedelic rock, nu metal, thrash metal, hardcore punk, skate punk, death rock, G Funk, and

Religious and Cultural Diversity 461

3rd wave ska. Moreover, California’s musicians have infused existing genres with multicultural vibes, beginning with Ritchie Valens, Carlos Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, War, and Tower of Power. In recent years, hip-hop has proved strikingly open to cross-cultural influences. Starting in the 1980s as a mostly African American genre pioneered by California artists like Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, it soon attracted a broader following. In 2010, Far East Movement, with members of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Filipino ancestry, became the first Asian hip-hop band to hit number one on Billboard’s pop chart. Similarly, the Maleco Collective, whose Latino members came together in Echo Park, Los Angeles, has attracted a large following with its unique blend of hip-hop, reggae, and electro beats. Reggaeton, a Latino ver- sion of Jamaican-based reggae, is yet another example of contemporary multi- ethnic fusion.

The music of Los Angeles-based Ozomatli best represents recent California music trends. Coming together in the mid-1990s to perform at labor and immigrant rights protests, its ethnically diverse members created a seamless, irresistible blend of hip-hop, salsa, funk, samba, East L.A. R&B, reggae, Indian raga, Asian, African, and numerous other musical traditions. Ulises Bella, Ozomatli’s saxophonist and clarinetist, reflected, “This band could not have happened anywhere else but L.A. Man, the tension of it. L.A. is like, we’re bonded by bridges.” In recognition of their contributions to many community causes, the City of Los Angeles—in 2010—designated April 23rd of every year as “Ozomatli Day.” Viewed as local cultural icons (their music is even played at Dodger and Clipper games), the group also has a national and international fan base. In 2007, the U.S. State Department recognized their ability to bridge cul- tural divides by asking them to serve as official Cultural Ambassadors on a series of government-funded tours through the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South America. In addition to performing free concerts and teaching music workshops, they engaged in humanitarian outreach to orphanages, refugee camps, schools, HIV and AIDS clinics, and rehabilitation centers. More than reflecting the cultural diversity of Los Angeles and California, Ozomatli repre- sents the voice of the world.

Finally, the state’s immigrant and Native American communities sus- tained their own music traditions. Berkeley’s La Pena Cultural Center, estab- lished by Chilean political refugees in the 1970s, now provides a venue for Mexican, Central American, and South American musicians. The Persian Cultural Center, also in Berkeley, offers classes in traditional music and dance, and sponsors performances by Iranian musicians. They and many other organizations, like the Los Angeles Chinese Opera, San Francisco’s Tibetan Dance and Opera Company, Santa Ana’s El Centro Cultural de Mexico, and San Diego’s World Beat Center, ensure the continuation of cross-cultural fusion and the survival of genres that are imperiled by the homogenizing impact of globalization.

462 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

Competing Visions: The History and Future of California

As you have known from the beginning, this book is intended as a text for college-level classes in the history of California. We, the authors, have con- ceived this book as a history of competing visions for our part of the world, an area that has been blessed with rich natural resources and a temperate climate. As such, California has always attracted newcomers and has been the most populous state in the union since 1960. If California were a separate country, it would rank 32nd in population among the more than 200 nations of the world. Because of its wealth of resources and the abilities of its people, California’s economy currently ranks eighth in the world, slightly smaller than those of Italy and Great Britain, places with half again as many people as California and with much longer histories of economic development.

California’s rapid pace of economic development and the burgeoning of its population have come in a relatively short span of time, but throughout its recorded history the people of California have held competing visions for their future. The expectations of California Indians sharply contrasted with those of Spanish padres and soldiers, and Mexican rancheros’ anticipations for the future differed greatly from those of Yankee invaders. The magnates of the Southern Pacific railroad hoped for great personal wealth and power, but most of the Chinese immigrants who built that railroad wanted only to earn money for their families still in southern China. Still others, including many European immigrants, dreamed only of establishing comfortable family farms along the tracks.

The California we know today was built by people with competing visions. Some saw California as a place for whites only, but others imagined a society in which people with diverse religious and ethnic traditions might live side by side in mutual respect. Some favored a virtually unregulated, free-market economy, but others organized unions to promote the economic security of wage-earners, and still others sought to regulate private enterprise for what they defined as the public good.

The economic and social development of California has sometimes proceeded in rapid strides, as during the Gold Rush, the growth of southern California in the 1920s, the mushrooming suburbs of the 1950s, or the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. Other times the pace has been slower and more steady. But throughout its cycles of boom and bust, and from one gen- eration to the next, there have always been differing expectations for what the future holds.

You, the college students of the early 21st century, now face competing visions for your state. You are experiencing such differing expectations every

Competing Visions: The History and Future of California 463

semester when you grumble about paying ever-increasing tuition because a powerful political minority defines any tax increase as a job-killer. In the near future, you will probably vote on propositions designed to protect the environ- ment, to send more water from northern California to the south, to expand state government, and to restrict state government. You will choose among political candidates who present very different visions for the future of this state, and some of you will yourselves be political candidates.

There will always be competing visions for the future of California, but in your hands rests the power to choose among those different options—and to create new visions based on your experience and knowledge. We hope that you will continue to learn about California, that you will be informed citizens, and that you will make wise choices for your future and ours.

Summary

At the beginning of the 21st century, Latinos and immigrants from Asia swelled California’s population and made it more diverse. Two highly publi- cized court cases, one involving Los Angeles police officers charged with beating Rodney King and the other involving O.J. Simpson, focused attention on issues of race and policing in that city. California’s ever-increasing ethnic and racial diversity has major implications for other aspects of life in the state.

The state’s economy went through a cycle of bust-boom-bust during the 1990s and early 2000s. The recession of the early 1990s was especially serious, but was followed by a major economic expansion fueled especially by informa- tion technology and globalization. Many Californians, however, never fully shared in the economic gains of the period.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, California’s systems of education, health care, housing, transportation, and energy seemed constantly on the verge of crisis. The public schools faced large classes and also significant num- bers of students for whom English was not their first language. The cost of health care excluded significant numbers of Californians from the various sys- tems of managed care that covered a majority of state residents. Construction of public transportation facilities lagged significantly behind the growth of pop- ulation. And the state’s experiment in energy deregulation helped to set off a major crisis in energy.

Many observers described the state’s political system as increasingly dys- functional, partly through repeated use of the initiative to put limits on the ability of state lawmakers to make policy or manage the state’s budget. The governors of the period—Peter Wilson, Joseph “Gray” Davis, Arnold Schwar- zenegger, and Jerry Brown—were all more centrist than their parties’ leaders. The recall of Davis and election of Schwarzenegger galvanized the state’s

464 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

political system, but Schwarzenegger failed to resolve the state’s serious eco- nomic problems which were compounded by a major economic downturn.

During the late 20th and early 21st century, California remained at the forefront of many social and cultural movements, including a variety of spiri- tual movements. Californians also set national and international trends in diet, exercise and fitness, and cultural expression.

With all of its problems, the California economy at the beginning of the 21st century remained the most productive in the nation, and Californians remained at the forefront of many new developments in technology. Other Californians kept the state at the forefront of creativity. Despite its problems, the state continues to attract immigrants from around the world, contributing further to the state’s ethnic and racial diversity.

Suggested Readings

❚ Anderson, Alissa, with Macías, Raúl, Policy Points: New Data Show That California’s Income Gaps Continue to Widen (Sacramento: California Bud- get Project, 2009). Online at http://www.cbp.org/pdfs/2009/0906_pp_Inco meGaps.pdf . A sobering examination of recent economic data.

❚ Baldassare, Mark, and Ramakrishnan, S. Karthick, The Ties That Bind: Changing Demographics and Civic Engagement in California (Sacramento: Public Policy Institute of California, 2004). An overview of social and polit- ical change by prominent public policy analysts.

❚ Barron, Stephanie, Bernstein, Sheri, and Fort, Ilene Susan, Made in Califor- nia: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900–2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). An interesting survey of California’s influence on American creativity, including art, film, and fashion.

❚ Carle, David, Introduction to Water in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). A good overview of state water policy and its envi- ronmental impacts.

❚ Chávez, Lydia, Color Bind: California’s Struggle to End Affirmative Action (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998). A thor- ough and balanced study of Proposition 209.

❚ Davidson, Stephen, Still Broken (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010). This work, while national in focus, provides important context for under- standing California’s current health care crisis.

❚ Hayes-Bautista, David E., et al., No Longer a Minority: Latinos and Social Policy in California (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Publications, 1992). The economic and social impact of the growth of Latino populations in California, focusing on public policy issues.

Suggested Readings 465

❚ Palmer, Tim, ed., California’s Threatened Environment: Restoring the Dream (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993). A collection of essays on environ- mental topics, focusing on damage to the environment.

❚ Rao, Arun, and Scaruffi, Piero, A History of Silicon Valley: The Greatest Cre- ation of Wealth in the History of the Planet: A Moral Tale (Palo Alto: Omniware Publishing, 2011). A recent and occasionally judgmental history of Silicon Valley by a sometimes participant.

❚ Saito, Leland, Race and Politics: Asian Americans, Latinos, and Whites in a Los Angeles Suburb (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999). A sociological study of race and ethnicity as related to political mobilization and economic redevelopment in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County.

❚ Schrag, Peter, California: America’s High-Stakes Experiment (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 2008). Recent California politics, by one of the state’s leading political journalists.

❚ U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 American Community Survey: California, Selected Social, Economic, Housing, and Demographic Characteristics. Online at http://www.census.gov/acs/www/. The most recent statistical information on immigration, race/ethnicity, income, poverty, housing, edu- cation, unemployment, life expectancy, etc.

❚ Yáñez-Chávez, Aníbal, ed., Latino Politics in California (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1996). An anthology of the impact of the Latino demographic majority on electoral politics in California.

Note: In addition, for state politics since 1990, consult the California Journal, Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, and San Francisco Chronicle.

466 CHAPTER 13 California in Our Times

Governors of California: 1767 to Present

A. Spanish Period

1767–1771 Gaspar de Portolá 1792–1794 José J. Arrillaga

1771–1774 Felipe de Barri 1794–1800 Diego de Borica

1774–1777 Fernando Rivera y 1800 Pedro de Alberni

Moncada 1800–1814 José J. Arrillaga

1777–1782 Felipe de Neve 1814–1815 José Argüello

1782–1790 Pedro Fajes 1815–1822 Pablo Vincente de Solá

1790–1792 José Antonio Roméu

B. Mexican Period

1822–1823 Pablo Vincente de Solá 1835–1836 José Castro

1823–1825 Luis Argüello 1836 Nicolas Gutiérrez

1825–1831 José María de Mariano Chico

Echeandía Nicolas Gutiérrez

1831–1832 Manuel Victoria 1836–1842 Juan B. Alvarado

1832–1833 Pío Pico 1842–1845 Manuel Micheltorena

1833–1835 José Figueroa 1845–1846 Pío Pico

C. American Military Governors of California, 1846–1849

1846 John Drake Sloat 1847–1849 Richard Barnes Mason

1846–1847 Robert Field Stockton (acting)

1847 John C. Frémont 1849 Persifor Frazer Smith

1847 Stephen W. Kearny 1849 Bennett Riley

467

D. Governors of the State of California, 1849–present

1851–1852 John McDougall 1907–1911 James Gillett

1852–1856 John Bigler 1911–1917 Hiram Johnson

1856–1858 J. Neeley Johnson 1917–1923 William Stephens

1858–1860 John Weller 1923–1927 Friend Richardson

1860 Milton Latham 1927–1931 C. C. Young

1860–1862 John Downey 1931–1934 James Rolph

1862–1863 Leland Stanford 1934–1939 Frank Merriam

1863–1867 Frederick Low 1939–1943 Culbert Olson

1867–1871 Henry Haight 1943–1953 Earl Warren

1871–1875 Newton Booth 1953–1959 Goodwin Knight

1875 Romualdo Pacheco 1959–1967 Edmund G. “Pat”

1875–1880 William Irwin Brown

1880–1883 George Perkins 1967–1975 Ronald Reagan

1883–1887 George Stoneman 1975–1983 Edmund G. “Jerry”

1887 Washington Bartlett Brown

1887–1891 Robert Waterman 1983–1991 George Deukmejian

1891–1895 Henry Markham 1991–1999 Pete Wilson

1895–1899 James Budd 1999–2003 Gray Davis

1899–1903 Henry Gage 2003–2011 Arnold Schwarzenegger

1903–1907 George Pardee 2011–present Edmund G. “Jerry”

Brown

468 Governors of California: 1767 to Present

Glossary of Spanish Terms

alcalde mayor: district magistrate alcalde ordinario: municipal magistrate alférez: second lieutenant, subordinate to a commander ayuntamiento: city council castas: general term for mixed-bloods casta system: ordering of Spanish American society according to racial-

ethnic characteristics compadrazgo: ritual kinship, godparenthood compadres: the bond between the father and godparent of a child comisionado: commissioner or board member compromisarios: electors who vote for the town council criollo: American-born Spaniard diputación: council for the governor of California gente de razón: literally “people of reason;” term applied to all members of

colonial society excepting Indians hacendado: the owner of a hacienda hacienda: large landed estate producing both livestock and crops for

market hijos de país: native to California indios bárbaros: wild Indians, not Christianized mayordomo: overseer mestizaje: term applied to the process of race mixing among the

European, African, and Indian populations of Spanish America mestizo: offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian mulatto: offspring of an African and a Spaniard norteños: northerners; in California those living above Santa Barbara paisano: native to California peninsular: European-born Spaniard pobladores: settlers pueblo: village, settlement, people; in New Mexico and Arizona, term

applied to the various town-dwelling Indian tribes rancho: term for a mixed-use, small to medium rural property that in

Texas referred to a large livestock estate regidor: alderman, town councilman sureños: southerners; in California those living below Santa Barbara vaquero: cowboy vecino: citizen

469

Index Abalone Alliance, 408, 409 Abolitionists

in Republican Party, 145 slavery and, 130–131, 133, 142, 145,

162 Stovall, Lee and, 129–131

Abortion rights candidate stands on, 391 feminist lobbying for, 391 Reagan and, 380

Access, for disabled, 392–393 Achumawis, 398 “Acid tests,” 365 ACLU. See American Civil Liberties

Union (ACLU) Acorns, as food, 10–11 Act for the Government and Protection of

the Indians), 138 Activism. See also specific groups

among Asian Americans, 289, 339–340 black, 293, 335, 352, 353, 356, 369 of Chicano movement, 368–372 community, 337, 339, 367, 392 by disabled, 392–393 environmental, 323, 407–414 EPIC, 265 gay and lesbian, 301, 377, 393–395 Indian, 48, 49, 341, 372, 373, 398 Japanese Americans, 39, 289 labor, 226, 227, 293 lesbian, 377, 394–396 Mexican American, 296, 305, 336, 369,

370, 371 minorities, 276, 305, 331 Nisei, 340 student, 341–343, 349, 350, 361, 392 by women, 181, 196, 229, 319 in World War II politics, 304–307 of WRO, 359

ACT-UP, 395 Adler, Margot, 348–350 Administration, 51, 56, 82, 99, 100. See

also Government Spanish, Adobe (jacale huts), 80 Adultery, among Indians, 18 Aerospace industry, 275, 278, 313

after Cold War, 406, 416, 436–437 employment in, 436–437

AFDC. See Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)

Affirmative action policies, 358, 372, 389, 398, 399

discontinuation at University of California, 399, 451

employment and, 398 AFL. See American Federation of Labor

(AFL) AFL-CIO, 212

merger of, 226

African Americans. See also Race and racism; Slaves and slavery

all-black communities and, 214, 352 anger of, 335, 355, 357 (illus.) anglo attitudes toward, during gold

rush, 125 anti-African attitudes, 252 army units of, 214 assaults against, 292, 355 Black Power and, 356–358 citizenship for, 125 conventions of, 143 communities, 408 cultural contributions by, 402 de facto school segregation of, 335 drop out rate, 430 economic status of, 334, 398 election to office, 395 employment in Los Angeles County,

334, 336 environmental racism and, 409 Huntington and, 170 Jim Crow and, 291, 293 migration, during World War II,

290–294 as mayor, 395 migration of, 291–294 Mexican American activists and, 296 newspaper of, 143 in 1960s, 396 in 1970s and 1980s, 396–403 in political offices, 396, 421, 450 population of, 334–335, 435 public schools, 169 race riots and, 355–356, 426–428 racial discrimination in housing and,

331 as railroad workers, 169 rights of, 214, 293, 301, 305, 335,

352–358 in schools, 354 Simpson trial and, 427–428 unions and, 293 in urban core, 333–335 urban renewal and, 335 USO’s, 293 voter registration and, 356 War on Poverty and, 360–363 in wartime shipbuilding, 278 Watts and, 8 women in World War II industry and,

274, 277, 278, 300–301 as working women, 181 World War I and, 232 World War II and, 273–276, 291–294

Age, numbers of men and women by (1870), 156 (illus.)

Agent Orange, 364 Age of Aquarius, 367

Agribusiness, 315, 361, 410, 419 Agricultural Labor Relations Act (1975),

386, 400, 415 Agricultural Labor Relations Board, 400,

415 Agricultural Land Conservation Act

(California), 412–413 Agricultural workers. See Farm workers Agricultural Workers’ Organizing

Committee (AWOC), 361 Agriculture, 172–174, 279. See also

Bracero program; Farms and farming; Farm workers; Migrant workers

Bank of Italy loans for, 248–248 Calpak and, 249 chemicals for, 315, 322 chemical wastes and, 323, 404, 409, 411 Chinese in, 174 drought and, 10, 150, 237, 256, 410 of early peoples, 10–14 in 1800s, 172–174 expansion and diversification of, 150 farm worker benefits and, 359, 400 foreign workers in, 279 fruit growers, 173–174, 210 in Gilded Age, 172–174 grape growers, 173, 214, 235 industrialization of, 172–174 irrigation for, 173, 175, 176 Italians in, 185 Japanese in, 212 in LA basin, 215 (illus.), 242–243 labor and, 212, 298, 360–363 large growers in, 173, 179 loss of land to housing, 412–413 Mediterranean fruit fly and, 417–418 Mexican field labor in, 279, 360–363 miners and, 119 missions and, 45, 52, 150, 167, 171, 179,

187 in national economy, 167, 172–174,

176 (illus.) presidios and, 52 regions for, 215 (illus.), 258 among Spanish civilian settlers, 52 value of crops (1909), 215 (map) wastewater from, 411 water for, 175, 248 wheat growers, 173, 196 work force for, 176 in World War I, 232 in World War II, 279 after World War II, 315–316 worldwide export of, 150, 405

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), 386, 394–395

employment discrimination and, 393, 394

I-1

AIDS Action Coalition (1987), 395 Aid to Families with Dependent Children

(AFDC), 381 African Americans and, 399

Aircraft industry after September 11, 437 in Southern California, 277 women workers in, 300 in World War II, 277–278

Airplanes, at Golden Gate International Exposition, 268

Air pollution, automobile generated, 320 Air Resources Board and Energy

Commission, 415 Air quality, 320–321, 330, 412

protesting pollution, 323 (illus.) standards for, 320–321

Air Quality Control Board, 330 Air-raid alerts, 302 Alameda County

deindustrialization in, 404 welfare rights movement in, 359

Alcalde (leader), 73 cattle ownership and, 79 at Indian pueblos, 33 in Los Angeles, 58 as mayor, 73, 134 portrayal of, 48 system of, 334 use of term in mining camps, 116

Alcatraz, Indian occupation of, 372–374 Alcohol, 57

local option law for, 223–224 opposition to, 186 prohibition and, 223, 246 temperance and, 182

Alemany, Joseph, 180 Aleuts, 61 Alexander, George, 225 Algic-stock peoples, 6 Algonquian Indians, 6 Alien Land Act

California, 339 of 1913, 227–228, 247 repeal of (1956), 339

Aliens. See also Undocumented immigrants

Chinese as, 297 citizenship, 298 detainment of, 282 Filipinos as, 255, 256 Germans as, 283 Italians as, 283 Japanses as, 283, 289 land ownership by, 227–228, 247, 339 searches of, 282

Allatorre, Richard, 370 All-black communities, 214, 352 Allen, Paula Gunn, 403 Allensworth, Allen, 214 Alliances, European, 230 Allies (World War I), 230, 231, 232 Alta California, 37 (map)

colonization of, 36–37, 40 economy of, 93–94 food and, 11 foreign immigration to, 60, 87–88 government, changes in, 69–70 land ownership in, 68

Mexican settlers in, 42 missions in, 42 overview, 94–95 schools in, 43 Serra and missions in, 51 Spanish settlement of, 32 trade in, 93

Alta California (newspaper), 160 Altamont concert, 367 Alternative institutions, radical feminists

and, 391 Alternative medicine, 14–16, 23 Alternative press, environmental literature

and, 407 Alvarado, José María, 107 Alvarado, Juan Bautista

revolt by, 66, 70, 75–76, 99 surrender to Jones, 77 Vallejo and, 76, 83

Alvarados (reformers), 70 Alvitre, Sebastian, 57 American Aviation, 277, 292 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Japanese American internment and, 284

Northern California, 284 schools and, 399

American era, 13–14, 50 1845–1855, 96–128

American Exodus (Lange and Taylor), 267 American Federation of Labor (AFL),

177, 260, 261. See also Labor; Labor unions

in 1880s, 177 anti-Mexican sentiment and, 212 IWW and, 226–227 membership of, 260, 261 Mexican and Japanese workers and,

255 Proposition 1 and, 265

American Friends Service Committee Indians and, 341 Japanese Americans and, 288

American Good Government Society, Unruh honored by, 330

American Indian Historical Society, 373 American Indians. See Native Americans American Legion, 233

anti-Mexican sentiment and, 255 in 1920s, 255, 257

American Party, 144 Americans. See also Anglo-Americans

as California settlers, 111 Californios and, 97–98

“American Schools,” 251 Americans with Disabilities Act (1990),

386, 392 Améstica, Rosario, 118 Anarchists, 230 Anderson, Jack, 283 Anderson, M. Kat, 11 Angel Island, Immigration Station on, 211 Angelus Temple, 250 Anglo-Americans

employment in Los Angeles County, 78

Gold Rush and, 111, 115 (illus.), 120, 121, 125, 127

immigration of, 78, 80, 91, 93–94

marriage to Californios, 94 Manifest Destiny and, 100 Mexician Californios, 78 Native Indians and, 26 separation from Mexicans, 93–94 U.S. Manifest Destiny and, 95,

100–101 war of independence in Texas by, 99

Animals Cenozoic period, 2 environmental change and, 81 for food, 5, 80 migration to North America, 5 Spanish, 35

ANMA. See Asociación Nacional Mexico-Americana (ANMA)

Annexation, of Hawaií 195 Anthony, Susan B., 182 Anti-Asian sentiment

in 1920s, 247 in World War II, 275, 282–289

Anti-Catholicism, 251, 252 Anti-Communism crusade. See also

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), 325, 342

labor and, 258 MAPA, CSO, ANMA, and, 338 protests against, 311 Red scare and, 325–327

Anti-Communist propaganda, 258, 315, 324, 327

“Anti-coolie” clubs, 191 Anti-immigrant attitudes, 251, 252

of Wilson, Pete, 417, 452 Anti-Japanese sentiment, 247, 307 Anti-Latino prejudice, 120, 295–297 Antinuclear protests, 409 Antipoverty programs, 353, 354, 364

after Watts riot, 355 Anti-Semitism, 251 Antitrust laws, 209 Antiwar movement, 363–364

politics and, 364 Anza, Juan Bautista de, expeditions of, 32,

52 Apartments, 66 Apperson, Phoebe. See Hearst, Phoebe

Apperson Apple Computer, 406 (illus.) Aqueducts, 58, 219 (illus.), 220, 316, 321,

410 for Los Angeles water, 219 (map)

Arballa, María Feliciana, 55 Architecture, 270

of California bungalow, 253 (illus.) at Golden Gate International

Exposition, 268 Spanish-style, 62

Argonauts, 113–117 during Gold Rush, 113–117

Argüello, Concepción, 61 Argüello, Luis, as governor, 66, 97

self-government and, 68–69 Argüello, Santiago, 73, 75 Aristocracy, of landed families,

74, 82 Arizona, 4

acquisition of, 101 missions in, 49

I-2 Index

Armed forces all-black units in, 213 Californians in, 299 in Civil War, 146 Indians and, 299 segregation in, 304

Art(s)., 21, 252, 268, 345. See also specific arts and artists

by 2010, 459–462 Asian American, 339–340

Chumash, 6–7, 9 (map), 15, 18, 21–23, 47 in 1950s and 1960s, 339 population, 432–433 in Southern California, 210–211 after World War II, 339–340, 374–376

Asian trade, in Spanish California, 39 Arthur, Chester A., Chinese exclusion

and, 192 Articles of Capitulation, American signing

of, 108–109 Artisans

Indian images by, 48 (illus.) Indian neophytes as, 45

Artists. See also specific arts and artists Indians as, 13 in 1950s, 343–344

Arts and Crafts style, 253 Asia

financial investment from, 405 Gold Rush and immigrants from, 113,

115 (illus.), 119 immigration from, 339 land bridge with, 5 refugees from Southeast Asia, 385–389,

401 trade with, 39

Asian Americans, 401–402. See also Asia; Asians; specific groups

activism among, 276, 305, 340 constitutional restrictions on, 191–192,

339 countries of origin, 339–340 cultural contributions by, 403 in 1950s and 1960s, 339, 385–390 in 1970s and 1980s, 405, 421 population of, 387, 397, 401 in schools, 401, 432–433 in statewide offices, 398

Asian American studies programs, 375, 376, 402

Asian American Women United, 391, 403 Asian Indians, 431, 432 Asians. See also Asian Americans; specific

groups citizenship restrictions for, 191–192 demographics of, 185, 340, 375, 387,

401 earnings of, 401–402 exclusion of, 165, 191–192, 211 in political offices, 386, 398 unions and, 177

Asiatic Exclusion League, 211 Asistencias (branch missions), 49 Asociación Nacional Mexico-Americana

(ANMA), 338 Assembly

election to (1912), 226 election to (1914), 226, 229 term limits for, 58, 450

Assembly Centers, for Japanese Americans, 284

Assembly lines, in shipbuilding industry, 278

Associated Farmers, 258, 260 Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad,

170. See also Santa Fe Railroad Athabascan-speaking people, 6 Athletics, fitness and, 287, 394, 464 Atomic energy, as energy source,

321, 409 Atomic Energy Commission, 282

Livermore weapons lab and, 282 Atomic weapons, development of,

280–281 Atom-smashing cyclotron, 280 Audubon Society, 407 Australian ballot, 194 Australians, 117–118, 121

convicts left in California, 61, 117, 134 in San Francisco, 134

Automobiles, 243–245, 254 air quality and, 321 electric, 449 emission standards for, 411 gas use and, 235 postwar boom in, 240 in Southern California, 243–245

Auto Workers, 261 Avila, Francisco, 57 Avila, Vicente, 84 Ayers, Ed Duran, 296 Ayuntamiento (town council) system, 58

in Los Angeles, 75, 86, 90 in San Diego, 75 in Santa Barbara, 72

Azmorano, Agustín, 73–73 printing press and, 73

Aztecs Moctezuma in honor of, 76 Spanish conquest of, 32, 35

Baby boom, 301, 317, 333, 396 (illus.) environmental movement and, 407

Bacall, Lauren, 325, 326 (illus.) “Back to basics” school reform, 418–419 Baja California

exploration of, 36 food and, 11 magonistas in, 230 San Diego settlers from, 32, 40

Baja California Indians, 11–12, 46, 50 Baker, Edward D., 131 Baker, Leone, 264 Baker, Ray Stannard, 209 Bakersfield, country music in, 345 Bakke, Allan, 398 Bakke decision, 386, 399 Balboa Park, San Diego, 221 Ballots, 189–190 (illus.), 328

Australian, 194 changes in, 224 uniform, 194 voting and, 224

Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 27, 55, 65, 96, 112 Banda music, 298 Band-based governments, 7 Bandini, Juan, 72, 75, 80

Bank(s) and banking. See also specific banks

deregulation, 445–446 Giannini and, 248–249, 254, 269–270 in San Francisco, 149, 172

Bank of America, 238, 248, 249, 353 unemployment statistics from,

254–255 Bank of California, 165, 171, 172 Bank of Italy, 248–249 Barbary Coast, of San Francisco, 178 Barone, Michael, 457 Barrios, 188, 212

culture in, 188 poverty in, 335–339 young people in, 335

Barter, by Costanoans, 23 Bartleson, John, 66, 90 Bartlett, Washington, 193 Bataan (movie), 303 “Battle of Mussel Slough,” 169 Battles. See also specific battles and wars

Costanoans in, 23 during Mexican War, 105 (illus.),

102–103, 103–106, 106–107 Baxter, Leone, 264 Baya de San Francisco, La, 39 Bay Area. See San Francisco Bay Area Bay Area Council Against Discrimination,

304 Bay Area Rapid Transit System, 386, 412 Bay Bridge. See San Francisco–Oakland

Bay Bridge Bay Bridge Series, World Series and

earthquake, 446 Bayshore Highway, 247 BCE period, 2 Beach Boys, 345, 366 Bear Flag, 125 (illus.) Bear Flag Rebellion, 83, 97, 101–103

Frémont and, 101–103 Bear Flag Republic, 83 Bears, as Costanoan spirit, 23 Beat Center, 462 Beat writers, higher consciousness and,

344 Bebop, in World War II, 303 Bechtel (shipbuilder), 278 Bechtel, Warren A., 248 Beef cattle, 150 Beilenson Bill, 380 Bell, Theodore, 209 Bellamy, Edward, 194 Benefits, for farm workers, 316, 400 Benevolent societies, women in, 157,

181–182 Bennett, Charles, 110 Bent, Charles, 107 Benton, Jessie, 101 Benton, Thomas Hart, 101 Berdache tradition, 18 Bering Strait, migration across, 5 Berkeley. See also University of California

(Berkeley) African Americans on the school

board, 334 fair housing legislation in, 334 La Pena Cultural Center, 462 nuclear research spinoffs at, 280

Index I-3

Berkeley (continued) school integration plan in, 342 Socialist mayor of, 226

Berkeley Barb, 366 Berkeley Integral Urban House, 407 Berkeley Women’s City Club, 254 Berlin, Treaty of, 195 Berry, John (Mrs.), 119 Better America Federation, in 1930s, 257 BIA. See Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Bidwell, John, 66, 90–91 Bidwell-Bartleson party, 66 Big business, 143, 149, 224, 242, 245. See

also Business; specific companies Johnson, Hiram, and, 224

“Big Four” of railroading, 168–169, 170, 171, 179

on Southern Pacific transportation system, 169

Big Sur, 8 Bilingual education, 141, 398, 403

mandate for, 370, 398 restricting, English Only and, 403

Billings, Warren, 231, 266 Bingo, Indians and, 402 Bioregionalists, 408 Biotechnology, 439 Bird, Rose, 415, 418, 419–420 Birth control, rights to, 391 Birth of a Nation, The (movie), 251 Black activism, civil rights and, 356–358 Blacklist, of Hollywood employees, 325 Blackouts (World War II), 302 Black Panther Party, 357 (illus.) Black Power movement, 356–358 Blacks. See African Americans; Slaves and

slavery; specific issues Black Women Organized for Action, 391 Blood sport, in mining camps, 118 Blue-collar jobs, 245, 278, 280, 315, 362,

398, 404 Blues music, in World War II, 294, 303 Board of Control, for state government,

223 Board of Manufacturers and Employers of

California, 177 Board of Supervisors (San Francisco), 206 Board of Water Commissioners (Los

Angeles), 218 Boat(s)

Chumash canoes as, 23 Costanoan, 23

Boat people, from Southeast Asia, 387 Bodega Bay proposed nuclear power plant

at, 321–322 Russians at, 61

Boeing, work force integration and, 292 Bogart, Humphrey, 325, 326 (illus.) Boilermakers union, 300

segregation by, 292 women and, 300

Bolshevism, fears after World War I, 233 Bombing, of Los Angeles Times building,

201 Bombs, World War II development of,

280–282 Bonanza Wheat Era, 172–173 Booth, Edmund, 117 Booth, Newton, as governor, 189

Bootlegging, 246 Border, 99, 100, 108, 126. See also

Boundary with Mexico “Boss”

La Follette and, 209 of ULP, 206

“Boss” politics (1880s), 193 Buckley and, 193

Boswell, J. G., 315 Bouchard, Hippolyte, 32, 59–60 Boulder Dam, 248

Hoover and, 248 Boundary. See also Border

of California, 126 of Texas, 99, 100, 108

Bowron, Fletcher, 283 Boxer, Barbara, 450–451

Proposition 187 and, 450 Boycotts, 231, 338

by farm workers, 398, 399–400 of table grapes, 362, 363, 399–400

Boyer, La Nada, 373 Boys. See also Men

marriage of native, 18 toloache ceremony and, 14–16

Bracero program, 360, 361 Chavez and, 360–361 in World War II, 274, 279, 294

Bradley, Thomas, 395, 419–420 gubernatorial race of 1982, 395 gubernatorial race of 1986, 395 Los Angeles riots (1990s) and, 426–428 as mayor, 395

Branciforte, Villa de (Santa Cruz), 52, 82. See also Santa Cruz

Brands, cattle, 79 Brannan, Samuel, 91, 110 Brecht, Bertolt, 268 Bridges, 247–248

Hoover and, 262 Bridges, Harry, 328 Briggs, John, 394 Briggs Initiative, 394 Britain. See England (Britain) Broderick, David, 130 (illus.), 143, 145

death of, 130, 145 election of and, 143 religious toleration and, 159

Brothels, property owners’ responsibility for, 228

Brown (Rodriguez), 423 Brown, Edmund G. “Jerry,” 396, 457

(illus.), 414–418, 456–458 as governor, 388–389, 391, 397, 410,

414–415, 456–458 gender gap and, 456 Hispanic appointments by, 397 political classification of, 388, 414–415,

456–457 popularity of, 389 presidential candidacy of, 414–417 Proposition 22, 414 second term of, 417 water resources and, 448 women in administration of, 387, 397,

415 Brown, Edmund G. “Pat”, 328–331

election of and, 328–331 as liberal reformer, 388

Mexican Americans and, 369 second term of, 331

Brown, Joan, 344 Brown, Willie, 395, 450 Brown Berets, 349, 371 Brown Power, 372–373 “Brown Scare” (1913), 230 Brown v. Board of Education, Hispanic

protests against school segregation and, 297

Bryan, William Jennings, 195 Bryce, James, 177 Bucareli, Antonio de, 52 Buchanan, James, 145 Buckley, Christopher A. (“Boss”), 193 Budd, James, 182 Budget, 247, 277, 407

Brown, Jerry, and, 415–416 cuts in, 247, 256, 398–399, 417 deficit in, 418, 450, 453, 455 education in, 418, 444 in 1920s, 247 Reagan and, 380, 381 Schwarzenegger and, 454, 455 surplus, 263, 417, 419 Wilson, Pete and, 450

Building Trades Council (San Francisco), 207

Bullfighting, in mining camps, 118 Bull Moose Party, 225 Bungalow, 253 (illus.), 270 Bureaucracy, Spanish, 35 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)

in California, 340 Indian occupation of, 372 (illus.) voluntary relocation program for, 341

Burke, Yvonne Braithwaite, 358, 395 Burnett, Peter, 137 Burn species, of edible plants and grasses,

13 Bush, George W.

King, Rodney, 427 in LA basin, 427 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 444 stem cell research, 439

Busing plan, 352, 399 Butterfield Overland Mail, 151

Cabrillo, Juan Rodríguez, 2, 21, 32, 38–39 Chumas people and, 21 exploration by, 2, 21 government of, 7

Cahuenga Pass battle, 78 surrender in Mexican War at, 72, 97

Cahuilla Indians, 15–16, 373, 403 initiation rites of, 17

Cahunenga, Treaty of (1847), 108 (illus.) Calhoun, John C., 101

slavery and, 133 Calafia (mythical queen), 36 California

American conquest of, 97, 122–123 derivation of name, 36 division into northern and southern,

70–71, 78, 145 efforts to purchase from Mexico, 100 election of 1800s and, 145

I-4 Index

fighting slavery in, 130–131, 133, 142, 145, 162

first settlement in, 2, 39–41 foreign interest in, 60–62 Frémont in, 101–103 fur trade and, 61 future versus history of, 462–464 as Golden State, 124–126 after Gold Rush, 179–188 image in 60s, 365 Indian territories in, 10 (map) Mexican rule of, 71 (map) Mexicans in, 117, 118, 120, 122–123,

125, 127 overview, 464–465 pottery, introduction of, 2 Progressive Party in, 203–210 race, ethnicity, and mother tongue of

whites of foreign parentage (1929), 211 (illus.)

as Spanish colony, 36, 60 Spanish culture in, 56–57 Spanish exploration of, 35–37 state government reform and, 209–210 statehood for, 130, 132–133 transformation during Gold Rush,

122–127 Union crisis and, 141–148 war against U.S. forces in, 99–110 world and, 93–94 World War II and, 268–269

California Abortion and Reproductive Rights League, 391

California Alliance, 194 California Aqueduct, 411 California Bankers Association, and

Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 454 California Cavaliers, in 1935s, 257 California Civil Rights Initiative,

Proposition 209 as, 452 California Coastal Commission, 323

Deukmejian and, 419 “California cuisine,” 459 California Democratic Council (CDC),

328 California Democratic Party, California

Democratic Council (CDC), 328 California Desert Protection Act, 414 California dollar (the hide), 80 California Eagle (newspaper), 214 California Elected Women’s Association

for Education and Research, 390–391

California Energy Commission, 409–410, 449

California Federation of Women’s Clubs, reforms and, 228

California Free Speech League, 226 California Fruit Growers’ Exchange, 216 California Fugitive Slave Law, 131 California High Speed Rail

Authority, 448 California Indian Education Association,

373 California Indian Legal Services, 398 California Indians. See Native Americans;

specific groups California Institute of Technology, 313

aircraft manufacturing and, 278

California Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, 325

California Medical Association, 307 California Midwinter International

Exposition (1894), 197 Californianas, 83, 85 California National Guard, integration of,

307 California Native Heritage Commission,

403 California Packing Corporation (Calpak),

249 California Progressive Party, 229 California Rangers, 97, 122 California Ranchería Act (1958), 341 California Rural Rehabilitation

Administration, documentation of agricultural labor by, 267

California State Woman Suffrage Association, 182

California Tomorrow, 322 California Volunteer Infantry, in Spanish-

American War, 195 California Volunteers, in Civil War, 146 California Water Plan, 316, 321, 322 California Water Project, 248, 411 California Wesleyan College, 180 California Women’s Political Caucus, 390 Californios, 65–95. See also Mexicans

admitted to the Union, 97 American conquest and, 90, 91, 93, 94,

122–123 American expansionism and, 101 Americans and, 76–77, 96–97, 104,

109–110 attire of, 79 as citizens, 74, 92, 93, 126 conquest of, 59–60, 122–123 Gold Rush and, 85, 111 Hispanic culture and, 42, 83 horsemanship of, 79 on Indians, 6 land and, 68 as landholders, 68, 80, 109 in late 1850s, 81 (illus.), 92 (illus.) lifestyle of, 65–67 Mexican settlers and, 74, 87–88 after Mexican War, 109–110 overview of, 94–95 99–100 Pauma massacre and, 106–107 Pico and, 59, 70, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 81

(illus.), 82, 109 politics and, 60, 68–78 prejudice against, 94, 110, 99–100 rebellion, 70–73, 74–76, 99–100,

120–121 resistance to U.S. takeover by, 103–106 revolts against Mexican governors by,

69, 74, 76 revolutionary ideas and, 69, 94 at San Pascual battle, 104–105, 106 struggles among, 69, 72, 72

Callis, Eulalia, 56 Calvinists, 185 Camarillo, Albert, 188 Cambodia

immigrants from, 401 protests against invasion of, 364

Cambodians, 401 Cambón, Pedro, 52 Camps, in Gold Rush, 117–120 Canada, NAFTA and, 440 Cañada de los Coches, Rancho, 79 Canby, Edward, 184 C&H refinery, 179 Cannery and Agricultural Workers

Industrial Union (CAWIU), 258 Cannibalism, among Donner party, 91 Canning industry, 185, 212, 215, 254

Calpak and, 249 Cannon, Fred, 119 Cape Horn, sea route via, 114, 151 Capital (financial), needs for, 117, 149 Capital city

Monterey as, 72 San Diego as unofficial, 66, 69

Capitalism, Socialist Party and, 225, 226

Caribbean Islands, Spanish settlement of, 34

Carlos (neophyte resister), 46 Carmel, artist and writer’s colony at, 43,

250 Carrillo, Carlos, north-south war and, 72,

75 Carrillo, Joaquin, 84 Carrillo, José Antonio, 70, 72, 80 Carrillo, Josefa, 84–85 Carrillo, Pedro C., 97 Cars. See Automobiles Carson, Kit, 105 Carson, Rachel, 311, 322 Carter, Jimmy, 409, 416

election of 1980 and, 414, 416, 417 energy crisis and, 409

Cartier, Rose, 119 Casey, James, 134, 135 (illus.), 146 Casablanca (movie), 268 Casinos, Indian, 402, 413 Castañeda, Antonio J., 53, 55 Castas, 42 Casta system, 80 Catesby Jones affair, 76–78 Caste system, of Spanish, 41 Castillo, Edward, 373 Castro, José, 74, 78, 101, 102, 103–104 Casualties

of 442nd Regimental Combat Team, 288

in San Pascual battle, 107 in World War II, 278, 288, 294, 371

Catalina Island, 21, 38, 39, 81 Catholic Church. See also Priests; Religion

Californios, attitude toward, 94–95 education and, 180 ethnicity of, 185 Index of Forbidden Books list, 76 liberal clerics, 361 marriage laws, 84 in mining camps, 118 missions of, 33–34, 37 patriarchal nature of, 55, 82 Proposition 187 ad, 451 secularization laws and, 72–74 Serra canonization and, 48 tutelage by, 68 as voters, 458

Index I-5

Catholics and Catholicism, 20 American Party and, 144 of immigrants, 56 of Spanish settlers, 33–34

Cattle environmental impact of, 80–82 industry, 79–80, 93

Cattle ranches, 74, 78–79 Hispanic workers for, 79

CAWIU. See Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU)

CE (common era) period, 2 “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras

County, The” (Twain), 160 Cenozoic California, 2, 3 Center for Independent Living (CIL,

Berkeley), 392 Central America, immigration from,

395–396, 461 Centralism, rebellion against, 70–72 Centralists

in Mexico, 69 Victoria as, 70–72

Central Pacific Railroad, 130, 152, 153 (map), 154

expansion and, 168, 169, 171 Comstock region

route of, 171 silver mining, 165, 171 Sharon and, 171–172 Stanford and, 168, 169, 170

CentralPowers (WorldWar I), 230, 231, 232 Central Valley

agriculture in, 10, 150, 172, 175, 187, 215 (map), 315, 322

Chinese in, 187 Indian lands in, 136, 138 transportation in, 448–449

Central Valley Project, 315–316 Central Valley Project Act (1933), 263 Ceremonies

Costanoan, 23 spiritual, 14–16

Chamber of Commerce, in 1916s, 231 Chandler, Raymond, 268 Chaplin, Charlie, 252 Chapman, Tracy, 240 Charter, of San Francisco, 205 Chavez, Cesar, 360–363

death of, 400 farm workers and, 360–363 Grape Strike and, 361 (illus.) initiative campaign, 400

“Cheesecake,” in World War II, 304 Chemical industry, after World War II,

314, 322 Chemicals

dumping of, 174, 408, 411 toxic, 322–323, 408

Chessman, Caryl, 331 Chicano movement, 368–372. See also

Chicanos “Chicano Pinto Union” (de Vargas), 430

(illus.) Chicanos. See also Mexican Americans

murals by, 371, 430 (illus.) theater and, 371 use of term, 369

Chico, Mariano, 66, 74, 75 Chico Rancho, battle at, 66, 74, 75, 104 Childbearing, women and, 83–84 Child care, in World War II, 278, 309 Child labor, restricting, 223, 225, 229 Child poverty, 86, 138, 240, 255 Children of affluent families, 55, 399

Costanoan Indian, 24 mestizo, 35 Mexican American, 55 Spanish orphans and, 55

Chile, immigration from, 119, 120, 122, 138–139, 395

Chilean miners, violence against, 120 refugees, 395

Chiles, Joseph B., 91 China. See also Chinese; Chinese

Americans immigrants from, 113, 148, 159, 211 trade with, 101, 222

Chinatowns, 164, 186 reputations of, 187 in San Francisco, 164, 178, 186–187

Chinese. See also China; Chinese Americans

barred from citizenship, 192, 298

barred from public schools, 187 after Civil War, 154, 159 citizenship and, 247, 251 constitutional restrictions on, 191–192 decline in, 187 exclusion from unions, 177 exclusion of, 165, 211 as farm workers, 174 for Filipinos, 298, 375–376 as immigrants, 113, 166, 186–187, 374 for Japanese Americans, 401 after Mexican War, 121 mining camp prejudices against, 113,

115 (illus.), 121 national discrimination against, 177 as peddlers, 186 (illus.) as railroad workers, 154, 190 riots against, 165, 187 whites only in California, 247

Chinese Americans characteristics of, 187 citizenship for, 247, 251 in politics, 397 population in the Gilded Age, 186–187 population in 1950s and 1960s, 339 San Francisco’s International Hotel

and, 375–376 segregated schools for, 188, 212 transformation in 60s and 70s, 374 as workmen, 297 during World War II, 297–298

Chinese Opera, 462 Chinese stereotypes, Kingston and, 403 Chingichngish (god), 20 Chivalry Democrats, 143 Cholos, 76 Choris, Luis, 24 (illus.), 51 (illus.) Christian(s), Spanish, 40 Christian, Enos, 118 Christian fundamentalism, 250,

252, 378

Christianized Indians, 32. See also Catholic church;

missions and missionaries at San Diego, 32, 37 (map), 44, 46, 50, 54, 73

secularization of missions and, 73 Smith, Jedediah, and, 66

Chumash Indians, 21–22 characteristics of, 21 marriage rituals of, 18 rebellion by (1784), 32 rebellion by (1824), 47, 66 social systems of, 6–7, 22 spiritual beliefs, 15–18 trade and, 21

Churches, 293, 157. See also Catholic church; specific churches black

Cinnabar mines, 23 CIO. See Congress of Industrial

Organizations (CIO) CIO Political Action Committee (PAC),

305 Cisco Systems, 281 (map) Cities and towns. See also Municipal

government; specific cities all-black, 214, 352 freeways and, 318, 336, 354 in Gold Rush, 124 growth of, 243–245 highways between, 247 jobs and tax base in, 241–243 populations of (1800s), 158, 185, 242

(illus.) Citizenship for aliens, 227, 255, 283, 339 California statehood and, 130, 132–133 Citrus crops, 174, 214, 221, 241, 318 City council, African Americans in, 369,

395 City Lights Bookstore (San Francisco), 343

(illus.), 344 Civil culture, in Spanish California, 56–57 Civil disobedience, 395, 408, 410 Civilian Conservation Corps, of Brown,

Jerry, 415 Civilian settlements, in Spanish California,

59 Civil liberties

of Japanese Americans, 289 after World War I, 233

Civil Liberties Act (1988), apology and redress to Japanese Americans and, 289

Civil rights, 352–356. See also specific groups

for African Americans, 352, 354–355, 357 (illus.), 358

black activism and, 349, 352, 353, 355–358

Brown, Edmund G., and, 329 of gays and lesbians, 301, 377,

394–396 initiative, 452 of Japanese Americans, 289 student activism and, 343, 348–349

Civil Rights Act (1964), 393 Civil Rights Act (Unruh, California,

1960), 311, 334 Civil rights legislation, 335, 340, 345, 353,

396

I-6 Index

Civil rights movement disability rights and, 392–393 in 1960s, 353, 361 property rights and, 354, 368, 379 transition to militance in, 351, 355,

356–358 Civil rights organizations, subversive

infiltration and, 326 Civil settlements, 51, 52 Civil War (U.S.). See also Reconstruction

California and, 66, 72, 75, 130 citizenship after, 147–148 in Mexico, 201 slavery and, 131, 141–143

Civil war, within California (1838), 66, 146–147

Clans, 6–7, 12 Clappe, Louisa, “Shirley Letters” and, 119 Clare, Ada, 157 Class size, 290, 443 (illus.) Class system among Chumash, 23–24 Costanoan, 23–24 Costansó, Miguel, 40 Costilla, Miguel Hildago y, 59 Clay, Henry, slavery and, 133 Clean Air Act

of 1963, 311, 321 of 1977, 412

Clean Water Act (1960), 323 Cleaver, Eldridge, 357 Clear Lake, Indian killings, 123 Clemens, Samuel L. See Twain, Mark Clergy, 57, 159, 361, 362. See also Catholic

church; Missions and missionaries loyalty to Spain, 70 Mexican independence and, 59, 60

Climate changing, 446–447 of Coast Range, 7–8 geography and, 5 Global Warming Solutions Act (2006),

447 politics of, 447 proposition 23 and, 447 in southwestern California, 7

Clinton, Bill election of 1992, 451 munitions loaders by, 292 pardon of black naval, 293

Clipper ships, 80 Clothing Workers, 261 Coachella Valley, 9 Coal, for electric plants, 176 Coastal Miwok Indians, 13 Coastal trade route, opening of, 88 Coastline, 2 Coast Range, climates of, 5, 7–8 “Coatlicue” (Yamagata and Schnorr), 430

(illus.) Coit, Lillie Hitchcock, 183 Cold War

defense spending and, 312, 313 education and, 316–317 impact of ending, 324, 336, 339, 436 industrial growth and, 313

Coleman, William T., 123 Collective action, by blacks, 293 Collective bargaining, 260, 279 College of California, 180

College of San Fernando, 31, 43 College preparatory education, 181 Colleges and universities. See also specific

schools Asian American studies programs, 376 ethnic studies in, 358, 372, 375,

402–403 funding, 419 Mexican American studies programs

and, 370 Native American studies programs in,

373 women in, 180 women’s studies programs in, 382, 391 after World War II, 288

Collier, John, 263, 319 Collier-Burns Act (1947), 319 Coloma, sawmill at, 97, 110, 112 (map), 124 Colonies, fur-hunting, 61, 81, 88, 89 Colonization (Spanish), 32–34. See also

Spanish colonization in California, 31–64 laws, 89 missions and presidios in, 50–53 near Mission San Gabriel, 47, 50, 52 overview, 31–34

Colorado, acquisition of, 101 Colorado River

crops and, 2 Salton Sea and, 9 water from, 7, 10, 11, 248

Colorado River Compact (1922), 248 Colores quebrados (some African

ancestry), 42 Colton, David, 170 Combined Asian Research Project, 375 Coming-of-age rituals, among Indians,

14–16 Comisionado (commissioner), of Indians,

73 Comisionado (council member), 58, 73 Commerce, in San Francisco, 257–261 Commission of Immigration and

Housing, 256 Commission of Indian Affairs, 213 Commission on the Status of Women

(California), 311, 319, 376 Committee for the First Amendment, 325 Committee of Vigilance (San Francisco),

134, 135 (illus.), 136 Committee on Industrial Organization

(CIO). See Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

Communes, 366, 391 Communicable disease, employment

discrimination and, 393 Communication, ease of, 93 Communism

fears after World War I, 233 Guthrie, 240 liberalism and, 257 Red Scare and, 324–327 refugees and, 270 Warren and, 132–133, 327

Communist Party (CP) of the United States, 256–257, 270

Communists, 257 in elections, 264 EPIC and, 264

in ILA, 270 labor strikes and, 258, 260 longshoremen’s strike and, 270 Steinbeck and, 266

Communities Organized for Public Services, (1974) 396

Community Action Program, 353 Community colleges, 419 Community park, under Coronado Bay

Bridge, 430 (illus.) Community property, 55, 63, 126 Community Service Organization (CSO),

322, 337, 338, 396 Chavez and, 360

Compadrazgo (godparentage), 57, 87 Comparable-worth legislation, 391 Competition, with Southern Pacific, 170 Compromisarios (electors), 58 Compromise of 1850, 126, 132–133

California constitution and, 126, 132–133

Computers industrial growth and, 406, 438 manufacturing of, 406, 438 silicon chip and, 406

Comstock, Henry, 149 Comstock Lode, 171, 172 Concerned Citizens of South Central Los

Angeles, 408 Confederate Army, 146–147 Conflict. See also specific conflicts and

wars labor (1920s), 257–261 over water, 175 after World War I, 233

Congress (U.S.). See also specific legislators

African Americans in, 334 California lobbyists for Japanese

removal and, 191, 283 woman suffrage amendment in, 201

Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 260–261

Japanese American internment and, 284

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 348, 359, 352–353

Conquest, Spanish, 34–35 Consciousness-raising groups, 365, 374,

375, 391, 407 Conservation, 408. See also specific areas

Brown, Jerry and, 388, 410, 415 defined, 220 Deukmejian and, 410–413, 420 energy crisis and, 409–410, 449 funding for, 306, 407 groups for, 407, 415 Hetch Hetchy water and, 201, 220 Hoover and, 232 lobbying for, 407, 410, 413 Reagan and, 380 Round Valley Dam project and, 380 of water, 410–412, 447–448

Conservatism of Christian fundamentalism, 250, 252,

378 election of 1958 and, 324 liberal strength and, 324 movies and, 325

Index I-7

Conservatism (continued) in Republican Party, 381 Wilson, Pete and, 450

Consolidated Aircraft corporation, 277 Consolidated Benevolent Associations

(“Six Companies”), 186 Consolidated Vultee, work force

integration and, 292 Constitution, of Mexican Federal

Republic, 69 Constitution (California), 124–126

citizenship in, 121, 126 slavery and, 129, 133, 162

Constitutional amendment, 223–224 on busing, 399 for initiative, referendum, and recall,

201, 223 protection for rivers, 410 on suffrage, 182 on taxes, 381 voting and, 224

Constitutional Convention (California), 97 division of California and, 126 Second (1878), 165

Constitutional Revision Commission, 330 Construction

decline in 2000s, 437 limits on, 413 in mid-2000s, 437 residential, 253, 410, 412, 437

Construction corporations, 248 Consumer protection laws, 330 Containerization, 439–440 Contaminants

of food, 200 water quality and, 388, 411, 414

Contraction, economic, 240 Contracts, for farm workers, 362, 363 Convair airline, 277, 278 Conventions. See also Constitutional

Convention (California) of black Californians, 143 political, 188–189, 193, 209–210

Conversion, of Indians, 32 (illlus.), 44–45 Cook, Sherburne, 49 Coolbrith, Ina, 160–161 (illus.) “Coolies,” 191 Cooper, John B. R., 93 Cora, Charles, 134, 135 (illus.), 146 CORE. See Congress of Racial Equality

(CORE) Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 38, 179 Coronado Bay Bridge, community park

under, 430 (illus.) Corporations

attacks on, 209–210 constitutional restrictions on, 192, 225,

235 Correr el gallo (sport), 79 Corruption, in San Francisco, 140 Cortés, Hernán, 32, 35–36 Cost(s)

of silver mining, 171, 172, 174–175 of travel to California, 53

Costa (coast), naming of Costanoans and, 23

Costanoan Indians, 22–24 Costansó, Miguel, 40, 41 Costello, John, 283

Cost of living, increases in, 233, 381, 417 Cota, Manuelito, 107 Cotton, 243, 249, 270 Cotton cord, 243 Council for the Protection of Minority

Rights, 304 Council of Religion and the Homosexual

(CRH), 377 Council of the Indies, 35 Counterculture

antiwar movement and, 365 in Berkeley, 366 institutions of, 391, 393, 407 rebellion by, 365, 366 in San Francisco, 356–366

Country music, 345 County offices, women in, 391 Courts, on citizenship for Chinese, 192 Cowboy film stars, 252, 303 Cowell Hospital, 392, 393 Coyote (god), 15

Shastans and, 26 Coyotes (Indian-Spanish mixed people),

42 Crafts, of Chumash people, 21 Craft union, 260 Cranston, Alan, 414, 451 Creation tales, 1–3, 15, 23 Creel, George, 264 Cremation

by Costanoans, 23 by Gabrielino/Tongva, 20

Creoles. See also Criollos rebellion and, 60 struggle with Spanish, 60

Crespí, Juan, 40, 41 CRH. See Council of Religion and the

Homosexual (CRH) Crime, 386

Brown, Jerry, and, 416 Deukmejian on, 418, 419–420 Los Angeles riots (1965) and, 355 Los Angeles riots (1990s) and, 355,

426–428 Proposition 184 and, 451 violent, increase in, 419, 420

Criollos, 35, 59. See also Creoles exclusion of

Crocker, Charles, 168, 179 railroads and, 152–155

Crocker, Edwin, 152 Crocker, William H., 179 Crocker Bank, 179 Crops. 2. See also Agriculture; specific

crops cotton, 67, 232, 243, 249, 270 environmental change and, 81–82 fruit, 173–174, 215–216 management of, 12 specialty, 214, 215–216, 235 value of (1909), 215 (map)

Cross-filing system, 228, 234, 265 abolition of, 330 assembly election (1914)

and, 229 in primary elections, 234 by Warren, 305

CSO. See Community Service Organization (CSO)

Cuba Murrieta legend in, 122 Spanish in, 34–35 war with Spain and, 195

Cuero, Delfina, 18 Cults, toloache, 14–16 Culture(s). See also specific groups

of black migrants, 293–294 dissent in, 333–345 during Great Depression, 252–254 of immigrants, 27–28, 56–57, 65–95 Indian, 6–26 Indian images of, 17 (illus.), 24 (illus.) introduction of Spanish, 35–36 mestizo, 35, 57 Mexican, 83–86 Mexican American, 294–297 movies and, 252–254 multiethnicity in, 395–398 new patterns of, 160–161 in 1920s, 252–254 in 1940s and 1950s, 343–345 politics of, 139–141 Spanish, 56–57 in Spanish California, 56–57 of white Californians, 142, 210, 256 after World War II, 378–382,

402–403 Cupan-speaking people, Gabrielino/

Tongvas as, 20 Cupeño Indians, 123, 403 Curanderos (herbal faith healers), 15 CVP. See Central Valley Project Cyane (ship), 77 Cyclotron, 280

Daly City, Socialists in, 226 Dams

Boulder, 248 Keswick, 322 Friant, 322 in Hetch Hetchy Valley, 220 Hoover, 248, 269 New Melones, 411, 415 Round Valley, 380–381 Shasta, 322 St. Francis, 243

Dana, Richard Henry, 88 Dana Point, 60 Dance, black, 403 Dance

ethnic, 462 in rituals, 18

Dannemyer, William, 394 Daughters of Bilitis, 377 Davis, Angela, 402–403 Davis, Charles, 118 Davis, Joseph “Gray,” 386, 452–453

appointments by, 386 education and, 443 (illus.), 452–453 power companies and, 453 recall of, 424, 453

Days of Obligation (Rodriguez), 423 De Anza expedition, 32 Death

Costanoan beliefs and, 23 Indian traditions and, 18–19 toloache and, 23

I-8 Index

Death penalty, 394, 419 Brown, Jerry, and, 388, 416 Deukmejian and, 418, 419 Wilson, Pete, and, 450

Death Valley, 5 Debt slaves, Indians as, 86 Defense contractors, 291, 292, 299, 313,

407 Defense industries, 406–407, 411. See also

specific industries black collective action in, 293 gays and lesbians in, 301 growth of, 321 racial discrimination banned in, 274,

291 women in, 300 (illus.), 301 work force integration and, 291, 293 in World War II, 274, 275, 277,

291–292, 300 (illus.) Defense spending, 406, 407

aerospace industry and, 275, 278 fall of Soviet Union and, 313, 327 for Vietnam War, 364, 378

DeFeo, Jay “The Rose,” 344 Deficit

budget (1900s), 418 trade, 388, 405

Dias festivos (special days), 85 Deindustrialization, 404 De la Guerra, Angustias, 83 De la Guerra, Pablo, 80 De la Guerra, Teresa, 83 Delano, Alonzo, 112 Delano Grape Strike (1965), 349,

361–362 Dellums, Ronald, 395 Del Monte, 249 Delta region, near Sacramento, 10,

446–447 Delta Stewardship Council, 447–448 Democracy, 58, 69, 93

in California, 93–94 in Spanish towns, 69

Democratic Club, 305, 340 Democratic Party

antiwar movement and, 364 Brown and, 328–329, 414–415 Buckley, Christopher A. and, 193 in California, 261, 264 California supporters of, 227 Chivalry Democrats and, 143 cross-filing and, 265, 266 division in California, 144–145, 246,

364 in 1800s, 143–144 election of 1932 and 1940, 263, 264,

265 governorship and 1934 and 1938, 270 Hispanics and, 338, 370, 396–397 on immigrant rights, 397–398 move to, 261 National Convention of 1960, 331 in 1930s, 256, 263–266 in 1960s and 1970s, 364, 370, 396–397 Populists and, 194–195 Reagan and, 379, 380, 381 RUP and, 370 in San Francisco, 263 Wilson, Pete and, 452

Demographics Asian and Pacific Islanders and,

430–431 of California, 41–42, 87 ethnicity, growth and, 41–50 Hispanics and, 87 of Indians, 87 of mining camps, 118–119 in early 2000s, 430–435 in 2010, 428–430

Demonstrations, student, 342–343

Denominational colleges, 180 Deportation

of Filipinos, 256 of Hispanics, 255, 336 under McCarran-Walter Act (1950s),

339 of Mexicans, 255, 336

Depression. See Great Depression (1930s) De razón (Spanish and mestizo) male

population, 35 Deregulation

of banking industry, 445–446 of electric utilities, 449

Deserts protection of, 414 Smith, Jedediah, and, 88

DeSmet (Father), 90 Detective films, 268 Deukmejian, George, 391, 400, 418–420

Agricultural Labor Relations Act and, 400

crime and, 418, 419–420 economy and, 418–419 gender equality and, 391 land development and, 419 school reforms, 418–419, 420 water and, 410, 411, 412

De Vargas, Tony, 430 (illus.) Developers, housing by, 243, 310, 314,

317–318, 413–414 Dewey, George, 195 DeWitt, John L., 283, 285 Diaz, Jose, 295 Díaz, Porfirio, opposition to, 230 Diegueño Indians, 17 (illus.) Diet, at missions, 45 “Digger” Indians, 27 Diggers (anarchists), 366 Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation, 249, 361,

362 farm workers and, 363

Dim-outs, 302 Dinosaurs, 4 Diputación (provincial legislature), 69, 75,

76 Victoria and, 72

Direct democracy, 222 Direct election of senators, Phelan and,

229 Direct Legislation League, 205 Direct primary, 201, 209, 210, 222, 224,

228 Disability rights movement,

392–393 Disabled, aid to, 393 Disabled Students’ Program, at University

of California (Berkeley), 392

Disadvantaged communities, environmentalists and, 399, 402, 408

Discrimination against African Americans, 142, 143,

157–158, 250–251, 291, 293, 356–358

against Asian Americans, 225, 298–299 banned in workplace, 330 Berkeley and, 342 against Chinese, 297–298 Chinese American protests against,

165, 340 Executive Order 8802, 282, 291 against Filipinos, 256, 375 against gays and lesbians, 301, 377, 393 gender, 300, 376 during Gold Rush, 116, 120–121, 125 against handicapped individuals, 392,

393 against Hispanics, 125, 294–295, 297 in housing, 289, 291–292, 293, 312,

336, 352, 354, 355 against immigrants, 144, 158, 159, 251,

336 against Japanese Americans, 225, 275,

282–289 in jobs, 292, 293, 296, 312, 319,

330–331, 334, 340, 352, 355, 375, 393

against Latinos, 296–297 at Port Chicago (Concord), 292 protests against, 304–305, 352 in public accommodations, 275–276 race-based, 274–276, 291, 304, 331,

335, 342 in state constitution, 159, 284

Disease. See also Health through Hispanicization process

beliefs in health cures, 14–16 Indian deaths from, 46, 82 in Japanese American internment

camps, 287 in mining camps, 118

Diseño (map), 78 Disney, Walt, HUAC hearings and, 325 Disneyland, family entertainment and,

345 Displaced Persons Act (1948), 339 Dissent. See also specific groups

to Japanese American relocation and internment, 284

student, 342 Distribution of income, 336, 399,

401–402, 404–407 District associations, Chinese, 186 District of Columbia, slavery and, 133 Diversification, economic, 149–151 Diversity, 3–10. See also Ethnic groups

and ethnicity; specific groups economic, 149–151, 241 environmental, 29, 81–82 of Hispanic population, 41–42 lack of, 211 (illus.) in mining camps, 118–119 in movies, 303–304, 314 in music, 303, 366 among native peoples, 3–10 population, 41–42, 158 (illus.)

Index I-9

Diversity (continued) religious, 185 of schools, 290 social and cultural, 210–214 of white Californians, 210

Division of Fair Employment Practices (state), 330, 334

Divorce among Gabrielinos, 20 Indian and Spanish differences, 18 mining camps and, 120 in New Spain, 56 among Yokuts, 25

Doctrina Cristiana, La, 57 Dollar, Robert, 179 Dollar Line, 179 Domesticity, 156, 157, 181, 223 Domestic sphere, after World War II, 301 Dominguez Rancho, battle at, 104 Donlin, Bob, 343 (illus.) Donner Lake, 91 Donner party, 66, 91 Dorr, Ebenezer, 61 Dot-com

boom, 437 crash, 442

Douglas, Donald, 277 Douglas, Helen Gahagan, 327 Douglas, Stephen A., 145 Douglas Aircraft, 277, 278

female workers at, 300 (illus.) Douglas Democrats, 145 Downey, Sheridan, 265 “Downsizing”, 406 D-Q University, 374 Dr. Dre, 462 Draft (military)

of Chicanos, 371 Chinese Americans, 297 of Filipinos, 298 resistance to, 363, 366 before World War II, 276, 297, 298

Drake, Francis, California exploration by, 32, 38–39

Drake, Jim, 360 Draper, Phil, 392 Draymen’s Association (San Francisco),

206 Dropouts

African Americans, 402, 435 Asian, 402, 432 Filipinos, 402 Latinos, 430 Native Americans, 434–435 rate in California, 402, 420, 432, 435

Drought, 10, 44, 150, 256, 410 Drug use, in 60s, 365 Dumping

bans on, 408, 411 in rivers, 175

Duran (Padre), 86 Durst brothers, 226–227 Dust Bowl, 237–240

hillbilly music and, 237, 239, 240 migrants from, 238, 240, 256

Duty tax, on foreign vessels at Monterey and, 71

Dylan, Bob, 240 Dymally, Mervyn, 358, 396

Eagle, Adam Fortunate, 373 Earth Day, 311 Earth First!, 408 Earth Island Institute, 407 Earthquakes, 3, 4

in Bay Area (2003), 254, 321, 446 in Loma Prieta, 424, 460 in San Francisco area (1906), 201,

216–218, 235, 243, 446 slippage along San Andreas fault,

216–217 (map) during Spanish settlement, 40

East Bay Shipyard Workers’ Committee, 293

Eastern European Jews, 214 Eastern religions, 344 Eastern United States, Indians in, 137 East Los Angeles, 371, 404, 408, 460 East Mojave Preserve, 414 Eaves, Lucile, 177

eBay, 281 (map) Echeandía, José María

Fitch-Carrillo marriage and, 84–85 as governor, 66, 69–70 Patties and, 88

Ecofeminism, 408 Eco-friendly policies, 408 Ecological awareness, 404, 407–414. See

also Environment E-commerce, 439 Economic Development Council

(Oakland), 354, 358 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 353,

376, 369 Economic Opportunity Commission. See

discrimination Economics, multiethnicity and, 398–402 Economy, 435–443. See also Great

Depression (1930s) African Americans and, 334, 393 agriculture and, 49–50, 52, 53, 167,

172–174 Bellamy on, 194 Brown, Jerry, and, 409, 415, 417–418 Chinese occupations, 187 crisis in mid-2000s, 438 cycles of, 436–438 depression in late 1800s, 148, 172, 177,

190, 194 Deukmejian and, 389, 419, 420 diversification of, 149–151, 404–407 e-commerce and, 439 in 1800s, 148–149 EU and, 313, 440 expansion of, 148–155 in Gilded Age, 167–179 globalization and, 439–441 in Great Depression, 254–261 independence of, 401 of Los Angeles, 241–243 mission, 45 NAFTA and, 440 national and, 438 in 1920s, 247–249 in 1970s and 1980s, 398–402 organized and nonunion labor in,

176–177, 442 overview, 436 postwar expansion of, 313–316

in Progressive era, 214–216, 221–222 railroads and, 152–153 (map),

154–155, 168–170 in San Francisco, 248–249 Schwarzenegger and, 454, 455 after September 11, 437 technology and, 438–439 trade and, 439–441 transformation by Gold Rush, 122–127 in mid-2000s, 437 wealth versus poverty, 441–443 work force in 1900, 176 (illus.) after World War I, 232–233 after World War II, 280, 291, 306 in World War II, 276–277 worldwide, 221–222

Ecosystems, water use and, 322, 410 Education, 316–317. See also Schools

for African Americans, 335, 354, 358, 402, 403, 443

in Alta California, 57 of Asians, 159, 165, 187, 212, 376, 443 bilingual, 141, 370, 398, 404 biotechnology and, 439 budgets, 444 dropout rate and, 402, 443, 444 ethnic groups and, 402, 443 Filipinos, 443 in the Gilded Age, 180–181 higher, 310, 317, 380, 390, 399, 417 improving, 316–317 for Indian children, 373 Master Plan for, 317, 330 Mexican Americans and, 403 Mexican American studies programs

and, 370, 372, 403 for migrant workers, 290 of Native Americans, 373 performance scores in, 443–444 public, 76, 157, 166, 181, 187, 213, 223,

263, 390–391, 395, 394, 395, 397–398, 399, 407, 417, 419

reforms of, 228, 316–317 school diversity and, 297 segregation of Chinese in, 212 spending on, 417, 419, 444–445 textbook provision and, 223 welfare reform and, 228 White, 443 Wilson, Pete, and, 450, 451 women and, 382, 391 after World War II, 297, 335

Educational standards, 317, 432–433, 444 Eichler, Joseph, 318 Eighteenth Amendment, 246 Eight-hour day, 207, 223, 224 El Centro Cultural de Mexico, 462 Elderly, aid to, 246 El Dorado, 117 Elections. See also specific individuals

of 1851, 159 of 1855, 159 of 1859, 145 of 1878, 190–191 of 1885, 169 of 1890, 193 of 1894, 194 of 1900s, 450, 451, 452 of 1910, 222

I-10 Index

of 1912, 224–225 of 1920, 247 of 1922, 245 of 1926, 246 of 1930s, 165, 247, 255, 256, 261, 264 of 1940s, 263, 305 of 1950s, 305, 328 of 1959, 234 of 1966, 378 of 1968, 351 of 1978, 391, 416 of 1986, 391, 395 of 1992, 451 of 2000, 424 of 2012, 429, 456, 457 of Catholics, 159 gender gap between state and national,

188–189, 376, 452 of Jews, 159 for judicial and school officials, 223,

420 nonpartisan, 223 school officials, 223 state, 145, 159, 209, 263, 315

Electricity coal-burning plants for, 176 developing, 179, 263, 313 Hetch Hetchy water and, 220 production of, 176, 220, 248, 321 water power for, 263, 321

Electric power companies, 248, 263. See also Energy; specific companies

Electronics industry Cold War and, 313 World War II and, 275, 280

El Espectador (newspaper), 297 Elevation, of desert region, 8 Elliot, A. J., 283 El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de

Aztlan (MECHA), 370 El Plan de San Diego, 75, 230 El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de

los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula (Los Angeles), 52. See also Los Angeles

El Teatro Campesino, 362, 403 Emancipation, of mission Indians, 66, 70,

73 Embarcadero (San Francisco),

longshoremen’s parade (strike) along, 259 (illus.)

Emergency rooms, 445 Emissions standards, 320–321, 412 Emory, William, 17 (illus.) Employers, San Francisco unions and,

209, 211–212, 260, 267 Employers’ Association (San Francisco),

206 Employment. See also Economy;

Unemployment; specific groups in aircraft industry, 277–278 ban against discrimination in, 291, 330,

334 black, 292, 352, 355, 399 discrimination against disabled in,

392–393 fair employment legislation, 292, 293,

305, 307, 330, 332, 334, 398 of Filipinos, 256, 258

gender discrimination in, 300, 376, 390 gender equality in, 390, 391 by government, 192, 290,

292, 301 at Hewlett Packard, 280 in IT firms, 438–439 for Latinos, 430 for Mexican Americans, 256–257, 294,

314, 336, 337, 338 operations in Mexico and, 395, 404,

416, 440 of people under eighteen, 339, 353 in service sector, 176–177, 388, 396,

404 in shipbuilding, 278–279 of women, 181, 232 in World War II, 274, 278, 289, 292,

293, 294, 304, 305 after World War II, 299

Employment training programs, 299, 341, 354

Endo, Mitsuye, 284, 285 “End Poverty in California” (EPIC), 264 Energy

decline in, 449 dependence upon, 449 geothermal, 321 imported, 321 nuclear, 321–322 prices, 449 for transportation, 319

Energy crisis, 386, 408–409 Davis, Gray, and, 453 of 1970s, 321, 386, 409–410

Energy sources. See also specific sources nuclear power as, 321 wind energy as, 410

England (Britain) California exploration by, 60, 61 California ceded to, 77 California trade with, 93 Drake and, 38 expansion by, 61 exports for, 222

English language. See also “English Only” legislation

Chinese Americans and, 401 in constitution, 191 limited English proficiency students

and, 398, 443–444 as official state language, 397 for public documents, 191

English Language Initiative, 397–398 “English Only” legislation, 397–398, 404 English-speaking Americans

control by, 94 in mining towns, 120

Enron Corporation, 449 Entertainment

family-oriented, 303, 318 during World War II, 302–304

Entertainment industry, 302–304. See also Motion picture industry

technology and, 280 Entrepreneurs

black, 397 in mid-1970s, 406 minorities and, 402 in San Francisco, 398

Environment, 407–414. See also Nature activism in, 407–414 Brown, “Jerry”, 415, 416, 448 California Indians and, 12, 85–85 changes in, 446–448 concern in 1970s, 320–321, 323 crisis, 447 decline in, 446–448 Deukmejian and, 411, 419 diversity in, 28 food sources in, 12 Gold Rush and, 127 hydraulic mining and, 171, 174–175 imports and, 321 livestock and, 79–82 pollution control and, 320–321, 408,

411 Reagan and, 380–381 rancheros and, 81–82 resources, allocation of, 447–448 Santa Barbara oil spill and, 409 (illus.), spraying for Mediterranean fruit fly

and, 417–418 suburbs and, 318–319 toxic wastes and, 322–323 wastewater discharge and, 410–411 water delivery and, 315, 315 (illus.),

322, 447–448 Environmental organizations nuclear

power and, 408, 409, 415 toxic chemicals and, 322, 407

Environmental protection, under Brown, Jerry, 415

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), vehicle inspection program and, 412

Environmental racism, 408 EPIC program. See “End Poverty in

California” (EPIC) Equality, 335, 352, 255. See also specific

groups educational, 228, 399, 401, 419 for women, 181, 390–391

Equal Rights Amendment, 386, 390, 391 Escondido, pueblo near, 73 Escribano (secretary), 58 Españoles, 35. See also Spain; Spanish

explorers, Spanish, 35, 42 in San Diego, 42

Espinosa, Fermina, 84 “Establishment,” protests against, 364, 367 Estanislao (Indian alcalde), 47 Ethnic groups and ethnicity, 184–188. See

also specific groups in California by 1800s and 1890s, 185

(illus.) casta system and, 42, 80 Chinese, 186–187 college education and, 356, 370–371,

372, 373 in 1800s, and 1890s, 184–188 growth in California, 41–42, 430–435 Hispanics as, 83 Latinos, 188, 428–429 of New Spain, 35, 59 in 1960s, 314, 336, 396–403 in 2010, 429 (illus.), 430–435 patterns of, 184–188, 186 (illus.) 249

Index I-11

Ethnic groups and ethnicity (continued) politics and, 138–142 in progressive era, 210–214 rights of, 198, 207–209 in shipbuilding, 278, 292, 300 social role of, 82–93 Warren and, 383 of whites of foreign parentage (1920),

211 (illus.), 431 (illus.) Ethnic studies, 358, 372, 375, 402–403

Asian Americans and, 376 Chicano, 370 Mexican American programs, 370 Native American programs, 373

EU. See European Union (EU) Eu, March Fong, 397 Europe

immigration from, 120 rivalry with Spain, 35–36 World War I in, 230–231

Europeans as California settlers, 184–186 in Gold Rush, 120, 124 Indians and, 13, 18, 27, 34–35 morality of, 18 rivalry over territories, 36, 38–39

European Union (EU), 440 Evacuation, of Japanese Americans,

283–284 Everson, William, 343 Exclusion

of Chinese, 165 of Japanese immigrants, 211

Exclusion acts immigration and, 211 repeal of, 298

Executive Order 8802, racial discrimination banned by, 274, 291

Executive Order 9066, Japanese removal and, 283

Expansion, economic, 148–155 Expediente (land grant paperwork),

78–79 Expeditions. See also Exploration;

Settlement(s) of de Anza, 32, 52 of Portolá, 40, 41, 50–51

Exploration. See also specific explorers by Drake, 32, 38–39 by England, 60, 61 by France, 60 maritime, 38–39 by Russia, 60 by Spain, 60

Exports, 93, 179, 222, 398. See also Trade for agricultural produce,

150, 405 food as, 150 NAFTA and, 94, 440 oil, 408–409 worldwide, 388, 404–405, 408–409

Extinction, of Chumash Indians, 22

Fages, Pedro, 57 Fair, James G., 172 Fair Campaign Practices Commission, 414 Fairchild Semiconductor, 313 Fair employment legislation, 307, 334, 398

Fair Employment Practice Commission (state), 307

Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) (federal), 292

Fair Employment Practices Commission (San Francisco), 334

Fair housing legislation, 305, 318, 331, 334 in Berkeley, 334 Rumford Fair Housing Act, 311, 335,

380, 400 Families and family life

Chinese American, 298 entertainment oriented to, 304 Gold Rush and, 117–120 Japanese American in World War II,

282–289 as landholders, 58, 80, 89 of Mexican settlers, 27–28 of Miwoks, 13, 24–35 Native American, 10–26 in Spanish California, 49, 56–58, 80 Spanish-Indian marriages and, 55 in Spanish society, 56–57 status of, 319, 376 women’s roles and, 67, 83, 84, 119 Yokut, 25

“Family values,” 18, 53, 83, 181 Farmers

Indians as, 42, 73, 80, 86 under Mexico, 50, 68

Farmers’ Alliance, 194 Farm labor movement, 360–363

Chavez and, 360–363 Farmland, in Central Valley, 10 Farms and farming. See also Agriculture;

Farm workers; Migrant farm workers

Bank of Italy loans for, 249 conversion to suburban areas, 317–318 cotton and, 243, 249, 270 Granger movement and, 189–190, 191 irrigation and, 221 Italians in, 185 Japanese in, 212 land development and, 78, 80, 139,

150, 173, 175, 221 Mexican American workers in,

360–363 migratory workers and, 228, 256, 262,

267, 270 sizes of farms, 150, 174, 212, 213, 221 smaller farms and, 213, 221 Socialist Party and, 225 violence against migrant workers and,

226–227 water rights and, 174

Farm Security Administration (FSA), 262 Farm workers. See also Bracero program

Brown, Jerry, and, 388, 415 Chavez and, 338–339, 360–363 Grape Strike by, 361 (illus.) health care and, 337 march from Delano to Sacramento by,

362 in 1960s, 360–363 poverty and, 337, 338 violence against, 226–227

Farnham, Thomas J., 91 Fasting rituals, 17

FBI, search of Japanese American homes by, 282

Federal government aircraft development and, 277 irrigation financing from, 221 New Deal and, 261–263

Federal politics, New Deal and, 261–263 Federal water projects, 261, 411 Federated Tribes of California, 340 Fee-for-service health care, 445 Feinstein, Dianne, 391, 451–452 Feliz, Rosa, 118 Feminism, 390–391

ecofeminism and, 408 liberal and radical, 377, 390–391 religion and, 377 Simpson trial and, 427–428 suffrage and, 182, 200–202, 223–224

Feminization of poverty, 391 FEPC. See Fair Employment Practice

Committee (FEPC) Ferlinghetti, Lawrence, 343 (illus.), 344 Ferran, Augusto, 85 (illus.) Fertility rate

among Hispanics, 54 variations in ethnic groups, 429

Fertility rituals, Indian, 54 Feuds, among Gabrielinos, 21 Field workers. See Farm workers Figueroa, José

Mexican settlers and, 74, 88 mission secularization and, 66, 72–74

Filipinos characteristics of, 256, 298 Delano Grape Strike (1965) and, 361 employment for, 256, 258 income of 402 as migrants, 210–211 in 1920s, 255 population of, 255, 402 riots against, 256 San Francisco’s International Hotel

and, 375–376 in schools, 374–375, 402 transformation in 60s and 70s, 374 war with Spain and, 195 white women and, 256 World War II and, 296, 298–299 zoot suiters and, 296

Fillmore District (San Francisco), 291, 366 Films. See Motion picture industry Finance, during Gilded Age, 171–172 Financing, of irrigation projects, 165, 221 Fiorina, 456 Fire, after earthquake of 1906, 201, 218

(illus.) First Amendment, Hollywood Ten and,

325 First Church of Christ, Scientist, The

(Berkeley), 253 Fiscal crisis, Brown, Jerry, and, 389, 416,

417 Fisher Act ( 1961), 317, 330 Fishing and fishing industry

Chinese in, 187 water projects and, 411–412 water rights and, 397 in World War II, 283

Fishing rights, Indian, 398

I-12 Index

Fitch, Henry Delano, 84–85, 93 Carrillo, Josefa, and, 84–85

Fitts, Buron, 263 Flags, Bear Flag, 125 (illus.) Flappers, 245 Flood, James C., 172 Flooding, Boulder Dam for control of, 248 Flores, José María, 104, 109 Flores, Juan, 109 Flournoy, Houston, 415 Flour, production of, 150 Flower children, 365 Flu. See Influenza Flumes, 116 Flying Cloud (ship), 114 Folk ballad, Guthrie and, 240 Foltz, Clara Shortridge, 182 Fong, Matthew, 398 Food

conversion to Christianity for, 45 of early peoples, 10–14 as exports, 150, 405 for Native Americans, 10–14 organic, 408 rationing by padres, 45–46 of Shastans, 26 Yokut, 10–11

Food crops, environmental change and, 81–82

Food processing, 214, 215–216, 235, 243, 299

Ford, John, 243, 268, 283 Ford, Leland, 283 Ford Motor Company, in LA basin, 243 Foreign-born Californians, 113, 124, 158

(illus.), 185 (illus.), 211 (illus.), 431 (illus.)

Foreign-born settlers, before Mexican War, 113, 124

Foreigners. See also Aliens; Immigrants and immigration

anti-, 97 influence of, 89 in Mexican California, 61–62, 113, 124 revolt by (1800s), 88–89 by Third World peoples, 122

Foreign duty tax, Monterey and, 71 Foreign interest, 60–62 Foreign Miner’s Tax (1850), 97, 121 Foreign policy

during Cold war, 339 in 1960s, 364, 387–388 in 1970s and 1980s, 388, 405, 406

Foreign trade. See Trade Forests, 127, 408 Fort Ross (Rossiya), Russian colony at, 83,

87, 89 Forty-eighters, 112 Forty-niners

in Gold Rush, 114–115, 121 nativism and racism of, 120–121

Forty-Second Street (movie), 267 Foster, Marcus, 365 Foundries, 150, 171, 179, 207 442nd Regimental Combat Team, 289 Four Square Gospel Church, 250 France

California exploration by, 60 Spanish overthrow by, 59

Francisco (neophyte resister), 46 Freedoms, impact of liberal ideas and, 69 “Free Harbor Jubilee,” in Los Angeles, 205 Free Harbor League, 204–205 Freelance campaign consultant, 264 Free speech, ban at Berkeley against, 353 “Free speech fight,” 226, 227 Free Speech Movement (FSM), 349, 350,

353 (illus.), 367 Freeways, 318, 336, 354

after World War II, 306 Freight, transport of, 151 Frémont, John Charles, 96, 151

in Bear Flag rebellion, 101–103 in California Battalion, 103 California Indians and, 106 as Pathfinder, 101–102 as Republican presidential candidate

(1856), 145 in Senate (U.S.), 133, 139, 145 statehood and, 132

French people, in mining camps, 118, 121 Fresno, Wobblies in, 226 Friedan, Betty, 318 Friends of the Earth, 407 Frontera norte, Vallejo and, 83 Fruits, 67, 214

canning, 185, 249 crops, 173–174, 215–216 growers, 173 transportation of, 165

Frye, Marquette, 355 FSA. See Farm Security Administration

(FSA) Fuels. See also Energy; specific types

dependence on, 449 imported, 321, 322 in 1970s, 386, 409, 411, 412

Fugitive Slave Law (California, 1852), 142 Fugitive Slave Law (U.S., 1850), 131, 133,

144 Fundamentalism Christian, 250

of McPherson, Aimée Semple, 250 Funerals, Indian, 18–19 Funston, Frederick, 217 Fur trade, 61, 81, 89 Fur trappers, 66, 88–89, 90 Furuseth, Andrew, 184 Fuster, Vicente, 46

Gabrielino/Tongva people, 7, 20–21 Spanish and, 38

Gage, Henry, 206 Gálvez, José de, 39–40 Gambling, Indians and, 402 Games, of Chumash, 22 Games, Gay, 393 Gaming, Indians and, 402 Gangs

Los Angeles riots (1870s) and, 187 Gangster films, 267–268 Hells Angles as, 367 in 38th Street Club, 295, 296 Zoot Suit riots and, 295

Gann, Paul, 416, 417 Gardiner, Howard, 118 Garra, Antonio, 97, 123 Gasoline tax, 306, 319

Gates, Daryl, 427 Gay, Milus, 114 Gays and lesbians, 183, 301, 377, 393. See

also Homosexuals and homosexuality activism by, 301

AIDS crisis and, 393, 394–395 “family values” and, 183 Games, 393 gay liberation movement and, 301, 377,

393–395 gay pride marches and, 393 gay rights and, gay pride, 393–395 lifestyle and communities of, 301, 377,

393 marital rights of, 393 as mayors, 393 as ministers, 458 protests against White verdict by, 395

Gay Games, 393 Gender. See also Feminism

in Chinese communities, 186–187 in 1850s, 155–157 of Filipinos, 256 role changes in, 181–183

Gender bias, 376 Gender gap, between state and national

elections, 188–189, 376, 452 Gender relations

in 1850s, 155–157 in Spanish California, 53–56 World War II and, 299–301

Gender roles during Gilder Age, 181–183 in mining camps, 118, 120 in World War II, 299–301

General Electric, 313 General strike IWW and, 226

in San Francisco, 226 Gene sequencing laboratory, 439 Gente de razón, 41, 80 Gentiles (unbaptized Indians), 47, 53 Gentlemen’s Agreement, with Japan, 201,

212 Geography, 3, 4 (map), 6

Climate and, 5 Geology, of California, 23, 216, 243 George, Henry, 196–197 George, John, 358 Geothermal energy, 321 Germans

ethnic communities of, by religion, 185–186

relocation in World War II, 283 Germany. See also Nazis

Hitler in, 268 World War I and, 230, 231, 232, 269

Geyserville plant, geothermal energy at, 321

Ghettoization of African Americans, 333–335 from freeway development, 334–335

Ghettos War on Poverty and, 353–355 Watts riot and, 334–335, 354–356 white flight and, 333–335

Giannini, Amadeo Peter, 248–249 GI Bill (1944)

education benefits of, 317 housing benefits of, 314

Index I-13

GI Forum, 396 Gilded Age, 164–199

agriculture in, 172–174, 197 California Indians and, 183–184 culture during, 196–197 economy during, 167–179 education during, 180–181 ethnicity during, 184–188 finance during, 171–172 gender roles in, 181–183 life during, 164–167, 197–198 mining during, 171–172 organized labor in, 176–177 politics in, 188–195 railroad expansion during, 168–170 San Francisco in, 177–179 social patterns during, 179–196 sources for, 198–199 water supplies in, 174–176 worldview during, 195–196

Gilded Age, The (Twain and Warner), 167 Gillespie, Archibald, 102, 104

in California Battalion, 103 Gillette, James, 209 Ginsberg, Allen, 343 (illus.), 344 Girls

coming-of-age rituals of, 17 toloache ceremony and, 14

Gitelson, Alfred, 399 Glaciers, 5 Glass-Steagall Act, 446 Gleason, Ralph, 366 Globalization, 343, 404–405, 408, 439–441 Global telecommunications, economy

and, 438 Global Warming Solutions Act (2006),

447 Godparents, 56 Gods and goddesses. See also Religion;

Spirituality of Gabrielino/Tongva peoples, 20 of Yuman (Quechan) Indians, 12

Gold amount extracted, 124 discovery (1848), 110–113, 130 donations to Union and, 146 importance of, 216 in Nevada, 117 placer mining for, 116 production of, 115–116 value in 1848 and 1852, 115 value of Gold Rush, 127 water rights and, 116 world economic impact of, 127

Golden Gate, as entrance to San Francisco Bay, 7

Golden Gate Bridge, 238, 247–248, 268 Golden Gate International Exposition

(1939), 268 Golden Gate National Recreation Area,

414 Golden Gate Park, 197

California Midwinter International Exposition in (1894), 197

Golden Hind, The (ship), 38 Golden spike, in transcontinental railroad,

154, 168 Golden State, 124–126 Goldman, Emma, 230

Goldman, Ronald, 427 Gold Rush

Argonauts during, 113–117 California transformation during, 98,

124 cities and towns during, 117, 124 discovery (1848), 110–113 economic impact of, 124 environmental impact of, 127, 175–176 forty-niners during, 114–115, 121 gender roles and, 118–120 government during, 116–117 immigrants, 89, 114, 115–116 immigration and, 113–116 Indians and, 110, 111 (illus.), 116, 117,

118 mining towns during, 112 (map), 120 politics of land and, 138–141 rancheros in, 113 religious toleration and, 157–159 society after, 155–161 writings about, 111, 112–113, 160–161

Gold standard, 127 Gonorrhea, 46 Gonzalez, Alférez Macedonnio, 86 Gonzalez, Michael, 58 Google, 281 (map) Gordon, Laura de Force, 182 Government. See also Municipal

government; Self-government; State government

bioregionalism and, 408 defense spending by, 313 division of state, 126 in Gold Country, 116–117, 121,

138–139 Gold Rush and, 116–117 of Indians, 7 land title records and, 139–140, 228 merit employment by, 205 military influence in, 58 native, 7 late 1990s to early 2000s, 449–458 progressivism and, 203–209, 209–210,

222–230 public sector jobs and, 314, 336 quality of state, 330 removed from San Diego, 71 of San Francisco, 69, 133–136, 190–195 Spanish, 58 of towns, 58, 82–83 tribal, 48, 263 Victoria (Governor) on, 70–72 World War II racist hysteria of,

282–283, 285 Government by initiative, 223–224,

449–450 Governor. See also specific individuals

Argüello as, 66 Brown, Jerry, as, 388–389, 391, 397,

410, 415–418 Brown, Pat, 328–329 Echeandía as, 69–70 Johnson, Hiram, as, 222 after Johnson, Hiram, 225 political parties and, 189–190 postwar policies of, 368, 369, 376,

380–382, 395, 414–420 Reagan as, 380–381

Stanford as, 152 Warren as, 276, 283, 384

Graduate education, after World War II, 181, 317, 444

Graft, 206, 208 Graham, Isaac, 89 Granger movement, 189 Grape boycott, 363, 399–400 Grape growers, 214, 235, 362, 363. See also

Grape boycott; Wine production, raisins and, 173

Grapes of Wrath, The (movie), 267 Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck) (book),

266 Grape Strike (1965), 349, 361

Chavez and, 361 (illus.) Grateful Dead, 365, 366 Grauman’s Chinese Theater, 244 (illus.) “Greaser Law, The,” against Mexicans,

123, 139 Great Basin, 3, 5 Great Depression (1930s), 254–257, 270,

279 culture during, 266–268 on eve of war, 268–269 impact of, 254–257 labor conflict during, 257–261 politics during, 261–266 state assistance to victims of, 255, 263 writings during, 266

Great Dictator (movie), 267 Great Migration, in World War I, 232 Greenbelt alliances, 408 Greenbelts, 408 Greene, Charles, 253 Greene, Henry, 253 Griffin, Susan, 408 Griffith, D.W., 251–252 Grizzly bear, 24, 81

as spirit, 23 Gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010,

425 Growers Associated Farmers

Anti-communism, 258 farm workers’ rights and, 260 labor sources, 210 Grape Strike (1965) and, 361–363 labor unrest and, 258, 260–261 in national economy, 260

Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 97 California citizenship and, 108 landownership rights in, 108–109 slavery issue and, 109

Guajome Rancho, 79 Guam, cession to United States, 195 Guangdong province, 148 Guerra, Pablo de la, 80 Guerra Ord, Augustias de la, 83 Guest workers, black migrants as,

290–291 Guevara, Shirley, 373 Gulf of California, 36 Gun control, 357

candidate stands on, 418, 452, 453 militant activism and, 364 sale to Mexicans, 230

Gunn, Elizabeth, 118 Guthrie, Woody, 237–241 Gutiérrez, Nicolás, 74, 76

I-14 Index

Gwin, William election of and, 133, 143 railroad and, 152 in Senate (U.S.), 139, 143, 145 slavery and, 143, 145

Gwin Act (1851), 139–140

Haciendas compared with ranchos, 80, 86 lifestyle on, 56, 80

Haight-Ashbury District (San Francisco), 365

Haiwee Reservoir, 219 (map) “Half-breeds,” 41 Halleck, Henry, 146 Hammett, Dashiell, 268 Handicapped individuals. See Disabled Hangings

in Gold Rush, 116, 119–120 in San Francisco, 134

Hangtown (Placerville), 116 Haraszthy, Agoston, 150 Harbors. See also specific locations

creation of, 38 at Los Angeles, 201 at Monterey, 39, 5 at San Diego, 38, 39–40 San Miguel, 38

Harding, Warren G., 202, 245 Hardwick v. United States, 398 Harriman, Job, 225, 230 Harrington, John P., 23 Hart, William, 252 Harte, Bret, 196 Hartnell, William E. P., 89 Harvesting, labor for, 174, 212, 238 Hastings, Lansford W., 91 Hawaií. See also Pearl Harbor bombing

annexation of, 195 attack on, 282 gold strike and, 113 flights to, 268 naval base at, 269 sugar industry and, 179

Hawkins, Augustus, 334, 395 Hayakawa, S. I., 397 Hayes, Rutherford B., 192 Haynes, John R., 205 Hays, Lorena (Lenita), 118 HCL (high cost of living), 233 Health. See also Disability rights

movement fitness and, 287, 394, 464 among early Indians, 14–16

Health, Education and Welfare, Department of (HEW), disabled and, 392, 397

Health care, 445–446 AIDS crisis and, 386, 393, 394–395,

462 decline in, 445–446 farm workers and, 337 migrants and, 256 in 1970s, 398 in 1990s, 445 Reagan and, 380

Health facilities, Warren and, 306 Health insurance, 266, 391, 430, 441, 445,

454

Health maintenance organization (HMO), 445

Hearst, George, 127 in mining, 171 newspaper of, 179, 255 in Senate (U.S.), 165, 192, 193

Hearst, Patricia, 365 Hearst, Phoebe Apperson, 165, 182 Hearst, William Randolph, 179

design of mansion, 254 Hearst newspapers, anti-Mexican

sentiment and, 255 Heavy industry, World War II and, 280 Heizer, Robert F., 4n Hell’s Angels, 367 Heney, Francis, 206 Henry, George, 165 Hernandez, Julio, 360 Hetch Hetchy Valley, reservoir in, 201,

220 Hewlett, Bill, 280 Hewlett-Packard, 280, 313, 456 Heydenfeldt, Solomon, 159 Higher consciousness, 365, 391 Higher education, 417. See also Colleges

and universities; specific schools affirmative action and, 399 Brown, Edmund G., and, 330, 417 cutbacks in, 317 of ethnic groups, 399 for Mexican Americans, 372 Master Plan, 317, 330 Reagan and, 380 women and, 191, 390

High schools, 181, 370 High-tech industry, 395, 401, 404–407

assembly occupations, 401 ethnic population in, 395, 401, 404,

405–406 redistribution of income and, 395 Silicon Valley, 406, 411 Stanford research park for, 405

High-tech stocks, 437 Hijar, José María, 66, 87–88 Hijos de país, 99 Hillbilly music, 303 Hip-hop music, 462 Hippies, 366, 368, 378 Hirabayashi, Gordon, 284 Hiring. See also Employment

nondiscriminatory, 314 of women, 391

Hiroshima, atomic bombing of, 274, 280 Hispanic culture, 56, 396, 397, 403. See

also Hispanics; Latinos godparents in

Hispanic immigrants, discrimination against, 123, 336–339

Hispanicization process, by mission system, 73, 83, 87

Hispanics, 335–339. See also Latinos cultural contributions by,

403–404 Democratic Party and, 338 economic progress of, 399–400 in higher education, 372 music and, 303 in 1960s and 1970s, 396–402 in nonagricultural sectors, 401

population of, 122–123, 335–336, 370, 395–396

Proposition 14 and, 400 after World War II, 336–339

Hispaniola, 34 Hispano-Indians, 107 Hiss, Alger, 327 History, of California mission life, 31–34,

50, 56 Hitler, Adolf, 267, 268 Hittell, Theodore, 193 HIV-positive, 395 Hmong, 401 HMOs, 445 Hokan-speaking peoples, 6 Holding companies, Southern Pacific

Company as, 366 Hollywood. See Motion picture industry Hollywood Ten, 325 Homebuyers, 446. See also Lenders Home-care workers, 394, 401 Homeless Indian laborers, 73, 74 Home ownership, 314 Home rule, reestablishment of, 69, 74–76 Homicides, in San Francisco, 136 Homosexuals and homosexuality. See also

Gays and lesbians illegality of, 183 meeting places for, 183 as mental disorder, 393 role changes in, 183 in public school system, 394 Proposition 64 and, 394–395 as transvestites, 18

Hong Kong, immigrants from, 113, 374, 401

Honig, William, 418–419 Hoover, Herbert

Great Depression and, 255, 261 as presidential candidate (1920s), 245,

255 raids on Mexican neighborhoods and,

255 as Secretary of Commerce, 245 in World War I, 232

Hoover Dam. See Boulder Dam Hoover-Young Commission, 261 Hopi Indians, tales of migration, 5 Hopkins, Mark, 152

railroads and, 168 Hornitos, as mining town, 120 Horseracing, 79 Hospitals, mental health care and, 380 Hotel del Coronado, 179 “Hounds,” in San Francisco, 134 House Un-American Activities

Committee (HUAC), 325–327 protests against, 311, 326 (illus.), 327,

342–343 Housing

ban on racial discrimination in, 331 California bungalow as, 253 (illus.),

270 of Chumash, 22 crisis in 90s, HMOs, 445 discrimination in, 290, 291–292, 312 fair housing legislation and, 305, 318,

331, 334, 335 GI Bill benefits for, 314

Index I-15

Housing (continued) growth of, 314 increasing costs of, 381, 446 in Los Angeles, 253 in 1950s and 1960s, 317–319 prices of, 314, 319 racially-based, 291 ranch-style, 318 Shastan, 26 “underwater”, 446 urban renewal and, 335 in World War II, 279, 289–290, 292,

294, 297, 298, 300, 304–305 Howl (Ginsberg), 344 HUAC. See House Un-American

Activities Committee (HUAC) Hudson’s Bay Company, 93 Huerta, Dolores, 360 Humans

in California region, 6 migration across Bering Strait, 5–6 before Spanish settlement, 5–6

Humboldt Bay, 8 Humboldt County, 6, 123

lumber from, 151 Humboldt Indians, massacre of, 97 Hunger, among Indians, 50 Hunger of Memory (Rodriguez), 423 Huntington, Collis P., 152

railroads and, 168, 169, 170 Santa Monica harbor and, 204 Southern Pacific Company and, 79,

170 Huntington, Henry, 179 Huntington Beach, oil in, 242–243 Hurtado, Albert, 18 Hydraulic mining

raising for money, 116, 148–149 water for, 174–175

Hydroelectric power Boulder Dam for, 248 state support for, 248, 263

Hydrogen bomb, 282

IBM, 313 I, Candidate for Governor and How I

Ended Poverty (Sinclair), 264 Ice Cube, 462 Ide, William, 102 I Don’t have to Show You No Stinkin’

Badges! (Valdez), 403 Ignorantes, American Party as, 144 ILA. See International Longshoremen’s

Association (ILA) Illegal immigrants. See Undocumented

immigrants Illness, 39, 288. See also Health care;

specific issues in Japanese American internment

camps, 287 ILWU. See International Longshoremen’s

and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU)

Immigrants and immigration. See also specific groups

Asian-Pacific Islanders and, 250–251, 430–431

Chinese, 113, 148, 159, 186–187, 339

citizenship restrictions on, 121, 125, 247 from Europe, 124, 158, 184, 185, 188,

268 of Filipinos, 255–256, 402 in Gilded Age, 166, 186–187 Gold Rush and, 110, 113–114, 120, 121 illegal to Mexican California, 88, 90 initiatives for, 339, 451 Italian, 213, 248 Japanese, 251 Jews as, 214 Korean, 402 Latin American, 251 Mexican, 251 in Mexican California, 72, 79, 87–93 Middle-Eastern immigrants, 433–434 nativism and, 120–121 naturalization and, 159, 192, 339 origins of, 3–10 in progressive era, 210–214 qualifications for, 251, 298 quotas on, 250–251 religious toleration and, 157–159 services for, 337, 396–397, 401–402 social change and, 396–398 trails used by, 89, 114 Vietnamese, 385–389, 431 in World War I, 232, 235

Immigration Act (1965), 349, 374 Immigration and Nationality Act (1965),

Asian refugees and, 401 Immigration and Naturalization Service

(INS), raids on Mexican neighborhoods by, 255

Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986), 397

Immigration Station, on Angel Island, San Francisco Bay, 211

Imperialism, 122 justification of Spanish, 36 U.S. territorial acquisitions and, 195

Imperial Valley, irrigation for, 221 Import

of energy, 321–322 through San Francisco, 221–222

Income of agricultural workers, 176f, 177 of Asians, 375–376, 401 decline in, 294, 405 in 1900s, 176 (illus.) organized labor and, 176 redistribution of, 318, 442 of women, 287–288, 300

Indentured servants, 113, 124 Independence

of Indians, 60 of Mexico, 32, 60

Index of Forbidden Books list, 76 India

farm workers from, 174 immigrants from, 210, 250

Indian Land Claims Commission, 340 “Indian New Deal,” 263 Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 263 Indian Repatriation Act (1990), 403 Indians. See Native Americans “Indians of All Tribes,” 349, 373 Indian Territory, 10 (map)

Modocs sent to, 183–184

Indigenous peoples, 11, 29, 35, 44 (illus.). See also Native Americans; specific groups

Indios, 42 Indios bárbaros (non-mission Indians), 74 Indian alliances with, 74, 83, 107, 123 In Dubious Battle (Steinbeck), 266 Industrial Accident Commission, 369 Industrial Areas Foundation (Chicago),

332 Industrial Association, 257–258

in longshoremen’s strike, 258 Industrial growth, organized labor and,

223 Industrialization

of agriculture, 173–174 in Gilded Age, 167–173, 197

Industrial Welfare Commission, 201, 228 Philips Edson and, 203 (illus.)

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies), 226–227

Baja California, magonistas, and, 230 Second-degree murder charges against,

227 after World War I, 233, 235

Industry. See Economy; Industrial growth; Mines and mining; specific industries

aircraft, 277–278 computer, 406 demand for, 314 electronic, 313 female workers in, 319 high-tech, 280, 281 (map), 313, 395,

401, 404–407 Hispanics in, 395 imported energy for, 321–322 mining, 171–172 moviemaking as, 314 in 1960s and 1970s, 404–407 in progressive era, 214–216 in San Francisco, 281 (map) in Southern Calfornia, 313, 314 shipbuilding, 169, 274, 278–279 toxic wastes from, 322, 408, 411–412 wine, 150, 173, 214 World War II and, 275, 280–282

(illus.) Inequality, social and cultural, 318, 342,

390–391 Inflation, 404, 408–409

Brown, Jerry, and, 416, 417 Reagan and, 381 after World War I, 233, 378

Influenza, 35, 46 epidemic after World War I, 232

Information technology (IT), 438–439 Informe (investigation), 78 Infrastructure

decline of, 442–449 transportation, 247–248 Warren and upgrading of, 306

Initiatives. See also Propositions gambling, 402 government by, 35, 102, 224, 449–450 health care, 445 on homosexuility, 394 on race and immigration, 451 reforms, 330

I-16 Index

Inner city African American movement from,

335, 397 jobs and tax base in, 318, 345 poverty in, 312, 319–320, 335 Innocents Abroad (Twain), 160 INS. See Immigration and

Naturalization Service (INS) schools, 399

Installment buying, 240, 254 Insurance, health, 430, 441, 445, 454 Integrated circuit, 405–406 Integration, 379

in Berkeley, 342 of California National Guard, 307 of military, 293 of schools, 297, 332, 335, 352, 399

Integration plans, 297, 332, 334, 335, 399 Intel, 281 (map) Intercoastal shipping, 221 Intermarriage, Spanish-Indian, 55, 57 International Association of Bridge and

Structural Iron Workers, 208 International Association of Machinists,

segregation by, 292 International Longshoremen’s and

Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), 258, 259, 260, 329

International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), 258, 259, 260

Internet technology, 424, 437, 438–439, 458 Internment, of Japanese Americans, 275,

282–289 Interplayers (San Francisco), 282–289 Intertribal Council of California, 373 Intertribal FriendshipHouse (Oakland), 342 Interrogatorio, (questionnaire), 45 Inturbide, Agustín, 69 Investment. See also Dot-com

Asian, 405 by Ralston, 165, 171–172

Irish Catholics, 159 Irish immigrants, 172 Iron Trades Council, 207 Irrigation, 173, 175, 176

Boulder Dam for, 248 in Central Valley, 175 (map) federal financing of, 221 state support for, 165 water rights and, 174 Isla de la Posesión, 38

Issa, Darrell, 453 Issei

after World War II, 283, 284 World War II internment of, 288

Isthmus of Panama, 113–114 railroad over, 151 sea route to California and, 151

IT. See Information technology (IT) Italians, relocation in World War II, 283 Itliong, Larry, 361 Iturbide, Agustín, 69 IWW. See Industrial Workers of the

World (IWW, Wobblies)

Jackson, Andrew, 100 Jackson, Helen Hunt, 165 JACL. See Japanese American Citizens

League (JACL)

Japan farm workers from, 212 Gentlemen’s Agreement with, 201, 212 immigrants from, 210–212 Pearl Harbor bombing by, 282 reduction of immigration from, 251 before World War II, 210, 211–212

Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), 284

Japanese Americans anti-Communist hysteria and,

282–283, 339–340 in politics, 397 population of, 339 World War II, 282–289

Japanese people anti-Japanese sentiment, 307 arranged marriages, 212 California Alien Land Act and,

Immigrants, 210 home ownership by, 283, 432 segregation of, 212 submarines of, 302

Jarvis, Howard, 416 Jayme, Luis, 46 Jazz, in World War II, 303 Jazz Age, 245 Jazz Singer, The (movie), 238, 252 Jesuits

missions and, 43 Santa Clara University and, 180

Jet Propulsion Lab, at California Institute of Technology, 313

Jews and Judaism. See also Anti-semitism anti-, 252 election of, 159 Eastern European, 214 immigration of, 214 intermarriage, 41 Nazi attacks on, 268 Roybal and, 336–337

Jim Crow, 293 Job(s) 405–407. See also Employment

and housing, 398, 407, 413 in service sector, 176–177, 388, 395,

404–405 for women, 294, 300, 301, 304, 319 in World War II, 274, 276–277,

278–279, 294, 297, 299 Job Corps, 353 Job discrimination, against African

Americans, 292 Jobs, Steve, 406 (illus.) Job training programs, 278 Johnson, Albert, 251 Johnson, Grove, 222 Johnson, Hiram, 200, 201 (illus.)

Boulder Dam and, 248 California Progressive Party and,

222–224 election of and, 201 impact of, 233, 234, 235 Japanese immigrant exclusion and, 211 Philips Edson and, 203 (illus.) as progressive, 245 after progressive era, 233,

234, 235 Ruef prosecution by, 206 Senate (U.S.) and, 222, 245

Johnson, J. Neely, 135 Johnson, Lyndon B., 353, 364 Johnson, Susan Lee, 118 Jones, Thomas ap Catesby, 77 (illus.) Jordan, David Starr, 181 Jordan, June, 255 Jordan, Lois, 255 Josefa (Juanita), lynching of, 119 Journalism, muckrakers and, 209 Journals, Hispanic, 209 Juarez, Benito, 109 Judah, Theodore, 152 Judaism. See Jews and Judaism Juez de campos (judge of the plains), 79 Jungle, The (Sinclair), 263 Junior colleges, after World War II, 317 Jurisdictional Act (1928), 340 Jury trial, in Gold Rush, 116 Justice

in gold towns, 116–117 in San Francisco, 133–136

Kaiser, Henry, 248, 269 shipbuilding and, 278, 290 steel mills of, 280

Kaiser, Richmond Shipyards, 275 (illus.) Kansas, slavery and, 145 Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), 144 Kearney, Denis, 105 (illus.), 106, 190–191 Kearny, Stephen W., 105 (illus.), 106 Keaton, Buster, 252 Keith, William, 197 Kelley, Florence, 228 Kelsey, Andrew, 91 Kelsey, Benjamin, 91 Kelsey, C. E., 201, 213 Kelsey, Nancy, 90 Kennedy, John F.

Brown, Edmund G., and, 331 presidential nomination, 331 Shriver, Maria, and, 454

Kennedy, Kate, 181 Kennedy, Robert, 181 Kentucky, Southern Pacific Corporation

charter, 165 Kepler, Roy, 344 Kern, Edward, 106 Kerouac, Jack, 344 Kerr, Clark, 310 Kesey, Ken, 344, 365 Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, 411 Ketcheshawno, Millie, 373 Kientpoos (Keintpoos, Kintpuash,

Captain Jack), 183 King, Rodney, 426–427 King, Thomas Starr, 146 Kingston, Maxine Hong, 403 Kinship organizations, Chinese, 186 Kipling, Rudyard, 178 Klamath Indians, 183 Klan. See Ku Klux Klan Knight, Goodwin J. as governor, 311,

327–328 Red Scare and, 324–325, 327

Knights of Labor, 177 Knowland, William, 328, 329 Know-Nothings, 144–145, 159

American Party as, 159 religious toleration and, 144–145

Index I-17

Knox, Frank, 282 Korea, immigrants from, 339, 375, 401,

402 Korean Americans

characteristics of, 375, 402 discrimination against, 339, 375, 427 entrepreneurship of, 402 hip-hop band, 462 income of, 402 Los Angeles riots (1990s) and, 427 population of, 339, 374, 431

Korematsu, Fred, 284 KPFA (radio station), 344 Ku Klux Klan

in 1920s, 251–252 in 1930s, 257

Kumeyaay Indians attacks by, 32–33, 86 election of San Diego government by,

73 funerals of, 18–19 rituals of, 17 first self-government in San Diego, 73 Spanish view of, 40–41 uprising by, 46

LA. See Los Angeles “La Beata,” Lorenzana as, 55–56, 79 Labor. See also Farm workers; Migrant

workers; Organized labor for agriculture, 173–174, 176–177, 187 for aircraft industry, 277–278 at California missions, 74 Chinese, 154, 177, 191, 192 for computer industry, 406 for farming. See Farm workers for harvests, 174, 212, 216, 238, 337 Indian, 66–67, 73, 74, 80 industrial growth and, 313–316 Mexican bracero program for, 279,

294, 315, 336, 338, 359, 360 of Mexicans, 79, 80 migratory, 228, 256, 262, 267, 270. See

also Dust bowl from 1919-1941, 228, 256, 262, 267,

270 organized, 176–177 in progressive era, 207–209 rights of, 207–209 for shipyards, 289–290 in weapons-related research, 313 Wilson, Pete and, 418, 451 women and, 67, 83–84, 390 in World War I, 232, 233, 234

Labor camps, for migrant workers, 256, 267, 337, 361

Labor laws, 228 Labor Party, in San Francisco, 206 Labor unions, 177, 206–207

African Americans and Asians in, 207 in agriculture, 177 in automobile industry, 362 in aviation, 292 Chinese workers and, 177 conflicts, 257–261 Davis, Gray and, 452 defense jobs and, 292, 300, 305 in 1880s and 1890s, 177 election of and, 400

among farm workers, 360–363, 401 Hispanic farm workers and, 338,

360–363 for longshoremen, 159–258 in Los Angeles, 260, 270, 305 Los Angeles terrorism against, 208

(illus.) Mexicans and Japanese in, 208, 255 National Farm Workers Association

and 360, 362–363 Oakland, port of, 442 political activism and, 293 in Progressive era, 207–209 Proposition 1 restrictions on, 265–266 Proposition 187 and, 451 racial discrimination by, 177, 207, 292,

305 on “right-to-work” initiative, 329 in San Francisco, 177, 207, 209, 231,

257–261, 270 Schwarzenegger, Arnold and, 454 shipbulding and, 292 subversive infiltration investigations of,

326–327, 332 trade, 177, 326 wage demands, 233, 235 women in, 207, 300 after World War I, 233, 234 after World War II, 314–315

Labor war, in San Francisco (1916), 231 La Cañada, battle at, 107 “La Causa,” 360, 362 La Follette, Robert M., 209, 222

election of and, 209 Lakes, in desert region, 9 Lake Tahoe area, 412 Land

for California Indians, 123, 213 conservation, 407–414 constitution on, 227, 228, 247 contrasts in, 7, 10 conversion to suburbs, 410, 412–413 former mission lands, 82 geographic form, 4 (map) Indian, 10 Indian treaties and, 138 management of, 12–14 after missions, 78–81 ownership by aliens, 227, 228, 247, 289 politics of, 139–141, 408–414 protection of, 388, 408, 410–416 ranchero control of, 67, 73 for reservations, 183 secularization policy and, 68, 70 Southern Pacific ownership of, 168 before Spanish settlement, 3–10 for transcontinental railroad, 152–155 responsibility for use of, 228

Land bridge, to Asia, 5 Land claims, Indian, 340 Land grants

Mexican, 53, 55, 66, 71 (map), 74, 78–79

Spanish, 53, 58 Landholders

as class of native Californians, 93, 99, 122–123

in Gold Rush, 122 in Mexican California, 80, 89, 108, 109

Land rights, after Mexican War, 108–109, 398

Landscape Muir and, 197, 220 paintings of, 197 photographs of, 197

Land titles, recording, 139–140, 228 Lane, Franklin K., 209 Lange, Dorothea, 267 (illus.) Language(s)

of Algic-stock, 6 of Athabascan, 6 of Chumash people, 6–7 in constitution, 191 of Cupan-speaking people, 20 of Gabrielino people, 7 Indian contributions of, 27 limited English proficiency students

and, 397–398, 443–444 of migrant workers, 211 (illus.). See

also Bilingual education in mining towns, 120 of native americans, 6 of public documents, 191 restrictions on, 141, 370 of Shastan people, 25 Spanish, 42, 63 of Tongva people, 7 Uto-Aztecan family of, 6 of white Californians, 141 of white immigrants, 210 of Yiot, 6 of Yokuts, 6

Language groups Indian, 6 of native peoples, 6–7

Laos immigrants from, 331, 401 protests against invasion of, 364

La Paz, 36 La Pena Cultural Center, 462 La Pérouse, Comte de, 60 Lapp, Rudolph, 130 (illus.) La Purísima mission, 69 La Raza, 370 La Raza Unida Party (RUP), 370 Larkin, Oliver, 102 Larkin, Thomas O., 77 (illus.), 91–92, 101 Las Flores, pueblo at, 73 Lassen, Mount, 5, 8 Las Sergas de Esplandián, 36 Lasuén, Fermín Francisco de, 43–44 Latin America. See also specific countries

immigration before 1920s, 158, 251 need for labor from, 338 trade and, 405

Latin Americans, in Gold Rush, 118, 120, 121

Latinas. See also Hispanics demographics of, 188 Moreno, Luisa, and, 260 Ruiz de Burton as author, 196

Latinos, 428–435. See also Hispanic entries; Hispanicization process; specific groups

California-born, 428–435 Chavez and, 360 communities, 399–400, 408, 428, 430

(illus.), 408

I-18 Index

cultural contributions, 402–403 economic progress, 399–400 electorate, 396, 421 environmental racism and, 408 as farm workers, 360 feminists, 391 as immigrants, 188, 210 income, 430 in military, 146, 294, 296 organizing by, 391, 396, 408 overview, 428–430 politics and, 429 population of, 428–429 school-age population of, 402, 430 variations among, 296–297 as voters, 451

Lavender Sweep, 393 Lau v. Nichols, 386, 397–398 La Vinge, Robert, 343 (illus.) Law(s). See also specific laws

discriminating against African Americans

granger, 189 on homosexuality, 183 San Francisco vigilantism and,

133–136 Spanish, 62–63 status of Indians, 41–42 water rights and, 174

Law and Order Committee, 231 Lawrence, Ernest O., 280 Lawrence Livermore Lab, 313, 407 LCE. See League for Civil Education (LCE) Leaders. See also specific individuals

of Chumas, 22 of Costanoans, 24–25 of Mexican Californios, 68, 72, 73,

76, 80 of Miwoks, 25 of Shastan peoples, 25–26

League for Civil Education (LCE), 377 League of Conservation Voters, 407 League of Lincoln-Roosevelt Republican

Clubs, 201, 209 League of United Latin American Citizens

(LULAC), 296–297, 337, 396 Leary, Timothy, 365 Lee, Archy, 129, 130 (illus.), 131, 142, 143,

146 Lee, Kong Mook, 375 Lee, Lily, 397 Leese, Jacob P., 103 Lee, Stoval slave case, 129–131 Left-wing groups, 325, 332, 364 Legal system. See Law(s) Legends, 19, 20, 29

creation, 23 of Murrieta, 118, 121–122 origins of American Indians, 20, 23 of Takwish, 19

Legislation. See also specific laws for depression relief, 255, 261 for irrigation projects, 221 reforms in and, 205, 227–228

Legislature African Americans in, 305 black member of, 334, 395 Davis, Gray, and, 386, 452, 453 political control of, 370

reform of, 209–210 women in, 395

Leisure consumption as, 318 of Indians, 19 in mining camps, 118

Lenders, 437, 446 Lesbians. See Gays and lesbians;

Homosexuals and homosexuality Lettuce workers, organizing of, 399–400 Levering Act (1950), 325–326

Warren and, 327 Levertov, Denise, 344 Levis (pants), 150 Lewis, John L., 260 Liberal feminists, 376–377, 390–391 Liberalism

of Brown, Edmund G. “Jerry” Jr., 388, 414, 415

of Brown, Edmund G. “Pat,” 331, 351, 378

decline of, 378–380 impact of, 378 at municipal level, 331–333, 378 strength of, 331–333 in World War II, 298, 304–305

Liberty Ships, 278 Librado, Fernando, 15–16, 18 Life and Adventures of the Celebrated

Bandit Joaquín Murrieta (Ridge), 122

Life in California (Robinson), 88 Lifestyle. See also Culture(s)

alternative, 365–367, 406 automobile-centered, 321 California, 318–319 of Californios, 80 employment and, 318 of gays and lesbians, 377, 393 in Gold Rush camps, 117–120 hacienda, 56–57 in Japanese American relocation

camps, 286–288 in Los Angeles, 318 on ranchero (1800s), 79–80 in Spanish California, 56–57, 58–59 in Spanish pueblos, 51–53 suburban, 345 World War I and, 232–233 in World War II, 302–304

Light rail system, 448 Limited English proficiency, students,

397–398, 443–444 Limit on Marriages initiative, 455 Limpieza de sangre (purity of blood), 41 Lincoln, Abraham, 145, 162

Mexican War and, 101 Lincoln-Roosevelt League, 201, 209, 222 Lindsay, Gilbert, 369 Lineage-based governments, 6–7 Lineages, among Native Americans, 6–7,

12, 21, 29 Liquor industry, antisuffrage campaign by,

182–182 Literature

black authors and, 402 of California Indians, 34 in 1800s, 65, 160 ethnic identity and, 460–461

about Gold Rush, 119, 122 in 1920s, 252 in 1950s and 1960s, 344 in postwar San Francisco, 460–461 by 2012, 459–462

Little Caesar (movie), 268 “Little Tokyo” (Los Angeles), 291 Livestock. See Cattle Living wage ordinances, 442 Llavera, 56 Lloyd, Harold, 252 Lobbying, 191, 223, 289, 338, 390, 392,

400, 407, 413 Local government, after World War II,

324, 331, 334 Local option law, for alcohol sales, 223 Lockheed, 277 London, Jack, 161, 178 (illus.) Long Beach

oil in, 242 port of, 440 (illus.)

Longshoremen, 231, 233 strike in 1930s, 259 (illus.), 260, 270

Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (Bellamy), 194

Loomis, A.W., 121 López, Doña Eustaquia, 86 Lopez, Francisco, gold discovery by, 97,

110 Lorenzana, Apolinaria, 55–56, 79 Los Alamos, New Mexico, nuclear

weapons development at, 280–281 Los Angeles

Air Pollution Control District in, 320 anti-Chinese riot in, 165, 320 art in, 345, 459–462 automobile, influence on, 243–245 black community in, 232 boosters, 241 Bradley, Thomas in, 395 busing in, 399 Californios and, 104 deindustrialization in, 404 during great depression, 257–261 economic growth of, 241–243 El Plan de, 104 ethnicity of founders, 41–42 expansion of, 241–245 founded, 32 Free Press, 366 gay militance in, 377 gay-owned businesses in, 301 government of, 204–205 growth in World War II, 289–290 harbor, 201, 204–205 Hispanic culture in, 371, 460 Hispanic population in, 370, 396 Indian movement to, 6, 19–20, 21 Jewish settlement in, 214 King riots in (1990s), 426 labor unions in, 257, 260 liberal coalition in, 332–333 M&M in, 257, 260 manufacturing in, 243 Mexicans in, 104, 212 in Mexico period, 75, 78, 79, 86, 90,

104 Mono Lake and, 411 motion picture industry in, 242

Index I-19

Los Angeles (continued) in the 1920s, 246, 250, 251, 252, 253 in the 1930s, 254, 255, 257, 260 oil industry in, 241, 242–243, 254 Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) in,

230 population of, 241–242, 243, 244–245,

250 port of, 440 (illus.) postwar culture in, 278, 313, 318, 320,

332–333, 334 progressive municipal reform in,

204–205 run-off election (1911) in, 225 Simpson trial and, 427–428 Sleepy Lagoon case in, 296 smog in, 320, 323 (illus.) Southern Pacific in, 204 steelworkers strike, 233 symphonies, 345 theaters, 345 as twentieth-century metropolis,

241–245 town government in, 79, 86, 90 War on Poverty, 354 during war with United States, 97 water for, 241, 243 Watts riot and, 349, 355 Zoot Suit Riot in, 295–296

Los Angeles Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born (LACPFB), 338

Los Angeles Council for Civic Unity, 305 Los Angeles County, irrigation for, 220 Los Angeles Parent Teacher Association

(PTA), milk and lunch program of, 255

Los Angeles Police Department, Watts riot (1965) and, 354–355, 426–428

Los Angeles River, 218–219 Los Angeles Times, bombing, 201 Louisiana Purchase, slavery

and, 132 Love, Harry, 122 Lower-income families, 322, 375–376,

380, 429. See also Poverty Loyalists, sureño proposal for, 75 Loyalty oath

Issei and, 288 to Mexican government, 70 at University of California, 325 Warren and, 327

LSD, 365 Lubin, Simon, 228 Lugo family

Antonio, 67 (illus.) Francisco Salvador, 67 (illus.) José del Carmen, 65, 67 Vicente, 67 (illus.)

Luiseño Indians, 9, 32 (illus.) history, language and legends of, 18–19 language, 31 Pauma massacre and, 107 trade and, 21

LULAC. See League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)

296–297, 396 Lumber, 150–151, 176 (illus.), 177, 179

in 1870, 156 (illus.) Lumbering, 177, 179

Lutherans, 186 Lux, Charles, 173 Lynchings

of Chilean miners, 120 of Josefa (Juanita), 119 lynch mobs in Gold Rush, 116–117,

119, 120, 121 Rolph’s approval of, 263 of strike leaders, 258

Machado, María Antonia, 104 Machine shops, 150, 207, 299 Machinists Union, 260 Mackay, John W., 172 MacKenzie, Scott, 365 Magazines Hispanic, 371

muckraking, 209 Magón, Ricardo Flores, 230 Magonistas, 230 Maidu people, 15 Mail service, 151 Malaspina, Alexandro, 60 Malaspina expedition, 54 (illus.), 60 Malnutrition, in 1930s, 256 Mammals, 4 Managed care, 445, 464 Management, at Hewlett Packard, 456 Manchuria, Japanese invasion of, 280 M&M. See Merchants and Manufacturers

(M&M) Association Manhattan Project, 280 Manifest Destiny, 100–101

Dana’s view and, 88 of United States, 95, 100–101

Manila, 36, 38–39 Mankiller, Wilma, 373 Mann, Thomas, 268 Manson, Charles, 367 Manuel, Andrés, 79 Manuel, José, 79 Manufacturing

computer, 406 in 1800s, 176, 179, 185, 197 labor for, 243, 254, 261, 395–396, 401 in Los Angeles, 243 loss of, 254, 388 in progressive era, 214, 221, 235 in San Francisco, 171 shift away from, 388, 404–405 union organization in, 388 after World War II, 436–437, 438,

440–441 Manzanar, internment camp at, 285

(illus.), 287 (illus.), 403 MAPA. See Mexican American Political

Association (MAPA) Mapping, of California coast, 102 March in Washington (1947), 326 (illus.) Mare Island Naval Depot, 292 Marijuana, efforts to legalize, 416 Mariposa War, 97, 123 Maritime exploration, Spanish, 38–39 Market Street (San Francisco), after

earthquake of 1906, 218 (illus.) Mark of Zorro, The (movie), 252 Marriage

arranged, 20, 55, 212 Chumash ceremonies, 18

Costanoan, 24 among Gabrielinos, 20, 21 intermarriage, 21 limit on, 455 in mining camps, 119 of native peoples, 16–18, 55 “picture brides” and, 212 Spanish-Indian, 55 women’s rights under, 55, 84 of working women, 300 among Yokuts, 25

Marron, Juan María de, 96–98, 109 Marsh, John, 90 Marshall, James W., 97, 107, 110 Marshall, Thurgood, segregation in armed

forces and, 292–293 Marshall, William, 107 Martinez (Father), 45 Marxism, in 1930s, 256 Masa (corn meal), 12, 44 (illus.) Mason, Bridget “Biddy,” 142 Massacres

by Indians, 53 of Indians, 123

Mass production, of homes, 314 Mass transit, 448 Master Plan, 317, 330 Master Plan for Education, 317, 330 Mathematics scores, 443 Matsui, Robert, 397 Mattachine Society, 377 Maui, 179 Maybeck, Bernard, 253 Mayer, Louis B., 325 Mayordomos (overseers), 45, 50 Mayors

African Americans as, 395 lesbian, 393 women as, 393, 395, 397

McAteer Petris Act, 311 McCarthy, Patrick H., 206 MCC churches. See Metropolitan

Community Church (MCC) McClure’s Magazine, muckrakers and, 209 McDonald’s, 345 McDougal, John, 137 McKinley, William, 195 McNamara, James, 208–209 McNamara, John, 208–209 McNamara trial (1911), 209 McPherson, Aimée Semple, 250, 255 McTeague (Norris), 165, 196 McWilliams, Carey, 296 Meat, for miners, 150 Mechanization, in agriculture, 400 Mechanization and Modernization

(M&M) agreement, 257, 260 Medfly controversy, 417 Media conglomerates, movie studio

ownership by, 461 Medi-Cal program, 380, 381 Medicinal lore, 15–16 Medicine

alternative, 14–16 Indian knowledge of, 14–16 in Japanese American relocation

facilities, 287 socialized, 306 Warren and, 306

I-20 Index

Medicine men. See Shamans Mediterranean fruit fly, 417–418 Mel’s Drive-In Chain, CORE protests

against, 349, 352–353 Men. See also Boys; Gender roles ethnicity

and politics of Gabrielino religion, 20 Gold Rush and, 115, 118, 119 Indian women raped by, 55 in Mexican California, 66–67, 79, 84 numbers by age (1850), 155 (illus.) numbers by age (1870), 156 (illus.) in Spanish California, 55

Mendez v. Westminster, 251 Mental health system, Reagan and, 380 Merchant, Carolyn, 408 Merchants

Chinese, 120 transcontinental railroad and, 152

Merchants and Manufacturers (M&M) Association, 208, 226, 257, 260

Merit system, for government employment, 208

Merriam, Frank, 263, 264 Merritt, Ezekiel, 102 Merry Pranksters, Kesey and, 365 Mestizaje, 42 Mestizo/mestiza (mixed) culture, 74, 76

American racism toward, 76 California settlers as, 35, 42, 57 racism toward, 94–95 women’s roles and, 55

Methodists colleges founded by, 180 Metrolink, 448 Mexican American Political Association

(MAPA), 338, 369 Mexican Americans. See also Mexicans

American Schools, 251 as candidates for office, 297, 305, 370 Chavez and, 360–363 Chicano movement and, 370 employment in Los Angeles County,

336 farm worker protests and, 360–363 Mexican immigrants and, 87, 89, 92 in military, 297 music of, 303 in Los Angeles, 212, 294 native-born, 99, 120 racial prejudice toward, 295–296 rights to California of, 92 Roybal and, 369 segregation of, 251 Sleepy Lagoon case and, 296 in urban core, 368–372 from other U.S. regions, 336 from within United States, 294–299 in World War I, 185 (illus.), 188 in World War II, 294–295, 296, 297,

303, 305 after World War II, 294 in World War II, 294–295, 296, 297,

303, 305 Zoot Suit Riots and, 274, 295, 296

Mexican American studies programs, 403 Mexican California, 65–95

immigrants and foreigners in, 87–93 rebellion by Chumash in, 66 social relations in, 82–93

sources on, 95 women in, 66–67, 79, 83–85

Mexican California, Social Relations town govenrments, growth of, 82–83 Mexican Californian women, 83–85 Mexican-Indian interactions, 85–87 immigrants and foreigners, 87–93 overview of, 94–95 violence, Mexican-Indians, 86

Mexican Colonization Laws (1824 and 1828), 89

Mexican Federal Republic, 69 Mexicanized Americans, 89, 92, 94 Mexican Liberal Party. See Partido Liberal

Mexican (PLM) Mexicans. See also Californios; Mexican

Americans citizenship for, 92, 108 deportation of, 255 Gold Rush and, 117, 118, 120,

122–123, 125, 127 immigration of, 87–93, 251 Indians and, 70, 73–74, 85–87 Klan attacks on, 252 lack of movement to north, 87 lives of mestiza women and, 55 as miners, 55–56 population in Los Angeles, 336 return to Mexico by, 88, 255 under Roosevelt administration

(1920s), 212 unemployment and, 255–256, 368–369

Mexican War California conquest during, 122–123 California Indians in, 106–107 foreign-born settlers before, 113, 124 outbreak of, 97, 109 peace in, 107 slavery and, 101, 109, 124 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after, 97,

107–109 Mexico

boundary with, 99, 100, 108 bracero program and, 279, 294, 336,

338, 359 California gold strike and, 111 civil war, 201 colonists from, 87–88 immigration from, 88, 91, 92 independence from Spain, 59–60 Iturbide in, 69 Kearny in, 105 (illus.), 106 lifestyle of immigrants, 79–80 loyalty of priests to, 70 NAFTA and, 440 rebellion against Spain in, 74–76 Revolution, 230 revolution and home rule in, 74–76 secularization of missions, 66, 72–74, 88 settlers in Alta California from, 87–88 settlers to California from, 87–88 Spanish kingdom in, 53, 59–60 Texas war of independence from, 99,

100–101, 103 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and, 97,

107–109 U.S. war-like intentions and, 76–77 U.S. war with, 97, 99–110 Zimmermann and, 231

Micheltorena, Manuel, 66 Catesby-Jones and, 66, 76–78 Vallejo and, 83

Middle-Eastern immigrants, 433–434 Middle-income families, 253 Midwest, migrants from, 90 Migrant Health Act (1962), 337 “Migrant Mother” (Lange), 267 (illus.) Migrants and migration. See also

Immigrants and immigration of African Americans, 290–294 barriers, 212 from Dust Bowl, 237–240, 256, 270 educational capacity and, 317 entering US, 251 ethnic composition, 249 in Gold Rush, 114, 117

Migrant workers. See also Farm workers documentation of lives of, 113–114 federal aid to farm workers, 262–263

Migration. See Migrants and migration Militance

of anti-nuclear protests, 322 African Americans, 355, 356–357 Asian Americans, 339–340 in civil rights movement, 352–356 environmental, 407 gay, 301, 377, 393 Hispanic, 338 Indian, 372–374 of longshoremen, 258, 329 of Mexican Americans, 369, 373 in 1960s, 396 of radical feminists, 377, 390, 391, 393

Military Chinese Americans in, 297–298 expenditures on, 269, 313, 345, 378 Mexican Americans in, 294 Mexican centralists and, 69, 74 In Spanish California, 58–59 in World War II, 276–277, 280, 282,

284, 285, 286, 288, 294, 297–298, 299, 301

World War II Japanese American removal and internment and, 282–289

Military government, 57, 58, 126 Military installations, closing of, 462 Military rule, Victoria and, 72 Military spending. See Defense industries;

Military Milk, Harvey, 386, 393, 394 Miller, George, 305 Miller, Henry, 173 Miller, John, Chinese exclusion and, 192 Mills College

design of, 180 women in, 180

Minerals. See also Mines and mining; Oil and oil industry; specific minerals

cinnabar, 23 Mines and mining

Chinese labor for, 113, 148, 187 by Costanoan people, 23 by forty-niners, 114–115, 121 during Gilded Age, 171–172 gold, 115–116 in Gold Rush, 110, 112–113, 115

(illus.), 116–120, 122 (map)

Index I-21

Mines and mining (continued) hydroelectric power for, 176 of quartz, 148, 149 San Francisco banking and, 171, 172 silver, 171, 172 taxation of non-U.S. citizens in, 121 transformation of, 148–149 water for, 174–176

Mineta, Norman, 397 Minimum wages, 225, 279, 337, 360, 388,

406 raises in, 331 for women, 202 (illus.), 228

Minorities. See also specific groups activist coalitions among

appointed by Brown, Jerry, 388, 396–397, 415

Indian rights and, 340 political victories of, 324, 386–387, 391,

396–398, 414 public sector expansion and, 314, 334 rights of, 314, 340, 392–393 Twenthieth century, 430–435 as workers on military bases, 274, 278

Minority contracts, 398, 400 Miocene period, 2, 4–5 Miranda, Gloria, 53 Mirikatni, Janice, 403 Mission District (San Francisco),

Hispanics in, 403 Mission Indian Federation, 262–263 Mission Indians. See also Labor; Native

Americans in mid-1800s, 42–48 revolts by, 32, 44, 46–48

Missions and missionaries, 42–46. See also Labor; specific missions

in Alta California, 32, 33, 36, 37 (map), 42–43, 52, 57, 60

breakup of system, 42, 47, 52 building of, 43–44 colonization and, 31–34 criticisms of, 49–50 cultural contributions, 49–50 evaluation of, 48–50 growth of, 41–42, 57 and Indian attitudes toward sexuality,

54 Indian emancipation from, 66, 70, 73 Indians and, 49–50 lands converted to private property, 52,

53 mass at San Diego by, 40 neophytes and, 45–48 rebellion at San Diego, 32 at San Diego bay, 40 at San Francisco, 37 (map), 52 San Gabriel, 37 (map), 43, 45, 47, 50,

56, 58 secularization of, 42, 47, 52, 55, 72–74 as Spanish remnants, 62 women in, 54–56

Mississippi summer project, 151–152

Missouri Compromise (1820), slavery and, 132

Miwok Indians, 13 Pamahas (Lucy Telles), 13 (illus.) Spanish trade with, 39

Mobility, 299, 398, 404, 434. See also Immigrants and immigration; Migrants and economy

migration black, 290–294 Mobilization, in World War I, 229, 232 Moctezuma, 76 Modern Times (movie), 267 Modoc people, 183–184 Modoc War (1872–1873), 165 Mojave Desert, 87, 88 Mono Lake, wildlife at, 411, 414 Monopolies

antitrust laws and, 209 condemnation of Southern Pacific,

168–169, 170, 190 of railroads, 168–169, 170, 190

Monterey. See also Monterey Bay Bouchard raid on, 32 Californios from, 92 (illus.) as capital, 69, 72 dominance of, 75 establishment, 32, 39, 50 government of, 51, 72, 82–83 harbors, 5, 39 Jones in, 77 (illus.) mission at, 43 (illus.), 44 naming of, 39 population of, 374 presidio at, 50–52, 55 settlement at, 32, 39–40 Victoria in, 72

Monterey, Conde de, 39 Monterey Bay, 8 Mooney, Rena, 231 Mooney, Tom, 231, 266 Mora, New Mexico, destruction of, 107 Moraga, José, 32, 52 Morales, Andres, 297 Morality

Gold Rush and, 118–119, 127 Indian vs. Spanish, 18

“Moral majority,” 378 Moreno, John, 369 Moreno, Luisa, 260 Moreno, Matias, 96 Morgan, Julia, 254 Morgan, Lewis Henry, 27 Mormon Battalion, Sutter and, 110 Mormon Church, 161 (illus.) Mormons

Gold Rush and, 110 settlement by, 91, 106 slavery and, 142 as voters, 458

Morrill Act, university funding and, 180

Morro Bay, 8 Moscone, George, 386, 391, 395 Mothers of East Los Angeles, 408 Motion picture industry

African Americans in, 402 Asian Americans in, 403 commercial films, 461 Giannini financing of, 249, 251 films and, 267–268, 393 gangster films, 267 gays and, 393 growth of, 242, 249 HUAC targeting of, 325, 326 (illus.)

independent filmmakers in, 314, 402, 461

Jews in, 268 in Los Angeles, 242, 345 movies in 1920s, 251–252 movie stars in, 240, 242, 252, 267, 268 technology and, 242, 267, 439 social criticism and, 267–268 by 2010, 461 westerns, 267–268 writers and, 266–268, 325 after World War II, 314 in World War II, 270, 295, 303–304

Mountains, 3, 5, 7, 8. See also specific peaks

Mount Lassen, 5, 8 Mount Shasta, 5, 8 Mount Whitney, 5 Movies. See Motion picture industry Movie stars, 240 Movie studio, media conglomerate

ownership of, 461 Movie theaters, 242, 244 (illus.) Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de

Aztlan (MECHA), 370 Muckrakers, 209 Mugarrieta, Elvira, 183 Mujeres en Marcha, 391 Muir, John, Hetch Hetchy water system

and, 220 Mulattos, California settlers as, 42 Mulholland, William, 218, 220, 243 Multiethnic groups, 395–402. See also

Ethnic groups and ethnicity coalitions in World War II, 304–305 political gains for, 395–398 Spanish settlers as, 41–42

Multiethnicity culture and, 402–403 economics, 398–402 in politics, 395–398

Multilingualism, in mining towns, 120 Multimedia firms, 439 Multinational construction corporations,

248 Municipal government, liberalism in,

331–333, 378 Municipalities, 62, 320, 321, 334, 335, 399

living wage ordinances in, 442 services in World War II, 290

Municipal power, of blacks and whites, 358 Municipal reform

liberalism in, 331–333, 378 in Los Angeles, 204–205 in San Francisco, 205–207

Munitions, black workers in, 292 Murals and muralists, 403

Chicano, 266, 371, 430 (illus.) Hispanic, 403

Murphy family (settlers), 91 Murphy’s Camp, 121 Murrieta, Joaquín, 121–122

death, 97 legend of, 121–122

Museums, 460 Music. See also specific types

Asian Americans and, 375, 376 Bakersfield, as Nashville of the West,

345

I-22 Index

blues tradition, 294, 303, 345 California sound and, 345, 366 Country, 345 diversity in, 403 gospel, 294 Haight Asbury District and, 365 Indian choirs, 45 Latin, 297, 303, 462 in Los Angeles area, 344 Mexican Americans and, 303 Mission fathers and, 45 in 1960s protests, 297, 303 Oakland blues sound, 303 Psychedelic, 365 Rock, 345, 365–366 by 2010, 461–462 West Coast style, 303 in World War II, 294, 297, 303

Musical films, 267–268 Musicians’ Union, 206 Muslims, 433, 434, 458

after September 11, 459 Mutual aid and social organizations, 291,

293, 299 Asian refugees and, 340, 401 Indians and, 372 of migrants from Vicksburg, 294

Mississippi, 291, 349, 356 Myths. See Ceremonies; Oral history

NAACP, 293, 305, 352 in civil rights movement,

301, 352 Mehserle trial, 428 in World War II, 292

NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 292–293, 301, 305, 352, 428

NAFTA. See North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Nagasaki, atomic bombing of, 274, 280 Narita, Judy, 403 National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). See NAACP

National Chicano Moratorium Committee, 371

National Conferences of the State Commissions on Women, 376

National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), 360, 362–363

National Farm Workers Labor Union, 338 National Guard, 307

King riots (1990s), 426–427 longshoremen’s strike and, 259, 260 in Los Angeles riots (1965), 355 at People’s Park (Berkeley), 368 in Watts riot, 355

National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), 260

National Irrigation Association, 221 Nationalism

American Party and, 144 in Brown Berets and, 371

Nationalist Clubs, 194 National Labor Relations Act. See Wagner

Labor Relations Act (1935) National Organization for Women

(NOW), 376, 390–391

National Origins Act (1924), 250–251 National parks, wilderness preservation

and, 414 National politics, anti-Chinese attitudes

in, 191–192 National Reclamation Act (1902). See

Newlands Act (1902) National trade unions, 177 National Wildlife Federation, 407 Native Americans. See also Farmers;

Vaqueros (cowboys); specific groups

acorn meal and, 11 Act for the Government and

Protection of the Indians (1850), 138

as agricultural labor, 27 Alcrataz occupation by, 373–374 authority of alcaldes and, 33, 45, 58 baptism of, 33–34 in California, 299 casinos of, 402, 413 Christianized, 32 citizenship for, 125 classification of, 6 concentration of, 5–6 conditions of, 46–48 conquest of, 34–35, 123, 183 conversion of, 44–45 corn meal preparation by, 44 (illus.) creation tales of, 1–2, 15, 23 criticism of, 48–49 cultural contributions by, 27, 49–50,

403 deaths from disease, 46, 82 differences among groups, 19–26 as disadvantaged ethnic group, 402 diversity of, 6, 12, 19, 341 European settlers and, 6, 12, 13, 18, 24 as farmers, 12 final war with U.S. Army, 183–184 foods of, 10–14 gaming vs. non-gaming, 402 in Gold Rush, 118, 119, 120–121, 123 governments of, 7 during Gilded Age, 183–184 Hispanicized, 42, 87, 109 independence of, 66, 70, 73 labor of, 27 land claims of, 340–341 land grants to, 79 legal situation of, 183–184 lifestyles of, 10–26 loyal to Mexico, 34, 42 marriages with Spaniards, 55 Mexicans and, 74–75 after Mexican War, 106–107 in Mexican War, 106–107 mission conversion to pueblos and,

73–74 mission system and, 49 Modoc War and, 165, 183–184 morality of, 18 during New Deal, 262–263 origin of, 6 overland trail travel and, 114 overview of, 28–29 paintings of, 17–18, 21–22 Pauma massacre and, 106–107

population growth of, 26, 434–435 post World War II, 340–341 prejudice toward, 26–27, 100 on ranchos, 73 rapes of Indian women and, 44, 46, 55 reactions to Spanish, 35–36, 38–41,

46–48 rebellion by, 99–100 “Red Power” movement and, 373–374 regional groups of, 19–26 relocation program, voluntary, 341 reparation to, 340 on reservations, 183–184, 341 resistance by, 103–106, 123 rituals of, 16–19 in Russian colonies, 87 Spanish oppression of, 59–60 Spanish settler’s encounter with, 40–41 Spanish social classification of, 26 Spanish view of, 26, 33, 45 spirituality/religions of, 14–16 sources on, 29–30 territories of, 10 (map) travel by early peoples, 5, 6, 12, 23 treaties with, 138, 372 tribal self-government and, 7 Vallejo alliance with, 83 violence against in the 1850s, 136–139 as work force, 27 after World War II, 340–342

Native American studies programs, 373 Native cultures, European views of, 41 Natividad, battle at, 104 Nativism

anti-chinese 186–187 anti-Mexican sentiment

and, 120 in Gold Rush, 120–121

Nativity (demographic) in 1800s, 158 (illus.) race and, 184, 185 (illus)

Natural disasters Bay Area earthquake and, 446 Northridge earthquake and, 424, 446 San Francisco earthquake and fire

(1906), 201, 216–218 St. Francis Dam, collapse of, 243 wildfires, 446–447

Natural foods, 407 Natural gas, 208 (illus.)

import of, 321 Naturalization, 339. See also Citizenship;

Immigrants and immigration Chinese barred from, 159, 192, 298

Naturalization Law (1790), Chinese American citizenship and, 298

Natural resources, 28, 29 reduction of, 407–414

Nature. See Environment Muir and Navel orange, growth of, 174 Navidad, 38 Navy (U.S.), White Fleet and, 212 Nazis 212

emulation in 1930s, 257 refugees from, 268

Neophytes, 46–48. See also Christianized Indians; specific missions

emancipation of, 73 fertility encouraged in, 54

Index I-23

Neophytes (continued) Indian converts as, 250 living conditions of former, 45, 50, 56 resistance by, 46–48 venereal disease epidemic among, 46

Neruda, Pablo, Murrieta legend and, 122 Neutrality, in World War I, 231 Nevada, 4

acquisition of, 101 Comstock Lode in, 149, 171 silver in, 171–172 TRPA and, 413

Nevada Bank, 172 Neve, Felipe de, 51, 52 Neve Reglamento (1821), 51–52 New Age spirituality, 458–459 New Deal, 261–263

Indians during, 262–263 Merriam and, 263, 264

New England, Nova Albion as, 3 New Helvetia. See Sutter’s Fort Newlands, Francis, 221 Newlands Act (1902), 201, 221 New Melones Dam, 411, 415 New Mexico, 6

acquisition of, 101 Coronado in, 38 missions in, 49 rebellion against Mexico in, 74–76, 99 resistance to Americans in, 105–106,

107 Spanish California rebellion, 49 trail to southern California from, 90 U.S. possession of, 108

Newsom, Gavin, 455 New Spain, wars of independence in, 59 Newspapers

black, 143, 214 Hearsts and, 179 Spanish-language, 294

Newton, Huey, 354, 356, 357 (illus.) New York Stock Exchange, crash of, 254 Nguyen, Jacqueline, 385–389 Nineteenth Amendment. See Woman,

suffrage Nisei, 288

movement out of World War II military zone, 288

after World War II, 340 World War II internment of, 283, 284 in World War II regiment, 288

Nixon, Richard as candidate for governor (1962), 331 disabled people and, 392 election of 1950 and, 327 Knight and, 327, 328, 331 red scare tactics of, 326–327 termination policy and, 374

Noncitizens, detention and deportation of, 336, 339

Nonpartisan elections, 191, 223, 234, 328, 338

No strike pledge, 314 Nonunion jobs, Hispanic workers in, 401 Nonviolence, 360

CORE and, 349, 352 postwar culture and, 343, 352

Nonwhites. See specific groups; Filipinos as,

Normal schools, for teacher training, 180–181

Norris, Frank, 165, 196 Norteños (northern Californians). See also

Northsouth war civil war against sureños, 66, 72, 75 de Alvarado, Juan Bautista and, 66, 72

North America, animal migrations to, 5 North American Aviation, work force

integration and, 292 North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA), 440 North central coastal mountains/valleys,

7–8 Northern California. See also specific cities

ignorance of, 53 Indians in, 6, 25, 123, 138, 183 industrial growth in, 313 lumbering in, 179 movement to, 6–7 rivalry with south, 69, 70–72 separation from southern California,

140–141 squaters, 140 water and, 316, 396, 411

Northern coastal region, 8 Northridge earthquake, 424, 446 Northrup, 277 North-south war, 124–126 Northwest Passage, search for, 36, 60 “No-strike” pledge, in World War II,

314–315 Nova Albion (New England), 38 Novelists, in 1930s, 266 NOW. See National Organization for

Women (NOW) Nuclear age, 280–282 Nuclear power, 280–282

Brown, Jerry, and, 415 Nuclear weapon development, in World

War II, 280–282 Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles,

founded, 32 Nut growing, 174, 214–215

Oakes, Richard, 373 Oakland. See also San Francisco–Oakland

Bay Bridge Black Panthers and, 356, 357 (illus.),

358 deindustrialization in, 405 federal antipoverty funds in, 354 Induction Center in, 364 liberalism in, 364, 372 Mehserle trial in, 428 port of, 442 voter registration in, 356

Oakland Voters League (OVL), 332 Obledo, Mario, 397 O’Brien, William F., 172 Occidental College, 180 Occupational segregation, 187, 391 Occupations (jobs), 391, 401. See also

specific peoples ethnicity and, 336 of Chinese, 113, 154, 177, 187, 297,

374, 401 of Filipinos, 256, 258, 298–299, 374,

402

of Japanese, 212, 401 of Koreans, 402 of Latinos, 402 of Mexicans, 80, 141, 212, 251,

360–361, 369, 401, 403 of Middle Eastern, 433 of Native Americans, 27–28, 403

Occupy Movement, 442 “Octopus,” Southern Pacific as, 168

(map), 196 Octopus, The (Norris), 196 Office of Consumer Affairs, 330 Office of Wartime Information (OWI),

303 Office workers, women as, 232 Off shore drilling, 419 Oil and oil industry, 214, 242–243. See

also Petroleum consumption reduction and, 408–410 dependence on, 321 in Los Angeles, 238, 241, 242–243 offshore, 321, 419 unemployment in, 254–255

Oil spill, in Santa Barbara, 409 (illus.) Ojai, Theosophical community in, 250 Okies, 238–239, 256 Oklahoma. See Indian Territory Old Age Revolving Pensions, 264 Older, Fremont, 206 “Old Spanish Trail,” 90 Olson, Culbert, 265, 266, 282, 283 Omnivores, California Indians as, 12 Omura, James, 284 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Kesey),

365 One Inc., 301 Online auction site, eBay as, On the Road (Kerouac), 344 Open primary, 457 Open shop

in Los Angeles, 234 after World War II, 208, 315

Open space, 388, 407–408, 413–414 restoration of, 407–408, 414

Operation Wetback, 336 Ophir mine, 171 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 280 Oral history, 12, 15, 29, 48 Orange County, class action suit by

Hispanics against, 297, 398 Orange growers, 174, 214, 221 Ordóñez de Montalvo, Garcí, 36 Oregon, lumbering in, 179 Organic foods, 407 Organic gardens, 407 Organization of Petroleum Exporting