California History

Final Paper

One reason that California have been known as the Golden State is because of the influence of Hollywood. The well-known reputation of the entertainment of Hollywood has been showed the natural advantages of California, such as the weather, coast, and the natural resources. Also, the Hollywood shows another side of California, which is the world-leading level of technology companies. However, it is controversial to state that California is shown to the world by Hollywood. In fact, I prefer the saying that the history and the multicultural environment breed the great potential of the newborn Hollywood at the first place. While Hollywood shows the diverse cultures in California, it expresses in the influence of the California history by showing the images of different racial people in the films.

California have been a state of immigration, attracting people from the world to migrate the family and invite them to contribute for the development of California. It is fair to say that California was built by the people with different ethnical backgrounds. However, Hollywood has not been treated equally to the contributors with different races. White can be always be the lead of the movie. For example, a white actor can play the role with quality of richness, smartness and toughness. A non-white Hispanic actor can play the role of a billionaire, a drug dealer, a villain, a genius, and a special agent. However, Chinese Americans have the least if the scenes in the Hollywood films. Chinese Americans express a very stereotypical image of neediness, Kungfu, or weakness. In historical speaking, the Chinese were first shown in California in the event of Gosh Rush in the 1800s. The image of Chinese miners in Gold Rush is influent to the image of the Chinese Americans from Hollywood firms. It is hard to truly know the Chinese culture through the media. I doubt that Chinese culture does not assimilate to the society of California. In the Chronicling California, it pointed out that the Chinese culture was not quite “fit” into the California society: “the expulsion of the Chinese is not demanded on the ground that they represent cheap labor... they are regarded by the thoughtful as objectionable because they represent a substitution of unchangeable foreign and hopelessly unassimilative material for that which is malleable and assimilative” (100, Hoikkala and Wallis). Most of the Chinese miners had the strong responsibilities to support their families by sending the money to oversea. The loss of currency conflicts with the California society also indirectly caused the Chinese Exclusion Act later in 1882. Comparing to other immigrants, Chinese suffered the unequal treatments, which is why it is hard to see the Chinese cultures in the early Hollywood films.

While Hollywood has published some great firms about the World War II, it emphasized the victory of the United States, avoiding the fact that how the California government treated unfairly to the Japanese American after the Empire of Japan’s attack on the Pearl Harbor. The Execution Order 9906

According to the article “Hollywood has whitewashed Asian stories for decades. This year, they couldn't ignore the backlash” by Traci G. Lee and Lakshmi Gandhi, they

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/hollywood-has-whitewashed-asian-stories-decades-year-they-couldn-t-n830241

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-hollywood-film-talent-is-flocking-china-1124383