California Dream

The California Dream has been hacked in everybody's mind as the paradise on earth. Everybody in the world has at least once dreamt of going to California and live their dream. California is a prosperous land with beautiful nature, and last but not least, a land of opportunities. The California Dream consists of a big house with a beautiful backyard surrounded by a pictural landscape, sunny beaches and great acquaintances. But further than esthetics, Californian Dream prevails fast wealth and fame. California is perceived as a place of new beginnings where “working hard and playing hard” becomes a great moto. As once the historian W.Brands stated, “[...], California is the new dream of instant wealth, won in a twinkling by audacity and good

The American Dream is a commonly known theme among the general population today. It states that with the right amount of work any US citizen can obtain success in their lives. This idea was popularized around 1930 with James Truslow Adam’s book “The Epic of America” bringing about the idea that there is opportunity for everyone in America if they can work hard enough.3 This idea of the American dream however began much earlier than the 20th century. Rather it began in the west in the 1800s as US citizens gained the ability to cross the frontier and begin completely new lives, whether those lives became advantageous or not. According to the American Dream the western settler’s level of work, not race or gender, would determine whether or not he or she became successful. However this was not the case. The American Dream of the 19th century is disparate from the one known today. Unlike Adam’s “American Dream” of the 1930s, this western “American Dream” was heavily skewed towards white male, US citizen obtainment. This was because the main drive of the western frontier was for white male US citizens to profit from the newly obtained land and keep it for themselves thus fulfilling their new “American Dream.” In the mid19th century, economic opportunities existed in the Western Frontier of America, allowing people to go and accomplish their dreams if they had the motivation, but those opportunities were prohibitive for women, nonwhites, or non US

In George J. Sanchez’s, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles 1900-1945, Sanchez brings forth a new understanding of Mexican-American culture through the presentation of how the culture made substantial adaptations under limited economic and social mobility (Sanchez 13). Unlike other historians who studies the variations of Mexican American cultural identity from a national prospective , Sanchez creatively selects Los Angeles as his site of research because, not only is the city home to the largest Mexican population in the United States, but also because Latinos play a profound role in shaping the city’s culture. Growing up in an immigrant family himself, Sanchez undoubtedly has many personal

She is giving credit towards California with their growth but she still giving the truth. One of the documents that was chosen was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prevented Chinese people working. This would be a domino effect. The exclusion did not just stop there either, Ochoa also referenced the Japanese exclusion. This exclusion would separate the Japanese from “the white Californians.” The next document that Ochoa chose was a primary source from the Editors from The Los Angeles Times. In the document they are segregating Japanese from the whites and calling the Japanese “yellow people.” Ochoa is letting her readers know that people in California did not see minorities as people. Which was common all over

The future of California is pretty good, for the state is projected to see growth in almost every sector of the economy as well as the population, but there are many concerns that must be addressed first in order to see California’s growth come to fruition. International trade and business is one of California’s largest industries and it’s expected to continue increasing, for many emerging economies are also located off of the Pacific Ocean. Growth in the economy is good, but requires resources that California has a limited supply of. The main resource California always needs is water, since most of the state’s population resides in the southern regions, which are arid and receive minimal precipitation annually. The state is planning on improving efficiency and the aqueduct system to increase the water supply while decrease the environmental effects California’s aqueduct’s have on regions like the San Joaquin River Delta. For many years California has been considered a very liberal and left state, which is due to the fact that the state has the toughest environmental legislation in the country. With such strong legislation ensuring the protection of the environment California has become a model state in the fight against climate change, and must remain vigilant for there are numerous species endemic to the state that are found nowhere else on the planet. Though there are numerous other factors’ affecting California’s future these are some of the most interesting areas to

Behind the ideology of every person “proud to be an American” lies the major tenets of the quintessential American dream. The America seen today is not the same as it was 50 years prior, so how can one expect the central “dream” to be the same? In fact, each person has developed an opinion on what the American dream may mean for him/her. For one, the dream may still be the white picket fence still life from so many years ago, but for another, it may be the accumulation of riches and fame. In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, he shows us that Chris McCandless cared not for the quotidian rat-race that he had grown so accustomed to, but more about the intricacies that the natural world had to offer. I believe that although Chris McCandless may

Richard Walker in his California’s Golden Road to Riches, described California’s economic order as “prospector capitalism,” or “resource capitalism.” Walker quotes David and Wright (1997:1) in order to describe this form- “intensity of search; new technologies of extraction, refining and utilization; market development and transportation investments…” (http://geog.berkeley.edu/PeopleHistory/faculty/R_Walker/CaGoldenRoad.html, Walker). This statement has clear comparisons to Takaki’s America Errand as both put a large focus on economic expansion via technology, increased transportation, and market development. Similar to when Takaki’s argument that the land must not go to waste, in the four statements that correspond to the dimensions of the capitalist economy it is written that “nature…converted into ‘resources’ or nature staked, claimed, and commodified”

The class conflict between the poverty- stricken migrants and the settled, assured business occupied Californians make for a powerful analysis

Chapter 25: “All California quickens with produce, and the fruit grows heavy, and the limbs bend gradually under the fruit so that little crutches must be placed under them to support the weight.” (25, pg 346) California is deceptively beautiful and rich. There is food all around the starving masses, but no one can eat or touch any of

Unfortunately, a new life in California was not as ideal as they thought it would be. There were less jobs available than were advertised. In California, many farmers found themselves still unemployed. They gave up farming corporations when they discovered that a good portion of California’s farmlands were owned by large farms with various different crops and eventually they looked to do different work. (“The Dust Bowl” 2)

The first chapter of the book is an introduction to the economy, politics and people of California. It encompasses the economy, politics and demography of the state for the past, present and the future. The edition features updated demographic information of the state from the census that took place in 2010. The chapter explains the state’s transition from colonization to rebellion and statehood. It discusses California’s past, including the great depression, political turmoil, infrastructure, workingmen’s party and World War II. The growth, reform and progressive change of the state to what it is today is also highlighted in the book. California previously faced budget deficits

In the span of 50 years a lot can change especially when a power struggle began brewing between land hungry President James Polk of the United States and recently independent Mexico. California began its transition from the dominance of Spanish powered Missions to independent Ranchos. In Two Years Before the Mast Richard Henry Dana Jr explores the issue of race and ethnicity from an Anglo perspective in newly opened for trade to foreigners California. From the PBS website, one is able to learn about the Mexican American War of 1846 and the effects it had on the history of the United States and Mexico. Looking deeper into this topic one is able to discover Michael C. White’s testimony as a Mexican citizen of Anglo descent fighting for the United States. An important document that changed the course of history was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This document was an agreement between Mexico and the United States and whose certain provisions were then violated by the latter country. According to the Pio Pico official website, he was a victim of such practices as he went from being a prominent figure in society to dying a poor man. A few years after these events, according to the article Crime and Punishment: Los Angeles County, 1850-1856, crimes emerged against the now minorities. The 19th century proved to be a timeframe of big change for Los Angeles. It saw the rise and fall of Mexican power and the social, political and economic changes that came with these events. Race and

Both Ernesto Galarza’s “Barrio Boy” and Joan Didion’s “Notes From a Native Daughter” write about Sacramento’s past. Both authors talk about Sacramento during two different time periods. Joan Didion talks about the mid-century and Ernesto Galarza talks about the early 20th century. Although both author’s perspective of Sacramento differs from era to era, there are differences in certain characteristics described by both authors. Galarza’s essay focuses on an immigrant point of view arriving into Sacramento versus Didion’s experiences as a native decedent of Sacramento. Joan Didion’s Sacramento is a very different place compared to Ernesto Galarza’s , for him it’s an

The 1940’s inevitably signaled the beginning of the Mexican American civil rights era in the west as Mexican Americans rose to immeasurable heights in an attempt to terminate the de jure segregation they were unwillingly victims of. Their notable attempts to prove that they were worthy of the natural rights granted by the founding fathers brought light to the intense hatred shown towards Mexican Americans that was centralized in Los Angeles, California as

Thousands of migrants in the 1920’s - 1950’s envisioned Compton, California as the perfect place to settle down and ideal center for industrial workers. That vision did come true for white Americans, although it