California

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  6/1/2022
  

  Reparations Report Details 150 Years of State-Sanctioned Harm to Black Californians

  "It finds that the damage to Black communities is extensive and that a variety of intentionally crafted policy, judicial decisions and racism by private actors has created a widespread exclusion of Black people that has not been sufficiently addressed at any level of government."

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  5/18/2022
  

  John Mack Faragher on California History as American History

  John Mack Faragher's new book examines the rise of America's diversity and prosperity – and the conflicts attendant on both – in California. 

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• 5/22/2022
  

  California Isn't a Liberal Sanctuary where Asian Americans are Concerned

  by Hao Huang

  Anti-Chinese racism and violence has always been part of the nightmare underside of the California dream. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  3/17/2022
  

  Two Artists Unearth Hidden Histories of LA

  Devon Tsuno and Alan Nakagawa discuss the histories and daily life of the Japanese American community in Midtown Los Angeles, an area that has largely been erased from Angelenos' maps of their city. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/6/2021
  

  Black Family's Success in Recovering California Land Could Spark National Land Return Movement

  "Activists and scholars say there are other similar cases nationwide, but proving them — and getting the current property owners to cooperate — will be a different matter."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/25/2021
  

  What Slavery Looked Like in the West

  by Kevin Waite

  "Historians typically study Black and Native slavery as discrete systems. But America’s wealthiest slaveholders didn’t draw a fixed line."

• 
• SOURCE: Vice
  11/11/2021
  

  America's Only LGBTQ Historic District Is Falling Apart

  "Because of centuries of general anti-gay sentiment and laws punishing queerness, little queer history has been preserved, and much of it has been erased."

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  11/7/2021
  

  Pioneering Chicano Movement TV Show Reemerges after 50 Years in Garage

  On a recent August day, Frank Cruz, now 82, thought to himself as he had dozens of times before: “Pendejo, you better do something about those films. It might be too late.”

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• SOURCE: Orange County Register
  11/8/2021
  

  Cal State Fullerton Students Develop Public History Archive of Confederate Monuments

  The recent movement to reconsider Confederate monuments represents a kind of synthesis of public and academic histories with a moral component, which Benjamin Cawthra encourages his public history students to investigate. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/24/2021
  

  150 Years Ago, a Mob Attacked Los Angeles's Chinese Community

  by Reece Jones

  It's essential to understand white supremacy as a national phenomenon that defended the color line against multiple groups and linked white identity to the nation's borders. 

• 
• 10/17/2021
  

  The Fantasy of Hispanic Heritage Month

  by Frank P. Barajas

  Conceived by a Congressman to honor the contributions of ethnic Mexicans to American society, Hispanic Heritage Month is based in a mythical Spanish past that obscures the indigenous history of the west and legitimates the succession of power from Iberian to Anglo elites. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  10/10/2021
  

  How a Black Family Got Their Beach Back

  The historic Bruce's Beach case is inspiring social justice leaders and reparations activists to fight for other Black families whose ancestors were also victims of land theft in the United States.

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• SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune
  9/19/2021
  

  Local Professor Building History of San Diego's Japanese Americans

  San Diego City College professor Susan Hasegawa describes a public history project detailing the story of San Diego's Japanese Americans before and after internment, and a librarian who supported interned children with books and messages of support.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/15/2021
  

  Looking for the Gold Rush Town of Chinese Camp

  "Sucheng Chan, a retired historian and the author of more than 15 books on Asian American history, notes that this region, called the Southern Mines, was home to almost half of the Chinese in California in 1860," but that history is poorly preserved for visitors today.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  9/14/2021
  

  California Ski Resort to Change Racist, Sexist Name

  "In modern usage, the word "squaw" is considered to be "offensive, derogatory, racist, and misogynistic," the resort, formerly known as Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows, said as it explained its reasoning."

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  9/5/2021
  

  The Recall is a Test: Has California's Direct Democracy Experiment Failed?

  It's difficult to swallow the idea that Progressive era governor Hiram Johnson would have countenanced the idea that the recall system he championed could allow a minority of voters to throw out a governor who recently was elected with 62 percent of the votes cast.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  8/27/2021
  

  New History of Chicanos in Ventura County

  Historian Frank Barajas discusses his new book on Chicano activism in California's Ventura County with columnist Gustavo Arellano.

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• 8/29/2021
  

  Bigler's Gambit: How the California Gold Fields Gave Rise to Global Anti-Chinese Politics

  by Mae Ngai

  The Chinese Question and Chinese exclusion policies that circumnavigated the Anglo-American world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries grew in local soils, and shifted and evolved as it crossed the Pacific world and supported the consolidation of British and American power over global emigration and trade."

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• 8/22/2021
  

  In California Recall, a Tiny Minority of Voters Could Choose the Governor

  by James Thornton Harris

  The particularities of California's recall process create a dangerous situation where a minority of voters can choose the state's chief executive. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  8/4/2021
  

  East LA Bid for Independence Could Achieve a Key Victory

  by Eric Avila

  "The campaign for special district status would allow East L.A. to inch closer to the right of self-determination afforded to so many other Southland communities."