They call California the Golden State. This is the state that your wildest dreams can come true. Coming from Iowa this is exactly what I was hoping to come and find out. All I have wanted to do since I was in junior high was to come out to California and live my dream. Now being here, experiencing what California is really about; I now know what everyone was talking about. I can come out here and be a totally new person. I can reinvent myself into whatever I want. I can be nice, mean, funny, depressed, or I could even change my name and be a completely different person. Along with this, the dreams and weather have brought me to the best state in the United States, California.
Ever since I was in junior high all I wanted to do was be in the movies, or be part of the movies in any way shape or form. Become someone famous or hang out with the famous people. The place where people always told me to come was out to the West Coast to sunny California! This is the state where all the action happens, where the movies are made, where the celebrity's come to be seen. Being from Iowa you don't get out a lot. I grew up in your All-American town. A small town called Orange City where everyone knows everyone. Everyone goes to church, no one mows their lawn on Sunday, and no one talks about drugs and alcohol. Drugs and alcohol are present in the community but people just don't talk about it in the open. There is also not a lot of film that comes out of Iowa. Although my town has made a couple low budget movies, none that are notable on any scale of imagination, are not lik...
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So far California has truly been the place of my dreams. I have been reinventing myself by being the best person that I can possibly be. Lopez says it best, "The most important thing I learned was that I could do just about anything I wished, within reason (16). That is exactly what I am trying to do now. Be the best that I can be. People always said that it is the best state to live in. I am here to say that so far I completely agree with them. Compared to Iowa I am in paradise!
Work Cited
Rawls, James. "California: A place, a people, a dream." California Dreams and Realities. Eds. Maasik and Solomon. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin: 2005. 11-17.
James J. Rawls perspective of the California Dream consists of promise and paradox. People from all over move to California in hopes of finding opportunity and success. However California cannot fulfill people’s expectations.
Through visiting La Plaza De Culturas Y Artes, I have learned a lot more interesting, yet, surprising new information about the Chicano history in California. For example, in the 1910’s and on the high immigration of Mexicans and other Chicanos, into coal mines and farms by major corporations, made California one of the richest states in the US. I also learned that most of California 's economy was heavily reliant on immigrants. Immigrants were the preferred worker for major corporations because they didn 't have American rights and were given the harder jobs for less pay.
Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust tells the story of people who have come to California in search
Los Angeles is a place with a dynamic history. It has grown to be one of the most diverse cities in the world as a whole. Despite the diversity for which it is known for, the city has always had a striving conflict due to racial and class tension. The social stratification of its past continues to take its toll as dividing lines persist in contemporary Los Angeles. Furthermore, these dividing lines redefine place in Los Angeles, whether geographically or personally, to be subject to race and class. Fluidity has become evident recently however it is more common for the identity of people to be fixed in society. Through the novel Southland, by Nina Revoyr, and various means of academic sources, one is further able to explore the subject of race, place, and reinvention in Los Angeles.
California, what makes this state so wonderful? Well if you were to ask any one east from it they might say it’s a party state filled with surfers and celebrities; where no is poor and everyone drinks wine. However, if you were to pick up Mark Arax’s book West of the West you would find the contrary. Arax goes beyond the clichés that California is known for and shows you, well, what is beyond just the west. Showing the true nature of California and its people, if you are one to think that California is a happy go’ lucky state then this would be the book to read to see the real California.
The author provides a couple of interesting evidences about land and liberty in California. The first thing that I found interesting is a story about Governor Echeandia and his administration. He arrived in California and formed study groups back in 1825. This actually got some young men involved and excited about the ideas of liberty and equality. An ironic fact is that male children born to original settlers and presidial soldiers maintained control over the concerns in California, which in today’s society is hard to believe.
During the late 1840's California did not show much promise or security. It had an insecure political future, its economic capabilities were severely limited and it had a population, other than Indians, of less than three thousand people. People at this time had no idea of what was to come of the sleepy state in the coming years. California would help boost the nation's economy and entice immigrants to journey to this mystical and promising land in hopes of striking it rich.
California, the place to turn cant’s into cans and dreams into plans. The same situation and scenarios apply to today and even over one hundred and sixty five years ago. Then and now are not so different, people are thriving or failing from the land of plenty, supplying themselves with knowledge, wealth, or skill to either spread their wings and take flight or crash and burn. Each state in the United States of America has a correlating nickname to either why it’s famous or an explanation of its history. California’s state name is The Golden State, and going all the way back to 1849 is why this was such an influential time for California and all of America. This is the period of the Gold Rush. Reasons why this event was so impeccable, to the development of California, are the years leading up to the discovery, the first findings, the journey, and so much more.
Monroy, Douglas. Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California . 1990.
...he rest of the world views California as the “ideal place to live.” However, if California continues to infringe the negative, discriminatory political view its immigrants, the “California Dream” will no longer subsist.
In the 1993 State level competition in History Day in California Elis Palols received the prestigious Heilbron Award given to the California Historical Society for this paper. In addition she was the CCHS second place winner in senior papers. At the time she was a junior at East Bakersfield High School.
The motivations of both the East Bay African-Americans and the Los Angeles Native-Americans in relocating to California were very much the same. For Native-Americans, the motivation was one of economic opportunity, where during WWII, there existed significant prejudice, discrimination and racism, and where reservation life, offered very little to no upward social or economic mobility. The reservation provided very little hope of obtaining economic or social freedom, and was plagued with alcoholism, poverty, and limitation, all issues that were very well known to those Na...
President Barack Obama won the election by a land slide, but this past Illinois senator was born and raised in Honolulu Hawaii, one of the best places in the world (Wikipedia, Honolulu). Hawaii is one of the best places and is going to be one of the best locations to move to. I really should move to Hawaii over staying here in Illinois. One of the Islands I would choose to move to is Oahu, whose nickname is “the gathering place” (City). I also would specifically prefer to live in Honolulu; I been there before and absolutely loved being there. Honolulu is an absolute great place to live, it has a fantastic selection of state parks around it and overall it is ninety nine percent better than Illinois (Kathie). The Honolulu city is seen by me as incredible, fantastic, and adventurous. There is that one percentage that Illinois has that makes me prefer to live there and it has some history as well.
After the end of World War I in 1919, a group of thirty Japanese settled in San Joaquin Valley, California making their ethnic community in Cortez. Despite the Alien Land Law of 1913, which prevented Asians from purchasing land or leasing it for more than three years, most of the families were able to establish fruit orchards in large land areas. It is this community that the author of the book conducted her research.
California, the Golden State, a place where people from around the world come to for the