I thought this story idea might appeal to your readers.
The notion that California is removed from the mainland is not new. A formidable mountain range and vast stretches of desert isolate the state from the rest of the continent and during the 16th Century that sense of remoteness was even more pronounced. The western edge of the US continent was unknown and therefore the landmass took a mythical shape.
The confusion began in 1510 with the publication of the novel Las Sergas de Esplandián by the Spanish author Garcia Rodriguez de Montalvo, who described an imaginary island bearing an abundance of gold and ruled by Amazon-like women whose pet griffins devoured surplus men. He called the mythical place California. Spanish explorers familiar with the tale applied the name to Baja, Mexico, when they concluded the peninsula was in fact an island.
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However this much is known, cartographers began producing maps with California as a big brown baguette detached from North
America by the early 1600s and widely circulated. Rumor has it, a Spanish galleon was seized by the Dutch and the map along with the contents of the ship were sent to Amsterdam. Dutch mapmakers accepted the map at face value and then began publishing versions of their own, until the Spanish crown debunked the concept in the 1720s.
The maps endured because they captured the imagination of collectors, when another kind of fortune began collecting them for their value and beauty. Among them was the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Glen McGlauphlin, who amassed 800 California as an island maps over a forty-year period, the largest collection held in private hands. When his map fever broke in 2008, Stanford University acquired the entire collection and began the process of digitizing them.
I can expand on the article by discussing why these maps mattered to explorers and how they serve as a metaphor for latter -day California. As for me, I'm an
When Spaniards colonized California, they invaded the native Indians with foreign worldviews, weapons, and diseases. The distinct regional culture that resulted from this union in turn found itself invaded by Anglo-Americans with their peculiar social, legal, and economic ideals. Claiming that differences among these cultures could not be reconciled, Douglas Monroy traces the historical interaction among them in Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California. Beginning with the missions and ending in the late 1800s, he employs relations of production and labor demands as a framework to explain the domination of some groups and the decay of others and concludes with the notion that ?California would have been, and would be today, a different place indeed if people had done more of their own work.?(276) While this supposition may be true, its economic determinism undermines other important factors on which he eloquently elaborates, such as religion and law. Ironically, in his description of native Californian culture, Monroy becomes victim of the same creation of the ?other? for which he chastises Spanish and Anglo cultures. His unconvincing arguments about Indian life and his reductive adherence to labor analysis ultimately detract from his work; however, he successfully provokes the reader to explore the complexities and contradictions of a particular historical era.
Alfredo Corchado — is the author of the book named " Midnight in Mexico:A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness”. We are, probably, all interested in finding out the facts, news, and gossips about Mexico. This country was always associated with something mysterious. For me personally, the title of the book seemed to be very gripping, I was interested in revealing the secrets of life in Mexico, thus I decided to read this book. I was really curious, what can Alfredo Corchado tell me about the life in this country, the country, where the constant massacre is the picture, people used to see. In his book, the author tells the reader about the real situations, which took place in Mexico, reveals the secrets of the people’s lives and tells the story from the “inside”. He describes the way he lives his life, and does his work. The " Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness” is a memoir. Author tries to transform his own experience into the story line. Corchado shows the reader the darkest episodes of Mexican society, while relying on his own experience.
The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly captures a Mexico in its true light.
Social science teaches that a person’s self identity is a reflection of that which other people put on the individual, in other words a person’s behavior steams more from what they see of themselves from someone else’s perspective and less from how they see themselves. In the case of the Mexicans, this concept holds true. From that, which has been studied thus far this semester, Mexicans/ Mexican Americans are good examples of this concept. Their sorted past has resulted in a new kind of Mexican American and perhaps a new kind of Mexican. Certainly the Mexicans American’s experience in this country has brought about some changes from the first generation of Mexicans who were born in this country to those who are born here now with native Mexican ancestry. Luis Valdez’z play Los Vendidos is a satirical commentary on not only the sociological concept of self-identity, but also the change that has taken place in the Mexican/Mexican American over the years. What is of particular interest is the meaning of the title of the play. The literal translation is the sold out ones, however a group known as Somos Raza, who are a part of Unión del Barrio (Liberación Exige Organaización), have a somewhat different interpretation of the word. As part of their ten point platform Somos Raza defined the word vendidos as the following: "We recognize Hispanic vendidos as those people who unite with the government and tell us to assimilate with the system - the very same people and system that is oppressing us."
He described how the harbors on the islands are “beyond comparison” and the mountains are again “beyond comparison with the island of Tenerife,” one of the Canary Islands (36). By comparing the islands with other locations known for their resources and beauty, Columbus is able to paint a picture of lands that are even more magnificent and worth colonizing. The picture Columbus is painting is of five islands with unlimited resources, vantage points, a harbor that can be a grand trading hub while all being surrounded by the beauty of Gods nature. His description makes it very difficult to pass up such an
Enticingly, the Spanish homesteaders came to this land with a passionate objective to develop the land and extract its natural resources for their profit. To this day, the Spanish's activities on this land has brought success and has propagated California to be the leading role in the advancement of new technologies and the creation of motion pictures. Notwithstanding of having this recognition, people seldom discuss on the origin of the land. When the Spanish came, the Indian are the occupants of the area; governing the land and surviving through the natural resources. As history is portrayed by the victor, the destiny of the right proprietor of the land has dependably been untold. Their once serene time has ceased to proceed as the Spanish
Maps altered, the American flag’s design changed and California ceases to be the third largest state in the United States of America. This would be caused not by a dramatic earthquake or natural disaster; instead by a proposition from Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Timothy Draper, who believes California is too large as a political body. In December of 2013 Draper submitted an initiative measure to the state proposing California be broken into six separate states that more accurately represent the politics and values of each area. To summarize part of Draper’s government initiative, America’s most populated state, California, has a population almost six times more than population median of the other states. But a large amount of the population is in urban and coastal areas. California has extremely large and vastly different economies, of course a result of that diversity is that the representation in politics has made the state almost ungovernable (Draper). Draper plans on carving California into the following states: Jefferson which will be at the northernmost edge of California and take some of Oregon with it, North California will stretch from Tahoe to Napa, Silicon Valley will encompass San Francisco and cities around it, Central California will be the only state without coastline, West California will be Los Angeles, and Southern California will be the southern tip and San Diego. With all these different states the plan is for each state to be very different and to allow people to choose the state they like the politics of. However, encouraging it might seem to have a government more accurately tailored to one’s way of life; it would not change the fact that this split would be an astronomically expensive decision and cou...
California was an exciting place to experience knowing that I could go to all of these ecosystems in one trip. Driving down the interstate you could see these gigantic mountains above the city of Fresno. Also one thing I noticed was how much of California is actually just farm land. The view above the plane was full of fields that were in perfect squares for farming. Realizing this I was actually shocked because I never knew how much of California is actually used for farming. Usually in movies you see, that are based in California, there are beaches and an ocean. Being in the western United States for the first time I was surprised also by how much desert there actually is. I’ve always heard people mess around and call California the land of “Fruit and Nuts” but it’s actually true. California leads the country in producing most of nuts in America and some fruits like strawberries and
Rawls, James. "California: A place, a people, a dream." California Dreams and Realities. Eds. Maasik and Solomon. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin: 2005. 11-17.
This week Tom Hothem, member of the Core committee and associate director of UC Merced’s Merit writing program shared his story on how he has made California his own. Tom explained that in order to understand yourself you have to understand where you live. Dr. Hothem created a great roadmap for his California story that showed his path to understanding himself and where he lived. Hothem used his own viewpoints and shared various author’s interpretations of California. It is vital that you understand where you live in order to accurately portray yourself. Tom uses literature from Californian authors such as Mark Twain, John Muir and Jack Hicks who explain their interpretations of California. Ones interpretation of California can be closely related
A very obvious colors on the map is blue which is represented to show a body of water. The green on the map is meant to represent parks and reservations. The green is scattered around the map, helping the reader understand that there are many parks scattered around California. The yellow is for urban areas, the yellow spots give you a good idea of where major cities are for people to visit. Black is used for roads, borders, and place names. The use of colors shows borders of the California, and it also shows contact regions. A thick yellow line is used to represent the border between California and Nevada to the east; and California and Oregon to the north. These borders lines and colors help the reader get a fell for how large the state is, and how close to the next state. The contact regions are represented by white dots.
Amerigo Vespucci is responsible for theorizing that the America was a separate continent and not a part of Asia. Before Vespucci made his famous voyages to the Americas he was the manager of all the Medici’s family’s merchant business. In 1493, all of Spain was abuzz with Columbus news of a new route to India (Which was actually America). Amerigo recognized the great opportunity and managed to get himself assigned to an expedition back to the Americas in 1499. He was likely the first European to see the coast of modern-day Brazil on this trip and, as a cosmographer, brought a scientific eye to the New World. The fleet made it back to Spain in 1500. After returned, Vespucci managed to gain the ear of the Portuguese king, and in May of 1501, he was at the head of a Lisbon fleet of three
The claim being discussed here is that the only way a map or a way of representing things can be useful is if it simplifies the knowledge that the actual territory gives, that is, if it reduces the salient i...
Aber, James S. “History of Maps and Cartography.” History of Maps and Cartography. N.p., n.d.
...chnology. The aspects of California are idolized by many Americans as well as various people worldwide. The ideas first introduced by California sparked imaginative minds worldwide creating not only a more developed America, but an extremely progressive world. Without the leadership of California pointing America in the right direction, the modern world would not exist as we know it. The aspects of California are implemented throughout different locations in an attempt to simulate the perfect paradise. California is “a place irresistible to visionaries from all walks of life who come to innovate, create, entertain, and accomplish feats that, in turn, go on to change the world. But dreams don’t just happen – they are made” . California is an extremely diverse state with various natural features, world-class cities, and attractions. California is the Land of Dreams.