Connections Among Californians - Essay Example

Connections Among Californians This paper is aimed to study the connections among the Californians on the basis of three related sources. As a starting point of our work we should say that the state of California is one of the most famous sates in the United States of America. It is often called “the Golden State” because of its mild and pleasant sunny climate, and also because of gold, which was found there in the nineteenth century. The Gold Rush appeared to be crucial part of the history of California. This is considered to be the starting point of modern division of the state into two parts. It is shaped the modern boundaries of the state and its economics. It was first inhabited by the American Indians; than the Spanish came there and then the representatives of the other nations started their invasion. California in its modern state is the most multicultural state in the whole country; especially we should take into account its capital - Sacramento. The flood of immigrants is a normal thing in California. This phenomenon shapes the base of the social system. This State is historically, politically and socially divided into the Northern and Southern parts which differ from each other. The state has changed throughout last century and that is not good from all the sides. In this work we used the information from the articles and books such as: California Northern in which the author depicts the connection among the citizens and their land. Bu it is better to study the inner life of the Californian cities with a help of the other work Where I Was From, which author shows the acute problems of the modern Californian society from the point of view of a citizen. And the last book we used to support our ideas is The Fragmented Economy, Stratified
Society and the
Shattered Dream where the author speaks about economic issues and the phenomenon of so-called “Californian Dream”. Generalizing the information from all these sources we got the following research-data. Today, the names of these parts of the state California are not justa geographical or political concepts. These words reflect the whole range of problems that characterize the development trend of economic and political life of the state and the country. Today, however, California is the most populous state of America which delivers congressional deputies often more than any other. This process is called "Californication of the USA." The very concept of "Far West" has changed. Now the West is associated not only with the "gold rush" of the 19th century, but also with the oil, and in modern time - with a nuclear and space business and computer corporations. Comparing the Northern and Southern parts, it should be noted that the modern California really pulled ahead in recent years. Between the 1940s and 1980s, in California there was exceptional, in comparison with the other States, increase in the amount of population and great rise of economics. It is quite obvious that such a giant leap in the quantity of population gave rise to many acute social problems, which currently are the most pressing concerns of the state government. Most of the new residents of the state are settled on the dry lands of the south, where the most important issue is the deficiency of water. Therefore, the current administration is considering California irrigation projects southern lands through their connection with the irrigational systems of the more central stated with more humid climate. The urbanization of the central region spreads on the lands that have long been the farming areas which fed the whole state. Now fertile lands are rolled into the concrete of the cities and asphalt of the highways. Joan Didion in her work Where I was from shows the whole situation from the point of view of a citizen, not a researcher. She speaks about how the state changed in a post-war period and how these changes influence the citizens of the state California. Didion describes the pathetic situation in which the Californian farming appeared to be. She writes: “The postwar boom years were the prosperous years when California "as it was" got bulldozed out of existence...” (Didion, 2003 p. 170). She also pays her attention to the issue of poverty which may seem to be odd in the age of social connections and high technologies, but the poverty still a big problem of California (Didion, 2003 p. 179). The attitude to these changes among the citizens is quite different. Some of them think that the urbanization leads to the better life of the farming regions; someone consider that the phenomenon mentioned above is leading to the "death of the states farming"; there also such people who dont even consider that urbanization is taking its place in the modern California. Some of the Californians are connected with their native land, with their houses and they do not want the initial parts of their lives to become an urban area, but not all of them are against these changes, Joan Didion cites the words of the California citizen and he says that he has a mixed feelings concerning the urbanization and the construction of the “Bonfante Gardens” (Didion, 2003 p. 174). It is well-known that the state of California is home to the number of people who belong to quite different nations, cultures and religions. This can be easily explained by such phenomenon as “California Dream” which appeared to be not less crucial than the Gold Rush. The “California Dream” is a quite many-faceted thing this can be described as the immigrants flood to the state in hope to find a better life-facilities and jobs. But this very dream is rarely come true. There is still a huge gap between the well-to-do citizens of the state and the newcomers. In general, in California the trend to the social stratification is quite obvious. The author of the work Fragmented Economy, Stratified
Society and the
Shattered Dream Kfir Mordechay considers that: "The 
entire 
Southern 
California 
region 
has 
been 
affected
by 
the
“Great
 Recession,”
the 
effects 
have 
not
 fallen 
equally 
on
 everyone. The growing stratification in the 
Southern California, including customized 
job training, 
government
 investment in
the infrastructure, targeted
tax credits, addressing China’s currency revaluation, and
addressing 
educational inequality" (Mordechay, 2011). Speaking about connections among Northern Californians the author of the book California Northern: A Meditation on Place, underlines that a lot of people make no distinction between the Northern and Southern parts. The identities of the citizens are connected by their land by many, sometimes even not the most pleasant, peculiarities of their native state; they are very proud of their famous wine-production company and etc. The author considers that: “A sense of connection and shared experience might better equip Northern Californians to face the regions multitude of growing problems” (California Northern: A Meditation on Place, p. 3). The issue concerning the connections and interrelation between the native citizens and immigrants is a very debatable issue in the present time California. The connections between Californians can be seen from different points. Some people are afraid of losing their jobs because of the newcomers, some of them just do not believe that the immigrants are able to make fortune in the USA and so they (the citizens) treat the immigrants more as slaves than as an equal Californians. So, we can speak about high rank of social inequality and even pressure on the immigrants, but still a lot of people from different countries come to California to make their California Dream come true. But there are still a lot of cross-cultural couples in the state which makes the situation better. Because of the great number of immigrants, who failed to fins or lost job, the rate of unemployment in this state is much higher than in the other ones. Speaking about the native Californians we rely upon the information from the book Where I was from, judging by the authors description we can conclude that the most acute point which unites all the Californians is their love to their native land and the phenomenon of urbanization which endangers the land but at the same time unites the people living on it.. In the California Northern: A Meditation on Place the author speaks about many problems which California faces every year, but which are not brought to the outside world. To sum up we should say that the appearance and the inner world of the state California has changed a lot during the last century. It is the most multicultural state and its problems are mostly connected with the number of citizens and the lack of water-resources. The main social issues that should be controlled are: the poverty rate, the issue concerning the immigrants’ employment (and also them being unemployed) and the constant and nonterminating and sometimes non-desired urbanization of the farming areas. All the works mentioned before, such as California Northern: A Meditation on Place; Where I was from and the Fragmented Economy, Stratified
Society and the
Shattered Dream are describing the different issues concerning the connections among Californians, economic, political and social situation of the state and etc. from different points of view which gives us an opportunity to discover all the peculiarities concerning the connections among Californians and many other related issues. Works cited California Northern. Retrieved from: http://calnorthern.net/a-meditation-on-place/ 27th November Didion Joan (2003). Where I Was From. Vintage; Reprint edition. Mordechay Kfir (2011) The Fragmented Economy, Stratified
Society and the
Shattered Dream. The Civil Rights Project. Retrieved from: http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/metro-and-regional-inequalities/lasanti-project-los-angeles-san-diego-tijuana/fragmented-economy-stratified-society-and-the-shattered-dream/labormkt-report-12-20-11-final-corrected.pdf 27th November Read More