Читать книгу The Atlas of California - Suresh K. Lodha - Страница 16

Chapter One

Land & People

California enjoys the most distinctive and varied landscape in North America. It boasts high peaks and sunken valleys, live volcanoes and earthquake faults, rolling hills and lava beds, white water and level plains. Its climate is even rarer, falling between rainy northwest and arid southwest, with a Mediterranean balancing act in between. Coastal fog and alpine snow frame the scene. But nothing prepares the visitor for the astounding array of microclimates and regions, nor for the fantastic biodiversity nestled into the innumerable corners of the state. California’s unique landscape is the stage on which its rich history has played out, leading to claims of three, four or a dozen different Californias divided by mountain ranges, ocean vistas, and water politics. Without a doubt, the wealth of nature has benefitted Californians economically, but it has equally touched their hearts, making this the world center of environmentalism for over a century. Millions of people have been drawn to California since the Gold Rush, creating a state of permanent migration, both domestic and international. It remains an unsettled place in many ways, a mixing pot that never quite melds. Yet it has been a continual source of wonderment for the diversity of its people and the way they have carved out a way of life—and degree of tolerance and optimism—at odds with so much of the world. Not to be forgotten, however, is the dark side of this collision of peoples from many continents: a dissonant history of racism, repression, and annihilation of the native people. The lure of California has had many names: the California Dream, the Golden State, the Land of Sunshine. No doubt a favorable climate and hopes for the future have led people to our shores, but the foundations of the state’s allure are mostly practical: a thriving economy, lots of jobs, an open society, reuniting families torn asunder, and more. Once here, it is the people, their wits and their labor, who have built the California dreamworks. Few, however, wish to remember the failures and defeats, or simply the bent backs and unrewarded drudgery that mar the gilded image. California stands at a threshold today. The golden economy has lost some of its luster, inequality is growing, and the state is finding it hard to provide for the new Californians of this generation, the new majority of people of color. What we and they choose to do about it will tell if the Dream stays alive.

Immigrants protesting against US Congress Immigration Reform Proposal, Los Angeles, May 1, 2006.

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