California 
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SOURCE: Valley Public Radio
12/11/2020
UC Merced Acquires Photo Collection Documenting Farmworkers In The 1960s
Historian Mario Sifuentez discusses the photographs of Ernest Lowe and the activism of Central Valley farm workers.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
12/13/2020
Are Republicans Serious about a Secession Movement?
Richard Kreitner, author of "Break It Up," argues that calls for secession have been a regular feature of American political life, though they usually amount to criticism instead of action.
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SOURCE: New York Times
11/16/2020
Liberals Envisioned a Multiracial Coalition. Voters of Color Had Other Ideas
Since the dawn of the 21st century, it has become commonplace for party leaders to talk of a rising demographic tide that is destined to lift the Democrats to dominance. The party should look at the defeat of California's affirmative action referendum as a caution that things won't be so simple.
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11/15/2020
Affirmative Action Goes Down to Defeat in Deep Blue California
by James Thornton Harris
The defeat of California's Proposition 16 exposes some significant fault lines in the multiethnic coalition the Democratic Party hopes will support its future success.
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SOURCE: New York Times
10/27/2020
California Tax Revolt Faces a Retreat, 40 Years Later
Mr. Jarvis, who died in 1986, framed his campaign as a way to make the tax system more equal, but Proposition 13’s legacy has been the opposite.
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10/11/2020
Corporate Money Turns Democracy Upside Down in California Initiative Process
by James Thornton Harris
Intended as a tool to circumvent the power of big business in the state legislature, California's ballot initiative process has become yet another channel for the political influence of big money.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
9/20/2020
California finally sweeps away most of its tributes to the Confederacy. What took so long?
by Kevin Waite
California was home to a substantial secessionist community in the 1850s, and white migrants to the region in the early 20th century brought the Lost Cause mythology with them.
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/16/2020
52 Years Ago, Thelonious Monk Played a High School. Now Everyone Can Hear It.
Digitally restored and widely available for the first time on Friday, “Palo Alto” captures a band hitting a high note, even as Monk battled personal and professional turmoil. Historian and Monk biographer Robin D.G. Kelley puts the gig in context.
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SOURCE: City of Glendale (CA)
9/15/2020
Glendale, CA City Council Debates Resolution Acknowledging History as a "Sundown Town"
HNN contributor Jim Loewen encourages readers to watch the Glendale, CA City Council discuss a resolution acknowledging the city's history as a "sundown town."
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SOURCE: CAPRadio
9/13/2020
As Newsom Weighs Reparations Bill, A Scholar Has A Word Of Caution For California
An economist and leading scholar of the racial wealth gap urges California legislators to consider the bill as an effort at atonement, because full and proper reparations require a national and federal response from Washington.
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SOURCE: Slate
9/14/2020
Where Kamala Harris’ Political Imagination Was Formed
by Tessa Rissacher and Scott Saul
A Black cultural center in Berkeley introduced Kamala Harris to activism and the connections between culture and politics.
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9/13/2020
Prop 16 and the "Chinese Virus" Bring Two Views of Asian American History into Conflict
by Hao Zou
Many Chinese Americans oppose California's Proposition 16, which would reinstate race-based affirmative action in state university admissions. This support stems from a meritocratic interpretation of Chinese American experiences that is challenged by the xenophobic "Chinese Virus" discourse around COVID-19.
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9/6/2020
Will California Voters End a 24-Year Ban on Affirmative Action?
by James Thornton Harris
Voters in November may reverse California's constitutional ban on affirmative action, which was passed by ballot measure in 1996. The state's electorate has changed considerably in a quarter century and passage seems likely.
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SOURCE: New York Times
8/20/2020
For Japanese Americans, Housing Injustices Outlived Internment
After enduring internment, Japanese Americans were forced to resettle in a changed society with a dire housing shortage. The government's response was grossly inadequate.
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SOURCE: New York Times
8/21/2020
A Detailed Look at the Downside of California’s Ban on Affirmative Action
Ending racial preferences in a state university system harmed Black and Hispanic students while doing little to lift whites and Asian-Americans, a study asserts.
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SOURCE: Zócalo Public Square
8/19/2020
For 100 Years, El Monte Has Celebrated A Blatant Historical Falsehood. Why?
by Romeo Guzmán
The city of El Monte in southern California has embraced a false origin story--that the town was the end of the Santa Fe trail--to focus public history on white/anglo settlers and not the Native, Mexican, and Asian immigrant people who have also built the city.
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SOURCE: New York Times
8/16/2020
A Saint's Sins
Columnist Elizabeth Breunig consults historians including James Sandos, Robert Senkiewicz and Steven Hackel to evaluate how the canonization of Father Junipero Serra among Catholics and his memorialization by Californians squares with recognition of atrocities committed against Native Americans by Spanish colonizers.
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SOURCE: artdaily
8/12/2020
A Black Nurse Saved Lives. Today She May Save Art
Graduate student Laura Voisin George discovered an image of Biddy Mason, a Black woman born in slavery who became a founding figure in Los Angeles's African American history, in a set of WPA murals in an auditorium at the University of California-San Francisco. The discovery may help preserve the murals.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
8/12/2020
Kamala Harris isn’t the First Black Woman to Run for VP. Meet Charlotta Bass
Historians Martha S. Jones, Eric McDuffie and Denise Lynn identify the Los Angeles newspaper publisher and civil rights activist of the mid-20th century as a key figure paving the way for Kamala Harris and contemporary women of color in politics.
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SOURCE: South Bay (CA) Daily Breeze
8/9/2020
Manhattan Beach to Present Bruce's Beach History, Community Awaits Historians' Voices
Alison Rose Jefferson had been scheduled to brief the Manhattan Beach City Council about how to commemorate a stretch of beach historically used by Black Californians barred from other parts of the coastline. Her participation ended under disuputed circumstances.