Prophecies of California’s imminent downfall, much like the state’s economic cycles of booms and busts, come and go. Amid a recession in 1993 such alarms were sounded by
Pundits and policymakers alike. Then came the dot-com revolution that dazzled and led the world. In January 2010, as a huge budget deficit, insufficient revenues, and a gridlocked state legislature further reduced government expenditures for education, state parks, and other services, Newsweek magazine published an article titled “California: America’s First Failed State.” This perception of a state on its last legs, however questionable, has made its way into the national media.
The Newsweek article gave no indication of how the Golden State compared to other states struggling to make ends meet in a down national economy. Put differently, the state’s epitaph may have been written prematurely, for despite the bad news, no other state matches California as an innovator and producer of wealth. This is why Nicolas Berggruen, a billionaire entrepreneur who travels the world calling no place home, in 2011 donated $20 million to the Think Long Committee for California that is working to break through the state’s political gridlock, thereby leading it and the nation out of the doldrums. “California, even with the troubles that it has today,” he said recently, “has this window into our future. . . . And frankly California will have an influence on the world.” No other state has a public university system that comes close to matching the University of California’s promise of “access and excellence.” The Stanford Report (September 5, 2001) newsletter stated matter-of-factly: “California’s universities and research institutions claim more Nobel laureates than any state or country in the world.” As noted, even in the nationwide recession beginning in 2008 California attracted more venture capital than all of the other states combined. The Golden State’s rare balance of economic resources, including ports, farmlands, high technology, entertainment/media, tourism, and the recreational economy is unequaled in America. If the world’s largest ocean basin continues to be the epicenter of global economics, and if the Golden State’s past offers any indication of its future, Greater California can be expected to remain the Pacific Eldorado.
SUMMARY
No state has been more integral to America’s ongoing Pacific shift than California. Surveying such areas as immigration, politics, the economy, the environment, and international security shows this to be the case.
In 2000 the majority of immigrants entering the Golden State came from Pacific Rim countries. Mostly Asians and Hispanics, these newcomers have made California the most populous and ethnically diverse state in the Union, while contributing immensely to its economy, culture, and politics. They have started myriad businesses, both hired and provided their own labor, and have paid taxes, all of which have added to the state’s economic health. Coming to the Bay Area from Chile, writer Isabel Allende applauds California’s cultural pluralism, especially its rich variety of languages and foods. Newcomers have shaped politics increasingly through voting and office-holding. Wedge issues like bilingual education and financial aid to undocumented college students galvanized Pacific Rim immigrants into a political force that helped lead to the 2011 passage of Assembly Bill 131. Also known as the California Dream Act, this measure made some funding available to undocumented collegians.
In addition to addressing Pacific Rim immigration, the state’s political leaders grappled with the fallout from the recall of Governor Gray Davis and his replacement by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. As a result of the new governor’s repeal of a measure to restore the full vehicle license fee and his unwillingness to raise other taxes, California’s infrastructure of schools, transportation systems, health care, and prisons continued its downward slide from past decades. While Schwarzenegger’s second term was ending in 2010, the most expensive governor’s race in American history began. With but a fraction of Republican candidate Meg Whitman’s financial resources, Democrat Jerry Brown won the campaign convincingly. Moreover, all of the highest administrative offices went to his fellow Democrats. In winning, Brown took over a state with a $25.4 billion deficit and 12.4 percent unemployment rate. Since his election, Brown has struggled to keep the government running in the face of meeting Proposition 13’s requirement of gaining a two-thirds legislative majority to raise taxes.
Though the state’s infrastructure stood at great risk due to structural impediments to its upgrading, California’s economy and political clout in the early 2000s rendered the state a colossus. A diversified economy powered especially by Pacific Rim trade and an unmatched high-tech sector have secured the state’s eighth-place ranking among the world’s wealthiest nations. At the same time that pundits speculated about California’s economic demise during the onset of a severe nationwide recession in 2008, the Golden State attracted more investment capital than all of America’s other states combined.
California’s nation-sized economy has spawned some major environmental challenges. Even with its compromised public sector, the state has established governmental agencies to monitor and protect air, drinking water, and its magnificent coastline from industrialization and urbanization. Particularly noteworthy is Assembly Bill 32, enacted into law in 2006, putting California in the lead nationwide in combating climate warming.
As the federal government shifts its focus to the Asia Pacific region, the epicenter of the global economy and sphere of influence of a naval-building China, California remains the nation’s foremost recipient of Pentagon spending, and San Diego serves as the principal home port of America’s Pacific Fleet. If the world’s largest ocean basin continues to be ground zero in the international struggle for wealth and power, and if the Golden State’s history is prologue to its future, Greater California is likely to remain the Pacific Eldorado.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
What is the meaning of the chapter’s title: “The Ongoing Pacific Shift”? What evidence is offered of such a shift in U. S. foreign policy, and how does California fit into this context?
In what ways do the life, works, and activities of writer Isabel Allende represent transpacific ties between Chile and California? Do you agree with her statement: “In California the only thing that isn’t tolerated is intolerance.” Why, or why not?
What evidence is offered for the deterioration of California’s infrastructure of schools, transportation systems, health care, and prisons?
In what ways may it be said that California remains a Pacific Eldorado, an economic and political colossus, in the early twenty-first century?
What are the major environmental challenges confronting the state in the early 2000s, and what is being done by government and citizens to address these problems?
FURTHER READINGS
Isabel Allende, My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey through Chile (New York: HarperCoUins, 2003). The author shares memories of living in her homeland, and in doing so occasionally but tellingly comments on life in California.
Mark Baldassare, A California State of Mind: The Conflicted Voter in a Changing World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Voters’ distrust of California’s government to handle the challenges of racial, ethnic, and regional diversity is the salient message of this book.
Mark Baldassare, California in the New Millennium: The Changing Social and Political Landscape (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). The importance of voter participation in California’s decision-making process is stressed in this study.
Margaret Caldwell et al., Pacific Ocean Synthesis: Scientific Literature Review of Coastal and Ocean Threats, Impacts, and Solutions (Monterey, CA: Center for Ocean Solutions, Stanford University, 2009). Written in language accessible to laypersons, policymakers, and scientists, this work provides a distillation of the latest research on the challenges, particularly that of global warming, to the Pacific’s various ecological regions.
Bruce Cumings, Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). This book is singular and path-breaking in its rebalancing of American history so as to give adequate scope to the Pacific world.
Steven P. Erie, Globalizing L. A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004). The author skillfufiy blends history and policy analysis to explain Los Angeles’ rise as a global city.
James Flanigan, Smile Southern California, You’re the Center of the Universe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009). Through biographical sketches, coupled with quantitative data, the author makes a case for southern California being an economic model for the United States and the world.
Alex L. Fradkin and Philip L. Fradkin, The Left Coast: California on the Edge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). The authors, father and son, provide engaging narrative and evocative photographs to convey the history of California’s littoral from the Spanish period to the early 2000s, with a strong focus on the environmental impacts of human settlement.
Gary Griggs, Kiki Patsch, and Lauret Savoy, eds., Living with the Changing California Coast (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). In a little more than 500 pages, this densely factual volume offers comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the natural history of every stretch of California’s coast.
Michael Grunwald, “Why California Is Still America’s Future (And That’s a Good Thing Too),” Time, 174/17 (November 2, 2009), 26-32, 34. This article makes a strong case for recession-ridden California being the most innovative and economically dynamic state in the nation.
Erik J. Heikkila and Rafael Pizarro, eds., Southern California and the World (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002). Aimed at academics, this compact volume probes the roles of filmmaking, religion, and immigration in creating southern California’s hybrid, globalized society.
Gus Koehler, California Trade Policy (Sacramento, CA: California Research Bureau, 1999). This monograph provides a compendium of trade information appearing in few other single sources.
Abraham F. Lowenthal, Global California: Rising to the Cosmopolitan Challenge (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009). This is an essential work that contains surprisingly little on the challenges to California’s Pacific-related economy and maritime ecosystem.
Abraham F. Lowenthal and Katrina Burgess, eds., The California-Mexico Connection (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993). An anthology of stimulating essays, this volume probes the ever-increasing ties between California and the nation on its southern border.
R. Jeffrey Lustig, ed., Remaking California: Reclaiming the Public Good (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2010). While analyzing the litany of problems facing California today, the contributing writers pay special attention to the state’s constitutional crisis that impedes so many of the solutions offered in this volume.
Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, eds., The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008). This collection of writings is especially strong on the international aspects of Hollywood filmmaking and marketing, with particular attention given to Asia.
Joe Matthews and Mark Paul, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). This book analyzes the historical development of the state’s major political and economic problems in the early 2000s and prescribes thoughtful, practical remedies.
Peter Schrag, California: America’s High-Stakes Experiment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). The author offers an incisive analysis of the state’s current problems while at the same time glimpsing the possibilities of recapturing the hope that California once afforded its people and the nation.
Kevin Starr, California: A History (New York: Random House, 2005). This is essentially a one-volume abridgement of the author’s preeminent series of books on California’s social and cultural history.
Kevin Starr, Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 19902003 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). Written with the author’s well-known eye for colorful, revelatory detail, this volume narrates the human impacts of California’s economic troubles and boom during this eventful time-span.
Roger Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, eds., Ethnic Los Angeles (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1996). This is a sociologically based history of Los Angeles’ ethnic groups and their communities that focuses largely on the second half of the twentieth century.
Kent Wong, Janna Shadduck-Hernandez, Victor Narro, Abel Valenzuela, and Fabiola Inzunza, eds., Undocumented and Unafraid: Tam Tran, Cinthya Felix, and the Immigrant Youth Movement (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, 2012). This important work highlights the role of student leaders in advocating for undocumented collegians.
Michael Zielenziger, “Chinafornia,” California (UC Berkeley alumni magazine), 117/1 (January/February 2006), 30-8. The cultural and economic impacts of Chinese immigration to California, and especially the Bay Area, in the early 2000s are traced in this article.
World History
