Voices of California

Driving over the Pacheco Pass into the Central Valley offers an awesome view of the vast central valley, the source of eight percent of the nation's food. Merced is a very pretty town of about 80,000 people, surrounded by rich farm and ranch land. The earliest settlers in Merced County were white Anglo ranchers, but there are also generations-deep Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, African American, and Latino communities, and more recent Punjabi and Hmong arrivals. We interviewed people from all these groups, but focused on the communities that have been here for several generations. While some of us focused on city residents, others spread out into the surrounding countryside, interviewing ranchers and farmers, who are themselves a diverse bunch, raising cattle, dairy cows, chickens, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

People were amazingly friendly and helpful -- from the directors and personnel at the Merced County Courthouse Museum to faculty members at UC Merced, to people we met in restaurants, stores, and street fairs. In the course of our two weeks there, we interviewed 85 people of all ages and walks of life. They shared their stories and their knowledge, and gave us a vivid sense of Merced’s past and present.

We found things we were expecting to find, like the fronted /ow/, but it was in Merced that we first realized that positive anymore has reached California, and that the distinction between which and witch is still around.

The contrast between Redding and Merced vividly illustrates the profound effect of the natural environment on local culture and, by extension, language. Where Merced is dry, Redding is wet; where Merced is grass, Redding is forest; where Merced is farming, Redding is lumber.

Redding and the surrounding country, is a world apart in California. The ecosystem sets this area apart from most of the state, and the small population density renders the area relatively powerless politically. About 42% of the land in Shasta County is covered by federally owned forest which, until a few decades ago, supported a prosperous logging industry. Since then, logging restrictions on federal land stemming from environmental concerns (particularly the protection of the spotted owl) have decimated the logging industry, and the main source of employment for Shasta and surrounding counties. As a result of this, along with water policies and more general regulation from distant areas, there is a pervasive sense that state and federal governments are not acting in the interests of the region. Our conversations with all kinds of people in Redding conveyed a sense of marginalization by, and alienation from, the rest of the state, particularly the coastal urban areas. And the ongoing settlement of the mildly affluent and retirees from these areas (“equity pioneers”) represents to many an increasing and unwelcome coastal influence on local life and politics. Shasta County resembles southern parts of Oregon more than the rest of California, and the sense of marginalization on both sides of the border led to a move in the 1940’s to secede from their respective states and form the state of Jefferson. Many people today still adhere to this ideal.

Shasta County’s considerable Native American population experiences a different kind of marginalization. The local Wintu bands are what remains of a once diverse Native American population. Massacres, the appropriation of land, forced boarding schools, and federal policies governing federal recognition, have created strife for Native Americans in the area. At the moment, only the Redding Rancheria has federal recognition. And while some groups continue to work for recognition, others (most notably the Winnemem Wintu, whose lands were destroyed in 1945 by Shasta Dam, consider such efforts a drain with little hope of success. (In the words of one person, “If we did that we wouldn’t have time to be Indians.”)

The earliest white settlers to Shasta County came for gold, and eventually settled into farming, ranching and lumber. (Dottie Smith’s website, ShastaCountyHistory.com, is a wonderful historical resource. ) With the growth of the lumber industry, the dustbowl brought migrants from the south – both African American and white. Where the white southerners, the “Okies”, settled all up and down the Valley, many of them found the mountainous north more congenial, and they have had a more profound effect on the area than elsewhere. They brought southern linguistic features to Redding speech, and we hear both the pin-pen merger, and the use of was levelling.

Love of space and the outdoors pervades the culture around Redding, and most people we talked to can’t stand the congestion of the Bay Area. While many young people from Redding move to urban areas for college or in search of employment, many come back. One person called this the “rubber band effect” -- something that pulls people back to Redding no matter how far they go. People have different explanations for this rubber band effect, but they all recognize it. One explanation is that Redding is an ideal place to raise a family. It is still a safe place where children can play in nature on their own, and where people are still wholesome and “innocent”.

We could also see history in differences among people of different ages. While the area was once solidly Democratic, it has become more conservative in recent years. And while it was a generally church-going area, the atmosphere is increasingly evangelical.