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Articles on California Dream

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Once lauded for their vision and promise, Silicon Valley giants have made life so hard for locals that residents regularly protest the companies, including their amenities like charter buses to save workers from the region’s terrible traffic. AP Photo/Richard Jacobsen

Silicon Valley, from ‘heart’s delight’ to toxic wasteland

Big technology firms are becoming known for mistreating workers, customers and society as a whole. Is an economic powerhouse about to collapse like Detroit did years go?
Fires break out across San Francisco after the April 18, 1906 earthquake. USGS

California’s other drought: A major earthquake is overdue

According to current forecasts, California has a 93 percent chance of an earthquake with magnitude 7 or greater occurring by 2045. Early warning systems, now in development, could limit casualties and damage.
Suspected infestation of Macrophomina phaseolina, a “novel” soil pathogen, in the non-fumigated buffer zone of a strawberry field. Julie Guthman

Healthy to eat, unhealthy to grow: Strawberries embody the contradictions of California agriculture

California produces 90 percent of the US strawberry crop, but growers face curbs on toxic chemicals that have helped their industry expand. Can a system centered on mass production become more sustainable?
Worshippers depart a church service at the Crystal Cathedral megachurch in Garden Grove. Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

How California’s megachurches changed Christian culture

California megachurches played a significant role in how millions of people - Christian or not - understand Christianity.
Immaculate Heart College Art Department c. 1955. Photograph by Fred Swartz. Image courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles.

How a group of California nuns challenged the Catholic Church

In the ‘60s, a Roman Catholic religious order, the Immaculate Heart Sisters, created a new vision of a religious community. Meghan Markle, engaged to Prince Harry, attended the high school founded by the nuns.
Women shipfitters working on board the USS Nereus at the U.S. Navy Yard in Mare Island, circa 1943. Department of Defense

Rosie the Riveters discovered a wartime California dream

Thousands of American women moved west to take advantage of wartime employment opportunities during WWII. For some, this version of the California dream was temporary; for others, it lasted a lifetime.
A small – but powerful – Latino middle class has emerged in California, led by elites like State Senator Kevin de Leon. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Latino elites are paying the California dream forward

Scholars say elites are critical to helping ethnic communities thrive. So, who are the Latino elites and what work are they doing for their community?
Is the California Dream still alive and well? Ivan Aleshin/shutterstock.com

Imagining the ‘California Dream’

Millions of people have imagined California, but only one man was its historian.
Old West, as seen through 1967 Orange County eyes. Orange County Archives

Old West theme parks paint a false picture of pioneer California

Knott’s Berry Farm and others romanticize the state’s past and influence visitors’ sense of history. But their ideology reflects mid-20th-century political conservatism more than settlers’ reality.

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