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• 1 2015-10-19T03:14:38-07:00 ACT II 19 1880s to the 1920s plain 2015-11-11T02:58:24-08:00

      I wondered where the Ghost of California’s Past would take me next. I had been sitting in darkness for quite some time, so I was curious of what was to follow. To be honest, I was pretty excited for what was to come because although a lot terrified me, I had been learning a lot. Maybe I could use this extensive knowledge of California’s past to benefit me on my college essays. That way, my mom would know I wasn’t lollygagging in school like she always assumed I was.

      Like clockwork, I felt the Ghost’s presence creeping upon the still air. The deep, loud voice pulsed through the darkness. “Hello! It has been some time since I have last seen you. The last topic we went over was a little about the Rancheros in California.” I nodded eagerly and waited for him to continue. “Are you familiar with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, young one?,” the ghost boomed. I nodded weakly because although I had learned so much, the things that I knew before hand were still a little shaky. “Well to remind you, in 1848, the United States guaranteed citizenship to former Mexicans in relation to the Naturalization Law of 1790. It was meant to be a guarantee of security in property titles for former Mexicans despite different legal systems and standards of proof. (Ethington Lecture 9/24/15) I took in all the information and I was eager to continue on. “I will continue on and tell you about the U.S. Mexican Latifundia.The majority population in California were the Mexicans and the Californios. Anglos were constantly trying to enforce the conquest of Mexicans after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It just wasn't right and many history books don't touch on that subject. Californo came to be applied to upper class Mexicans, who were the rancheros who owned land. They styled themselves as more Spanish when they actually came from a mixed descent. However, throughout all of this, former Mexican citizens were treated very, very poorly.” (Ethington Lecture 9/29/15)

  A map appeared into my hands. It was hand drawn and appeared to be very pictorial. It looked very old, but I was instantly absorbed into the piece of paper I was holding. “What you’re holding is a Californio Diseno map. ‘It reveals stark differences in the perceived, conceived, and lived experience of Californios and Anglos vis-a-vis the Southern California landscape.’ (Ethington, Regime VI: U.S. Latifundia - Commercial [1848-1881]).”

      I was staring at the details the map was so carefully pictured with for quite some time until I realized that I knew more about the 1800s than I thought. I wanted to keep the conversation going in hopes that the Ghost would allow me to get back home sooner than ever. “Didn’t the Gold Rush occur in 1848?” I asked happily, hoping to earn some brownie points. The Ghost chuckled and said yes. “The Gold Rush actually begun nine days before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed between the United States and Mexico. On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill near Coloma, California. The ones who found it tried to keep it a secret because they wanted to keep the riches to themselves, but boy did that fail. On February 2nd of the same year, the Treaty was signed. 300,000 gold seekers came to California following this news between 1848 and 1852. Getting to California was really difficult. Overland and Cape Horn routes could take up to five or six months and it was very dangerous. Have you seen or heard of the choppy waters that flow through there? However, Panama route only took three months, but the same types of danger applied.” I had learned a lot about the Gold Rush before in previous classes, but I had never learned about any of the logistics. Maybe, I did. I was just probably not paying any attention, which I deeply regretted now.

      “Population expansion in California was massive. In 1849, there was about 90,000 arrivals. By 1855, 300,000 had arrived. Gold mining developed from individuals to corporations. It pretty much exploded. Small scale gold mining was extremely labor intensive. It involved placer mining, which involved planning and sluice boxes. You have probably seen a lot of stereotypical pictures of people mining like that, but it was really hard work. Large scale gold mining was really capital intensive. Hydraulic mining was extremely bad for the environment and was eventually outlawed. Hard rock mining was also implemented during this time. Everyone wanted to find a way to get their hands on the mining game because it made so much money. People really got power hungry and money hungry as well. ”

  As I nodded, the blackness started to fade and I immediately knew that I was about to be transported into an entire new world. I rubbed my eyes because the hot sun was in my face and I noticed my feet were in a sludgy mud-like texture. I looked around and there were little tents set up everywhere. An Asian man came up to me.  “Hello!,” he said with a thick accent. I smiled and shook his hand. “I am Lin. I must tell you about the Chinese during the Gold Rush, which is where you are right here. About 25,000 Chinese nationals came to the gold mines. We are such hard workers and we were willing to do just about anything to make a steady future here for ourselves. It was bad for us because the state legislature was really for the anti-foreign movement which was not only directed towards the Chinese, but other groups as well. In 1850, the Foreign Miners’ License Law was passed. All foreign miners had to pay twenty dollars a month. This law depopulated a lot of camps and injured a lot of foreigners who wound up penniless in San Francisco. The act was repealed the following year, but the Chinese did end up being the brunt of a lot of violence and hatred in California.” I looked at him with sad eyes, not knowing what to say.
  I closed my eyes and shut them tight hoping that I would be transported to a new scene. I could not handle all of the emotions I was feeling. Who would have ever known that California could be filled with so many bad things? I could not think of anything that could have been worse. My mind started to wander in one million different directions when I felt this strange sensation of heat coming close to my body.

      Flames sprung up in front of my face. The heat soon became unparalleled to anything I have ever felt before in my entire life. My lungs filled up with smoke and I struggled to breathe. The pitch black where I was once surrounded me again and as I was slowly able to feel better again. The ghost’s voice made the air tremble. “Well, you did ask what might be worse! What you experienced was a bit of the great fire in San Francisco that occurred on May 4, 1851. It was the biggest of the fires that had been constantly occurring in the city. A huge reason why the fires were so terrible was because the infrastructure of the city made it difficult for fire fighters to combat the huge flames. Much of the city was extremely affected due to the large fire walls that the city's set up made possible. Although the fires were immense, each one forced construction of the dwellings into something stronger. From canvas to wood to brick and then to iron."

  I could not imagine the beautiful San Francisco that I know in present times as being engulfed in flames. Seeing and feeling the heat of it all was too real for me. We really were learning so quickly and I only hoped I could remember everything so I could return back to my home.
  “The United States in the late 19th century was a developing country. Such rapid industrialization had money floating around, which was the perfect opportunity for corruption. There were new enterprises and the U.S. was dominated my companies. Employees were not paid so well and workplace safety was minimal. These factors led to the formation of unions," the Ghost elaborated, not giving me any time at all to recover from the fire I just endured.

      My environment slowly began to dissolve and changed to a different scene. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I wasn't home anymore and each new scene was so shocking to me. Another little Asian man that reminded me of Lin came up to me with a solemn expression written all over his face and it tore my heart apart. “Hello sir,” I told him. “Hi. There was terrible anti-Chinese sentiment towards the end of the 1800s. There were anti-Chinese riots in San Francisco from July 23rd to the 24th. White workers rioted against Pacific Mail Steamship Docks at Brannan Street. There were 20 Chinese laundries burned and a Chinese Methodist Mission was attacked. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was the first restriction on immigration by nationality since the founding of the republic. The sad part is that people wanted to keep it in place for years to come.” I reached out my hand to try to comfort him, but he began to fade away with the background. The searing image of his melancholy face would stay with me for the rest of my life.

      Before the peculiar darkness took over the scene, the ground beneath me began to shake and then it all calmed down.
  When I looked up, all I could see was smoke, ashes and bits and pieces of buildings all over the floor. I felt like I was in a state of shock when I heard a voice behind me that nearly made my heart jump out of my chest. “Sad, ain’t it,” a voice behind me said. I turned round and a serious faced man squinted at me trying to see through all the ash. “What you’re seeing is the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. At 5:12 A.M. on April 18th, there was a 7.9 earthquake. Water and gas mains broke, which wrecked the city. Approximately 3,000 people died out of a population of 410,000. Almost 300,000 people were left homeless and 80% of San Francisco was destroyed. It was a horrendous event because many people were placed out of work and many people's places of work went to ruins. ” We both stared into the vast disaster, speechless.
      The silence rang in my ears as the darkness slowly crept back. “Sad stories right,” the Ghost chuckled. “There’s more to come. However, we must speak of how California became a mighty regional metropolis. Oil, motion picture and aircraft allowed it to develop into a city that was big and desirable. The ambitions of the Otis Chandler oligarchy were greatly aided by commercial development of huge oil fields beneath the LA basin. By the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, industry shipping navies, heating and automobiles had constructed a large need for fuel, oil and refined gasoline. Also, with motion picture came great social power. California was the ideal place because it was cloudless and very versatile. Who wouldn't want to film in this beautiful, diverse and rich land? I may be rambling, but in regards to aircraft, LA had created extensive developments for military use.” (Ethington, Ghost Metropolis, Ab Urbe Condita Regime VII: US Industrial-Imperial/Porfirian Borderland [1881-1940])

      The Ghost was getting really bad at warning me before my destination changed. There was soon a dusty pile of bricks and a large oven looking machine. A tired looking dark skinned man wearing overalls was staring at me before he opened his mouth to speak. “It is 1919 and you’re currently at Simons brickyard. It might not look like it from what you see here, but the Simons bricks during this decade inevitably helped push mission revivalism forward. Us Mexican laborers looked for jobs that the brick industry provided. We worked so hard and the houses we rented for $3 and $4 a month had no foundations, electricity gas or plumbing. We worked 9-12 hour shifts and it was back breaking. It was sad because our children did not receive the same benefits as the Anglos and we didn’t want them to live out the same future as, but what could we do? (Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe).”

      I felt as if I was travelling through time once again. I was right behind a doctor arriving at a small home, but I do not think that he could see me. As he entered the 700 Clara Street home, which was not far from the Los Angeles river, he checked out the patient whose name was Jesus Lajun. The man’s daughter whose name was Francisca also looked painfully ill. I overheard her complaints of having a sore throat, a high fever and a head ache. Suddenly, the scene changed again and it was a frantic moment where they tried to take her to the hospital and she passed away. This was terrifying me and I felt my heart beating faster and faster. At this very moment, I heard the Ghost’s voice again. “There was a bubonic plague epidemic that struck Los Angeles in 1924. The case you just experienced was of the Lajun family. The plague was its last major outbreak of disease in the United States and nearly forty people died. It was very sad because the plague presented itself as a way to isolate Mexican people from Anglo neighborhoods. Rumors were circulating that Mexicans were dead and dying. There was a two week quarantine that eventually stretched out to include five urban districts. Some Mexicans even lost their jobs for exiting the quarantined region even if they were not sick at all. You would think that people would want to know more about this epidemic, but it was seen as a ‘Mexican disease.’ A Hearst newspaper chain did not want to cause panic and refused to print about the epidemic because it did not seem of interest to the city. People did not want to admit that there was a plague in Los Angeles.” (Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe) I could not believe a word he was saying. I had never heard about any of this and I was finding out that the more I knew, the more I actually did not know.

      This entire time was really depressing me. I felt so grateful to have the life I did. It all scared me. I was wondering if I really would ever be able to go back home.
  
  Works Cited
  Bancroft, Hubert Howe. The History of California (San Francisco: History Company 1884-90), vol. 6, 699. N.D. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
  Ethington. Unit 2 Conquest California Lecture.
  Ethington, Phil."Regime VI: U.S. Latifundia-Commercial (1848-1881)." Ghost Metropolis: Los Angeles from Clovis to Nixon. Accessed, October 19, 2015. URL: http://scalar.usc.edu/works/ghost-metropolis-2016/regime-vi-us-latifundia-commercial-1848-1881
  Ethington, Phil. “Regime VII: U.S. Industrial-Imperial/Porfirian Borderland (1881-1940).”  Ghost Metropolis: Los Angeles from Clovis to Nixon. Accessed, October 19th, 2015. URL: http://scalar.usc.edu/works/ghost-metropolis-2016/regime-vii-us-industrial-imperialporfirian-borderland-1881-1940?path=ab-urbe-condita-from-the-origins-of-the-city
  Deverell, William. Whitewashed Adobe : The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press, 2004. Accessed October 19, 2015. ProQuest ebrary.
  Genthe, Arnold. Great San Francisco Earthquake. 1906. Getty Images, San Francisco.
  Grabill, John C.H. Placer Mining. 1889. John C.H. Grabill Collection, Rockerville. Library of Congress. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
  NO NEW PNEUMONIC CASES. (1924, Nov 08). Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy1.usc.edu/docview/161568441?accountid=14749
  The effects of the san francisco earthquake on buildings. (1907). Carpentry and Building (1879-1909), (1), 183. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy1.usc.edu/docview/896298722?accountid=14749
  THE EXCLUSION ACT. (1889, Feb 12). San Francisco Chronicle (1869-Current File) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy1.usc.edu/docview/357145512?accountid=14749