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Changing Life in California

According to Peter Schrag, author of Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's Future (New York: The New Press, 1998), the political, economic and social life of California has eroded considerably since the hey-day of the 1960s. California has gone from the envy of the United States and the world down to a stagnant, if not backward, California nightmare. This review scrutinizes Schrag's book for its actual, and sometimes over-exaggerated, significance to life in California and the rest of the nation. Schrag highlights two leading factors leading to the state's demise: the initiative process, and the changing demographics of the voters.

In 1997, 1,065 black American students enrolled at California's two most prestigious campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles; this year the number is 528. The number of Latino students enrolling has also fallen. Everyone knows why. Two years ago, Californians voted for Proposition 209. It prohibits race-based and gender-based preferences for, or discrimination against, individuals or groups in the state's education, contracting and employment policies. The state voted against affirmative action in 1996, and these university figures are the result (Schrag, 1998, pp. 235-239).

But the combination of these and other initiatives, starting with the watershed victory of the Proposition 13 property tax revolt 20 years ago, is indisputable. They mark the end of the Californian liberal dream, and perhaps even the end of American optimism about California.

The 'golden state' has always had this status. California was an El Dorado even before the Gold Rush drew thousands in the mid-19th century. The westward journey to a better life lay deep in the American experience long before John Steinbeck chronicled The Grapes of Wrath.

The optimism of the 1960s was based in reality. Jobs were plentiful and construction and innovation boomed. Post-war California was marked by huge investment in infrastru...

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Changing Life in California. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 02:59, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1697663.html