California and the Struggle for Historical Memory

Katrina A. Templeton 
History 127AC, Fall 1998 
Professor Klein 
October 6th, 1998

I was born in a Valley town.

By Valley, I do not mean the San Fernando Valley, the Valley most non-
Californians (and even many Californians) think of when the term Valley is 
mentioned.  No, I was born in the far northern end of the Great Central Valley, 
the place that is notorious for springing up overnight. I lived my life in the 
shadows of the dormant giants of Shasta and Lassen and the sweltering heat of 
the summer, and betrayed it all for the seduction of the Bay Area and a 
college education.

I remember one day in seventh grade where it had started raining in the middle 
of lunch. This is in the middle of California's most recent seven year dry 
spell, which for me as a seventh grader meant it had been dragging on ever 
since I could remember. My math teacher, who had been around the school for 
ages, teaching thousands upon thousands of generations of students, made a 
statement which I will never forget. She said, "Oh you children of the 
drought. You can't even remember what rain is like."

With those two sentences, my teacher not only summarized what had been going 
on in our lives. As the waters receded, and the rains didn't come, Shasta Lake 
drew further and further down, exposing structures that hadn't been seen in 
almost a half century . The old highway, the old railroad trestles through the 
canyon, even the tower they had constructed to help build the dam were being 
exposed. With this sinking away of the waters came stories that we had somehow 
forgotten, and would be forgotten again when the rains fell again.

Richard Rodriguez sums up almost these same exact ideas in his essay, "Nothing 
Lasts a Hundred Years." Only his Valley town was Sacramento, not Redding, and 
the fight between the past and the present is a little more visible. In 
Redding, the history is buried under the sediment of time, and it takes a 
little exploring and a couple of drought years to find anything more historic 
than Shasta Dam itself.

Sacramento was once conceived as New Helvetica, a place where John Sutter was 
going to establish the pinnacle of human endeavour. However, it didn't quite 
happen that way, as Sutter's ideals and dreams were beaten back by Nature's 
little surprise, and the response to that little surprise of gold all around 
the world. Sutterville, New Helvetica fell to the ground dead, all of Sutter's 
ideals drowned out by the pouring in of prospectors from all around the globe.

Not many people know that's what John Sutter's ambition was. We go to 
Sacramento today and look at the fort and think what a great man he must have 
been to attempt to conquer the wilderness. However, I think there is a part of 
us that glances around Sacramento near Sutter's Fort and wonder if it ever 
really was a place surrounded by wilderness, or if the city was always there, 
with cars and telephone poles. It is hard at times to remember that California 
was once nothing but wilderness. And it is hard to remember that it was John 
Sutter, Jr. who picked up the ashes of his father's dreams and built a city 
out of them, a city today known as Sacramento.

Why is California like this? Why is everything thrown to the winds of time, to 
be remembered maybe once in fourth grade history? The missions are a prime 
example.  Mission building--it's a project every California fourth grader goes 
through, and I was no exception. My fourth grade teacher assigned me mission 
number 13--La Mission de Nuestra Senora de la Soledad. I only remembered its 
number and the word Soledad--I looked up the rest recently to prove to myself 
it really did exist. What did it matter to a fourth grader who lived three 
hundred miles from the closest mission? And why does it matter today to a 
nineteen year old struggling to find an identity for herself, for her state, 
for the world she lives in?

Historical memory is somewhat a contradiction in terms to a Californian, 
especially a Californian who grew up somewhere between Redding and 
Bakersfield, next to the Sacramento or the San Joaquin. There is on one hand, 
nature. The Valley summers are unbearably warm, and all the grass dries up. It 
is a miserable, depressing place to live. Nine-tenths of the year, it is 
dead--at least what is left to nature. There are a few sturdy plants such as 
the star thistle who somehow seem to thrive on the heat and the dryness. 
However, the plants that do live seem to be the hostile, prickly, star thistle 
type plants. Nature is not friendly to human beings out here in the Valley.

Nor, for that matter, is humanity friendly to preserving historical memory. 
One minute there's a dry vacant field that you and your friends used to play 
in when you were growing up. A minute later in the grand scheme of things, it 
is a strip mall where your kids always want to hang out. Nothing ever stays 
the same; nothing stays static. It rotates, a twisting kaleidoscope that 
threatens to take everything you remember and everything you once cherished 
and throw it into the dumpster of time. Nothing ever lasts a hundred years.

My little town is a place called Anderson, about eight miles south of Redding. 
It's just as easy to say I'm from Redding, because it's doubtful they've heard 
of my little town. But in Anderson, there is a historical society and a 
historical museum. However, I find it quite ironic that the members of the 
Anderson Historical Society are all old men and women, and most often they've 
never escaped the Valley, never left the town for anything more substantive 
than a two week vacation. Why might this be so?

I don't think the younger generation has time for history . They're so busy in 
the now that it is impossible for them to see where they've been and how that 
influences where they are going. The older generations have no idea what they 
are talking about, so the younger generation does not have time for it.

Perhaps this is especially true of those of us who are Californians. One goes 
back east and there's enough history to choke you. It is in the air, it is in 
the buildings, it is in the people. It is even worse in Europe. One look 
around you and you are immersed in history . But for California, being as far 
west as west can be, history has not had the time to catch up with now. 
History is being left behind, forgotten about, even tromped into the dirt. It 
is bleached out of our bones every summer when the temperature soars, and it 
is washed out of our blood when the seasonal rains come ones again.

This is California, the edge of the world. We are so busy looking forward to the
future for the rest of the nation, we do not have time for the ghosts of the 
past. After all, who wants to remember the tiny origins of Los Angeles, and 
the humble beginnings of San Francisco? Not when Los Angeles is the city of 
the future, and San Francisco feeds Silicon Valley and technological advance. 
History seems irrevalent when the future is today.

And perhaps this is what will eventually reawaken historical memory in 
Californians. The future will have to someday pass us by; indeed, there are 
indications it is doing so now. Silicon Valley isn't the only home to 
microcomputing and the Internet. Los Angeles and its suburbs grow ever bigger 
and more out of control, and technology may not keep up fast enough. Indeed, 
in the sleepy Valley towns, history slowly becomes more important, if for the 
simple reason people are starting to wonder who they are and what they are 
doing here. 

Who are we? What are we doing here? They are questions that have been asked 
countless times around the world, when a society finally comes off its 
mountain peak and out of its leadership roles and starts to evaluate what has 
been done. It is history plain and simple, it is Father Serra and John Sutter 
and all those other characters who make California history so intimately 
fascinating if it is studied.

I was born in the valley. I grew up in the valley, in the sweltering heat of a 
hundred years. I survived the seven year drought and was fascinated reading in 
the paper of how they were using the old highway bridge as a boat ramp. It 
makes for a different story when the lake is full and you know what lies 
beneath those waters because you've seen it. And it makes a playdoh 
constructed mission that couldn't be touched for fear it would fall apart into 
something even bigger. It has made me a history major, in the off chance that 
I will be keeping something burning until my fellow statespeople wake up.

Nothing lasts a hundred years--that is nothing but the weight and impact of 
history that happens while it is being ignored. It gives me wonderful pleasure 
to realize that something will last a hundred years, and that I will have a 
hand in it. Perhaps it will be me who "watches the world wake up from history."