Page 17 - 2022-2023 Travel Guide to California

POP
CULTURE
ICONS
California has long been embedded in the popular culture of the
USA and, indeed, much of the world. Among the pop culture
favorites created in California are the Frisbee, the Barbie Doll,
skateboards, fortune cookies and denim jeans.
native cultures. Of necessity, the Native Ameri-
cans started over in a bewildering new world.
In 1821, Mexico, with its remote northernmost
province, Alta California, wrenched itself free of
the Spanish Empire. In 1833, the missions were
secularized by the Mexican government and aban-
doned. Their buildings moldered, their pioneering
vineyards and olive groves were eventually over-
grown and forgotten. Not until the 20th century
were the missions restored and revived. Many
flourish today as redoubts of history and contem-
porary worship, handsome, evocative reminders
of the first major European presence.
The Gold Rush
Alta California grew slowly in its isolation. That
changed on January 24, 1848, with the discovery
of gold on the American River. The California
Gold Rush, beginning in earnest in 1849, gave
fortune-seekers a second—some said a last—
chance to make good. Half-a-million newcomers—
many from Europe, Asia, Latin America and
Africa—globalized California in a hurry. The
Mexican descendants of Spanish settlers—the
Californios, with their sprawling ranchos and
lives attuned to the slow turning of the seasons—
were swept aside, left to start over.
Many 49ers stayed on and found another kind
of gold: richly productive new lives in a place
where beginning afresh—personally, financially,
even spiritually—was already a common rite of
passage. In 1850, pried loose by the U.S. victory in
the Mexican War and accelerated by the Gold
Rush, California became the 31st state of the
United States. New Californians brought the new
Golden State into being, plowing its fields,
founding its great universities, building its cities.
California’s lustrous reputation was tarnished
on the morning of April 18, 1906, when a massive
THE DOLORES DEL RIO
mural on Hollywood Boulevard
depicts the movie star from the
1920s and 1930s, above, she was
one of the most important female
figures of the Golden Age of Mex-
ican cinema; buildings at the ghost
town of Bodie State Park, right;
Mount Whitney, the highest peak
in the continental United States,
below; Alcatraz Penitentiary and
Alcatraz Island in San Francisco,
opposite.
2022-23 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA 15