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An article about California's political culture but only mentions Hispanics only once and doesn't mention Oakies or Asians at all. Methinks it might not be the

An article about California's political culture but only mentions Hispanics only once and doesn't mention Oakies or Asians at all. Methinks it might not be the most representative of California's political history. California is just California, and trying to apply an "Anglo" lens is dumb and ahistorical.

blast 2y ago
Agreed about the others but wouldn't the Okies be part of the Scots-Irish strain he covers?
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Not really. Much of Texas and Oklahoma was/is a cultural mixture of southern settlers, Central Europeans, Eastern Europeans, Hispanics, and Native Americans that turned into it's own culture. There's a reason why bock bier (eg. Shiner Bock), dryland farming (a Russian German thing), frybread (from the Bureau of Indian Affairs era), Cowboy culture (a merger of older Hispanic Ranchero culture with southern settler culture), etc became a thing in Texas and Oklahoma
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    There is to this day a Californio-derived "vaquero culture" in CA which considers TX-style "buckaroo" cowboys (who dally their lariats, have cow savvy pintos, etc.) to be a cheap knock-off. (and to your point about italians: I'm not sure but suspect the use of snubbing posts in round pens came via swamp italians. Also, don't forget the portuguese: not as prominent as on HI, but still pretty common, eg Devin Nunes)
    - nwatson 2y ago
      A huge number of towns in the Bay Area and all over the Central Valley have Portuguese community centers, Sociedade do Espírito Santo (Holy Spirit Society) or something like that. Santa Clara, Hayward, San Leandro, Pescadero, Sausalito, Newark, San Jose, Tracy, etc. I am missing so many. Members carry on traditional Catholic festivals, have community music bands, etc. I crashed one such party, it was fun. During my 20+ years in the Bay Area I listened to a lot of Portuguese/Azorean radio, so much that it corrupted my accent. I was born in the Texas of Brazil but I sound a bit like the British equivalent now.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > Also, don't forget the portuguese: not as prominent as on HI, but still pretty common, eg Devin Nunes Absolutely (though it's specifically Azoreans)! And to that point, stereotypes do not take into account the historic diversity that Central California has had. Mexican, Okies, Portuguese/Azorean, Italian, German, Czech, Armenian, Chinese, Punjabi, Russian, and other settlers had an outsized influence on the development of Central California. And this itself highlights how Albion's Seed does not generalize well outside the Eastern Seaboard (nor did Fischer intend for his work to be applied that way - he only concentrated on New England, Virginia, the lower Delaware Valley/Philly, and Appalachia, not on the rest of the US.
VoodooJuJu 2y ago
In order to truly understand this article, it helps to have read Albion's Seed. It's true that Spanish influence isn't taken into account enough in this article, but the article is still pretty sound in the importance it puts on Puritan and Borderer (Scots-Irish) cultural influence, as these are the two foremost cultural forces at odds with one another to this day, not just in California, but across the United States. The Okies in this case would be Borderers. And again, although we see other non-Anglo cultural forces, immigrants typically align and integrate more or less with either the Puritan or the Borderer ethos.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  The immigrants, in this case, were all the anglos who showed up after the original hispanic settlement, and filibustered their way into Statehood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Republic
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Also, Anglo (as in Anglo-Saxon) settlers aren't even that prominent demographically in California. Irish (eg. Kearny), German (eg. Haas, Levi, Sutter), Southern Italians, Russian, and Chinese settlers were much more prominent than Anglos during the frontier era along with the obviously large Hispanic population in a region that has been under Spanish rule longer than it has been under American rule.
- Gimpei 2y ago
  I haven’t read Albion’s seed, so maybe I’m missing something. But… I don’t see any evidence for anything in the piece. Just because you can make a narrative about the similarities between puritans and certain facets of California policy doesn’t mean that one caused the other. I could point out parallels between the puritans and Japanese culture too, or Venezuelan culture. This doesn’t seem like history to me so much as fiction writing.
  - VoodooJuJu 2y ago

blast 2y ago

Agreed about the others but wouldn't the Okies be part of the Scots-Irish strain he covers?

alephnerd 2y ago
Not really. Much of Texas and Oklahoma was/is a cultural mixture of southern settlers, Central Europeans, Eastern Europeans, Hispanics, and Native Americans that turned into it's own culture. There's a reason why bock bier (eg. Shiner Bock), dryland farming (a Russian German thing), frybread (from the Bureau of Indian Affairs era), Cowboy culture (a merger of older Hispanic Ranchero culture with southern settler culture), etc became a thing in Texas and Oklahoma
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  There is to this day a Californio-derived "vaquero culture" in CA which considers TX-style "buckaroo" cowboys (who dally their lariats, have cow savvy pintos, etc.) to be a cheap knock-off. (and to your point about italians: I'm not sure but suspect the use of snubbing posts in round pens came via swamp italians. Also, don't forget the portuguese: not as prominent as on HI, but still pretty common, eg Devin Nunes)
  - nwatson 2y ago
    A huge number of towns in the Bay Area and all over the Central Valley have Portuguese community centers, Sociedade do Espírito Santo (Holy Spirit Society) or something like that. Santa Clara, Hayward, San Leandro, Pescadero, Sausalito, Newark, San Jose, Tracy, etc. I am missing so many. Members carry on traditional Catholic festivals, have community music bands, etc. I crashed one such party, it was fun. During my 20+ years in the Bay Area I listened to a lot of Portuguese/Azorean radio, so much that it corrupted my accent. I was born in the Texas of Brazil but I sound a bit like the British equivalent now.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > Also, don't forget the portuguese: not as prominent as on HI, but still pretty common, eg Devin Nunes Absolutely (though it's specifically Azoreans)! And to that point, stereotypes do not take into account the historic diversity that Central California has had. Mexican, Okies, Portuguese/Azorean, Italian, German, Czech, Armenian, Chinese, Punjabi, Russian, and other settlers had an outsized influence on the development of Central California. And this itself highlights how Albion's Seed does not generalize well outside the Eastern Seaboard (nor did Fischer intend for his work to be applied that way - he only concentrated on New England, Virginia, the lower Delaware Valley/Philly, and Appalachia, not on the rest of the US.

VoodooJuJu 2y ago

In order to truly understand this article, it helps to have read Albion's Seed. It's true that Spanish influence isn't taken into account enough in this article, but the article is still pretty sound in the importance it puts on Puritan and Borderer (Scots-Irish) cultural influence, as these are the two foremost cultural forces at odds with one another to this day, not just in California, but across the United States. The Okies in this case would be Borderers. And again, although we see other non-Anglo cultural forces, immigrants typically align and integrate more or less with either the Puritan or the Borderer ethos.

082349872349872 2y ago
The immigrants, in this case, were all the anglos who showed up after the original hispanic settlement, and filibustered their way into Statehood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Republic
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Also, Anglo (as in Anglo-Saxon) settlers aren't even that prominent demographically in California. Irish (eg. Kearny), German (eg. Haas, Levi, Sutter), Southern Italians, Russian, and Chinese settlers were much more prominent than Anglos during the frontier era along with the obviously large Hispanic population in a region that has been under Spanish rule longer than it has been under American rule.
Gimpei 2y ago
I haven’t read Albion’s seed, so maybe I’m missing something. But… I don’t see any evidence for anything in the piece. Just because you can make a narrative about the similarities between puritans and certain facets of California policy doesn’t mean that one caused the other. I could point out parallels between the puritans and Japanese culture too, or Venezuelan culture. This doesn’t seem like history to me so much as fiction writing.
- VoodooJuJu 2y ago