Fool’s Gold
Definition 1: A brassy yellow mineral, such as pyrite, that is easily confused for gold.
Definition 2, figurative: Something that, despite flashy appearances, is ultimately worthless.
California is one of the most mythologized of the fifty United States. Almost from the beginning of its statehood, it has been regarded as the American West’s crown jewel, an Eden where poor men and women flock for fortune, and where many more have their dreams shattered. It’s a mythos largely self-perpetuated by our famed film industry or by musical artists singing about California Dreamin’ and California Love.
Less celebrated or even spoken of his how we arrived here. As a schoolchild, California history was a brief lesson on the indigenous people, a Spanish Mission diorama, the Bear Flag Revolt, and the Gold Rush. In between the Gold Rush and the First World War exists over a half-century largely unwritten about in our textbooks and almost entirely ignored in our popular culture. Western films dominated Hollywood’s early years, but few iconic westerns touched California history. For states like Texas or Arizona, the wild west is a phantom limb they celebrate. For California, a skeleton we’ve buried under the I-5 Interstate. The little bit of our early history we do acknowledge is postcard PR that washes the blood and the bullets through the filter of mission architecture.
The goal of Fool’s Gold is, in a small way, to rectify this. It’s time unbury our frontier past. It’s time to acknowledge that there is no past. The thesis of Fool’s Gold is simple: California is the apotheosis of Manifest Destiny, a boom state on steroids. All of the darkest aspects of the American West, the genocide, the displacement, the violence, the robber barons, the desperados, all were tested and perfected here in California. California epitomized the 19th century dream of westward expansion, of get-rich-quick. It still does to this day. In the flocks of men and women hopping off the plane or Greyhound with stars in their eyes, you see the shadows of pioneers hoping for a new life. In the barrios of our cities, you smell the broiling carne asada the Californios feasted on in their adobes. In our homeless population you see the same wealth disparity and desperation of unlucky immigrants and impoverished Indians. In our law enforcement, the same acts of brutality in the name of state and property.
It’s time to mine the history of our state, no matter how ugly. It’s time to unlearn our textbooks, our dioramas, our dime novels. It’s time to stop falling for Fool’s Gold.
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