Northern and Southern California -- Cultural and Geological Differences
Unintentionally, the recent death of President Reagan combined with the growing media fixation on the celebrity culture of the Hollywood entertainment industry creates a juxtaposition between the two cultures present in California -- that of the conservative and wealthy enclaves of Southern California's Seamy Valley and Orange County, and the liberal and open attitudes typified by the Northern Californian Los Angeles movie moguls that gave Reagan the Democratic Party leanings he ultimately reacted to as a politician. Thus California is a paradox -- a huge state that is extremely wealthy, a magnet for illegal immigration, a cite of cultural ferment for the entire nation and the home base of Proposition 13 and the Reagan conservative social and economic revolution that took control of the nation during the 1980's. "California, in fact," seems "to be evolving culturally into a federation of regional autonomies as far as cultural value and lifestyles [are] concerned," notes even the state's official librarian, Kevin Starr. ("California: The Dream, the Challenge," 2001)
The pictorial and verbal images that make up the common images of California are similarly diverse as the state's geography and demographics itself. It has hard to believe, at times, they all pertain to the same state of the American Union. The summer of Love. The Beach Boys. Roller-skating gay men wearing nun's costumes. A place where the relocation of Rodney King's attackers could change the course of their trial. Salsa. Merlot wine. Today there have "emerged many Californias, at once distinct and integrated," rather than a clearly unified state identity. Even the state's populations are largely transplanted -- one in four Californians was born somewhere else. (Starr, 2001)
The diversity of these images can be partly attributed to the hugeness of the state of course. Its geographic and historical diversity as a territory drew Americans from the far reaches...
Sociology of California Department of Finance reported that California had 532,000 more people at the end of 2003 (Fulton 2004) than at the start of the said year. Nothing was new about population increase in the state since the Great Depression and World War II, during which the population added half a million people every year, growing from 6 to 40 million today. There are no indications that the increase would
Los Angeles and the Bi-Polar Economic System Los Angeles serves as a microcosm for the rest of the United States. Its cultural beginnings are a mish-mash of competing ideologies overrun by the same human failing that eats into the heart of all cultures: greed and excess. As Fogelson notes in The Fragmented Metropolis, such was the case from the days of the early missionaries to the rancheros who secured for themselves
A favorite target for conspiracists today as well as in the past, a group of European intellectuals created the Order of the Illuminati in May 1776, in Bavaria, Germany, under the leadership of Adam Weishaupt (Atkins, 2002). In this regard, Stewart (2002) reports that, "The 'great' conspiracy organized in the last half of the eighteenth century through the efforts of a number of secret societies that were striving for
Human Trafficking: Comparative Analysis of Human Trafficking in the United States with the World Stephanie I. Specialized Field Project Human Trafficking is a very serious issue that affects every country around the world. Human Trafficking is also known as "Sex Trafficking," or "Modern Day Slavery," which reflects the primary reasons people are bought and sold today -- sex trade and involuntary labor. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines sex trafficking as "the
My Community My Town My Community My TownLOCATIONLos Angeles city my Community my Town is situated along the coastal plain sandwiched between a hilly peninsula and two mountain ranges. Under the mountain peaks are valleys, rivers, ocean beaches, valleys, and canyons. Los Angeles city was claimed in 1542 by Juan Rodr�guez Cabrillo and established in 1781 under the Spanish governor. Later on, in April 1850, Los Angeles was incorporated as
Social Issue: Burgeoning Homelessness A prevalent and ever-growing social issue in my community is the problem of homelessness. According to the federal government’s annual report on homelessness, the number of homeless people in America has recently increased for the first time in eight years. The West Coast, with its warmer climates, tends to have greater homeless populations than elsewhere in America. Even though the economy in the nation is booming more
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