West of the West: Imagining California

West of the West: Imagining California

Conceived as a novelistic journey through the worlds of California, West of the West offers a vivid and diverse collection of writings on the state where extremes of every sort are dramatically evident in the weather, geography, and people. This richly fascinating collection represents the experience of California both physical and metaphysical, in fiction, poetry, essays, travel writing, confessions, reportage, and social criticism. The authors are native Californians, born-again Californians, exiles, émigrés, critics, and visitors of every kind―Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, Amy Tan, Simone de Beauvoir, Carey McWilliams, Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, Octavio Paz, Jean Baudrillard, Ishmael Reed, Allen Ginsberg―to name just a few. "Writing about the place that still calls itself the Golden State is impossible without reference to the counterpoint between the paradisiacal and the demonic, and this is nothing if not a splendid sample."--Peter Schrag, "The Nation Leonard Michaels is the author of The Men's Club . David Reid is editor of Sex, Death and God in L.A. (California, 1994). Raquel Scherr is coauthor of Face Value: The Politics of Beauty . West of the West: Imagining California By Leonard Michaels, David Reid, and Raquel Scherr, editors University of California Press Copyright 1995 Leonard Michaels, David Reid, and Raquel Scherr, editors All right reserved. ISBN: 0520201647 South of Tehachapi Carey McWilliams Southern California is the land "south of Tehachapi"south, that is, of the transverse Tehachapi range which knifes across to the ocean just north of Santa Barbara. Once this range has been crossed, as Max Miller has said, "even the ocean, as well as the land structure, as well as the people, change noticeably." In the political parlance of the state, Northern California candidates have always "come down to the Tehachapi" with a certain majority. In the vast and sprawling state of California, most statewide religious, political, social, fraternal, and commercial organizations are divided into northern and southern sections at the Tehachapi line. When sales territories are parceled out, when political campaigns are organized, when offices are being allocated, the same line always prevails. The Tehachapi range has long symbolized the division of California into two major regions: north and south. While other states have an east-west or a north-south division, in no state in the Union is the schism as sharp as in California. So sharp is the demarcation in California that, when statewide meetings are held, they are usually convened in Fresno, long the "neutral territory" for conventions, conferences, and gatherings of all sort. 1. The Region From San Francisco south, the coastline extends in a north-south direction until Point Conception is reached at latitude 34.30 degrees; then the line swerves abruptly east and the shoreline begins to face almost due south. Once Point Conception has been rounded in an ocean liner, once the Tehachapi range has been crossed by train or car, even the most obtuse observer, the rankest neophyte, can feel that he has entered a new and distinct province of the state. If Southern California is entered from the east, through El Cajon Pass or San Gorgonio Pass, the impression is even more vividly sensed. On the Pacific side, the coast range turns east. The mountains no longer shut off the interior from the sea. The air is softer, the ocean is bluer, and the skies have a lazy and radiant warmth. South of Point Conception, a new Pacific Ocean emerges: an ocean in which you can actually bathe and swim, an ocean that sparkles with sunlight, an ocean of many and brilliant colors. Here is California del Sur, the Cow Counties, subtropical California, the land south of Tehachapi. Physically the region is as distinct, as unlike any other part of the state, as though it were another country. But this separateness is not accurately reflected in county boundaries. Southern California, properly speaking, is one of the smallest geographic regions in America. It includes part of Santa Barbara County (the portion south of Tehachapi), all of Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange counties, and those portions of San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego counties west of the mountains. It does not include Imperial County, for Imperial Valley belongs, geographically and otherwise, to the Colorado River basin. Southern California is a coastal strip of land"the fortunate coast" as Hamlin Garland once called it275 miles in length and with a depth that ranges from a few miles to nearly a hundred miles from the mountains to the sea. The land area itself embraces approximately 11,729 square miles. As a region, Southern California is rescued from the desert by the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains on the east and is walled off fro