Feature Archives

Pre-statehood Alta California was home to immigrants from Europe and Latin America, although most of the population spoke indigenous languages and Spanish. In 1848, gold was discovered in the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. Shortly after, a young married couple arrived in California. They were Joaquin and Carmelita Felíz de Murrieta. White settler colonizers soon concluded that California had to become a part of the United States, although it was unclear whether it would be a slave or free state.

Around 75 people attended a vigil in Fresno on the evening of July 18 in honor of Vanessa Guillen, where a mural featuring her likeness had just been completed. The mural is one of a number of Guillen that have been painted across the country. As part of the Black Lives Matter movement there have been several murals painted around Fresno recently. Guillen was a 20-year-old soldier in the U.S. Army who was killed by a male soldier at Fort Hood, Texas, on April 22. Her remains weren’t found until June 30.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day when the Union army pronounced in Texas that all enslaved peoples in the United States were finally free. Among the many Bay Area protests this year was a thousand-strong march in San Francisco. In Oakland, the ILWU shut down the port before thousands marched through downtown. Santa Cruz marched in large numbers as well. In Palo Alto and Fresno, protesters painted "BLM" and "Black Lives Matter" in huge letters in the street.

Demonstrations continue around the Bay Area in the name of George Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis police on May 25, with tens of thousands taking to the streets. Police force has met protests in every corner of the Bay Area. Demonstrators say they won’t be stopping despite the risks posed by police attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic. Check out the full feature with coverage from across Northern California.

On April 3, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and after a nine-month moratorium on new fracking operations, California's Department of Conservation approved 24 new fracking permits in Kern County, the center of the oil industry in California. Fracking opponents strongly condemned the approval of new fracking permits at a time that the state is virtually shut down, and people are dying everyday from the COVID-19 virus.

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across the nation, activists are demonstrating urgently against the continuing detention of immigrants by ICE. The agency's detention centers are hotbeds for the spread of deadly disease to prisoners and personnel, potentially killing thousands. On March 31, protestors in California did their best to follow shelter-in-place rules by protesting in caravans, and covering their cars with banners and messages for Governor Gavin Newsom.

On February 28, the Westlands Water District signed a permanent water repayment contract with the Bureau of Reclamation to provide Central Valley Water Project water in perpetuity to the growers in the powerful, politically-connected water district on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, stated, “At a time of unprecedented climate changes and droughts we should not be circumventing the law and promising by federal contract far more water than actually exists to one large irrigation group at the expense of others.”