Why California Keeps Repeating Junipero Serra’s Mistakes

Our Founding Father Showed Us Statewide Systems Don’t Work Here. More than Two Centuries On, We Still Refuse to Believe It.

If Californians ever figure out a way to bring Father Junipero Serra back from the dead, the first thing we should do is put him in charge of the state prison system.

In the California mind, Serra is the state’s founder, a great builder of churches, and, in more recent histories, the man whose system of missions killed, mostly by disease, thousands of the Indians he sought to save.

But, as a new exhibition at the Huntington Library and a terrific new biography by UC Riverside historian Steven Hackel should remind …

by Joe Mathews | September 12, 2013

I’m a Rare and Precious Baby. So Pay Me.

California Has a Child Shortage. And This Newborn Can’t Pick Up the Slack All By Himself.

by Sam Mathews | September 6, 2013

At the moment of my birth—a moment that occurred only last week—I was the most valuable child in the history of California.

That’s not merely the opinion of my proud father, …

The Beautiful Truth of ‘Fruitvale Station’

Do Not See This Movie For Its Tragedy But For Its Cockeyed, Utterly Californian Optimism

by Joe Mathews | August 29, 2013

In this state, our fictions are often better teachers than the truth.

The most significant California film in years is Fruitvale Station, based on the shooting death of a 22-year-old …

The Scoop of the Summer, Courtesy of an Imaginary Man

This Is the Era of Carlos Danger. But Victor Frisbie, Sportsman and Philanthropist, Would Have You Know That He Came First.

by Joe Mathews | August 15, 2013

This is a story about a Californian who died more than 50 years ago—at least if you believe what you read. And you shouldn’t.

I came upon the supposedly deceased recently …

Does L.A. History Include Humans?

The New “Becoming L.A.” Exhibit Shows How Much This City Lacks a Coherent Story About Itself

by Joe Mathews | August 6, 2013

We Angelenos were never supposed to be here.

In an 1868 essay considered so powerful it was taught to schoolchildren for a century, writer and economist Henry George predicted that California …

Let the Kids Squander Their Own Youth

Here In California, Holding Young People Back Is Almost State Policy

by Joe Mathews | August 1, 2013

There’s a nasty California disease spreading so fast that even our baseball teams have caught it.

Last year, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim kept their best player, then-20-year-old Mike Trout, …

Junipero Serra May Have Been a Saint, but He Wasn’t California’s Founding Father

For All His Religious Fervor, the Founder of the State's Missions was Out of Touch and Made Little Effort to Understand Local Culture

How Data Is Making California’s Water Wars Worse

An Explosion of Information May Allow Californians to Track—and Fight About—Every Drop

Kill the Fourth-Grade Mission Report

But Give California’s Kids a New Assignment: The Histories of Our 33 Public Universities

Our United State of Water

For Better and For Worse, Water Keeps California Together

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