What Happened to Stockton’s First Asian Enclaves?

How the City’s Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Manila Were Razed in the Name of “Progress”

What happened to Stockton’s first Asian enclaves?

In the 20th century, downtown Stockton established itself as a cultural and commercial hub for Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino communities in California’s San Joaquin Valley. But, over decades, misguided and racially biased projects deliberately destroyed this ethnically diverse and inclusive urban core.

Only recently have the city and state started to look into remedying the harm they did to the people of color who lived and worked in that five-by-five block of Stockton and made it home. This work, part of a larger national racial …

by Paul Ong, Chhandara Pech, Christopher-Hung Do, and Anne Yoon | June 15, 2023

The Banana King Who (Tried to) Put People Over Profits

1970s United Fruit CEO Eli Black Got Caught Between the Warring Ideals of ‘Social Responsibility’ and Shareholder Gains

by Matt Garcia | April 26, 2023

After the latest banking crisis, an old question has resurfaced: What should corporate executives care about, people or profits?

Hard-right Republicans contend that it was “woke” investment strategies of liberal executives—who …

A Mural Once Familiar to Thousands of Farm Workers Comes Home to the Coachella Valley

The Artwork, Commissioned by My Old Boss Billy Steinberg, Is a Reminder That There’s an Alternative to Today’s Brutal Agribusiness

by Doug Adair | May 10, 2021

This month, a mural once familiar to thousands of farm workers in the Coachella Valley returns home. It depicts more than just the vineyards and grape pickers at David Freedman …

America’s Most Productive Agricultural Region Is Also One of Its Most Diverse

Since the 19th Century, California’s San Joaquin Valley Has Drawn Farmers From Around the World

by Frank Bergon | August 8, 2019

California’s San Joaquin Valley is often dismissed as small and rural. To the contrary, it’s a massive area of farms, ranches, small towns, and growing cities, emblematic of the American …

Making Mom a Movie Star

Creating a Documentary About My Mother’s Work in the Fields Helped Me See Her in a New Light

by Janelly Martinez | April 23, 2014

On a typical morning, my mother, Camelia Maribel Sanchez, drives 15 minutes from our house in Coachella, a small city in the Southern California desert, to the bell pepper fields …

Cesar Chavez Was a Whole Lot More Interesting Than ‘Cesar Chavez’

Biopics Always Play Fast and Loose with the Facts, But This One Doesn’t Even Capture Its Subject’s Humanity

by Matt Garcia | April 1, 2014

Most great men have one. Malcolm X has one. Gandhi has one. Mandela got one last year. And now, Cesar Chavez has his.

The biographical film or “biopic”—like Cesar Chavez, which …

farmworkers