Where you from?” is the most nonconfrontational icebreaker—unless you happen to be from my chosen state. Recently, I was on a cruise through Alaska with my family, and a senior wearing a windbreaker and a mile-wide smile asked me that very question as we waited in line for the lunch buffet. I snagged two plates and handed him one. “I live in California,” I said. His grin disappeared faster than the jumbo shrimp. “I won’t hold it against you,” he grumbled. But he did. We loaded our plates without further exchange.
Face it: Everybody hates California. You don’t believe me? Check out how much anti-Cali merch you can pick up on Amazon, from “California Sucks” T-shirts to “Go Back to California” bumper stickers to “I Hate California” mugs. By the way, the “God Bless America (Except California)” throw pillow is handsewn. For those who want to belt out their contempt, there are songs titled “I Hate California” by Uncle Kracker, Dylan Brady, and Jonathan Coulton. The animosity isn’t new. According to a 2011 Public Policy Polling survey, California is the state most disliked by all the other U.S. states—beating out New York and New Jersey. And what’s more, Utah governor Spencer Cox couldn’t have made his sentiments any clearer when, in 2023, he told reporters, “We would love for people to stay in California instead of coming as refugees to Utah.” Huh? How could anyone despise the birthplace of Levi’s? Why spit on the very state that popularized the skateboard, the fortune cookie, the martini, mountain biking, and Hidden Valley Ranch dressing? Not to mention about 80 percent of the world’s almonds (thank you, Central Valley) and nearly 90 percent of U.S.-grown avocados.
This article appears in Issue 30 issue of Alta Journal.
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Look, I get the resentment for our eternal sunshine, majestic mountains, undulating deserts, glorious forests, wide beaches, and Brad Pitt. I do. But this anti–Golden State movement probably transcends envy of the topography and must date back further than the Oscars, right? I suspect the hostility ignited around the time of the gold rush, in the mid-1800s. “Go West, young man” may not have literally been an exhortation to relocate to California to pan for glittering metal. Still, the lure of easy money brought some 300,000 hopefuls here. Some got rich. Some got typhoid fever. But no matter the outcome, California became a proverbial promised land with prosperity underfoot. Not for everyone, of course: The rush to get rich prompted the genocide of thousands of the state’s Indigenous people.
To get a historical perspective on the vitriol, I call William Deverell, the founding director and codirector of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and an Alta Journal contributor. If anyone can help me better understand this negative bias, it’s a historian who has worked on more than a dozen books about the region. He thinks it may be the ones who didn’t heed the call of the ’49ers who first inspired this hate for our state. “Coming to California could change your life. You could get sick and die, or you could have a rollicking adventure,” he tells me, before acknowledging the rampant violence and racism of the era. “But the ones who went home had stories to tell that may have incited this envy and jealousy. You know, like 65-year-old Bob next door only talks about back when he was 20 in the gold rush.” Maybe Bob was nostalgic for San Francisco’s tangy sourdough bread, which some miners even baked in the same tin dishes they used to pan for precious nuggets.
Surely it didn’t help our reputation when California became a hotbed of the Holy Spirit in the 1900s with the arrival of enlightenment miners like Aimee Semple McPherson and Billy Graham, or when Paramahansa Yogananda left Kolkata and eventually relocated to Los Angeles in 1925 to popularize yoga and meditation. Om. In a country of squares, California went all cosmic and kooky. Cue the Hare Krishnas, Merry Pranksters, Wiccans, and Scientologists. Here, we trust psychics more than MDs. From the Ojai Valley to Marin County, we collect crystals instead of coins. It’s no surprise the naturalist and novelist Edward Abbey once said, “There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.” Amen, brother.
No doubt, our cities also invite the widespread antipathy for the state. Los Angeles, always prey to parody, has long been a punch line: Neil Simon wrote it was “like paradise with a lobotomy.” Frank Lloyd Wright noted, “Tip the world on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.” San Francisco, meanwhile, gets drop-kicked for its progressive politics, liberal elitism, and baby-faced tech billionaires. Both Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom have been shredded by Saturday Night Live—and countless conservatives. Sadly, the recent repulsive tidal waves of anti-immigration rhetoric have crested and crashed along our coastline. California is home to transplants from more than 60 countries, including Mexico, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and India. We’re a proud polyglot melting pot, which means our identity doesn’t align with a culturally narrow take on the United States. California is an acquired taste.
In all fairness, I also loathed California when I moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1999. The sun tried too hard. People smiled too much. I couldn’t be bothered to update my severe all-black wardrobe or socialize with people I regarded as too shiny, too happy. At parties, I would join the other smug Manhattan transplants to make fun of aspiring starlets in crop tops and slick, predatory movie producers. I refused to eat avocados or ride in a convertible. I chain-smoked at the beach. Looking back, I now know this superiority was rooted in insecurity. My move from the city that never sleeps to the city that goes to bed early for its beauty rest was career-driven. I wanted to pivot from journalism to screenwriting. My secret longing was to cruise around Malibu in a maraschino-red vintage Mercedes 560 SL with the top down. I, too, wanted to stake a claim.
It wasn’t until 20 years later that I sold a movie and then a TV show. (For the record, I drive a leased Mini Cooper.) At some point during those decades of struggling to sell a script, without an IMDb credit to my name, I realized I had a crush on California. It felt like the moment in a rom-com when the sarcastic leading lady finally figures out that Mr. Right is that “guy friend” who laughs at her dumb jokes. He’s been standing right in front of her the whole time. This state made a better woman out of me, too. I quit smoking. I learned to surf. I bought a little not-black dress.
My husband and I met in California, and we have since crisscrossed the state many times. We can hightail it to Palm Springs to get our mid-century modern fix or head to honky-tonk bars in Bakersfield for some country rock. We have camped beneath the stars in Joshua Tree National Park and mission-hopped from San Diego to Santa Cruz to Sonoma. But it’s really the human diversity we name-check whenever people ask us how we can live in—and love—California. Our daughter, now 14, hangs out with kids who look nothing like her. She speaks a little Korean and makes more quesadillas than sandwiches. Most importantly, she is empathetic because of her everyday experiences.
In this issue, we’re celebrating how a state bigger than the entire U.K. humbly inspires awe—whether it’s the waft of sizzling carnitas from a roadside taco truck or the sight of a condor overhead, with its near-10-foot wingspan. How do we love California? Let us count the ways with 26 unexpected and unique wonders. For me, this place is more than its natural, material, or edible offerings. I remain in awe of a state that is so goddamn gorgeous, it doesn’t have to be so goddamn nice but that, most of the time, chooses to be friendly and welcoming anyway. California is my soulmate because it encourages me to reinvent myself over and over again—and throws its arms around every iteration. My Brooklyn-bred mom moved here at 80 to start a new life. Guess what? She struck gold in a new set of friends, “hot doctors,” and better health. “This place wants me to win,” she recently said to me.
Not everyone feels the same way. In 2022 alone, more than 800,000 people left California, the vast majority to resettle in states, like Texas, that identify as hostile territory. There is still violence and racism. Add to that about 10,000 earthquakes per year in Southern California alone, pricey real estate, and high taxes. And yet, I bet that every day, someone feels, as I did, the divine power of our motto: “Eureka!” (It means “I have found it” in ancient Greek.) And echoing Deverell, I bet it’s the ones who haven’t come to California who are heaping the most scorn on our state. Joni Mitchell once said, “When I came to California, it was the mecca of the world. Every young person on the planet wanted to be here.” Tupac sang, “California knows how to party.” In my mind, those sentiments still stand. California is a land of awe, rife with gold—and everyone is invited to the party. Don’t hold it against us.•
Monica Corcoran Harel is a screenwriter with a media platform for women over 40 called Pretty Ripe and loves being middle-aged.
