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On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a formal apology to California’s Native American communities.
Here’s more from my colleague Tim Arango about the apology and what it means:
In 1851, California’s first governor, Peter Burnett, told the Legislature to expect war “until the Indian race becomes extinct.”
Recounting his state’s dark history, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday issued an apology in front of a group of Native American tribal leaders on behalf of the state for a history of repression and violence.
Mr. Newsom, in an emotional presentation, recited a published chronicle from the 19th century that listed a tally of Indian deaths, including an account of a white settler who chose to kill children with a revolver instead of a high-caliber shotgun because “it tore them up so bad.”
“It’s called genocide,” he said. “That’s what it was, a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that’s the way it needs to be described in the history books.”
Mr. Newsom’s executive order amounted to what scholars and others said was the first broad-based state apology for past atrocities against Native Americans, although Maine has established a reconciliation commission, something Mr. Newsom said he was also setting up as a repository for stories and scholarship.
The governor’s proclamation is part of a cultural moment in which Americans are increasingly grappling with the nation’s past sins.
The possibility of reparations for slavery has animated the Democratic presidential campaign. The New York Police Department recently apologized for the 1969 raid on the Stonewall Inn, an event that became a rallying cry for the gay rights movement. And in California, Stanford has moved to erase the name of Junipero Serra, a Catholic saint and founder of California’s mission system, well known for its mistreatment of Native Americans, from a street and buildings.
In California, the academic Benjamin Madley, a historian at U.C.L.A., has been instrumental in sparking the conversation in California in recent years that led to Mr. Newsom’s apology.
Debra Haaland, a New Mexico congresswoman who is Native American, said: “Anything we can do to right past wrongs I think is meaningful. This country was founded on genocide. For California it was a lot worse because it happened so much later than it did for the rest of the country.”
Tribal leaders welcomed Mr. Newsom’s gesture, even as they said they hoped it led to more concrete actions, like improved education.
“It’s important because it’s a first step in a process that has been a long time coming,” said Abby Abinanti, chief judge of the Yurok Tribal Court. “We need to take a serious look as a state, as a country, about how we address these issues.”
A big question is what comes next, and whether a stab at reconciliation will lead to progress on other issues.
“So many of these Indian communities are obviously devastated by all sorts of problems: poverty, alcoholism, abuse,” said Jonathan Hansen, a professor at Harvard who teaches about justice after mass violence. “To apologize, does it mean we commit some money here? Are we going to put our money where our mouth is?”
Here’s what else we’re following
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• Facebook unveiled a plan to create an alternative financial system built on a cryptocurrency called Libra. The move — which is certain to draw a lot of scrutiny — is the biggest attempt yet by a mainstream tech company to get into cryptocurrencies. But Facebook is hoping to find new ways to monetize private interactions. [The New York Times]
• A day before the annual shareholder meeting of its parent company, Alphabet, Google announced that it would invest $1 billion to ease the Bay Area’s housing crisis. [The New York Times]
• Lawyers for the city of Sacramento and Stephon Clark’s children have reached a tentative settlement in a $20 million lawsuit, court filings show. [The Sacramento Bee]
• Representative Eric Swalwell said he wouldn’t seek re-election when he announced his run for president. So Aisha Wahab, a Hayward City Council member, said she’d go for his seat, which would make her the first Afghan-American elected to Congress. That’s all as long as Mr. Swalwell doesn’t change his mind. [The Washington Post]
• “Decades ago, in the courtrooms of San Francisco, I first uttered the words ‘Kamala Harris, for the people,’ and those words have guided my life’s work,” Senator Kamala Harris wrote in the first of a series of op-eds for Essence. [Essence]
• In a compromise, a bill aimed at curbing vaccination exemptions was revised to give state officials more oversight only of schools that have low vaccination rates and doctors who write a high number of medical exemptions. Previously, the bill would’ve required state health officials to consider every exemption. [The Associated Press]
• It wasn’t a Truffula tree — a Monterey Cypress, actually — but it was believed to have inspired “The Lorax,” Dr. Seuss’s 1971 environmental alarm bell. And last week, the tree, which had stood for decades in a La Jolla park, fell. San Diego city staff members said they couldn’t say exactly why. [CNN]
• Beached whales are washing up on the West Coast. The trouble now is figuring out where to let them rot. [The New York Times]
• Mission Pie, a beloved 12-year-old spot, is set to close, making it the latest casualty of San Francisco’s astronomical rents and costs of living. [Mission Local]
And Finally …
It’s Theodore Payne’s birthday. No, he wasn’t a founding father you don’t remember from history class.
He was, however, the founder of something else: one of Los Angeles’s early commercial nurseries, where Mr. Payne — who would’ve been 147 years old — developed a focus on wildflowers and native plants. Today, a foundation bearing his name carries on that legacy.
Kitty Connolly, the executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation, told me about how Mr. Payne was born in England and trained as a horticulturalist before making his way to California. One of his formative gigs was as head gardener at Modjeska Ranch, deep in an Orange County canyon.
In 1915, Ms. Connolly said, he developed what is believed to be the first public native plant garden: a five-acre plot at the corner of L.A.’s Exposition Park.
“With an Englishman’s eye for gardening, he saw a lot of ornamental potential in native plants,” she said. “He was a pioneer in doing this.”
Now, when large swaths of Southern California are blanketed with colorful blooms, the foundation’s wildflower hotline is a top resource for people who want to get the best view. And the organization’s website is a wealth of advice if you want to ditch your thirsty lawn in favor of more environmentally friendly options.
California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected]. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.
Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, went to school at U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
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