Commentary
Demisemiseptcentennial. Try saying that several times fast.
On Sept. 9, we celebrate 174 years since California was admitted to the United States and prepare for its 175th anniversary—or demisemiseptcentennial—in 2025. Despite its over-the-top and often messy politics, I dig its good vibrations.
There’s something mystical and magnetic about California. It’s the Olympus of America and a place that defies simplicity while captivating the soul. The upcoming 175th birthday is a moment to reflect on what we want the state to be for posterity.
Sure, California is blessed with bounteous resources, breathtaking views, and an idyllic climate. But California is more than its splendor. Its birth as a polity marks a turning point in modern times, establishing a place where dreams and industry previously unrestrained propelled innovation fueling the globe.
California’s history is too complicated for anyone to fully grasp. Libraries overflow with attempts to untangle its many contradictions. Debates abound on the adverse experiences of native populations, from the American tribes who first called this land home to the Mexican Californios and immigrants from Europe and Asia that followed.
Yet the Gold Rush adventurers’ pick axes and Levi jeans exposed the world to the Golden State with its exploding mines and populations. The layers of California’s past are rich with stories of triumph and loss. The past is a haze of triumphs and traumas, and the future is just as unclear.
As Joan Didion wrote decades ago, “California has a long history of reinvention, with many people coming here to start anew.”
Anticipating the coming milestone, we must remember the components that shaped California’s character. Spanish explorers, the El Camino Real, and the missions they left behind laid the groundwork for cities that would grow into iconic cities and global hubs. San Francisco, despite its current struggles, inspires awe every time I cross the Golden Gate Bridge. Los Angeles—once a sleepy pueblo—became a city of dreams, its influence seeping into every corner of the world. As I grew up in Colorado, much of my music collection was rhythmic poetry celebrating L.A. Indeed, “California knows how to party.”
My Bakersfield native wife and I often cruise the 99 or I-5, soaking in the expanse of the Central Valley. This agricultural heartland, feeding the world, stirs nostalgia as we pass the Palm and Pine in Madera and marvel at the California Water Project snaking at the feet of the coastal range. These timeless drives remind us that California isn’t just beaches and urban tech centers—it’s farms and families, generations working the soil.
But California’s magic isn’t just found in its natural wonders; it’s in the people drawn here by dreams. From the gold-seekers to Silicon Valley’s coders, California has always been a land of ambition. Artists, engineers, and builders come here to create. The spirit of Eureka—the cry shouted on the banks of the American River—carried by the rebels and pioneers who made this state their home still echoes today.
Hollywood transformed California into the world’s entertainment hub. Today, the magic of the silver screen lives on devices in our pockets and on our wrists. These micro-machines conceived in Bay Area garages not long ago now stream content globally, building on California’s inventive legacy. My kids can’t imagine a world without video chats, a speed of change that would confound early explorers such as Cabrillo, Drake, or Serra.
California’s dynamism in culture, commerce, and civic life is unmatched. This has always been a land where identities collide, ideas flourish, and something new emerges. The results are complex, messy, and beautiful—just like the people who have always called it home. Toypurina, the Gabrieleño medicine woman who resisted the Spanish mission system 240 years ago, might have sensed the struggle for identity that still shapes us today.
Of course, California’s effusive challenges, woven into its DNA, simmer in our minds and boil in our hearts. The state’s brilliance bursts between chaos and a deep resilience. Remembering our past is crucial, for as California goes, so goes the nation. This is true in politics, policy, and culture. When life here feels overwhelming, the temptation to leave the grasp of its bounds is real, but one may never escape this hotel once checked in.
I appreciate naturalist John Muir’s sentiments as I reflect on the cacophony of life from my perch on the West Coast: “I kept my lofty peak for hours, frequently closing my eyes to enjoy the music by itself, or to feast quietly on the delicious fragrance that was streaming past.”
We can admire other places, but we should take pride in California’s unique identity and fight for its soul with the faith and civic virtue of those who came before us.
When I wonder how tomorrow could ever follow today, it just does.
Statehood couldn’t have happened to a better place. Happy Admission Day, California.
