Articles in North America
The 1970s Transformation of California’s North Coast
The previous GeoCurrents post noted that Mendocino County remained in the Democratic-voting camp after California’s geopolitical transformation largely because it experienced a demographic transformation of its own during the same period. The first glimmerings of this sea change can be dated to 1957, when artist Bill Zacha settled in the coastal village of Mendocino and established an art center. According …
The 1980s Geopolitical Transformation of California
Recent GeoCurrents posts have examined the political allegiances of various parts of California, focusing on Mendocino County. Mendocino today votes strongly for Democratic Party candidates, although not overwhelmingly so, like San Francisco. Voting history places Mendocino squarely in the Democratic camp for many decades, as the county has turned to Republican candidates only in landslide years, such 1972, 1980, and …
Political Complexities and Contradictions in California’s Mendocino County
A GeoCurrents post last week highlighted the left-wing orientation of Anderson Valley in California’s Mendocino County, while noting that not all residents lean to the left. The same observation holds for Mendocino County as a whole. Recent election returns show roughly one-third of Mendocino voters selecting Republican candidates, including John McCain in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. As the election …
Mapping Heritage Languages
As discussed in an earlier GeoNote on religion in the United States, major patterns on a map often conceal more subtle – and often more interesting – configurations. A similar problem occurs with language maps: mapping a majority language often masks the extent of various minority languages.
Consider, for example, the issue of Heritage languages in the U.S. The term “heritage …
Alaskan Sovereignty Issues: Wrangles Over Wrangel
Sovereignty issues have recently been appearing in Alaskan newspapers. On February 22, the Alaska Dispatch noted that former U.S. senate candidate Joe Miller was lambasting Barak Obama for relinquishing control of several sizable “oil-rich” Alaskan islands, ostensibly because of the Obama administration’s hostility to the petroleum industry.
NY Times The Geography of Government Benefits Map
GeoCurrents reader Brett Lucas recently brought to my attention a fascinating interactive New York Times map of “The Geography of Government Benefits,” which shows the share of income in each county that derives from government benefits (social security, medicare, medicaid, etc.). Brett also makes some interesting observations about the map. As he notes, “In the Pacific Northwest, the counties with …
The Rebirth of Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk
The Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk languages, discussed in yesterday’s post, are at the brink of extinction, like most other surviving indigenous languages of California. Most estimations of pre-contact times place the number of Hupa speakers at about 2,000*, but some scholars think that the figure could have been substantially higher. Today the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, claims …
The Geographical Complexity and Linguistic Peculiarities of the Indigenous Languages of Northern California
The linguistic diversity of California is pronounced. Today, variety comes mostly from the languages of relatively recent immigrants, as discussed in an earlier GeoCurrents post. But pre-contact California could have competed with Papua New Guinea for the status of the most linguistically diverse place on earth. Pre-contact California’s 80 to 90 different languages were numerous enough, but it was diversity …
Religious Diversity in Northern California
Most detailed maps of religion in the United States depict the leading denomination of each country, as in the first map here. Here one can see a Baptist belt in the southeast, a Mormon region in the central part of the west, a Lutheran Zone in the center-north, and a vast area of Roman Catholicism spread over most of the …
Rural Cosmopolitanism in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley
An earlier GeoCurrents post described the food culture of a certain segment of the San Francisco Bay Area as exhibiting “cosmopolitan localism.” Such attitudes are not unique to urban areas in Northern California. In Mendocino County, cosmopolitanism takes on distinctly rural cast. In some of the most seemingly isolated areas, one can find pronounced cultural sophistication and global engagement.
Consider, for …
Terranova: The Black Petaltail - A Novel
Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development (5th Edition)
Globalization and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World (3rd Edition)
