California Literature and the Geography of Power

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay considers how California novelists have depicted the state as a locale of defeat – where, if you are on the wrong side of history, the land can be stolen out from under you. The first part of this article considers several early novels that address the 19th-Century power struggles of the state: The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta,, Ramona, The Squatter and the Don, and The Octopus. These novels reveal that the state was shaped by white supremacy, monopolies, suspect legislation, and discriminatory federal policies. The second part of the essay illuminates more recent narratives of dispossession in California, including If He Hollers Let Him Go, American Son, Under the Feet of Jesus, When the Emperor Was Divine, and There There. This study also incorporates theories of cultural geography, drawing from the writings of Alex Hunt and Hsuan L. Hsu, who make connections between space and power, and examine the processes and significance of regional transformation.