UC Press Blog

Many of us are now familiar with Dr. Bronner’s. Yet behind this now popular brand lays a larger story of California as an important site for reconceptualizing communities of belief and belonging.

Iris Jamahl Dunkle, author of "Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb," shares 10 intriguing facts about intrepid writer Sanora Babb — peerless author of midcentury American literature who was silenced by John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."

Every year the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) awards the Antonia I. Castañeda Prize to recognize historical scholarship that examines the intersections of class, race, gender, and sexuality, as it relates to Chicana/Latina and/or Native/Indigenous women. This year, hist

California History is pleased to announce the winner of the Richard J. Orsi prize for the best article published in the journal in 2022. The committee unanimously selected Warren C. Wood's “S. An-Sky’s The Dybbuk and the Process of Jewish American Identity in 1920s San Francisco” (California Histor

By Elaine Lewinnek and Thuy Vo Dang, co-authors of A People’s Guide to Orange CountyFormer President of the Western History Association Patricia Nelson Limerick famously wrote of California and the American West, “In a society that rested on a foundation of invasion and conquest, the matter of l

For Mother's Day, author Natalia Molina remembers her grandmother Doña Natalia Barraza, the impressive woman who opened the Nayarit restaurant in Echo Park, Los Angeles in 1951. The restaurant became an urban anchor for the local community of Mexican immigrants, offering a space of belonging in Los

By Tracy Perkins, author of Evolution of a Movement: Four Decades of California Environmental Justice ActivismGroup photo at the annual Ward Valley commemoration ceremony. February 24, 2018. Photo by author.Today, there is no nuclear waste dump in Ward Valley. This beautiful stretch of Calif

Adam M. Romero is Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell.The toxicity of pesticides to the environment and humans is often framed as an unfortunate effect of their benefits to agricultural production. In Economic Poisoning

By Mitchell Schwarzer, author of Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and DisruptionIt was the spring of 1964 and the sea air caressed my face as my father drove us along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. He pulled off to a rest stop. We got out of the car and raced to the shoreline. “You s

By James Binnall, author of Twenty Million Angry Men: The Case for Including Convicted Felons in Our Jury SystemIn 1999, when I was twenty-three years old, I caused a DUI wreck that claimed the life of my close friend. For that tragic decision, I ultimately spent 4 years, 1 month, and 6 days in