The Academy Awards are one of the most recognizable cultural events in the world—but their origins reveal a much deeper story about Hollywood, labor, and the development of California’s film industry.

In this episode of the History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox speaks with film scholar Dr. Monica Sandler about the origins and evolution of the Academy Awards. Dr. Sandler is the author of the forthcoming book The Oscar Industry: Creative Labor, Cultural Production, and the Awards System in Media Industry, which explores how awards function within the media economy and how recognition shapes creative labor in Hollywood.

The conversation traces the Academy’s founding in the late 1920s, when Hollywood studios were grappling with censorship controversies, labor tensions, and questions about whether film should be treated as an art form. What began as an industry organization meant to manage these pressures eventually developed into the Oscars—an annual spectacle that helps shape careers, cultural prestige, and the global film marketplace.

Jordan and Dr. Sandler also explore the political and social dimensions of Oscar history, including the complicated legacy of Hattie McDaniel’s historic 1940 win, the relationship between awards and labor in Hollywood, and the modern ecosystem of guild awards, campaigns, and media coverage that now make up “awards season.”

If you’ve ever wondered how the Oscars became Hollywood’s biggest night—or what they reveal about the film industry itself—this episode offers a fascinating historical perspective.

In this episode of The History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox speaks with historian John Boessenecker about his new book, Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta: The Bandit Chief Who Terrorized California and Launched the Legend of Zorro.

Long remembered as a Robin Hood–like folk hero — and often portrayed as a symbol of resistance against Anglo oppression — Joaquin Murrieta has occupied a powerful place in California’s cultural imagination. But Boessenecker argues that nearly everything most people believe about Murrieta comes not from history, but from fiction, folklore, and deeply flawed research traditions.

The conversation explores how Murrieta’s legend was shaped by nineteenth-century writers like John Rollin Ridge, later amplified by twentieth-century folklorists, and repeatedly disconnected from primary evidence. Boessenecker explains how modern access to digitized newspapers and archival records allows historians to reconstruct what Murrieta actually did — including acts of extraordinary violence — and why earlier generations so often failed to distinguish myth from fact.

Beyond Murrieta himself, this episode offers a stark portrait of Gold Rush–era California as one of the most violent societies in American history, shaped by racial exclusion, vigilante justice, and a blurred line between criminals and lawmen.

In this episode of the History of California Podcast, Jordan Mattox continues his series on the history of Chinese Californians by confronting one of the darkest chapters in the state’s past: the age of exclusion and anti-Chinese violence. Moving beyond the well-known Chinese Exclusion Act, this episode examines the vigilante terror, mob brutality, and legal indifference that paved the way for federal immigration restriction.

Jordan recounts the horrific 1871 Los Angeles massacre, in which a mob comprising nearly 10% of the city’s population lynched 18 Chinese residents after a shootout between rival associations spiraled into racial hysteria. He then takes listeners to Truckee in 1876, where arson attacks, gunfire, and courtroom acquittals demonstrated how deeply white supremacy shaped local justice. These were not isolated incidents but part of a broader climate of scapegoating, economic anxiety, and organized anti-Chinese activism.

The episode also situates California’s racial hostility within a national and international framework. From the Burlingame Treaty’s initially open immigration policy to its revision under mounting Western political pressure, Jordan traces how local xenophobia became federal law. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—signed by President Chester A. Arthur—suspended Chinese labor immigration, barred naturalization, and shifted the burden of proof onto immigrants themselves It marked the first time U.S. immigration law explicitly targeted a group by nationality and race, fundamentally reshaping the nation’s immigration bureaucracy.

This episode asks listeners to grapple with the human cost of exclusion: families separated, communities destroyed, and violence forgotten in official memory. It sets the stage for the next installment, where Jordan will explore the long-term consequences of exclusion for Chinese Americans in California.

A sobering and essential chapter in understanding California’s past—and America’s.

What keeps Chinatown alive?

In this episode of The History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox speaks with Dr. Laureen Hom, author of The Power of Chinatown: Searching for Spatial Justice in Los Angeles, about the long history—and ongoing political significance—of Chinatowns in California.

Drawing on her research in Los Angeles Chinatown, Dr. Hom explains how Chinatowns have been shaped by racial exclusion, urban violence, redevelopment, immigration policy, and suburbanization, while also serving as sites of community formation, political organizing, and resistance. The conversation explores how the concept of gentrification has evolved, why displacement is often indirect and difficult to see, and how cities deploy tools like redevelopment agencies, multicultural planning, and business improvement districts to reshape ethnic neighborhoods.

Mattox and Hom also examine Chinatown’s changing demographics, its relationship to suburban Chinese communities in places like the San Gabriel Valley, and the challenges of coalition-building in multiracial neighborhoods where Chinese American and Latino residents share space, history, and vulnerability.

This episode offers a powerful framework for understanding Chinatown not as a static cultural enclave, but as a dynamic political space—one that reveals broader truths about California’s urban history, community power, and the ongoing struggle for spatial justice.

In this episode, host Jordan Mattox sits down with Dr. Michael Zeitler for an expansive conversation about John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat — its mythic structure, its treatment of poverty, the nature of friendship and communal codes, and how Steinbeck used the Monterey landscape to explore deep questions about history and identity. Together they examine the novel’s tragic undercurrents, its echoes of World War I trauma, its links to Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath, In Dubious Battle, and Cannery Row, and why Steinbeck’s early works continue to provoke debate about caricature, class, and representation. Dr. Zeitler also reflects on Hardy, Haney’s Beowulf, the anthropology of place, car mechanics in Steinbeck, and the philosophical lineage running from Emerson to Ellison. A wide-ranging, insightful discussion for Steinbeck fans and California history enthusiasts alike.

In this episode of The History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox sits down with attorney, author, and Yurok Tribe member Amy Bowers Cordalis for an intimate conversation about her new book The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life. Amy shares the story of her family's deep roots along the Klamath River, the Yurok creation narrative that shapes their worldview, and the tribe’s intergenerational struggle to protect salmon and restore ecological balance. Together, Jordan and Amy explore the 2002 Klamath fish kill, the complex legal fight for dam removal, the importance of myth and cultural continuity, and the profound moment the river flowed freely once again. Throughout the episode, they examine Indigenous stewardship, the legacy of genocide, the nature of environmental restoration, and how the story of the Klamath fits into the larger arc of California’s history.

In this episode of The History of California Podcast, host Jordan Mattox speaks with author John Doll about his historical novel St. James Park and the real events behind one of California’s most shocking forgotten crimes: the 1933 lynching of two men accused of kidnapping Brooke Hart. Drawing on Doll’s personal memories of San Jose, his research into the city’s past, and his reflections on writing historical fiction, the conversation explores the transformation of Santa Clara Valley from orchards to tract homes, the complicated legacy of Bay Area redevelopment, and the political corruption that shaped early 20th-century San Jose. The episode also examines the vibrant immigrant cultures of the Valley, the brutal working conditions in the region’s canneries, the symbolic importance of St. James Park, and the unexpected presence of vigilante justice in California’s past. Doll discusses the limits of historical documentation, the power of fiction to fill silences in the record, and how family memory informed his portrayal of the Hart case. The conversation concludes with a reflection on California’s broader history—from lynching and racism to redevelopment, industrialization, and the myths we tell about the Golden State—plus Doll’s recommendations for essential reading on San Jose and its overlooked past.

Purchase the book here

In this episode, we return to our ongoing narrative on Chinese immigration to California, examining the pivotal economic role Chinese immigrants played in shaping the state during the 19th century. From manufacturing and textiles to mining, service labor, and large-scale industrial work, Chinese labor was central to California’s development.

We look closely at the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, where Chinese workers carried out some of the most perilous tasks in the Sierra Nevada—carving tunnels through granite, enduring brutal winters, and risking (and often losing) their lives to push the railroad forward. Despite their contributions, Chinese immigrants faced widespread discrimination, wage suppression, and hostility from organized labor and white settlers who viewed them as economic threats during downturns.

We also explore the 1867 railroad strike, one of the largest labor actions of its time, revealing how Chinese workers challenged racist stereotypes that portrayed them as passive or submissive. Their collective resistance reshaped public perception and helped redefine Chinese identity in America.

This episode sets the stage for the rising anti-Chinese sentiment that would lead to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—one of the most consequential immigration laws in U.S. history.