GERALD HASLAM: Split the state? Let us count the silly possibilities
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Here we go again. A politician in Riverside has suggested that a new, utterly unnatural state, South California, be split from the Golden State, apparently for political convenience. That it is to be called "South" at all when much of it is actually in Central California -- Kern, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, Mono and Inyo counties -- tells you how seriously to take the idea.
The "State of Jefferson" -- a hoary-but-enduring proposal to split the far northern counties from California -- is at least based on strong environmental and cultural similarities to neighboring southern Oregon. Not so "South California."
As proposed it would be strictly a political creation in a time of great polarization. Moreover, the very notion falls into the old trap of suggesting north-south affinities that simply don't exist. This idea is merely a distant echo of the historic tension between the Bay Area and the Southland.
Many years ago at an academic meeting, I heard two presumably serious educators arguing over whether L.A. or San Francisco held sway over the Great Central Valley. They asserted that since more people subscribed to the Los Angeles Times than the San Francisco Chronicle from Fresno south, and more subscribed to the Chronicle north of Fresno, the valley should simply be classified as colonies of the two megalopolises.
As a Central Valley native, I asked whether either professor had looked at the circulations of The Fresno Bee or The Bakersfield Californian -- which were vastly higher in the Central Valley than the papers they had considered. They admitted they hadn't, so I said something like, "Guess what. We care most about our own region. Forget L.A. and 'Frisco ... except to be happy we don't live there."
Since they were fantasizing, I added, why not divide the state into coastal, inland and mountain dominions? Why not wet and dry? How about urban, suburban and rural? Haves and have-nots? Latino and Anglo? Rich and poor? And so on.
In fact, if you're looking for a natural division, why not consider allowing the Central Valley, the state's most distinct geomorphological unit, to become independent ... with or without surrounding mountains. It is a realm unto itself, and unlike erstwhile Jefferson or South California, has the cultural and economic resources for autonomy, since it has long been one of California's economic engines. The valley could barter agriculture and oil and various other products for necessary water and other needs from the surrounding domain (or domains, if the old state fragments).
What would happen to Sacramento in that case? It could become the new state's capital, of course, but if residents there don't want that, declare it a free city like Danzig used to be, and let it fend for itself. It has lots of wheeler-dealers.
Of course, any sensible division would defeat the flimsy purpose of South California, which is to disregard the political system by eliminating both competition and compromise, a profoundly un-American notion, whether offered by Democrats, Republicans or Whigs.
I happen to like this complicated, contentious, semi-governable state just as it is, by far America's most interesting province. California's politicians should quit pouting and begin adjusting and innovating, or be replaced. The quest for easy, contrived solutions leads nowhere, not even to South California.
Novelist-historian Gerald Haslam, a Sonoma State University professor emeritus, is a native of Oildale. His biography of the quirky semanticist, college president and U.S. senator, "In Thought and Action: The Enigmatic Life of S.I. Hayakawa, " written with wife Janice Haslam, is just out from the University of Nebraska Press.
