Slavery in California today

Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Tuesday, June 20th.

New book looks at how slavery in California continues today.

More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….

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MTS routes in the south bay and east county are back in operation.

This comes after a strike put them out of operation for a month.

Drivers returned to work yesterday after Teamsters local 6-8-3 and Transdev reached an agreement over the weekend

Routes in the South Bay are running every 30 minutes instead of 15.

But routes in East County are back to their normal schedule.

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Streetside dining near beaches in the city of san diego may soon be a thing of the past.

That worries people like Joe Bartling… who’s the general manager and part owner of 7-10 Beach Club in P-B.

“If they take it all away from us that’ll be a real drag. cause, you know, people like to sit outside, especially this close to the beach. so we’re just keeping our fingers crossed, trying to stay positive.”

The roadside patios emerged during the pandemic…and were a lifeline for local bars and restaurants.

But the state coastal commission plans to curb the practice in the coming weeks…because the eliminated parking spaces could limit people’s access to the coast.

The San Diego city council recently agreed to the commission’s recommendations.

Affected businesses can keep their streetside dining areas…if they replace the eliminated parking spaces with free nearby off-street parking.

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Today’s the last day of spring.. and temps are expected to warm up today.

It’ll be sunny, with temps in the low 70s, and the same goes for tomorrow.

But don’t get too excited just yet, because the National Weather Service says it’s expected to cool down again at the end of the week.

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A new book looks at the history of slavery in California, and how it continues today.

“We have this aura of this utopian dream of sunshine and surfers and the wine country . . . And all of that is sitting right on top of . . . a desperate situation of modern slavery.”

More on that, after the break.

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Slavery is often associated with the south.

But in her new book, historian Jean Pfaelzer looks at two hundred and fifty years of slavery and slave revolts in California.

It’s called “California: A Slave State.”

Pfaelzer spoke with reporter Katie Hyson about this past, and how it continues today.

I don't think when most Americans think of slavery, that they think of California. What is California's history of slavery, and how is it different from how slavery unfolded in the rest of the country? Part of what defined slavery in California is that it both imported legal traditions and practices of brutality. Ways of registering ownership, ways of hanging onto slaves, even in places where there was freedom that was imported from the east. But California has this unique geography . . . It was a beautiful, fertile, fecund state . . . it had the border, it had the mines, it had no labor force. And that was one of the driving forces to slavery. Who was going to work and profit from this new land that we had just captured from Mexico? . . . The presence of the American military . . . they were there to enforce and implement with a lot of brutality the slavery of Native Americans. . . . And the gold rush brought people and labor traditions and a need for workers from all over the world. What I didn't know, even growing up in California, was that plantation slave owners had marched . . . about 2000 enslaved plantation Blacks from the south . . . And so there was a tradition of Southern slave owners who immediately took control of the state and wrote their codes into California law. You wrote that California entered the United States with a state constitution to never tolerate slavery. Then within months, legalized enslaving indigenous people. When I read that, I thought: It's racial injustice just underneath a progressive surface. Do you see ways that persists today in California? We have this aura of this utopian dream of sunshine and surfers and the wine country and great food and a free spirited sexuality. And all of that is sitting right on top of . . . a desperate situation of modern slavery . . .  If you walk through parts of San Francisco, you can see barred windows and no signage, and those are sweatshops. We see girls standing by the freeway exits selling flowers. Those girls are very likely trafficked. We see teenage girls at truck stops. And we now know that at the detention centers at the border . . .    desperate migrants are being either sold or escape and take the opportunity to flee from the detention centers and find themselves trafficked as field workers, as factory workers . . Unfree people are being taken from the prisons . . . And then there's sexual slavery . . . Sites like Craigslist or the site that just got shut down backpage.com . . . So it's happening now, and it's built on the traditions that grew over the 250 years that I write about. What do you think justice would look like now? Right now there are serious moves for Reparations in California . . . the figure for the last three weeks has been $8 billion . . . And I think the cost has startled people . . . And yet it's going to cost us to pay for being downstream from the history we created.

TAG: That was historian Jean Pfaelzer, speaking with KPBS reporter Katie Hyson about her new book, “California: A Slave State.”

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The long-running effort to redevelop the Sports Arena in San Diego got a big boost when billionaire Stan Kroenke became the project’s main investor last week.

Reporter Kitty Alvarado has the details.

Stan Kroenke the owner of the L-A Rams and Denver Nuggets is now the lead investor in the Midway Rising redevelopment project it is so compelling and it is such an exciting investment opportunity that one of the most successful and deep pocketed  real estate Investors has chosen San Diego That’s Jim Anderson  the chief development officer at Chelsea Investment Corporation, the partner company in charge of  the affordable housing component. 2000 affordable housing units is the single largest affordable housing project in the history of California. Never been done. Are we going to do it? You bet. The project is slated to add a 16-thousand seat arena on the 50-acre property – replacing the historic Pechanga arena in the Midway District. Anderson says Kroenke is the perfect fit for the team they have assembled because he’s not just a person with the capital but also follow through with accomplishments like SoFi Stadium That takes an individual that is willing to push and push hard to achieve that result. Kitty Alvarado KPBS News. 

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Four additional miles of carpool lanes on the 5 freeway have opened in North County.

As North County reporter Alexander Nguyen tells us … it’s supposed to reduce commuting times by half.

nine miles of h-o-v lanes opened on interstate five last year … with the additional miles … the north county coastal communities will have a total of 13 miles of carpool lanes. it’s a joint project between caltrans and sandag. lesa heebner is the mayor of solana beach and the second vice chair of sandag. “i've noticed, that the traffic is riding a lot smoother on the freeways and and that, you know, people are spending less time. people are taking advantage of traveling together with other passengers to work” the southbound hov lanes opened wednesday and the northbound lanes are slated to open next week.

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In other transportation news… Traffic calming infrastructure is being made permanent on a street in P-B.

Metro reporter Andrew Bowen says the project began at the beginning of the covid pandemic.

ab: three years ago, san diego began its slow streets pilot program on diamond street in pacific beach. signs directed drivers to take parallel streets for through-traffic. ryan stock of the nonprofit beautiful pb says the result was more families and kids biking there — and fewer people needing their cars. that's why the traffic calming is being made permanent. rs: pb is a very popular place to go. we're only going to have more people coming here over time as the city grows and evolves. and the only solution there is either to build giant parking lots or to get less people driving here. ab: starting wednesday, the city will install traffic diverters that allow only bikes, pedestrians and emergency vehicles to pass through certain intersections. andrew bowen, kpbs news.

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Coming up.... We continue our public arts series with artist Roberto Salas.

“I said I have to create something that sort of offers the families a place to be, a place to walk, to meditate, to think.”

We’ll have that story and more, just after the break.

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A recent study reveals juvenile white sharks congregate along Del Mar's beaches.

It’s one of two hot spots in southern California.

North County reporter Alexander Nguyen tells us the study also shows how close sharks swim to people.

sun … sands … and surf … the beaches of del mar are some of the best in the world … they're popular with swimmers and surfers. and sharks seem to like them too. patrick rex … a field technician at cal state long beach’s shark lab … led the study. he found that sharks were swimming closer to humans than we may think. patrick rex field technician, csu long beach shark lab “i thought the sharks would avoid people. what we found though, is that sharks were right around people. they were using the exact same place.” the study found that juvenile white sharks are concentrated in two areas … south santa barbara county and del mar. in those spots … sharks were swimming next to humans around 97% of the days surveyed. but there were no reports of a shark attack in the surveyed area during the study. an/kpbs.

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On the topic of sea life… Sci-tech reporter Thomas Fudge tells us how the California squid withstands drastic changes in water temperature.

The only thing most of us know about the California Market Squid is that plate of Calamari we got at the restaurant. But UC San Diego molecular biologist Kavita Rangan also knows they are able to survive in tropical regions and in ocean waters near freezing. So she gathered some squid hatchlings from their spawning ground near the Scripps Pier in La Jolla, and brought them into her lab. And i took these animals as they hatched out and put them in tanks of different temperatures. And just kept them in there for one day then took the animals and extracted their RNA and looked to see how did their editing changed.  She  saw so-called motor proteins moving along a track, bearing a cargo of genetic information that allowed the cells to adapt to changing temperatures. Her paper was published in the Journal Cell. Rangan says this presents the possibility that we could engineer our own proteins to change disease outcomes. Because when it comes to the function of some proteins, there isn’t a lot of difference between us and a squid.

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It’s been said that public art can greet us, provide entry points and even force a conversation.

As part of KPBS’s public art series, reporter Amita Sharma spoke with prolific public artist Roberto Salas about a work of his, that’s often compared to one of the world’s wonders.

Ambient sound of Roberto Salas slapping the stone “This is art you can actually touch.” This is art – in the words of its creator Roberto Salas – that should give you a sense of the…. “primordial, historical, archaeological.” It’s made of terra cotta-colored sandstone – extracted, cut and transported from the quarries of New Mexico in 2001. It now stands in a stretch of park on Grove Avenue in the South Bay community of Nestor. “This piece is called Plaza Piedras. 32:00 Plaza this could be a plaza and piedras is stone.” San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture hired Salas to create artwork meant to offset the drab, industrial feel of the adjacent wastewater treatment facility called the Grove Avenue Pump Station. “ His work sits in what was once an empty lot, among homes and apartments. “There were a lot of people walking though this particular street, in this community of Nestor, with strollers. A lot of families.”“I said I have to create something that sort of offers the families a place to be, a place to walk, to meditate, to think.” The piece starts with a few sandstone benches that line Grove avenue, then continues on either side of a sidewalk into the park all the way to its center. There stand four 13-feet tall sandstone pillars. “I needed something upright. By upright I mean something to look up at and admire. It’s bigger than we are.” Everybody says,`Oh is it Stonehenge’? Salas says no. But the vibe of the stone pillars IS ancient. It looks like you’re looking into the universe, plus they have fossils. A lot of beautiful imprints. There is something mysterious about them. They do have souls. I feel they do. Everything has a soul. He put his own markings on the stones. “They are markings that reminisce old pictographs, petroglyphs that I have in there.” Each of the four stone pillars has a stencil of the elements.“Wind, earth, fire and water.” In the middle of the circle of stone pillars and benches is a place to play. What you’re seeing there is a 20 foot diameter sandbox or sand circle. Ambient sound of digging sand. “If you go in here and you dig….” You’ll find concrete carvings that reflect the area’s history: drip irrigation, a dinosaur, a dairy farm. It creates some curiosity, a little bit of critical thinking and say what is this all about? Benches made out of that same sandstone intersperse the stone pillars. This is one way I could have parents sit, talk. They can watch the kids. Supervise them. I love the fact that somebody can come here and say, `Oh ok, I really like what’s going on here and they can enjoy it and it gives them a sense of place.’” He expects that feeling to last for generations because of the stones’ longevity. You can see that these have been weathered, they’ve gone through a few things but in general, they’ll outlive me and that’s the beauty of some of these pieces. Amita Sharma, KPBS News.

TAG: For more on KPBS’s public art series, go to kpbs dot org slash public art.

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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great Tuesday.