The Brief

Within a minute or two, a free Sunday turned into a fundraising frenzy for Dale Schroedel.

Shortly after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Schroedel — a San Francisco Democratic fundraiser for female candidates — was flooded with texts, calls and emails. From her living room, she began contacting donors for Harris for the first time.

“It just was non-stop … and I barely remember what happened the rest of the day,” said Schroedel, who raised money for Hillary Clinton’s two presidential bids and Rep. Barbara Lee’s U.S. Senate campaign this year. “The day was suddenly gone.”

The feverish fundraising highlights the historical significance of California money in presidential races. For decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have looked to the Golden State’s wealthiest donors. California — boasting ultra-affluent Silicon Valley and star-studded Hollywood — is often the top-giving state.

“When you see candidates making appearances in California, that’s just them making an appearance since they are here raising money,” said Republican consultant Jon Fleischman.

“The term that I prefer to use is performing a ‘cash-ectomy,’ which is really what it is,” he said. “It’s the surgical removal of cash from everybody’s pocket.”

The wealth is already helping Harris, an Oakland native and California’s favorite daughter who has decades-long personal relationships with some of the most prolific fundraisers. Some California Democratic mega donors — many of whom had paused their donations to Biden — pledged hundreds of millions to support Harris. Within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement, Harris raised a historic $81 million nationwide — the most anyone has ever raised in such a period in American history — including more than 500,000 first-time donors.

But Harris isn’t the only one with California ties.

U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio — former President Donald Trump’s running mate — brings a network of tech executives and crypto investors he built in the nearly five years he spent working in Silicon Valley. The experience is paying off: Vance frequently attends private dinners with tech moguls, many of whom have publicly endorsed the Republican ticket. A Vance fundraiser is set for Monday in Silicon Valley: $15,000 for dinner and a photo, $3,300 just for the meal. On Wednesday, he’s scheduled to collect checks at Harris Ranch in Coalinga.   

'It's our money'

For decades, California has been a cash cow for Democrats nationwide. In 2020, money from the state helped Democrats book “every ad time slot” on TV in Atlanta and Philadelphia, said Christian Grose, professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California. Those are the biggest TV markets in those two key swing states, which helped put Biden in the White House.

But that same fundraising power served as leverage to force Biden to bow out of the 2024 race, Grose said.

At a Hollywood fundraiser earlier this year featuring Julia Roberts and George Clooney, Biden and former President Barack Obama raised $30 million. But the event left Clooney so concerned about Biden’s mental and physical decline that he penned an opinion piece urging the president to withdraw. “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F— deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote.

The significance of Hollywood donors — and the potential of losing them — “is what was so frightening to the Democrats,” Grose said, because that money could fund campaign staffers and get-out-to-vote efforts in key swing states.

Now, it appears Hollywood is embracing Harris.

That money will add onto Biden’s warchest that Harris inherited. Between Jan. 1, 2023 and June 30, the Democratic presidential campaign account and allied groups had raised almost $54 million from Californians who each contributed more than $200, according to a CalMatters analysis of campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The Biden-Harris campaign committee alone raised almost $30 million from California. That is more than the $29.4 million raised by Trump’s campaign and 15 other pro-Trump groups combined from California donors who gave more than $200 each.

While California is solidly Democratic in presidential races, it is still a fundraising powerhouse for Republicans since it has more GOP voters than any other state, said Fleischman, who noted that Trump collected more money from California than any other state in 2020.

But the money Trump and Vance raise in California will likely be spent in battleground states, he said.

“Our votes are no longer the commodity that makes California relevant in the presidential elections. It’s our money.”

'Shot of adrenaline'

For Harris, California donors will likely be critical, and she may have a better shot at their money than during her 2020 presidential bid.

Harris — then a first-term U.S. senator from California — was struggling to raise the necessary cash to stand out in the crowded Democratic primary field. Half of her bundlers — fundraisers collecting checks on her behalf — were also bundling for her rivals and donating to them as early as a month after Harris launched her campaign.

Within a day after Harris became Biden’s chosen successor, she raised $81 million, almost double the $44 million she raised over the entire 11 months of her earlier campaign.

A Sunday Zoom fundraising call organized by a group called “Win With Black Women” drew more than 44,000 participants and another 50,000 “couldn’t get on” the call, said Schroedel, the Democratic fundraiser. The event raised $1.5 million in three hours, Bloomberg reported.

The momentum behind Harris “defies every stereotype imaginable,” Schroedel said. Historically, Black women running for office have had a hard time mustering enough financial support, she noted.

The timing of Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement has helped Harris, Schroedel said. Harris quickly consolidated support among party delegates and key Democratic leaders, leaving little room for others to challenge her. “It’s the opportunity of the moment,” Schroedel said.

Democrats are now looking to Harris to prevent a second term for Trump, Schroedel added. Harris also holds a bolder stance on abortion rights than Biden, who rarely uttered the term “abortion,” Schroedel said: “She’s willing and able to speak about it in a much deeper and personal, profound way.”

On a Thursday call for Democratic women featuring state Sen. Angelique Ashby, a Sacramento Democrat, participants hailed from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona. Speakers deemed the November election a fight about advancing reproductive freedom or going backward.

“I think the scariest thing in this moment is that the men in this race, the men on the opposing side, would like to define us,” Ashby said.

Kimberly Ellis, a San Francisco activist, urged participants — especially Black women — to volunteer and contribute to races up and down the ballot. “This moment isn’t just about electing the first woman president to the United States of America. This moment is also about retaking Congress, keeping the Senate, flipping those swing districts that we need to and making sure we elect women, women of color and Black women at the local level,” she said.

The fundraising momentum demonstrates excitement for Harris, and Harris-related memes have gone viral on social media platforms, which could resonate with young voters, said Kevin Liao, a Democratic consultant who worked on Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential bid and then on Biden’s campaign in Nevada in 2020.

“The party was in a doldrums after that first debate,” Liao said. “(Harris) was just like a shot of adrenaline and energy into the party.”

Harris’ personal relationships could help open doors. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, was an entertainment industry attorney in Los Angeles for 30 years, and Harris is also friends with some Democratic mega donors and fundraisers such as Susie Tompkins Buell and Chrisette Hudlin.

“Her existing relationships, combined with the sort of donors being less excited about Biden, has made her really situated to benefit quite a bit,” Grose said.

Silicon Valley Elegy

Personal relationships Vance has cultivated in Silicon Valley have also helped solidify support for Trump among some of California’s wealthiest, even though the area overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020.

Last month, Vance held a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco and introduced prominent entrepreneurs — including David Sacks — to the former president, The New York Times reported. A few days later, Sacks hosted Trump at his own $20 million mansion in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, raising more than $12 million.

“If you’ve got a fellow tech-savvy, venture capitalist who’s now in the race to be the second most powerful person in America and a potential frontrunner for president in four years, that sounds kind of cool,” Fleischman said.

Former President Donald Trump, right, stands with Sen. JD Vance, his Republican running mate, at a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on July 20, 2024

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Tom Brenner

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Reuters

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Despite his time in California, Vance is better known for “Hillbilly Elegy,” his best-selling memoir about growing up poor in Ohio. It is that dual background that could help Trump make inroads among Silicon Valley’s economically conservative donors, while also winning working-class votes in midwestern states, said Cathy Abernathy, longtime GOP strategist and an ally to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“The tech world and the rust belt are somehow in the same wavelength with someone like Vance,” she said.

Even before Trump picked Vance, some Silicon Valley tycoons were already warming up to the former president.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, endorsed Trump shortly after the assassination attempt two weeks ago, and his allies helped start a super PAC to support Trump. Hedge fund executive Bill Ackman, who has largely supported Democrats, also endorsed Trump following the shooting. Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, who founded venture capital firm A16Z, are also backing Trump.

In the past two decades, it was hard raising money for Republicans in the Bay area, where only Democrats got elected, Abernathy said. But the growing public support from some Silicon Valley executives signals the increasing dissatisfaction with Democratic policies on tech, tax and crime, she said.

Some executives have pointed to the Biden administration’s antitrust lawsuits against Apple and Google, federal investigations into crypto businesses and Biden’s proposal to increase capital gains taxes, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“How much rhetoric do you need to hear that the rich don’t pay enough and we want to raise more taxes?” Fleischman said. “Well, at some point, rich people don’t really like to hear that.”

Biking on river trails, going on picnics and surfing in the ocean are activities California residents cherish every summer. But headlines about the use of toxic chemicals in flood control channels around Orange County have created anxiety for those looking forward to their favorite activities this summer.

Dozens of environmental activists and Orange County residents packed the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting this week to urge the county to halt the routine use of toxins they say poison waterways and wash out into the ocean.

But several supervisors said it wasn’t that simple. The chemical prevents overgrowth in flood control channels, and that overgrowth could lead to backups and flooding, affecting neighborhoods and businesses during heavy rains.

Controversy over the chemical use led to an announcement last month by Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, declaring that chemical usage would be halted for the moment. The issue then came before the board this week for further discussion.

Supervisors decided to study the issue and revisit it in the months ahead, and directed the OC Public Works department to evaluate methods for clearing overgrowth of vegetation that crowd flood channels, and look for alternate methods of doing so.

Brent Linas, founder of the Orange County Creek Team, which has succeeded in bringing the environmental issue to the public’s attention through salty Instagram posts and other social media tactics, blasted what he described as the board’s inaction.

He feels that the board is “deeply dysfunctional” and plans on using the meeting as momentum to spread awareness about the chemicals' negative effects on the environment. “There’s palpable outrage in Orange County right now around this and we fully intend to tap into that,” Linas said.

Foley also plans to reintroduce public noticing requirements at the next meeting June 23. The notices would alert residents to the planned use of any pesticides and herbicides. “Orange County residents deserve transparency to help make informed decisions about where their families recreate,” Foley said in a statement released the after the meeting. “I remain encouraged by the overwhelming public support in exploring nontoxic solutions for our waterways.”

How to watchdog your local government

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention. Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 W. Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.

A program dedicated to providing low-income California residents with extra money for fruits and vegetables is likely to go under this summer if additional funds are not allocated in this year’s state budget, according to concerned food justice advocates.

The CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program provides CalFresh recipients with up to $60 a month of free produce each month, in addition to their benefits. In May alone, the program disbursed over $5 million and “served 95,520 California households,” said Grecia Marquez-Nieblas, senior manager at food policy nonprofit Fullwell, which has backed the program.

“Overwhelmingly, folks have been telling us that they want it to continue, that it’s made a really positive impact on them,” Marquez-Nieblas said. “Their diabetes is better managed; their high blood pressure is better managed.”

Those people are now at risk of losing access to that support as funds whittle down. The state budget is set to be finalized on June 15, and “as far as we know, there is no continued funding that has been proposed,” Marquez-Nieblas said.

“When this program ends, we’ll have less money to spend, [at] a time when groceries are incredibly more expensive. Gas is more expensive. Everything is more expensive,” she said. “It’s just, unfortunately, a compounding effect. There’s lots of stuff that’s impacting the same people.”

The program is simple to use: When customers purchase food at participating markets, like Arteaga’s Food Center in San José, they just swipe their EBT (electronic benefit transfer) card.

For every purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables with that card, customers receive an instant rebate each month, applied to their card. The rebate money can be spent on any food or goods covered by CalFresh, like meat, eggs and dairy — it is not limited to fruits and vegetables.

Marquez-Nieblas explained that the pilot program has been implemented in three phases — the latest of which received a limited, one-time allocation of $36 million from the state budget. That seems like a large number, “until we realize that there are hundreds of thousands of individuals across the state using the program.”

“It’s been proven many times that CalFresh — and programs like this that support people having more money for food — are incredibly impactful for lifting children out of poverty, for supporting seniors with limited incomes, for anybody,” Marquez-Nieblas said. “Foundationally, these programs are good. They’re good for public health.”

Food policy advocates said they are hoping for $100 million for the program to continue to operate year-round. Instead, it was reappropriated around $4.8 million — the remaining funds from last year’s budget cycle, in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “May Revise” proposal, according to H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the California Department of Finance.

“The program will operate until funds are fully utilized,” Palmer said in an email to KQED.

The program’s end would come at a particularly stressful time for CalFresh recipients. This month, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, California has begun enforcing new and expanded federal guidelines that require some CalFresh recipients to work 20 hours a week, or an average of 80 hours a month — with a stark reduction in food benefits for those who don’t.

The changes were prompted by the passing of President Donald Trump’s H.R.1 last year.

“Not only does it add in the onerous work requirement — a lot of people who are already receiving CalFresh are working — but now they have this bureaucratic paperwork to provide,” said Kathy Saile, California director of national nonprofit No Kid Hungry. “There’s some real concern that people could lose benefits just because they couldn’t figure out the paperwork.”

H.R. 1’s impact, which also cuts food benefits for some refugees and asylum seekers, is apparent, according to federal data analyzed by the nonpartisan research group Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The center estimated that nationwide, SNAP participation fell by almost 9% — more than 3.5 million people — between H.R.1’s start in July 2025 and February 2026.

Palmer said the state was taking proactive steps to maintain residents’ enrollment in the program.

“This includes leveraging existing data to determine possible exemptions from the new SNAP work requirements, implementing automation, and conducting client outreach,” he said.

He added that the latest budget revision has “a total of $38 million for the CalFood program — which funds food banks for the purchase, storage, and transportation of food grown and/or produced in California.”

In a time of rising bureaucratic barriers implemented by H.R. 1, Marquez-Nieblas said the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program is part of the state’s food safety net.

“This is not just about backfill,” she said. “It’s not just about responding to the impacts (of H.R. 1), which are incredibly awful. It’s also about setting ourselves up for success in the future, knowing we have to invest proactively.”

Marquez-Nieblas said CalFresh recipients should keep their eyes on the California Department of Social Services website for any possible updates and changes in the future.

While implementation of California’s high school ethnic studies mandate has stalled, districts across the state are rolling out classes that encourage students to explore the lesser-told histories of their communities.

Freshmen at Duarte High School this year unearthed the history of a San Gabriel Valley community that was all but erased by commercial development and the construction of the 210 and 605 freeways.

Newspaper headlines often focused on incidents of violence and segregation in the majority Black and Mexican American community of Rocktown, but when the students interviewed former residents, they heard a different story.

“It was a great community for us,” said Alfred Hernandez Zamora. “We just don't want to be forgotten.”

The study of Rocktown was a central theme in the school's first ethnic studies course.

“Ethnic studies is providing space to hear from communities and from points of view that are not traditionally covered in our history classes,” said Casey Ramirez, who teaches the class at Duarte High in addition to government, economics, world and U.S. history.

California legislators passed a law in 2021 that required all schools to offer the course by the 2025-26 school year, but have yet to provide the funding needed to enact the mandate. Duarte Unified, like many other districts, passed its own one-semester ethnic studies graduation requirement ahead of the expected state deadline.

Duarte High School’s curriculum is the result of a collaboration between educators, research into the region’s history and the students’ own interests.

“I've only seen one part of Duarte, and that's the Duarte that I was raised in,” said Leslie Martinez, a rising sophomore. “There's a lot of things that Ms. Ramirez is teaching me, and that's making me more curious to dig deeper [into] my city and where I grew up.”

An opportunity to create an ‘engaging class’

California’s model ethnic studies curriculum describes the field as an “interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity, with an emphasis on the experiences of people of color in the United States.” Districts could develop their course based on this framework or from scratch.

“It was our opportunity to create a really engaging class that really speaks to our student body,” said Luis Haro, Duarte High’s principal for the last eight years.

The majority of Duarte High School’s population is Latino, but there are also Filipino, Asian, white, Black and multiracial students. Most students qualify for free-and reduced price lunches, a proxy for being low-income in public schools.

“In my experience, our students don't know our history, and they don't really have a true understanding of their own identity,” Haro said.

Haro joined a committee of administrators and teachers, including Ramirez, that collaborated with the UCLA History-Geography Project to develop the new course.

UCLA staff guided Duarte educators through reams of local history research and helped the team develop goals for the class, including a student-led civics project.

“Getting to learn and feel like a college student again,” Ramirez said. “It really did make me excited to teach the class.”

They also developed units on students’ personal identity, Indigenous, Latino, Black and Asian American Pacific Islander history. The committee also met with parents and presented their work to the district’s board.

“[Ethnic studies] gave us a path to this project to see people in our community that aren't really talked about,” Ramirez said.

Uncovering the history of the ‘Davis Addition’

The region is the original home of the Gabrielino/Tongva Nation. The then-governor of Alta California granted former soldier Andres Avelino Duarte nearly 7,000 acres in 1841, including what became the city that shared his name. The area was eventually subdivided into farms and eventually, homes.

From the late 19th century through the 1970s, Black and Mexican American families settled in the “Davis Addition,” a subdivision of the land grant that became better known as Rocktown.

Ramirez first read about Rocktown in the research UCLA gathered for the curriculum development process, but couldn’t find much else about the community online.

She started downloading news articles from Newspapers.com and sharing them with the class. Many of the stories often focused on crime and violence in the community, from police raids on drinking and gambling establishments, to fires.

The articles also alluded to the segregation of the early 20th century.

A 1928 article from the Monrovia Daily News described the schedule for a new municipal pool. Mondays were “reserved for the use of colored people.”

“ Why are we not allowing people to do things simply because of the color of their skin or like their origin?” said Khloe Carter, a rising sophomore who took the ethnic studies class.

Carter said it felt important to her, as a person of color, to learn about people’s experiences with discrimination in the past.

“I'd say that has made me smarter and more aware of other people's struggles and what other people have to deal with and other people's cultures and other people's traditions,” Carter said.

The first wave of Rocktown displacement preceded the construction of the 210 and 605 freeways in the 1960s. The last several dozen families were moved to make way for a business complex in the 1970s. Stories referred to the area as blighted and “depressed.”

“ We took it as our job to dig further, deeper, to find out if it was true or not,” Martinez said.

With Ramirez’s help — and several volunteers from the Facebook group Rocktown Oldies Club — the students started to schedule interviews with former residents. The school’s film class volunteered to record the conversations.

The students heard stories about everyday life that were absent from the news coverage of time — Sunday barbecues, roller skating, fishing, picnicking and swimming near the Santa Fe Dam.

Zamora, who was born in Rocktown in 1949, offered a first-person history that isn’t available elsewhere — down to the community’s name: “ You could not even dig a, a foot into the ground without running into rocks,” he said. “ You could throw water on the ground and a rock would grow, you know?”

Many of the residents raised goats, pigs, pigeons and chickens in their backyards. Zamora said a routine car repair could quickly become a community gathering with neighbors joining in to help.

“That made it … so great to live there, 'cause everybody was like family,” Zamora said. “Even people that weren't related to you, it was really close friendships there.”

A typical gathering of Alfred Hernandez Zamora's family in an undated photo from their Rocktown days. Everyone gathered for Sunday dinners at his grandmother's house.

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Courtesy Alfred Hernandez Zamora

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Zamora's relatives Rayno Hernandez and Christina Hernandez Padilla as kids riding their bikes through Rocktown.

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Courtesy Alfred Hernandez Zamora

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Zamora said Rocktown offered a reprieve from the discrimination against Black and Latino residents in other parts of the San Gabriel Valley at the time.

“We played ball together. We swam together. We ate together,” Zamora said. “Even though there was different cultures there, we still were able to get along with everybody.”

These interviews gave the students new perspectives to consider.

“ People make a lot of stereotypes and a lot of guesses … like, ‘Oh, this community can be so ghetto,’" Martinez said. “But honestly, like I think if you haven't been in the community, you can't really say anything.”

Remembering Rocktown

The Duarte Historical Museum hosted a pop-up exhibition of the students’ capstone project.

“I was very impressed with the job that they did, being able to get all this history and the information and the interviews with people,” said Liz Reilly, president of the Duarte Historical Society and Museum and former mayor. "I thought that was really fabulous.”

Reilly, who moved to Duarte in 1987, had heard of Rocktown, but knew little about the neighborhood.

Izzy Guzman, another student who took ethnic studies at Duarte High, said the account she heard from the three women she interviewed differed from these Rocktown headlines.   "They've all seemed really nice and really genuine," Guzman said. "I just feel like people should understand, even if they don't know what Rocktown is, they should understand that, it was just a basic community, and that they should be treated with the same respect as everyone else."

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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The exhibition included a map of Rocktown (still the subject of some debate) and dozens of historical photos, often provided by the people they interviewed.

“ I found it so amazing how much people showed up for our project and how much the community of Rocktown has shown up for our project,” Carter said.

Former residents, including Zamora, were among the dozens of people who attended the exhibition’s grand opening in mid-May.

“For them to recognize places that were forgotten, that meant a lot,” Zamora said. “ Nobody seems to remember it. I mean, except the people that lived there.”

Ethnic studies faces growing challenges

While the school’s principal, students and former Rocktown residents have embraced the ethnic studies class, Ramirez said she’s also heard criticism.

During Duarte High’s open house, Ramirez said a parent voiced her disagreement with the class and threatened to file a grievance even though her child had yet to enroll at the school.

“ I'm a parent, so I understand, especially if it's something that you're not familiar with and your kids are learning something different from what you learned, it can be scary,” Ramirez said. “My approach is never to impose my viewpoints. It's to provide alternative perspectives.”

Some lawmakers have also criticized school offerings that intersect with race and ethnicity.

In the last five years, 20 states have banned or restricted teaching critical race theory, an academic concept that race is a social construct and that racism is embedded in specific societal structures.

Teacher Casey Ramirez said teaching students to view history from multiple points of view and form their own opinions is a key feature of the ethnic studies class.

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Courtesy Oscar Ramirez

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California school districts from Los Alamitos to San Francisco have faced pushback over their ethnic studies curriculum despite passage of the state mandate.

State lawmakers’ decision to withhold money for teacher training and materials has delayed the ethnic studies graduation requirement.

Daniel Diaz, director of the UCLA History-Geography Project, said there was a flood of interest when the ethnic studies mandate was first passed, but now fewer districts are paying for related professional development.

“Which in turn then impacts what happens to our project and … who we're able to support in terms of staffing,” Diaz said.

In June, UCLA laid off one of the educators instrumental in helping Duarte develop its ethnic studies curriculum.

In a statement, John McDonald, director of media relations at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, said the History-Geography Project has laid off four staff members total after funded projects ended in the last year.

“UCLA Center X is committed to the work and actively seeking new funding for similar efforts,” McDonald said.

What that means for other districts looking for assistance with ethnic studies programs remains to be seen.

Ramirez said her UCLA collaborator was “phenomenal” and continued to support the project even after the contract with the district formally ended.

“ I don't think that this year and this project would've been what it was without having that support,” Ramirez said.

A business center now stands south of the 210 and west of the 605 where part of Rocktown once was. Some of the street names, including Evergreen and Flower, remain the same.

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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The Rocktown Project’s future

Duarte High School will continue the ethnic studies class.

More former residents have already contacted Ramirez hoping to be interviewed by next year’s students. She also plans to publish the students’ work on a website and a future goal is to memorialize Rocktown with a physical marker in Duarte.

“You need to know whose land you're on and who was there,” said Sylvia Gonzales Youngblood, who was born in Duarte in 1967 and grew up visiting the home her maternal grandfather built in Rocktown.

She said when she was a student there wasn’t an opportunity to learn about her family’s  Ohlone Mission Indian and Mexican heritage and she was discouraged from speaking Spanish.

“Now as I'm older, I realize just how much history and of ourselves we lose,” Youngblood said.

Carter, the rising sophomore, said after taking ethnic studies, she feels more connected to the city she moved to about a year ago.

“It's important that we know this side of history so a community like Rocktown doesn't get lost again,” Carter said. “Every voice should be heard, including Rocktown's.”