What's Up with the California Frontier Project?

We've published 50 episodes and it is time to check in about where the California Frontier Project is going.

Transcript

Damian Bacich: 0:25

About a month ago, my podcast hosting company, Damian. sent me a congratulatory email about the fact that I had published 50 podcast episodes. Now, I hadn't really been keeping track but It did kind of hit me that, wow, 50, 50 episodes is quite a bit. And over the last few weeks, it began, growing in my mind that maybe this is a good point to kind of, stop and maybe take stock of things and do an update for people on where we are, where we're going and really what is, what we're doing. the idea behind this whole California frontier project and the website and the podcast and so on. So that's what I'm doing. That's what I'd like to do here. So first of all, for those of you who are sort of new to this whole thing, and maybe even those of you who have been around for a while but aren't 100 percent certain on what this is, the California Frontier Project is a brainchild that I had a few years back and it started, let's say around the time of the canonization of Father Junipero Serra, the the Franciscan friar who really sort of started the mission chain in California and all of the controversy that surrounded it at that time. And I love California history. I particularly love the early time period, you know, let's say from prehistory about up through the Spanish and Mexican periods in particular. And I was so enthusiastic about it and it bothered me the way It seemed to be becoming instrumentalized and just sort of a a battleground for political narratives. So I started out by wanting to share the good information that I'd been encountering, both in an academic setting, But also, you know, for people that are just interested, right? The general public who is interested. So that's how I started and I started with a website and then later it, it evolved into a podcast that I, I created, several episodes and then paused it. And then after, after some time, people kept asking me when it was coming back. So I brought it back and been chugging away ever since. So the focus that we have here is to once again, communicate an enthusiasm and an interest for California history, especially its early history, and to do that by providing. background information to help understand the basics, the basic concepts and topics, and also to do deeper dives into subjects that are a little bit more complex or, that maybe aren't quite as well known to the general public or even to So what we do is we delve into a variety of topics from native peoples to exploration, immigration, settlement, trade, daily life, but also we focus on anything that touches this idea of California as a frontier. So, we wind up talking about trade, as I mentioned, people's lives, and we, we talk about other places. It's not just confined to California. We talk about Mexico, Russia, the Philippines, New Mexico, Arizona, Spain, Europe, what have you. So, that is the idea. to create a place that one can go to, to learn kind of the basics about California history, especially its early history, as well as take deep dives into topics that, that are that are more complex, but that are equally interesting. So for me, The two things that I want to get across with this, with both the website and the the podcast, and when I say podcast, I also mean YouTube channel, so on, is to communicate context and complexity. The two C's. So context. Why? Oftentimes when we talk about historical topics, especially topics that are kind of controversial as the California missions and the Spanish and native population, all this sort of stuff has become in particular, Over the last several years, and even more so since 2020, often what is lacking is context. People throw around facts or ideas and figures without having a grasp of the big picture, which helps explain things. So, in order to provide context, we have articles on the website, and we also have podcast episodes. Many of those are where I'm just talking, and some of those are drawn from articles. on the website. Other times they're just, they're topics that I've looked into and want to talk about. And then complexity because history is made up of human situations, human beings, right? And human beings are complicated. And as, as we all know, I'll oftentimes, bring in authors, scholars, or other people who've studied or done interesting things around these topics to discuss them. So, in that sense, we can go more in depth on certain topics, having a background of context to discuss them. So you, that's why I have interesting people on who've who really have something nuanced to say about these topics that maybe you hear about in the news, or maybe you don't, but that's my basic idea. Context is in background, framing things, and then complexity, getting into the nuance, getting into the details. So that's what you're gonna, that's what you're gonna hear, that's what you're gonna read about. When you, when you delve into the California Frontier Project and what we have. So, what's the plan going forward? Well, my plan is to keep on keeping on. That is, to do what we've been doing. To, to bring you interesting information, useful information that's well researched. To bring you discussions with experts and scholars and descendants and people who've looked into genealogy, anybody who, who has something interesting to say. And then the other thing that I'd really like to, work on going forward is building out even more so the aspect of community around this project. And I call it a project because I'm still working my way forward as we all are trying to understand more, trying to share, more information. So it's a project in the sense that we don't know ultimately where it's going to go or what it's going to blossom into, but it's a working hypothesis. And that's what I do. I'm doing is to follow this hypothesis. So back to the community aspect, there's already a sort of community that's grown up around the California frontier project. That is a community of people who, who read or listen to the things, to the content. That we put out. Also, a community of contributors. All of the people who've been on, whom I've interviewed, they contribute something to this community. And as, as you probably noticed, I've had guests on multiple times. From Gerald Jackman, talking about the Santa Barbara Presidio, to Marie Duggan, talking about trade in the Pacific, to Eric Plunkett and his explorations around Mission San Juan Capistrano and others. Now I'm going to keep doing that and getting these people involved, so I want to build that, grow it, so that we who are interested in this sort of thing can be even more connected. Scholars, authors, and just aficionados, right? So one of the things I want to do is to create, more support for community. So I'm going to try to understand better the logistics of that, but ways that we can interact and also just draw in the people. who are supporting the project, support the podcast, support the website, both with information, but also monetarily. I want to give back more to them, to you. Right? One of the things I want to do, and I plan to do in the coming weeks, is to begin sharing. Both the videos of the podcast, right? All the interviews I do, all of the, the the episodes I record are done with video, right? And you've seen clips from some of those on social media. We put some of them up on YouTube, but I want to give access to the full videos to those who are supporting the show and who are interested. I also want to provide, transcripts of all of the, of all of the episodes and especially the interviews. Now, as you know, with AI, podcasts, transcripts are easy to generate and create. But oftentimes, if you've noticed, those are kind of haphazard, full of misspellings or words that don't make sense, et cetera, because it's just the machine trying to pick up what's being said, and especially when we talk about California and California history. There are a lot of words mixed in people's names, Spanish words, native words, et cetera, that, that automatic transcriptions don't really pick up well and understand. So I want to provide transcriptions that make sense, maybe that aren't perfect, but that, that have the, So to recap, one of the things I want to provide is community, way to share information, and the video recordings and the transcripts to people who really are, are supporting this experience. So finally, what's the overall approach of this project? So I've touched on a little bit of it to provide context, to share the complexity behind California history that is the nuance. And the last thing is an idea of empathy or sympathy. If you heard the interview with author Jeremy Beer, who wrote the book Beyond the Devil's Road, about Francisco Garcés, who explored much of the American Southwest at a time when it wasn't the American Southwest, or wasn't the U. S. Southwest. Garcés had a unique approach to dealing with Native people, a very empathetic approach, to understand them and hopefully to be able to build understanding between himself and the native people he encountered. And Jeremy, the author, talked about how his approach to writing his book was one of sympathy. toward the people he was writing about, whether or not he approved of their actions or their judge or shared their judgments. And that's sort of where I'm coming from as well. When we describe the people of our history and their interactions, both people who had, positive or negative interactions, I want to start from a point of sympathy or empathy, understanding the human condition and what it entails. And so even in a story like ours, it's filled with violence, it's filled with misunderstanding. You can still approach people, even historical figures, from a standpoint of trying to understand their motivations. Once again, even if you don't share their ultimate judgment, or even if you don't have a stance of approval, but you can begin from a, an understanding of shared humanity, which I think is something that we need in the present as well in dealing with one another. So, context, complex, complexity, Empathy. Those are sort of the three pillars around which I'm trying to grow this project. And I think those of you who follow it appreciate that and share that ethos with me, at least some of you because I hear from you. So to finish, I just want to thank you. If you're coming along on this journey, thank you for your support and, and encourage you to, you know, reach out, let me know what you think. Keep giving me suggestions for episode topics or guests. Keep telling me about interesting historical events you've learned about, or your ancestors may have participated in, or places, or books. All of that stuff that hopefully I can share with, the larger community that follows this project. So in short, we're going to keep going down the path. We started, I'm going to expand the scope of what we're doing and hopefully bring more people along. Oh, and one thing I keep neglecting to mention sort of the, the third pillar of this whole project. So the website. The show, podcast, YouTube channel. And also I created over the last couple of years, a fourth grade elementary school, California history curriculum that aligns to all the standards. for history and social sciences that the state of California asks fourth graders to achieve. So this is once again, my way of helping those people who are teaching, who are, raising children in California to better understand and better appreciate our history. The curriculum is called California History Teachers. Not very original, but I think it gets to the point. And it's based on the work that the California Frontier Project has done. And it's, it's been now used by, hundreds of students over the last couple of years, and more and more every semester. So if you know of anybody who's a teacher, if you owe yourself for a teacher, check it out, californiahistoryteachers. com. It's also linked at the California Frontier Project website. So those are the three elements, the California Frontier Project. And again, I, I want to thank you for supporting it, and I hope you'll stick with us and

2024-09-30 09-09-24: 19:17

um,

Damian Bacich: 19:17

stay involved in what we're doing so again, thank you. And, we'll see you on the next episode. Bye bye.

19:34

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the California Frontier Show. If you'd like to support the show, the best thing to do is to let other people know about it. If you'd like to support it monetarily, there are a couple ways of doing that. One is by scrolling down in your podcast app to where it says support the show. There you can become a subscriber for as little as three dollars a month. And if you want to give a one time donation, just below you'll see where it says give a one time donation. Finally, the show is supported by California History Teachers, which is a full year of lessons for 4th grade California History and Social Studies. You can find out more at www. californiahistoryteachers. com. And if you input the coupon code PODCAST, you'll receive 25 percent off your monthly or annual subscription. So check it out!