Jean Pfaelzer is a public historian, commentator, and professor of American studies at the University of Delaware. Her books include Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans, which was named a Times notable book of the year; Rebecca Harding Davis: Origins of Social Realism; and The Utopian Novel in America. She lives in Washington, DC.
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MOCA TALKS with Jean Pfaelzer
California, a Slave State
July 20, 2023, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre Street, New York, NY 10013
In-Person Event | Free Admission | Open to General Public
Autographed copies will be available for in-person pick-up at the event.
The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) presents its featured MOCA TALKS speaker Professor Jean Pfaelzer and her forthcoming book California, a Slave State, unveiling the untold history of slavery and resistance in California, from the Spanish missions, indentured Native American ranch hands, Indian boarding schools, Black miners, kidnapped Chinese prostitutes, and convict laborers to victims of modern trafficking.
In American lore, California is Eden, a land of unending sunshine, long coastlines, and rich harvests—a prize for a country hellbent on fulfilling the promise of manifest destiny. But in California, a Slave State, Pfaelzer shows that, since the very first colonizers crossed the border, the Golden State was and still is powered by slavery—a piece of American history that many still try to bury.
Looking West, Pfaelzer upends the long-held North-South map of American slavery and reveals the slave revolts that mark California’s history: the burning of Spanish missions; prison uprisings; a West Coast underground railroad; and countless battles for freedom in the streets and the courts that we still see today.
Ultimately, Pfaelzer reveals the history of California as a state that was built on slavery, shredding the state’s utopian brand. She rewrites our understanding of race in the West and redefines America’s uneasy paths to freedom.
This program is moderated by Anita L. Allen, Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania.
About Jean Pfaelzer
About Anita L. Allen
Anita L. Allen is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy. A graduate of Harvard Law with a PhD from the University of Michigan in Philosophy, Allen is internationally renowned as an expert on philosophical dimensions of privacy and data protection law, ethics, bioethics, legal philosophy, women’s rights, and diversity in higher education. She was Penn’s Vice Provost for Faculty from 2013-2020 and chaired the Provost’s Arts Advisory Council.
About California, a Slave State
California owes its origins and sunny prosperity to slavery. Spanish invaders captured Indigenous people to build the chain of Catholic missions. Russian otter hunters shipped Alaska Natives—the first slaves transported into California—and launched a Pacific slave triangle to China. Plantation slaves were marched across the plains for the Gold Rush. San Quentin Prison incubated California’s carceral state. Kidnapped Chinese girls were sold in caged brothels in early San Francisco. Indian boarding schools supplied new farms and hotels with unfree child workers.
By looking west to California, Jean Pfaelzer upends our understanding of slavery as a North-South struggle and reveals how the enslaved in California fought, fled, and resisted human bondage. In unyielding research and vivid interviews, Pfaelzer exposes how California gorged on slavery, an appetite that persists today in a global trade in human beings lured by promises of jobs but who instead are imprisoned in sweatshops and remote marijuana grows, or sold as nannies and sex workers.
Slavery shreds California’s utopian brand, rewrites our understanding of the West, and redefines America’s uneasy paths to freedom.
This program is brought to you by MOCA friends and partners, including Bloomberg Philanthropies.
This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Special thanks to Other Half Brewing Company for its generous sponsorship of beer.