[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img]This week concludes my interview with Californians for Independence co-founder Kyle Ellis.
Frédérik: The movement for secession isn’t only based on grievances with the United States. As your website states, Californians for Independence is also about fostering a kind of Californian self-awareness, whether it’s the state’s history and culture or the need to vastly improve the quality of education. Can you describe these goals in more detail? How do these fit into your group’s drive for independence?
Kyle: I’m glad you asked this question, because although this organization is focused on having California secede from the Union, this movement towards independence is one that we want to make part of a greater drive to improve California. Actually, improving California lies at the very heart of this organization, with our main drives being to make the education, community, environment and government of California the best it can be. This whole article so far has been devoted to exploring how we intend on improving government, through breaking away from the one that we feel we cannot effect any positive change upon, but there are other aspects of our movement that are equally important and far less contentious than the issue of secession.
All That I Did Not Learn
Starting with education, I would like to be able to tell you all about how I learned so many interesting things in school about California politics, general laws that I need to know about, and all the other basic things that everyone who turns 18 should know in time to vote. But I can’t because I learned nothing of these subjects. I would also like to tell you how I learned about my state’s vivid and incredible history in 13 years of schooling but, based on what I remember, I only learned these things during the fourth grade, and all that was really discussed were things like the gold rush, 49ers, and maybe manifest destiny (I can’t really remember. It was so long ago). Now, I’m not saying that all schools offered so little in the way of citizenship education as mine did, but the fact is that the schools we have now are woefully inadequate and (aside from our colleges) are some of the worst performing schools in the Western world. Our organization would like to change this by advocating for better programs, better teacher pay, and more accountability at the local, community level. We’ve all seen how vast government programs always fail to address the sorts of individualistic needs that each school, and each child, has. And we view the only way to improve things is to take responsibility out of the hands of legislators and put it back into the hands of teachers and parents.
This leads me to the next important project that the organization wishes to engage in, and that is the project of uniting communities. Too often we have neighbors who have never spoken to one another, and don’t even know each other’s names. Children growing up with the Internet and computer games replacing neighborhood friends, and their ability to explore their surrounding environment being curtailed by parents out of fear of who may be living near them. What our group would like to do is create a forum through which neighbors could meet, become friends, and begin to trust one another again; creating bonds of community that will last.
Other aspects of our organization will include the celebration of the unique cultures that currently lie hidden in California’s past and submerged beneath the homogenizing presence of US culture. Thing’s like June 14’s Bear Flag revolt, where our state flag comes from, or the valiant efforts of the Yuma people in deflecting Spanish invaders from California over the course of decades. Not to mention our organization’s commitment to helping people become more aware and appreciative of the environments that they live in, and which border their own. Like having the people of the South Coast understand the unique nature that surrounds them, and appreciate the beautiful landscapes that lie just east of us, in the Mojave and Colorado deserts.
In short, Californians of Independence wants to improve California by making it a better place for all of us to live. We want to achieve this through changing the systems through which we experience the world, be they governmental or social, for the better.
