Race, Religion, and Space in California’s Central Valley

California has historically been imagined as larger than life – a place of excess and grandeur. The organizing power of the myth of the American West is especially evident in the work of Ferenc Szasz, which has helped historians think about the distinctiveness of religion in the region. In the years since Religion in the Modern American West was published, the region has emerged as a productive test site for exploring religion’s relationship to colonialism, the formulation of diverse racial and ethnic groups, and the role of place and space in scholarly analysis. The work of Jonathan Ebel and Lloyd Barba adds to this literature by uncovering the religious dynamics hidden in California’s non-coastal cities. Located in an area known as the Central Valley, cities like Bakersfield, Tulare, and Wasco are bordered by mountain ranges that separate the interior from coastal metropolises and beach towns. Far from the Pacific Ocean breeze, these cities are hot, and their reputations as “rural” towns propped up by an agrarian-based economy have historically fueled stereotypes about the people who live there. As such, the region has tended to be dismissed as a site of serious study.