The California Dream Has Always Warned of Its Own Demise

Year after year, journalists and commentators announce the dream’s failure or imminent collapse.

年复一年，记者和评论员宣布梦想失败或即将崩溃。

And yet, we cannot seem to let it go.

然而，我们似乎无法放手。

Now, as the 175th year of statehood comes to a close, we should consider the dream’s curious hold on us, how it helps us recognize one version of the Golden State’s history, and what it could mean for our future.

现在，随着建州 175 周年即将结束，我们应该考虑一下这个梦想对我们的好奇，它如何帮助我们认识金州历史的一个版本，以及它对我们的未来意味着什么。

In 2018, Gavin Newsom’s campaign pledged to bring the dream back from the dead (“We can and must reanimate the California Dream”); this year, gubernatorial frontrunner Xavier Becerra barnstorms under the banner, “Fighting for the California Dream.” For many the vision still lives: A poll in 2021 showed most Californians believe the dream has relevance for them, with Asian Americans, Black people, and Latinos actually expressing greater faith in it than white respondents.

2018 年，加文·纽森 (Gavin Newsom) 的竞选团队承诺让梦想起死回生（“我们可以而且必须重振加州梦”）；今年，州长领跑者泽维尔·贝塞拉 (Xavier Becerra) 在“为加州梦而战”的旗帜下进行了巡回演讲。对于许多人来说，这个愿景仍然存在：2021 年的一项民意调查显示，大多数加州人认为这个梦想与他们相关，亚裔美国人、黑人和拉丁裔实际上比白人受访者表达了更大的信心。

A 2026 poll suggests nearly half of Californians still believe in it.

2026 年的一项民意调查显示，近一半的加州人仍然相信这一点。

But there’s no firm definition of the California Dream.

但加州梦并没有明确的定义。

For most, it evokes a shared, quasi-national aspiration that supposedly energized the state’s ascent from humble frontier beginnings to global bellwether.

对于大多数人来说，它唤起了一种共同的、准国家的愿望，据说这种愿望推动了国家从卑微的边疆起步到全球领头羊的崛起。

The dream encapsulates a version of the state’s history that goes something like this: Most residents, from 1850 onward, have believed in California’s future and have invested their lives, labor, and money in pursuit of its promises of expansive leisure and extraordinary beauty.

这个梦想概括了该州历史的一个版本：从 1850 年起，大多数居民都对加州的未来充满信心，并投入了自己的生命、劳动力和金钱来追求其广阔的休闲和非凡美丽的承诺。

I’ve read thousands of letters and diaries from 19th-century California and never come across any mention of the California Dream in them.

我读过数千封 19 世纪加州的信件和日记，但从未在其中提到过加州梦。

Other historians find it similarly elusive.

其他历史学家也发现它同样难以捉摸。

Gold Rush writers warned against “the golden dream,” a delusion that one was about to become rich.

淘金热作家警告人们不要做“黄金梦”，这是一种即将致富的错觉。

A digital search for the term “California Dream” in the 40 million books scanned by Google suggests it did not appear in any of those published in the 1850s , or for decades after.

在谷歌扫描的 4000 万本书中对“加州梦”一词进行数字搜索后发现，该词并未出现在 1850 年代及其后几十年出版的任何书籍中。

As best I can determine, it wasn’t until 1966 that the California Dream made its appearance, buried in the automotive section of the New York Times in an article about Los Angeles traffic.

据我所知，直到 1966 年，“加州梦”才首次亮相，埋藏在《纽约时报》汽车版块一篇有关洛杉矶交通的文章中。

“Here in the midst of the California dream gone wild, freeways proliferate almost as fast as contractors can pour cement,” observed journalist Bill Becker.

记者比尔·贝克尔（Bill Becker）观察到：“在加州的梦想变得疯狂的时候，高速公路的扩张速度几乎与承包商浇筑水泥的速度一样快。”

“But so do the frustrations.” No matter how fast freeways went up, he wrote, cars multiplied faster and traffic (and smog) grew worse.

“但挫折感也是如此。”他写道，无论高速公路建设多快，汽车数量都会增加得更快，交通（和烟雾）也会变得更糟。

The following year, in 1967, Joan Didion published her famous article, “California Dreaming,” in which she skewered a California think tank for casual sexism and celebrity worship that precluded them from, well, thinking.

次年，也就是 1967 年，琼·迪迪安 (Joan Didion) 发表了她的著名文章《加州之梦》(California Dreaming)，她在文中猛烈抨击加州一家智库的随意性别歧视和名人崇拜，这些行为阻碍了他们思考。

Neither Becker nor Didion felt compelled to explain what they meant by the California Dream.

贝克尔和迪迪安都没有必要解释他们所说的“加州梦”的含义。

Both seemed to believe their audiences already knew.

两人似乎都相信他们的观众已经知道了。

And neither thought that the prospects for the dream were very good.

两人都没有想到梦想的前景非常美好。

The most likely explanation for why “California Dream” made its first appearance in the middle of the 1960s is obvious: The Mamas & The Papas’ hit single, “California Dreamin’,” which climbed the charts in the early months of 1966.

对于《加州梦》在 20 世纪 60 年代中期首次亮相的最可能的解释是显而易见的：The Mamas & The Papas 的热门单曲《加州梦》在 1966 年初的几个月中攀升了排行榜。

The song presents California as a romantic haven for sincere people longing to escape the corrupt East.

这首歌将加州描绘成一个浪漫的天堂，为那些渴望逃离腐败的东方的真诚人们提供了一个浪漫的天堂。

If the lush harmonies, folk rhythms, and country-rock beat that became known as “the California sound” were new, the song was a re-working of the old myth of the Far West as paradisiacal retreat.

如果说被称为“加州之声”的丰富和声、民间节奏和乡村摇滚节拍是新的，那么这首歌就是对远西天堂般隐居的古老神话的重新演绎。

To be in California, according to the band (who had recently moved from New York City to the Hollywood Hills), was to be safe, warm, and free of stifling institutions, ceremonies, hierarchies, and social ties.

根据乐队（他们最近从纽约搬到好莱坞山）的说法，在加利福尼亚州是安全、温暖的，并且没有令人窒息的机构、仪式、等级制度和社会关系。

The song appealed to millions of young postwar Baby Boomers, many of them fans of Southern California folk-rock and pop artists, most famously Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

这首歌吸引了数百万战后婴儿潮一代的年轻人，其中许多人是南加州民谣摇滚和流行艺术家的粉丝，其中最著名的是布莱恩·威尔逊和海滩男孩。

And, more broadly, the song evoked a widespread fascination with California.

更广泛地说，这首歌唤起了人们对加州的广泛迷恋。

The suburban comforts of Los Angeles, combined with what we might call a countercultural instrumentation (including a 12-string guitar plucked in imitation of a sitar and a breathy alto flute) lent the place a foreign, exotic tinge.

洛杉矶郊区的舒适环境，再加上我们所谓的反文化乐器（包括模仿西塔琴和呼吸声中音长笛弹拨的 12 弦吉他），给这个地方增添了一种外国的、异国情调的色彩。

“California Dream” became shorthand in part for a combination of attractions that was drawing millions of new residents.

“加州梦”在一定程度上成为吸引数百万新居民的景点组合的简称。

Readers perhaps will be surprised to learn that, despite the Gold Rush, California’s growth was anemic in the 19th century.

读者也许会惊讶地发现，尽管有淘金热，加州在 19 世纪的增长却乏力。

By 1900, the state ranked only 21st in population, with 1.5 million people (making it around the same size as Kansas).

到 1900 年，该州人口仅排在第 21 位，有 150 万人口（与堪萨斯州的面积大致相同）。

But growth exploded in the decades following, and especially after World War II.

但在接下来的几十年里，尤其是二战后，经济增长呈爆炸式增长。

1940s California added 3.6 million new residents, and in the 1950s over 5 million more arrived.

20 世纪 40 年代，加州新增了 360 万居民，而到了 20 世纪 50 年代，又新增了超过 500 万居民。

By 1960, 16 million people lived in California.

到 1960 年，加州已有 1600 万人居住。

By 1962, California surpassed New York to become the most populous state in the Union.

到 1962 年，加利福尼亚州超过纽约州，成为美国人口最多的州。

But for all the pop song’s good vibes, most commentators echoed Becker and Didion in discounting the dream, which seemed to fade amid upheaval outside the recording studio.

尽管这首流行歌曲给人以美好的感觉，但大多数评论员都赞同贝克尔和迪迪恩的观点，对这个梦想不以为然，而这个梦想似乎在录音棚外的动荡中逐渐消失。

“California Dreamin’” was recorded in Los Angeles the same year that the Watts Rebellion shook the city and thousands of armed National Guard members descended on South Los Angeles.

《加州之梦》在洛杉矶录制的同一年，瓦茨叛乱震撼了这座城市，数千名武装国民警卫队成员袭击了南洛杉矶。

Across the nation, large numbers of Americans were recoiling from anti-Civil Rights violence and beginning to question the Vietnam War.

在全国范围内，大量美国人对反民权暴力感到退缩，并开始质疑越南战争。

A No. 1 pop song in 1965 had been “Eve of Destruction,” with Barry McGuire’s gravelly voice intoning about war, racial strife, and the looming threat of nuclear apocalypse.

1965 年排名第一的流行歌曲是《毁灭前夕》，巴里·麦奎尔用沙哑的声音吟诵着战争、种族冲突和迫在眉睫的核灾难威胁。

Despite our era’s pervasive nostalgia for those years, California’s heady expansion provoked deep anxieties at the time—about suburban sprawl, air pollution, and supposedly imminent overpopulation.

尽管我们这个时代普遍怀念那些年，但加利福尼亚州令人兴奋的扩张在当时引发了深深的焦虑——人们对郊区的扩张、空气污染和所谓即将到来的人口过剩感到担忧。

In 1962, an organization called California Tomorrow warned of the costs of growth in a pamphlet called “California: Going, Going .

1962年，一个名为“加州明天”的组织在一本名为《加州：前进，前进……》的小册子中警告了增长的成本。

.

。

.

。

.” In 1965, the group appointed a bipartisan advisory board (chaired by Caspar Weinberger, future defense secretary for Ronald Reagan) to oversee a new journal, Cry California, which explored ways of “maintaining a beautiful and productive California.” Cry California ran until 1982.

”。 1965 年，该组织任命了一个两党顾问委员会（由罗纳德·里根未来的国防部长卡斯帕·温伯格担任主席）来监督一本新杂志《哭泣的加州》，该杂志探索“维持美丽而富有成效的加州”的方法。 《哭泣的加州》一直持续到 1982 年。

In 1991, Time magazine published a special issue called “California: The Endangered Dream.” In years following, a long string of authors blamed California’s growth for unraveling its good fortunes—killing or mortally wounding the dream.

1991年，《时代》杂志出版了一期特刊，名为《加州：濒临灭绝的梦想》。在接下来的几年里，一长串作者指责加州的经济增长破坏了它的好运——扼杀或致命地伤害了梦想。

But then, about two decades ago, as the population hit 35 million people, growth and the conversation about it took an abrupt turn.

但后来，大约二十年前，随着人口达到 3500 万，增长和有关增长的讨论发生了突然的转变。

By 2005, California’s annual population growth had fallen to 1% or less.

到 2005 年，加州的年人口增长率已降至 1% 或更低。

In 2019, the state’s growth slowed to .35%, the slowest since 1900; in 2020, for the first time, the state lost population, as it did again in 2025.

2019年，该州经济增速放缓至0.35%，为1900年以来的最低水平； 2020 年，该州首次出现人口减少，2025 年再次出现人口减少。

Popular anxiety today swirls around California’s lack of growth: The dream is now endangered because of stagnation or decline.

如今，人们普遍对加州经济增长乏力感到焦虑：由于经济停滞或衰退，这个梦想现在正面临危险。

Fewer people move here, it is said, because inequality is too great.

据说，搬到这里的人越来越少，因为不平等太严重了。

Or the price of housing is too high and drought is too severe .

或者房价太高，干旱太严重。

Or regulations are too onerous.

或者说规定太繁琐了。

Today, a tumbling birth rate and a col l apsing rate of immigration have caused U.S. growth to stall, too.

如今，出生率下降和移民率下降也导致美国经济增长停滞。

Once again, as California goes so goes the nation.

再一次，随着加州的发展，整个国家也会随之发展。

In truth, the dream was endangered from its birth.

事实上，这个梦想从诞生之日起就面临着危险。

Invoking it has always been a means to warn of its demise.

援引它一直是警告其消亡的一种手段。

But behind all these discussions about the California Dream has been a profound questioning of what makes the American good life and how widely and equally it can be shared—a suitable set of queries, I think, for a 175th birthday.

但在所有这些关于“加州梦”的讨论背后，隐藏着对美国美好生活的深刻质疑，以及如何广泛、平等地分享美好生活——我认为，这一系列问题非常适合 175 岁生日。

Louis S.

路易斯·S。

Warren is W.

沃伦是 W.

Turrentine Jackson Distinguished Professor of U.S. Western History at UC Davis, where he publishes on the California Dream and other subjects.

特伦廷·杰克逊 (Turrentine Jackson) 加州大学戴维斯分校美国西部史杰出教授，发表有关加州梦和其他主题的文章。

This piece publishes as part of California 175 — What Connects California?

本文作为 California 175 — What Connects California？ 的一部分发表

, a suite of free Zócalo programs and essays, bringing together leaders and thinkers from all walks of life to envision California’s next 175 years.

，一套免费的 Zócalo 项目和论文，汇集了各行各业的领导者和思想家，共同展望加州的下一个 175 年。

Primary editor: Talib Jabbar | Secondary editor: Eryn Brown

主编：Talib Jabbar |二级编辑：Eryn Brown

Get our latest essays, poems, art, and updates on our (always) free events.

获取我们最新的文章、诗歌、艺术作品以及我们（始终）免费活动的最新动态。