Background File Assignment

Ana Baez
EDU 155
Background File Assignment

The standard I chose for my Unit of Study is 3.3: ​Students draw from historical and

community resources to organize the se​quence of local historical events and describe how

each period of settlement left its mark on the land. ​Being that this standard is based on local

historical events, I will be focusing on the history of Anaheim which is were I currently reside,

have done my fieldwork, and hopefully work in as a teacher.

The first people to live in Orange County came to the land thousands of years ago who

lived in primitive ways by hunting and eating plants (“A Brief History of Orange County, 2019).

Years later Native Americans came to the lands; they spoke Shoshonean and they later became

known as the Juaneno and Gabrielino tribes (“A Brief History of Orange County, 2019).

Meanwhile, Spain believed the owned the region of California, and it was about in 1769 that

colonization from Spain began (“A Brief History of Orange County, 2019). It was Don Gaspar

de Portola who led the expedition in Orange County and then later the missions of San Gabriel

and San Juan Capistrano were formed (“A Brief History of Orange County, 2019). However, in

the early 1800’s Mexico broke away from Spain and took California as their own (“A Brief

History of Orange County, 2019). All of Orange County was was owned by Mexico; the land

was given out to citizens and much of it turned to cattle ranching and was a great source for the

Mexican economy (“A Brief History of Orange County, 2019). Eventually the Mexican War

occurred and California was ceded to the United States at the end of the war in 1848 and became

admitted as a state in 1850 (Armor, 2017).

 Background File Assignment

The change from Mexican to American ownership took place shortly thereafter. The

biggest towns were made into counties, and what is now Orange County was lumped along with

Los Angeles county (Armor, 2017). Decades later, the southern part of LA county started to feel

isolated and they wanted to be a more compact county and this finally occurred on March 11,

1989 (Armor, 2017). Orange County was rightly named as on the land grew five million

Valencia orange trees which took up 67,000 acres (Masters, 2014). While it was the city of Santa

Ana that made the petition to become a county, it was actually the city of Anaheim that was the

first successful colony (Kao, 1998).

The city of Anaheim was created by George Hansen and Charles Kohler (Kao, 1998).

The city largely attracted German immigrants from the late 1850’s to the early 1860’s (Kao,

1998). This is why the city was named “Anaheim” as ‘heim’ in German means home by the river

and Ana comes from the Santa Ana river which runs right next to Anaheim. The German

immigrants focused on growing plants and crops, but they also made wine (Kao, 1998). Over the

years Anaheim became a very successful city and attracted immigrants from far and wide. It was

a century later that the creation of Disneyland, by Walt Disney came to be and brought even a

bigger economic boom to the city.

It is easy to say that it is important to study where we are from and those who came

before us but to simply say that is not enough. One of the reasons we study our origins and local

history is to gain empathy and understanding. Through all of the examples of groups and people,

students see the motives of why people migrated here. Applying this information to their own

lives makes them see different perspectives and it also allows them to see their own. A student

might relate to the immigrants who came to Anaheim, just as their family immigrated from a
 Background File Assignment

foreign country. While being able to relate to those before us is important, there is also a much

deeper meaning to learning this information. By learning about past settlements and people, we

are able to apply this past knowledge to present day issues. With the recent uprise in immigration

reform, students can come to their own reasoning and conclusions by using the information they

learned from history and being able to relate that to current real-life events.

As in most of American history, the stories that are often focused on are those of the

white or European people. In this case, the story people tend to focus on the most is the Spanish

conquistadors and the German immigrants. Meanwhile, the stories we don’t usually hear or just

briefly mentioned are those of people of color, here are the Native Americans and Mexicans. In

planning my unit, I definitely plan on spending a good amount of time exploring these

perspectives that are not usually focused on. I hope to gather some primary sources on these

people and learn along with my students, since growing up I did not hear of either perspectives in

school.

The main misunderstanding I could see is keeping the sequence of events, which is a

problem with most of history. Not only the sequence but seeing the transition from era to era,

such as Native Americans to being colonized by the Spaniards, or the transition of Mexico to the

United States and then later German immigrants coming in. It also might be confusing to keep

track of the motives of each group of people and also seeing what marks the left behind.

However, I think I can help alleviate this by taking the unit slow, focusing on one thing at a time,

and making sure to revisit as well as make connections between the centuries.
 Background File Assignment

References

Armor, Samuel. (2017, June 23) ​History of Orange County, CA. ​Jazzybee Verlag. Retrieved
from
https://books.google.com/books?id=zEpTDwAAQBAJ&dq=orange+county+history&lr=
&source=gbs_navlinks_s

A Brief History of Orange County (2019) ​Orange County Historical Society ​Retrieved from
http://www.orangecountyhistory.org/wp/?page_id=38

​ etrieved from
Kao, Kenneth (1998, March 26) ​History of Orange County, CA. R
https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~kennyk/oc/index.html

Masters, Nathan (2014, February 7) ​When Orange County was Rural (An Oranges Actually
Grew There) ​KCET. Retrieved from ​https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/when-orange-c
ounty-was-rural-and-oranges-actually-grew-there