Exploring housing discrimination in Kern County

Exhibit highlights impact of segregated housing on development of community

By California State University, Bakersfield

November 7^th, 2023

“No part of [a] property shall be used or occupied, or permitted to be occupied, by any person not of the White or Caucasian race.”

Such racially restrictive housing covenants — or legal agreements for the purchase and sale of property — were common in Kern County between 1938 and 1950, limiting access to new homes and neighborhoods for people of color.

Some of these covenants are being featured in a new exhibit that is now open in the California State University, Bakersfield Historical Research Center (HRC) titled “America’s New Cities: Housing and ‘Redlining’ in California’s Central Valley.”

The exhibit, which is being funded through a $5,000 grant from California Humanities, is available through August 2024. Exhibit hours are 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays. A grand opening has been scheduled for Nov. 16 at 4 p.m.

“There’s this misguided narrative in Bakersfield history that there really wasn’t any segregation, that it wasn’t legislated in any legal documents. One thing we’re trying to do is push back on that narrative,” said HRC Director Chris Livingston. “We want people to have an understanding that these narratives do exist in our community and that we still see the ripple effects of those practices. It’s still impacting us today in how our city is developed and planned, the services and amenities that certain areas of the city get.”

While the covenants are a significant aspect of the exhibit, its focus is significantly broader. It examines the impacts of housing discrimination from the formation of Bakersfield in the 1860s all the way through to the present.

The exhibit explores various topics including eminent domain, segregation in school districts, indigenous housing and the establishment of the city and county.

“This isn’t just about housing and discrimination policy. It’s also about people’s lived experience and how housing and location ties into that,” said Processing Archivist Donato Cruz. “It’s important to study the transformation of neighborhoods and see where they are now and what they were before. What does urban investment look like now? It’s incredible how influential housing is to our daily lived experience from our education to where we shop.”

The exhibit has been in the works for the past few years after the HRC obtained a collection of city and county real estate documents in 2015. Cruz, who was a student assistant at the time, was tasked with processing the collection.

Cruz found that there was a lot of interesting information in this collection about how Kern County was developed. He eventually decided to make it the focus of his master’s thesis, which led him to do his own research into the formation of minority-dense neighborhoods in Bakersfield.

“When I first went into it, people told me I wouldn’t find much, but I ended up finding too much,” he said. “The history is unwritten, but it’s not undocumented — it’s there.”

After years of doing research and collecting documents, Livingston and Cruz both agreed that there was more than enough material to create an exhibit and that there is an interest in this topic. They also felt that the center’s student assistants would also benefit from it.

“We want to continue to see that as much as we learn from the collections, we can help our students learn as well,” Cruz said. “The students are interested in this too.”

Livingston and Cruz are both excited for people to explore the exhibit and hope that it leads them to ask questions and do their own research.

“The story of housing is also the story of the development of the community,” Livingston said. “This is a hot topic that I think people will be very interested in. We’re hoping people ask questions about what the future holds and how we use this information to change our direction for the better.”

Livingston said he hopes the HRC will be able to build on the success of this exhibit and conduct more in-depth research on the rural areas of Kern County as well as the whole Southern San Joaquin Valley

“The smaller cities like Arvin, Lamont, Shafter — there’s no voice there because of their size. What we’re hoping to do is expand throughout Kern County and get as much documentation in those areas as we can,” he said. “We also want to fill in the gaps within the state. Our intention is to be exhaustive.”