Bauer tells California history strictly through Native perspectives. Most California histories begin with the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the late eighteenth century and conveniently skip to the Gold Rush of 1849.

William J. Bauer, Jr. is associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a member of the Wailacki and Concow tribes of the Round Valley Indian Reservation. He is the author of We Were All like Migrant Workers Here: Work, Community, and Memory on California's Round Valley Reservation, 1850-1941.