 Cal Cultures (as it is also known) grew out of a concerted effort to explore new epistemological, conceptual, and methodological challenges created by the diverse demographics of a new and changing California.Central to this effort are the stratified economic conditions, resulting power relations and social formations that have reconfigured California at the nexus of local struggle and global process at the turn of this century.California is the prism through which the program explores these challenges specifically in the ways they intersect with immigration, the environment, health, education, language, cultural production, citizenship, democracy and diversity.