BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – Led and published by Cherokee Nation citizen Kathleen Hokit, Kern Magazine spotlights life in Kern County, California, sharing stories that reflect the people, businesses, arts and culture that shape the county’s communities.
Kern Magazine, a digital-first publication, officially launched Jan. 1 “to offer a fresh take on local storytelling that celebrates the people, businesses and culture shaping the heart of California.” The magazine plans to collaborate with local creatives and business owners to “amplify the stories that connect this diverse and hardworking region.”
Kern County is located in southern California. Its county seat is Bakersfield where many Cherokee people settled after leaving their Oklahoma homes in the 1930s during the “Great Depression” to find jobs and better lives. Today, the Cherokee Nation maintains strong ties to California communities established by these families in the 1930s, particularly around Bakersfield.
“So, we highlight the people who are moving our county forward. And since we’re Indigenous owned, I am trying very hard to also focus on tribal voices, which, that’s a gap that really needs to be filled locally. Here in Kern County, there’s not much talk about Cherokee community and other inter-tribal happenings,” Hokit said. “My mother is from Finland, and my father is from California, and that’s where our ancestry comes from, the Dust Bowl. So, I get my Cherokee roots from my grandmother on my dad’s side, and we have roots back to the wolf clan.”…