In California’s Heartland, a New Resistance Movement Is Taking Root

Driving down the last steep grade of Tejon Pass, you come upon a fold in the earth of middle California where the tentacles of Los Angeles end and a new place begins. If you’ve never made the trip, the crossing is one of the true demarcations in the American landscape, the West’s Mason-Dixon line, though you won’t discern it at first because the plain below hides under a cover of soot and smog.

Not until you descend into the muck, and…