[keving]

“This was Alta California under Mexican rulership, a decade before the Yankees gobbled it up in the Mexican-American War.”

Mexico sold the land, I guess you didn’t read that?
1.Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
2.Treaty of Mesilla, Gadsen Purchase

[forgotten man]

I have read that there were fewer than 50 Californio families at that time. They were the descendants of Spanish soldiers who married Kumeyay women.