This California wine country town is multicultural. So why do so many feel invisible?

PASO ROBLES, Calif. — Paso Robles is idyllic: Victorians line its streets; wine tasting rooms ring a grassy plaza; country roads wind through oak groves; and grapevines stream like braids over steep hillsides. Children walk to school on their own, and on warm evenings, couples stroll past sidewalk patios where diners enjoy gourmet meals.

But as the setting sun casts golden hues on the quaint wooden shop fronts on the bustling town square one Sunday, the lack of people of color leaves me feeling lonely.

Given that nearly 40% of the population is made up of Mexican Americans and other Latinos, many lured here by jobs in the dozens of surrounding vineyards and wineries, their near-total absence in the square is conspicuous. There isn't a single Black American besides myself among all of the white pedestrians, either.

I've come in a state of dismay to Paso Robles, a city of about 32,000 set between the arid lowlands of the Central Valley and the rugged Pacific Coast.

Across the nation, U.S. history has been drafted into the culture wars. School board meetings in California and elsewhere have devolved into shouting matches over how — or whether — to teach lessons on racial injustice, and over which books about race students should be allowed to study. Some parents argue that their children should be spared the guilt that can result from studying incendiary issues like slavery, white supremacy, segregation, discrimination against Native Americans and immigrants, and the present-day hardships that citizens of color face.

I'd read that a group of parents, students and activists recently fought to reinstate an ethnic studies course