Nor have more recent immigrant groups such as the Hmong, Thai and Mien, who came to work in the fields during the 1970s and now live in Central Valley cities such as Stockton, Fresno and Modesto or, of course, the Mexicans, who have been coming since then and are now the majority of workers in the fields, where Spanish is the common language.

ECONOMIST: California's Central Valley

What ails Modesto is what ails Bakersfield (No. 1), Hanford (No. 3), Fresno (No. 4) and other small Central Valley cities (the Valley accounts for all the California cites on the list aside from Los Angeles): heavy doses of nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons stemming from gasoline, chemical processing, paints and other industrial byproducts that harm the ozone and release particle pollution into the air.

FORBES: The Worst Cities In America For Your Lungs

These findings will be of particular concern to cities in the Central Valley of California like Bakersfield and Fresno, which have for years ranked among the highest in the nation for air pollution.

FORBES: Researchers Prove Air Pollution Causes Heart Attacks

Meanwhile, many parties farmers in the Central Valley and governments in the Valley's Kings County and the tony liberal cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton were suing the rail authority for not adequately addressing the train's environmental impacts.

WSJ: Allysia Finley: How Insider Politics Saved California's Train to Nowhere