Heyday

News from Native California

2010-05-13T19:53:28Z

Published by Heyday, News from Native California is a unique quarterly magazine devoted to the Indian people of California. Written and produced by California Indians and those close to the community, News provides an intimate portrait of traditional and contemporary tribal culture.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FEATURES

Wishtoyo Brings Life to Ancient Chumash Village Site

"Pass me that squirrel, toss me my iPod": Language Learning at the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation

Native Language Teachers Win Right to Credential

Idyllwild Summer Arts: Cahuilla Survival Technology

California Native Plants Class Going into Its Thirteenth Year

Census Critical for American Indians

Too Mush Fun: A Tasty Approach to Kumiai Uses of Native Plants

American Indian Health Clinics Facing Funding Crisis

Blue Jay Girl

Blue Jay Girl: A Book Is Born

Historic Firehouse Museum Gets a Burst of Native Energy

California Indian License Plate Initiative

Jacque Nunez Named Educator of the Year

Tongva Ti'at Hits Long Beach Waters

Sculptor Doug Hyde Shares Work with Yocha Dehe Students

IN (ALMOST) EVERY ISSUE

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Big Times/Little Times: Fritz Scholder Inducted into the California Hall of Fame Kim Hogeland

]]> "[A] full-fledged magazine focusing on the arts, education, the law, culture, language, [and] botany...,[News] probably has the widest literacy range of any periodical in the Western Hemisphere."

—Los Angeles Times

"The first and only journal for California Indian peoples, a network where we can talk with one another about our individual and common political concerns, News from Native California has been and continues to be our intertribal hotline."

—Greg Sarris, Tribal Chair, Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria

Afro-Latino Influence in California History

2010-05-08T00:00:34Z

Although it is not generally apparent from paintings and other depictions of early California, many members of the pioneering Anza expeditions and Spanish California's most prominent families were of mixed race—Hispanic, Indian, and African. At a time when slavery was still legal in the United States, these Afro-Latinos made major contributions to early California. They were landowners, soldiers, judges, governors, and patriarchs of some of the state's most influential families. They opened up trails, led rebellions, and established ranchos and pueblos that would become the basis for many of today's cities.

This pamphlet, produced in conjunction with the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, provides an overview of these remarkable families, describes their backgrounds, and investigates the ways in which they reshaped early California. It also provides us with an image of a society in which the relationships between races, and racism itself, were far different, and perhaps less rigidly understood, than they are today.

Baby Yosemite

2010-05-07T23:55:49Z

Oh baby! Let adorable fawns, owlets, ducklings, cubs, and other baby animals be your guide to Yosemite as they explore, each in their own way, one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Take Me to the River: Fishing, Swimming, and Dreaming on the San Joaquin

2010-05-07T23:45:18Z

For ten years, Coke Hallowell and her daughter Joell asked people with deep connections to the San Joaquin, "What was your life like along the river?" With candor and enthusiasm, people responded. Fishermen, miners, immigrants, Native Americans, hunters, farmers, and environmentalists all clamored to be heard. The result is Take Me to the River—a collection of thirty-three deeply personal accounts of life along the San Joaquin.

These are stories that capture rare snapshots of river history: childhoods spent swimming in the river's ice-cold waters, rafting downstream in a rickety boat with friends, spearing fifty-pound chinook salmon year after year, eating fresh figs picked right from a huge tree on the river-bank, dredging for gold during the Depression, building a coalition to restore the river's health, sharing the very last meal before Friant Dam was built and the salmon runs stopped, and many, many fish stories.

Take Me to the River recounts the many trials—damming, overpopulation, climate change—and triumphs that a river undergoes in our times. Each story calls us to discover our own relationships with the natural world and, as a whole, Take Me to the River propels us toward a brighter future—one that holds the promise of restoring the health and vigor of the San Joaquin.

]]> "We have dammed the river. We have turned its meander into a straitjacket. We have sent its flow to distant parts. And now the Hallowells, mother and daughter, have captured the river's past as we've captured its snowmelt, only with patience and love."

—Mark Arax, author of In My Father's Name and West of the West

"This volume is a reminder of why a river matters...environmentally, culturally, spiritually. The life and death and possible rebirth of the San Joaquin form an epic that every American should study and every Californian should revere. Thanks to the Hallowells' work, we can appreciate that overkill may be a national habit but it isn't a national necessity."

—Gerald Haslam, author of Haslam's Valley and The Other California

"Without memories, a place loses its history, the past easily dismissed. A place is only as real as people remember it. Take Me to the River captures these memories and makes a river come alive. The voices are honest and authentic. They take us back to a time filled with history and stories of what was and perhaps what can still be."

—David Mas Masumoto, farmer, columnist, and author of Epitaph for a Peach and Heirlooms

"The world evoked in these pages is fast vanishing--a way of life that most of us will never experience. But this book is by no means mere nostalgia. Take Me to the River is living, breathing, essential history. These first-person accounts from witnesses to a now almost forgotten world not only bring the past alive, they allow readers to feel, firsthand, the exhilaration of remembering. Here very personal oral histories are transformed into a universal tale. The San Joaquin may not be everybody's river, but these are surely our stories."

—Peter Orner, author of The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo and Esther Stories, editor of Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives

Tahoe beneath the Surface: The Hidden Stories of America's Largest Mountain Lake

2010-05-07T23:36:01Z

Lake Tahoe transformed America, and not just once but many times over—from the earliest Ice Age civilizations to the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe. It even played a hidden role in the American conquest of California, the launch of the Republican Party, and the birth of John Steinbeck's first novel. Along the way, Lake Tahoe found the time to invent the ski industry, spark the sexual revolution, and win countless Academy Awards.

Tahoe beneath the Surface brings this hidden history of America's largest mountain lake to life through the stories of its most celebrated residents and visitors over the last ten thousand years. It mixes local Washoe Indian legends with tales of murderous Mafia dons, and Rat Pack tunes with Steinbeck novels. It establishes Tahoe as one of America's literary hot spots by tracing the steps of more than a dozen authors including Bertrand Russell, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Michael Ondaatje. Tahoe beneath the Surface reveals how the lake transformed the lives of conservationists like John Muir, humorists like Mark Twain, and Hollywood icons like Frank Sinatra. It even touches upon some of the darker aspects of American history, including anti-Chinese racism and the Kennedy assassination.

Despite the impact Lake Tahoe has had on America, environmental threats loom large, and Tahoe Blue—a term that Lankford uses to encompass the whole range of life, beauty, and meaning the lake represents—grows increasingly vulnerable. In Tahoe beneath the Surface, human history and natural history combine in a most engaging way, one that will both inform and inspire all who would keep Tahoe blue.

]]> "I urge readers to dive into this book headfirst and to allow its currents to carry them along. Bravo, Lankford, bravo! This book will take me back to Tahoe and enable me to see it as though for the first time."

—Jonah Raskin, author of Natives, Newcomers, Exiles, Fugitives: Northern California Writers and their Work, and a professor of communication studies at Sonoma State University

"This book is pure pleasure. Equally at home in nature and culture, the past and the present, Scott Lankford reflects on Tahoe from the deep geological past to contemporary ecological threats,writing about all of it with a lover's fervor and respect, a keen eye, and sparkling wit....I learned something new on every page."

—Tom Lutz, author of Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America; editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books

"Sparkling like the lake itself, this is a revealing depiction of the characters and forces that have shaped one of our national treasures. A compelling read to keep Tahoe Blue."

—Dr. Leo E. Chavez, superintendent and president, Sierra College

"A must read for anyone interested in Lake Tahoe, and, for that matter, for anyone interested in a good story of a particular landscape, in this case the largest mountain lake in America"

—Greg Sarris, chairman, Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria; author of Grand Avenue and Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream 

East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres

2010-05-07T23:29:10Z

From cuisine and martial arts to sex and self-esteem, East Eats West shines new light on the bridges and crossroads where two hemispheres meld into one worldwide "immigrant nation." In this new nation, with its amalgamation of divergent ideas, tastes, and styles, today's bold fusion becomes tomorrow's classic. But while the space between East and West continues to shrink in this age of globalization, some cultural gaps remain.

In this collection of twenty-one personal essays, Andrew Lam, the award-winning author of Perfume Dreams, continues to explore the Vietnamese diaspora, this time concentrating not only on how the East and West have changed but how they are changing each other. Lively and engaging, East Eats West searches for meaning in nebulous territory charted by very few. Part memoir, part meditation, and part cultural anthropology, East Eats West is about thriving in the West with one foot still in the East.

]]> "Once an awed young refugee from Vietnam, Andrew Lam can still view America with wonder. Our country is becoming Asian—culture, religion, food, media—all influenced by diasporas from countries that were enemies and allies. Alarmed and delighted, I voraciously read East Eats West."

—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

"Andrew Lam is an expert time-traveler, collapsing childhood and adulthood; years of war and peace; and the evolution of language in his own life, time, and mind. To read Andrew's work is a joy and a profound journey."

—Farai Chideya, reporter and author of Kiss the Sky

"One of the best American essayists of his generation."

—Wayne Karlin, author of Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam

"Don't be fooled by the seductive beauty of [Lam's] prose--underneath its iridescent surface, it comes with the wicked kick of Sriracha chili sauce."

—Sandip Roy, host of New America Now Radio and commentator on NPR's Morning Edition

"Andrew Lam devours the American experience with fresh eyes, keen insight, and a lyrical voice. He is a natural storyteller on a journey of discovery across continents and cultures, and we're lucky to be along for the ride."

—Scott James, New York Times columnist and author of SoMa and The Sower

"In these lovely, wise, probing essays, Andrew Lam not only illuminates the crucial twenty-first-century issues of immigration and cultural identity but the greater, enduring issues of what it means to be human. East Eats West is a compelling book, and an important one."

—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

"Future historians will have the pleasure of chronicling how through his deft essays Andrew Lam bridged, fused, and reconciled Asia, Vietnam, Vietnamese America, contemporary California, American culture as a whole, and the English language into one interactive symbiosis, his and all of ours, for now and for decades to come."

—Kevin Starr, University Professor and professor of history, University of Southern California

"Lam describes our new Pacific world in prose that is subtle, mesmerizing, and unforgettable."

—Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation and Who We Be: The Colorization of America

"Lam's story is heartbreaking and inspiring as it tells of the travails, the tragedies, and the successes of the Vietnamese and other Asians who came to America to escape oppression and better their lives and the lives of their children and in the process, blessed and changed America."

—Larry Engelmann, author of Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam

"By turns playful, thoughtful, and critically astute, this is his version of the voice the New America speaks, and it is a superbly fresh lyric. East Eats West is a sublime dissertation on what happens when the 'marginal' finally arrives at the 'center.'"

—Rubén Martínez, Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature and Writing at Loyola Marymount University and author of Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail

"Andrew Lam's work weaves journalism and storytelling beautifully. Together the essays craft a new Vietnamese American identity that is invested in neither retrieving 'authentic' culture or claiming America. Lam's vision is shaped by the past, not beholden to it, and trusting of the future."

—Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, associate professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University

"No one writes about being Vietnamese and American with a finer sadness or a richer sense of irony or greater humor than Andrew Lam."

—Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America

"With a sharp eye on American idiosyncrasies, with a sad understanding of the inevitable distance between immigrant parents and their children, with a nuanced hopefulness for culinary utopias, and with an unstoppable curiosity to fathom the layered multilingual memories of an immigrant, East Eats West initiates the reader to the fact that 'in the land of plenty there's plenty of irony' too."

—Werner Sollors, professor of African and African American studies, Harvard University, author of Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture

Making Home from War: Stories of Japanese American Exile and Resettlement

2010-05-07T23:20:52Z

Many books have chronicled the experience of Japanese Americans in the early days of World War II, when over 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were taken from their homes along the West Coast and imprisoned in concentration camps. When they were finally allowed to leave, a new challenge faced them—how do you resume a life so interrupted?

For most, going home meant learning to live in a hostile, racist environment. Some returned to find they had lost their homes and had little choice but to bide their time in transitional housing, including community halls, churches, housing projects, and tent camps. Their employment options were also limited; they often worked as domestics, dishwashers, and field laborers to help support their families. The effects of these experiences reverberate to this day, and Making Home from War reaches into the past, melds together what was once hidden, and tells the often neglected or hushed story of what happened after the war.

With honesty and an eye for detail, Making Home from War is the long-awaited sequel to the award-winning From Our Side of the Fence. Written by thirteen Japanese American elders who gathered regularly at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, Making Home from War is a collection of stories about their exodus from concentration camps into a world that in a few short years had drastically changed. In order to survive, they found the resilience they needed in the form of community, and gathered reserves of strength from family and friends. Through a spectrum of conflicting and rich emotions, Making Home from War demonstrates the depth of human resolve and faith during a time of devastating upheaval.

]]> "I remember my release from Manzanar as scary and intense, but until now so little has been said about this aspect of the internment experience. This is an important book, its stories ground-breaking and memorable."

—Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, author of Farewell to Manzanar

"The Nisei memoirists emerge from the creative process voicing this collective yet richly variegated conclusion: 'while resettlement will never be a truly definitive entity, we are nonetheless finding our way back home in the discovery and telling of our stories.'"

—Arthur A. Hansen, Professor Emeritus of History and Asian American Studies at California State University, Fullerton

"These stories tiptoe gently into the heart, wipe clear the windows of our memories, and release the frozen tears of our outrage and triumphs. A deeply moving accounting of life after imprisonment, its lingering stigma, and the true meaning of freedom."

—Dr. Satsuki Ina, producer of Children of the Camps

"In my teacher professional development work nationally and internationally . . . I will [promote] Making Home from War. The readings . . . are very accessible to secondary school students and I highly recommend their use in social studies and language arts classrooms. The lesson plans are a unique feature to the anthologies and offer teachers tools to help set the context for the readings and to help students debrief them.

—Gary Mukai, Director of Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education

Frozen Music: A Literary Exploration of California Architecture

2010-05-07T16:46:17Z

Nowhere is California's cultural vigor, diversity, and independent spirit on better display than in the many forms of its buildings. As a way of engaging our imagination and deepening our understanding of the structures around us, Frozen Music invites readers to view architecture in a new way—not through architectural criticism but through literature.

Frozen Music explores the diversity of California architecture through excerpts taken from novels, memoirs, essays, poetry, and more. Examining structures from the early missions to present-day buildings to futuristic visions, the pieces in this collection move from romantic to speculative, comedic to philosophical.

Included are Mike Davis's commentary on the fortified cells of affluent society in Los Angeles, and the architectural policing of social boundaries; Malcolm Margolin's telling of the ceremony involved in replacing an old center post in an Indian dance house; John Fante's description of the collapse of the brick Alta Loma Hotel; and Paul Goldberger's comparison of Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall to a musical instrument. Excerpts from Herbert Muschamp, Charles Moore, William Gibson, and others show there is no single grand story of California architecture but rather an amazing eclecticism that befits California's diverse cultural heritage.

]]> "David Chu has assembled not merely an accessible and astute architectural history, but also a penetrating cultural one."

—Tim Culvahouse, FAIA, editor of arcCA (Architecture California)

Turned Round in My Boots: A Memoir

2010-05-07T16:33:14Z

Upon returning to American soil after the Vietnam War, Patterson has only one rule: "Never take a job you couldn't quit." And so begins his formidable journey of learning how to re-adapt to civilian life. Patterson describes moving to Sonoma County, sleeping in a barn, and picking up whatever odd jobs were available. From digging ditches and cleaning out chicken coops to pruning vineyards and picking grapes, Patterson introduces readers to the hardscrabble life of a returning war veteran. He interweaves humorous descriptions of his work—and his frequent run-ins with authority—with memories of his difficult childhood, his work in the anti-war movement, and the devastating effects of having fought overseas.

In his struggles to overcome loss, Patterson proves once again that whatever challenges one has faced in life, the power of telling a good story is redemptive. This matter-of-fact memoir presents a view of country life far from idyllic but nonetheless lived with courage, curiosity, and zest. Patterson's irrepressible nature and mischievous wit serve him well, and many of his hard-won insights are delivered with a twinkle in his eye. Told with remarkable honesty, Turned Round in My Boots is a powerful and engaging tale about hard work, true love, and surviving the aftereffects of war.

]]> "Turned Round in My Boots is a working-class, coming-of-age saga that rivals the best we've seen in this country....It will alternatively have you laughing your socks off...[and] wrenching your gut with its horrible tales of the American family gone wrong....Perhaps most of all, this Vietnam vet will make you wonder why men ever go off to war—the answer being they haven't yet read a book like this. The name of Bruce Patterson is not yet known by every serious reader in America, but it damn well should be."

—Gerald Nicosia, author of Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac

Word on the Street

2010-05-07T16:12:46Z

Walking the streets with a camera in hand can yield insightful and surprising interpretations of daily life. For thirty years, photographer Richard Nagler has sought out these insights by pairing isolated words found in his environment with random passersby. The results are playful yet profound.

"Visual poetics" is how Allen Ginsberg once characterized Nagler's photographs. "Every one of these picture poems brings to my mind a haiku." Drawing on some of the same elements that distinguish the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and Ed Ruscha, Nagler's urban photographs have delighted audiences around the world. Compelling, shocking, amusing, and sensitive, each portrait is a visual pun—a wink to the reader and an invitation to create a story to complete the narrative.

Some photographs took weeks to realize, capture, and record. Some took milliseconds. Sometimes years go by before Nagler spots a word suitable to become a picture—after all, these are in many ways accidental photographs. The magic of his work rests in the serendipitous moment when person and word come together. Word on the Street reveals that we are all part of an amazing artistic mosaic, even as we blithely stroll down the street.

]]> "Richard Nagler finds 'Words' in the streets like objets trouvés, giving each an inscrutable meaning."

—Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"Through his 'Word' photographs, Nagler is watching the world carefully and seeing what we say about the world and the world says about us, one word at a time."

—Ishmael Reed

"As the history of fine art photography is written and re-written, this body of work by Richard Nagler will always stand apart for its imaginative synthesis of word and image."

—Peter Selz

A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California

2010-05-07T15:57:25Z

Vernal pools, protected lagoons, grassy hills rich in bunchgrasses and, where the San Francisco Bay is today, ancient bison and mammoths roaming a vast grassland. Through the use of historical ecology, Laura Cunningham walks through these forgotten landscapes to uncover secrets about the past, explore what our future will hold, and experience the ever-changing landscape of California.

Combining the skill of an accomplished artist with passion for landscapes and training as a naturalist, Cunningham has spent more than two decades poring over historical accounts, paleontology findings, and archaeological data. Traveling with paintbox in hand, she tracked the remaining vestiges of semipristine landscape like a detective, seeking clues that revealed the California of past centuries. She traveled to other regions as well, to sketch grizzly bears, wolves, and other magnificent creatures that are gone from California landscapes. In her studio, Cunningham created paintings of vast landscapes and wildlife from the raw data she had collected, her own observations in the wild, and her knowledge of ecological laws and processes.

Through A State of Change, readers are given the pure pleasure of wandering through these wondrous and seemingly exotic scenes of Old California and understanding the possibilities for both change and conservation in our present-day landscape. A State of Change is as vital as it is visionary.

]]> "Laura Cunningham's imaginative tour de force provides a time machine where pre-settlement California can be savored in all her splendor and magnificence. A remarkable vision of the Golden State!"

—Graham Chisholm, Executive Director, Audubon California

"Cunningham's remarkable work reminds me of the multitalented naturalists of old. This book encompasses extensive historical research, biological fieldwork throughout the state, and, of course, amazing paintings. We are lucky to have her here today, giving us this tantalizing, informative, inspiring glimpse into something we all try to imagine: California before us."

—Robin Grossinger, environmental scientist, San Francisco Estuary Institute

A Coast to Explore: Coastal Geology and Ecology of Central California

2010-03-22T22:25:23Z

From wave-cut rock cliffs and sea caves to gravel beaches and coastal dunes, California's coastline provides visitors with unparalleled topographical variety and great intellectual challenge. What forces shaped such an extraordinary landscape?

Miles O. Hayes and Jacqueline Michel have been mapping the coast of California since the 1980s as part of a larger initiative to protect coastlines around the world from hazardous oil spills. A Coast to Explore is the culmination of their work. It details the geological evolution of central California's coast from Bodega Bay to Point Conception, including the effects of erosion during El Niños, the impacts of tsunamis, the birth of the San Andreas Fault system, and the formation of spectacular raised marine terraces. Key ecological concepts are described for each of the major subdivisions of the coast.

Through diagrams, maps, full-color photographs, and satellite images, A Coast to Explore takes readers on a fascinating journey of discovery so they can better understand this most remarkable and varied of coastlines.

The Laws Pocket Guide: On grassy hills and in fields

2010-03-03T00:54:45Z

The Bay Area is known for its beautiful golden hills, which are covered with the combination of grasses, tangled shrubs, and other low-growing vegetation known as chaparral. Resident mammals are magnificent—look for the tracks and droppings of coyotes and other large mammals, and for signs of smaller rabbits and rodents too. On the hills you'll find springtime welcomed by blankets of orange poppies growing abundantly alongside other colorful wildflowers. Later in the season, the hills turn brown and go to seed, attracting birds and rodents to feast. Listen for the Wrentit, whose distinct accelerating trill is known as "the voice of the chaparral." Wintertime is ideal for spotting the state bird, the California Quail, which often travels in large flocks of fifty or more. It can be seen skittering along at the San Francisco Presidio fields while large raptors, like the Red-tailed Hawk, soar above.

CALLING ALL NATURE FANS!
Win original artwork and a chance to go on a personal hike with John Muir Laws. To become a fan of Bay Area nature and for more information about the giveaway, go to our Bay Area Nature Campaign page.

The Laws Pocket Guides: Among the oaks and pines

2010-03-03T00:29:42Z

With an ideal climate for some of the most majestic trees in the world, the Bay Area is an arboreal playland. Take a trek through Muir Woods to see the amazing Coast Redwood. This fog-loving tree provides shelter for the endangered Spotted Owl and is the tallest and one of longest-lived trees on earth—some grow to over three hundred feet tall and live more than two thousand years! Several varieties of oak trees are commonly found in the Bay Area, and when their acorns begin to ripen in autumn, look for squirrels and Acorn Woodpeckers busily storing this nutritious food for the winter. As winter arrives, insect-eating birds—like Warblers, Bushtits, and Chickadees—converge in mixed flocks that hunt insects together as they move through the trees. Spring brings some especially vibrant blooms to the woods, and along with them come the beautiful Pipevine Swallowtail and the many butterfly species that flit about until late summer.

The Laws Pocket Guide: At the beach and on the bay

2010-03-03T00:08:33Z

Graced by the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay, the Bay Area teems with aquatic life. A major migratory stop for ducks and other shorebirds, Bay Area shorelines offer tremendous opportunities to enjoy waterfowl as they flock to the area during the winter. Springtime brings other avian delights as Alcatraz Island comes alive with the activities of the gulls and cormorants that make it their nursery. Look for these birds on the water's surface following schools of herring. These tiny fish also nourish the famed Pier 39 California Sea Lions and their brethren, the Harbor Seals who haul out of the San Francisco Bay in the spring to bear pups. Explore around the bay at low tide to get the most out of the area's extensive salt marshes, which are populated by clams, crabs, and shrimp and are ideal sites for observing the feeding habits of shorebirds.