Healing from the War: Naomi Hirahara's first novel

Naomi Hirahara has written a fine first novel in Summer of the Big Bachi. A former editor of the Rafu Shimpo, the bilingual Japanese American daily in Los Angeles, Hirahara has both written an engaging mystery story and examined the lives of the generation of Japanese Americans coming of age during World War II. So Summer of the Big Bachi has transformed the mystery story into a generation’s story.

The hero, Mas Arai, a 69-year old survivor of the A-bomb blast in Hiroshima, works as a gardener in Altadena/Pasadena area just north of Los Angeles. Mas is one of 500 Hiroshima survivors who were born in the United States and then returned to their native country after the war. Mas’s favorite pastime is gambling at the backroom of the lawnmower shop owned by Wishbone Tanaka, a survivor of the relocation camps.

One of Mas’s best friend isTug Yamada, a member of the 442^nd , the legendary army unit of Japanese Americans that won an amazing amount of Purple Hearts and Silver Stars for their heroism fighting in Italy. Throughout the novel, more and more of these men’s lives from 1945-1999 are revealed. We learn about their wives, their children, their careers, their hobbies, their close friendships—how they made a life in Southern California. Mas’s philosophy has always been, “[Y]ou can’t blame the Bomb, Accept it, go, and forget.” Mas like his friend Tug is a ultimate survivor who went on to create a rich life after the war.

All these men believe in “bachi” of the title”: if you hurt someone, you soon get hurt in return (what comes around, goes around). There is also a mystery involved two men who came separately from Japan. Both the older man Nakane and the young reporter Yuki Kimura are looking for Joji Haneda who was Mas’s childhood friend in Hiroshima.

Despite not wanting to help either man, Mas sends the young reporter Yuki to the house of Junko Kakita, the mistress of Joji Haneda . Yuki arrives to find the mistress has just been attacked. After the police arrest Yuki as the suspected attacked, Mas tries to investigate seriously. Yuki is alone in California, so Mas steps in as a substitute grandfather to help him. So now we have a traditional crime for this mystery to solve, but some of the clues are 50 years in the past. The novel moves between the mysteries of 1999 Los Angeles and the mystery of 1945 Hiroshima.

As Mas investigates, we learn both what he and his teenaged friends had to do to survive in wartime and occupied Japan Some of the bad guys are the Japanese chauvinists who harassed American-born Japanese in Hiroshima because they had English-language books. Hirahara exames the questions of loyalty to country, to friends, and to self. Another bad guy was teenaged Riki Kimura who sold heroin on the black market when Hiroshima was occupied by the U.S. The novel investigates a further mystery: where does evil reside?

Mas doesn’t think like his friend Wishbone that the world owes him because the Americans locked him up during the war. For Wishbone, the Americans are the evil ones. While Mas sympathizes with the Nisei’s suffering, he feels differently after living through Hiroshima: “Once you witnessed that, you saw evil, and it didn’t live in just Americans or Japanese. It lived close by in friends, in neighbors, and most frighteningly, inside yourself.” Finally, the novel concerns itself with forgiving oneself for surviving Hiroshima and not being able to save one’s friends. Hirahara has transformed the mystery novel into a fiction that searches into the mysteries of life itself. She has written a splendid first novel.

Hollywood Boulevard Anti-War March 3/19

It was raining with a slight drizzle when I walked through Hollywood to Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street at noon for the anti-war march commemorating the 2^nd year of the war. I stopped to buy a candy bar at a coffeehouse at Selma and Cahuenga, noticing the two young L.A.P.D. in the front of the room drinking their coffee? Coffee break? Munching my chocolate down Hollywood Boulevard, I saw a couple more L.A.P.D. lounging next to their bikes. Most of the streets were blocked off: Hollywood Boulevard was and most of the side streets were.

Actually this march almost didn’t get its permit because the local businesses thought it would be bad for business, but a deal was cut at the last moment calling the march a “parade,” so it was legalized. Actually, most of the police looked relaxed, hanging out in doorways. The anti-war marchers have proved themselves to be peaceful crowd after two years of marching down Hollywood Boulevard. The drizzle is a little harder as I stand on the southeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard half listening to the speeches. Speeches and songs go on for a while, with a rousing anti-war lesbian demanding both the Iraq War to end and the right to marry her fiancee getting the most rousing applause.

More people kept on arriving in the drizzle until there must have been 5,000 people there—maybe more. It’s hard to tell. I manage to take photos in the break in the rain. The most prominent new banner is for Iraq Veterans Against the War marching near Veterans for Peace. The Iraq Veterans Against the War carried a U.S. flag draped coffin. To me, they were the most moving. It’s good to see they have organized. I also remember the seven year old girl with long blonde hair holding up a huge American flag with a peace sign instead of stars—she marched behind her mother.

I

Top Forty: Los Angeles' Top Forty Works of Fiction

The first part of oldies But goodies, the latest hits plus some obscure numbers you need to know. From Oscar Acosta's radical Chicano lawyer hanging out with the Brown Berets to Joseph Hansen's gay detectives searching for clues during the AIDs plague:

Acosta, Oscar- Revolt of the Cockroach People. – novel of Chicano revolt in1960s by the legendary Oscar “Zeta” Acosta

Adamic, Louis. Laughing in the Jungle. Debunker novel about LA in 1920s-the first fine novel showing poor immigrant struggling to achieve his dreams.

Boyle, T.C. Tortilla Curtain. Novel of the two couples in Topanga Canyon: the wealthy Anglo and struggling Mexican-American

Bukowski, Charles. Post Office .Story explains why a postal worker would go postal.

Cain, James. Mildred Pierce. Brilliant story capturing life of single working woman in Glendale during the 1930s.

Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep. – the first, the great, detective novel.

Connelly, Michael. Angel’s Flight. Fine detective work dealing with mid-1990s conflicts over L.A.P.D. and race.

Didion, Joan. Play It As It Lays. The great car story of a alienated actress driving.

Dunne, John Gregory. True Confessions. Corruption and murder in high places in Catholic church in late 1940s L.A.

Fante, John. Ask the Dust. Wrenching tale about poor young man living in Bunker Hill and struggling to have his dream of being a writer..

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Last Tycoon. Fitzgerald’s last unfinished novel describing the last brilliant Hollywood movie producer.

Fitch, Janet. White Oleander- Girl surviving the craziness of the foster care in this tale.

Fuchs, Daniel. The Golden West- lovely short stories and a novella about Hollywood by Jewish-American working class writer who worked a sreenwriter in 1930s-1950s.

Himes, Chester. If He Hollers, Let Him Go African-American fights racism in South Central- best novel written about Los Angeles during World War II.

Hansen, Joseph. Early Graves. Gay detective investigates deaths of gays with AIDs.

The second half of oldies but goodies, the latest hits plus some obscure numbers you need to know, from 1920s exposes of corporate corruption by Upton Sinclair to 2000 exploration of East L.A. by Luis Rodriguez and many points in between:

Hirahara, Naomi. Summer of the Big Bachi. Mystery about Japanese-Americans spanning a time period from war-torn Japan to present-day Los Angeles.

Huneven, Michelle. Jamesland. Funny novel explores L.A's obsessions with eating good food and exploring new religions.

Huxley, Aldous. After Many Summer Dies a Swan- Brilliant satire of Hollywood and its environs in the 1930s.

Jackson, Helen Hunt. Ramona. 1st novel about Southern California published in late 19th century about half-Mexican/half-Native young woman Ramona and her sweetheart having hard times in Anglo era.

Kadohata, Cynthia. In the Heart of the Valley of Love- surviving the horrors of postacolyptic days of 2052 Los Angeles.

McCoy, Horace. They Shoot Horses Don’t They. Classic noir about Depression L.A. marathon dancers.

Morales, Alejandro. Brick People. Magic realist novel about epic struggle between Mexican-American brickyard workers and the Simons family who owns the brick yeard.

Mosley, Walter. Walking the Dog- brilliant novel about African-American ex-con rebuilding his life in Southcentral.

Oates, Joyce Carol. Blonde. Sizzling fictionalized novel about actress Marilyn Monroe.

Ponce, Mary Helen. The Wedding. Novel about working class Chicana’s large wedding.

Rechy, John. The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez. One of the best L.A. novels of the 1980s about Mexican-American woman surviving hard times.

Revoyr, Nina. Southland. Searing novel about two generations of blacks and Japanese in Crenshaw district.

Rense, Rip. The Last Byline.Captures the decline of the old time newspapers in California and the rise of corporate journalism

Rochlin, Michael. Cascaron. Wonderful novel about the last days of the Mexican ranchos in Southern California in the 1850s.

Rodriguez, Luis. The Republic of East Los Angeles. Fine stories about East Los Angeles.

Schulberg, Bud. What Makes Sammy Run. Classic noir expose of film industry and a nasty movie executive.

See, Carolyn. Making History. Living with random violence on the Westside.

Sinclair, Upton. Oil. The first strong anti-boomer novel exposing corruption in the oil industry in the 1920s.

Tervalon, Jervey. Understand This- Surviving drugs in a black neighborhood.

Tobar, Hector. Tatooed Soldier. Great work dealing with Guatemalan immigrant on the city’s downtown mean streets during the 1992 riots

Waugh, Evelyn. The Loved One. Brilliant satire on 1930s L.A. from a master.

West, Nathanel. Day of the Locust. Classic noir on down-and-out Hollywood wannabees.

Woods, Paula. Inner City Blues. Mystery with African-American LAPD detective heroine investigating murder during 1992 riots.

Yamamoto, Hisaye. Seventeen Syllables. Dazzling stories about Japanese-Americans in L.A. from through 1930s farms through the post war period.

Top Forty: Los Angeles's Best 40 Works of Fiction

The second half of oldies but goodies, the latest hits plus some obscure numbers you need to know, from 1920s exposes of corporate corruption by Upton Sinclair to 2000 exploration of East L.A. by Luis Rodriguez and many points in between:

Hirahara, Naomi. Summer of the Big Bachi. Mystery about Japanese-Americans spanning a time period from war-torn Japan to present-day Los Angeles.

Huneven, Michelle. Jamesland. Funny novel explores L.A's obsessions with eating good food and exploring new religions.

Huxley, Aldous. After Many Summer Dies a Swan- Brilliant satire of Hollywood and its environs in the 1930s.

Isherwood, Christopher. A Single Man. Fine tale of a single day in life of gay professor--captures Los Angeles of the early 1960s.

Kadohata, Cynthia. In the Heart of the Valley of Love- surviving the horrors of postacolyptic days of 2052 Los Angeles.

McCoy, Horace. They Shoot Horses Don’t They. Classic noir about Depression L.A. marathon dancers.

Morales, Alejandro. Brick People. Magic realist novel about epic struggle between Mexican-American brickyard workers and the Simons family who owns the brick yeard.

Mosley, Walter. Walking the Dog- brilliant novel about African-American ex-con rebuilding his life in Southcentral.

Oates, Joyce Carol. Blonde. Sizzling fictionalized novel about actress Marilyn Monroe.

Ponce, Mary Helen. The Wedding. Novel about working class Chicana’s large wedding.

Rechy, John. The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez. One of the best L.A. novels of the 1980s about Mexican-American woman surviving hard times.

Revoyr, Nina. Southland. Searing novel about two generations of blacks and Japanese in Crenshaw district.

Rense, Rip. The Last Byline.Captures the decline of the old time newspapers in California and the rise of corporate journalism

Rochlin, Michael. Cascaron. Wonderful novel about the last days of the Mexican ranchos in Southern California in the 1850s.

Rodriguez, Luis. The Republic of East Los Angeles. Fine stories about East Los Angeles.

Schulberg, Bud. What Makes Sammy Run. Classic noir expose of film industry and a nasty movie executive.

See, Carolyn. Making History. Living with random violence on the Westside.

Sinclair, Upton. Oil. The first strong anti-boomer novel exposing corruption in the oil industry in the 1920s.

Tervalon, Jervey. Understand This- Surviving drugs in a black neighborhood.

Tobar, Hector. Tatooed Soldier. Great work dealing with Guatemalan immigrant on the city’s downtown mean streets during the 1992 riots

Waugh, Evelyn. The Loved One. Brilliant satire on 1930s L.A. from a master.

West, Nathanel. Day of the Locust. Classic noir on down-and-out Hollywood wannabees.

Woods, Paula. Inner City Blues. Mystery with African-American LAPD detective heroine investigating murder during 1992 riots.

Yamamoto, Hisaye. Seventeen Syllables. Dazzling stories about Japanese-Americans in L.A. from through 1930s farms through the post war period.

Michael Connelly Writes LA Brilliantly

Two colleagues of mine have been praising detective writer Michael Connelly for a long time, saying he's their favorite Los Angeles detective writer I've never read any Connelly until one of my students loaned me his novel Angel's Flight. The novel was a gripping read, capturing the period of the mid-1990s in L.A. when the town was split by racial conflict and all attempts to reform the L.A.P.D. were making the slowest of slow progress.

In Angel's Flight LAPD detectives find two dead bodies in Angel's Flight, the much beloved funicular railroad downtown that takes people up to the top of Bunker Hill. One of the dead bodies is the black civil rights lawyerHoward Elias whose specialty is suing the L.A.P.D. over cop brutality. Obiviously, the L.A.P.D. officers he had sued are prime suspects. The white lead detective Harry Bosch and his two black detective partners have to investigate cops as well as any other suspect while the cops resent being looked on as suspects. The city leaders are terrified of another riot like the 1992 one while black churchmen lead protests demanding justice. Angel's Flight captures those racial conflicts in Los Ageles better than any other piece of fiction I've read.

Part of the pleasures of the novel is its use of locations. Besides finding the muder victims on Angel's Flight, the detectives go to the deceased lawyer's office which is in the Bradbury Building which Connelly calls "the dusty jewel of downtown." Then the detectives go to the lawyer's apartment which is one of the new apartment towers downtown as well as his home in Baldwin Hills and then stop by Grand Central Market. The characters really inhabit the downtown streets as well as the corridors of power in Parker Center and the houses of the wealthy in Brentwood in a way similar to how Phillip Marlowe explores the whole town.

Another of the novel's pleasures is the naive hard working hero idealistic Harry Bosch who wants to think well of his fellow white cops as well as investigate them as possible suspects. Bosche is forever getting in trouble with his bureaucratic superiors--the novel does a great job of caputring the experience of working for a large city bureaucracy. Bosch like the other white cops can't believe in Elias's latest case accusing the L.A.P.D. of torturing an innocent black man; it's only later in the novel when Bosch finds that Elias was completely right: his client was innocent and manhandled by the cops. Part of the novel is watching idealistic Harry Bosch who peels away lies including the lies he tries to believe in. The hero has to face his own demons and terrors in his investigation, so Connelly is writing a fine character as hero who goes from naivite to knowledge. At the same time Bosch has to deal with how to keep his integrity while working within this bureaucracy which tries to protect itself.

Another pleasure is Connelly's ability to capture the media frenzy of press on the trail of a hot story at the press conference at Parker Center. He shows us Los Angeles buffeted by conflicts among the L.A.P.D., frenzied media, and community civil rights activtists--his LA is real as today's news story. While other novels might have the place right, Angel's Flight captures both the place, the period of the mid-1990s and the periods intense conflicts. My colleagues were right--Michael Connelly is a brilliant detective writer, a worthy succesor to Raymond Chandler.

"Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad" Party with Golem

Last Thursday I went to see two groups from New York: “Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad,” vaudville, comedy, music, burlesque of seven young Jewish women; and Golem, a klezmer/rock band. It was a soldout show in the little backroom at Tangier Restaurant in Los Angeles

“New Jewish Girls Gone Bad” is fronted by the Goddess Perlman, a singer/comic/bad Jewish chick. Well, if I ever wondered what raunchy vaudeville on the 1920s was like, I got to see it. Perlman entered in one extraordinarily breast bearing costume after another, and acted like a female Lenny Bruce. Fifty years ago Bruce showed a Jewish boy could talk dirty, and it’s only taken fifty years until a Jewish girl could also talk dirty on stage. She said such lines as “I put the whore back in hora.” The audience didn’t laugh—it seemed too much for them as if they were thinking, “Nice Jewish girls don’t talk that way onstage.” Well, sometimes they do.

In the show there were two comics telling us about dating disasters; a spoken/word poet Vanessa Hidrary, a writer/actress whose work combined Jewish feminism, slam poetry, and hip-hop to affirm her Jewish identity to jokers in bars; singer Michelle Citrin, a former Jewish camp singer who wore dreadlocks and sang her own blusey songs. The best of all were then Shiksa dancers (a.k.a. Hot Pink Feathers from San Francisco) came in stage. First, three young women dressed like Eastern European girls from Fiddler on the Roof arrived, moaning about who will fix them up a marriage match and then two young women dressed as Hasids with big round fur hats flirt with them. Then the two Hasids proceed to do a striptease. Definitely, not a pious reworking of the tradition. At the end all the performers came back in star studded short blue costumes and did a can can.

The second hour was the wonderful band the Golem, named after the original Frankenstein created by a rabbi in Prague some centuries back. Annette Ezekiel, who is a bandleader, accordionist and singer, created this new Golem. Ezekial is also a diva, commanding the room with her brilliant singing, her dark beauty, and her joy in the music. The fine vocalist Aaron Diskin also helped wonderfully to bring Golem alive. They were a tight, superb band, bringing to life that jazzy nightclub side of klezmer but reworking it for 2005. The band sang songs from the new CD “Homesick Song,” powerful songs about love, usually from a women’s viewpoint; each of the songs was set in a different city of southern and Eastern Europe. While “Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad” were in-you-face confrontative, Golem was seductive, wooing the audience with it superb musical reworking of traditional klezmer added to jazz and rock.

Seeing the two acts together reminded me that in American popular culture the defintion of Jewishness is Fiddler on the Roof, celebrating a life lived in Eastern Europe 100 years ago--a definite act of nostalgia. My great-grandmother was the last women in my family who had an arranged marriage and that was before 1900. But what's omitted is the last one hundred years of living, as if social history--the actual lives of three generation of Jewish Americans-- is a big taboo. Well, "Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad" and Golem gave us a little taste of the last 100 years of Jewish life we've been missing on stage.

Extreme Weather in Southern California: looking at Mike Davis again

In the last week in February 2005 Southern California has had flash floods that covered the Hollywood Freeway and blocks of Hollywood; a stretch of the San Gabriel Mountains right near Mt. Wilson which a gotten 100" of rain a year; water spout-like hurricanes off Santa Monica; avalanche conditions in the San Gabriel Mountains; a huge sinkhole opened up in the middle of the road in Sun Valley where an engineer died; and mud slides in Malibu, Pasadena, Brentwood, Silverlake, Hacienda Heights et al.

When Mike Davis published in 1998 his book Ecology of Fear detailing Southern California's extreme weather, he was loudly criticized as a catastrophe-monger, a man who looked everywhere and saw Apocalypse. A Malibu realtor named Brady Westwater sent a 22-page letter containing Davis's supposed flaws to local media, and then local media starting with New Times regurgitated Westwater without fact-checking him. No media this last week would now argue with Davis's contention that Los Angeles has extreme weather.

In Davis's first chapter of Ecology of Fear, he explains extreme weather and environmental hazards in Southern California better than any book I know. He details thirty years of scientific research to understand "deep history of Mediterranean landscapes" which include Southern California, Italy, central Chile, the costal zone of South African's Cape Province and West and South Australia. Both drought and regular fires are centuries-long features of the Meditarrean environment, so plants have adapted: they are drought-resitant and some need fire to send off seeds. The first Spanish explorers saw evidence of great floods and experienced earthquakes, but the Spanish had long familiarity with the Mediterranean climate of Southern Spain.

The problem is that Anglo-Americans were familiar with the ecology of England and eastern United States: regular seasons with rainfall that didn't vary that much over the years; rivers that ran year-round; and stable ground without earthquakes. They based their ideas of natural law on the "uniformitariaism" of these eastern environments where one year was very much like the previous. So Anglo-Americans based their ideas of "average" climate and rainfall on this Eastern ecology, thinking of Los Angles as having a naturally sunny, warm climate. Then they created a whole publicity campaign that successfully sold the image of California as endlessly sunny, pleasant climate. This image of Southern California just wasn't true.

In Mediteranean climates like Los Angles Davis says "high-intensity , low-frequency events ('disasters') are the ordinary agents of landscape and ecology change." Our ecology naturally produces floods, mudslides, drought, and fire while our geology produces earthquakes. In a ecology where fires, floods, and mudslides regularly occur, they occur most extremely in floodplains at the base of mountains: Los Angeles is one such floodplain at the base of the San Gabriel and Santa Monica Mountains. Davis adds, "consequently, [these floodplains] are at risk from multiple-interlinked disaster .... Drought, for examples, dries fuel for wildfires which, in turn, removed ground cover and makes soils impermeable to rain."

But throughout the 20th century people have ignored Southern California's ecology of disaster and have ignored common sense in building homes. They have put homes in harm's way: homes have been built in areas such as La Conchita or on the cliffs in Mailbu which have regular mudslides; homes have been built all over the foothills and mountains which have fires occurring every decade; a huge city in a semi-desert has been built with little conserving of water flooding down in winterstorms. Davis feels most of the tragedies such as the recent nine deaths from the mudslide in La Conchita were avoidable if we treated the land differently.

Further, after each flood or fire or earthquake the federal government through FEMA gives low-interest loans or even outright disaster aid for people to rebuild in the same dangerous areas. Davis argues this "diaster amnesia is a federally subsidized luxury." Right now FEMA has been on the radio announcing it will give its low-interest loans to homeowners affected by the recent mudslides.

Davis argues instead building in "redundancy" in emergency systems to help us through our extreme weather and geology as well as reduce their impact. Extreme weather will occur again, but Davis feels we can reduce its impact through "hazard zoning": exluding intensive housing on "most disaster-prone terrains" of foothills and wetlands . Also, increasing apartments inside the city instead of sprawling new housing through more disaster-prone foothills and plains would save money on flood control systems.

The federal government should end its low-interest loans to homeowners on dangerous hillsides previously harmed by flood or fires. Homeowners can rebuild, but the taxpayers won't subsidize them. If some homeowners then abandon their hillside homes, the city could buy the land from them and we might wind up with more hillside parks--Los Angeles desperately needs new parks. We already have tougher requirements for retrofitting buildings to make them earthquake-safe.

In the past Southern California has had regular droughts, so it needs to adopt a saving water ethic including having catchbasins and barrels to catch rainwater using it to water gardens, lawns and parks. Also, we could get rid many lawns and instead use drought-resistant plants in our gardens as these reduce our use of water. In Los Angeles we've already adopted low-flush toilets and showerheads--that is good. This redundancy in our water use would lessen the impact of the next drought.

Davis's ideas on how to avoid the harm of future floods, earthquakes, drought, and mudslides are sensible and practical. He is hardly, as his critics have said, a man yelling catastrophe about Los Angels but a man with intelligent ideas how to avoid catastrophe. It those like Westwater and Davis' critics who ignore such sensible ideas to make people safe that are the producers of disaster.

Villaraigosa for LA's Mayor

Villaraigosa is the only one of the 5 mayoral candidates with a vision for Los Angeles that would actually solve some of the city's problems while the other four candidates--Hahn, Hertz berg, Parks, and Alarcon--are only offering band aids that would keep LA's wounds festering.

On the city council, he helped resolve the MTA bus strike in November 2003 while Mayor Hahn was unable to do so. As a board member of the MTA, he's done necessary work to link transit and land use planning as well as adopt sustainable building pratices for all large projects.

Villaraigosa says to solve Los Angeles traffic gridlock we need to a comprehensive plan to upgrade the roads, build more rail lines including expanding the lines we have, improve the bus system until it is first class, and create more bikeways. He argues that to solve the housing crisis we need to build more middle class homes and more affordable homes for the poor as well as create tax incentives for families to help them buy their first home. Homes, schools and transporation should all be coordinated.

While in the state legislature he was important in passing a $2.1 billion initiative effort to provide parks and open space throughout the state. By helping to pass the bill for the Los Angeles river conservancy, he brought more than $87 million to Southern California to spur development of parks along the Los Angeles River and he also funded an extensive expansion of water quality enforcement by the state. He’s by far the best candidate for the environment with his vision for a green Los Angeles: planting a million trees to both conserve water and improve air; improve air quality; reduce dumping of toxics in the beaches; increasing recycling throughout the city; and a host of other ideas. He’s the best candidate for increasing much needed park space: he wants to build parks, particularly a string of pocket parks along the Los Angeles River.

For the economy, he further suggests to solve the problem of poverty in the inner city we need a community-development bank to improve the economy in low-income neighborhoods. Villaraigosa would work harder than any other candidate to extend the living-wage ordinance and build more affordable housing. With low-income workers making more money, they would immediately spend the money, spurring the economy. Building housing and also rehabilitating existing slum housing would also employ construction workers and would positively affect the economy. Villaragoisa’s economic solutions will benefit citizens of all classes. Further, with poor people getting higher wages and better housing, there would be more social peace, again benefiting all classes. His plan of adding more police without a tax increase would also help social peace.

Villaraigosa has real achievements both when he was in the state legislature and on the city council. When he was in the state legislature, he authored a state health insurance program, “Healthy Families,” currently serving 600,000 children of the working poor--this is one of the most important pieces of legislation passed in California in the last decade. Also he led the passage of a $9.1 billion initiative to rebuild and modernize California schools.

He is a politician who has done more for the environment than any other in Los Angeles and he's also extremely knowledgable about transportation issues, important for solving traffic gridlock. All in all he's already improved California's health, schools, environment, transportation, and water quality. That is quite a record. As mayor he would support ideas that would improve schools, health, transportation, the economy, and public safety. Los Angeles needs Villaragoisa’s vision and needs him as mayor.

Villaraigosa versus the other candidates

The other four candidates running for Los Angeles's mayor don't even come close to Villaraigosa.

Bob Hertzberg is a moderate business-orientated Democrat. His best is to use the rubber from heaps of used tires to make rubber sidewalks, a good idea but far from an environmental plan to solve L.A.'s many environmental problems. To improve the economy, he suggests the mayor persuade Korean banks in invest in this city, but Koreans and Japanese companies have been investing in L.A. for years with little impact. His major idea is to break-up Los Angeles Unified School District, but as mayor he has little power to do so, and can only suggest that the state legislature take action. He has a few proposals to help driving such as no roadwork during rush hour, but these plans won't solve traffic gridlock. He has a couple ideas how to reduce runaway film production by eliminating $20,000/day location, but this will so little for the economy.

Richard Alarcon is a decent liberal Democrat, but he, as many other candidates want to add 1,000 more cops. His major ideas are to roll back DWP rates 11%--nice but a quick fix, solving no long-term problems. His idea for improving transportation by creating a Green Business Program to provide tax credits for business that have good wages and give public transportation to their employees would have little or no impact on reducing traffic gridlock He had some decent ideas for improving schools--reduce administrative spending; increase per capita spending; localize decision making--but the mayor has little influence over the huge bureaucracy of the Los Angeles United School District. He wants to get rid of pay-to-play for awarding city contracts by limiting campaign contributions of developers and lobbyists to $100. That's a nice idea but laws such as these have been passed for a decade with little discernible effort.

As for Bernard Parks, he has been a good representative for his district, getting more than $7 million in funds for the redevelopment of the Vision Theater in Leimert Park, so arts and culture can be catalyst for economic development in the African-American area. He has supported the Lula May Washington Dance Studio and African Marketplace and other art projects in L.A.’s. He is serious about supporting arts through funding the Cultural Affairs Department, has helped support gay rights, and has a good transportation plan that integrates pushing for more rail lines, better buses, and improved street driving. His business orientated idea to help the economy through tax incentives would do little. Often Parks seems to be more campaigning against Mayor Hahn than giving forth ideas to solve the city problems. He has made witty remarks attacking Hahn such as "asking Mayor Hahn about reforming the pay-to-play scandal is like asking Fat Albert about dietary tips."

Finally, Mayor Hahn's boasts his two most notable accomplishments were appointing Bratton as head of the L.A.P.D. and stopping Valley succession--a very shortlist. As for the environment, he as one small accomplishment: getting the DWP not to invest in a Utah coal plant. Other than that, he's do nothing for the environment; for example, he hasn't pushed the DWP to increase its use of non-polluting energy sources.

During the long bus strike in fall 2003 he walked a picket line but was unable to negotiate an end to the long, drawn-out lockout/strike. During the February floods he was again M.I.A. He's usually not there, without a vision, without ideas. He has been decent to labor, supporting both the grocery workers and the longshorepeople during their strikes as well as allowing for raises of city hall workers. But that is not enough to be re-elected mayor. His administration has been tarnished by the pay-to-play scandal of giving city contracts to developers who had previously given him campaign contracts.

All in all Villaraigosa beats out his four competitors for mayor in terms of previous accomplishments and he has the most far-reaching and detailed vision for Los Angeles.

Hollywood Floods

When I drive to my mother's house for dinner at 5:30 Monday during the storm, the streets are wet but there is barely a drizzle, so when I start east at 7:00 pm down Melrose Avenue through Hollywood I think there would no problems. Driving through Melrose and Highland there is a an inch or two of water over the intersection but I keep on going. I'm an old hand now after a month of storms of driving through slightly flooded intersections.

Then as I approach Vine Street the cars are really backed up and I could see the westbound lanes are flooded. There are two lanes going east where I am in the left lane with the right lane flooded. I think for a second maybe I should turn around but I didn't. Instead I slowly inch forward until I got to the intersection. Yes, on Vine going north there is a couple inches of rain flooding the street with a car stranded in the middle. Big water ahead! I see there is a couple inches of rain all over the intersection--I'm driving a sedan, not a truck or a SUV. I inch forward through the water saying a prayer. Now I'm driving on water, praying my brakes hold up. I keep inching forward until finally I'm out of the intersection. Oh my god, I made it.

On the other side of Vine Streets Melrose Avenue is again clear of water as I pass by Paramount Studios on my north. Then approaching Bronson Avenue I see that the cars are slowing down ahead. I know at Melrose and Wilton Avenue there was in previous storms at least an inch or two of rain. Two weeks ago the traffic light at that intersection had gone out in a power outage that effected the whole area, so I decide to turn right to avoid the Melrose/Wilton intersection, taking backstreets. One street is blocked off--I guess it had flooded so the neighbors wisely blocked it off. I take backstreets the few blocks until home but there are strangely a lot more cars--obviously taking detours as I am.

As I turn into the parking garage undearneth my apartmenthouse, my neighbors are with buckets bailing out the inches of water on the garage floor near the entrance. I park my car at the opposite end of the parking garage, put my purse in the apartment. Twice in the previous month's storms the power had gone out--once for three hours. In late December I had a friend over for dinner during the storm when lightening and thunder happened together right over my apartment house--the lights went out including the computer. God, I thought my building had been hit. I lit candles and we continued eating--what else is there to do? Back to the quail! Later I checked my computer which luckily was protected by a surge protector so the computer was O.K.

Now, thank God, the lights are on in my apartment. Then I return to help by carrying buckets full of water to dump in the street. They fill up buckets while I haul them out of the garage. One neighbor said that Beverly and Western is flooded. I learn later that it had about 2 feet of water, the power is out in the neighborhood, and also homes are flooded. With six of us working at filling up water buckets and dumping them in the street we clear out the water in the gargage in about 15 more minutes.

On the news on channel 9 I see the Hollywood Freeway at Santa Monica is totally covered with water. Cars had gotten stranded (thank god it wasn't me), firemen had to rescue the people, and towtrucks had to tow out their cars. In an hour a storm cell had dropped 1 1/2 inches of rain over Hollywood and then moved north and dissipated. That's what is so weird. The storm can be drizzles all day like today and then pow! a storm cell in an hour can flood the streets! Because all four lanes of the Hollywood Freeway were closed, cars were backed up on the soutside for miles and on the north for miles while police were taking cars slowly off the freeways. Cars must be crisscrossing Hollywood trying to avoid flooded intersections and the freeway.

The funny thing is now it isn't even raining. Well, I hope that stops the flooding of Hollywood.

Kevin's Starr's Coast of Dreams

Kevin Starr’s Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge 1990-2003 is the sixth in a series of books on California history, and the only one written just at the end of the decade it is about. The book gets some things very right about California in the 1990s while it completely misses other.

What’s best about the book the chapter “The Boys from Texas” where he brilliantly covers the mid-1990s deregulation of California’s energy and then the resulting energy crisis shortage of early 2000-1. Starr writes as an angry California nationalist not wanting his state to become an energy colony of “the boys from Texas” but instead energy independent. Further, he gives a good argument for an very unpopular opinion: Governor Gray Davis did as much as he could to get the state through the energy shortage.

Starr in "Zen California" has an enlightening description of the state’s multitude of religious communities including Hindus; Japanense and Tibetan Buddhists; New Age; Protestants, covering the Pentecostal revival; Catholics, focusing on the impact of Mexican Catholics; and Jews. In “Diversity” he paints good portraits of the growth of immigrant communities from Mexicans to Asians to Muslims, Armenians, and Russians. In his chapter “Immigrants to the Rescue” he powerfully argues that immigrant busnisspeople have started small businesses and new industries and also immigrant professionals have important jobs in high tech industries--both were key to the state’s economic recovery.

Starr counters the prejudiced idea that California is becoming a nightmare of impoverished immigrants by showing how many immigrants are contributing to economic life as well as becoming established by buying homes and moving into the middle and upper middle classes. His idea of the “dream” does capture these dream riven people. These immigrant success stories need to be told—Starr does a good job of telling it.

But even here Starr ignores an important story. He neglects entirely another key event: Latino trade union leaders such as Gilbert Cedillo as well as immigrant activists such as Jose Guiterrez organized a huge demonstration against Proposition 187 and then started drives to naturalize Latinos and register them as voters. These registration drives helped to elect Latino politicians. Also Miguel Contreras, the new head of the Los Angeles County AFL-CIO, had unionists work hard to mobilize Latinos and trade unionists, contributing to the effort to elect first Latino candidates and then progressive non-Latinos. These efforts helped create the strong progressive bloc of legislators in the state assembly and senate, thus changing both Los Angeles's and California's politics and policies.

Starr has similar strengths and weaknesses in his discussion of the environment. He gives an excellent statewide panorama of California’s environmental problem from sprawl in the Central Valley to statewide drought to conflict over redwoods to corruption in building Los Angeles's subway. The only environmental group he does discuss is Earth First--their attempt to stop Pacific Lumber’s cutting of old growth redwoods in Humboldt County--but he describes them as quaint but uncivil remnants of the 1960s.

His “Going Green” chapter omits the many citizen’s groups that have reshaped the state. In Los Angles, these groups have had great impact: a coalition West L.A. group saved from the developers a remnant of Ballona Wetlands, the last wetlands in Los Angeles; Friends of the Los Angeles River and Latino politicians got the state to pass 1999 bill establishing the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy as well as established bike paths along the river; the Desert Chapter of Los Angeles Sierra Club persuaded the U.S. congress to pass legislation for a new national park made up of Joshua Tree, Death Valley and parts of Mohave; the Chinatown Yard Alliance, which is a coalition of Anglo, Chinatown and Latino groups, successfully fought Mayor Riordan to keep the old railroad land called the Cornfields from being industrialized and got itinstead turned into park with an elementary school.

This is just Los Angeles—the missing story is even Los Angeles has a powerful environmental movement. The second missing story is that throughout the state environmental citizens groups were a political power. The third missing story is Anglo environmentalists on the Los Angeles’s Westside are now working politically with Chinese, blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans in such groups as the Chinatown Yard Alliance. These citizens groups and coalitions are hardly 1960s remants but the new politics of the 1990s and the 2000s

What's Really Happening In L.A.

Even more problematical is Kevin Starr’s view of Los Angeles in his book Coast of Dreams. He gets the little details wrong, saying Santa Monica by the 1980s and 1990s had such irritating homeless that they “effective [were] creating a no-man-s-land between Santa Monica and the sea.” Nita Nickerson, one of my students, said that during this period as a pregnant woman she felt perfectly safe walking the area—hardly a no woman’s land. Starr's examples of catastrophe mostly occured in L.A.: horrifying murders, corrupt cops of the Rampart scandal, the 1992 riot, never ending ethnic tensions, dreadfully poor children, and out-of-control gangs. After reading Starr’s litany of catastrophes, some of my students were astounded to hear me call him a booster.

What’s quite missing is all the citizens groups who bravely battle to make Los Angeles livable. After the 1992 riot Los Angeles’s business and political establishment had established Rebuild LA to address the city’s poverty but it failed miserable. But Starr omits the real story: -Latino led AFL-CIO, immigrants rights groups and progressive Jewish, black Latino politicians and groups defeated Mayor Riordan’s attempts to privatize city services, which would have led to lower wages, producing even more poverty.

Then this coaltion fought for and won a livable wage ordinance; supported the Justice for Janitors campaign to first unionize and then got a wage increased for immigrant janitors working in high-rise luxury offices. All these efforts were the real beginning of addressing poverty after elites had failed miserably. Again, the city's establishment failed to make any dent in the gang problem, but anti-gang groups were making small progress. These many small groups-- Amer-I-Can, Hands Across Watts, Homies Unidos, Unity One, Barrios Unidos, HomeBoy Industries, and Communities in Schools--all flew under Starr's radar as they worked to have gang truces an to provide alternatives to gangs in recreation, life-skills and job-training programs.

Other groups tackled the affordable housing shortage, hunger, and rundown schools. These citizens groups tackling Los Angeles’s problems across the were giving the city much needed compassion and humanity but also were presenting viable proposals that would lessen the growing gap between the state's wealthiest and its poorest citizens. The story was not of a city out of control but of citizen's groups presenting viable proposals. A few of these proposals were adopted but mostly the city's political and econmic establishment stonewalled.

A final story that Starr omits is how Los Angeles arts have come of age in the 1990s. Starr has bits and pieces of the story strewn around his various chapters, but one needs to gather the pieces together in a coherent story. In the 1990s of Los Angeles architecture reached world fame with Frank Gehry while the Getty musuem now had the finest photography collection in a private museum in the country. In the early 1930s Mexican muralist David Sequiros painted his murals in Los Angeles, starting a 60-year old outdoor mural tradition with murals across town, more than any other U.S. city; further, the city has a roster of important visual artists and a huge number of museums and galleries showcasing all kinds of visual art. Many small theaters were daring and adventurous while its large theater pioneered with such plays as Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.

Los Angeles finally had a large scale repertory cinema in the American Cinemateque at the Egyptian The city had one important film festival after another featuring Latino film, African and African-American film, independent cinema, and even a homegrown alternative Silverlake film festival. After New York, Los Angeles was the most important visual arts as well as theater center in the country; in cinema it was, of course, the most important.

Starr even discusses Los Angeles novelists—Bukowski, Ellroy—as being too down and dirty but he has focused on pre-1990s novelists: Bukowski is really a countercultural voice of the 1960s and 1970s celebrating the little guy while Ellroy is a 1980s debunker exposing in his best novel LA Confidential the corrupt, racist 1950s LAPD. Two novelists who did capture the 1990s were Janet Fitch’s White Olander and Hector Tovar’s Tatooed Soldiers. Where Starr gives us a long litany of ills suffered by trashed children, Fitch’s heroine is one of those trashed children who manages by the end to find some happiness. Tovar’s is the best immigrant story, detailing a Guatamlan refugee fleeing the civil war to see in Los Angeles his life hit bottom and then begin to go upwards. Both novels ending with small moments of redemption.

Starr’s book, despite its flaws, is still the best book about California in the 1990s because he begins to tell a major important California story in how the great immigrant wave of the decade was transforming the state’s economy and culture, but a second story needs to be told: how immigrants are transforming its politics. How immigrants form coalitions with non-immigrants in dealing with issues of environment, hunger, jobs, anti-gang and housing may prove to be the big story of the decade starting in 2000. A new arts and literature resulting from this stew of new cultures is also bubbling. Rather than a decade strewn with catastrophe, the 1990s may prove in the future to be a decade like New York 1900-1910 when citizens started small scale groups to produce ideas--seeds of hope--to solve their many problems and to creative innovative new arts.

Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate

Two days ago at the Los Angeles County Museum I saw the director's cut of Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate," the 1980 film that is one of the greatest American films I've ever seen. The film was stupendous-- the best film yet made about the epic history of the American West-- but when it was first shown it did miserably.

When "Heaven's Gate" was released in 1980, director Cimino had gone way over budget and the United Artists executives cut 1 1/2 hrs out of a 3 1/2 hr film director's cut and threw out the negatives for the film. The released shortened film got savaged by the critics and ignored by the public--this financial loss helped United Artists go into bankruptcy and destroyed Cimino's career. No one ever got to see the director's cut until now.

MGM film archivist, in reconstructing the original 3 1/2 hour film without any negatives, carefully made it out of duplicates. The archivest as well as the cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond spoke about the film afterwards at LA County Msuem to a rapt film audience, detailing both the making of the film and then the careful reconstruction from duplicates.

"Heaven's Gate" as well as two other Hollywood films--"Shane" and "The Johnson County War"-- are about one of the most amazing events in U.S. history: the Johnson County War in 1892 Wyoming. The East Coast rich who owned large cattle ranches were unhappy at alleged cattle rustling of their cattle in Johnson County, Wyoming. Small farmers/ranches dominated Johnson County whose court did not punish the alleged cattle rustlers.

The cinematography by Vilmos Zisgmond is beautifully captures the conflict. In one early shot the sherrif, Kris Kristofferson, is coming into town in comfort in the railroad car while on the top of the car are seated hundreds of impoverished new immigrants from Eastern Europe--men, women with scarves around their heads, children.The film is visually stunning, contrasting the gorgeous western scenery of pine trees and snow covered mountains, with the grueling work of immigrants pulling plows by hands without oxen. In another early shot an immigrant is butchering a calf for his hungry family living in a tiny cabin in the plains when a gunmen shots him dead; then his wife drags his dead body on a cart down the road with their two children following. At the same time the cattle barons must in their luxurious club organized a vigilante group of 50 gunmen that invaded Johnson County on a railroad car with a death list of 50 people they aimed to kill.

There is a stellar cast of actors in the lead roles: Kris Kristofferson plays the sherrif; Isabelle Huppert is his love, a madame who runs a bordello; Christopher Walken, who is hired as a vigalente for the cattle barons who falls in love with Huppert; Jeff Bridges, who plays a saloonkeeper who sides with the immigrants; and Sam Waterson who is brilliant as the leader of the cattle lords.

During the discussion after the film one man in the audience said that the film, one of the last films deep affected by the Vietnam War, came out just when Reagen was elected in 1980, and those in the Reagen administration thought the film "anti-American" and didn't want to see any more such films. Scenes such as when the vigalentes arrive, they then executed three men in a shootout that Cimino's captures in all its gore--these scenes opposed the heroic cowboy myth of the new President Reagan. In Heaven's Gate the small ranchers/small farmers of Johnson County are impoverished, hardworking East European/German immigrants, organize with the sheriff a force of both men and women to defend their county. What's stunning is the film's end when the immigrants attack the invaders, defeat them in one battle, and then have a seige against the invaders. Women turn out to be warriors as well as men taking part in a seige against the vigalente invaders.

Cimino has captured some of the complex, fasinating history of America as few films ever had. To me, the crux of Cimino's brilliance in "Heaven's Gate" is he makes at look at America's history, particulary the suffering, strength and courage of immigrants who suffered racism and exploitation and had to put their lives on the line in Johnson County. His cinematory also shows the glories of the West, the visual backdrop of the war. Hopefully, MGM will put the director's cut out on DVD so more people can see this great film.

Free Speech , a Radical Church, and Community Farms Need Saving

December 11, 2004, I attended “Tour L.A.: Past Forward,” organized by the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, a 40-year old private library located in South Los Angeles that documents social justice movements in this city. Twenty of us tour participants met at 8:45 a.m. by the kiosk in the Plaza south of Olvera Street where people were decorating for the festival for the Virgin of Guadalupe to be held that evening at Our Lady Queen of the Angels Church next door: yellow, rose, and blue paper cut-outs were hung between the trees; vendors were setting up food and craft tables; stage hands were building a stage for music.

First we went to the brown brick Hellman/Quon building to hear historian William Estrada talk about the hidden free speech history of the Plaza. Estrada told us that from 1781 when Los Angeles was founded to 1881 the Plaza was the town’s center: Our Lady Queen of the Angeles Church, located here, was the first and leading church; adobes and then brick residences for the town’s elites stood here; the city’s main shops circled the Plaza. The Spanish officials and pobaldores (colonists) built a zanja madre, mother ditch, from the Los Angeles River down to the pueblo to water their fields. After the Anglo elite shifted the city’s center a few blocks southeast after 1880, the Plaza became the center of the immigrant working people: Mexicans and Italian immigrants lived right west and north in neighborhood called Sonoratown; Chinese immigrants lived directly east in Old Chinatown.

Estrada said that the Plaza and its nearby streets were the center of rallies, meetings, and speechmaking: Sun yat-sen, future leader of China, spoke to 700 Chinese at a nearby restaurant to gain support for the future Chinese Revolution; the Flores-Magon brothers, leaders of the anarchist Partido Liberal Mexicano, held many rallies at the Plaza for a Mexican revolution; the I.W.W., radical trade unionists who led L.A. trade union movement, had their office at 420 Los Angeles Street; anarchist Emma Goldman, Job Harriman who ran for Socialist mayor of Los Angeles, and famed Socialist author Upton Sinclair, all spoke here.

A few minutes later as we walked again through the Plaza I could hear the ghostly voices from 1912 of radical Mexican and Italian immigrants discussing the latest strikes in L.A. A few minutes later at Our Lady Queen of the Angels Church (La Placita) by the mural on the northside we listened to Father Steve Niskanen. During the 1980s Father Oliveres led La Placita into declaring itself the first Catholic Church to be a sanctuary for refugees from the civil wars in Central America; defying the I.N.S.; and making this a church for the poor and homeless.

The Claretian order, which runs the church, transferred Father Oliveres to Bolivia in 1990, ending La Placita’s radicalism, but the Claretians changed their minds by 2002. Two new priests, Father Steve Niskanen and Arnold Abelardo, who arrived in 2002, revived this radical heritage. The two priests redeclared the church as a sanctuary for immigrants; denounced the government’s raids on immigrants; started within the church Centro San Juan Diego del Immigrante (San Juan Diego Immigrant Center) to give legal and medical aid to immigrants; and again are feeding and helping the homeless. Father Niskanen, who is a tall, gangly Anglo, said he came from a conservative background but is changing while being pastor at La Placita.

Leaving Father Niskanen, we boarded the bus to get off at Spring Street, walk a block to Biddy Mason Park just south of the Bradbury Building at 304 South Broadway. If you walk through the Bradbury Building to the gallery at the back on the 1^st floor and then go right, you see a pocket park with leafy green camphor and jacaranda trees, benches, and then a wall dedicated to Biddy Mason. Mason, who was a black slave in 1851, walked to Los Angeles with her master’s wagon train.

There, she sued in 1856 for her freedom in court, and was helped by blacks in the tiny black community. She won! Inscriptions on the wall tall the story of this pioneering African-American Angelo: she was a talented midwife, helping to birth hundreds of children. She bought land and had a house right on this spot. At her house she and other blacks held meetings for Los Angeles’s first black church, the African-American Methodist Episcopal Church, which was built a few blocks down, on land she owned and donated to the church.

From Biddy Mason’s Park we walked a few blocks down Spring Street, the old Wall Street of Los Angeles with its stock exchange and leading banks before they moved to Bunker Hill; we arrived at Gallery 727 at 727 South Spring Street to see the photography show “South Central Farmers: Photographs by Don Normark and Don Rogers” (www.gallery727losangeles.com.” At 41^st Street and Alameda Avenue in South Los Angeles South Central Farmers for 12 years have created small garden plots in a community gardens. The city of Los Angeles originally condemned this land by eminent domain for the “good the community” to build a huge incinerator opposed by concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles, then let 360 farmers create garden plots. After promising that the land would be used for the good of the community, City Hall in a “sweetheart deal” decided gave the land back to its previous owner Ralph Horowitz to build a warehouse, so in December 31, 2003, the South Central Farmers have received their first eviction notice.

They have been fighting for a year including getting a court injunction to keep their farms (www.saveourgarden.com). We see photos of a few of the 350 families who are fighting City Hall and a millionaire real-estate dealer. The photos were stunning, showing these adults and children’s pride in their corn, chayote, cactucs they’ve grown as well as how they pass on food traditions--including building wonderful scacrecrows-- to the next generation. Looking at these photos, I thought of original small farming village of El Pueblo where farmers also laboriously built a long irrigation ditch, the madre zanja, to water their crops and then took pride in their vegetables they grew. Yes, the South Central Farmers who are carrying on this same food and farming two-hundred year old traditions deserve our support. You can fill out their petition at www. pettiononline.com/lagarden/petition html.

Michael Rochin captures old L.A.

I have read an amazing novel by Michael Jacob Rochin called Cascaron about Californios (Mexicans) in Southern California in the 1850s. Cascaron is the best fictional story I've ever read to recreate the life on the Mexican ranchos of the 1840s and and 1850s which dominated California's coastline. Don Diego Antonio Arboleda owns a huge rancho near Santa Barbara in 1857 in the last years of the ranchos before the whole way of life was destroyed. He sends his nephew Dario, the novel's hero and a foreman on the ranch, on a long journey to L.A. to arrange a deal for Arboleda's cows to help save the rancho. Dario is a wonderful horseman and an even better dancer--the one who gives the girls their first dance at their coming out party.

The whole intricate way of life on the rancho is wonderfully created: the life is full of strong families who lived together on the rancho, who had love of the land, who had a rich dance and music culture. When Dario rides with two retairners to the mission, Rochlin has created a lovely evocation of the beauty of the land of Southern California, the mission where they stop for a meal, and the dangers along the road. The novel for its first 90% creates this amazingly rich life of the ranchos including Dario's love for a daughter of a neibhoring rancho and the festivals at the ranchos which included a bear-and-bull fight. Arriving in L.A. the trio face more dangers in a wild western town of 1857 to finally make the deal to sell the beef and keep the rancho from financial troubles.

This is a tagic novel, as the Southern California ranchos' brief prosperity of 1857-8 which came from selling beef to the miners in Northern California was their last prosperity. By 1864 the Arbeleda family lost a good part of their land to the Anglos and Don Antonio, the patriach, had died. The novel describes how by 1864 with disease and a terrible drought destroying the cattle, most of the large ranchos were were lost by "legal technicalities, tax sales, and foreclosures."

Dario does survive in Santa Barbara until 1908, when Anglo children call him Don Dario but he knows he was never a don like his uncle Don Antonio. The Anglos get Dario, now an eighty-two-year old, to participate in "full folk regalia" and to dance in the festivities celebrating the "Spanish" heritage of Santa Barbara. The novel says, "So what if costumes like this had never bee worn and music like that had never been played ...Don Dari smiled and stared out but he could no longer see.... A woman demanded that Don Dari stomp like the flamencos and a man whooped a war dance like he'd seen ina motion picutre." In the end the wonderful dancer Dario becomes a tragic participant in the Anglos caricaturing the Mexican culture they neither understand nor appreciate.

Michael Rocholin is an archicture and historian of Los Angeles who has written a wonderful series of books about history and architure of this city. In his novel Cascaron he includes maps of 1850s Los Angeles with zanga madre, the mother ditch from the Los Angeles River, as well as other irrigation ditches and vineyards near oldtown. Rochlin has also written Ancient LA, is a spendid essay how the Indian villages are the sites of towns all over Southern California: he digs up a lost past and shows how the influence of this past on the present.

In Rochlin's Arcadian L.A. talks about three powerful women who owned large estates and who were devoted to the natural beauty of the land and the arts--the opposite of the macho land developers who destroyed vast areas of Southern California. Arcadia is the name of a rural paradise in ancient Greece.

The first woman, Anita Baldwin, owned her beautiful estate Anoakia at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains where she bred horses and commissioned prominent California painter Maynard Dixon to do the "Jinks room" murals which are now in the Fisher Gallery at USC. Baldwin's estae was unfortunatley destroyed by developers in 2000. May Rindge and her husband bought all of the Malibu rancho, one of the last Mexican land grants, so they owned all of Malibu; after her husband's death Rindge fought to keep out homesteaders, developers, and the state of California. In order to provide tiles for the her and her daughter's homes, May Rindge brought in the finest craftsmen and established the Malibu Tile Works, one of Southern California's best tile works. Part of the old Rindge estate survies as Malibu Lagoon State Park which includes a musuem showcase of Malibu history including the internationlly famous hand-made Mediterranean-style tiles used in buildings throughout Southern California.

Aline Barnsdall had her estate in the heart of Hollywood where she had Frank Lloyd Wright build her the splendid Hollyhock house and had a short-lived arts colony; Barnsdall donated to the city of Los Angeles this estate which became Barndall Park with a Los Angeles municipal art musuem and arts programs so Barsndall's support of art, architecture, and open space continues in the park named after her. Rochlin shows how three women were all good stewards of the land as well as promoted the arts and how their influence is still with us today. In these books Rochlin tells of the almost lost Los Angeles--of vaqueros and three-day Mexican fiestas, of females who created natural paradises along with arts and theater. Rochlin has proven to be one of the most lyrical and orginal writers in California.

Rochlin's book are published by a small press and are available from them:
Unreinforced Masonry Studio
P.O. Box 33671
Los Angeles Ca 90033

Cascaron
ISBN 0-9648304-5-0

Also try amazon.com

Native Artists/New Mexico

Last weekend I went to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a few days.

I went to hear Pat Smith at the Zimmerman Library of the University of New Mexico (UNM) do American Indian storytelling. Pat along with her husband John Crawford, my publisher, were my hosts. Pat is part Micmac (Indians who lived in New Brunswick, Canada, and in Maine) as well as part French Canadian and Irish. She had recently published along with Michael B. RunningWolf the book Glos’gap Stories of the Micmac Indians (Persea Books), and told us stories about Glos’gap, a mythical hero of the Algonquin peoples. The stories she told were delightful, particularly the one how Glos’gap tamed a womanizer male Indian.

I also read Pat’s essay “Grandma West to Smith All Right: But She Went from Nine to Five” from Working Class Women in the Academy: Laborers in the Knowledge Factory. Pat’s Micmac grandmother was a maid at Smith College, so Pat was able to go on scholarship for daughters of former employees. After Smith, she got a Ph.D. in English from Yale where she became a scholar of Edgar Allen Poe and then got a job teaching English at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. At the same time she was raising her two small sons.

Not long after arriving she volunteered to teach part-time on the Navajo reservation, commuting hundreds of miles to teach on small towns on the Reservation: Sanostee, Toadlena, Ramah. She said, “I learn enough Navajo to help my students begin to work with Navajo kids writing in Navajo. For three years our students in UNM’s Title VII bilingual teacher-training program graduate with Bachelor’s degrees in Elementary Ed and become luminous teachers.” She begins to include American Indian literatures into American Literature survey courses. A retired American Literature professor complains, "She’s gone native.”

But she thinks she hasn’t gone native but is only trying to teach as well as learn from Native peoples. She directed the Ph.D. dissertation of Laguna Pueblo writer Paula Gunn Allen that Allen later publishes as The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in Native American Tradition. Smith says, “Under Paula’s direction, a number of us pool essays and syllabi for the Modern Language Association’s Teaching Native American Literature: Curriculum and Course Design.” At UNM she teaches a generation of Native and Chicano writers: literary critic James Ruppert; Navajo poet and scholar Luci Tapahonso; part-Apache poet Jimmy Santiago Baca; Maidu poet-scholar Janice Gould . While taking Pat’s class Baca wrote his wonderful book of poetry Martin and Meditations on South Valley (New Directions).

Besides teaching, Pat’s published a book of poetry; criticism; and now non-fiction and fiction. Over the weekend I got to see Pat’s other recent books for young adults about Native Americans: Weetamoo, Heart of the Pocassets (Scholastic Inc) about a Indian teenage girl in 17^th century Massachuttes and As Long as the River Flow: The Stories of Nine Native Americans, short biographies of nine prominent Native Americans she wrote in collaboration with Paula Gunn Allen, a major Native American poet, essayist, and anthologist.

The next morning John Crawford and I stopped at the Indian Pueblo Center, learning the history of the Pueblo peoples from being a hunting gathering people thousands of years ago to growing corn as the Indians were the first to use irrigated farming here. For the present day an exhibit showcased the arts and crafts of each of the nineteen Pueblos including Maria Martinez’s stunning black pots. In New Mexico the Catholics put their churches near their already existing pueblos, not like California where the Indians were forcibly removed to the missions. We also saw a short film about the Pueblo woman painter Pablita Velarde who made wonderful paintings of the dances at the pueblos and was a pioneering women artist; we watched her make her own paints out of the New Mexican earth. Since I had come I had been seeing the art work and hearing about the writinng of Indian women--writer Pat Smith, Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso, Laguna poet/critic Paula Gunn Allen, potter Maria Martinez, and painter Pablita Velarde.

Next at the Rio Grande Nature Center I walked the river trail about a mile to the Rio Grande River—muddy, majestic and broad--and stared at the other side of the river with heights crowned with houses. As I continued on the Bosque (forest) trail through the cottonwoods a sunburst of yellow leaves in November. Pat picked me up and pointed out the sand hill cranes in the field a few blocks from her house, making me realize this whole area was a wetlands full of birds. At her own house a large flock of sparrows perched in her front yard. Birds and Native women artists were everywhere.

In New Mexico: poets and cranes

Visiting Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico I went to hear Joy Harjo read poetry. A Creek Indian from Oklahoma, Harjo is one of the great contemporary poets. She had graduated from this campus with a B.A. where she was now reading. She read her famous poem “She Had Some Horses,” which is the title of her breakthrough book (1983). She explained her ex-husband Acoma Pueblo poet Simon Ortiz was writing horse songs that inspired her to write her horse song. She stunningly read this poem that described how her narrator had so many kinds of horses with great surrealistic metaphor. She also read a lovely piece about her daughter Rainy Dawn as well as played one of her songs from her work with a band. She has a dazzling original voice combining her Creek background, jazz, and European modernism.

After a short solo walk the next day by the Rio Grande, I went with my hosts Pat Smith and John Crawford as John drove 90 miles south on Highway 25 parallel to the Rio Grande River. On the way we passed South Valley near the Isleta Pueblo where poet Jimmy Santiago Baca lived. In an interview Baca, who identifies as part Indian part-European, talks up going up to the Isletas holy mountain to sit and talk with them but he also tries to combine his Indian background with his experiences growing up in the city. But now we were driving away from the city to Bosque del Apache, a huge national monument of marsh and birds. We saw thousands of white snow geese close together in the water, more thousands of sand hill cranes standing on their spindly little legs, hundreds of ducks, a couple mule deer, a pheasant and a juvenile bald eagle.

At dusk while we were looking at more thousands of cranes in the water ahead of us while hundreds more flew in overhead—it was breathtaking. The cranes flapped their wings hard for a few second and then glided on the wind. For the first time since Bush’s election I was utterly caught up in enchantment of looking at over masses of cranes in front of me in the water and seeing them soar ahead. New Mexico was so much like Los Angeles a hundred years ago, when there were still wetlands covered with birds.

Over breakfast Pat, John and I discussed Willa Cather’s book Death Comes for the Archbishop with Pat arguing that Cather got her history all mixed up in the novel. The archbishop that Cather glorifies is modeled on Bishop Lamy, a French clergymen in the 19^th century who was patronizing to the Mexicans and Indians. Cather in her writing attacked Padre Antonio José Martinez, a New Mexican who fought for the poor; started the first seminary in the Southwest to train native clergy; started New Mexico’s first printing press, and was the true hero. Well, the visiting Anglo writer got it wrong.

The next day I took my third walk by the Rio Grande. New Mexico seemed a long thin strip of farms, towns and a city paralleling the river. My hosts lived in North Valley, about three blocks from the river that used to flood over its banks right up to the house, so a drainage ditch was dug behind the house to stop the flooding. As I walked to the river I saw this area had recently been a small Mexican-American farming village with irrigated fields. I walked besides the irrigation ditch, inspecting the metal gates that could either let in or hold the waters. I was only beginning to see how New Mexico's writers and artists were rooted in the land with it grand river, its marshes, irrigated fields, thousands of sand hill cranes, and colored soil used to make paints.

How the Democrats Can Win

Why do all those working people people in rural America vote for the Repbulicans? Thomas Frank has brilliantly argued in Whatever Happened to Kansas why blue collar people in rural Anmerica stopped voting for the Democrats. During the last 15 years the midde class was getting smashed in many planes in rural America: small family farms were going bankrupt; small towns dependent on these family farms were being deserted; unionized jobs in such industries as meatpacking were being destroyed in Chicago as firms moved to Kansas and Nebraska setting much lower-paid nonunionized plants there. At the same time the Democratic Party unfortunately abandoned economic justice policies to help working people in the mid-1990s.

Since 1993 the Democratic Party has been dominated by right-wing group of the Democratic Leadership Council (D.L.C.) whose leaders are Clinton, Kerry, and Joe Liberman. The D.L.C. has repositioned the Democratic Party so it has abandoned economic justice issues which are very important for my family and millions of others. Thomas Frank said about Clinton, "Whether it was NAFTA, deregulation of various industries, or welfare reform, he basically adopted the Reagan agenda on economic issues." When Clinton signed off on N.A.F.T.A. he lost the House and the Senate to the Republicans in 1993. Did the Democrat Party learn enough from this? No.

Take 2004. Bush handed the Democrats an incredible issue—the high cost of drugs as well as his hypocritical pharmaceutical plan for seniors, which actually shoves billions at insurance companies and drug companies while not lowering prices of the drugs. Kerry proposed no plans for lowering drug prices. The next presidential nominee or Democratic senate candidates for the Democrats could say if president s/ he would have Medicare negotiate for lower drug prices; s/he could have seniors enroll in a government discount plan to cut costs; and s/he could said it was legal to import lower priced drugs from Candada. Well, the Democrats if they would truly fight for lower drug prices could get millions of seniors and others’ votes.

Bush’s dismal record on being the first president since Herbert Hoover losing jobs gave Kerry a great opportunity to pick up millions of votes. Kerry supported N.A.F.T.A. and W.T.O. (rammed through by President Clinton) that cement in an international system of trade laws encouraging outsourcing of U.S. jobs. Labor unions fought incredibly against NAFTA and WTO but lost. Blue collar voters, particulary in the red states like Kansas, often feel abandoned by the Democrats for supporting N.A.F.T.A. and the W.T.O. In the 1990s corporations moved millions of factory jobs overseas but after 2000 they are outsourcing middle class jobs such as information technology. According to Peter Hart, one of the leading researchers who does polls for the Democrats, “polling in battleground states showed that a bit more than half of all voters worry very often about jobs moving overseas (and three-fourths of swing voters say this loss of high-tech and white-collar jobs is a very serious problem). Ohio particularly has lost thousands of jobs; whole communities like Youngstown have been hurt.

Kerry did have a plan to give tax credits to businesses for hiring more jobs. There is no guarantee any jobs, particular middle class jobs, would be created but businesses who would hire minimum wage workers would have benefited. Kerry really offered tax credits to Wal-Mart. Giving tax credits to business to hire is a right-wing Reublican position. Kerry again lost voters in the swing states.

One easy way to generate jobs is for Democratic candidates to propose a government jobs program similar to FDR's W.P.A. program or Carter's C.E.T.A. program both of which had government jobs for the unemployed. They were both successful programs. These programs could be targeted to rural America where unemployment is high, giving rural voters in those red states a reason to vote for the Democrats. Secondly, Democratic candidates could abandon N.A.F.T.A. and the W.T.O., showing blue collar and white collar voters that Democrats are on their side. The debacle for Democrats started when Clinton signed off on N.A.F.T.A. It will send when the Demcoratic Party commits itself to getting rid of N.A.F.T.A.

As for education, I had researched how both federal and state governments had defunded public higher education by 15% from 1980-2005, making it extremely expensive for many families. Since government is giving 15% less money to public universities, they are forced to raise tuition and to get money from private sources. Kerry’s plan was giving tax credits for families for tuition, a dreadful idea when the federal government is deeply in debt. His plan would have not stopped ever increasing costs of college tuition and public universities endlessly searching for private monies. Again, his education plans did nothing for his candidacy. Instead Democratic candidates could have had a simple plan to make higher education more afforable: increase government spending to pubic universities so they cut tuition.

Regarding health care, 70% of Americas are worried about the ever-increasing health care costs. We in the United States already pay $400 billion for a waste, privatized health care system that is the most expensive in the world--$50 billion for profits and $350 billion for bureaucratic red tape of insurance companies et al. Kerry’s health care plan by having federal subsidies for low-income people to enroll them in private insurance companies was also dreadful. According to Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein, “Kerry’s massive new spending would leave at least 17 million uninsured (by his own estimate) and tens of millions more with inadequate coverage, and stimulate the malignant growth of healthcare costs.” Instead of wasting more money on insurance companies, Democratic candidates should expand Medicare as Medicare is a much more economical program than insurance companies.

The Democratic Party have endorsed programs which in no way try to help rural America whose economy is worse than urban America. Instead they’ve supported policies that caused jobs to flee the country; accepted a for-profit health care system that the most expensive in the world but gives worst care than any industrialized countries; sat idly by while many public universities become out of reach of many working people. At that point many blue collar voters in rural America stopped voting for Democrats. The Republicans with their phony right-wing populism gathers in these voters for Republicans on cultural wedge issues such as anti-gay marriage or anti-abortion.

I would add in a heartless world that right-wing Democrats as well as the Bushes have wrought, the idea of faith is comforting. The emphasis on values for many working people is as result of the bleak economic landscape so many face: if jobs are leaving, college is expensive, health insurance premiums go up and up every year, what one can rely on but faith? In the past 150 years when peoples face economic disaster with no help in sight, they’ve often turned to faith and their local churches/synagogues/mosques for help. The churches often give real help: food, furniture, fellowship etc. If the Democrats don’t fight for economic populism, they cede working people to the Republicans.

Despite all the Republican attacks on Kerry as one of the most liberal senators, he wasn't that liberal at all but on the right-wing of the Democratic Party with a billionaire wife. The Republicans have been using this right-wing populism for decades to paint any Democratic presidential candidate as an elitist, so the Democrats should pick a candidate like F.D.R. with a proven record of fighting for progressive issues when he was governor of New York. And the candidate needs a wife like Elinor Roosevelt who had a record of helping those in need. People voted for F.D.R. because he symbolized change and hope. Kerry did not symbolize any difference. The Democrats again need to find candidates who can symbolize change and hope.

If Democrats want to ever win a national election again they need to fight for cheaper drug prices and government-run health programs because they do the best job; fight for government refunding of higher education; end their support for NAFTA and WTO; and propose a government jobs program that would actually create jobs like F.D.R. and Carter did.

U.S. health care compared to other countries

According to U.S. Census Bureau, International Database, year 2004, U.S. is #20 in health care compared to other nations. In life expectancy, the U.S. is behind Japan, Swedan, Australia, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Israel, Austria, Greece, New Zeeland, United Kingdom and Cyprus. The U.S. in life expectancy is tied with Ireland and Denmark and actually ahead of the Czech Republic.

As for infant mortality, the U.S. is #21, behind all the above countries except Israel and Cyprus. Now when this country is behind in infant mortality 20 other countries, it really shows how really bad the health care is in this country. The U.S. is behind Portugal in both life expectancy and infant mortality--but our economy is much bigger. Under the next four years of Bush, I'm afraid these figures will all worsen, as Bush's priorities aren't health care. Under Bush's first terms another million people lost their health insurance. Remember, for this bad health care system Americans pay much more than any other country in the world.

When people say we can't have universal health care system as in any other industrialized country because it would cost too much, one most respond that we in the U.S. are pay more for our privatized health care system than people in Europe and Japan but we get worse health care.

Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy for Selected
Countries, 2004, U.S. Census Bureau, International Database.

Country Life Expectancy Infant mortality

Japan 81 3.3
Sweden 80.2 2.8

Australia 80.3 4.8

Finland 78.2 4.4

Norway 79.2 3.7

5-Canada 80 4.8

Czech Republic 75.8 4

Italy 79.5 6.1

10-Germany 78.5 4.2

France 79.4 4.3

Spain 79.4 4.5

Israel 79.2 7.2

Norway 79.2 3.7

15Denmark 77.4 4.6

Austria 78.9 4.7

Greece 78.9 5.6

New Zealand 78.5 6

Portugal 77.3 5.1

20-United Kingdom 78.3 5.2

Ireland 77.4 5.5

Cyprus 77.5 7.4
23United States 77.4 6.6

1. Infant deaths per 1,000 live births.
2. Life expectancy at birth, in years, both sexes.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, International Database.