Mary McCaslin's Roundup
August
17, 2007
Every now and then I have occasion to stop and think about how lucky we are
to have so many talented musicians, writers and other types of artists living
and working in this community. Some of them are world renowned, others are
nationally known, and still others are waiting to become well known.
In the last week I had the good fortune to enjoy the fruits of the talents
of two of them - singer Larry Hosford and writer Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston.
Larry has been playing Thursday nights at the Britannia Arms in Aptos for
quite a while now and my husband Greg and I finally made it down to hear him
and his band. They were all in fine form. Next month he will be celebrating
the release of a new CD, with a show at Don Quixote's in Felton. This is an
opportunity for fans in or near the Santa Cruz Mountains, who cannot get to
Aptos on Thursday nights, to enjoy an evening of his music.
"Farewell to Manzanar" is a true American classic. This book was
written in the early 1970s by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston with her husband James
Houston, who is an internationally respected author in his own right. Even
though the book is co-written the narrative is in Jeanne's voice. She tells
the story of her family, the Wakatsukis, who lived in Long Beach at the beginning
of the Second World War. Her father and brothers were fishermen. The family
was relocated to the Manzanar internment camp along with thousands of other
Japanese Americans. There were other "camps," mostly in the western
U.S., and it is a sad part of this country's history that many, many people
were uprooted from their homes and jobs and sometimes even family. They were
removed to these isolated locations out of fear that some of them, and no
one could be sure just who, would commit sabotage against this country to
help Japan win the war. In the beginning of the book there is a 1947 quote
from Henry Steele Commager of Harper's Magazine stating that the record does
not disclose a single case of Japanese disloyalty or sabotage during the whole
war.
Another Santa Cruz author, Geoffrey Dunn, has written extensively about how
local Italian American fishing families were forced to move to the other side
of Highway 1 at the same time period. This was an effort to prevent any sort
of similar actions against the U.S. on their part.
I am not a book reviewer, but do believe that "Farewell to Manzanar"
is one of the finest American books ever written, and I only regret that I
did not get around to reading it until now. It is encouraging to know that
it is on high school required reading lists.
Singer-songwriter Tom Russell wrote a song called "Manzanar," about
that camp a few years ago. This song received a fair amount of airplay on
the radio show I did on KZSC, but it was Laurie Lewis' lovely recording of
it that I played. Only later did I discover that it was yet another of Tom's
wonderful compositions. He lived here in the 1980s, even doing over-night
air shifts on KPIG, and plays this area often enough to still be thought of
as a local treasure.
Tonight another long time area treasure, the idiosyncratic group Camper Van
Beethoven plays the Attic, which is now under new ownership. Julie Rix, former
long time sound engineer of the Kuumbwa, is doing the booking and running
the sound for this lovely venue.
Email Mary McCaslin at roundup@marymccaslin.com