QUIET VALOR: EVERYDAY AMERICANS
by Larry Nouvel
A set of stories that speaks to the wonder of underrecognized acts of kindness and resistance.
Nouvel’s work is a compendium of the true stories of American citizen and residents who’ve demonstrated “quiet courage” without any expectation of recognition. His subjects range from a Texas teacher who, during a 2019 tornado warning, ran barefoot through the storm to guide children to safety to a woman who preserved the Gullah sweetgrass tradition through basketry. Nouvel offers accounts that he categorizes into several themes, including disaster and emergency response, health and caregiving, education and mentorship, civic duty and democracy, inclusion and cultural preservation, advocacy and justice, and everyday generosity. By bringing this wide spectrum together, he reminds readers of the power of advocacy and generosity of all sorts. One particularly compelling vignette is the story of 17-year-old Carmelita Torres, who, in El Paso, Texas, in 1917, refused to comply with the so-called “public health” requirement of a chemical bath for all migrants crossing the Mexican border. Hundreds of other women soon rallied with her and faced arrests and police violence in what the El Paso Morning Times dubbed a “riot.” Her resistance was dismissed at the time, but efforts have since been made to preserve her legacy as part of the history of the borderlands. The Covid-19 pandemic is also a recurring theme, and Nouvel devotes attention to scientists, medics, essential workers, volunteers, and grocery workers who all risked their lives to aid others. The result is a testament to the value of preserving histories that otherwise risk being forgotten.
Nouvel’s style is, for the most part, straightforward, aiming to faithfully record his subjects’ actions without getting lost in speculation or verbosity. The author’s own feelings can be seen most acutely in the startling clarity of such lines as “history is not nostalgia. It is instruction,” “it is the courage to say This still matters when others have moved on,” and “to revive language is to confront the violence that tried to destroy it.” Each account is accompanied by a reflection, as well as a list of references that makes the thoroughness of Nouvel’s research clear. The reflections effectively summarize each story’s key practical and emotional takeaways, although they rarely do more than restate conclusions that are already clearly present in the narrative. Some efforts are made to give context to the stories; for example, one of the pieces draws attention to the fact that Florida leads the nation in child drownings, and another notes that around 2,000 school bus fires occur annually in the United States. The author also provides some insight into his time as a young civil rights activist in Texas in the 1960s, although these moments are somewhat brief and might have been expanded to give the book a more personal touch. That said, each and every story featured in Nouvel’s collection speaks to the concept that gives the book its name.An earnest account of people who have done their part to make the world a better place.