A rich, informative text highlighting Chumash ingenuity in rebuilding a long-oppressed culture.
In his ethnographic text, Gelles (Anthropology/Univ. of California, Water and Power in Highland Peru, 2000, etc.) explores the impact of casino revenues on revitalizing Native American culture in central California.
From the late 18th century through the 1950s, the Chumash, a Native American tribe based in the Santa Ynez Valley, were subjugated by three waves of colonization, each having detrimental effects on their culture and population. First, under Spanish rule, the Chumash people were forced to build mission properties, which were relied on by “the predatory priests, soldiers, local ranchers, and…the colonial system in general.” When the United States annexed California in the mid-1800s, the few remaining Chumash were forced from the mission property and made to settle at Zanja de Cota, which was later established as the Santa Ynez Reservation. The car culture of the 1950s brought tourism to the valley, resulting in a population boom consisting of “wealthy celebrities and ranchers to poor Latino farmhands and white service sector workers.” Without gas, potable water and electricity through the 1960s, the reservation “was known as a fairly lawless place, with a high rate of alcoholism…and with many residents on welfare.” Chumash children, often barred from educational advancement, were placed in special education programs at Santa Ynez Union High School for no reason other than their heritage. Yet the ’60s also saw a re-emergence of Chumash culture, a process initiated through studying the works of anthropologist J.P. Harrington, who, in the early 20th century, worked with Chumash culture-bearer Maria Solares in collecting thousands of pages of text regarding tribe history, language and religious practices. In the mid-’90s, a casino opened on the reservation, revenues from which have been used to re-establish Chumash culture. For example, the Tribal Hall was built in 2002 as the reservation’s government center and education department. The book concludes by examining the possibility of reconciliation between the Chumash and the Santa Ynez Valley community. Gelles asserts “critics should acknowledge that [the casino] has brought many benefits, not just for the Chumash, but for the community as a whole,” and in order “to go beyond stereotypes about American Indians, people…need to learn about native relationships with the state.” Gelles provides great balance by varying the narrative’s voice and perspective when detailing conflicts between the Chumash and Valley residents. However, he rarely asserts himself within the work, only vaguely outlining his role within the tribe, thus distancing himself from the many opinions at play. Overall, Gelles succeeds in objectively examining the complex sociopolitical issue.
A rich, informative text highlighting Chumash ingenuity in rebuilding a long-oppressed culture.Pub Date: May 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481176149
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
