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
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
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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