LOOK AT US, etc., etc.

Look at Us--the etc., etc. concludes, Don't Look Now, But Isn't That You? (Us? U.S.?) We are immigrants, Indians, miners, cotton pickers, artists and composers, poker players, reformers. We work on the Georgia chain gang, on a midwestern farm, or we play on the Atlantic City Board-walk. We celebrate Armistice Day in parade Or stand privately by a revisited grave. We are babies and octogenarians, children and grandfathers. Arthur Rothstein, longtime professional Looker, looks at us through a range of photographs that imprint the image of pluralistic America on the viewer. It is the America of the people--their lives, their leaders. William Saroyan looks at Rothstein's pictures and interprets them in words that underscore the dignity and worth of the people, yes, small town doctor or farmer, three boys re-enacting the crossing of the Delaware, and also Abraham Lincoln and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. But not army indoctrination, farm syndicates, Truman (who dropped the Bomb) or Johnson (who escalates in Vietnam). As American as July 4, or Columbus Day, a celebratory parade.