EVENT: Jane Wehrey book signing (5.9.06)
JANE WEHREY, author of VOICES FROM THIS
LONG BROWN LAND: ORAL RECOLLECTIONS
OF OWENS VALLEY LIVES AND MANZANAR PASTS
to appear at CSU Fullerton
Date: May 9, 2006
Time: 1-3 p.m.
Room: Pollack Library South, Room 363
An exemplary public history,
suitable for interdisciplinary study,
this book brings an integrated
approach to the Owens Valley’s
past as it fuses oral history
practice with studies on place and
memory and the sweeping saga
of the American West.
Center for Oral & Public History
Pollak Library South, Room 363
Jane Wehrey was born in 1944 in the Owens Valley. In the 1920s, when Manzanar served as a EuroAmerican fruit growing site, her maternal grandparents ran Manzanar’s general store. That phase of Manzanar history ended when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power bought up virtually all the land in the Owens Valley, including the Manzanar site, so as to secure the rights to the Valley’s water and use it to support the urban growth of semi-desert Los Angeles. Following the outbreak of war in December 1941, Jane’s father was the sole engineer remaining in the Owens Valley, and he thus became the person responsible for designing the camp’s water system for its 10,000 incarcerated population of Americans of Japanese ancestry. Some years after the war, he became elevated to the position of Commissioner of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. When, a few years back, Manzanar was chosen to become administered by the National Park Service and serve as Manzanar National Historic site and be interpreted by NPS rangers for thousands and thousands of annual visitors, NPS worked out a land swap with the Department of Water and Power so that it could control this site. Once a site is chosen to be interpreted by NPS, that tax-supported organization is mandated to interpret the site comprehensively (i.e., covering all periods of its human habitation); in the case of Manzanar, this meant that the interpretation had to cover not only the wartime population of incarcerated Japanese Americans, but also the site’s use by, first, Paiute Indians and, second, the EuroAmericans who farmed it during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Jane’s book is based upon oral histories with individuals from these groups whose life paths crossed the Manzanar site and represents the first truly multicultural study of Manzanar in the context of Owens Valley’s colorful and contested history. Her thesis won the best student project award for the National Council on Public History; she is one of the only, if not the only, individual to have won this award (the other award-winning projects have been done by groups), and one of the very few winners to have come from a non-doctoral degree granting institution.
LONG BROWN LAND: ORAL RECOLLECTIONS
OF OWENS VALLEY LIVES AND MANZANAR PASTS
to appear at CSU Fullerton
Date: May 9, 2006
Time: 1-3 p.m.
Room: Pollack Library South, Room 363
An exemplary public history,
suitable for interdisciplinary study,
this book brings an integrated
approach to the Owens Valley’s
past as it fuses oral history
practice with studies on place and
memory and the sweeping saga
of the American West.
Center for Oral & Public History
Pollak Library South, Room 363
Jane Wehrey was born in 1944 in the Owens Valley. In the 1920s, when Manzanar served as a EuroAmerican fruit growing site, her maternal grandparents ran Manzanar’s general store. That phase of Manzanar history ended when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power bought up virtually all the land in the Owens Valley, including the Manzanar site, so as to secure the rights to the Valley’s water and use it to support the urban growth of semi-desert Los Angeles. Following the outbreak of war in December 1941, Jane’s father was the sole engineer remaining in the Owens Valley, and he thus became the person responsible for designing the camp’s water system for its 10,000 incarcerated population of Americans of Japanese ancestry. Some years after the war, he became elevated to the position of Commissioner of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. When, a few years back, Manzanar was chosen to become administered by the National Park Service and serve as Manzanar National Historic site and be interpreted by NPS rangers for thousands and thousands of annual visitors, NPS worked out a land swap with the Department of Water and Power so that it could control this site. Once a site is chosen to be interpreted by NPS, that tax-supported organization is mandated to interpret the site comprehensively (i.e., covering all periods of its human habitation); in the case of Manzanar, this meant that the interpretation had to cover not only the wartime population of incarcerated Japanese Americans, but also the site’s use by, first, Paiute Indians and, second, the EuroAmericans who farmed it during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Jane’s book is based upon oral histories with individuals from these groups whose life paths crossed the Manzanar site and represents the first truly multicultural study of Manzanar in the context of Owens Valley’s colorful and contested history. Her thesis won the best student project award for the National Council on Public History; she is one of the only, if not the only, individual to have won this award (the other award-winning projects have been done by groups), and one of the very few winners to have come from a non-doctoral degree granting institution.
posted by blurp2000 at 5:29 PM
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