The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Steve Sheinkin is one of my favorite historical writers. His narrative nonfiction writing has the drama and characters found in any fiction novel, with spot-on pacing, and meticulous research. Don't miss this one.  Set during World War II, the Navy has changed policies so that blacks can enlist, but this does not mean equality. Instead, Sheinkin reveals the institutionalized racism in American society, military, and government showing how a small group of fifty men, out of fear, were one of the players in changing attitudes toward African Americans.

In July 1944, an explosion so huge it was mistaken for an earthquake happened at Port Chicago, as sailors were loading munitions on ships. Over 200 black men and 100 white men died at the pier. Only African Americans were assigned to load munitions and after the explosion hundreds tried to voice their fears regarding the dangerous job. No one listened. Unsafe conditions continued and Sheinkin shows how the African Americans were exploited by the Navy. As the men were being marched to load ammunition on another ship after the explosion that killed over 300 men, hundreds refused to go. But when they Navy threatened to charge them with mutiny and shoot them, only fifty were brave enough to continue to take a stand.

A court trial ensued showing the deep prejudices that were prevalent at the time. The courtroom drama and the lawyers building their cases captures the legal processes. Not all of the text is heavy. Sheinkin balances some light moments. The ending has a funny story of how a black sailor made best friends with a white sailor by fighting him. The fight ended up with them both respecting each other and the white sailor saying he learned that "a man is a man" regardless of skin color. Other interesting asides were Eleanor Roosevelt following the case and putting pressure on the Navy officer who could change things and Thurgood Marshall working on behalf of the men in the early stages of his famous career.

History shows that at times when an injustice occurs on the magnitude of the conviction of the Port Chicago sailors, people find the courage to stand up and protest the mockery of it. While these young sailors, many teenagers, didn't realize the significance they would have on history at the time in changing the plight of African Americans, they did not regret their actions as old men as the Epilogue explains. It also shows when the justice system fails to protect basic rights. While this book isn't as complex as "Bomb," it is just as compelling and will reach a younger audience. The primary photographs, graphics, oral histories, documentaries, and Navy documents make it an impressive work. Men stood up for what was wrong at great personal risk. This story is worth noting.

5 Smileys

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

In journalism school I'd get writer's block from deadlines. I would plop open Patricia Hampl's poetry to any page and no matter what, her words conjured up images and emotions that always unlocked my brain-freeze. This book is more poetry than plot as it jumps around at times following a less sequential structure for a novel-in-verse. That is not to say it is kittywampus. The order is there. I just got confused once in awhile. Plus, reading it in one sitting didn't work for me as well as savoring it in bits and pieces, like nibbling on slices of Tollhouse bars from a cake pan all day. You decide for yourself.

The emotions, history, imagery, and themes are loosely tied together as they chronicle the story of the author, an African American, growing up in the South and North. The history is going to be hard to figure out for some readers because of the sparse text that touches on major civil rights events, but doesn't go into depth. Some background knowledge helps fill in gaps on incidents such as sit-ins and marches, Jim Crow laws, and the Black Panthers, to name a few. This beautifully told story is about a girl trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life as she deals with her parents divorce, the civil rights movement, and three family relocations. I found many of her vignettes causing my own forgotten childhood memories to resurface. Amazing writing. Amazing craft. But some are going to find this book slow.

Jacqueline Woodson was born in Ohio. Her dad is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and his black slave, Sally Hemings. Jacqueline's mother was from South Carolina where her grandma still lives. Jacqueline's parents fight and she goes with her two siblings and mother to live with their grandparents where she develops close ties with her grandpa in particular. He's a smoker that develops emphysema and believes in God but not the Jehovah's Witnesses which is Jacqueline's family's religion. Life is dangerous in the South. It is safer to stay in the back of the bus. White women are hired at department stores to shadow African Americans shopping to make sure they don't steal any merchandise. Segregation is prevalent in public places and schools. Jacqueline notices that revolutions in all cultures are like a merry-go-round and wishes for peace. The end challenges readers to choose which world, which story, and which ending they desire. Readers can step into the many worlds whether it is imaginative storytelling or a revolution, but to remember if "the world explodes/around you - that you are loved..."

When Jacqueline's mom goes to New York she leaves behind her three young children. The text suggests that she has a child with a white man, but nothing is explained. I wasn't sure how long the mom was away from her three children that she left with her mother in South Carolina. Sometimes I got confused by the timing of events. Obviously, Jacqueline's mom was gone nine months, but perhaps longer. Jacqueline's new brother is named Roman and his skin is pale. Later, the boy ends up in the hospital from eating lead paint from the apartment walls. He's one of the character's I wanted to get to know better. There were others in the family as well that are not elaborated on. Maybe there will be a sequel. I hope so.

The theme of storytelling versus lying is subtly weaved throughout some chapters. Jacqueline gets in trouble from her mom for lying when Jacqueline says she is just making up stories. There's been several children's books published in 2014 on this topic but I think Jonathan Auxier's book, "The Night Gardener," articulates it well when his character says that lies hurt people and storytelling helps them. Jacqueline learns the same lesson. At first, she doesn't know the difference between when someone, such as Cora, is telling a superstitious lie to scare her versus a story. At the end Jacqueline is making up stories to her classmates suggesting that she has figured out that telling stories versus lying depends on intent. Storytelling is an expression of the imagination; whereas, lying is a way to avoid consequences of harmful actions. While storytelling is a great way to nurture creativity and imagination, sometimes it can be hard for kids to figure out when it is or is not appropriate.

Jacqueline Woodson won the National Book Award for this book and in an unfortunate incident, Lemony Snicket who presented the award, made a racist joke when giving it to her. She countered the comment in a respectful response to move beyond stereotypes and learn about painful pasts so people can live with diversity in healthy communities. Her book is about white people showing disrespect to black people, as well as, her discovering her love for storytelling. Diverse books are necessary to teaching tolerance. Books are one vehicle for teachers and parents to open discussions about issues with children about how to respect other people regardless of race, gender, religion, disabilities, or more. Dialogue is necessary so that people can look at their own biases and change. While Lemony Snicket, in an attempt to be funny was demeaning, he did spark public outrage and debate at how the community needs to change hurtful language into words that show respect for one another. I live in Taiwan and my assistants said that until recently it was taboo to discuss Chiang Kai-Shek's massacre of almost 30,000 Taiwanese when he came to power in the 1940s. They said it is so painful, echoing Jacqueline's comments in the New York Times article. The only way to prevent future wrongdoing's is to discuss how to make the world better. As the character in this book says, "I know my work is to make the world a better place for those coming after." How true for all of us.

5 Smileys

Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People by Helen Zia

I was talking to a colleague who said she loved this book because it captured her conflicted identity growing up in America as an Asian who had no voice in government. She's an activist like Helen Zia. She tells a great story of her high school principal asking her at lunch one day how he could get the Chinese, Koreans, and white students to not eat separately. My colleague suggested to the principal to organize field trips. "Friendships are formed out of the classroom and the principal took me up on my idea." She used it as a small example of one person making a difference in her world of cultural divisions. I would have liked Zia to pepper her story with more hope-filled examples like my colleague's; particularly in the beginning. I felt bad that Zia had so many negative experiences and was a bit exhausted plowing through it all. Unfortunately, that was her reality.  Her book is meant to shock people into action by the injustices suffered by minority groups such as Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos, Chinese, and Asian-Indians. It is a history of the politicization of Asians in America.

I just read Native American Tim Tingle's book called, How I became a Ghost, and he explains the first time he told the story of the Trail of Tears to a mostly white audience. He said that the first row stood up and left right away because he told about all the horrors and injustices that happened at the get-go. He changed the story to the viewpoint of a ten-year-old boy and presented a loving Native American family and rich culture, drawing the listener into the story. Later, he punched the audience between the eyes with the injustices and oppression white men inflicted on his Nation. Once he changed the tone and lured the audience into the story, he explained, they stopped walking out on him. Zia's book jumps immediately into the horrors and injustices that made me think of the white people that got up and left Tingle's talk. I wondered if white people abandoned Zia's book after the first few chapters. If you feel that way, I encourage you to not set it down.

Zia uses personal narratives at the beginning of the chapters but she can be heavy-handed at times. But I'm a white person and outsider who did not grow up poor, so my perspective is different. Or maybe her accusations toward white oppressors made me feel defensive and I need to take a harder look at my own biases. That is why I mentioned my Asian colleague at the start. She respectfully disagreed with me when I said the start of the book turned me off. She told me I couldn't understand the Asian plight because I was white. She's right. I don't. But I'm trying. Even living overseas as a minority, I get an idea but it isn't the same experience because I know I am a foreigner who will leave Taiwan and go back to America. As an expat, I don't vote. I don't speak the language. I don't pay taxes. I'm American, not Taiwanese. Asian Americans feel the same way. America is their country. They need a voice. They do vote. They do pay taxes. We had a good dialogue. Perhaps that is the strength of this book. It opens communication between different cultures, which is a cornerstone to building respect and understanding.

Zia came to our school and her speaking was more of what I wanted in her book that was written in 2000. She explained historically how cultures clash and their differences lead to conflict. Her book shows how groups overcome those conflicts. Major events in history show discrimination and hate crimes against different Asian groups. Many of these events correlate with global financial crises such as the recession in 1882 that resulted in high levels of unemployment and layoffs. The Chinese were blamed at the time for the bad economy. Thousands were driven out of America and many murdered. The government passed The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that was the beginning of a ban on Chinese immigrants that lasted sixty years. The United States enacted a discriminatory law against a particular ethnic group for the first time ever.

One hundred years later a similar incident occurred with the murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit, Michigan. Chin, a Chinese man, was murdered on the night of his bachelor party because some white auto workers blamed the Japanese for the loss of auto jobs. With unemployment at 16%, people were looking for scapegoats. On the night of his death, the auto workers thought Chin was Japanese and got in a fight with him at a bar. Chin left with a friend and the men tracked him down, bludgeoning him to death in a parking lot. The recession of 1982 resulted from a global oil and energy crisis. American cars got about 5-10 miles to the gallon. Oil had gone from 20 cents a gallon to 4 dollars a gallon and American cars were gas guzzlers. The American auto industry collapsed as people bought more fuel efficient Japanese cars. Many people unjustly blamed Japan for the problem and the young engineer, Vincent Chin, became a victim of a hate crime.

The white men arrested for Chin's murder were given such light sentences that it caused the Asian community to band together as an organization, initiating the pan-Asian American movement. The killers served no jail time and the Asians knew that if Chin was white the killers would have gone to jail. Journalist Helen Zia and lawyer Liza Chan knew that they couldn't do anything after the sentence was handed down locally, so they brought federal charges against the white men saying that they violated Chin's civil rights. The man who swung the baseball bat at Chin's head killing him was sentenced to jail by a federal judge.

The book is full of major events that has resulted in the politicization of Asians: The Japanese Internment of 1942, The Immigration Act of 1965, Wards Cove vs. Atonio in 1989, Miss Saigon in 1991, the Los Angeles Riots in 1992, Hawaiian lawsuits for marriage equality in 1993, and Wen Ho Lee's wrongful imprisonment in 1999. Zia's book isn't limited to race, she dips into gender and sexuality as well. I actually liked the book more when the topic was broadened. The American Dream is the ethos for the United States. It is rooted in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. The ideal means that the opportunity to work hard and succeed is available to all. It can only happen if inequalities are exposed for what they are and Zia does just that in her book. While this book should make Asians feel proud and visible, it might make Caucasians feel bad or uncomfortable. This is necessary to break down discriminatory barriers and create a culture that truly strives for the American dream.

4 Smileys