Finding Home: How Americans Prevail

by Sally Ooms

Finding How Americans Prevail is about people who have come dislodged from their center, the place they call home, and about how they have righted themselves. Everyday Americans elaborate on how they have solved problems our society hands us on a daily basis. Included are the voices of vets, foster kids, single moms and laid-off workers, retirees and business owners. These people are doing more than just coping. They are innovators in their own lives. They are prevailing.

262 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Sally Ooms has been a print journalist for 30 years—a reporter, correspondent and editor for publications in Oregon, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Missouri and Kansas. She has covered spot news, government, education issues, the arts, mental and other health concerns, business, sports and local crises during times of war, and has written hundreds of feature articles and investigative reports. Among the publications she has worked for are: the Sacramento Bee, the Las Vegas Daily Optic, the Albuquerque Journal, the Santa Fe New Mexican, New Mexico Business Weekly, Springs Magazine (Colorado Springs), the Kansas City Star and The Sun newspaper (Johnson County, KS).

She has received awards for editorial writing, spot news, features and investigative reporting from the Associated Press of New Mexico, the New Mexico Press Association and New Mexico Press Women. She served on the board of the New Mexico Press Association and was the president of the Associated Press Advisory Board in New Mexico.

After attending the University of Barcelona, she worked as a teacher in Spain and traveled in Europe for three years. She studied literature and writing at the University of Missouri, Stanford University and the University of Oregon; and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in public administration from the University of San Francisco.

After several years of traveling for interviews with people who have been displaced, she recently moved to San Francisco to complete and publish the book Finding Home: How Americans Prevail.

Reviews

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book through good reads first reads for free.


This book is an eye opener when it comes to the reality of most americans in that I was both shocked and interested in reading it through to the end just to get the basic sense of what trials and upheavals people can face and prosper from. I was not disappointed with the book and I would recommend to pick up a copy and read for yourself.

Thank you Sally Ooms for this information.

[Andrea]

I got this book finding home primarily because of the culture shift stories about people who moved to America from other countries, but I fell in love with Sally Ooms stories about Navajo who are presently overcoming abuses to their land and ways of life. I am also identifying with ordinary people who moved away from "home" to make a new life for themselves starting over some place else.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a giveaway from Goodreads.
The book was not as I expected in that it was actually a collection of interviews without the author's input, description, or even summation of the ideas presented in the interviews. The author presented the idea of home and finding home in place or situation in the introduction but I wasn't entirely clear what questions she asked the interviewees to elicit the stories she got. I'm guessing it had to do with what they thought of as home or how they thought of home but the stories were not directed, actually covered a lot of ground and rarely mentioned the word home or the explicit idea of home. The reader is left to extract the meaning of finding home from each interview. This is not a bad thing but it actually put the onus on the reader to discover "what does home mean?" or "what does finding and making a home mean?" And, what the reader learns from reading the stories that it means many different things to different people. The reader learns also that home is rarely a place and is often people/family/friends or even self. But none of this is spelled out--it takes engagement with the stories and thought on the part of the reader. We are not guided in any way as to what we should get from the book or from the stories. Again, this is not a bad thing--it simply puts much more responsibility on the reader to come to define the idea of home or of finding a home--which may simply be each individual's place in the world.
I would have like it a little better with just a bit more information--how did the author approach the interviewees? what question or word or phrase did she present to them to elicit these stories? How did she explain to them what she was trying to accomplish?
But--it's a good collection of stories and certainly lays out the lives of many people and allows us to see how different circumstances can affect how one thinks of home.

[Julienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author lists Studs Terkel as an influence and this is spot on for the kind of reporting and connection she has with her subjects. We owe Terkel much for his keen eye and ear for story and the tenacity to ensure that the stories were told. I'm happy authors like Ooms are around to continue that tradition.

Sally is a seasoned journalist and does masterful job of curating true first person stories of people who've had to re-discover the meaning of home by dint of disaster, addiction, family strife, economic changes and homelessness. Each story is a first person account from real people who struggle and persevere despite the odds and a society that often seems very disconnected from each other.

My favorite chapter was "Standing Their Ground" which contained stories of Native American people. The author doesn't sugar coat or weave the words to any specific end - she puts forth the true stories of people seemingly displaced on their own home ground where their people have lived for thousands of years.

[Kelan O'Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review coming.