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Endangered Species, Enduring Values
An Anthology of prose, poetry and artwork by San Francisco Area Writers & Artists of Color ENDANGERED SPECIES, ENDURING VALUES is a guide to the real San Francisco—the seldom-heard 58% of the population that brings color and diversity to the city in every sense of the word. Includes than 150 pieces by more than 70 creatives of color with roots in Native America, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Europe. Contributors include current SF Poet Laureate Kim Shuck, and artists, curators, physicians, educators, poets, performers, and activists for unions, LGBT, mental health, housing and more. 70 color pages of art & photos.
274 pages, Paperback
Published March 31, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 22, 2019
Indeed, voices and visions “coming with the weight of their (our) histories” can speak truth to power and cut the haze of lies. Endangered Species, Enduring Values is by and about “others” who aren’t. We/they’re each just one of us human beings. Actually, in California and at least San Francisco, “they” (who are actually “we” to me since Mom spilled the beans about Great-Great Grandma “passing” in White Wisconsin) are a more populous and maybe more powerful majority. Not “becoming,” but “already are.”
Does that sound scary? I think it sounds cool and makes me feel proud of our cultural diversity and civic recognition thereof. Dena Rod is one of the examples here, however, of multi-“identified” Bay area students, residents or Americans saying things like, “I think of my familial history; the toil of immigrants and refugees fleeing a theocratic regime to find what? Freedom?...Or…Assimilation, denigration and fear; each one heavier than the last.” (ESEV p. 190) The "Melting Pot" is an uncomfortable place nowadays.
Shizue Seigel gave me her Anthology of San Francisco Area Writers and Artists of Color at the cultural cornucopia of our Bay Area Book Festival early this month, pointing out the writers and artists involved who, like Rose Berryessa were “displaced to Berkeley” (probably by gentrification); worked or studied here, like Sandra Bass, Assistant Dean and Director of UC Berkeley’s Public Service Center and explosive poet Barbara Jane Reyes.
And Seigel’s carefully chosen artists, poets and writers tell stories and show images of their lives that are so true, so true! “Grandmother… continuing on her way, another dark figure merging into the surging flow of hundreds, thousands fleeing the anticipated onslaught,” a twelve-year-old baseball-lover from Cuba challenging a schoolyard mitt-thief in an eruption of courage, works titled “Mommy, is Grandpa in Heaven or a Grave?” “Thank You Note to the Dirty Old Man” and “philanthro-pimp.” The miasma of hatred, oppression and prejudice melted away before my media-weary eyes and aching heart. Indeed, voices and visions “coming with the weight of their (our) histories” can speak truth to power and cut the haze of lies.
I decided that was as good a reason as any to check out Eastwind Books, the distributor, on University just west of Shattuck. Another independent bookstore haven! Bea Dong, the proprietor; among the tall shelves, cobalt-blue flower vases and Thich Nhat Hanh pocket chapbooks; wonderful, welcoming and kind!
Ah! Refuges from the madness!
American media and some more recent exclusionary customs remind me of many international immigrants in the 1960’s who called us “the country where they let the children cry.”
But not only the children. Susan and I were waiting at the bus stop at Addison and Shattuck the other very rainy morning when an African-American elderly woman with a crammed stroller-full of her earthly possessions smoking a gifted cigarette took shelter there. Susan asked her not to smoke, she ignored her, I just moved upwind, knowing we wouldn’t be there long and the woman clearly had nowhere else to go.
Then I looked up to see a youngish, squeaky-clean-nerdy Anglo-American man with short hair and an “OBEY” cap on was videoing the woman smoking with his cellphone, and I thought “for what porpoise?” as my friend Juanita used to say.
To report her to the police? To the "Downtown Ambassadors?" To post on his Facebook page as one of the “others” or “enemies” militant, misogynist, racist vigilantes had to harass, ridicule, attack, keep track of, incarcerate or eliminate? “Lock her up,” as they say?
She is your Grandmother, too…
These comments are from Cultures, Values and "Others," a Knox Book Beat book review that appeared in The Berkeley Times, 23 May, 2019. Notes and references follow.
Eastwind Books at 2066 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA, 94704, 510.548.2350 hosted a book talk and signing by Gordon H. Chang on his Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story if the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, and distributes Endangered Species, Enduring Values: An Anthology of San Francisco Area Writers and Artists of Color, (2018). They sponsor events at the Oakland as well as shipping and selling many other “Asian-American, Martial Arts (Internal and External), Traditional Chinese Medicine, Asian Languages, Quigong, Chinese Philosophy, Eastern Religion books, art supplies…” and other items.
Seigel, Shizue, (2018) Endangered Species, Enduring Values: An Anthology of San Francisco Area Writers and Artists of Color, (2018) Pease Press, San Francisco, CA.
Indeed, voices and visions “coming with the weight of their (our) histories” can speak truth to power and cut the haze of lies. #EndangeredSpeciesEnduringValues, #PerceptionandDeception, #culturaldiversity, #anthropology, #travel, #berkeley, #sanfrancisco, #blacklivesmatter, #calinternationalhouse, #eastwindBooks, #ShizueSeigel, #joelurie, #RoseBerryessa, # DenaRod, # ThichNhatHanh, #beadong, #barbarajanereyes, #sandrabass, #dianehofnersaphiere, #peasepress, #culturaldetective, #ghostsofgoldmountain, #TraditionalChineseMedicine, #AsianLanguages, #Quigong, #ChinesePhilosophy, #EasternReligionbooks, #artsupplies
Does that sound scary? I think it sounds cool and makes me feel proud of our cultural diversity and civic recognition thereof. Dena Rod is one of the examples here, however, of multi-“identified” Bay area students, residents or Americans saying things like, “I think of my familial history; the toil of immigrants and refugees fleeing a theocratic regime to find what? Freedom?...Or…Assimilation, denigration and fear; each one heavier than the last.” (ESEV p. 190) The "Melting Pot" is an uncomfortable place nowadays.
Shizue Seigel gave me her Anthology of San Francisco Area Writers and Artists of Color at the cultural cornucopia of our Bay Area Book Festival early this month, pointing out the writers and artists involved who, like Rose Berryessa were “displaced to Berkeley” (probably by gentrification); worked or studied here, like Sandra Bass, Assistant Dean and Director of UC Berkeley’s Public Service Center and explosive poet Barbara Jane Reyes.
And Seigel’s carefully chosen artists, poets and writers tell stories and show images of their lives that are so true, so true! “Grandmother… continuing on her way, another dark figure merging into the surging flow of hundreds, thousands fleeing the anticipated onslaught,” a twelve-year-old baseball-lover from Cuba challenging a schoolyard mitt-thief in an eruption of courage, works titled “Mommy, is Grandpa in Heaven or a Grave?” “Thank You Note to the Dirty Old Man” and “philanthro-pimp.” The miasma of hatred, oppression and prejudice melted away before my media-weary eyes and aching heart. Indeed, voices and visions “coming with the weight of their (our) histories” can speak truth to power and cut the haze of lies.
I decided that was as good a reason as any to check out Eastwind Books, the distributor, on University just west of Shattuck. Another independent bookstore haven! Bea Dong, the proprietor; among the tall shelves, cobalt-blue flower vases and Thich Nhat Hanh pocket chapbooks; wonderful, welcoming and kind!
Ah! Refuges from the madness!
American media and some more recent exclusionary customs remind me of many international immigrants in the 1960’s who called us “the country where they let the children cry.”
But not only the children. Susan and I were waiting at the bus stop at Addison and Shattuck the other very rainy morning when an African-American elderly woman with a crammed stroller-full of her earthly possessions smoking a gifted cigarette took shelter there. Susan asked her not to smoke, she ignored her, I just moved upwind, knowing we wouldn’t be there long and the woman clearly had nowhere else to go.
Then I looked up to see a youngish, squeaky-clean-nerdy Anglo-American man with short hair and an “OBEY” cap on was videoing the woman smoking with his cellphone, and I thought “for what porpoise?” as my friend Juanita used to say.
To report her to the police? To the "Downtown Ambassadors?" To post on his Facebook page as one of the “others” or “enemies” militant, misogynist, racist vigilantes had to harass, ridicule, attack, keep track of, incarcerate or eliminate? “Lock her up,” as they say?
She is your Grandmother, too…
These comments are from Cultures, Values and "Others," a Knox Book Beat book review that appeared in The Berkeley Times, 23 May, 2019. Notes and references follow.
Eastwind Books at 2066 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA, 94704, 510.548.2350 hosted a book talk and signing by Gordon H. Chang on his Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story if the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, and distributes Endangered Species, Enduring Values: An Anthology of San Francisco Area Writers and Artists of Color, (2018). They sponsor events at the Oakland as well as shipping and selling many other “Asian-American, Martial Arts (Internal and External), Traditional Chinese Medicine, Asian Languages, Quigong, Chinese Philosophy, Eastern Religion books, art supplies…” and other items.
Seigel, Shizue, (2018) Endangered Species, Enduring Values: An Anthology of San Francisco Area Writers and Artists of Color, (2018) Pease Press, San Francisco, CA.
Indeed, voices and visions “coming with the weight of their (our) histories” can speak truth to power and cut the haze of lies. #EndangeredSpeciesEnduringValues, #PerceptionandDeception, #culturaldiversity, #anthropology, #travel, #berkeley, #sanfrancisco, #blacklivesmatter, #calinternationalhouse, #eastwindBooks, #ShizueSeigel, #joelurie, #RoseBerryessa, # DenaRod, # ThichNhatHanh, #beadong, #barbarajanereyes, #sandrabass, #dianehofnersaphiere, #peasepress, #culturaldetective, #ghostsofgoldmountain, #TraditionalChineseMedicine, #AsianLanguages, #Quigong, #ChinesePhilosophy, #EasternReligionbooks, #artsupplies
February 27, 2019
Wonderful collection of voices from poets, short story writers and essayists that articulate the heart of San Francisco, voices that are marginalized but are, often times, the ones that we need to hear most of all.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews