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October 25, 2007 |
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October 25, 2007 |
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Review by Adrianne Koteen
Under the Dragon: California’s New Culture is a book that celebrates the contradictions inherent in a society consistently forming and reforming itself. America is familiar with such societal permutations and historically characterized by this plurality, yet the visual signs of diversity have perhaps never been so apparent as in the community interactions and cultural festivities documented in Lonny Shavelson and Fred Setterberg’s new book.
The books greatest strength is the personal stories sensitively and expertly drawn out by experienced journalists Shavelson and Setterberg. The photographs and accompanying text highlight the multiethnic mélanges common to the Bay Area and beyond, such as Bhangra Aerobics, churches that alternate between Christian and Buddhist services, and the many restaurants that boast cuisine from multiple cultures and continents. Beyond these telltale signs of our multiethnic society, Under the Dragon serves to provide a deeper look at the points of intersection between cultures, the particular factors and climate that have encouraged certain individuals to transcend the sometimes isolating barriers of race, ethnicity, class and environment.
One such story is of Dr. Mona Afari, an Iranian-born therapist who experiences a newfound sense of belonging through counseling survivors of the Cambodian holocaust. Another tale is of Daniel, a Mexican American man who converts to Islam and decides to move his young family from Hayward to Sudan. Finally there is the story of Jessie Graham, a young white man who after facing innumerable struggles growing up as a minority in a predominantly black community, finds acceptance and his true calling as a preacher at the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Oakland.
All of these stories and the accompanying images serve to illustrate the societal changes occurring throughout the Bay Area and beyond. The tone is not instructive or moralizing, but illuminates the beauty and challenges taking place all around us, as we struggle and celebrate the heterogeneity and multiplicity of our cultural place in history. The result demonstrates the continual opportunity for societal regeneration and the personal opportunity to widen our understanding of society. As we become accustomed to the familiar mores of multiculturalism and the increasingly clichéd signifiers of diversity, the deeper concerns are often overlooked and unexamined. Shavelson and Setterberg’s new book encourages us to figuratively and literary look under the dragon, successfully offering us new eyes.
To the veteran bay area
resident accustomed to buying tortillas and miso paste from the Casa Thai Market
in the Mission where clerks regularly speak three different languages, this book
is not a revelation, but a reminder to continually reexamine the world around
us. For those people throughout the US who remain isolated within their societal
enclaves, the marriage of words and images within this book may provide the
critical inspiration to enter into a deeper understanding of the complexity and
strength of contemporary American culture, ultimately broadening our
understanding of one another.
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