1. A Big Listening Project
1. A Big Listening Project
1. A Big Listening Project
1. A Big Listening Project
9. Is This Land Your Land?
Episode Summary
This episode features two more stories of outsiders remaking themselves and California history.
Eluard McDaniel left the Jim Crow South for California as a boy, and remade himself as an activist and writer on the West Coast. His account of his life brought him national attention when it appeared in American Stuff, a book of creative works by members of the Federal Writers’ Project and Federal Art Project selected by Henry Alsberg.
Miné Okubo was a rising artist with the Federal Art Project who drew on her art and her life story to depict a hidden history of injustice during World War II in her book Citizen 13660. Even decades later, a culture of silence surrounded that experience – until her book won an American Book Award and became testimony that sought redress for Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war.
Speakers
Seiko Buckingham, niece of Miné Okubo
Jeanie Tanaka, niece of Miné Okubo
David Bradley, novelist
David Kipen, journalist and author
Links and Resources
American Stuff, an anthology by members of the Federal Writers' Project
with prints by the Federal Arts Project
Citizen 13660 - short film from the National Park Service
"Sincerely, Miné Okubo" - short biography video from the Japanese American National Museum
"Pictures of Belonging" - 2024 art exhibition featuring three Japanese American artists
Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, Eluard McDaniel
Further Reading
California in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the Golden State with introduction, by David Kipen
Citizen 13660 by Miné Okubo
Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road by Greg Robinson
The Dream and the Deal by Jerre Mangione
The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel by David Bradley
"Bumming in California" by Eluard McDaniel, in On the Fly: Hobo Literature and Songs, 1879-1941, PM Press
Dear California by David Kipen
Black California edited by Aparajita Nanda
Credits
Hosted by: Chris Haley
Directed by: Andrea Kalin
Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor and James Mirabello
Writer: David A. Taylor
Editor: Ethan Oser
Assistant Editor: Amy Young
Story Editing: Michael May
Additional voices provided by:
Jared Buggage, Mariko Miyazaki, Kate Rafter and Amy Young
This episode also uses excerpts of Eluard Luchell McDaniel's words from an oral history dated August 26, 1985 in the Manny Harriman Video Oral History Collection, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, NYU Special Collections.
Featuring music and archival material from:
Pete Seeger
Joseph Vitarelli
Bradford Ellis
Pond5
Library of Congress
National Archives and Records Administration
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Produced with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and California Humanities