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:
David Bradley, novelist
Seiko Buckingham, niece of Miné Okubo
Jeanie Tanaka, niece of Miné Okubo
David Kipen, journalist and author
Links and Resources:
'Citizen 13660\" short film by the National Park Service
\"Sincerely, Miné Okubo\" short film from the Japanese American National Museum
\"Pictures of Belonging\" 2024 art exhibition
Eluard McDaniel entry, Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives
Reading List:
Citizen 13660, by Miné Okubo
Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road, by Greg Robinson
The Dream and the Deal, by Jerre Mangione
“Bumming in California” by Eluard McDaniel, in On the Fly: Hobo Literature and Songs, 1879 – 1941, PM Press
The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel, by David Bradley
Dear California, by David Kipen
Black California, edited by Aparajita Nanda
California in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the Golden State with introduction, by David Kipen
Credits:
Host: Chris Haley
Director: Andrea Kalin
Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello
Writer: David A. Taylor
Editor: Ethan Oser
Assistant Editor: Amy Young
Story Editor: Michael May
Additional Voices: Jared Buggage, Mariko Miyazaki, Kate Rafter and Amy Young
Featuring music and archival from:
Pete Seeger
Joseph Vitarelli
Bradford Ellis
Pond5
Library of Congress
National Archives and Records Administration
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Manny Harriman Video Oral History Collection, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, NYU Special Collections.
For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder
Produced with support from:
National Endowment for the Humanities
California Humanities.
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