Under the Dragon: California's New Culture

UNDER THE DRAGON: CALIFORNIA'S NEW CULTURE comes from a photographer who captures images of the changing ethnic and social makeup of California's Asian community, presenting a blend of color photos and essays surveying diversity and the changing ethnic makeup of California. From work and school life to celebrations, UNDER THE DRAGON should be required reading for any interested in contemporary California ethnic cultures - and for any California library. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Many of us like to think that we fully subscribe to the "American dream" notion of accepting any and all to our shores, seeking whatever it is that they hope to find here. But deep down, many also feel that we are in danger of losing some of the "old traditional values that made this country what it is." When I opened "Under the Dragon" I expected nothing more than a picture book that would coddle us into feeling comfortable about the many strange cultures that have flooded the country. Well, let me say this book is just the opposite. It may superficially glorify exotic culture, but its outstanding photographs with accompanying text bring home forcefully the idea that it is this very diversity that will keep the American tradition going. With all its warts, this country is still unique in the world, and instead of ending up as a warzone of battling ethnic groups, it will merge into one of the most dynamic and culturally interesting countries the world will ever see, with California leading the way.

So, you know the Blue State/ Red State version of what it means to be American no longer makes sense, and probably never has, and probably never will. You know either/or; black/white went out of fashion with the Inquisition. You have some sense of America that's far more complex, colorful and incomprehensable than you can ever hope to get your head around. And you like it that way. And you suspect somehow that others like it that way too. Prefer it actually than some washed out, toned down diluted version of what we're told America is like. But this is all just a gut sense, an intuition, an instinctual awareness of the future that half frightens and half thrills you. But you have not yet found the words to talk about it, have no images to point to. Well, then buy this book. Buy it because it will shatter your narrow view of America. Buy it because the words give you a way to articulate what this country is becoming. Buy it because now you have images to point to and can say: Is that not wacky? Is that not wonderful? Is that not the kind of country we wish to live in? Where mental boxes are banished. Where differences are celebrated. Where cultures, religions, beliefs clash in a wonderful cacophony of cultural dissonance and soul resonance. Buy it because you feel more human, less jaded when you're done reading it.

If you reach for a book because you want it to take you into a new world, excite you, surprise you, dazzle you, startle you, then get your hands on "Under the Dragon: California's New Culture," by Lonny Shavelson and Fred Setterberg. Like me, you will want this book not to end, for the richness each page offers. With some 80 stunning photographs reflecting "the American experiment" documented in seven major stories, you can appreciate as never before the complex range of multiculture expressed by this book. You will want to reread and savor stories that you could hardly imagine to be true, yet they are, and they enrich the world around us in the San Francisco Bay Area.