A R T S A N D C U LT U R E
BOOKSTORE BOASTS STELLAR LINEUP FOR SEPTEMBER
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BY ARROYO STAFF
he renowned bookstore Vroman’s is hosting more top-notch virtual programs throughout September. The “Vroman’s Life” events are held virtually through Crowdcast. Register through vromansbookstore.com.
Susan H. Kamei, in conversation with Teresa Watanabe, discusses ‘When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during WWII’ 6 p.m. Tuesday, September 7 In this dramatic and page-turning narrative history of Japanese Americans before, during and after their World War II incarceration, Kamei weaves the voices of more than 130 individuals who lived through this tragic episode, most of them as young adults. It’s difficult to believe it happened here. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government forcibly removed more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast and imprisoned them in desolate detention camps until the end of World War II just because of their race. In what Secretary Norman Y. Mineta describes as a “landmark book,” he and others who lived through this harrowing experience tell the story of their incarceration and the long-term impact of this dark period in American history. For the first time, why and how these tragic events took place are interwoven with more than 130 individual voices of those who were unconstitutionally incarcerated, many of them children and young adults. Their words will resonate with readers who are confronting questions about racial identity, immigration and citizenship, and what it means to be an American. Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez discusses ‘For Brown Girls with Tender Hearts and Sharp Edges: A Love Letter to Women of Color’ with Yesika Salgado The founder of Latina Rebels and a “Latinx Activist You Should Know” (Teen Vogue) arms women of color with the tools and knowledge they need to find success on their own terms. For generations, brown girls have had to push against powerful forces of sexism, racism and classism, often feeling alone in the struggle. By founding Latina Rebels, Rodríguez has created a community to
help women fight together. In “For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts,” she offers wisdom and a liberating path forward for all women of color. She crafts powerful ways to address the challenges brown girls face, from imposter syndrome to colorism. She empowers women to decolonize their worldview and defy “universal” white narratives by telling their own stories. Her book guides women of color toward a sense of pride and sisterhood and offers essential tools to energize a movement.
Maria Amparo Escandón, in conversation with Alex Espinoza, discusses ‘LA Weather’ 6 p.m. Tuesday, September 14 LA is parched, dry as a bone, and Oscar, the weather-obsessed patriarch of the Alvarado family, desperately wants a little rain. He’s harboring a costly secret that distracts him from everything else. His wife, Keila, desperate for a life with a little more intimacy and a little less Weather Channel, feels she has no choice but to end their marriage. Their three daughters — Claudia, a TV chef with a hard-hearted attitude; Olivia, a successful architect who suffers from gentrification guilt; and Patricia, a social media wizard who has an uncanny knack for connecting with audiences but not with her lovers — are blindsided and left questioning everything they know. Each will have to take a critical look at her own relationships and make some tough decisions along the way. With quick wit and humor, Escandón follows the Alvarado family as they wrestle with impending evacuations, secrets, deception and betrayal, and their toughest decision: whether to stick together or burn it all down. T.C. Boyle discusses ‘Talk to Me’ 4 p.m. Saturday, September 18 When animal behaviorist Guy Schermerhorn demonstrates on a TV game show that he has taught Sam, his juvenile chimp, to speak in sign language, Aimee Villard, an undergraduate at Schermerhorn’s university, is so taken with the performance that she applies to become his assistant. A romantic and intellectual attachment soon morphs into an interspecies love triangle that pushes hard at the boundaries of consciousness.
Submitted photos
Vroman’s VIRTUALLY
Jarrett Adams discusses ‘Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, May Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System’ 6 p.m. Monday, September 13 He was 17 when an all-white jury sentenced him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now a pioneering lawyer, he recalls the journey that led to his exoneration — and inspired him to devote his life to fighting the many injustices in the legal system. Facing nearly 30 years behind bars, Adams sought to figure out the why behind his fate. Sustained by his mother and aunts, who brought him back from the edge of despair through letters of prayer and encouragement, Adams became obsessed with our legal system in all its damaged glory. After studying how his constitutional rights to effective counsel had been violated, he solicited the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an organization that exonerates the wrongfully convicted, and won his release after nearly 10 years in prison. But the journey was far from over. Adams took the lessons he learned through his incarceration and worked his way through law school with the goal of helping those who, like himself, had faced our legal system at its worst. After earning his law degree, he worked with the New York Innocence Project, becoming the first exoneree hired by the nonprofit as a lawyer. In his first case with the Innocence Project, he argued before the same court that had convicted him a decade earlier — and won. In this cinematic story of hope and full-circle redemption, Adams draws on his life and the cases of his clients to show the racist tactics used to convict young men of color, the unique challenges facing exonerees once released, and how the lack of equal representation in our courts is a failure not only of empathy but of the collective ability to uncover the truth.
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